Still here and doing okay, for the most part.

For awhile, we were really debating whether or not to go home. John had run into some issues with his director and he was really feeling discouraged by the whole thing and just sort of tired of doing it. He had already been here for four months by the time Natalie and I got here and already on his second job. Now, with another almost three months gone by and the situation with this job not the greatest, I think he really was starting to feel that it might be better to go home and to be honest, it was on my mind too. It didn't help that Natalie started to feel homesick and was asking to go home every day. Things are not perfect here and they're never going to be. That's a good thing. It means at some point we will go home. However, right now, we have opportunities here we will NOT have when we get back home. We have money which is something we definitely will NOT have. We don't have to be on county assistance here. I find that VERY nice. As nice as it would be to go home and have an oven, a microwave, and a bathtub again (not to mention, have access to a lot of the things we don't have access to food wise), the money we have set aside so far would not get us very far. It definitely would not get us a decent car which is something (unfortunately), that is VERY necessary in order for us to live in the US. I would LOVE to have the ability to live without a car like we can here, I would just LOVE IT! But, unfortunately, unless we're in a large city, that's just not possible and living in a large city in the US compared to living in a large city here is VERY different, especially as far as crime goes. Not to mention, cost of living. Not that living here is all that cheap because it isn't but the plan is NOT to live in a studio apartment when we finally do go home, the plan is to live in a place with at least one, if not two or three bedrooms. So for now, we stay.

Not that things can't change at any time. Things are sort of rocky here and there are some tensions once again with North Korea that has me wondering at times just what is going to happen but for the most part, and this is sort of sad, I'm actually MORE concerned about our situation were we to go home now than I am staying here. Here, John can get work. At home, with the economy the way it is, that's not so certain. I hate that it is this way but that's how it is right now. Maybe in about a year things will be different and we CAN go home and find a place to live and a job and all that good stuff and we won't have to worry but to be honest, I'm not ready to go back into that uncertainty just yet. And right now, in the US, things ARE uncertain, that's for sure.

So, at the moment, job issues considering, we're doing okay. I do better once I know what it is we're going to do than I do when we're not sure and for awhile we weren't. Now maybe I can get some of Natalie's summer clothes sent here so that she doesn't have just pants or skirts to wear when she wants to go out to the park. It's not going to be easy because I have to rely on other people to do things for me and that doesn't always go the way I'd like it to but *sigh* what else can we do? I simply am not going to replace Natalie's summer wardrobe, she has a lot of things that I got her, some that she'll grow out of this year and I would like her to get a chance to wear them. I also really do not want to have to deal with having to figure out clothing sizes, that's just too much of a pain in the tail end. So far, I have managed to avoid much of that and I'd like to keep doing so if I can.

Not much going on otherwise, really. During the week, John works and Natalie and I hang out here. Sometimes, if John gets home early enough and Natalie isn't asleep, the two of them will hit the park and play until sunset. Other times, eh, just depends on what is going on. Sometimes we go out for dinner. We're definitely enjoying the opportunity to hit the American restaurants that are here. The Korean restaurants are pretty much out. With our dietary restrictions, we can't afford to take any chances that we'll get something that's not so clean. And some of the dishes here are anything but appetizing. Sorry, but I don't see me EVER eating octopus, even if I DID eat seafood, which I don't! Still, there are a lot of places to go to and check out and ice cream is always a favorite (and VERY easy to find with Baskin Robbins virtually on every block around here). Coffee is another favorite of mine, especially iced coffee drinks and I have been trying out many of the coffee places around here including Star Bucks but I have to say my favorite is A Twosome Place which has the BEST frappes I've tasted so far, tastes more like a chocolate shake than a coffee drink so VERY yummy.

John is doing all he can to get me out and walking around and exploring with him. Yesterday, we walked ALL over the local park and all over the mall areas prior to that. It helped that I found a shopping area I haven't seen before and wanted to explore a little. It wasn't completed but it did have an indoor ice skating rink that was nice and cool to be in with the warm day yesterday. The park wasn't too bad either, as long as I stayed in the shade. It was definitely cooler OUTSIDE than it was in the apartment. We finally ended up where all the fountains were located and Natalie and I both got a little wet. Well, I got a little wet, Natalie got soaked. But she had fun and that was all that mattered. John wasn't too impressed though.

Well, that's it for the moment as they just got back from the musical fountain. I'll have to include pictures of that sometime as it is really neat. I didn't go with tonight because today, we were again walking all over the place, though this time, we took a train down to Seoul Station, took a subway to Itewan (and I KNOW I misspelled that word), walked around the outdoor markets there, walked back to the subway, took it to one station to transfer and then rode that the rest of the way back. I LOVE how cheap the subway is, especially with the subway cards we use. But still, lots of walking to be had and my legs are TIRED!

You know that whole "No news is good news" thing?

