Lovin' Life in Virginia

I love my new home state.  I do.  I mean I even bought myself this shirt.  And see how happy I am?  I've got some serious Virginia love going on.

In the three months since we've been residents here, after moving away from the house we thought was--but decidedly wasn't--our "forever home" in NH, I have truly, truly grown to love my new Southern zip code.

It helps that three of our married sons and four of our grandchildren (soon  to be eight, actually!) live less than an hour away from us now.  And it helps that all of our VA kids were actually really excited to have us move nearby and become a bigger part of their day-to-day lives.

I got a bad case of poison ivy a couple of weeks ago--something that hasn't happened to me in about 40 years (and I hope I've got 40 more before I ever have to go through it again).

I was put on prednisone and antihistamines, but the rash got much worse before it got better, and new hives kept popping up.  I began to worry that not only was the steroid not working, but that I might be allergic to it.  (I'm allergic to four different antibiotics, after all.)  On Father's Day, my husband and I were attempting to fly out to the Midwest to see our oldest son and his family, but I ended up backing out of the trip, worried that I would have an anaphylactic reaction in mid-air.  We'd spent the whole day at one major DC airport, where we'd been bumped from two consecutive flights.  We were on a train headed to the other airport to try to get the last plane out of Dodge, but I was so incredibly itchy that I started to get panicky, and we ended up driving back home for the night.  I felt just awful.  My husband flew out the next day without me (he had no choice: he was going out there not only to have a short visit with our son's gang, but also to fly a scheduled working trip to Honolulu and back from an airport near where they live).

A few nights after my husband left, I was alone at our new house, and as I stood up I had a sudden sensation of being on the verge of passing out.  I had a serious bout of anxiety, and gripping the counter to keep from fainting, I called 911.  Then I realized I should have just called one of my boys, now that they're so close by.  So I called the 911 operator back and tried to cancel the ambulance, but the EMT's came to check on me anyway.  It was so embarrassing.  Eight of them trooped in the front door, and I spent most of the time they were with me apologizing for wasting their time.  (Who knew poison ivy could cause so much trouble?!)

Long story short, though: my middle son was my hero that night and drove 35 minutes to my house to get me after the emergency crew had left, and I ended up having two sleepovers at his house, with his wife and his two darling kids.

That's just one of the many reasons I'm so happy that we're here in VA now, neighbors to those who are most dear to us.

My husband doesn't have a VA t-shirt.  But he does have this awesome bar glass, part of a gift basket of VA-themed items that our kids had waiting for us when we first arrived here in March. 

Okay, so we've established that I love it here...but right now I'm about to head to the airport with my hubby to take an early morning flight out to Michigan.  Details to follow later!  This post is going out into the blogosphere, finished or not.  (I will probably shudder later and fret about all of the edits I should have done...)

Have a great weekend, everyone!