Now Accepting Reservations Chez Claire!

Come one, come all!

Approximately a week from today, I will be here with just a little beasty cat, and decent spare bedroom just WAITING to house visitors.

I hope that some of you will come for a visit sometime this year! And, in case you're really thinking about it, and you'd like to go ahead and plan to come (which I highly encourage) here is MY schedule:

June: Wide open.
July: Open until 3rd week.
August: Wide open.
September-October: no visitors please! I'll be working, and scuttling by little butt across the country three or four times for various weddings!
November: open!
December: Open til third week, then I'm heading to Utah for about 10 days.

Jan and Feb are tricky at THIS point because I'm hoping to have a sexy soldier (who I'm married to... don't get crazy on me here!) come visit on his leave during that time. That will be narrowed sometime after he's in country.

March: open, especially the second week, which is my Spring Break for school.
April: open.

So! If you're looking for a weekend getaway to another world (I feel confident in saying that Kentucky, and an Army post, for most of you, is another world) and having homemade meals (I will take requests- just call me Wesley- "as you wish") and quality time with this girl, let me know!

Several of you have very generously offered for me to come stay with YOU while Matthew is gone. I hope to take you up on some of these offers, but I'm also cautious about planning trips. For one, travel puts me out of touch with that guy-- I don't have a schmancy internet-connected phone (I have reasons why, too!) and I don't like to be out of touch for long.

Also, with all the travel that awaits me this Fall, I don't want to over do it!

Third, I actually like where I live!

Fourth, I find routine to be a kind of salve for the broken heart that inevitably occurs during deployment. Finding a way to live HERE, in my community, in my house, attending my church, doing my regular job-- that helps the days go by, and it helps me not put the whole year on hold, though it is different.

And finally, though not the least of the reasons, we're trying to KILL our debt this year. Plane tickets, hotels, meals out, shopping... these have all taken a back seat to paying off the car and loan.

So! All that is to say that I'd love to come see you, but I'd love even MORE for you to come see me. I guess it's the lazy lady's version, but I like to think that part of this is that I know myself pretty well and I do need to have boundaries on some of this business.

What I hope you take away from this is that I'd like to see you. If you can't come here, maybe we can find a time when we'll be in the same place (I'll be in Utah in October and December, Southern California in September, and Arizona in late October).

Hope to see you, wherever that may be, SOON! (and if I can't see you in person, let's really do schedule a phone or skype date- that would be fantastico.)