“Oh, I’m exhausted. I’ve been on this street a thousand times. It’s never looked so strange. The faces … so cold. In the distance a child is crying … fatherless … a bastard child, perhaps. My back aches, my heart aches, but my feet … my feet are resilient! Thank God I took off my heels and put on my Himalayan walking shoes!” from Elaine Bennis in Seinfeld

Do you remember Seinfeld, when Elaine worked for the International Clothier (J. Peterman) that was very au natural but very hip all at the same time? Once upon a time, when I lived in NYC and was much more cosmopolitan and much farther from 30, I knew what catalog they were mocking (10 points to whoever remembers it).

Well, I have decided I am going to create my own….and I have plenty of material for it!

The “Have Marriage License, Will Travel” Tour 2006 journeys to India! Jay and I are flying in to Bombay (via Paris-can you count it as a place you have been if you only stop in the airport???) and spending 2 weeks in Pune, 3 hours away. A trip to the Taj Mahal is also planned for 1 of the weekends. We are going for 17 days total. During the week, Jay will be working, so I will have plenty time to a) telecommute with a 10 hour time difference to my office and b) venture out in the streets of India by myself. Hmm, let’s just see how great of an idea that one turns out to be!

What follows are some details of the saga of getting there….

Chapter 1: Getting there is half the fun, isn’t it?

Jay found out about India about a month ago, around the time of his promotion. I looked and my passport was set to expire in June 2006. Time to renew.

Fast forward to last week. The team lead from India is coming in on May 15th. He stays for 3 weeks, then goes back to India. At which time, Jay is to follow him over there for a 2 week stay. Great. May 15th, we still have time. WAIT A SECOND….THAT IS MONDAY! We have THREE WEEKS to get this all done! As Jay says, a stressy Steffy is a happy Steffy, so I panic and start scouring the internet for airfares. We are trying to find something economical because we are paying my travel over there. Cheapest we can find is $2200. As if this month was not expensive enough!

Still doing ok. Passport is in the mail and should be there by Monday, May 15th. Takes 2 weeks to renew. That is fine, since we have more than 3 weeks till our flight on June 9th. Phew. Crisis averted.

(Wanna track my passport’s return journey? Send an email to totaltrack@ups.com with the subject J179 5384 398. So far…there is no such package…Stay tuned)
Update…my check for the passport has been cashed, so we are making progress!

Get the following Instant Message from my hubby on Monday (forgive the typos):

Jay Hansen You stink
Stephanie Hansen ???
Jay Hansen It is all YOUR fault!!!
Stephanie Hansen what is all my fauly
Jay Hansen My comfort
Stephanie Hansen ?
Jay Hansen I could have had a nice, cushy, plenty of leg room seat so far from teh back of the plane that I couldn;t even hear the chickens, roosters and the goats in the back… but noooooo…

Background…when Jay was quitting smoking, it was all my fault. Until he quit, then it was all his perseverance. So…reading this IM, I was looking at it figuratively. Come to find out later in the car…he meant it literally…Instead of a nice cushy seat in Business Class, we get to have 2 Coach tickets courtesy of Asurion (and it still is cheaper than Business Class!). Did I mention the flight was 25 hours long? Do we all remember that Jay is 6’4″ tall? That, folks, is love.

So, in light of saving all those Rupees, I went out to the store and bought the latest copy of Fodor’s India. Reading it Tuesday night I find an especially interesting article on VISAs!!! We need one. Guess what we need to get it….oh, yeah, our passport. Guess what else, it takes 2 weeks to get it. 2 weeks passport + 2 weeks visa = 4 weeks before I can board a plane. I have 3 weeks and a day left. (Makes the track-a-passport game more fun, doesn’t it?)

Jay recommended we rent a Bollywood movie, I thought we should get that Born into Brothels movie. Wow, there’s a switch. Me macabre, Jay getting cheesy. They say when you are married long enough…

Last night we went out and bought a new telephoto lens for our Nikon (a 28-200 for the photo nerds out there). The guy at the store told us stories of his grandfather, a Geologist, going on architectural digs with Agatha Christie’s husband…I got carried away in the romantic images I have of India, me being the expert photographer and taking amazing photos that are good enough for National Geographic but instead hang on our living room walls and running in to Gandhi’s granddaughter at some bazaar…

To be continued….

