A couple of weeks ago Mike (husband and employee of the Foreign Service) was offered his last overseas assignment and it was made official last week. We will be leaving for three years in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July. Mike is excited about the Jewish community there and I expect him to start growing pay’ahs next month. I, however, will still not convert since it's a sin for Humanists to take up any other religion. And then there’s the shetl thing...

Housing is furnished (Every house gets the same furniture inventory. We will take a few items to make it work for us such as my entire studio) and is supposedly comfortable. There is an APO in Helsinki and mail is shipped down by truck twice a week. I will be supplementing our local shopping via the Internet, or vice-versa. I’ve read other things in the post report but have learned to take those with a grain of salt, or less, since the people who write those things have no idea what’s really important. Tell me, please, where are the quilt shops? (Thought: AMBER!!! There will be a quilt with amber!)

We do not want to rent out our paid-off house (too many problems with irresponsible tenants and with moving our Chinese antiques that would most likely end up as piles of 200 hundred-year-old kindling) but realize leaving it vacant has just as many problems. We have invited a Foreign Service officer posted to DC to be our house-sitter and are hoping this works out for all of us. If it doesn’t, expect a flare!

In the meantime, I am stocking up on items that will be horribly expensive in Europe. This does not include a specific effort to collect art supplies since I will not be curbing my impulse buying at crafts stores. My legitimate shopping for household essentials is creating the kind of pre-packout disaster that only State Dept. employees can fully understand. In spite of the fact that there is no where to put this stuff, I’m enjoying the cash therapy and can’t wait for my next paycheck to add to the chaos.