View from the War(Home)Front

Bedrest and the Olympics.

2010-02-21T15:45:00.003-10:00

It's official... with roughly 3 Weeks left I'm on bedrest.

I have to admit..it's not that bad. Hubby had to take leave to take care of the punkin.So he has off this week and then my mom will be coming up for 2 weeks. Hopefully, These kids hang in and my csection will go off without a hitch on the 15th. I guess I'll find out on Thursday. I'd love to have these kids on the 8th but I guess we'll see. I mean I'm carrying almost 11 lbs of babies and boy are they HEAVY.

When I went over to the Hospital the other night and they admitted me.. I was the ONLY person in the OB Ward. It was very cool to have all the attention and now I think I know every nurse by name.LOL. The hospital food here is kick ass... I was totally shocked. I got a menu and everything.

So I'm trying to be a good patient.. it is still hard considering we still have a 3 year old. She is still not totally understandng why mommy can't play in her room and can only play in mommy's bed. I feel bad..usually we have Kindergym, Dance and Storytime..but now she's not going to anything. Poor punkin is so bored.

Luckily for me the Olympics is on, that gives me something to watch. I'm an Olympics freak and watch all of it.. including Curling. Hubby and I got married 4 years ago last week when the Olympics was on. So it will always remind me of our wedding week.

Well I guess now that I have all this time on my hands I'll blog more..granted I'm not sure what I'll blog about since I'm stuck in bed..but I'm sure I'll think of something.

Another day

2010-01-26T15:42:00.002-10:00

Tuesdays are always hectic in the morning here.

We have Kindergym in the morning so trying to get a 3 year old ready, dressed and out the door on time is always eventful. Add on the fact I preggo it.. well I'm sure you get it. Usually most days she cooperates..today was one of those days believe it or not. It was before that when the fun started.

Hubby got up this morning either with his alarm or before it cause I didn't even hear it, which was nice. I didn't even notice he was up until he was kissing me goodbye. I slept til about 730 when the punkin was yelling for me.

I didn't get up right away.. usually she just lays in her bed watching Mickey Mouse but this morning I hear her get up. I assume she is on the potty. I get up to check on her and she is sitting there on the toilet. COMPLETELY DRESSED in her jammies. Then I hear.. the sound of her peeing through her clothes. There goes my "yay for being potty trained" blog from yesterday.

Now the whole sight was so ridiculous to watch.. I couldn't even be mad. I asked her why she pee'd her clothes she just looked up and shrugged at me.

I love my kid.lol.

After getting her off the pot, cleaned and dressed we made it to KinderGym. Today was her last class until after the kids are born. It's getting a little much for me to get around, I tire out so easily now. I figure there's 10 classes a cycle so by the time the next cycle is good to go.. I should be too.

Meanwhile Hubby is on this new health kick. Since he got back from the sandbox and we Pcs'd... let's just say he's put on some extra weight from the lack of organized PT here and just general hub-ness.(It's a word -I made it up,lol).

A few weeks ago he was told that once he went to WLC he was pretty much on the list to go to the P-Board. Which I was super excited for. We were trying to figure out when a good time would be for him to go so not to conflict with the pending arrival of the kids...when the news came down he failed his tape test. Failure=no WLC=no promotion. Hence the sudden workout gung-ho-ness(another invented word).

Ever since getting here I hoped he would get all motivated to possibly put in his packet for PA (physician's asst) but no luck... he is definitely more motivated to be promoted, way more than he ever was in Hawaii... so hopefully the gym, protein shakes and fitness mags will pay off.

It's been over a week and so far he is still all about it. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Forrest Gump

2010-01-24T16:02:00.002-10:00

Forrest Gump is one of those movies that whenever it comes on I have to watch it. That: Shawshank Redemption, Blue Crush and Showgirls. Yea yea I know...Showgirls.

So there's been so many things I've wanted to blog about since the last time I signed on but everything seemed to pass by before I had the chance to actually blog about it. Now it just seems to late.

Such is my life.. Day Late, Dollar short.

I'm getting closer to my due date... well not my actual due date .. but the doctor imposed due date for the twins. The specialist said one thing (36 weeks)and my obgyn(38 weeks) said another.. but as much as I'd like to be the early due date.. I'll try and split the difference. I'll probably be as big as house by then and non-mobile but whatever. Hubby wants the kids to be born on St. Patrick's Day.. but I said I really didn't want them to turn 21 on that specific day of the year. I guess I just think too far ahead,lol.

Punkin is now officially potty trained(knock on wood). Took 3 weeks of hardcore no pull-ups during the day.. now she hasn't worn any to bed or out and about for a week. I'm so happy she did so well. I don't even have to help her anymore with the pee pee.. she does it all on her own including the flushing and washing hands. Saves me some money before I have to go and start buying diapers all over again.

We've got 2 sets of neighbors moving out this month.. one is getting out and the other is going to my old stomping ground of Hawaii. I'm kind of jealous.. I miss it way more than I thought.I hope the new families have kids.. that'd be great for the punkin.

I haven't really made any friends over here. There's one mom from kindergym that we had our first playdate with last week. Punkin had fun.. they're due to PCS in June. I'm back to square one...it quite a change from when I had a support circle at Schofield. The only positive is that all my real friends are only an hour and a half away.. so I have them when I need it.

Sorry this was a lame post.... they'll get better.. I promise.

I just need to be more on the ball.

Happy belated Christmas!

2009-12-29T03:31:00.006-10:00

First things first.. I'm typing on my new Netbook..yay! I guess sometimes you do get what you ask for.

Well it's been an interesting week to say the least. This was our first Christmas home in 3 years and Hubby's first Christmas to spend with the punkin. For her 3 Christmas' so far the last 2 he was in the sandbox and the first one he was in Hawaii and we were in NJ. This was also the first Christmas since his mom passed... so it was very bittersweet for him.

The interesting.. all started the day before Christmas Eve.. hubby had just gotten home from work and in the shower .While we were starting to pack up ,our fire alarm goes off. Not one.. but all 3. I'm not cooking anything so I have no idea what is going on and we can't get them to go off. I call the MPs and they call the fire dept... meanwhile we decide maybe its best if we go outside just in case. Hubby starts the car and the punkin and I wait inside since its like 18 degrees or what not.

The fire dept calls back confirming we called... I tell them yes.. fire alarms, no fire, can't shut them off. He tell us to evacuate the premises(which we have already done) and the'yll be right here. Now we live basically next to the firehouse so they could've liked walked across the lawn so they were here super fast.

Our house is historic.. like ancient, built in the mid 1800s and our boiler was apparently that old as well. Our boiler had broken and was apparently burning something that caused so much heat that it set the fire alarms off. I was worried it mught be carbon monoxide but it wasn't so that was a blessing.

Now since our ancient boiler was basically 2 mice running on a wheel to make it work they tell us that it's gonna take them a while to find us a new one and we won't have any heat but they're giving us space heaters. We didn't really care.. we were leaving so that worked for us... but the whole thing put us about an hour and a half behind schedule.

We leave at about 330ish and now we get stuck in holiday traffic and rush hour.. so our 1 1/2 hour drive turns into 2 1/2 hours. Gratefully I big preggo didn't have to pee..and punkin was good in the car. While we were in traffic ,Housing called and told us they found us a boiler.. they were going to come in and have it installed so this way when we got back our heat would be working..

Yay.. bonus.

Christmas itself went off without a hitch..we hit all 3 sets of parents so it was a long day. Punkin made out really well, she got a bunch of fun stuff.

The saturday after Christmas, I decided to get the punkin's haircut. Her first. I needed mine done too, so I figured I'd kill 2 birds with 1 stone. Grandma came along for the ride to watch the punkin while I got my haircut. I went first and she watched and looked like she was gonna be good. Her turn came.... she started out pretty good but once the girl got to this huge knot.. it was all over. She started screaming and wouldn't let her finish. The girl only charged us 5 bux.. but I had to go home and fix it. Can't let my kid go around with unfinished hair. I did a pretty good job.. hubby says she looks like a little girl finally...opposed to a what .. i dont know.

We finally got home Sunday night to no heat.. so they had to emergency come out and fix it which they didn't fix so we had to call them again yesterday which they did fix. So it's nice and toasty in here now.

Today is day 2 of crash potty training.. day 1 went well... hopefully today there won't be any poop on the floor.

I guess we'll see...wish me luck

What I want for Christmas!

2009-12-18T06:24:00.002-10:00

No it's no World Peace...although that would be very nice.. don't get me wrong. The stuff I want is just way more practical for me.

I want pedestals for my washer and dryer and my laptop fixed.

I think one of the main reasons I stopped blogging was that hubbys desktop broke in Hawaii. Luckily it happened right before he got back so he fixed it as soon as he got back from the Sandbox. Then he got a new laptop and gave me his old one which the punkin one day proceeded to jump on and crack the screen. Hence no laptop. Then we moved and were trying to get settled.. yada yada yada.

I know ... excuses, excuses.

So anyway I just want a new screen... I've been asking since July.

Next my washer and dryer are just too low for my giant huge Twin belly. I usually end up sitting on the floor (they are both front loaders) switching clothes from one to the other. Getting up off the floor these days is not an easy task.. so for convenience pedestals would be super. At the time we were trying to save money and was't deemed a necessity.. I deem it a necessity now.LOL

FYI~ I will be getting neither for Christmas... but I can hope.

Ok.. so let's start over,

2009-12-15T17:11:00.002-10:00

Today I had my doctor's appointment after completely having preggo brain yesterday and going over to the hospital for my appointment only to have them tell me it was today. Good thing I'm totally over feeling stupid about those things.

I am measuring at 28 weeks even though I'm only 24.. I feel like a house. Twins are rough towards the end.. the positive is I only have 2 1/2 months left. Hopefully they will stay in and cook as long as I need them too. We are having a boy and a girl which means I am totally done with all the pregnancy stuff... I told the doc today " hey since you've got me open anyway to take the kids out.. I'd really like to be tied at that point" He was like sure no prob.

Punkin in excited about having a "bruda and sistah".. it hard to believe she can organize pretty full sentences. She bossy, demanding and acts like she's 10. Oh how I can't wait til she's a teenager. She had to have her tonsils out the beginning of October.. which was very traumatic for mommy. I don't recommend that for anyone under the age of 3 unless absolutely necessary. I'm glad hubby, grandma and grandpa were here for that.

West Point is okay.. It's hard to get used to the fact that basically you live on a college campus... only more strict and quiet. My college days were faarrrr from that.lol.

I am unemployed.. that wasn't the plan but when we found out we were having twins it didn't really pay for me to go back to work. I would've had to have quit basically through the holiday season so we just said screw it. I'll probably go back to work after the kids are born.. I'm thinking of being a tour guide.lol

Hubby got back from Iraq and luckily we had no "re-integration issues" as they call it. We actually are probably better now then we were before or during the sandbox. He likes his new job kinda... he's got great hours here and gets to "interact" with a lot of cadets. He was in the ER when he first got here and that was right up his alley but they decided to move him.... which works for me because now he's not working midnights.

As for now, I am liking being close to home, unfortunately this weather is a doozy.I've been here since July and still have not climitized yet. Punkin did love her first snowfall though.

Otherwise I think that's really all for right now. I'm definitely going to make an effort to do this again... and soon.

Has it been a year!

2009-12-15T07:48:00.002-10:00

I swear I never meant to be away this long... alot of people probably totally forgot who I was. I decided to start writing again..I need some stimulus for my brain.

I've got some time on my hands now and a bunch of stuff to start blogging about again.This is one of my new years resolutions.. be it a little early.

Examples of stuff to blog:
The move to West Point
Being Unemployed
Transition to housewife again.. since hubby returned from Iraq.
Lastly.. being pregnant and getting ready to have Twins... yes folks.. Twins...which are due pretty soon.

Well.. I am off to my doctors appointment now and hopefully back on the computer either today or tomorrow.

No more long absences..that's the goal.

RIP Shell Belle

2009-01-12T20:33:00.003-10:00

Thursday Morning at apprx 2am The Hub's mom died.

It was a huge shock.. no one expected it quite this fast.

It's been a very heartbreaking week all around. I'm very grately that he was able to be home and spend the last week of her life with her. I wish I would've been able to be home to support him. Unfortunitely that didn't happen.

As I wrote in my last post the doctors had given her a longer life expectancy than it actually turned out to be. After surgery everyone was very positive that she would be able to have somewhat of a coherent quality of life. The first 2 days after surgery, she was able to somewhat talk ,sit up and eat very puree'd food.

Unfortunitely she ended up having an Acute Mol Siezure.(i think I spelled that right).

After that she basically stopped responding and stopped eating.. the doctors told my Hub and family she had about 48 hours. They moved her into hospice and tried to make her as comfortable as possible. The Hub, his dad and his sis.. basically moved into the Hospital and waited. Almost exactly 48 hours from the time of the last prognosis.. she went to sleep for the last time.

Shell was a kick ass lady. She was well loved and will be greatly missed. She pulled no punches and took no shit from anyone. Hub's from a very small town and his family has lived there for decades. She used to own the only beauty parlor in town. She cut everyone's hair and knew everyone. Hub's mom and dad have been together since she was 14 and he was 17 and have shared everything together. I can't even begin to imagine what his loss must be like. When the Hub and I first started dating years ago, she used to call me a cradle-robber cuz I was 20 and he was 18. She'd say that I was always out to corrupt her little boy, if she only knew it was already too late.

I'm sorry that she won't be able to see her grandkids grow up.I'm sad the punkin will have no memories of her grandma. Shell was so excited about us moving so close to home. I'm so sorry and sad for my Hubby's loss..I know he is being so strong for his family... and I wish there was more I could do for him. I can't imagine what the rest of our lives are going to be like without her. It's very sad.

RIP MOM WE LOVE YOU AND YOU'LL BE MISSED.

Now in the next 3 days,opposed to sending him home,they are sending him back to Iraq... for less than a month. Basically he gets theres packs up and then gets sent here. Give a guy a break... he just lost his mom and he's got less than a month left of his deployment. I'm worried. I'm afraid he's gonna completely flip his shit when he gets back there. Seriously, what a waste of time and taxpayer money. I think the whole thing is just ridiculous... and I would love to see the Army just once NOT be a bunch of douschebags. That'll never happen.

When it Rains it Pours.

2009-01-01T20:05:00.003-10:00

Well the Hub is at home in NJ...he landed yesterday. Someone being sent home from Iraq and not for R&R means one thing... very bad news.
The Hub's mom was just diagnosed with a Brain Tumor... prognosis..bad, very bad. Let's just say this New Year hasn't turned out so well so far.

Hub's mom in the past 6 years or so has been a very sickly woman. She had major surgery to insert metal rods in her neck, where they didn't know if she was going to live, when he was in Iraq the first time so they sent him home on emergency leave. A few years ago she had a pain pump inserted, so this way they could administer the doses themselves whenever the pain got too bad. Over the years she had started to do things that everyone chalked up to the medication like mood swings, randomly falling asleep and other things that I'm not to sure of.

Well recently the pain had gotten really bad, so they went in to adjust her pain pump.. and on Christmas Eve.. she apparently wasn't really responding to anyone and started throwing up. So they thought she was going into overdose.. and went to the ER to adjust her pump again.

So the day after Christmas... I don't really know what happened but they had to take her back to the ER. At this point they decided to do a CAT scan. The results of the CAT scan showed that she had this tumor.

That night the Hub's sis called me at 730pm my time so I knew something was wrong. That phone call came right in the middle of the giant island wide blackout. From that point on the past week has been nothing but non stop hecticness.

The hub pretty much has instant access to the computer in Iraq.. so I text messaged his email to call me ASAP it was about his mom. Then proceeded to try and send a red cross message. It took almost 2 days for the red cross message to get through and only 2 hours for my hub to call me back. Telling him that his mom had a brain tumor.. and it was pretty bad, was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Especially him being over there... I felt and still feel terribly helpless.

At this point.. the doctors have the prognosis at very bad.. and the doctors Red Cross message stats that "Life expectancy is poor". I see those words, know how sick she is and think. Bad.

Apparently his commander saw those words and said...

" Not good enough,, I need a better definition of 'life expectancy is poor. what does that mean exactly"

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?????

Now.. let me say something. My hub has done his year in the sandbox...he was one of the lucky suckers that got suck in this 15 month rotation bullshit..that only truly affected a few Brigades. What's 2 months off 15.. you seriously can't function the last 2 months without one soldier.

Ok. so now the hub is beside himself. He hasn't been able to see his mom since the punkin was born. Thats' almost 2 1/2 years.. if something happens before he gets home.. I don't know what he'll do.

I'm pisst off.. and think this is complete bull. The fight to get my hub home starts. To see the emails coming through about how upset he is and how he doesn't know what to do kills me. It makes me feel more helpless. So I do what anyone else in my position would do. I start making phone calls. Not Army bullshit phone calls .. f that. I go above that.

Lets just say some phone calls got made.. like Senate phone calls. Needless to say the phone calls didn't really go anywhere... but when I told my Hub that I was doing that.. his packet got signed and he was on his way home in 12 hours.

Don't mess with me or my family... I'll take you down how we do in Jersey.... Politically.

Now that the Hub is home .. I've gotten better details. Sadly, the type of tumor she has is the worst tumor you could possibly get. It's about the size of a Mango. The doctors removed only about 40% of it because they wanted her to have the best quality of life she can for the short amount of time she has. They give her anywhere from 3 months, if they do nothing... 19 months if they try and shrink with the chemo.

I'm not going home. I got permission to go from work as long as I was back for inventory by the 11th.Which really irratated me that I had to be back for that.They sent my Husband home from a war zone but no one can run my inventory. whatever.

I had gotten my plane tickets.. booked the whole 9. The punkin and I were supposed to leave tomorrow. Hubby told us not to come home. He says it's not that he doesn't want us there.. he just doesn't think its a good idea. He gave lots of valid reasons. cost of the ticket, most of the time he'll be at the hospital, what happens if I fly out there and she passes and then then have to fly right back, him and his sister don't want anyone to see her looking the way she looks, etc. I just want to be there for him.. if it was me.. I'd want him there. So as much as it hurts my feelings, I honored his wishes, canceled my tickets and are staying behind.

Now.. here's the next thing.. when his leave is up.. they are sending him back to the box. Is it me.. or does it make no sense that he'll have about 1 month left.. but they are still going to spend the money to fly him ALLL the way back to iraq only to fly him ALLL the way to Hawaii a month later. Wouldn't it make more sense to just send him here. Ohhh our tax dollars at work.

So that's whats up.. sorry my first post of the year is a big sad bummer post. I'm not a religious person.. but if anyone wants to send some prayers this way.. they'll always be appreciated.

I really hope 2009 isn't going to be too terrible.

The Rain on Christmas

2008-12-25T20:50:00.008-10:00

Well Merry Christmas (and a belated Happy Thanksgiving)to all. I know it's been a while but the hecticness of Christmas at the mall is finally over... hence the first blog in over a month. I seriously haven't even opened this sight in like a month.

Today was a very mellow day.... I sat home.. just me and the kid, completely enjoyimg the solitude of it all. Again it rained on and off all day so best bet was to stay inside and that's exactly what we did.

A bunch of stuff happened in the last month... so I'll bullet point it and catch everyone up.
So here it is in no particular order

~Went to the base Christmas tree lighting.. always strikes me as kinda crazy when you get to watch the Christmas tree get lit in shorts and a tee and it's like 70 degrees.

There was a grammar school choir who sang a jingle bells song version of Santa being fat and the 60 year old choir director decided to do a solo and she was terrible. I taped her and actually thought about putting her up on YouTube. The punkin loves the lights so everynight we drive past the tree on the way home.. Since I didn't put up a tree this year, it's like our own tradition.. just the 2 of us.

~The Hub got promoted and finally made his E5... and we got our report date for West Point..so we'll be back east by August.. so if anyone wants to hang .. let me know.

~Dec 6 .. he was officially gone a year..and that means I've been writing this blog for a year. It went by way faster than I thought it would.. and now we are at the less than 2 month mark from home. I have to admit I do kind of dred having to share my house and bathroom with another person again , even if it is the Hub .For those who started late on my blog (and are actually still reading it).. here's the first post.. And so it begins..... I was a way more entertaining blogger back than.

~The squatter asked if he could move back in with us when they get back from Iraq.. and was told a resounding NO! The hubby blamed me, but it was him.. it's ok, he can blame me all he wants.

~Work was insane.. people are crazy this time of year. Black Friday was ridiculous, I had a girl pass out in the store at 845am waiting in line because she didnt eat. Since she was only 15 and was shopping with her friend .She was an unaccompanied minor and had to be taken away in the ambulance. She was fine.... just stupid. We did over 20 grand that day and were the #11 store in the company that day. Oh the craziness.

