I landed in the GORGEOUS state of Hawai'i on August 27th. I was SO excited to move here and experience a new place and lifestyle. After nearly a month here, I can say that it has definitely started off rocky. Actually, that's probably an understatement. Let's look at the top 5 events that have happened in my first month here (for your entertainment...)

1) Mandatory quarantine

So, I knew this was a thing way before moving here, and I dreaded it, but honestly? It went by pretty fast. It wasn't that bad either. Just not the way I wanted to spend my first 2 weeks here, but I can't complain...I'm FINALLY in my new home!

2) BUGS

I knew there were a lot of bugs here before actually getting here, but EW NO THANK YOU. I am NOT a bug person. One night I was doing my homework and had the backdoor open (with the screen) and somehow TWO flying cockroaches flew in AT MY FACE. Screams were automatically triggered and my husband, being the wonderful person he is, went to war with them. Spoiler alert: he won. Fast forward a bit, I saw my first giant centipede when attempting to move our outside trash can. I ran inside crying. Turns out it was dead. Last but not least, I was going to throw something into our recycling bin inside and there was a GIANT SPIDER. Thank God for men, am I right? Shout out to my husband for getting rid of these nasty critters.

3) My husband is going away, 5 weeks after we moved here

We moved to Hawai'i because my husband got military orders here. I can't complain, right? Wrong. Apparently they do a LOT of training here and are gone on trips a lot. Turns out my husband is going to training in Louisiana (yes, during COVID-19, not a smart move on the Army's behalf, but that's a different story). He is leaving for an entire month, RIGHT AFTER WE GOT HERE. We had 2 weeks of quarantine, like I mentioned above, so during that time we couldn't get ANYTHING done. Of course, leave it to the Army to leave all of the stress of moving and getting truly settled in, on me. Our furniture and stuff is supposed to get here when he's gone, I have to register my car while he's gone (which he has to be here for), I still haven't been able to find daycare for my son, amongst a billion other things. Thank you, Army. Not really. I really hate you. All the time.

4) Ants will not stay away

No matter what I do, ants will not stay away from my home. It's annoying walking into my son's playroom and seeing a whole colony of ants just chilling and going crazy. It seems like no matter how much I clean, they still find their way inside.

5) My car is having issues

I had just bought a car right before coming here and, obviously, had to have it shipped out. It was in great condition prior to departure, but now after having it here on island, it's having problems. When I'm at a stop it will randomly shut off. That's not the worst part. It has shut off randomly WHILE IT WAS MOVING ON A ROAD. Like a normal person would, I took it into the dealership to have them look at it. And to my surprise, they couldn't find the problem. So that's awesome.

There are other minor little things that have happened that has made the first month rocky, but these are the 5 top events. Needless to say, I am straight up not having a good time. But that's okay, I know it is going to get better...right? It has to. At the end of the day, I'm very grateful to be here and to be experiencing the island life while finishing out my degree.