Arkansas in Our Rearview Mirror

Episode № 109 begins with some pre-moving travel, then onto the main course; the Jupiter Family’s actual exit from Arkansas.

Transcript

Episode № 109 Arkansas in Our Rearview Mirror

Welcome back! 

Lady Jupiter Podcast is the audio accompaniment to LadyJupiter.com a lifestyle blog where I write about my family’s military life, our home life, and other tiny details that I just like to share. I’m happy that you’re here with me.

In this episode I’ll share an update on our life as affected by the U.S. military, then continue with a blog update, and wrap up with something domestic.

Today in our military-affected lives I have nothing significant to update!

My aggressive shipping continues now that we no longer need mess dress, or dresses and heels. It’s amazing how many boxes I have filled and sent to our new shipping address. Only time will tell if it’s been a good idea or not.

We sold my car, and I drove it up to Illinois for the buyer, then got a ride to St. Louis, Missouri so I could fly back to Little Rock, Arkansas…by way of Chicago O’Hare. 

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I almost took a train back, the prices were decent, but the arrival times were indecent. So I flew for the convenience as one does. My flight was a little delayed out of Chicago, but it was good because that gave me time to eat something and relax for ten minutes.

While I was gone for the day, Mister Jupiter picked up our rental car (because we now own zero cars), and I can honestly say that I do not enjoy Chevy Tahoes. It’s just too big. It’s a lane hog and I don’t like occupying so much physical space. But it’s okay. We only need it for a few days, and to my surprise, I park it well considering that I can barely see over the hood with the seat cranked up as high as it can go. 

Kid Jupiter’s passport remains delayed, so Mister Jupiter changed our flights. We have decided to divide and conquer. We’ll fly together as far as we can, then I will remain in the States until Kid Jupiter has a passport to fly with. Thanks to another military spouse, we got in touch with our Arkansas District Representative Maha Witherington who coordinates grants, FEMA, educational programs, US visas & immigration, US passports, community outreach, social security, HUD and medical issues. 

We had no idea that state representatives track passports at all - but it makes sense that someone does.

We had a small burger & hot dog party in our “Little House” with the H Family. We’ve been trying to get together for dinner for years, but each time (until recently!) our plans got washed out by a positive Covid test. So happy that we could finally host them in our two bedroom TLF.

Our Goodbye Tour of Friends continued the next night when we were invited to a friend’s home for dinner. They live on base, and so do we…so the convenience of TLF-living continued! They made us spaghetti and tiramisu, then Mike Dog saw his first guinea pig. I’ll never be sure if he thought it was the greatest living toy, or if he just thought it was a very small puppy. They didn’t get very close, and that wasn’t an accident.

Finally the next day we packed up our Rental Tank, and checked out of TLF. Originally we wanted to swing by our favorite vineyard on the way out, but once we were loaded, we were already exhausted and ready to move. So we did. We drove immediately to our hotel at the Dallas Fort Worth airport, and only stopped once on the way. 

Later that night I hung out in the big empty hotel lounge and tried to write. It wasn’t a success, but it wasn’t my fault entirely. A nice lady came up to me and was chatty. You know that I am chatty too…and in an empty room there wasn’t anyone else to distract, so I was trapped for about 20 minutes. By the time she left, my writing time had expired and I needed to get back up to our room.

Mister Jupiter easily got in bed and got a head start on sleeping. I had too much momentum and took a long hot shower in an attempt to slow down and relax. It kind of worked - I didn’t sleep long, but I slept well enough. What really matters is that I was fresh and clean when it was time to check out of our hotel so we could watch the sunrise from the terminal.

I’ll have more next week!

For today’s LadyJupiter.com update — the site is still up and running.

And lastly something domestic.

I wanted to tell you about some of the travel necessities that have made the cut and haven’t been shipped.

As expected, they are terribly domestic and I can’t believe that I am so happy with them.

The domestic objects that have won passage in our luggage for the ENTIRE homeless season of this PCS are (drumroll please) - an electric kettle, an over-the-sink drain basket, a collapsable storage cube, small wash bags, and tape (both masking and packing tapes).

I’ll get more detailed in a future blog post, if or when life has settled down enough to do something as time consuming as writing. But also I’m experiencing significant technical issues with recording, so I must be brief in the event that I need to record each episode ten times before having any usable audio. Ugh. I can’t wait to have my studio again!

And that’s it for today’s episode.

Show notes and transcript are available anytime; swing by LadyJupiter.com/podcast. 

📌Ladyjupiter.com/Podcast

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Before we go, I want to share my appreciation for my listeners in the US, Japan, Germany, and Spain! Lubbock Texas had the most downloads, followed by Arlington Virginia, then Frankfurt am Main. Illinois and Iowa are now competing with Japan - which is a fun and interesting combination of locations. I appreciate each one of you - really ❤️ !

I will talk to you when I can record next. 

—Bye for now!