~There were 2 rushings of the punkin to the ACC. One for pink eye.. the other for an inflamed tonsil. The pink eye didn't worry me so much but the tonsil was so big in the back of her throat I completely freaked. Then she had a reaction to her medicine.. nothing serious but it just seems to be 1thing after the other. Her tonsil is still crazy big... i wonder if it doesn't go down if they'll have to take them out.

~My friend *J* threw a Christmas party at her house and turned the air down to like 60 so it was freezing cold and felt like winter. It was a blast and I finally learned the true definition of a "white elephant" gift .

~We've had 2 Video conference things to see my hubby since the one on Halloween. The last one was terrible.. the signal kept dropping and towards the end I couldn't hear him. It didn't really matter though... he got to see the punkin run around and stuff.

~I got totally obsessed with the Twilight craze... granted I had jumped on the bandwagon way before everyone else.(TEAM JACOB-CUZ REAL MEN DON'T SPARKLE DAMMIT!) I do have to admit I was way disappointed by the movie. So I'm kinda over it. I have started reading her book The Host.. started out kinda slow but now not so bad.

~Both my neighbors upstairs have moved out and they are completely renovating both apts. New screen doors, ceiling fans, the whole nine.. I think they are getting hardwood floors. It sure sounds like they are getting floors.. its really loud. This whole place is like unbelievably empty.... ever since the other Brigade left... even all the wives went home. I'm like one of 7 or 8 people left on my block.. but hey at least there's no traffic

~ I did the punkins xmas pictures for the christmas cards myself.. they came out pretty kick butt. I posted the semi fuzzy /far awayish ones.. just cuz you all know I don't like to post pics of the fam or the kid. Yay for snapfish and their very cool card selections. Yes that bottom one is right outside my patio gate.

Otherwise I think that is really everything. I am going to try and make a more conscience effort to blog... hopefully it will make these last 2 months go by super fast.

Merry Christmas all... hope you are all doing well. I'll try and catch up on all your lives in the next few days.

Decisions, Decisions

2008-11-19T21:48:00.002-10:00

So I meant to blog yesterday but I fell asleep .. and then I meant to blog the day before but my power went out. So fingers crossed I'll finish this blog.

I've decided that I'm going to continue blogging, I'm sure that within the upcoming months with the hubby coming home and the PCS move I'll prolly need to vent and bitch. My current blogs may be as spuratic as they are now.. but they'll be around.

Next I've decided that I'm quitting my job. Probably not long after Christmas, my date is very tentative. I love my job but my last few months here, I'd really like to be able to spend it with the Hub, the punkin and really just enjoy Hawaii. Once I get back over to the mainland I'm sure I'll start back up again.. maybe even try something different. I'm not sure what but I guess time will tell.

I'm just getting to the point where I'm ready to move on from here. Once I finally leave here, I will never come back.

Hawaii has been a huge part of my life for the last ten years but the memories and friends (Good and bad) will be with me forever but I'm ready for it all to finally be in the past. A lot of my memories here ....I basically was alone. Yet, there are some memories that no matter how hard I try.. they ain't going anywhere. I also know that once I leave here there will be some people that I will never keep in touch with... that's sad to me but a fact of life. Another sad fact is.. I'm kinda okay with that.

I'm ready to go.

Homeward Bound

2008-11-10T22:31:00.002-10:00

Well today is re-enlistment day. The Hub is officially staying a soldier for another 6 years. God help us... well .. help me. LOL.

They are doing some Veteran's Day Re-Up ceremony.. so Hubby was all over that and had to re-enlist to be part of that. There was another reason why Hubby had to re-enlist basically ASAP.

Since the hub had passed the promotion board, we had been throwing around a lot of ideas on where we should go next. Whether he wanted to change his MOS. He wanted to stay here... I told him if he re-enlisted to stay on this island.. he'd be staying by himself cuz I was not spending another 3 years here. Needless to stay he passed on that idea.

He also wanted to go to a non-deploying unit. He felt like he missed so much of the punkin's early days that he didn't want to miss anything else...so it began.

I wanted to go south.. he wanted to go back to Jersey. I didn't want to go back to Jersey... I just came from there. I wanted to be close to home..but far enough away to not be bothered all the time. He said middle east coast VA/DC/MD. We bounced around a couple of places and finally decided on a place. Then was he going to be able to get into a non-deploying slot. Oh the Drama.

The place we decided on was closed .. so he had to apply to see if there was going to be a slot open at the time ,we were due to peace out of this place. He said usually you get a yes or no answer within like a day or 2.

A week and a half ago he put in for the slot... and we waited. Day one and 2 passed with no word. Hub said that was normal. Then day 3 and 4 passed.. with still no word. I started to get discouraged but the Hub said not getting an immediate response was a good sign cuz if the slot was closed they would've came right back and said no. Another whole day went by when at like 4 am the following morning i get this text message:

"Guess what? We be going to West Point, I got the notice today. Luv you"

That's right we are headed to West Point. Which is super exciting for me... since it basically is only an hour drive from home for us. After spending all this time alone.. I get to hang out with my friends and fam AND the Hub is not deploying. Everyone back home is really happy. I think they are more excited to see our kid then actually us,LOL. Hub is just excited for Army football and the close distance to Yankee Stadium. Oh the priority.

The hub is locked-in but needed to re-up sooner than later to make sure it stays ours. So today is that day... and hopefully the Army doesn't screw anything up within the next 8 months.

Now I've been to visit West Point and gone to Bear Mountain a few times, but if anyone (all 4 of you that still read my terrible blog) has any suggestions, advice or just general info I could use I'll gladly take it.

The countdowns begin.

Another day, another post.

2008-11-03T20:07:00.003-10:00

So on thursday the punkin turned 2! I bought her an Alice in Wonderland dress and that was her birthday dress.(Benefit of a Halloweenish birthday!) She was so cute.

Hard to believe that my little girl is 2, it went by so fast I can't believe it.
This whole year went by super fast.. which I guess is a good thing.. considering my hubby left in December. Only a few months left.

For Halloween she was Minnie Mouse.I never post pics but I am breaking my rule cuz she just looked so adorable!!!She was totally amused with the whole concept of trick or treating thing. When she got tired I would have to carry her from house to house... but always wanted to walk up to the house herself.

Lastly after trick or treating.. we had our first VTC(video teleconference) with the hubby in Iraq. His computer is not completely working so hence no webcam. This was the first time we got to see each other since he was home in April. He got to see the punkin all dressed up in her costume. It was really great to see him, I miss him bunches.

Only like 3 more months... I hope it goes fast.

I do want to post... I think.

2008-10-28T12:48:00.002-10:00

Most days I don't want to write. It feels more like a chore than anything else.

I can't decide if it's just the fall funk or if I really don't want to do this anymore.

This time of year always gets me like super bummed. There's never enough time, work is always insane and even though fall is my favorite season... this is the worst time of year for me emotionally. It really doesn't help that my hubby is deployed and I'm stuck out here pretty much by myself

Maybe it's just that I don't have time or I just don't think I have anything really worth blogging about. I've been debating whether or not I want to keep blogging for the past month or so now.

This deployment is slowly coming to an end and the whole point of the blog was to have a place to vent, bitch, yada yada throughout the whole thing. Apparently (knock on wood) it's been way more uneventful than I thought it was going to be.

So now I've come to a crossroads.. and I'm still debating.

Sigh

SUCCESS

2008-10-24T00:53:00.002-10:00

Finally. My hubby is promotable!!!!!!

The Hub went to the Promotion board and passed.

He was like super nervous and freaking out all day the other day. Totally thought he was going to get kicked out of the board.

Apparently he did like super well and was 1 point shy of perfect at the board. Now we wait for the point spread and hopefully the rest of his pending points will give him enough points to actually get promoted.

Keep your fingers crossed!!!!!

I had so much more I wanted to blog about.. I just can't remember.
I guess that's a sign I should go to bed.

Milestones

2008-10-14T20:21:00.002-10:00

So the punkin pee'd in the potty for the first time the other morning.
I was so excited youd've thought I won the lottery.

The fact that I was so excited..... made her clap and yell yay!!

She hasn't done it again since.
Now she just sits there... with her clothes on.

It's amazing what motherhood does to a person that peeing can bring such happiness.lol.

My other Milestone is that we've only got about 4 months left of this deployment.
That's only 20 burrito nights to go.

Downswing

2008-10-07T19:10:00.002-10:00

Just as things are starting to look up...I should know better.

The hub's grandmother passed away this weekend.

She had cancer..... we only found out about 3 days before she passed. The Hub's family didn't want to tell anyone she was that sick... I guess they didn't want anyone to worry. So it was kind of sudden... sort of.

The past few days have been very hectic seeing if the Hub would be able to get emergency leave.. to get home for the funeral. He was denied. I feel terrible that he is so far away all alone... I wish there was something I could do for him.

I wish I had some great story or funny anecdote to tell but truth is I only met her twice maybe three times. I'm sorry my daughter won't get to really know here.

She was greatly loved and will be sadly missed.
RIP Grandma Marge.

Psycho .. party of one.

2008-09-30T13:26:00.002-10:00

So Saturday night was another Parent's Night Out.

Instead of actually going out we decided to stay in and just BBQ because not all kids could be watched. Usually it's the same four or five of us... this is our clique. Not by any means do we portray to be the "cool kids".. basically we're a bunch of old NKOTB fans. We are very accepting since we are all in the same boat.. and we let anyone hang out with us.

Anyways this week, there was an extra person invited to our bi-weekly Pow-wow. She is new to the island and her daughter is friends with my friends kid. So feeling bad that she was new.. she was invited to hang out.

She seemed normal enough at first. Then she did the first of many very strange things... and you'll see why.

We are standing in the living room and she whips out her phone goes something along the lines of "Hey I need all your phone #'s.. you first!" she looks at *T*. *T* relucently gives her # and then I'm standing next to her.. and she's like "you next". At that point I didn't know what to do so I gave it up. She then proceeds to call both of us and says " here this way you have me in your phone already".

*T* and I look at each other with this really confused look. I think maybe she's just lonely cause she's in a new place and just chalk it up to her newness.

About a half hour goes by and food is done so we sit outside around the patio table to eat. So "Newbie" looks up and goes.. ok.. so everyone tell me about yourself. We all looked at each other and really no one said anything. We all know each other and really don't think there's anything to tell. To break the silence I go " I work". Newbie goes.. everyone here is stay a home moms so we all work. ( Are you kidding me .. i know that.) I realize at this point it's all downhill tonight.

Newbie proceeds to start her life story. I paraphrase " Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm not embarrassed by this but I thought I'd let you all know I'm Bi-Polar" At that exact moment punkin starts calling for me and one of *L*'s kids bring her out to me. I have to get up and go inside but I never get to hear the rest of the story.

I come back outside about 10 minutes later and she's still talking and all my friends basically just have "deer in the headlights " look on their faces. For the next half hour everyone rotates in and out of the house from the table and this lady never shut up. She talked about extremely inappropriate things that no one really gave a crap about. Hot guys, her sex life, her husband .. a lot of it I blocked out. It got so bad that *J* and I started text messaging each other under the table cuz no one could get a word in.

I rotated into the kitchen with *C* and she looks at me and goes .."were you and *J* texting each other" I said yes.. you could tell" she goes " yes I was trying to text you but I couldn't get the thing to send look" she has this text that says " hey are you 2 texting shit?" it was the funniest thing .

Anyway we all finally went inside and started to play singstar. (It's like Kareoke only super fun) That was the only way she finally stopped talking.. but she complained about all the songs that she didnt know any. That's the point no one knows all the songs thats the fun part.

Eventuall the night came to an end. I was about to go upstairs to go get the sleeping punkin out of the playpen when Newbie asked if I could drive her home. She apparently walked and didn't plan on staying as late as she did. I said yes.. it was 10:45., what was I gonna do make her walk home alone in the dark.

Now the day before the punkin was running a fever and was being a little crabby but that morning she was fine. I go upstairs to get the punkin, I pick her up and carry her downstairs. At the point she proceeds to PUKE all over me. It was like she knew she was going to have to go in the car with that lady. At that point *J* volunteers to drive the newbie home.

I have friends who are bi-polar and I've worked with people who are bi-polar... and they're all relatively normal. Most are on medication... but none of them have randomly spewed that info to me on the first day I met them.

I feel bad about this whole thing.. but I really have no desire to hang out with her again, even if it's not her fault.

Does that make me a bad person?

Upswing

2008-09-14T00:00:00.003-10:00

I know I haven't written in a while.. I haven't really been motivated to write about the Army and Army life. It's been really crappy around here with that so I figured, I'd just not say anything. I'm finally going to explain what's been going on.

The past few months things have been kinda at a standstill with the hub and the Army.

The last time my hubby was in Iraq he broke his leg/ankle.. nothing serious but serious enough for him to have to have surgery and be put on a Med profile. After his surgery he was supposed to have physical therapy.. but out of his 36 appointments... he was only permitted to go to about 8 or so of them. He never heeled properly so was told he can't run anymore.

What's the biggest part the the PT program ..... running.

Partly because of that, partly because of the actual injury and partly because my hubby likes McDonald's a little too much.. he's had a really hard time keeping his weight down.

He's been on profile for a really long time.. and hasn't been promoted since prior to 2003. He'd been given the benefit of the doubt for a long time and now it was time to shit or get off the pot.

This time since he's been in the sandbox, there was almost a complete change of command in his unit and the new command basically thought he was a crappy soldier because of his weight and seemed pretty hellbent to med board his ass right out of the army.

Hence mine and his complete loss of faith and dis-illusionment with the Army.

Apparently some time last month ,after he failed his last tape, his 1SGT realized the hub is not a shitbag. He made the hub his personal pet project to get him off the flag and get him promoted. This was the new goal. PT twice a day, strict diet plan.. the whole nine. He was getting taped today and this was basically it.. pass or civilian life.

So everything was very up in the air..but things finally are looking up..

Today he passed his tape test.. that means he is off his med flag, able to re-enlist and able to get promoted. All total he's lost 44 lbs ( he was heavier than we initally thought). Is it wrong for me to want to kiss the 1SGT for being all HOOAH?lol

This is a big relief for both of us. The not knowing what the future was going to hold for us has been very stressful and nerve-racking... now it seems that everything's gonna work out( knock on wood). I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I guess I can still write my blog since I'll continue to be an Army wife.

The 9/11 blog

2008-09-10T21:47:00.002-10:00

Everyone has there 9/11 story.
This is mine.

I woke up to the phone ringing, it was really early so I didn't think much of it. I had stayed the night before up at my parent's house and they had all left for work. The answering machine had clicked on and whoever it was hung up. I decided I should probably get up. As I got to kitchen the phone rang again. I answered it.. it was the dentist confirming an appointment I think my stepdad had. I hung up.. not more than 3 minutes later the phone rang again. This time I decided not to answer it and let the machine get it... after all it wasn't my house and no one ever called there for me.

Beeeeppppp. It was my stepdad and this was the message.

"Hey are you awake, can you hear me. Turn on the TV someone just said that a plane flew into your mom's building. Call me back"

That was where I was when it happened. I was standing in the living room in disbelief. No way.

At lot of the day is a blur.. it just all kind of blends together, cuz everything seemed to happen so fast.

I turn on the tv.. just as the second plane is going through the second tower. That one was my mom's building. I call my stepdad and tell him what I'm watching.. he tells me he's leaving work and headed home. I try and call my mom and no one answers at her desk. So I call her cel... I hear it ringing.... from my purse. I forgot that I had borrowed it from her and never got to give it back to her before she left for work. There was no way to get in touch with her.

All this was before 9 am.
So we waited.. and waited. Everyone started calling the house... asking if I had heard from her. No. That was so hard.. having to get answer everyone questions when I had no answers. At that point I was all by myself in the house, trying to hold myself together for everyone else's stake, still wondering where my mom was. If she was ok.

My stepdad got home. My husband at the time.. drove up from our house as soon as he saw what happened. I was glued to the TV... looking at people in the street, seeing if I could recognize her.

That's when her building collasped. At that point I started screaming, I don't remember exactly what I was screaming I just remember screaming and falling to ground. My ex came over and had to hold me to keep me as calm as he could.

My stepdad started telling me.. that wasn't her tower. Her tower was still standing. No, I knew that was her building.. but he kept telling me that it wasn't. I guess I wanted to believe that.. and calmed me down a little. I still don't know to this day if he was trying to calm me down or if he really didn't know... I was right that was her building.

So we waited some more. Then the other tower fell. At that point there was nothing I could do. The phone kept ringing and still no mom, and still no answers for everyone who called. About 11/1130am a call came from my stepdad's office. My mom had called his office thinking he was still there, she was calling from a payphone and there was a line but she wanted to let everyone know she was ok and could his secretary call the house. She would try to call again as soon as she could get farther away from what is now known as Ground Zero.

What had happened to my mom?

She was at her desk on the 54th floor when someone on her floor had said that there was some kind of explosion in the other tower. They didn't know it was a plane at that point because of where the plane hit and where they were in the other building.

She was in the building when the bomb went off in '93 so she and her co workers were like.. we're outta here. They decided staying in the building wasn't the best idea.. so they went to the stairwell and started down.

I'm not sure how many floors down they had gotten when they had made an announcement staying that a plane had accidently hit the tower and it was an isolated incident and it was safe to go back to your desks.

Thank god they didn't go back.

They kept going down and at about the 30th floor there was this loud noise and the building started to shake uncontrollably. They held on to the bannister and waited for the shaking to stop. That was when the second plane hit her tower. Eventually it stopped and they made their way down... and out. She said that the firefighters that day were amazing and if it wasn't for them keeping everyone calm a lot of people would've lost it.

She made it out of the building approx 15/20 minutes before it came down. She started walking and eventually found a phone to call us. She had actually called my Uncle first because he was in a building about 15 blocks from where she was and she knew he could see everything from his windows.

He never called any of us. I dont remember what the reason was.

She managed to call my stepdads office.. then after walking a little more she managed to call the house. It was so great just to hear her voice.

They had the city on lockdown and there was no way out. She ended up walking up to my cousins' apartment which was really far from where the towers were. The next day my stepdad managed to get into the city and get her.

Finally she was home.

She was ok.

She lost friends that day. ..

I never take her for granted anymore knowing how close I was to losing her

.. and I never take her cel phone anymore....just in case

The end

Hawaii

2008-09-09T19:25:00.004-10:00

I have a love/hate relationship with this place.

There are positives and negatives to living in a place like this.
The weather, the water, the eye-candy... it really can be paradise.

Don't get me wrong, I definitely don't take for granted that I wear flip-flops and capris 365 days a year. Most days I love living here, then somedays I feel like I don't truly get the chance to experience what Hawaii has to offer.

I basically live life like a single working mom with no time for much of anything else. I might as well still be in Jersey except I've got no family here. I do, luckily, have friends that are the most amazing military wife family a girl could ever ask for.

I live in the most Romantic place on earth and I 've spent more time here alone than anything else. This seems to be the thing with me here.

When I was stationed here with my ex-hub we were here 20 months and I spent 14 of those here by myself while he went to Oki, Australia, San Diego and wherever else the Marine Corps decided to send him.

This time around in the 18 months I've been here so far the hub has been gone 11 of those months between NTC and the sandbox. I know what I signed up for but that doesn't make it any easier.

There are days where I see happy newlywed couples walking through the mall all happy, holding hands and being cutesy. I think how dare they rub their happiness in my face like that, totally not their fault, just the jealousy I feel ..that they have what I want and miss terribly.

We are now on the downside of this deployment and we only have roughly 5 months left which isn't much time. It's hard to believe that a whole year has almost gone by.. it seemed so fast yet so long.

I can't wait for him to come home, so we can once again be one of those cutesy(not so newlywed) couples that I see in the mall.

Reliving my Youth

2008-09-02T20:20:00.003-10:00

Today I am 16 again.

90210 (the new class,lol) and the new New Kids on the Block cd both came out today.

I'm like a giddy little school girl. Sitting in Ms. Tamaru's Chemistry class talking about "OMG did you watch that new Beverly Hills show last night, like isn't that Brandon guy soooooo cute."

Hehe, oh the good ole' days.

Otherwise I got nothin.
My life is pretty lame as of lately.

I keep wanting to blog about things but by the time I get around to the computer, everything I want to blog about I either forgot or just seems irrelevent by the time I sit down.

I don't feeling like complaining about the Army and the politics of the Army today.

Today was a good day. =)

Normalcy

2008-08-28T20:19:00.004-10:00

I'm not really sure what Normalcy really is anymore... but I think I am as close to it as I can get right now.

The punkin is back with her normal babysitter, Back-to-School is over, life seems to be back on track and there is only 25 more garbage days til the hubby is supposed to come home. I like it if I can break it down into small #s at this point.

Today is my first day off in 6 days.. I don't really like working that many days in a row, before that my BFF was here for 4 days and then before that I had worked like 3 days in a row. I'm finally getting over being sick.

