Moving...yet again.

I'm getting pretty sick of it too. The reason we're moving is pretty stupid to be honest. Because we said that we were interested in getting a bigger place, the director immediately put the apartment we're in now up for sale. Well, we had found something we wanted but did not want to put almost $4000 down for it, even if we did get it back, things were kind of dicey with the director anyway as far as being paid on time. SO... this place got sold and the director had to get another place so now we're moving tomorrow. We were told Monday. We're moving just across the street and down the block a little so a little farther from some things but closer to others, we'll have to see how that all works. One of the frustrating things is to get to the area I enjoy going to most of the time, I'll now have to cross the really busy street which I didn't have to before. We only had to cross it to go to the store. Now, we won't have to cross it for that but we will to get everywhere else I enjoyed going to before. *sigh*

If only this were to be the last move, it wouldn't be so frustrating but ultimately, we are going to have to move again and it may even end up being in another city altogether. The director has more or less told John that he plans to replace him and from what John has understood it will be with a female teacher. He would have to find the teacher first but I guess, when the school is as iffy as this one, what parents say go and most parents just are not into a male kindergarten teacher. And that was all that was said, the director does recognize that John does want to teach, actually teach, not babysit though which unfortunately is a lot of what kindergarten here is at least in the ESL schools, especially the private ones. I am very quickly becoming frustrated and tired of the whole deal. It seems the situation is worse here than it was at home but John doesn't seem to think so and is bound and determined to see this through for one reason or another even though I'm not entirely happy with the situation (and at times downright ANGRY with him about it) and Natalie is, in her own way, reacting negatively as well. He's bound and determine to make money and save it but I'm the one who has to be on top of it to make sure he doesn't spend it all! Otherwise, it would all be gone. He has NO concept of a budget whatsoever and that's really frustrating too.

So, I really don't know what is going to happen in the next few months much less two years. I keep hearing that once he finds a good job then things will be much better but a lot of directors, especially those of hagwons (the private schools here) for whatever reason seem to think that foreign teachers are a dime a dozen. They're not though, they cost a considerable amount of money to get and to keep (since things like paying on time is a concept lost on many people here).

So, that's been my world of late. I just hope that when all of this is done and over with (and it will be at some point because there is just NO way for John to make a career out of this whatsoever), he'll be ready to go home and SETTLE DOWN for awhile! Sometimes I think he should have stayed in the army when he was in there because that would have totally met his need to roam, I'm sure they would have been VERY happy to send him all over the place and at least with the military, you can get stuff shipped to you pretty much like normal. But maybe he just needs a couple of years to get this out of his system and after that, he'll be done with it. At the very least, I have decided that when we go back, I will be going back to work. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy staying at home with Natalie and I enjoy spending time with her and all of that but I'm tired of depending on other people for survival. I hate that here, John is the only one who can work. I can't. I don't have my four year degree. That is required to teach ESL. And I hate that there really isn't much I can do here. I can't bake, I can't do the usual jewelry stuff, or my scrapbook, or really anything more than the laundry, keep the apartment clean which doesn't take very much as small as it is (I mean, it's only one room), and cook which is also very limited because we really only have the stove to do that. I can grocery shop and go window shopping and sometimes do some actual shopping when I have some money but nothing REALLY challenging these days.

I would love to learn to sew, learn to do some gardening, things like that but I've just finally come to the conclusion that I'm really getting to be too old to be depending on someone who, job-wise, just isn't all that dependable, no matter where we are at. He's just not. I want to go back to work and learn to drive and actually be able to be a little more independent so that maybe I won't feel so much frustration in my life, at the very least, frustration towards John. He's always been better with the domestic stuff anyway and his standard of clean has always been higher than mine (product of living with a mother who really didn't care to clean and has has kept houses so filthy, they've become mouse-infested, one house was even condemned and torn down after we lived in it) not that mine is THAT bad but it's not as high as his, I can tolerate some mess, he can't tolerate much at all though ironically enough, he has no problem with his clothes being all over the place.

But really, there are times I wonder if I'll ever be able to make a home for us all. Since we moved out of our house on West Avenue when I was 17 (that was the one that was torn down), I have not lived in anyplace for more than two years. Not one place. We moved out of there spring of 1998 so it's been 11 years now. And the longest I've lived in a place has been seven and a half years and that was the first place I lived from birth until the house burned down May of 1988. That year wasn't fun either, we spent most of that summer in a 10 foot pop-up camper so I suppose things could be worse but still, not having a permanent home isn't fun either. There's no stability for Natalie, no place she can really call home, things change frequently for her and it's no wonder that she struggles at times, she really has no idea what is going to happen next. Tomorrow, we're going to be in a new apartment which means getting everything settled in again for her and getting her adjusted and eventually, we probably will end up moving again, maybe even to another city and she's at an age where she just doesn't really understand why and I start to wonder how that's fair for her because really, it isn't.