So everyone knows about our debacle last year with the house in Brentwood. We packed, we unpacked. Not fun, not fun at all.

Well, we kept looking. It was kind of our Sunday cheap date. We would go to open houses, I would scour Realtracs, and we would do drive-bys. On a whim, we were out one Sunday in early April and saw a sign for a FSBO. The guy, Scott Seal, had had rotten luck. There had already been 2 contracts on the house. First people could not get financing and 2nd people got pretty far into the process before buyer’s remorse struck. We closed in 3 weeks, we barely had time to pack.

The house was perfect. Not too big but perfect for us and a possibly growing family. It is on a quiet street in Fieldstone Farms, one we have had our eye on since last fall. The bonus was that it was renovated in move in condition, something we had not necessarily been looking for, but is fantabulous. Finally, as Bob Barker says, the price was right! We got his February/March pricing in April and still beat the summer upswing in pricing.

And before everybody gets upset that we did not tell “them”…we did not tell anyone. Not giagia and pappou, not Jay’s mom not anybody (ok, we might have told Becky the week before we closed, but there was reasoning behind it)… We decided that it was best to lay low on this one in light of everything that happened last time. We got everyone so involved last summer in our move, that in case things went sour again, we did not want to have to explain every hour what happened.

Moving on…We are soo excited!!! It is beautiful! 4 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and about 2500 square feet. The downstairs is all hardwood floors and very OPEN. Kitchen is stainless steel with Verde Butterfly granite countertops. I have a small office downstairs off of the dining room. We also have a beautiful breakfast room, which hopefully we will fill with a small table soon! The boys have tons of space in the backyard, so much more than the last house. They are beyond words happy!

The paint colors Scott chose are fantastic, we had to do very little when we moved in (which was 2 Sundays ago). The fixtures are also fantastic-that Venetian Bronze that we first saw at Mrs. Culver’s beautiful home. The pictures do not do the house justice. I promise to put more up.

The bedrooms are all upstairs. Jay has an office with a bay window, our master is a really nice size, with a huge master bath. Plus a guest bedroom and the “empty room.”

The garage is unbelievable…a dream come true for Jay. He is going to set up his exercise area there. Plus, there are these huge rafters for storage that are “hurricane proof.” Very strong, very well organized.

Special thanks to Mike, John & Trisha, and James & Diane for helping us during moving day. Also kudos to Julie for helping me get the last minute stuff out of the house on Monday during Jay’s trip to Kansas City. I would have been up all night if I had to do it myself!

Also, we were able to keep our old house. We are landlords, believe it or not. We are renting to a musician and his family. We were there the other night and saw a photo of him with his band each holding Grammies. I, of course, have no idea who this guy is, but I figure he is probably the Elvis of Christian music and we are clueless.

I will post more photos of the new house later…this is what I have so far amidst all of the boxes….and not finding the battery for the camera.

I have a mailbox finally!

Breakfast Nook

The boys LOVE the backyard. It is helping bring Bailey out of his shell more.

After months (even years!) of training, Jay ran the Country Music Half Marathon last Saturday. I was so proud of him, he worked so hard for this!

Between the move, his new position at work, and a case of tendonitis, his pace may not have been as good as he wanted, but he still finished the 13.1 miles in great time.

Jay Hansen Franklin TN 34 M 2:16:15

He called me around mile 10 to let me know he would be arriving soon. I had been sitting out at the finish for almost as long as he had been running, so I had made some friends at the finish line. I had my “GO Jay!” sign ready and when he came in, Jay’s own little cheering section cheered him home!

For Race Results, click here.

CONGRATULATIONS, JAY!!!!

Jay at the finish line

Jay and his bling-bling medal

Gary Gosch-Jay’s running coach