Needless to say I needed the day off.
Today I was a bum.... I like days like that.

Life has been so busy it's been basically uneventuful.

I say basically because the only thing I get to report is that my Hubby had to have 30 stitches to put the skin on his knee back on.

Yup you read that right.... no worries it's not as bad as it sounds but the pics are really gross and I won't post any.

Apparently he said he was walking and tripped and caught his leg on the corner of a tile in the Pod. He took a 2 inch round chunk of skin off his leg. So he's been wrapped and in a leg brace and isn't supposed to move it. He looks like a bad Frankenstein victim with the crazy stitches.

Part of me thinks the story is crazy sketchy and makes me wonder if he acually tripped or there is more to this story and he is just trying to shield me from the truth so I don't worry.

Whatever it is ... I'll stick with the my hubby's a clutz version.

It makes me worry less.

PS-Thanx for all the Bday wishes!!!!

Happy Birthday to Me!

2008-08-20T17:24:00.002-10:00

Today is my birthday!!!
That is my super cool Rubiks cube birthday cake for my 80s party.
(*L* did a kick ass job)

I have the bestest friends ever.

I got roses too... from hubby.

For it being my Happy birthday.
I wish I felt more happy.

Obsession

2008-08-14T20:12:00.003-10:00

I've been MIA.
I'm alive but MIA.

A few reasons.

1-I've been busy.
2-I've been tired.
3-The Olympics is on.. like 24/7 and on like 7 channels. I'm addicted.
4- I had the FRG picnic which was a big fat joke. .. I did meet the commander's wife and she is a cool chic.
5-I haven't really had anything good to write about.
6-I think I'm more dis-illusioned than before. I may bitch about that soon. Maybe.

Lastly, I've become obsessed with the whole TWILIGHT book thing. I totally jumped on the bandwagon. The past week and a half I have spent every free waking moment reading these stupid books with the Olymipcs on in the background.

I can multi-task.

I just finished the 3rd out of the 4th book and all I want to do is get started on it and see what happens to dear Bella and her Vampire Edward and Werewolf Jacob. Ridiculous I tell ya.

I think becoming so obsessed in someone else life, be it fiction, makes me feel less lonely.

I'll take what I can get.

My BFF is flying in on Sunday and my Birthday is on Wednesday, so I'm sure I'll have plenty to blog about soon.

Yay for visitors!!!

Dis-illusionment

2008-08-03T20:11:00.003-10:00

So apparently this deployment is starting to take its toll on my hubby.
It's not so much the deployment itself, it's the politics of the deployment.
So much so ..he is thinking of not re-enlisting.

Now this coming from the hub is not a good sign. He is one of those people who is very HOOAH Army. As much as he bitches and complains, he loves the Army and is always one of those guys trying to convince other people to stay in. He wanted to be a lifer.

Apparently not anymore.... and that makes me sad.

I want to type more about it but for fear of getting him in trouble I'll give no real details and just bitch from my point of view.

Don't get me wrong.. I love being an Army Wife but I could go either way with it.. but to see my hubby so confused and disillusioned about something that he loves and was going to make a career out of ,make him so miserable makes me sad.

What about me.. am I dis-illusioned.????

Hell yeah I am.

I've been annoyed with this Deployment since before he left.

Let's start with the FRG.
There has been no support here on the homefront for the wives left behind here.Our FRG has basically been non-existant. I do not know a single wife of any of the soldiers my hubby deployed with. Not a single one... all my friends I met because of my daughter. All of their husbands are deployed but all in different units from each other. Their FRGs are also non-existant.

This week I get an email saying we are having a "Half way through Deployment BBQ" then a voicemail about it. Are you kidding me? These are the first things I've got since January.

JANUARY PEOPLE.

Am I wrong to be annoyed by this? What about the emails just emailing to check in. Making sure I'm still alive and didn't fall into a deep depression. Isn't that what the FRG is for? I see them on TV bringing cake and welcoming new people. I got shit. I'm going to this picnic thing. Part of me wants to go to just tell someone off and tell them how half ass I think this whole thing is. The other half actually just wants to see WTF is actually going on here.

Here's my bitching part!

~I'm tired of him constantly getting shit on.
~I'm tired of him constanty getting overlooked for promotion over that past 5 years because of an injury . An injury that happened the LAST time he was in Iraq and once he returned ,was not allowed to go to his physical therapy appointments to heal properly.
~I'm tired of the lack of support the Army gives their soldiers and their families here.
~I'm tired of him not being able to call home in 22 days.
~I'm tired of the bullshit that I have to deal with on a daily basis.
~I'm tired of feeling the ramifications of shit over there when I've done nothing but stay here and be a good wife. How fair is that. I feel like I'm being punished for no reason.
~I'm annoyed that my daughter will not know who her Daddy is when he gets back and only knows him now by a picture on the wall that she blows kisses to every night before bed.

Seriously, I've had it. Had it with Hawaii, this unit, this deployment, this FRG.
I know I signed up for this when I got married but part of this bullshit I definitely didn't expect.

Sorry, for the tyraid.
I'm feeling very Italian mafioso hostile today, and I know whose bed I'd like to put a horse's head in.

Beware of a Jersey girl on a rampage!

Happy Birthday!!

2008-08-02T21:43:00.002-10:00

Today the Hubby turned 32!

Last year he left for NTC the week after his birthday so he managed to be home for it.
This year we obviously weren't so lucky...

hopefully next year he'll be home for it.

Happy Birthday Baby!
Wish you were here.

I'm totally gonna blog tomorrow.
Like really blog.. I swear,lol.

Batman, Batman, Batman!

2008-07-27T23:53:00.002-10:00

I know it's been a while and I never finished my story , I'll do that soon.

It's been super hectic around here with Back to School coming. Work has been crazy and that has completely absorbed my life right now. I barely even have gotten online and haven't checked any Blogs in a week.

Sorry, but I do plan on catching up and commenting on everyone very soon.

I did however leave early on Saturday to see the new Batman. The perks of the being the boss I guess. It was pretty kick butt and Heath Ledger really was as good as people said he was.

He was a LUNATIC! No one will do him justice in the next movie whoever the cast to replay him.

A few things worth mentioning:
~Hubby finally called after 22 days,after I emailed him and was like "hey you realize it's been 3 weeks since you called here right?" He loses all track of time over there.. He's miserable,cranky and is thinking of re-classing.
~Did I mention I saw Batman
~I got a new phone and it's the coolest thing ever, now if I can only figure out how to make it work.
~My best friend will be here in exactly 3 weeks
~ My birthday is 3 days after that and we're having an 80s party. If anyones in Hawaii that week and wants to come let me know.
~I saw the coolest giant spider made of Legos ever. I have pics and will post them when I upload my camera.

Otherwise, that's really it.

God Bless the Broken Road

2008-07-17T20:54:00.003-10:00

JFK jr died 9 years ago today.

I know this cause it was the day I got married.
The first time.

People always ask me if I had to do it all over again, would I do it?
Absolutely. It put me on the path that lead me here.

I met my first husband the summer of '96 about one month after my current hub and I broke up. (It seems like ages ago).

My BFF at the time was harassing me to go down the shore(that's the boardwalk for all you non-Jersey folks). It was a sunday night, raining and basically a lame night to go anywhere... but she just wouldn't stop so I agreed to go. We tried to go to a bar in one town but it was closed... so we decided to go to Seaside Hghts, stroll the boards and find a bar.

There was NO ONE around. When I say no one I mean there were like 10 people in the bar we were at and maybe 5 idiots(like ourselves) walking the boardwalk in the rain. Think a shore town in November.. that was it. Off to the side was this dude in a booth, working one of those put a quarter down(remember when games were a quarter), spin the wheel, win a prize booths. The dude sees us and yells at the top of his lungs.."Hey girls come on over.. I've got BIG BALLS!" The prize at the booth were those stupid giant balls.

My prize was..... a stupid giant husband. Yup I married the "big balls" guy.

My first sign that I knew I was in for a rough ride was that I had on my sorority letters and he told me he was in a sorority in college. When I asked him which one.. he said Alcoholics annonymous. I thought what a loser and actually walked away. Always stick with your first instinct. Later on that night... I was being harrassed by this annoying drunk guy.... and I turn around and there was the big ball dude. He totally saved me from the drunk guy.. after talking for a while he didn't seem half bad.

We started dating. In the process of dating.. I learned.. the boardwalk was his only job, he failed out of college, he didn't have a car , was a hippie pothead that was basically living on the couch of whatever friend would let him stay there and was a little bit of a liar. I had my life together.. this was not my plan to take care of some bum. We dated about 6 months.... but I had had enough. I told him that he had no motivation, wasn't going anywhere and I didn't see a future for us at this point in time. When he got his life together give me a call we'll see what happens.

It was during this break.. that I had bumped back into the hub and we starting talking again. Nothing serious but made that initial .. hey let's keep in touch kinda thing. He had started dating someone else so friends was all it was.

That's when I get the call from the dude. It was a voicemail actually.
It basically went something like this.." Hey it's me... everything you said was true and I decided to pull my life together. I enlisted in the Marine Corps I leave in 3 weeks." He wanted to see me before he left. I totally thought he was lying and it was all an act.

Turns out... he wasn't lying. When I saw him.. he had dropped like 15 pounds had cut his hair and the whole nine. (I turned a hippie pothead into a Marine, go me,lol). I told him I'd write him totally intending on just humoring him but I figured I'd be nice. Needless to say we wrote each other back the whole time and ended up back together. After that he got his orders.

They were to here... Hawaii.

After a year of long distance dating we got engaged. Everyone was surprised ,thought we were a terrible match ,my parents really disliked the dude and his me. That year I spent planning a wedding.A big Italian wedding.... with a lot of people. A wedding that as the year progressed I wasn't even sure I wanted anymore. I used to convince myself it was a phase, that all soon to be brides go through it, that it was just that he was far away. My mom used to tell me that I could stop it at anytime, she would rather me happy, it was only money. As it got closer, it got worse. If I decided to stop my wedding ..it was like standing in front of a steam roller coming at you full speed. I wasn't ready for that. I told myself once we were married and were able to be together.... it would be different.

The day of my wedding. I cried... all morning. In the car on my way to get my hair put in this veil.. and I couldn't stop. I get to the hair place and the girl who does my hair took one look at me and tells me to sit down, brings me coffee and is trying to calm me down. That's when I remember hearing about JFKs plane on the radio. I pulled myself together and got through my hair appointment.. once I was back in the car... the crying started again. I was going through with it.. no matter what. I could always get divorced I told myself.... probably not the best way to think. I get home , the bridesmaids arrive, we do all the pics, get in the limo, go to the church.

The music starts.. Everyone's in ..the bridemaids, the guests our parents... the dude is at the alter. It's time. Just as my entrance music is about to start, it's just me and my dad at the back of the church.

He looks at me, takes a step back to the church door that opens to the street, opens the door and says....

This is your last chance, the limos right there if you want to go.

I was floored. It was like he was trying to save me. The sad part was, I thought about it.. til the music started then down the aisle we went.

That was it.. we were mr and mrs dude marine. Off to Hawaii I went. He had a little less then 2 years left when I got here. Of those 20 months (pre-OIF) I spent 14 of them here by myself. It was a rough time at first. It took a while but I got into the swing of things. I got a job... met some of the most amazing people in my entire life, that I am still friends with and most of them are still here now. I became a strong independent person that learned to deal with things on her own cause there was no one here to help me.... yet things with the hubby didn't get better.

Shortly after I got here, I had found out through the grapevine that the hub had enlisted in the Army, had finished AIT and was headed to Colorado. He was a volunteer EMT back home and wasn't sure what he wanted to do with his life but loved that. He went in to see the Navy recruiter and I can never remember what happened but on his way out the Army recruiter stopped him. The rest is a career.

The dude was getting towards the end of his enlistment and he decided he didn't want to re-enlist. (You can never take the hippie out of the Marine) Our marriage was getting worse, his drinking got worse, I eventually stopped going out with him and his friends. Babysitting a bunch of drunk Marines isn't what I signed up for. I hoped that getting back to NJ would make a difference.

Right as we were leaving here, the hub got new orders to Hawaii. He had heard that I was here had sent me an email asking questions about the island.. yada yada etc. I told him that I was headed back to NJ but if he had any questions before he got there I'd be glad to help him out.

Getting back to NJ didn't help. It made things worse. The hub fell back in with his old group of friends, continued to drink heavily and wouldn't get a job. We were living rent free in my dads summer house and I was working so he figured I could pay all the bills and he could do want he wanted. After 3 months of that, I threatened to leave. ... he got a job that worked on commission. The only problem was he never sold anything. So even though he was working, taking clients out to lunch on my dime.. he wasn't making any money.

Without all the details it was bad. I was in a bad place, I got really depressed and was angry all the time, never went out, my best friends had even started to see a change in my normally happy demeaner. There was a crashed car, 2 maxed out credit cards and then the final straw.

One night we got into a huge fight... he was drunk and all I wanted to do was leave. One thing lead to another and my arm ended up going through the pane in the glass door. He was so drunk that he new he was going to get in trouble he didn't even want to call 911. Needless to say 230am.. the ambulance, the police and a rush to the hospital was my final straw. I was too ashamed to tell anyone so I laid in the emergency room bed all by myself, next to some girl with a police guard cause she had try to OD. Seven stitches and 5 hours later my hub showed up to get me after the police had let him go. We took a cab home.

When people ask me about my scar I tell them I got in a fight with a window and lost.

We had to continue to live together for another 2 month....even after all that I still felt bad cuz he had no place to go. I couldn't leave cuz my transfer hadn't gone through yet.. the commute from my parents house to Atlantic city every day wouldn't have been worth it.We were basically2 individuals living our own lives under one roofs. It was difficult.

During this time the hub and I started emailing more.. I didn't really give him the details at that point ,he just knew my marriage was done. He was in Hawaii and dating someone and I was in NJ with a broken relationship... us as a couple didn't even cross my radar at this point.

Finallly October 2002 I moved out... that was it. It was over.

In our 3 years together as mr dude and wife.... when it was good it was amazing, but when it was bad it was terrible. I'm not saying he was completely to blame in our problems.I definitely had my issues and flaws.. I could give as good as I got.. but someone can only give/take so much.

Sorry didn't mean for this to be so long but I started writing and just couldn't stop. I guess tomorrow I'll do the happy part.

"God Bless the broken road.. that led me straight to you"~ Rascall Flatts.

Generation Kill part 1

2008-07-15T22:19:00.005-10:00

The first part of Generation Kill just finished on HBO.

Ooh Rah!

I'm a sucker for a good miniseries.

I read Generation Kill about 3 years ago... shortly after the hubby got back from Iraq the first time. I loved that book so much I even blogged about it way back in my Myspace blogging days. (That's how I figured out EXACTLY when I read it,lol.)

Now I am totally hooked on the mini-series and it's only been an hour.
I can't wait til next week!

I totally want to go back and re-read the book.....only hubby took it to Iraq with him.

That book is gonna be so sandstormed, I'll never get it back.

Now I'm thinking of getting back in to the whole military iraq war reading list again.
I've already read " The Gift of Valor" and "One Bullet Away"

Anyone have any suggestions....?????

Untitled

2008-07-10T11:13:00.002-10:00

I can write this now because the info was finally posted on the news.

So I had my first official "OMG you could really die over there" freak out yesterday. We're at the half way point and I'm really surprised I haven't done that sooner.

The hub emailed me the other night to tell me one of his friends was killed. The guy was out the wire and the vechicle hit a IED. He was a fellow medic and had actually helped the Hub move into our housing from the barracks before I got here.

I had never met him.. but medics are a crazy close nit bunch that see the worst and deal with the worst of the worst. They are all still in kind of shock and disbelief.

The first deployment.. hubby and I weren't officially a couple again yet but it was because he was over there that we basically really reconnected and got back together. He had a semi close call and was skimmed with some schrapnel right below his eye and has a small scar.. nothing serious but close enough.

So far this deployment.. we've been really lucky(knock on wood) where what he is doing he doesn't really go out the wire much. He went once because they were short a medic and they needed someone who knew what they were doing and knew would have their back. They asked my hubby. Of course he went.. but didn't tell me til after he got back(good idea).

When I first read the email it was like 3am.. I had waken up for some reason and when I wake up in the middle of the night I also check my email to see if he wrote. I guess at 3am it didn't really sink in.

It wasn't til I was awake and driving in the car on my way to work that it really hit me

Now I know it's bad to think the negative and think "what if" but I couldn't stop myself.. I totally opened the floodgate. When ASM2's boyfriend was killed it didn't effect me like this. I guess cause he was in a different unit and it somehow seemed not so close to home. I felt bad and felt extremely sad for her.

However, this was his unit. This was his friend. He could've been in that Stryker. That could've been him. It really is that random with just the luck of the draw. I started crying in the car, thinking all these terrible things about what my life would be like if he was gone from it. I almost had to pull over. I know it's taboo and I try not to think about it but I just couldn't help myself. All day I was a mess.

I got home and emailed the hub . I told him everything above , how I freaked out in the car, how much i loved him and the whole nine. I'm sure that was an email he needed right at that moment.

Not more than 10 minutes later I get a text message to my phone with one of those little urgent flags that said..

"I love you too, don't worry"

My hubby.. man of many words.
Hopefully he'll call soon.

RIP~Spec. William McMillan III
You will be missed- gone but never forgotten.

3 Doors Down!

2008-07-06T21:27:00.004-10:00

My life has been really uneventful this past week.
It's been all work and no play makes me a lame chic.LOL

Last night that changed.

Every July the Marine Corps base throws this huge event called Bayfest. It's basically a 3 day long carnival. Rides, food, etc.... but the BIG draw is always the concerts. Each night is a different show. 3 nights- 2 rock 1 country or vice versa.

This year it was- Rodney Atkins/Little Big Town; 3 Doors Down; Everclear/Live.

I found out 3 Doors Down was coming in March and have been stoked ever since. I love them and every time they've come to Jersey I've been there. Due to my schedule I could only go one day.. so I bet you can guess which day that was.

So 2 of my friends and I headed out to the base for a little kid free night out.

Once you get on a Marine base... there's one thing that you always notice.

MARINES ARE HOT!!!!!
(Yes I say that knowing my hubby will read this)

They always look so nice and squared away in their uniforms.
They make the best eye candy ever.
(Next to you honey.......Love you)
So anyways.LOL

We had a blast... we walked around.
I had a deep friend twinkie, forced my friends to try it,lol.
It was dam good.( When I saw the sign all I could think about was Trying's post about the twinkie and had to get one,lol.)
I ate so much junk.. it was like I was on the Jersey boardwalk.

We ended up about 25/50 feet from the stage. They rocked. It was packed.
Thank goodness it was outside otherwise forget it.
I screamed my head off and left there with no voice.
They played all the staples, I bought a tee shirt and I wish they would've played longer.

.... but here's the thing about 3DD.

They are truly a military supporting band. I can't tell you how many times Brett came to the end of the stage and thanked everyone for their service. Thanked the spouses. Dedicated songs out to the crowd and what not.

They really are not just a great band... but a great bunch of guys.

I am a fan for life.

Oh and one more thing....

Bye Bye Neighbors

2008-06-26T21:21:00.003-10:00

Another set gone.. I think?

My next door neighbors,the young couple that just moved in in Decemeber, apparently split up and the wife took their baby and went back home.

I work too much I didn't even realize.

She's 22, he's 21, their daughter is 9 months old, they've been married a little over a year, he basically just got out of AIT, this is their first duty station .. and he'll be deploying to Iraq for the first time in the fall.

*C* went back home right around the time hubby left to go back from R&R. She was gone for about 3 weeks and came back the end of May. I hadn't really seen her much. Today I saw she was online on her Myspace. I sent her a message saying I hadn't seen her in a while, I was going to pricebusters and if she wanted to come.

She messaged me back.. in a nutshell... *J* freaked out and said that he was getting annoyed with her, he hated her and didn't want to be with her anymore. So friday she packed up their 9 month old daughter and left. Hence why I hadn't seen her.

Apparently, she thinks that the fact he's deploying to Iraq in a few months freaked him out and this is how he handled it. She said this isn't the first time he's did this and didn't seem too phased by this.

Trust me, I'm the last person to judge anyones marriage, but I'm kinda on the fence about this. Part of me thinks that if this is something he does all the time and it's a phase, now that they have a kid, wouldn't she stick it out, opposed to just bailing? Then part of me thinks...why'd she put up with his shit for so long? Am I wrong for thinking this way?

Either way,I feel bad and it sucks....

I dread getting new neighbors. Sigh.

PS~ Lars and the Real Girl. Worth the watch...Very different. I cried at the end and couldn't believe why I was actually crying.

Dog the Bounty Hunter

2008-06-24T22:09:00.002-10:00

Dog was in the mall yesterday.

