Be cautious. Be very cautious.

There are so many reasons Blake and I wanted to come to Japan. Most of them food-related. Okay.... all of them food-related.

Then to get here and discover so much more than we thought just makes every day absolutely awesome. While Blake is out to sea, I'm trying to keep myself motivated to explore. It's difficult. You see, we're BFFs, that's Best Friends Forever, and if your BFF isn't around, it can be tough to do anything. I'm not talking about skipping out on a sightseeing trip, or deciding not to eat out because there's no one to eat with. I'm talking about literally, anything. The first couple weeks Blake was away, I ate microwave dinners. I have made the bed once. To take a picture to send to Blake.

Please don't think I'm living in squalor or anything, but... well...

just kidding

There are many, many theories as to how to make the deployment go faster. Everyone says to keep busy. Pack your days with as many things as possible. Surprisingly I haven't heard, "just sleep through it."

It's very strange. We spouses and families are kind of just biding our time until our service member gets home. But is that really the best way to look at it?

Blake's deployed half of the year. That's not really time I can afford to waste since we're only here for three years, and I know Blake wouldn't want me to. He's stuck on a ship and he doesn't want me to be stuck too.

So I go. I do. I see.

I shop.

Not many wives have their husbands support to go out and spend all of his money. I not only have his support, I have his encouragement. I briefly mentioned in a previous post that Blake and I made a list of things the house needs. It is my job to find these things. Curtains, rugs, all manner of household stuff.

The thing is. I have to do it in stages. Going out and blowing a gigantic amount of money is just not the way I was raised. Some people's childhoods were all about nature vs. nurture or spare the rod or Dr. Spock or Atkins or South Beach or whatever (I don't have kids, can you tell?). I was raised to be all about family, appreciating the things you have, and being cheap. Above all else, be frugal.

So, going out and buying all these things, especially without Blake by my side feels, evil. I take forever before I decide to buy something that's over $50 so when it comes to buying furniture, which can get expensive, I think and think again.

I like to think I'm getting better.

For example. The other day I bought an area rug. It was 50% off, so about $100.00, which if you know anything about area rugs, is pretty cheap for a nice one. I got it for the living room because the wood floors really need a little cushion. Blake was all about it. Go. Spend.

And how was my new-found confidence rewarded? I came home with the wrong damn rug.

The language barrier strikes again.

Huge flowers. Not really my style. But there is no way I am schlepping that thing back to Grandberry Mall. Even if you drive there, the parking is separate from the mall so I'd have to carry it all the way from the lot to the store. I've already carried this thing all over kingdom come because when I brought it home, I brought it by train.

This rug is almost as tall as I am. The route from the mall to our house involves four separate train stations. Four sets of stairs up an down. Did I also mention that the trains were packed with commuters going home? Car after car of men and women in suits and there I was, in a union jack t-shirt, shorts, flip-flops, carrying around a rug that was bigger than some of the people riding the train.

I carried it home from the train station. I dropped it off in the hallway. I walked back to the train station to get my bike because the rug didn't exactly fit in the basket. I came home. I unrolled the rug.

It was not the rug I wanted.

I cursed. I cursed again. More cursing was involved as were many repetitions of the word, "unbelievable."

While the pattern of this rug is not exactly my first choice. The colors are good for the office. So that's where it's going. It's going to be a reminder that shopping in a foreign country is fraught with many invisible obstacles and even when you think you've scored a victory, don't be so quick to celebrate.

There is a reason I make every decision carefully. And now I have a reminder of that.