When I originally decided to let John have his way about the whole thing, my idea was that we would go from the apartment in Beaver Dam to the apartment provided by the school and stay there for two years, then come home. It NEVER crossed my mind that we would end up going from the apartment to one sister's house, from there to the other sister's apartment, from there to here, from here to another apartment and another. It just never crossed my mind at all that we would end up moving four times in just over six months and really, if I had known that, I never would have agreed to this because this is the kind of thing that messes kids up. When we finally do go back home, it will be with the intention of staying in ONE place for not just two years but AT LEAST 4-5 years. Much of that though, will be determined by how long we stay here which is partly determined by whether or not John can behave himself and not get me pregnant. We had a VERY VERY close call this month and I have decided that if I become pregnant, we do not stay here. I will not have a baby here. I have decided that for sure. I have no desire at this point to have another child so there's no plan to get pregnant to make us go home. I'm not stupid, I know things up very up in the air there and that we really are not in any shape to go home yet. We could be though, if we really got things together and John found a job he can actually keep for more than three or four months, we could send a decent amount home and save up what we need in a year or two. That is not impossible at all. But right now, there is just a lot that's up in the air and to be honest, I really cannot do this moving thing too many more times. At some point, I will expect him to face reality. Living out of suitcases is not my idea of fun and there's only so much time I'm going to put up with that.

But at the moment, he hasn't even gotten any written notice or anything like that and legally, the director HAS to give him a WRITTEN 30 day notice. So that gives us a little time anyway.

Another really good article concerning body shape and mortality.

Does it really matter how your numbers measure up? Or can you ditch the tape measure?

And thank you Sara for your comment, you made some good points. One of the big concerns though is that what is healthy to eat/not healthy to eat is even under debate. Weston Price provides some good information, especially as far as how some fats (animal fats especially) CAN be good for us. The concern though is that many people (ESPECIALLY those trying to lose weight) go after things like margarine, having been told butter is bad. But it's actually the opposite, margarine has so much extra stuff, stuff that our bodies don't need at all. Butter is actually healthier in that regard but yeah, you want to eat a tub a day of the stuff (not sure how one COULD!). And being in shape is definitely important which is what I'm trying to work on now. It's a little easier now that we don't have a car and we have to walk everywhere but I have a ways to go. Large flights of stairs still tend to wind me a little and I'm nowhere near being able to run the five miles hubby can run. lol

Interestingly enough, my husband happened to mention that he will GAIN weight with a lot of exercise, I'm guessing if he were to really start to work out, not just run. My nephew's dad didn't gain weight until he started lifting weights and my nephew is skinny as a rail right now and that has been with a diet that has NEVER had veggies but has mostly been chicken nuggets and french fries from Mc Donald's, then moved on to Ramen noodles, pizza, and mac and cheese. The kid has never eaten healthy in his LIFE (well, except for the nine months he was breastfed lol)! He has to wear women's pants because he's so darn skinny. Oh and he does NOT exercise. Never had, never will. He also drinks, smokes, and has done drugs. Definitely NOT a healthy person. But no one will care what HE eats, he fits into society's views of how a person should look.

Interesting...

Shortly after my rant about the things I've been told about my daughter and her future weight issues, this blog entry came out:

Death threats to children — the government’s idea of public health messages

Here's the part that REALLY gets to me:

Parents report their children have been left terrified of food. One mother told the Telegraph that her daughter had became very upset about dying when her dad served her cereal with sugar on it and that children are being “brainwashed” by exaggerated messages about healthy eating promoted in schools.

WOW. Again, people need to have a NORMAL relationship with food, not an obsession for or against it. And some people seriously need to get over their fat phobias before they screw up their kids! And by fat phobia, people who, in my opinion, think no differently than those with anorexia or bullemia but instead of seeing it on themselves, see it on other people, as in, no one else is skinny enough for them. In other words, people who make comments about my HUSBAND being overweight when he weighs less than 130 lbs because it's not all pure muscle. SICK! These kinds of people need MAJOR THERAPY!

Well, we've been here over a month now...