We were working and my sales associate goes "hey it's dog". I'm like ..cool.
He goes... no not A dog.. THE Dog.lol

Sure enough there he was.. long hair and all. He looks just like he did on TV only not chasing a criminal. Then this couple with a baby stopped him. He shook the guys hand and took a picture with them.

I thought that was a really cool gesture.

Otherwise this week has been boring. Hectic with work training the new girl.. but otherwise that's it.

Right now I'm watching "Lars and the Real Girl"... kinda weird kinda good. I'll have to get back to you when it's over.

Lastly, my friends and I are throwing a "Passion Party" this weekend... I'm sure I'll definitely have something to blog about with that,LOL.

A Blogger Meeting.

2008-06-17T21:45:00.002-10:00

I had my first blogger meet today!

I guess I'm not as anonomous as I was... but I'm ok with that.

After much time playing meeting tag.. I officially met Wendy from Wendy's Tiki Hut today. She lives super close to me and it took months for our schedules to coordinate.

We met over at Burger King.. I recognized her immediately when she walked in. It was strange, I felt like I had known her for a long time even though that was the first time we were meeting. She brought me a little dashboard hula girl and made me a Hawaiian music cd which I thought was super sweet of her.

We chatted, then the kids all played on the giant jungle gym at BK. Punkin climbed up into the thing and I went up after her. I never felt so big in my life( I hit my head twice) and I was surprised no one came in at yelled at me to get out of the jungle gym.

Then we walked over to the Firestone which is across the street from the BK. They have the official Firestone/Budweiser Indy Race car there in the lot. You were able to get in and have your picture taken in the car FOR FREE (so rare these days). We all did that.. it was super fun. I totally though the MPs were going to realize I was sitting in a race car and give me a ticket because I LOOKED like I was going to fast,LOL. Maybe Wendy will post her pics.

We had a good time, Wendy is awesome and her kids are great. Sydney took great care wheeling the punkin around in her stroller. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up again soon.

It's good to have a cool new friend.

My Day With the TV

2008-06-15T21:41:00.002-10:00

I sat down to write this blog and walked away from the computer to watch the original cast of RENT sing "Seasons of Love" on TV.. but I'll get back to that.

Do you ever flip channels and come across one of those movies that no matter what... you have to stop???? You see it's on and immediately get a smile on your face and brings you back to a great time in your life.

This morning Reality Bites was on. It came out in 1994

~right in the middle of my Seattle "grunge" phase,where I wore nothing but flannels for like a whole year and listen to Pearl Jam "Ten" til the cd warped
~my music taste was starting to really rock and was a DJ at the college radio station.
~I had just pledged my Sorority in college
~that was the summer I met my best friend
~I had just turned 20
~where I was finally coming into my own and being ok with who I was.
It was one of the best times of my life. It seemed like forever ago but seems like just yesterday. I will forever have a place in my heart for that movie and for "Singles".. and will always smile (Sidenote:the soundtracks are just as good as the movies, I own both of each)

Am I the only one that has a movie like that?

Then "Charlotte's Web" was on. The life action remake. I wanted the punkin to be as excited about it as I was... but she wasn't. I cried like the big sap I am, but I cry EVERYTIME I watch that movie... since I was 7. I actually own the cartoon version. I don't remember crying when I read the book but I guess I was too little.

Then we took a break to get out of the house. We went to the PX where I spent no money but just wanted to get out of the house cuz the day was so nice. Since punkin can't go in the sun.. it was the only place I could think of (other than the mall) to go. After that we went to the commissary where I got a basket and should've gotten a cart cuz it's hard to carry a heavy basket and push a stroller.LOL.

Then Army Wives. I am addicted to this show... yet somethings are SOOOO far fetched I get super disgusted. Then the stuff that it so true comes on that it pulls at your heart strings. First off Roxy gets on my nerves.. being new to the Army wife life doesn't make it acceptable to do the stupid shit that she does. She gets away with things that in real life.. you could NEVER get away with. As one of my friends once said" I hate the way they dumb her down". You wanna see true life... let us bloggers write an episode. My other complaint is ... When does the General and the Generals' wife ever become friends with enlited like they all are.... much less gather around for Sunday dinner. I wouldn't know the General's wife if she bite me in the PX. Are you kidding me?

Lastly the Tony Awards was on. I grew up in NY.. and moved to Jersey when I was 12. My mom worked in the city her whole life until shortly after 9/11. It was a ferry ride across the river into NYC where the whole world seemed so big to me. I grew up going to Broadway shows and became one of those theatre freaks in high school. That's one of the things about living here I miss, being able to go to the city and see a play whenever I wanted. I watch the Tony's as my little piece of culture from home. RENT is one of my fave shows. I've seen it like 4 times... once with the complete Original cast... even the Movie didn't have the COMPLETE original cast. To see them all on tv made me happy, and made me wish I was home. My mom takes all my discount ticket offers I get sent to my old house and goes to see the shows using my discount. I'm so jealous of her.

I spent too much time in front of the tv today.

Don't hate me cause I cut you in line.

2008-06-15T21:27:00.004-10:00

Ok so today i did almost nothing.

Friday I had to take the punkin to doctor. She had another skin infection. I thought about taking a picture and posting it but it was just too gross.

I call central appts at 0630. I get an appt at 0940.

I get to the Peds clinic..the waiting room is full. There's someone at the counter checking in with the receptionist. The nurse that is always there see's me standing there and goes hey everything ok. She looks over the counter to say hi to the punkin.

I explain she has a skin infection on her belly and then the PA comes out and goes "Hey (my daughters name) " Then goes.. you know what don't worry about waiting just come on back.

Oh the looks I got.

I don't know if it is a good thing or bad thing that the people at the peds clinic know you by name or not. I guess kinda both.

Needless to say... they put her on antibiotic. Her skin is 100% better now.. but the anitbiotic she is taking she's supposed to stay out of the sun. Which really stunk.. cuz I was invited to go hang out with some friends at the beach cabin they rented for the weekend. No use in going if the punkin can't go in the sun.

Saturday we just stayed in the house and went for a walk once the sun went down.

It was a nice relaxing day

R.I.P Tim Russert

2008-06-13T12:09:00.003-10:00

As a avid watcher of Meet the Press.
I am so sad that Tim Russert has died.
He was one of the only News men that I thought wasn't totally full of crap.

RIP Tim..... the News World will not be the same without you.

Some notice would've been nice.

2008-06-11T20:35:00.002-10:00

This morning I got up at 5:50, went to the bathroom, turned on the water in the shower.....

THERE WAS NO WATER.

SIGH.

I've never lived it a place where the Army so randomly decides to SHUT OFF YOUR WATER for shits and giggles with no notice and at the most inconvenient times.

This happens all the time here...it never happened on the Marine base.... and it would NEVER happen in my hometown. All the rich people would call the mayor and complain.

I usually shower the night before when I have to open.. it saves me time in the morning and I get to sleep. Last night I was super tired so I said forget it.. I'll just shower in the morning. Hindsight is 20/20

This is my problem with this... GIVE ME SOME NOTICE. Everytime other streets lose water .. they get nice little signs saying " Water shut off:date: 8a-2p"

My street...NOOOOOOOO of course not. no sign and they have to do it at the crack of dawn in the morning.

I'd rather have no power than no water.

Thank goodness I always keep bottled water around for this occassion. I got done what I needed to, packed up the baby and headed off to work.

After a long day of work, I picked up the kid and headed home. I open the front door and hear this whooooshing sound.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?

I head toward the bathroom and its getting louder. I step into the batroom expecting to be ankle deep in water because my dumbass LEFT THE FAUCET ON.

I don't know exactly what time the water came back on but the water had been running in my tub since it did.

Thank goodness the drain wasn't clogged is all I have to say.

Layout.. whadup!!!

2008-06-10T20:50:00.002-10:00

I'm honor of the 4th o July new layout.
Whatcha think.

courtesy of:

What to do with myself?

2008-06-10T20:23:00.004-10:00

I know it's only tuesday but this weekend.

I HAVE THE WHOLE WEEKEND OFF!

This never happens. I kinda don't even know what to do with myself. I actually like working weekends and having my weekdays off.

Strange I know, but having my weekdays off... the world is a less crowded place. Everyone has to work so most places are empty. It's usually only Moms and strollers. I fall into that catagory so I'm ok with that. Weekends everythings crowded, I hate crowded.

A couple of my friends rented a cabin at the beach for the weekend ( I know that sounds strange because I live in Hawaii) and invited me to go.. so I might take them up on that offer.

Things have been really boring lately. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I had inventory Sunday night... we got out at 4am. They trapped us in the mall parking lot. Eventually I found a way out and made a wrong turn and ended up in Waikiki at 430am. I was so annoyed with myself I usually have a good sense of direction. I'm chalking it up to tiredness and lots of brain activity. I got home at 5:02 am.

We hired me an ASM today.. she starts next week. YAY!

I am totally looking forward to seeing 3 Doors Down July 5 at Bayfest.

I am super duper uber-excited about that.

I bought new Converse sneakers today. My old pair were so beat up they looked like they shouldve been owned by an 8th grade boy. I got some funky shoelaces to go with them. I'm a youngin at heart.

I've been a little homesick this week but otherwise that's been really it.

Sex and the City

2008-06-05T22:07:00.002-10:00

Go.. Run to your theater and watch it.

Saturday night was Parents Nights Out..so we were kid free.
The girls and I went out to see the Sex and the City movie.

It was awesome. There was only 2 of us that actually had watched the series but everyone enjoyed it. It was nice to go to a movie.

The last time I went to a movie Hubby was home on R&R.

Otherwise this week has been pretty uneventful.

I started to interview new ASMs to replace ASM2.
She finally moved back to Oregon.... I'm going to miss her.
So if anyone wants a job.... let me know.. I'm a cool boss.. I swear,lol.

Lastly... today we hit the 6 month mark.

I so wish that was the half way point.... this sucks.

I can't believe he has been gone that long.

I guess it was because he was just here.

Ok.. enough is enough already.

2008-05-30T23:42:00.004-10:00

I got pulled over last night.... Again...by the MPS... Again.

I get up(on an average day) between anywhere where from 5:45-8am. If I open I 'm out of the house by 7 and don't get home til around 7pm. If I close...I'm still up super early.. I leave my house by 12:15 the latest and usually don't get home til about 11:30pm/midnight.

My days are long.

Yesterday I closed... suprisingly the store wasn't trashed so we got out decently early. Now it takes me about a 1/2 hour to get up this end... then I have to go on base.. pick up my kid from the sitter then get back off base and drive out to my housing. I go through the gate usually between 1030-midnight every night. This is the shift they give all the boot Mps. Everytime I've been pulled over it has been some yut yut private who needs to me to be his guinea pig on how to give a warning, right a ticket etc. Yesterday was no different.

I'm so tired of these boot Mps harassing me because they get a shitty shift.... and I'm one of the few cars that come through the gate that they can bother.

Last night I'm on the road into housing. I don't speed on this road.. the Mps are always there so I know better. I see this car coming at me ,as it passes me, I see it's an MP...it decides to turn around.

Ok weird.... then his lights go on. Then a second MP.
Then the punkin wakes up.

I was not speeding.. I'll be the first to admit it if I was but I wasn't.. not last night.

SO i pull over and get all my info stuff and am half way out the window waiting for the cop.
This is 11:09

AS he gets to the window.. I'm like.. I don't understand I wasn't speeding.
~I clocked you doing 44.
NO way... I never speed up this road.. I know you guys always sit here so there was no way I was speeding.
~You were.. I have you locked in at 44. (he was so like neener neener neener I got you)
I go~ Whatever. do what you have to do.

I'm like super pisst, first off there is no way I was speeding and secondly..how could he clock me going 44 when he was driving at me in the other direction. .. but whatever.

He starts walking back to his car and towards the other MP when I stick my head out the window

" Hey could you at least turn your spotlights off, I have a 19 month old in the back seat who WAS asleep when you pulled me over. So could you be alittle considerate for her sake." I'm so tired of them all thinking their shit doesn't stink.

They look at each other and when they get in the car they turn the spotlights and flashing lights off. Score for me.

So I wait for them to come back and issue my ticket. ... and wait and wait and wait. I waited so long.. first I shut my lights off.. then I shut my car off.

At 11:41 They finally come back to the car. I sat there on the side of the road with the baby in the back.. awake... for over a half hour. What? Did they make the paper to write the ticket on.

So he gets to the car and tells me he is issuing me a ticket.
I go Whatever.. it doesn't matter.
He then continues -you're getting a ticket for your registration being expired.

HOLD ON! My registration is not expired.
~ Yes ma'am it is.. it says here 2008.
At this point I'm like.. It's not . I have the right one in here somewhere. I turn the lights on open the glove compartment and proceed to go through everything in my glove box. once, twice.. 3 times.
I say to the MP... I know it's here I just paid $157 to get this stupid car registered.
He goes yes ma'am that's this one you gave me but it's 2008.

I take the registration back from him and look at it.. Then i look up at him and read him the little paragraph above where it says 2008.

"This registration is valid until the last day of February 2009." (yup folks 2009)
I show him the little 2009 # and look at the other MP . The other MP has that oh shit look.
The boot takes the thing from me.

As he looks at it, everything that has just transpired gets to me, it's been a super long day and I'm so tired..........I completely break down in tears.

Like beyond break down, to the point where I am almost hyper-ventilating in the front seat.
At this point the MPs don't know what to do.. they look at each other, walk to the back of the car and start talking on their little walkie things. I hear them reading my license plate # into the walkie .. but I'm still crying and don't really care.

Finally they come back over... and the boot is like~ are you ok ma'am.
I'm still crying- Yea, I'm fine.

We'll ok.. here's your info back. We're just going to let you go, just slow down next time.
OK- I put everything on my carseat and continue to cry. He goes back to his car

The punkin must've thought I was crazy.

I finally compose myself enough to put my stuff away and I apparently in my watersoaked eyes I misplace my insurance card. SO now once again I am going through everything to find the stupid insurance card. I'm about to give up and go home.. the Boot is at my window again.

You ok ma'am.
Yea, I just can't find my insurance card.
He hands it to me through the window.
He had it the whole time~Thanx.
~I'm sorry about the confusion with your Registration ma'am.
It's fine.
~We're gonna block traffic so you can get on the road.. whenever you're ready.
(It's midnight... block what traffic)
Thanx.

I get myself together and start to drive home. The one follows me all the way through the gate and almost to my house. I guess he wanted to make sure I didn't crash the car with the baby in it since I was so upset.

I finally pull into the driveway .. It's midnight.
I just sit in the car and cry.
My kid must've totally thought I was insane.

After I stopped crying....
All I could think was.. thank goodness I didn't get a ticket on base.
Hubby would've killed me.

Celebrating life.

2008-05-25T22:04:00.002-10:00

Today is the one day that we are supposed to remember the dead that fought for our country. Personally they should get more than one day... but every day is a Memorial to those who get left behind.

I know there are tens of thousands of servicemen and women that were killed.. but there are 2 specifically that I want to mention in this blog.

The first is Army Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg
I didn't know this man... no one I know knew this man but here is the story of why I mention him.

When the war first started my mom became obsessed with the Casualties page at CNN.com. She's always read the obituary page in the newspaper, so the fact that she did this never shocked me. She would look at all the pictures and google their names, read all about them in their home town paper.

That day in Sept 2003, she stumbled across Trevor's picture. She started to google. There was something about this young soldier's death that pulled at her heartstrings. She said part of it was that he was so young . The other was she couldn't believe that he had been in Iraq only 3 days before he was killed. 3 days... that's it.

She had a bracelet made for Trevor.. she never wore it and it sat on the dresser for a while before I said.."Aren't you ever gonna wear it?" She said no she just wanted to honor his death. That day I put it on and wore it for a long time, honoring some young soldier that I had never met.

The second is Army Sgt. Gary D. Willett aka Calvin
This was ASM2 boyfriend.

Calvin was a kick ass dude... I had met him on only a few occasions but he was always entertaining and funny. Him and ASM were an eclectic couple... and loved each other so much. She was crushed by his death yet still kept up a good attitude and spoke of him still everyday. I am so sorry for her loss.

I truly wish I would've gotten to know him better and wish even more that he hadn't of died.

Trevor and Calvin...you will forever be in our hearts.
You may be gone but you will never been forgotten.

Jack in the box... so good so bad.

2008-05-24T20:04:00.002-10:00

So i ate one of those Jack in the box Bacon BBq sirlion burgers today. As soon as I was done I totally thought I was going to puck.. and I had completely clogged an artery.

I had to toss my fries... I was bummed. I love Jack in the Crack fries.
(I did put my shake in the freezer for later though).

I've decided not to really play complete catch up with my life at this point.. I'm just gonna take it from here.

I do wanna show 2 pics.
One is my attempt at making a baseball cake for Sports themed Parents night out. It's a devil's food ice cream cake that I layered myself. I'm getting good at this baking thing.

The other is the pic of my mother's day flowers that arrived without incident. I think they are scared of me now. I'd be scared of me if I was them. LOL

I've been in a really bad funk the past few weeks... I hadn't really wanted to write. I really haven't had anything positive to say. Lonliness totally set in after the hubby left and we've spoken like 3 times. All his emails were basically him asking for things. I seriously considered packing up the punkin and I, quiting my job and heading back to Jersey.

Then I thought I was pregnant which made me really depressed. It's not that I don't want to have a baby, but the thought of being here alone, pregnant, with the punkin ,working and then actually having the baby here alone since he wouldn't be back in time. I was a complete mess. Thankfully, for now, we are back on the ORIGINAL schedule for baby #2.

Needless to say...I'm not a quitter and I'm feeling better. No drugs needed,lol.

I pitched a fit and am getting better emails. Then the other day season 1 and 2 of Friday Night Lights showed up via Amazon.com.

My best friend and my parents have booked their trips to come visit. *D* in August for my birthday (the big 34) and the folks in September. That will totally break up the upcoming months til the hub gets home.

Then yesterday was the best kicker ever. The president of our company came yesterday to visit. I'd never met her before and she is one KICK ASS chic. She stayed for like an hour.. we did the chit chat thing and talked about business.. then she left. About an hour later my boss calls and tells me Pres was super impressed with me, my team, the store .. the whole kit and caboodle.

VALIDATION! All my hard work isn't in vain.

Last night I rented "P.S. I Love you" on PPV. OMG I cried like a little girl through the whole movie. It was so good. I recommend for everyone who hasn't seen it.

Finally I feel like things are falling back into place.
(I should be back consistently on the blog radar again...hopefully)

Let's play catch up... part 1

2008-05-13T19:21:00.003-10:00

So things have been all sorts of crazy around here since the hubby left.
This is a long one.. so grab a cuppa coffee, some cake and pull up a chair.
Don't worry I'll break it up in parts if you wanna take a break,LOL.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are past the 5 months down mark and under the 300 days left mark.
I guess that's good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Last Saturday the Food Network was having a Wedding cake food challenge marathon. I decided I can do that and I want to start a career making wedding cakes.

Now if I could only figure out how to make that fondent stuff... I'm good.
(I'm sure this is just a phase)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I once again had issues with 1800-flowers.

Hub sent me flowers again. The girl walks up the walkway with the arrangement thats not mine. Before she can even get to the door I'm like "Those aren't my flowers, I'm supposed to get 2 dozen roses." She goes back to the car and gets the right flowers but there are no balloons. She says she'll check on it when she gets back to base. I get inside and open the card and it was some dude name Rick. My husband is not named Rick. I go outside and catch her before she gets in the car, she takes the card and goes "Is your husband's name Drew?"

Oy vey.

Needless to say, I never got the right card and called 1800-flowers. They credited the balloons.
This was my..."sorry I had to go back to Iraq bouquet".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then I found out the President of the company is coming to my store, so that's just a wee bit stressful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(This is the LONG part)

Last Tuesday when I picked up the punkin from the sitters house, she felt really hot. Not super hot to worry about but a little on the warm side. I get home give her some children's tylenol and put her to sleep.

At about 130am she wakes up crying. I pick her up and she's burning hot, I get the ear thermometer and stick it in her ear. For some reason it's on celcius, I don't know how to read that and can't figure out how to change it back ... but the thing has one of those sad faces... so I know that's not good. I go online and try to find a conversion table but everything I find is in French so that doesn't help me. I call my house in Jersey. It's 630 am I know everyones awake.

My stepdad answers the phone.." You're up early?" I tell him the situation, he goes online and pulls up a chart. Turns out she's running a 103 degree fever. At this point I start freaking out, am getting dressed and debating whether or not to take her to the hospital. My mom gets on the phone and talks me down from the ledge. I give punkin more tylenol and try keep her cool. Mom says wait a little while see if the tylenol helps.

It does, her temp drops a little and she falls back to sleep. Needless to say I barely sleep, keep checking her and basically am waiting til 630 when central appts open so I can take her to the doctor. I call get an appt and we are off to the Docs for 9am.