Yeah well, that's been my family of late. If I don't hear from anyone, things are going well. When I do, it's because something's gone wrong. Talked to my younger sister last night for the first time in like a week or so and she gave me some news that definitely wasn't good. She had gotten a letter from my mom yesterday and my mom gave her news about our dad. My dad, at this point in time, is not able to my in our lives physically. Neither is my mom. They are both in places that severely limits their freedom and for good reason. They are also both very limited in their activities and it is this, I believe, that brought on my father's current issues. From what the letter said, my dad had a stroke about six weeks ago which would have been just after Natalie and I got here. The letter also says that he's fine but my understanding is that strokes do tend to have some affect on the brain afterward and again, it is a stroke, not something to take lightly. Course, now writing this, I'm hit with another thought, strokes were what eventually killed my mom's step-dad when he was in his 80's. And now, thinking even more, now that my dad has had a stroke, with my younger sister's issues with both pregnancy and being on the pill (and the fact that she spent all of the LAST pregnancy on baby aspirin), she probably needs to look at what HER health concerns are, this may be something genetic.

So yeah, definitely some concerns there which naturally has John concerned about me. I told him a long time ago that it was doubtful that I would outlive him or if I did, it wouldn't be long because people in my family, compared to his, just didn't live that long! We're usually killed off by something major before the age of 70.

So yeah, I'm a little worried right now. Kind of worried about my dad and definitely worried about my mom because her health isn't that great and my sister too. And having had that happened, it reminds me that at some point, we're going to start losing family members and that's not something I look forward to. I mean, it's been awhile since we've had an actual death of a long term family member in MY family. Spouses have been a different story, John has lost most of his half-sisters now and even a nephew, my younger sister's husband has lost family members recently, and my sister's first husband's family has lost members but OUR family, other than my sister's baby, has had a death in almost 20 years. That's a LONG time. We've been really blessed as far as that goes but I fear that that's not going to last much longer. My family is getting old and with age comes death.

Moved into the new apartment...

...for the most part. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. John's not loving it very much either. While we gained a loft which is JUST the right height for Natalie to claim as her domain (but too low for me to really be able to go after her when she decides she wants to be up there and I don't), we lost an oven, a dishwasher, a radio, and a dryer. Oh, and did I mention that the ONLY closet with a bar to hang clothes on is up in the loft? That is also where the two extra outlets, extra internet connection, and extra cable connection is. Um, and just what WAS this apartment set up for? Snow White and her seven dwarfs? On top of that, the cable and the internet has NOT been transferred over and the phone is STILL set up to only take calls, not call out. John has already gotten some conflicting answers on when the cable and internet will be set up here so at the moment, I'm on the WI-FI when I'm able to which is not often. The entire day yesterday, I could not get online. THANK GOODNESS for Star Trek Voyager and The Sims 2. Without those, I'd go stark raving mad by now.

Tomorrow, we're looking at another school, in another city entirely and we'll be checking out the apartment as well. John isn't going to stay at this school any longer than he has to, especially since he's going to be replaced anyway. I just feel sorry for the new teacher who has to live here. I mean, we don't even have a microwave. And the place wasn't even CLEAN! People don't do that, they move out of the apartment with the apartment in the shape it's in and the next person moves in pretty much the same day. YUCK!

In other news, since John was off of work yesterday for a holiday, we FINALLY got Natalie's three year pictures done, four months late. *sigh* So, those will be back next week, including CD and I should be able to post those. They're okay, definitely not as much done as I wanted but there's only so much I can get across not knowing Korean. As it was, the experience was frustrating enough because I couldn't get shoes to go with Natalie's dress. The only dress up shoes she had were black ones but the only white ones I could find were either too small, too expensive, or too tacky. In the end, I just wanted the pictures done but hopefully, the photographer understood my instructions to CROP OUT THE SHOES! Because seriously, the black shoes with yellow socks do NOT go with the dress AT ALL but for some reason, they did REALLY far off pictures rather than close ups. *sigh* And to top it off, Natalie got some kind of a black stain on her dress too. I got most of it out but there's still a little spot on there that hasn't really budged so far. Going to have to try again during the week and see if I can get any more of it out because seriously, that was the FIRST time she wore that dress! Good thing I only spent $10 on it.

Still, by the end of the whole thing, I had a vicious headache and had to go home and take a nap which didn't help. At least today I didn't get a headache because we ended up going out on the subway to an area near Seoul to get a new adapter for the computer since for some dumb reason, the teacher who gave me the adapter wanted it back! But, fortunately, we found the correct one and it seems to be working pretty well. At least it stays in the outlet a little better than the other one did. We ended up being out for awhile though and didn't get back in until after 11pm. At least we got to the place before it closed, it was debatable though because we had to wait until close to sundown to leave.

But right now, the idea is sort of to spend as little time in the apartment as possible which is not going to be all that easy next week while John is at work. However, I've got a TON of laundry to do and a washer to figure out how to use to get it done. Should be fun. Hopefully I won't shrink anything in the process.