...and there are definitely some good days and bad days. The good days are when we go out and about and find something that I didn't expect at all to find (like Dr. Bonner's castile soaps) and the bad days are when I look ALL over and can't find one decent toy store around here to find something OTHER than character toys for Natalie or worse, can't find something that should be simple to find like a pail and shovel. The good days make living here bearable while the bad days have me thinking of buying a plane ticket. *sigh* But naturally, a month doesn't even come close to getting one used to new surroundings so I stick on, hoping that this will come to feel like home for me at some point, or at the very least, a sense of what I missed my years in college deciding to stick to a local university rather than head out of state/abroad as I had once planned. Fact is, there was a time where I had considered going and spending a year overseas for college. Admittedly, it wouldn't have been Korea but still, it would have been quite a culture shock and not something I would have been able to do on my own (though I'm sure, if I HAD gone oversears for school, John would have found a way to come with).

One of the big struggles has been the apartment. We're in a studio apartment which is really not all that big and has only one actual bed (that's firmer than anything I've been on in the states, though I must admit, I think it's been broken in a little now). Natalie sleeps on a mat like thing on the floor which, oddly enough, seems to work for her, she definitely likes it better than the couch with the mat on that. Unfortunately, she usually does not go to bed unless at least one of us is also in bed, usually John because he has to get up the next day and I tend to suffer from bouts of insomnia here and there. Even then, it's not easy to get her to go to sleep and therefore, we tend to find her awake as late as 1 in the morning. Fortunately for me, she also usually doesn't wake up before 10 or 11 on the morning following that late of an evening. I have no doubt that having a room to actually put her in would help her go to sleep sooner at night but at the moment, it doesn't look like that is going to happen. While we were able to check out a few apartments around here and found one that would work right in the building we're currently in, in order to move into that apartment, we would need a deposit of around 5 million won which is over $3700 US money. That's not something we have right now and although we would get it back, it's still a lot of money to put down at once, especially when John's last payment from the director was late.

Which brings us to our next issue, budgeting. Normally, John gets paid once a month but already, he's been paid late. This last time wasn't too bad but we talked to the other foreign teacher and she told us that it's normal for this director to be as much as 1 MONTH late. This would not be good AT ALL! So, at the moment, we're seeing what happens next month as there are a couple of other things we're sort of keeping on eye on, things that would end up affecting how long we are here. At the moment though, I think we can be pretty confident in John's job security. While the one foreign teacher is being replaced, it is because her contract has ended. The director here honestly cannot afford to lose any foreign teachers at all because if he does, he'll end up having to shut down the school. He had run into all kinds of issues, I guess, because a teacher had to leave for home suddenly. Parents started pulling their kids out. And this is the reason why working for a private school in Korea tends to be so iffy to begin with. It is the PARENTS who determine the teachers basically. If they don't like the teacher, they WILL pull their kids out and that does NOT help the school at all. Any why a parent might not like a teacher is anyone's guess. In John's case at the last job, it could have easily been something as simple as he was a male. Some parents prefer female teachers to male teachers. Still, it's not quite so simple to get a teacher over here as it was. Changes in the process and requirements (including background checks, physical examinations, etc) have made it a little more time consuming than before. And that is time that a director cannot afford to NOT have a teacher in place.

So that's something, at least. It's not like before where if something goes wrong, John would be fired instantly and sent home with no job. Here, he would get at least a month's notice which gives him some time to find another job. Now hopefully, that won't be happening anytime soon because with a job change comes visa and immigration changes and more paperwork and other issues as well and that's not only time consuming but also expensive! As it is, at some point, we will have to start making plans to get visas for me and Natalie. We have until June 10th to do so as we're currently here on a 90 day pass. Once we get a visa, we can be here for a full year and by that point, we will probably have a little money set aside to take a brief excursion out of the country. Hard to say, we'll have to see.

At the moment though, there's a lot to figure out and plan. With the weather being so in-between winter and spring, I ended up bringing many things here that I no longer need and leaving things there that I probably could use now, especially with the weather warming up close to summertime temperature for Wisconsin. Natalie at least has short-sleeved shirts here but she also has mostly pants and jeans. Her shorts are still in the locker at home. I at least brought the pair of gauchos I'm very fond of but I could probably use my summer items before too long as well. John already brought his summer stuff which really isn't much different from his winter stuff with the exception of three pairs of jean shorts that I got for him from someone on Freecycle last year. Fortunately, summer items fit a little better on Natalie than winter items. I don't have to worry about length so she can wear shorts from 24 months up to 4T and she has plenty of tops of various sizes. I'm still finding clothing sizes to be baffling though, especially jeans. I managed to grab a couple of pairs of 3T jeans from Old Navy before we left the states and they fit. In fact, they're almost too big around and I have to use the waist adjusters on them to keep them from falling off. Before that, I had found some of Natalie's 3T jeans to be a little snug. I don't understand it at all. She did hit a little bit of a growth spurt, sometime between late January and a week ago, when I finally measured her height for the first time in months. She's up to 37 3/8 inches which is almost an inch more from the last time I measured her.