Everyone in there knows her because of when she had her leg cut open and they call her "the warrior". It's very entertaining. The doc guy comes out and calls her name, realizes its her and goes "It's my little warrior". I love the peds clinic here.

He takes her temp. 102.7. Does the rest of the basics and puts us in a room. The doc comes in and gives her an exam, punkin's being her normal happy self like she's not even sick. Doc can't find anything wrong with her except the fever. She says... there's definitely something manifesting, it looks like she's got Roseola.

(Rosie-what?)

Apparently it's a childhood virus that is a few days of a very high fever that abrutly stops and then your kid will break out in a red non-itchy rash from head to toe. She said it's common so not to worry, make sure she drinking and stays hydrated. That day she was fine... she slept alot but all in all was ok.

The next day still the high fever and I couldn't get her to eat or drink anything. (I partially think she was doing it for spite cuz she knew it was freaking me out) I tried everything, different juices, water, different sippy cups, bottles. She's not peeing and hasn't pooped in days, mostly just wants to sleep. Finally by about 4pm, I start crying convinced she's going to dehydrate. I call my mom...... again.

She says don't panic. Take her for a walk in the stroller with some juice, maybe she'll drink while she's out for the walk.... no dice.

I call her again. She tells me go to the store and buy ice pops. The coolness will be good and since they are basically frozen juice, that'll help too. I do. She eats one ice pop. I felt a little better. Mom calls me back and asked if it worked. I said yes... but I'm still freaked out.

Hubby calls... I had emailed him after the first doc appt so he wanted to see how she was doing. I tell him everything and she's not drinking. So at this point he plays backseat Medic.. telling me to try this and that. I completely lose it.

"Yes, I tried that and that and that. I even tried smashing up ice cubes and giving her ice chips. I've tried everything.. trust me. So don't tell me what to do.. it's not like your here to help me or anything"

OOps.. Probably not the best thing to say to someone in Iraq. I could tell right after I said it, he was none to pleased.

"Ya know hone, it's not like I choose to be here"
Needless to say I felt terribly. I apologized and he knew I was stressed. He told me to keep him posted.

Thursday morning I call out of work and I go back to the docs. She has a low grade fever, but still not eating, drinking, etc. Punkin doesn't do much, just lay on my shoulder this trip. The doc looks in her mouth apparently she has a virus that has caused swollen gums. It's the 3rd case this week the doc had seen. Which is prolly the reason why she hadn't been eating or drinking, cuz it just hurts too much... she said.

I had never heard of that, neither had my mom or my mom in law.

The doc says she's not dehydrated and it's normal to be sleepy when your sick... keep trying to give her drinks, the ice pops especially cause her mouth.. if the fever doesn't break or she continues to not drink by saturday bring her in to the ACC. As long as she's still having wet diapers.. that's a good sign.

We go home, she lays down and takes a long nap. She wakes up about 3 hours later... no fever.. and drinks a whole sippy of juice. Just like that.... it's over. She still won't eat but we are back to the drinking!

Friday she starts eating again.

Saturday morning.. she breaks out in the rash.....by Sunday night the rash is gone and the whole thing is over. She's perfectly fine.

Happy Mother's Day to me!

(Part 2 tomorrow.)

Yay for us!

2008-05-09T10:03:00.002-10:00

It's about time we get some appreciation!
There's been a lot going on this week so I'll blog more later.

Life is a Highway.....

2008-05-03T20:29:00.002-10:00

and mine cost me 147 bux.

That's how much my speeding ticket cost me.

Now I'm from Jersey... so I like to drive fast. I have driving in my blood.. my grandpa was a NYC cab driver when he was younger and my Dad used to race cars... so let's just say I'm a bit of a speed demon.

The speed limit is ridiculously low here (55, I didn't know people were still allowed to drive 55 anymore) and they have minimum/maximum speeds. There is definitely something wrong with a place where they have minimum speeds.. but I digress.

I was cruising in my car on my way to work... like I mentioned before I drive fast.

sidenote* I never drive in the left lane. It's a little speed racer trick my Dad taught me when I was learning to drive. Always drive in the middle or right lane, it makes you look like you are going slower than you really are. Also, I don't speed with the baby in the car.*

I've been a little distracted since the hubby left. .. I didn't realize that I was still in the left lane when all of a sudden there was the little motorcycle cop with the radar right on me.

He knew I was busted ........I knew I was busted.

I pulled over infront of him.... he got on his motorcycle and drove all 50 feet to my car, and walked over to the window with the Radar gun in hand. It said 73.. but I knew that already cause I looked at my BIG BRIGHT DIGITAL numbers on my dash as soon as I saw him.

"Do you know how fast you were going?"

" I didn't even realize I was going that fast, totally my fault"

I had nothing, I couldn't think of anything whitty to say, I just shrugged.
In hindsight maybe I could've offered him a donut or something.

He was a nice though, he looked surprised that I wasn't gonna pitch a fit.
So there's $147 down the drain.

That is the first speeding ticket that I wasn't able to get out of in all my years of driving.

Note to self: remember no driving in left lane

R&R.. is almost over.

2008-04-24T21:36:00.002-10:00

So it's been a while. How ya'll doin?
Don't worry next week I'll be back in full force.

Hubby's R&R is winding down. It's been a great mini vacation.

We got a lot of things accomplished that I definitely couldn't have done on my own.

It's going to be very weird getting re-adjusted to non- hubby life for the next year. It was so nice having him around.. and I'm going to miss him so badly. He put one of those little countdown things on the computer with the days left.

300 plus days suck.

Punkin also got really accustomed to him being around. I know the first few days she is going to be super confused and wander around the house looking for him. It's going to be so sad.

Last night, our babysitter kept the Punkin overnight and hubby and I got one night alone down in Waikiki. We splurged and stayed at the Moana Surfrider, it's one of the oldest Hotels in town and completely remodeled.

In my years of life I've learned to work the system. I called the reservation # at beginning of the week to make the reservation, I booked the cheapest deal I could find. Even the cheap rooms at this hotel are super nice.

Tuesday night at about 10pm I called the hotel directly (it's always best to call late when it's not busy at the front desk). I got some very nice lady on the phone and explained that my hubby was home for R&R from Iraq and he was leaving to go back shortly. I asked if the hotel wasn't at full capacity was there any way they would be able to upgrade me to a better room. She said that she would do what she could, the hotel was pretty full but she'd put in the request.

Yesterday when we checked in... when the guy was finished and giving us the info .. he told us we'd been upgraded to.......

AN OCEANFRONT ROOM!

(I've tried this numerous times before and 9 times outta 10... it works. If you ever want a great room at a cheap price.. try it. )

The room was amazing, the view was fantastic and we just had a great time. It was nice to have some quality alone time.

Now I just wait for the inevitable.

PS~ I got the support ribbon cake pan. They had it at the PX for only 9 bux.
I so can't wait to make a cake.

Hope it will make me feel less sad.

Just like it always is.

2008-04-14T19:25:00.007-10:00

It's been a week since Hubby got home and it's kinda like he never left... which is a good thing.

He's watching T.O.P. Army fighter on the couch.. I gave it a shot.. it's kinda lame so I figured I'd catch everyone up.

~Monday~
~Monday night I headed over to the Airport to pick him up and his flight was delayed by a half hour. What am I going to do with a little kid in an empty airport for a half hour?

We went to the USO.

I never had been there but I knew where it was, so me and the punkin strolled over. I went in there it was almost like a movie theater. A giant screen tv with like 7 big cushy chairs in front... it was super quiet with the lights out and everyone watching Family guy. Luckily they had a kids room, so I took the punkin and played in there for a little bit to kill time. After about 20 minutes I decided to head over to the baggage claim.

As we strolled over the plane had just landed and people were coming off the plane. I didn't have to wait long.... I was so excited to see him. I felt like a total scene in a movie.. GI (in uniform) comes off plane, big hug and kiss ensue, people stare.
He was like "Don't cry",lol. I didn't I was good.

Punkin was iffy with Daddy.. she was very shy and wouldn't go to him AT ALL.
We got home about 10:30ish.

~Tuesday~
She still wasn't completely comfortable with Daddy yet .. I left her on the bed with him that morning and left the room for like 5 seconds and she completely freaked out. I went to work and dropped the kid off at the babysitters... I figured Hubby would like the sleep.

I was so not in the work frame of mind but I had a HQ visit on thursday so I needed to focus but it was super hard considering work was the last place I wanted to be.

I left early, hubby and I went to commissary and did some grocery shopping. Punkin totally came around that night with Daddy which I was grateful for since she was going to have to stay with him all day Wednesday. Thursday we decided we would have date night.

MPs came about crackhead upstairs again.. her hubby was here and his Chain of Command. I've learned to just keep my windows closed and mind my own business after the last time the MPs were called.

~Wednesday~
I had to work so Hubby had punkin all day. He had some errands to run like get his WAAAYYYY expired jeep registered and inspected. I had to give him a very detailed "baby schedule" list.. he only called a few times that day and was right back in the swing of things. That night he started to get sick.

MPs again today.

~Thursday~
Day of visit. Head honcho from HQ came and visit went super duper well. Loved everything.. I was stoked! I was so excited about date night. I got home and Hubby was like sick and dying on couch. Apparently he had a 24 hour bug lots of puking ensued... I felt so terrible he was so sick. I totally thought he was going to dehydrate and off to Tripler we'd be going.

So no date night.

MPs again today and furniture being moved......hmmmmm?

~Friday~
Last day before vacation. Hubby was feeling better, I worked. He stayed home.
Nothing else.

~Saturday~
First day of vacation., it's so nice to know that for the rest of the time hubby is here I get to spend all of it with him.

That morning we got up early and finally got our taxes done. (Did I mention I'm a slacker?)

Then we went to the PX.

We tried to get my car inspected so no more gate guard problems, but the inspection place was closed. Hubby decided to call the dealer and see what he could do. He dropped the "I'm on leave from Iraq" card and now the dealer is going to look at the car tomorrow and take care of the problem.

Apparently crackhead upstairs FINALLY got kicked out of housing. Her divorce was finally FINAL.. but she was trying to linger as long as possible. So the MPs kept coming to make sure she was really out. YAYAYYAYAYAY!

Her hubby was here to clean out the rest of his stuff. I felt bad for him... he totally got screwed and she made him lose rank because she is such a crackhead.

I just hope the new neighbors are going to be good neighbors.

~Sunday~
The night before was "parents night out" where the base Daycare watches your kids so parents can get a break away. I have 4 amazingly great friends whose hubby's are also deployed so every parent's night out we have girls night. This was the first one I missed.... I think I have a very valid reason.

Sunday morning I open the front door and see a big smiley face balloon floating in the window of my screen. I open the door and see this balloon is tied to a basket with a card inside. I open the card and it's signed "Your jealous friends". Let's just say the basket had a bottle of wine, a pregnancy test and other "themed" goodies. Hubby and I had a big laugh about it... Army wives definitely know how to shop.LOL.

We went to Lowe's and hubby fixed the grill.(He is so useful.) Then we had mini-date night. After baby went to sleep we watched "No country for old men". Movie was kind of a let down but it was great to be able to just veg on the couch with the hub and watch a movie.

~Today~

I had to go to work for an hour today and get my yearly review.

I got a raise! YAY!

Hubby bought a video game.

(He can't play it here his XBOX is in Iraq.. hehe.)

Otherwise that was week one.

It's almost here.

2008-04-07T00:06:00.002-10:00

I can't sleep.....I'm just too excited.

I'll be picking him up in less than 24 hours.

Today was the longest day at work ever and I was completely unmotivated.

Thank goodness I have off tomorrow .. I would be completely useless at work.

Unfortunitely we have a high up from HQ coming to visit this week and I have to work tues, wed, thurs and fri... but then I'm on vacation for 2 weeks. YAY.

I'm gonna try and leave early every day this week and play hooky on friday.

Did I mention I'm excited!!!

It's official!

2008-04-05T22:20:00.003-10:00

He called....

and......

We have a flight number! WOOO HOOOOO

So close to the do not disturb sign going up I can taste it!

I put the "Welcome Home Daddy" sign up in the window yesterday cuz I had no idea whe he was actually was going to show up.

I got home from work today and I was home about an hour when the doorbell rang.

I was so hoping it was gonna be the Hubby surprising me... but it was couple from next door.

The new(not so new anymore) neighbors came over. They saw the sign and offered to watch the punkin for us if we wanted to go out to dinner one night when he finally gets here.

I couldn't believe what a sweet gesture that was.

I like them.. I lucked out, I could've ended up with another crackhead.

I got Tagged.

2008-04-04T20:21:00.004-10:00

So I got tagged by Trying for the MeMe survey.. I'm very honored.
It's my first Tag I'm it!
I am now starting to feel loved in the Blogosphere.

Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves a comment letting them know they've been tagged and to ask them to play along and to read your blog.

So here we go... about me MeMe

I was doing ten years ago:

1. Planning my wedding to my first husband
2. Working at the mall
3. Planning my wedding... that's a lot of work
4. I went to Vegas and Hawaii for vacation.
5.I have no idea what else it was forever ago

5 things on my to-do list today
(tomorrow since today is over)
1. wait for hubby to come home
2. go to jamba juice
3. work
4. commisary
5. continue to straighten the house.

5 snacks I enjoy
1. Dairy queen blizzards
2. Li Hing strawberry belts( you won't know unles you live in hawaii)
3. chocolate pudding
4. broccoli bites from bennigan's
5. dunkin donuts coffee and sugared jelly donut

5 things I would do if I were a billionaire
1. pay off my bills
2. Money for punkins college
3. Pay back my parents some of the money they have generously given me over the years(notice how I said some not all)
4. spend some money of goodies like travel, car, etc
5. If I was that rich I'd donate some to USO and/or the wounded warrior project

5 bad habits
1. I crack my knuckles.
2. I'm too sarcastic for my own good.
3. Like trying I curse alot, I'm from jersey it's expected
4. I spend to much time with my Myspace screen up.
5. I'm messy

5 places I've lived
1. Staten Island, NY
2. Central jersey
3. The sorority house at college
4. The Jersey shore
5. Hawaii ( Twice)

5 jobs I've had
1. The Disney Store
2. Guest Relations Supervisor at a water park( where I met my BFF)
3. Accessory Place- Where I met BFF2 and the hubby
4. Birkenstock shoes- I sold shoes to tourists
5. Current job -where I've been for the past 6 1/2 years.

All right now I have to tag five people and see if they will be so kind as to fill this out with their info and post it on their blog.

My 5 to Tag

1- KJ at Cabin Fever. I love this girl, she's funny and I think she was the very first blog I actually linked to on my page. She's going through very similiar things and always cracks me up.

2- Wendy at Wendy's Tiki Hut. She is here on the island with me, yet we haven't met yet. Hopefully we'll be able to rectify that soon. I love reading about her day to day life.

3-D.A.R at the student and the soldier .I just started reading her blog and she's a great read. She's witty, entertaining, a newlywed and still have time to go to law school. You go girl.

4-JLC at newlywed life... new life. I know nothing about this girl except she left me a comment this morning and she's from jersey. Good enough for me. hehe.

5-Mrs. S Sgt at Married To The Military. She is very open about her life,a great writer . She always has a lot going on in her life and still takes time to updated everyone.

Thanx guys for playing along if you got time go for it... if not. It's all good.

PS Im still waiting for hubby. sigh.

I'm a Big Loser!

2008-04-04T09:30:00.002-10:00

Ok New Kids on the Block are on the Today show.

I was a big stupid loser face fan back in the day.

We camped out for tickets at 5 am in the freezing cold for tickets when I was 15.There was 8 of us.
We took a limo to the concert and I went in a cast with a broken ankle.
(Now that's dedication right there!)

I even wore a Joey Mcintyre pin as flare on my name tag til it "disappeared"
I swear someone took it.

They are getting together and putting out a new record this summer.

The audience is all like 30 year old women screaming at the top of there lungs wearing their old NKOTB merch.

I almost started screaming myself, I was so giddy.
The punkin didn't appreciate them as much as I apparently did.

I realized....

If I was in Jersey.. I totally would've cut life to go see them like I did when I was 15.Is anyone else as excited about this as I am?

Apparently I'm still a big stupid loser face fan.LOL

Best email ever.

2008-04-03T22:12:00.002-10:00

It was short and sweet and it came from the hubby.
All it said was this...

"I'm leaving in 20 minutes"

WOO HOOO HE IS ON HIS WAY!
I won't say when I got that email but let's say he should be home very soon.

I'm completely excited.
It's been a crazy week since I last posted.

I've been so tired and overworked that my boss even told me to come in late one day.
She's a kick ass chic I'm very lucky.

I just tried a test run of Hubby's fave cake and it's cooling. So we'll see how that goes.

The other night I got pulled over by the MPs at 11:25pm with the baby in the car on my way home from work because I had a expired inspection sticker. I am grateful that they didn't give me a ticket and only gave me a warning but the whole thing was just annoying.

I failed inspection because the tint on the car I bought FROM the dealer was too dark, so I failed. I was really annoyed. I haven't had time to either get in re-inspected someplace else or get the tint removed.

I got to the gate they checked my ID. They let me through the gate THEN realized I had a bad sticker. I was already driving away when they BOTH apparently jumped in there cars sped up behind me like i was crack dealer trying to escape.

1- i was doing like 20 miles an hour
2-I'm already on base.. where the hell am I gonna go.

They followed me, and pulled me over accross the street from my driveway. Like literally I could've spit out my window and hit my driveway. They woke up the kid with the flashing blue lights. It took almost 25 minutes for the newbie to learn how to right a warning to me. Basically they were bored, had nothing to do and I was a guinea pig car for the cherry private.

I was super nice cuz I don't want to get the hub in trouble but I did get a good smartass comment in AND made the MPs feel bad.

I gave him all my stuff( license, reg, the failed inspect and insurance) I didn't give him my ID I didn't even think about it. I was really pisst off at this point. After a few minutes he comes back and goes" Ma'am I forgot to ask if you had your Dependent ID with you?"

comment -Um yea, you just checked it, you let me on base didn't you? (Duh)
MP- Oh yea

**blank stare***

So then they come back and the E3 is explaining to the cherry how to write my warning. So I don't know what got said but they were like "just so you know that we gave you a warning , yada yada.. sorry."

I go... no big deal but you did wake up the baby in the with your lights. (She was wide awake at this point). They both got that look like..."oh crap we woke up the baby" I go...Here wanna say hi to her since you woke her up. .. and proceed to role down the back window.

The one MP was like .. uhh hi. She just smiled and made silly baby sound. It was really funny to see their faces.

I rolled up the window .

Then he goes.. Ok we're gonna block traffic so you can get back onto the road.
For a second I though he was being sarcastic since I was the ONLY car out and it was midnight.

But he was serious.

I said ok.. and They watched me drive like 100 feet turn the corner and PULL into my driveway. They hadn't even moved yet.

Oy vey.

Hub said we'll get the car taken care of when he gets back.

BTW Sunday will be the 4 month mark since he left.

I love the UPS man!!

2008-03-28T20:11:00.003-10:00

I had off today, I love days off.

Hubby had text messaged me to tell me a present was coming a few days ago. I asked what it was he typed this:

"....i took the hint from something and something u said in one of your blogs and i got u a present"

He also said he had sent me a card. Today both came, it was like Christmas.

Today was pretty much your normal day off. Punkin is teething again.. her molars are coming in.. so there is snot, drool, coughing, etc everywhere. She is only a little fussy so that makes me happy.

I needed to run some errands... so we went to Walmart. They had a bunch of little girls clothes on sale so I bought her a bunch of shorts and tees. I bought a pair of shoes,lol. My main reason to go there was to get a picture frame and to see if they had that cool cake pan. that Trying posted on her blog last week.

My friend "J" had this cool collage picture frame on her wall that she filled with pics of her kids and I thought it was so cool. I thought it'd be nice to have it up and filled on the wall before hubby got home. So I bought the frame, there was no pan.

Next was a trip to Party City to get a few decorations for when hub gets home. They didn't have the pan either.

Punkin and I got home and we were playing in the living room when the doorbell rang. It was UPS with a box.. cool. The box didn't have a company on it so I wasn't sure what it was.. I open it up. Inside was another box.. it still had no label on it and looked like a dvd box. I thought "Sweet! season one of Friday Night Lights."

The card enclosed said this " Hey Sweetie, if you put it in a blog you'll get it, even if you're kidding......."

I opened the box..... it was not Friday Night Lights...... It was this.

I had sent him a pic of it in his St. Patty's card, I NEVER expected he'd actually get it. I just started crying and couldn't stop. Punkin looked at me like I was insane. I sent him an email, I haven't heard back yet.

Everyday he surprises me more and more.

PS- Hey honey. I want to go to DisneyWorld,LOL.

eh, it's wednesday.

