Untethered

We did it! We successfully shipped all of our belongings from the U.S. and received them here in Thailand. The cover picture for this post shows our living room after the movers brought everything inside our living room here in our house. The only attachment we have back in the states, aside from our families, is our house in Virginia, which we are currently renting out. We’d considered selling it, but think it’s best to hold it, as it’s in a good neighborhood, and the value will continue to go up. The cost of the management company has been reasonable, and they’ve generally been good about letting us not worry about anything there. Also, with the absolute ineptitude/cruelty of the current U.S. government, they’ve done a hell of a job tanking property values in the D.C. area. We’re holding on to a modicum of hope that things will eventually turn around, but it’s hard to think things will improve in the next 5 to 10 years.

Enough with the doom and gloom! My family and I are happy, and ignorantly blissful enough to feel separation from all the madness back there, concerns about friends and family notwithstanding.

Where was I? Oh right, we got all of our shit! Boxes upon boxes are piled up in our living room right now. We made a little progress last night getting through some of the items. We’re fortunate that the house we’re renting has significant storage space and beautiful glass cabinets, which Kate is all to happy to use to display her china and plethora of tea sets, as well as our book collection. We also have a moderately sized storage nook behind our staircase.

I’m excited to set up my A/V receiver and finally have some decent sound quality for music and TV. I just need to order a voltage transformer as all of this audio equipment is 120V, and needs to be stepped up to 220V.

We also got one of our small dressers, so I can finally organize all of my musical accoutrement. Reeds, mouthpieces, sheet music, etc… It’s all been strewn about, but I can finally get it away and easily accessible.

Of all the stuff we received, my absolute favorite item, and it’s not even close, is our mattress. If any of you know anything about mattresses in Thailand, you know they are rock solid. My tender American sensibilities can’t manage to sleep on something marginally softer than a concrete floor. Soon after we moved here, we purchased a mattress, but it turned out to be too soft. We made due by getting a mattress topper that helped a good bit. But let me tell you… We had our first night sleep on our mattress from America last night, and it was GLORIOUS! We got this mattress maybe 7 or 8 years ago. And we did not skimp on it. I’ve always been a firm believer that there is no better investment you can make than where you sleep. It has served us well.

It was crazy seeing our house full of boxes from America, and having our mattress here. It’s surreal. We’re legitimately nomads at this point, and the future is wide open. I’m excited to see what the next few years turn out like.

So what have we been up to over the last few weeks since my previous entry?

I just finished getting my certificate for teaching english to speakers of a foreign language. I’m going to start looking into teaching online English lessons soon. I’m talking to a friend about trying to pursue other business ideas, which I’ll write about later if they pan out.

We’ve settled into the house quite nicely and made it feel like home. I’ve been cooking and baking. I got my outdoor pizza oven set up, and have been making pizza nearly weekly. We’ve had a few people over, which has been fun.

The boys have settled into their school routines. Homework continues to be our nemesis, but we’re doing our best to manage the boy’s emotions around it. Both boys have chosen badminton as their sport for the year. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed neither is playing football (a.k.a. soccer to any Americans reading this). Both boys are fast and have a good sense of the game. Neither seems very well suited for team sports, unfortunately. Henry has also been rock climbing. He’s been training with the head coach of the Thai youth national team, and is showing lots of improvement, which is exciting. He’s also become moderately obsessed with Manga. We bought him a bookshelf for his bedroom and he is, let’s say, particular with how his collection is organized and who is allowed to even touch the books. Only him. He battles me over what temperature to set his air conditioner in his room because he’s afraid the Bangkok humidity will damage his books. But hey, it’s all good. He’s reading, and it’s super fun books he’s reading, so I’m alright dealing with his craziness. Miles is Miles, and somewhat of an island, which seems to be the way he likes it. Kids at school seem to love him, but he more often than not prefers being a recluse.

We had a long weekend back in September, and we took a trip to Kanchanaburi, which was breathtakingly beautiful. We went for Kate’s birthday. We stayed at this lovely spot right on the river. We had our own little bungalow, with the front porch being a deck floating on the river, with a bathtub on it! The views were astonishing. We went hiking up through a national park that had waterfalls and springs. We swam in some of them, where little fish would nibble on our feet and toes. The second day, we went kayaking, which was really fun.

October break is coming up, and we have another trip planned for a cute little island where we take a ferry boat with our car to get there. That looks to be quite fun.

So that’s it for now! To all our friends and family Stateside, we love and miss you. To anyone else, I hope you’re enjoying your little glimpse into the lives of a family of expats!