What's going on

By some accounts, there's not too much happening in my life.
For example, neither Kevin nor I is working right now, and we just spent 3 weeks in Hawaii. There was not a lot to do after a while, so we had to just go sit on the beach some days. It's all right, you can stop hating me now. Because in some ways, my life is incredibly busy.
Just on Tuesday, we got word that our medical clearances went through. For the Foreign Service, you (and all your dependents) have to have a very thorough medical exam, which is then evaluated in Washington DC. They do this so they can send their employees all over the world where there may or may not be adequate or advanced medical care. I'm not really sure if they'd still hire you if you had a chronic medical condition, or if they'd just send you somewhere non-third-world. At this point, it's not something we need to worry about, as the most serious medical problem in our family is Penny's eczema and food allergies. No biggie. Send us wherever. And on Tuesday, they gave us notice that they are ready to do so.
This morning, Kevin had a 3-hour security clearance interview. I watched Penny for most of it, but from the parts I observed, it was a long, lawyerly interview asking about 10 different ways if he's ever downloaded secure information onto his iPod. Is he sure he's never downloaded it? What about onto a disk? What about sending it as email? Are you sure? It was very thorough. But in Kevin's ever-positive attitude, he commented that it is a good overview of what he should never do as a Foreign Service Officer.
So now that the interview has taken place, we're still waiting on the rest of the clearance. They have to go talk to people everywhere Kevin's lived in the last 10 years, which has been overseas in China and Taiwan a few times. Still, since he's not a shady character, it should go pretty well, and in a few months, they should invite him to come to DC for training for a few months.
Meanwhile, this week we're moving to New Mexico for a while. I got a summer job there at a day camp (woo hoo!), and then in the fall, I'll be doing my student teaching there. So I'll be there through November.
This move to New Mexico makes the 5th state we've lived in this year. We finished in Utah last May, moved to Boise, then Washington in January, Hawaii in April, and now New Mexico. Even if you don't count Hawaii (and I didn't get a library card, so how official can it be?), it's still an impressive 4 states in one year. They say that 3 moves is worth a fire, and at this point, we are moving to NM with only what will fit in our car. It's kind of refreshing to have so little tying us down.
But on the other hand, it will be nice to be able to settle down a little bit once Kevin gets his job. He will do training in DC for a few months, and then we'll have overseas assignments that last from 2-3 years each. I can't imagine there are many people that are looking forward to that as a relief from moving so much. But I am!
We have a busy week ahead of us, and we've been busy packing. And when I say that, it's a lie. I bought Spells (see left sidebar toggle wingbat thingie), and I've been reading that these past few days. Since Penny keeps needing my attention (what? I can't just go read for several hours at a time anymore?), I didn't get a good feel for the book. I was noticing that I felt like it was really choppy and it didn't flow as well as the first one. Then I realized that I read the first one in one fell swoop, and this one I had to read in 2-3 page chunks. I'm going to reread it before giving an actual review. I really liked some parts and thought some were a bit scandalous. It was a fun read. But that's not my review.