2008-03-26T20:55:00.002-10:00

I've been very unmotivated to write... I guess cause I'm tired and nothing great has happened.

Sunday was Easter. Happy belated Easter. It was fun, I baked way too much junk food.. and managed to come home ONLY with a chocolate pudding pie. (YAY)It's now in the freezer for when hubby comes home.

He's starting the countdown.. every email includes " -- days til I get home" I'm super excited. My boss even said it was ok to take vacation.

Yesterday my Counting Crows cd came in the mail from hubby. It kicks butt.
I bought the new Panic! At the disco cd. I almost took it out of my cd player and snapped it in half, it was so terrible. Waste of money that was.

The punkin caught a stomach bug and puked for the first time yesterday, she was none to pleased.I felt really sorry for her. My little baby, I feel so bad for her.

Work has been super busy. I'm just tired.

(I just proofread this and as I read it I thought.. wow this post stinks. I'm totally lame this week, LOL)

Little gestures

2008-03-21T19:16:00.003-10:00

I've always been a believer in actions speak louder than words.

You can tell me whatever you want but I don't believe it til I see it.

Yesterday I posted a random bulletin on my Myspace page.
The whole thing went like this:

"Anyone wanna buy me.....(you clicked it open and it showed)

It comes out Tuesday and if you do, I'll love you forevers and evers."

I post random stuff like this all the time. I never expected anyone to buy it for me and it was never meant as a hint in ANY way.

This morning I get a message from the hubby.

" Hey sweetie, im buying u the new counting crows cd, it should be there on the 25th in the afternoon, at least i hope it should....."

I almost started crying. Hubby never buys me much, not because he doesn't want to, he always just says he never knows what to buy me. The fact that he went through the effort from half way around the world, meant more then you could imagine.

It's the little gestures like that, that make me love him more and more everyday.

Next I'm gonna post a bulletin about how I want a new diamond for my engagement ring. (just kidding)

Sorry .. one more post. It's quick.

2008-03-19T22:13:00.003-10:00

I'm watching the news.

Does anyone else throw stuff at the TV when the president is on?

**Sigh**

The thing that lives in my kitchen.

2008-03-19T20:22:00.004-10:00

I have a gecko that lives in my kitchen..... I named him Fred.
(more on Fred later)

Now the start of my rant......

The mall has been ridiculous. There is apparently a choir competition on the island this week. They are here from all over the country. The kids have invaded. They come in packs. PACKS. I kid you not, like 15/20 kids at a time.

Working at the mall was one of the reasons why I used to NEVER want kids. My daughter will never go to the mall if she has no money. If you're a teen and have no shopping agenda...Don't come, just stay home cause 9 times outta 10 you're there to steal. Also, it scares me that one day, one of these rocket scientist kids, could be the president. Granted they could probably do way better than the current one, but that's my opinion. I love my kid... but I hate mallrats.

The past few days have been very hectic at work.
So Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone.

>>>>rant done

Today I tried to get the punkin's picture taken with the Easter bunny.

After how she totally had a canary at Santa Clause I figured I'd try. My housing development had the annual easter egg hunt/easter bunny event today. I figured it was free so if she didn't go to the bunny, no harm no foul.

I'm also making an effort to know my new (non-crackhead) neighbors more. They have a 6 month old. The wife doesn't work, they just got here and I don't think she knows many people so I figured what the heck. What's the worse that could happen, she could say no, then whatever.

I saw her car was in the driveway so I rang the door. she answered. "Hey I was going to take punkin down to see the Easter bunny at the park, I was wondering if you were bored, did you want to come." She said sure. We put the kids in the stroller and walked over.

She's pretty cool. Her hubby is a medic too. YAY... instant bond. I like her. She is way younger than me. Around here, who isn't. I'm the old lady on the block.
Hopefully we'll get to hang out more. We'll see.

Needless to say, we got there. As soon as she SAW the bunny, Punkin freaked out, screaming ,tears the whole she-bang. I never even got to hand her off to the Bunny.

Maybe next year,lol.

Now about Fred. I like Fred, he doesn't bother me. He used to live on the outside of my kitchen window when he was a baby but now he found a way inside. (Honestly they could be 2 seperate guys but I like to think he liked me enough to hang out)

Today................He scared the poop outta me

If you've ever lived here (or haven't), geckos are all over the place. They are little lizards just like on the Geico commercial. They are cute little boogers, don't bother anyone and eat your bugs. They do make a very strange sound, so you know they are around and are super fast.

The one today was hiding on the side of the microwave. When I went to move a cup it shot up the wall, took off and up behind the cabinet.

FREAKED ME OUT!
but then I was like.. whatever.

Lastly, Some good news.. they bumped hubby's leave up again. He should be home somewhere within the next month for R&R. I'm not giving any Geraldo type info but he'll be home super soon. He is very excited and so am I. He even told me he sent me a card. I guess my bitching paid off. lol

PS~ Do you dig my little MEEZ anime thing or what?LOL

"Quick honey.. go to the computer!"

2008-03-14T00:01:00.002-10:00

Hubby and the roomates were all sitting around watching Jarhead the other night.

Ever since he's been having "Deer Hunter movie" paranoia.
He's called twice since then... today he went above and beyond.

If you haven't seen Jarhead.. this dude gets a video from his wife labeled "The Deer Hunter" When he pops the tape in, it's his wife and some dude going at it. Then she tells him to F off if I remember correctly.

So yesterday he calls super early and wakes me and the punkin up. He's all like what's up.
Nothing I was sleeping. ~Alone? he asks. ~No punkin's here too. ~Just her. ~ Yes, just her.
~Are you sure? ~ NO the boyfriend's here too, he's sleeping on your pillow. ~You better not have anybody else sleeping on my pillow, I'll kill him.~ Yes. I'm aware. You've told me.

Apparently..because of the movie. He had it is his head that I now have a boyfriend and he stays over . He has even given his made up boyfriend for me a name... Chris. (I don't even know a Chris). He thought "Chris" was going to answer my phone this morning.

Guys are stupid.

This morning he calls again. I was already awake.
"Quick honey.. go to the computer"

Ummm ok. so I go over and the webcam light is on.
" I see you.. I did it"
He hacked my computer and turned on the webcam. He was so proud of himself.
I asked if he did it to spy on me. Ummm no.....He laughed.

My hubby the computer guru... I told him I was unplugging the webcam.

Another day.

2008-03-12T23:58:00.003-10:00

ASM2 came back to work monday.

For these who just started reading.
ASM2's fiancee was killed with 3 other soldiers in Iraq Feb 8 by an IED.
Read blog here: 2 days
She's been in relatively good spirits considering. She's so strong. I don't even want to imagine what she is going through.

*Warning. morbidness ahead*

She was gone about 3 weeks. "C" told ASM2 that if he should die, he wanted Slipknot to be played at his funeral. Slipknot and David Bowie. He got both. She said it was very strange to have a coffin with just a suit. She's having a hard time adjusting to the fact that there wasn't a body. Nothing physical for her to touch for there to be some sort of closure. She knows he's not coming back it was just hard she said.

She got to meet his ex-wife and son for the first time. She said it sucked she didn't meet them sooner cuz they were awesome. Her mom and brother flew down from Oregon to go to the funeral with her.

She also said his parents were super great to her. They let her keep his ashes, they just wanted his medals and army stuff. She took them on the plane with her. (I thought was very weird cuz you can't take jack on a plane.. but apparently you can take someones ashes.)

Did you know you can have ashes mixed with tattoo ink?.. well you can.
She's having some of his ashes mixed.. this way he'll always be with her.
Very romantic in very goth kind of way.(She's very eccentric)

Today they were supposed to come to the apartment to inventory all his stuff to ship home. She's decided she's not going to say here, she's going to move back home in a few months. There's nothing left for her here now she says.

The whole thing is just so sad.

New Release Tuesday!

2008-03-11T23:40:00.003-10:00

Well ok today is another installment.

Nothing good came out today....only the re-release of Alkaline Trio's- Dammit.

So here is the music question of the day?

You are stranded on a deserted island with no Ipod just 5 cds.. what 5 cds and why?

My choices~
Counting Crows~August and Everything After.
~My favorite band and one of the most amazing records ever recorded.
Staind~Dysfunction
~For when I'm angry that I'm stuck on a deserted island.
Miranda Lambert~Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
~She's a little bit country, little bit rock-n-roll
Welcome to the Family~ A Drive-thru records compalation.
~Sometimes you need a little Emo/Punk in your life
Johnny Cash~ 25 greatest.
~It's Johnny Cash. 'nuff said.

OK your turn!

2 cool contests!

2008-03-09T20:18:00.002-10:00

I thought these were cool. Good luck everyone! Hope some of us can win.

Search is on for favorite military mom
By Karen Jowers - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 5, 2008 16:32:31 EST

A military mom you know could be America’s Favorite Mom, to be crowned on an NBC special airing on Mother’s Day, May 11.

“Military moms” could be serving overseas in uniform, holding down the homefront fort for deployed spouses, or troops’ own mothers.Nominations are being accepted through April 30. Videos, photos and essay testimonials can be uploaded to the show’s Web site. Once nominated, moms can win thousands of dollars in online prizes and sweepstakes.“Military moms” is one of five categories in the competition.

The others are single moms, working moms, stay-at-home moms and unconventional moms.Thousands already have been nominated, and anyone can vote for the nominees online, although there is no way to search specifically for “military mom” entries, or enter that category. Entries will be sorted by category when semi-finalists are chosen.So it might be a good idea to make the military connection and impact clear in your video entry, picture, and essay — if you wish the entry to be considered for that category. Most military moms would qualify for one of the other categories, as well.

The top 15 nominees from the five categories will appear on NBC’s “Today Show” and viewers will vote for their favorite at the end of each show. The winners in each of the five categories will appear on the “America’s Favorite Mom” special, where the winner will be crowned.The panelists who will select the semi-finalists have not been confirmed yet, but the selections will not be based solely on the number of votes received, according to a spokeswoman for sponsor Teleflora; the panelists will consider the quality of submissions as well. Meanwhile, Web team members are monitoring the votes and entries, and are giving out prizes based on the entries.

The winner will have a rose named in her honor, and will receive thousands of dollars in cash and prizes, including an 18-karat gold heart-shaped “America’s Favorite Mom” pendant trimmed in diamonds.USAA, partnering with Telefora to help raise awareness about the contest in the military community, will give the winner a $2,500 cruise gift certificate from Explore Cruise Travel and a free yearlong financial strategies plan.

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ABC’s ‘Extreme Makeover’ seeks an Army family
By Office of the chief of public affairs News Release

ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a show that highlights families and individuals who have extremely emotional and compelling stories by completely rebuilding and remodeling their homes. The show is seeking an Army family for an upcoming episode, and Soldiers across the country who meet the criteria are encouraged to self-nominate.
~To be eligible, a family must own their own single family home and be able to show producers how a makeover will make a difference in their lives.
~A nomination containing the names and ages of all household members, a description of the challenges within the home, and an explanation about why the family is deserving is required.
~ The family should be a positive role model within the community and must send photos of the family and the home, as well as contact information, with the nomination.

All nominations are due by Thursday. Also, for legal reasons, Soldiers must consider gift and endorsement issues. Legal considerations include the following:
•Army personnel must apply to the show on their own.
•If the member selected incurs an illness or injury while on active duty on or after 9/11/01 as a direct result of armed conflict, hazardous service, or in a combat operation or zone, he or she may accept the gift of the make-over, but the appropriate ethics counselor is required to make a written determination.
•If the member selected does not meet the above criteria, the member should treat the transaction as outside employment, rather than acceptance of a gift. In other words, the member allows his or her image and house to be used as the basis for a television show, and the compensation for doing that is the make-over.
•The member may owe taxes on the make-over and may want to consult a tax advisor or legal services.
•The member will be acting in a personal capacity, so may not allow the show to use his or her title, position, organization name or any other government authority to endorse the show, network, etc.

The show may use the member’s rank. The member’s ethics counselor should provide oversight and counseling during this period, and should talk to the show’s liaison to explain Army rules. Soldiers who are interested in applying should contact Lt. Col. Paul Sinor, Entertainment Liaison, Office of the Chief of Public Affairs, Los Angeles Branch, at 310-235-7621 or e-mail james.p.sinor@us.army.mil.

WOO HOOOOO!! (a blog in 4 parts)

2008-03-05T00:15:00.005-10:00

Yay another milestone! 3 months down!

I think I deserve a Cold Stone Creamery Cake.(Not the whole cake just a piece or two).I'm thinking the chocolate chipper one.

Anyone is welcome to join me... after the response I got about the Brownies in the last blog.. if you're here in Hawaii or coming this way I will gladly make you brownies,lol.
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Today I sat around all day and waited for FedEx. They came at 530.

Hubby decided he wanted to order a new cel phone.. so he sent it here. He really didn't need a new cel phone.. considering he can't use it. He wanted it for leave. It's amazing what you can order from Iraq.

We've never been on the same cel phone plan.. so it always costs money to call each other. I refused to switch to his service.. I hate cingular/ATT whatever they are called now. I've used like every phone service and I'm a verizon fan. Not to mention all my friends and fam back home are Verizon.. so we are all "IN",lol.

He canceled his old service and is now "IN".. I still don't get why he needed the phone right now. He is the worse impulse buyer ever.. he is worse than a woman, I swear.

Now I'm watching the Project Runway finally. I want Christian to win.. cuz his clothes are HOT, he is hysterical and caused my hub to run around going "Asians are fierce" before he left. That coming from a tall blond dude.. is really funny.
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Thanx to peer pressure... I jumped on the word cloud bandwagon. You guys suck,lol.
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Lastly, Thank you to all for your music input.

Everyone had such great taste in music. Some of it I had never heard (mostly the country stuff) and some of it I'm going to look up(mostly the country stuff),lol. There was such a variety of stuff...... I was stoked when Anchored Away had Something Corporate on her playlist they're one of my fave bands and very few people know who they are, Trying had some crazy Courtney "Hole" Love and Lindsay's choice of Sara Bareilles. (If you like Sara check out Kate Voegele.. she's amazing)

Due to the overwhelming response....... New Release Tuesday is a keeper!

New Release Tuesday!!

2008-03-04T00:00:00.009-10:00

I wanna try something new. Hope everyone will audience participate
(If it works, I'll try something like it again next tuesday,lol. )

So as every music fan knows Tuesday is new Record release day.

As I was reading through the blogs Army wife More Than An (Army) Wife: My Top 10 Favorite Songs listed her top 10 favorite songs today which kind of goes in with the whole thing I was planning. (She has good taste.)

So today the new - Flogging Molly - record comes out! (yes honey I will buy it for you and send it to Iraq,lol) I'm not a fan of Flogging Molly, but I'm always on the search for new music to listen to.

I'm currently obsessed with new " - The Spill Canvas - No really, I'm fine"

So the question is.... What cd is in your cd player or what are you listening to in your Ipods right now?

PS~ My brownies turned out kick ass. Everyone should go buy the mix,lol.
PPS~ All my hyperlinks actually worked. I'm stoked!LOL

So yea, I got nothin.

2008-02-29T21:48:00.006-10:00

Before I get to the blogging....
Tomorrow is BFF#1's birthday... and she'll read this so Happy Birthday D. You have been my true Partner in Crime ever since that summer working at the pool almost 15 years ago. You will always share my brain.. even from 5000 miles away. Remember when in doubt... Turn left; Barbara Streisand and Ocean City; and the most rented video of 1996 is.....I know you'll know the answer to this and laugh.
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Monday the punkin got a clean bill of health from the doctor.. that made me happy.

Otherwise that was really it.
This week has been truly uneventful.

I've been in kind of a blah state of mind and have done the stupid crying thing this week for no or stupid reasons.

A bunch of Marines came back this week. They've been around shopping in the mall all week. We give a military discount so whenever I ask for ID ( you can always tell mili guys.. it's the haircut and the stance) .. and I see it's a marine. I ask if they just got back. When they say yes.. I always tell them "Welcome Home" It amazes me how shocked they are by the little gestures of people they don't expect it from. They always smile and say thanks. I wish it was my hubby who just got back. I miss him.

He's been able to call almost every morning this week. Today he called super early forgetting the time. He apologized profusely. I told him no sorry is necessary I'm just glad I get to talk to him. He's getting 18 days leave in April which is super, I won't be able to take that much time off but I'll take what I can. I am getting excited he is going to be home like super soon.

Today I tried the punkins Easter pictures. I decided to pass on the St Patty's pics although they prolly would've come out super cute. She was not cooperating, the outfit was too big and didn't have a bonnet. Not to mention she tore up the "do-nice" egg right after I took the pic.

I went to the PX and bought her a new dress to try again in a few days.

Then I made Ghirardelli fudge brownies.. as a trial run for when hubby comes home.
They are still cooling but they look damn good.

Like I said. I got nothin.

Good News and Bad News

2008-02-25T21:31:00.003-10:00

The good news.................Mr. Medic's R&R was moved to April.

The bad news...................Mr. Medic's R&R was moved to April.

I'm super excited that hubby will be home sooner than initaily planned... November seemed so far away. Except now after April I have nothing to look forward to til deployments done.

Not to mention it screws up the getting knocked up plans.

He was originally taking R&R in November. I had it all set in my head that I was going to be here by myself for a year.. I had gotten used to that idea. Once Novemeber rolled around.. he'd be home for good, not soon after that.

April won't even be the half way mark ,it's barely 4 months. It seems like he just left and now he'll be back already. I've got to readjust to the fact that he's gonna be gone basically a whole year all over again. That makes me sad. It was hard enough for him to leave the first time.

I explained all this to him.. and he totally understands where I'm coming from with it(After he thought it was cause I didn't want to see him... silly) He explained to me that there's so many guys and so many slots and only so much time.

I get it, I really do.. but it just sux. It's kinda just like a big fat tease.. "Hi honey I'm home... but now I'm gonna be gone longer than planned" Am I wrong to think it's unfair?

All that being said... I can't wait to see him. I need a hug =o)

My dirty little secret.

2008-02-24T23:04:00.008-10:00

I am a closet country music fan.

Yes.. i admit it... along with all my New Kids on the Block records... I dig me some country.

Don't get me wrong..... I am a total rock chic at heart and if you took one look at me you'd think.... no way that girl has the country music station programmed in her car.

WRONG>>>WRONG>>> OH SO WRONG,LOL

I actually used to hate country with a passion... but thanx to my stepdad, Taylor Swift and my unborn child at the time.. i blame them.

While I was on maternity leave I discovered that MTV really doesn't play videos anymore.. and you really only can watch reruns of all the real worlds, CSIs and Law and Orders so many times before you want to scream. CMT and GAC are truly the only channels that actually PLAY videos.

My stepdad grew up in this little dink coal/farm town right outside Pittsburgh somewhere. I call it Greentown.. cuz whenever I see pics of it.. everythings always green. He grew up on country so at my parents.. the country music channel is always on. So before punkin was born and I was home every afternoon we'd watch "bad country videos" as I used to call them. Only after a while they weren't so bad.... then that "Tim Mcgraw" video/song came on and I was hooked. When the punkin was born.. she would sleep to the country channel

Mr.Medic ( my new name for the hub) was not impressed with my sudden country obsession. lol

So last night when Bowling for Soup and Montgomery Gentry played (for free) my rock girl and my country girl killed 2 birds with one stone. My babysitter and her 5 kids and the punkin and myself went on over. We had a kick butt time and cause mr. med is deployed we got to sit in the super cool blue star section right in front on the stage. It was way fun!

Other than Gretchen Wilson at Bayfest last summer(which was hubby's random idea), this was my first show since before the punkin was born. That's over 2 years... and I have seriously been lacking. So here's my next big dilemma.......April 16 "Say Anything" or May 1 "Sugarland"

Who wins.. the rock girl or the country girl...... decisions,decisions?LOL

"Hey , that's a lot of blood for such a little person"

2008-02-23T11:55:00.007-10:00

My punkin had to get her leg lanced on thursday. It very tramatic for both of us.

Prolly more for me.

Punkin is suceptable to skin staph infections.... apparently she gets it from me.

The other day she had one on her inner thigh that was so bad and I couldn't drain she started to run a fever.

Thursday morn at 630.. I woke up to call central appts. to make sure I could get a appointment at peds so I could get it looked at. Score 9am.

I figure maybe some antibiotics would fix it.. she was already taking amoxacillyn for a slight battle of a bad cold.. so I figured they'd change the antibotic and we'd be good.

I get to peds and the doc looks at her leg.

"That's looking really bad, we can change the antibiotic but even if it comes to a head it feels really big I don't think it'll drain as much as we want... we should prolly lance it."

OMG they want to cut my baby open.

Now, I get these things all the time and had 2 lanced. One on the back of my head that my hubby had to rush me to the ER cuz I thought my head was going to explode it hurt so bad. I know what it's like and I know how painful they can be. She was in a lot of pain .