Still, I am rather perturbed to have heard that my lamenting about Natalie's changes in clothing size was due to her being fat! What in the world! I got QUITE the lecture from a family friend shortly before our departure and told that Natalie's weight issues at such a young age are CLEARLY my fault because of the examples she gotten from me and how I eat and that she will have weight struggles her whole life because of it. Um, EXCUSE ME?! FIRST OF ALL, I NEVER lamented on here that my daughter was fat (why EVER in the world would I do that?!), I was lamenting that my daughter, for WHATEVER REASON, had grown out of her clothes. I had the same issues when she shot up an inch back in November and grew out of all of her 2T stuff! And the reason for this is very simple. I knew I was leaving the states, I knew I was going to have issues figuring out the sizes here in Korea (and oh boy has THAT been a challenge!). I had spent a fair amount of money buying clothes for her from rummage sales and eBay and whatnot when I had the chance to. I knew I wasn't going to have time to get money back for those clothes. I also knew that it was past the time for rummage sales so I couldn't look to those for clothes and my change in location meant I really couldn't look to Freecycle either (though I actually prefer NON-stained clothes which one usually doesn't find on Freecycle). I don't have half a dozen other kids and their hand-me-downs to get clothes from either. So yeah, I was kind of annoyed and especially annoyed that I had to keep going through clothes and packing and repacking the luggage because she kept growing. That NEVER meant she was fat though or that I even THOUGHT she was fat! Yes, some of her jeans were snug around her belly, that's where I buttoned them! She did fill out a little bit over the winter, SO WHAT? So does John! He gains a little tummy over the winter (probably to SURVIVE the cold because he's so blasted skinny) and then when it warms up, it goes away, especially if he starts running and then I have to figure out how I can fatten him up enough to keep his pants ON! He already had to cut off part of his belt today so that it would fit him as he's probably down an inch or two around the waist.

I'm just getting SO annoyed with all of this though. I'm told Natalie is going to be fat because of how I eat or because she's gotten the ocassional treat. I'm told Natalie is going to rebel and eat pork because John and I won't let her have any or she's going to rebel and go on an eating binge because we don't let her eat a daily diet of ramen noodles or let her have soda or a lot of other stuff some parents give to their kids all the time. Natalie is THREE. Why the bloody blazes are people worried about her weight ALREADY?! She is at a perfectly acceptable weight for her age. When I look at 3T stuff for her, she's in the height and weight range for that size. She has NEVER EVER been off of the chart for her weight. She does NOT look overweight. Looks are deceptive though because she's a VERY solid girl. She DID inherit my bone structure and I have ALWAYS been heavier than I looked. Even in pictures where people have commented that I was SKINNY (around a size 10), I probably still weighed more than my husband does now (he currently weighs around 128-130 pounds). I was never a waif though. I have always been broad-shouldered and big hipped and just a little wider than a lot of people (and by that, I don't mean overweight, I mean built wider). That's just how it is with my body type. Natalie will probably be the same way and Natalie also will probably not have the trouble to GAIN weight her father had (and still does, the little snot). He didn't hit 100 lbs until he was in 10th grade. I'm pretty sure I was close or over 100 lbs by fourth. And yet, I did not look fat.

I don't deny that I struggle with my weight and I don't want Natalie to struggle with hers. BUT, at the same time, I want her to have a HEALTHY relationship with food. No, I don't want her to comfort herself with food or eat junk food all the time because it tastes good or to go on overeating binges in general. I also don't want her throwing up her food or not eating at all simply to lose weight. That's not healthy either and in fact, that's more likely to kill you than being overweight. For MANY reasons, I did not have a healthy relationship with food. I have no doubt that a lot of it was due to the issues within my own childhood and I'm hoping that that will be one thing Natalie does NOT have to deal with. She won't have to eat food for love as I did or eat food to fill in that hole that needed to be filled for SO LONG. I'm hoping she won't have to eat for stress but will find other ways to deal with it like talking to her parents or to friends. I hope as she gets older, she'll have support to continue to be active and a place to do so and not told she has to stay inside because it's too dangerous to go out on her own. I hope that being active becomes second nature to her like it is to her dad so that she doesn't have to relearn to enjoy being active at almost 30. I hope veggies and other different foods become something she tries on a daily basis...but not octupus, there's something HORRIBLY wrong with eating something that's STILL ALIVE and STILL has the little suction thingies *shudders*. And mainly, I hope she finds balance and accepts and LOVES HERSELF. Because you know, that's the hardest thing of all.

These pictures were taken about three weeks ago. The last thing Natalie is is fat. And anyone who says otherwise needs to be smacked upside the head.