He could tell my worry....he didn't pressure me and asked if I wanted to think about it for a few minutes.

Then he said this"I would be nervous about lancing her too but my only concern is that we are coming into a weekend and if she does get worse you have to take her to the ACC and they don't specialize in this on babies like we do."

OMG....done deal. Doc let's get this done.

So they set up the treatment room... They took my baby and wrapped her in a burrito( which she wiggled out of). It was me ,the doc, a resident, the head nurse and some other chic. It took almost 3 of us to hold her down.

(slight medical graphicness ahead)

They stuck her with like 4 needles to numb her up. Then covered the top with that benzine stuff. She screamed from the second we took her into the room. I swear she was going to hyper-ventalate and go into shock. I just wanted to cry. I wanted hub to be there, mr. medic would have totally been ok .

So finally after they cut her there was so much blood.It seemed like she just kept bleeding.

"That's a lot of blood for a little person"

"it's actually normal.. it's mostly diluted blood with the puss from the infection".. ok made me feel better.

It felt like it took forever and I could only sing "Ten in the bed and the little one said roll over" so many times to a screaming 15 moth old. Finally they were done.. they had to pack it and said there might be a little scar.

I told punkin it's ok her supermodel career was still intact.
The nurse laughed and said to punkin"It's good, you have a mom with a sense of humor"
My kid didn't understand but it made me feel better.

Once it was over and she was all taped up she was fine. The happy little girl she usually is.
I took her back yesterday for the follow up, they pulled the packing and said it looked great.

One more follow-up on monday and we are golden.

Where did I put those keys?

2008-02-20T23:32:00.002-10:00

I didn't put them anywhere.

I left them on the key ring when I pulled the LOCKED front door closed behind me.

CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup I did that today. On my way to work with the punkin in my hands and my car locked.

I do not have a spare key outside... anywhere.

I thought about trying to break in to the house but I figured it'd be to hard to do with the punkin and to difficult to explain if the MPs show up... considering the crackhead incidents upstairs.

I decided to walk to housing.

Thank goodness it's not that far away... but doing it carrying a 30+ pound kid, a purse and in 80 degree heat.... really sucked.

I got there and the chic in the office goes" I'm the only one here and I can't leave, leave your ID and I'll give you the key."

Ok, so I did. I walked back to the house(the punkin is heavy,lol.) opened the door, grabbed my keys and drove over to housing to drop off the key with the A/C full blast.

The weird thing is I had a dream the other night that I did that.

I guess it was my Self-fullfilling prophecy.

Hey I can see you!

2008-02-18T15:27:00.002-10:00

I finally got to see my hub today on the webcam!

After 2 1/2 months it happened and it was an accident.

We got this skype thing.. so we can talk.. but apparently there is something wrong on my end and my mic is all screwed up. I can hear him but he can't hear me.

He talks.. I type. it's very strange.

So we were playing with the thing this morning and I clicked this button and there he was.

Unfortunitely...he couldn't see me or the punkin. Which made him very sad.

He dropped like 20 pounds so far and looked awesome... except for the fact he shaved his head. (I love his hair and now I totally need to start running or something)

I was happy to see him though.

I miss him bunches.

Happy Anniversary to me

2008-02-15T21:32:00.005-10:00

Yes my anniversary is 2 days after Valentine's day.

We didn't get ourselves organized to get all our paperwork in in time to get married on the 14th.. so we waited 2 days later.

The hub and I are celebrating our 2 year (yes only 2) wedding anniversary but we've known each other and dated on and off for 13 years.

It's been 2 long, crazy, twisted, winding roads with lots of bumps, bruises and ex's but the roads finally ended up where they were meant to.

We met at the mall. He was 18, I was 20.

Hub has known my BFF2 almost all his life, they grew up together and live around the corner. They have a very strange love-hate relationship..lol. I was at work with her one night (we weren't BFFs yet) and he came in to visit her. I saw him and thought .. he's really cute. He was hanging out in the store and decided to go to the food court for something... to this day I don't remember.

Being the nice guy he is, he asks" Can I get you anything?"

My response..........."Yea... can I have you?"

The look on his face was priceless.....and that's the how we met story.

Shoot to the day we got married.

We decided lets just do it. so we did.

We were told about this little walk in wedding place. It was in a office building, right next to the courthouse and some judge married people on his lunchbreak from noon -1pm

We couldn't find the building and kept walking up and down the street til we finally asked somebody at the courthouse. We found the building and were the 1st couple in line. My hubby in his cast from his ankle surgery and me in these flipflops that hurt bad but were super cute with sparkles.

We walked in the office.. and stood under this cheesy wicker arch. The judge couldn't remember our names and had to look at the paper when saying our i do's. It was hysterical... but when it was over we were hubby and wife. We don't even have a single picture.

I have just one picture from the week we got married here in Hawaii. It's him and I on the beach in the rain. Him in his ACUs and me in this blue Seaside hghts, NJ hoodie. It's fuzzy and terrible but I still have it in a picture frame on the shelf.

If I had to do it all over again.... I'd do it the same way.

I'd just bring a camera.

Happy Anniversary Baby! I love you.

2 days

2008-02-12T23:43:00.002-10:00

I started at the new store yesterday.

I got up at the crack of dawn.. my commute is almost an hour and a half into downtown cuz I live out in east jabip and the traffic sux. I drop the kid off at the sitters and head to work. Surprising it wasn't as bad as I remembered it being.

I get there at just about 830.. I don't have keys yet so I have to wait a few minutes before my asst mgr(ASM#1) get to the store and lets me in.He gets there we go inside and do typical morning stuff. We run through the refresher of where everything is, and how everything is set up and what not.

So we are each counting out the drawers and he looks up at me.. very non-shalant.. "did you here about ASM#2?"

No what happened.

Her boyfriend was killed in Iraq this weekend.

OH MY GOD ARE YOU KIDDING?

I wouldn't kid about something like that.

Just like that.... blindsided.

I wrote the beginning of the blog this way to show how your typical normal day can absolutely just turn with just a few short words. My heart sank and almost started crying. I can't even explain the sadness I feel for her or how sad I am. I've been crying on and off for 2 days now.

Nothing at that point we could do seemed enough. We ordered her flowers and got her a card.. but really what can you do but be supportive.

That was yesterday.

Today she came to work... and worked. She said she didn't want to stay home that being in their apartment by herself it would drive her crazy. She talked alot about him, how she had found out from his parents, because since they weren't married they contacted them first. All about how she was going to miss him, how pissed off she was. How they were never going to see Scotland together like they had planned and how she wasn't going to miss when he wiped his boogers on her to annoy her. She hates boogers.lol. They had been together over 2 years and were planning on getting married after he was to come back from Iraq.

There was alot of laughing today, happy memories that she needed and wanted to share. In appropriate jokes about the whole situation as part of the copeing mechanism. I've known her about a year and she is a strong chic.. probably one of the strongest women I know. I had met her man on a few occasions and he was a funny, entertaining, and a very cool dude.

Before we left I asked her if it was ok if I blogged about her.

She said " OK... but make sure you explain how amazing he was when you do it"

I think she just said it best.

Onward and Upward.

2008-02-10T20:16:00.000-10:00

"Hey sweetie, after reading ur blog i realize im an asshole."

Wow, I didn't even think he actually READ my blog.lol.
Needless to say after i read the whole email from him I cried for like a half hour this morning before the punkin woke up. I'm feeling better now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So I got promoted ......tomorrow I start at my new store.

I've been with my company for almost 7 years... I've been in retail a long time. Probabaly longer than a large chunk of my customers have been alive,lol.

I was luckily enough to be able to transfer out here to that store as an asst mgr.(i had to take a demotion) with my company, after the hub and I got married, so I was able to keep my job. Then transfered/promoted into another store as soon as it became available.

Now the chance to take this promotion and be a store manager of a super high volume mall and a giant tourist trap. I was kind of skeptical at first, but decided to go for it.

My last day at my old store was very bittersweet. I am going to miss them all so much. They are a super cool bunch of people and am lucky to have met them all. I'm glad I had them to get me through this first year back here.

Also the old mall.. most of the customer base of the are Marines.. so I will definitely miss the Eye candy. ( i can type that.. I tell hubby all the time about the eye candy.lol)

As for tomorrow.... I'm super excited, nervous and ridiculously freaked out. I've never run this busy of a store before and I really don't want to fall flat on my face. Wish me luck!

Now............................. I just have to learn Japanese.

Bleh.

2008-02-08T21:42:00.000-10:00

I'm completely having one of those weeks.

I must be PMSing.

The hubby hasn't called in over a week and I'm kind of annoyed. He's been emailing that's why I'm not totally pisst yet. I'm just feeling underappreciated, I guess. I'm sending boxes and cards, taking care of the house, the kid and working full time. I haven't gotten a single card/letter or anything since the flower fiasco (which I had to take care of myself).. I know he goes the PX on a regular basis( I see the charges on the account,lol) A card would be nice just some kind of hey hon.. your doing a great job. 2 seconds it's not rocket science. Apparently everyone else has gotten to see their hub or boyfriend at least once on the webcam.. but no not me. I feel like I'm being selfish wanting just a little appreciation.

Monday it costs me $157 to register my car... for one year. I went through all the trouble to get the non- mili resident form and dependents don't qualify. The little fact the the car is in MY name and not his , screwed me. Thanx for telling me that BEFORE I went to DMV and BEFORE I tracked down that stupid USELESS FORM. Now I wouldn't mind paying that much to register my car.. but the roads here are shit. They have holes and bumps, it's like the slalom on land. I think they should reinberse ME for blowing my tire on crappy roads

Wednesday Punkin had to get her 15 month shots. She does shots surprising well. They stick her, she screams .. they go " here have a blue's clues sticker" then she stops.

Today~ no one can drive here. They suck and the traffic sucks. There was a huge traffic jam on the highway this morning. HUGE it was like all backed up and everything.. you'd think there was a turned over truck or something. It was 2 cars pulled our on the side of the road. Just sitting there..not bothering anybody. Why does everyone have to be so nosy.,... JUST DRIVE DAMMIT! The traffics bad enough without stopping for nothin.

then tonight..i'll never order from Target.com. I am now boycotting them. They false advertise... because books, cds and dvds for order from Target aren't from target. They are from Amazon.com. So when you get emails from target.com saying stuffs on sale it's really not. GRRRRR>

Thank goodness the week's over and I have the next 2 days off.

Sigh.....I wish a blue's clues stickers made be feel better.

2 months down!!

2008-02-05T23:48:00.000-10:00

YAY>>> WOOO HOOOO!!!!

This month wasn't so bad.

Nothing as hectic as month one.

It's going by pretty fast.

My valentine present came.. it was an ipod shuffle. It's what I wanted so no complaints. He even picked my a really cool color.

Well, I'm off to watch One Tree Hill.

Honey.... you need man friend.

2008-02-03T21:12:00.000-10:00

Yes ... those were the words that came out of my mom's mouth on the way to the Airport.

I swear if I was drinking something it would've shot out my nose in disbelief.

WHAT??!!! Umm... I don't think hub would appreciate that.

No honey.. not THAT kind of a friend.. but a man friend to help you with stuff.

Ok.... you go tell hub that it was your idea to get me a "man friend" He'll love that.

Well then................ a gay man friend, so hub won't have to worry..

What kind of stuff is a gay man friend gonna help me with mom..

Like when you need something fixed.. like the baby gate.

(We bought a baby gate and it was a pain in the ass to install so I freaked out and kicked the gate. It went crashing onto the kitchen floor. )

I fixed the baby gate mom.... and you're tell me a gay man is gonna be able to install a baby gate better then me.

She thought about it for a second.... yea your right. you don't need a man friend.

That's what I thought

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Also, I'd like to say....THE NY GIANTS KICK ASS.... SUPERBOWL CHAMPS BABY!!!!

I'm still a believer Eli is a hack but they won so I complain not.

I taped the game to...just to watch the commercials.
Did anyone have any faves?

Back from the Break

2008-01-30T22:29:00.000-10:00

My mom and I decided to stay downtown Waikiki for a few days in a hotel.
Taking the punkin out of her routine is stressful....... FOR ME

I sent the hub an email before I left telling him I was going. It basically said that I know you hate to talk to me on the phone and since you dont call and only email I guess I wont hear from you til I get back.

I got a 2 word reply... which I got today... it said.... "NOT FUNNY
Apparently he hates to email me too

I'm being bitter today.

Anyways, we stayed downtown. It poured here for the last 2 days almost non-stop. Everytime we tried to go out it rained.

The hotel we stayed at is under MAJOR renovation but when I called I was told that all the guest rooms were finished and brand spankin new and the restaurants were still open. We've stayed there before and it's right next to the military hotel/parking lot so basically that was the reason we picked it.......

Cheap parking!

Monday we got there about 415pm. It was raining. The initial plan was to go walk over to the mili hotel and eat dinner. We nixed that idea cuz we didn't want to take punkin out in the rain. So we ate in the hotel.. then went up to the room and went to sleep at like 9:30.

930 bedtime for me... thats pathetic.

Tuesday we get up and its raining. Hubby called (yes he actually called)and I miss the call cuz I'm in the shower and mom didn't here the phone ring. .. Yes my day is off to a pissy start.

First we were going to go walk to breakfast but it was raining. So we ate in the hotel.. again.. at the SAME restaurant we ate at the night before. Then we decide to go to Ala Moana mall shopping.

We go upstairs.. get the baby packed, stroller, diaper bag, food.. all that baby stuff. Then head downstairs. We get downstairs and its pouring,(Now the parking lot is almost directly diagonal from the hotel .. not far, but far enough with a baby in the stroller in the rain.) so we wait in the lobby for a few minutes and finally it lightens up.

We decide to make a break for it...and head for the car.. We get all the way over there and I don't have my car keys. I look everyehere. my pockets, the diaperbag , my purse. I don't have them. I decide to book to the room and get the keys, it'll be easier then all three of us trekking back to the hotel and then back to the parking lot.

I leave my mom, the punkin in her stroller and a blanket.. and head upstairs. It's still lightly raining so I'm not too worried. I get to the room and my keys are on the corner of the bed. Apparently in loading the punkin.. I put them down and never picked them back up.

I get back downstairs.. I make decent time but apparently while I'm up there it rained again. I get back and my mom is soaked and the punkin is dry. She had taken the blanket and herself and made like an umbrealla. I felt bad.... but she didn't want to change.

We went to the mall ... she bought an umbrella.

It was pouring when we left for dinner.

We went to dinner with the only 2 friends I can hang out with at the coolest little restaurant ever called La Mariana(shameless plug,lol). It's the last of the old Hawaii tiki bars left here. It's way off the beaten path and if you don't know where it is you'll never find it. There was like 10 people in the whole place and they have this amazing piano player who is blind. We ate and the punkin danced to the piano. My mom loved it, she can't wait to take my stepdad there when they come out next time.

It was pouring after dinner.(i'm sick of rain)

We got back up to the room.. and as we were settling in. Hubby called back.

I called you this morning., you didnt answer, were you with your boyfriend.
Yes.. me, the boyfriend,my mom and the punkin. They both love him.
He's a Marine.

NOT FUNNY.. he says. (hehe.. smartass question, smartass answer.)

We talk for about 2 more seconds (Typical) then ... hey I gotta go. love you. love you back.

Then I went to bed. I'm home today.

It's a sad day when your home is more relaxing than your vacation.

The MPs Again? geez.

2008-01-27T19:53:00.000-10:00

The crackhead upstairs was at it again.......sort of.

So my mom is here and she is staying with me. It's nice to have some company other than the punkin in the house.

Friday night we are sitting on the couch and there is all this raucous outside. My mom is like.. what's going on out there, is it always like this.

I tell her yes.. the girl upstairs is a crackhead. I proceed to tell her the whole story about her.

(For all your newcomers.. she was cheating on her hubby while he was in Iraq and got busted. Now they are getting divorced but she's allowed to live upstairs while random dudes come in and out, and he's in the barracks or wherever they banished him to. )
She says.. that's not fair. I agreed with her but welcome to housing.

I digress, I look out the window and see 2 dudes carrying a couch down the stairs and load it into the back of a pickup.

I think... SCORE! Crackhead's finally out!

I don't bother to look out the window again but hear them continue to move stuff out for the next few hours......then it stops.

I wish...... I never looked out that window.

Somewhere about 10:45 my doorbell rings. I think it's the crackhead, so I look out the window low and behold...

MPS!!!!................................Crap! I open the door.

The Mps ask me if I had heard any noise or disturbance. I say yea, but that's nothing new. Then they ask did I see anything. I told them 2 guys took out a couch and loaded into a pick up.

They looked at each other with that.. she knows something look.

Turns out.. that wasn't crackhead. Crackhead's hubby or hubby's friends snuck into the house while she was gone and took all her/his shit. Apparently he has a restraining order and can't come in or near the house. They wanted to see if I could identify anyone.

I told them I couldn't .....I just saw the back of the dudes heads and they were in ACUs. That's all I got.

They said thanx.. we'll be back we got to get a statement. Great, I know how this works.. I'll be up all night waiting for them. An hour later an actual HPD officer comes to the door.. asks if I could idenitfy the hubby. I said no I couldn't ID anyone.. I only saw the backs of people.

Then he was gone..I went to bed.

Like 20 minutes later my mom was like.. I think your doorbell rang.
Oh well... I said and pulled the covers over my head.

The next day I saw the crackhead taking out the garbage and she didn't say anything to me.

Just how I like it.

Maybe she'll really move now.

YAY MOMMY!

2008-01-24T22:37:00.000-10:00

MY mom flew in today and I started vacation.

So the next 10 days for me is gonna pretty much ROCK!

That's all I got for today, LOL.

Coke, Kodak and Pink Sheets

2008-01-22T21:26:00.000-10:00

Today... some positive stuff.

I love free stuff. I love coca-cola. I love Kodak gallery. Put those 3 things together I get very happy.

Coke rewards points gets me free stuff from Kodak gallery.

So far I sent the hubby a free mousepad with the pic of the punkin on it( he's afraid to use it he doesn't want to screw it up) and turned her into a bunch of free stickers.

If you drink a lot of Coke products. TOTALLY worth it!

***********************************
Hubby called and I asked him if he liked our new sheets. "What new sheets"
Those pretty pink and red polka dot ones behind the punkin in her pictures, I say.

He was none too happy with the color and said they could stay til he got home. He said I could do whatever I wanted ......til he got home.

"Whatever I wanted?"

He told me... "No Marines...now don't be a smartass". LOL.

I Love my Hubby.

Hello Ma'am ... This is Sgt. "Smith"

2008-01-21T22:56:00.000-10:00

Let me start by saying.. my hubby is fine.

The past few days I hadn't heard from hubby.. but he called the other night. He was sorry he hadn't called cuz they were in Blackout.

The Brigade had sustained the first casualtie.

He didn't go into much detail... he didn't know the soldier, he was in a different unit and didn't know any details. That was all that was said about it. We talked for a little longer then he had to go.

The next day I got a call on my voicemail " Hello Mrs. **, this is sgt " smith". Just wanted to touch base and see how you are, Just give me a call back I have some updates". It was late by the time I got my voicemail and hubby had already told me what was up ..so I figured I'd call her back tomorrow.

I called her this morning..she wanted to update my info. She wanted my correct address.

All I could think was... They want to make sure they have the right address in case I get a knock. ( I told hubby this when he called me at work tonight and he said " Yup that's pretty much why").

It reminded me of when he was doing his class A's for inspection before he left . I didn't understand why.. he said " In case I die, they have to make sure they are burial ready"

Wow... that was morbid... but it was true.

After she got my address.. then she says" Also, I don't know if you've been watching the news, but there were a few injuries and we had our first casualtie. It was no one from "unit" though."

That was it. So matter of fact.....like, oh by the way.. just an update.

When I got home from work... They had reported it on the 10 pm news. His name, age hometown.

I've been told there's a phone call when they are hurt and a knock when... well everyone knows what the knock is. I pray to god every day that I don't get either one of those.

I can't even imagine what that would be like ..........so I won't.

My deepest condolences goes out to his family and friends.

I don't really know how to end this one....

Valentine Pics and Friday Night Lights

2008-01-18T21:02:00.000-10:00

I watch Friday Night Lights every friday.

The hub and I started watching it together this season... he DVRs it when I have to work late and we watch it together when I get home. It's our little tradition.

I miss him. A LOT.

Even now that he's gone I still watch it, I feel closer to him for some reason when I do.... it makes me happy and sad at the same time.

He finally called the other day... we talked for 20 minutes. Things were normal, nothing exciting. I bitched that he wasn't responding to emails and about something else and he's been responding ever since.

Lastly, I tried to take pics of the punkin today for Valentine's Day. I dressed her up in her Valentine's outfit and used my pink and red polka sheet as a backdrop and tried to get all creative. I gave her one of the roses from my bouquet. I made her a sign to hold that says " Miss U Daddy" ... she even had a little hat.

Let's just say I got more pics of her walking off the sheet then anything else. She was not the most cooperative punkin in the patch.

I got a few good pics and I'm using one for the Valentine's message so I'm Happy with what I got.

Sidebar

2008-01-16T21:40:00.000-10:00

WOO HOO!

I figured out how to link to other pages.

I deserve a cookie.

I hope you guys don't mind that I added you.. if you do just lemme know I'll take ya down.
I'm sure I'll be adding more soon.

Nicoholas Sparks and Flowers(yes again)

2008-01-16T20:31:00.000-10:00

First Nicholas Sparks...

I finished my book. I cried... then got annoyed.. and then went... figures.

I love Nicholas Sparks his books are amazing.. and I'm totally a fan.

"Dear John " totally worth the read, was great, boy meets girl, boy and girl fall in love, boy goes to war........without giving away anything..... it ended the way it should have but .. I was slightly disappointed.

For those who have read it... he better be planning a sequel... that's my own opinion,lol.

If anyone wants to start reading Nicholas Sparks.. the 3 books to start with are definitely: A Walk to Remember; Night in Rodanthe; and The notebook. I'm sure everyone has SEEN " The Notebook" but read it. You'll love it on a whole new level.

Now for the flowers:

Hubby got a $15.00 off coupon in the mail today off his next flower order because they are " sorry your experience with us was less than satisfactory"

Sweet! Valentine's day and our anniversary are 2 days apart.. here's to DOUBLE FLOWERS.LOL

Lastly,
I just wanted to show how great these STILL look.
I guess it does pay to complain.
(FYI they came from the Hickam flower shop.. for all you Hawaii girls)

Finally a playdate!

2008-01-14T19:55:00.000-10:00

So this morning I slept in til 9am. It was so nice.

Last night I had inventory so the punkin stayed at the sitter. I got up this morning took a nice shower where i didn't have to worry about the kid, vacuumed the rug cuz punkin is PETRIFIED of the vacuum (screaming , shaking and hyperventalating type reaction insues ) so it's best to not do it when she's around and drove the hub's jeep.

Now driving the hub's jeep may not sound like a big deal but I was told.." You need to drive my Jeep, if it sits there too long the transmission will go and it won't start. Just start it every few weeks and drive it around the block ok"

I'm not a jeep person, I hate it and I don't like driving with the punkin in the jeep I think it's unsafe..So it's been a little over a month and I haven't started it til today

SO I figured it'd be a good morning to do it.....I went outside, stuck the key in , turned....

It didn't start... it just clicked.

CRAP... he's gonna kill me.

So I sat in the jeep and just kept turning the key over and over and over...... and over... and over.....

and it started! So i drove it around the block, parked it back in the driveway and got in my honda and went to pick up the punkin.

So today we had a playdate with my old babysitter and her kid. He's 2 months older than the punkin so it was going to be fun.

Now this is my first official playdate... I don't know a whole bunch of people here with kids. Since I'm the boss, I'm not permitted to associate with anyone I work with outside of work (company Policy). I work, so I really dont have much time to do mommy and me and almost the hubbys whole unit are girls. Most are super young, kinda annoying and a specific garden tool, so I perfer to not associate with them.

Punkin and "P" had a great time. They played and laughed and shared. Punkin tried to give him hugs and he tried to walk away and shake her off. It was very funny. I think this is going to be a reoccuring thing now, which is good.

On the way home I stopped at Wendy's drive thru for dinner... got me a cheeseburger and punkin some chicken nuggets. I'm very excited her teeth came in and can eat real food.

Otherwise that was it. I still haven't heard from the hubby.. it's been almost a week, I think.

Oh I FINALLY met the neighbors. It was at diff times but both today . It was only like " hey whats up" I introduced myself and told them if they ever need anything I'm right next door.. J&C seem like nice people hopefully they won't turn into crackheads.lol.

Now I'm going to finish "DEAR JOHN" by Nicholas Sparks.

I love him.. he always makes me cry.

The uneventful

2008-01-11T22:27:00.001-10:00

OK.. what happened.... where's all the drama.

The last few days have been very uneventful.

After FINALLY getting my flowers that are amazing awesome, nothing's happened.

Works been really hectic since we have inventory but lately nothing.

Now don't get me wrong I like the uneventful but the drama makes the days goes faster.

The highlights: I got the oil changed in the car, the punkin ate her first chicken nugget, I entered the punkin in the regis and kelly cute baby contest.. (hopefully she'll win the $125,000 for college) and on my way to starbucks T&C Surf had Roxy sheets(Pink 250 thread count cotton) on sale for 25 bux. I had to have those.

The squatter keeps getting mail to the house that I have to keep sending to Iraq. Apparently FED EX doesn't send to APO addresses.

The hubby keeps checking his email but not sending me any emails or replying to anything I send. Even when I thanked him for the flowers.

That really anoys me.

Do I have a right to be pisst off or am I over-reacting. He's not calling often either so something would be nice. He called a few days ago.. and was like oh I got the box. i didnt even get a thanks.

Oh well...I sent a card.. lets see what I get.

A picture says a thousand words. hehe.

2008-01-08T21:20:00.000-10:00

I want my flowers and I want them now.

2008-01-07T21:42:00.000-10:00

It's been 4 days and my flowers are still not here... correction.. the RIGHT flowers aren't here.

I waited around almost all day on friday when about 3ish when the door rang. I was so excited and when I opened the door there was this lady with my flowers.

I actually said to the lady..."This is what my husband paid 80 bux for" she just looked at me.

People these things were pathetic, hubby would NEVER send me a bouquet like this. Its looked like someone had grabbed baby roses from the yard added babys breath and threw them in a glass.

Now he had never sent me flowers using 1800flowers before so just in case I went online and looked at what was supposed to come. It was supposed to be a premiem dozen long stemmed red roses.

These were NOT my Flowers.

So I called ... yada yada.. got the girl on the phone... I was so upset I started crying on the phone. She was like ma'am dont cry .. your gonna make me cry. Needless to say they were supposed to redeliver the flowers today.

Never came... Now i'm pisst.

I call back , this time I ask for the supervisor.The guy goes is there something I could try and help you with first. I tell him " Dude, trust me, I'm sure you don't get paid enough to get bitched at" He laughed and patched me through.

I get the supervisor , go through the whole thing and this time i say "This needs to be resolved... My hubby is in Iraq with a whole BRIGADE of men who are planning to send Flowers to their wives on valentine's day which is right around the corner. I'd hate to have him tell all of them about this experience and not use your company. That's alot of business you will lose." I hate having to be bitchy but working in retail I know how to get things done.

She's personally calling the florist herself in the morning and I'm supposed to have my flowers delivered before noon tomorrow.

Hub still doesn't know I didn't get them. He called this morning... he didn't ask. I didn't tell him.

He'll get an email saying how beautiful they are when they arrive... if they arrive.

The saga continues.... da da duuuuuuh.

Bad Japanese horror movies

2008-01-06T22:54:00.000-10:00

Let me start by saying.. I'm obsessed with bad Japanese horror movies.

OBSESSED!

I can't get enough of these things.... They are so creepy, beautifully shot and not the least bit scary that I always get sucked it. They do have pretty decent plot lines but poorly executed.

When turned into English they just plain.. SUCK! (ex: the ring, the grudge, pulse, etc)
The Japanese version of Pulse is on.. creepy yet not scary. Hense my rant.

My obsession with this started prolly about 5 years ago... when EVERY store in my company received a video tape in a plain manilla envelope, no return address. When you popped the tape in, it was the actual video in the ring and at the end.. it said something about death in 7 days.

Now at this point the American version of the Ring had not been released in theaters yet... and I get a phone call in hysterics from an asst mgr from another store..she had taken the video home watched it and assumed it was a death threat and and we were all gonna die.

Yeah.. uh,huh.

We were told to call security.. security comes and now I have to go to the office with security and watch this video.... and we watch it. After the 60 seconds are up and the creepy girl crawls outta the well. I look over and go to the guys.."dude , I'm so sorry... this looks like a promo tape." So anyways they take the video and the only thing that I had ever heard about it again was that the police took it and it was evidence. It's prolly in some cops desk in jersey somewhere, with him lauging at the dumbass that freaked out about it the first place.

2 months later the ring came out and everyone was like.. hey that was that tape.

That was then... this is now.

The Hub HATES when I watch these movies late at nite cuz they turn me into a six year old that just had candy before bad. It's like crack (I've never had it but I'm assuming) I get all wired and shaky and when we get into bed I don't shut up. I start rambling and make no sense about anything til he eventually is like " SHUT UP, I got PT in the morning" I miss him and wish he was here to enjoy (or not) this movie and the crackhead like aftermath with me.

So, I'm totally watching this and it's almost 1130 and now I don't have anyone to annoy so all I can do is laugh about it.

Better laugh.. then cry.

PS~ I'm still waiting for my flowers.. hopefully the correct ones will come tomorrow. The flower sequel will be my next blog. stay tuned, same bat time, same bat channel.

One month down....

2008-01-05T10:16:00.000-10:00

Woo Hoo!!!!

Not so bad.
I know it's only been a month but I'm really starting to realize..........

....... I can do this.

Granted the Army really didn't give me much of a choice.. but I'm taking it and running with it.

In nutshell month one was pretty crazy... him leaving, the exploding tire, crazy christmas hours, being overworked, pyscho Asst manager, pyscho neighbors, christmas, new years, lack of sleep, uncontrollable outbursts of crying at avril Lavigne videos, uncontrollable outbursts of crying at pretty much everything lame, screwed up flower order presents and just this constant feeling of always being overwhelmed.

Not bad I say... not bad at all.

One month down.... a year plus to go.

Flowers. what a great surprise! Uh.. not really.

2008-01-04T10:55:00.000-10:00

I was supposed to get flowers yesterday... "supposed to" being keywords.

Hubby called the other day to tell me I was getting a present delivered to work and wanted to make sure I would be there. I said "Is it you?". He's like.. I dont think so. Obvisiously if it's not him it had to be flowers...

or a singing telegram... which would've been dam entertaining to see.

All day I waited for these things to come.. but no dice. Thank goodness at 11:30p Hawaii time 1800-flowers is open. I called the # and got some chic named Danielle. She was in NYC so she spoke perfect NY English (which I totally understood being from NJ and I hate being outsourced) and super nice for it being 430am.

I explain the situation.

I was supposed to get flowers today sent to my work... unfortunitely due to the fact my husband is in Iraq.. my surprise is now ruined because I have to call and now track down my lost flowers myself cuz obviously he's not able to do it. I'm off for the next 2 days and if these flowers get sent to my job , by the time I get to see them they'll already be half dead. Where are my flowers and I need them sent to the house.

Of course I was way nicer than paraphrasing above, left out the half dead part .. and totally utilized my deployed hubby status.

Let me tell you... that girl felt so terrible that my surprise from DH was wrecked, she was super apologenic and bent over backwards to help me get these flowers tracked down and try to get re-routed. She was going to try and even get me credited some of the money and what not, but because I wasn't on the hubs account I couldn't do anything but have them re-routed.

So now I wait.. for my not so surprise flowers.. hopefully they'll arrive here instead of work or I just wasted a day.(but that's one less day til my hubby comes home, I'm looking at the positive)

and I still haven't met the new neighbors.

Happy New Year Hawaii...on Jersey Time?

2007-12-31T20:03:00.000-10:00

So my New Year's is officially over and it's only 8:03.
This was the first New Year's I have spent alone... EVER... and I'm 33.

Being a Jersey girl trapped on this island for New Year's isn't the easiest thing to deal with. I'm used to snow and cold .. and today it was 80 and raining. As long as I live ...I'll never get used to that. It never feels like December.

I was going to go hang out with a friend.. but I woke up feeling like shit and I hate driving home in the smoke. It's legal to shoot fireworks here so the island turns into a giant smokefield where you can't see 3 inches in front of your face, which makes driving a big hazard. The fact that I would be driving with the kid in the car was a big "I'll pass" for me.

I thought the hub might try to call when it turned midnight Iraq time. I hung around the house til about 11:15 just to see .. but no dice. On with the rest of the day.

I went to the super crowded post office today. I needed to send the hub his first box of stuff today. It's been almost 3 years since the last time I had to send a box to " the sandbox " and I couldn't remember if I filled out the customs paperwork correctly so I decided to pass on the click n ship and head over there.

I figured New Year's eve wouldn't be that busy .......boy was i wrong.

Every Army wife under the sun was there to ship hubby a Christmas box and I thought I was going to be there forever. There was about 10 people in front of me when I got there but the line went really quick. I got up to the window and (score!) I had filled out everything right (I love flat rate boxes, $8.95 to ship a box to Iraq ... that rules!) The line when I left was crazy it was out the post office and down the stairs almost into the parking lot. I'm glad I got there when I did... the punkin would've never lasted that long. From now on..click and ship baby.

I got home.. put the punkin down to take her nap. When she woke up she felt hot, so I used the ear thermometer... I took her temp it was 102. I'm a very paranoid parent.. especially being here alone so I call my mom. "I think she has a fever.. but I think I could've used the thermometer wrong. Should I take her to the hospital"

Whenever I get paranoid about the kid it always involves.. " Oh my god.. we should take her to the hospital" .. my hub the medic always talks me off the ledge and assures me I'm insane and she's fine. Well since he's not here.. I call mommy. She tells me I prolly used the thing wrong .. her Blankets during her nap made her hot and flushed , give her some baby tylenol and she'll call me back in a half hour. She does.. and punkin's fine...temp was a little high due to the teething but nowhere near 102.

Now thanx to CNBC and Carson Daly I got to celebrate New Year's on East Coast time.. live from Time's Square via my television set. The punkin got to watch the ball drop with her crazy mom.. yelling..... "happy new year" and singing "New york, new york" terribly I might add cuz I couldn't remember all the words.

I would've gone outside and banged pots and pans(it's an old skool New York italian thing)... but 1) it was only 7pm here, so the neighbors would've thought I was insane.. and 2) since I live in housing the MPs would've come cuz I was breaking some ordinance. ( Someone down the street is lightingfireworks.. where are the MPs now?)

Mom called to wish me Happy New Year(NJ time) and check on the punkin.. who was still fine. After we hung up I put the kid to bed who went right to sleep cuz it was right near her bedtime and her crackhead mom made her stay up to watch the ball drop.

Now I'm watching the Law and Order:CI marathon on USA til one of the other New Years eve show's start here on Hawaii time. I'm debating between Dick Clark and Tila Tequila on MTV. I kinda wanna watch her just cuz she's like Jerry Springer /Howard Stern. You never know what's gonna happen next... and Paramore is gonna play! (I heart paramore).

Here's to hoping the hub calls at midnight (hawaii time)

P.S.-Happy new year, thanx for taking the time to read about my life and may all our hubby's (deployed or not yet deployed) have a safe new year and return home to us exactly the way they left us.

.......cya next year.

Damn you Avril Lavigne.... Dam you.

2007-12-30T23:15:00.001-10:00

That stupid bitch turned me into a crying mess., I'll get to that in a minute, but I'm sure you can guess why.

Anyways, It's been a very stressful few days since Christmas... all work related. It's always work related. arggghhh. Since Christmas we've had 2 floor sets.. so I had to be at work at 7am this morning after getting home at 11pm. Thank god my babysitter is a godsend and is totally ok with keeping the punkin overnight. I'm a tired chic.

Last night the hub called me at work, the first call since Christmas eve. Luckily last night was relatively slow so when he called I got to talk to him a whole 2 minutes. He's been sick, little bit of a head cold. He was very proud of me ,when he told me the medication the doc gave him , I knew what it was. Amazing what you pick up when your hubby's a medic.

Then he told me the story of the broken ipod.. it didn't just crash......

He threw it..

When I said why.. he said it was better then punching someone. ( I'm ok with that) so he bought himself a new one. The $350 super duper gajillion gig one.. but I'm ok with that too. I'd rather have him spend a few extra dollars now then punch someone and lose those dollars on a paycheckly basis.

He Asked how the kid was.. what we did on Christmas.. normal stuff.. then the abrupt " I gotta go, love you and the punkin.. try and call you later." hang up. sigh. The rest of the night I was totally unmotivated.

Then there was today. Let me start by saying I hate Sundays at the mall... all the freaks come out. The easiest way to explain it is like when you go to the grocery store or walmart at 3 am and the only people in there, are the people who don't come out during the daylight. That's what sundays are like on on a way lesser scale. So that was most of my day.. freaks, pains in the ass and mallrats. I hate mallrats.... my kid is NEVER allowed to go to the mall if she has no money or shopping agenda when she's a teenager.

I get out early at 330, go to the siitters, pick up the kid,come home, assemble the hubs first care package, feed and then put the kid to sleep.

There's nothing on TV due to this stupid writers strike so I decide to go through the music choice on demand. For 2 hours I flip through every random video possible. The new Spill Canvas video absolutely rocks!

Then comes Avril... "when you're gone". I know I shouldn't of watched this considering I've been a highly emotional freakazoid lately but it was like calling me. So I watched it... by the end of the video I was a crying mess on the couch..so I watched a Say Anything video and made some hot cocoa..It made me feel a little better.

Now there was a flash flood warning accross the TV. sigh. stupid rain.

Moral of the story... F U Avril... and excessive rain blows.

Oh and I still haven't met the new neighbors. Maybe I'll go introduce myself tomorrow.

3 weeks down ......a lot more to go.

2007-12-27T21:29:00.000-10:00

It's been 3 weeks and I'm doing pretty well...... most of the time. I'm a trooper.. yea, let's go with that.

Hubby called the crack of dawn Christmas eve and then sent me an email asking for stuff... but haven't heard from him since. I've come to the realization that his emails from now on ...will just consistently ask for things, but whatev. His ipod crashed.. so I'm waiting for that request for Valentine's Day.

Christmas was pretty good. Me and the kid hung out at my friends neighbors house. It was decent times.. better than staying here alone. I took some pictures. This is the second Christmas that the hub has missed and it's the kids second christmas.. so you do the math.

We got new neighbors today... I haven't met them yet. They look normal.. so I'm assuming they're not crackhead ghetto trash like the chic upstairs.

The chic upstairs.. I'll call her crackhead, ( CH for short). CH cheats on her husband while he is in Iraq. He finds out while he's there... comes home on R&R obviously fight insues, MPs called. yada yada. Now he's home....HE has to live in the barracks, CH gets to stay in the house and the boyfriend comes and goes.. while the divorce is finalized.

So explain to me this.. CH cheats on him while he's at war... and she gets to stay.... what kind of bullshit is that? Everytime they are both here together.. something happens and MPs are called. How many times do MPs have to come before they get kicked out of housing. I keep my fingers crossed that day comes sooner than later.

Well that's all I got.. maybe something exciting will happen before New Year's.

The email.

2007-12-22T21:40:00.000-10:00

I love seeing the hub's email address in my inbox. Serendipity. It's a very rare thing cuz usually he calls but today there it was when I woke up this morning.

At first it's business as usual.yada yada. then he ends..." Love u and the pumpkin so much cant wait untill im home again" Little things that make me tear up, I do that a lot now over stupid things. I really wish he was home and it totally sucks that Christmas is days away.

That's how my day started.

Then I went to work.

Then got better, cuz I had starbux..
then worse,cuz customers are stupid,
then better, one of my favorite jarhead customers just got back from Japan and he's ridiculously entertaining.... then I go home.

I picked up the pumpkin. My hours this time of year are so crazy I leave her overnight at the sitters. I never get to see her anymore.... sometimes I think that she thinks the babysitter is her mom. She screams when I pick her up to go home.. I know it's cuz she's tired but it still hurts my feeling a bit.

Then I think about the hub and how sad he gets when I tell him that she walked for the first time and he wasn't there. . When he called to just talk to her and he heard her say hi.."Was that her? " he asks, I say yes and tell him she's been saying hi for a few days now... he was so surprised. ( He missed both milestones by less then 2 weeks)I know he worries that she won't know who he is when he gets home. She'll be almost 2 1/2 then.... and he'll have missed alot. I wan't to promise him that she will and that it'll be fine, so I do, but I'm not so sure.

Anyways, I take the punkin home, as soon as I put her in the pack-n play off to sleep she goes. Here I sit, another night alone. I watch an old episode of House I DVR'd from last week, check the myspace (yes I have a myspace and no you can't know what it is) leave some comments. then write this.

That's my night.... I think I'll go make some tea.

Dependency sucks.

2007-12-20T22:42:00.000-10:00

I'm a very independent chic, but I'm not afraid to admit when I need help.

Right now I still don't need help.

I do however rely on a few people, which sucks for me, being so used to independency. Luckily my list of WHO I need to rely on is relatively short. I need my babysitter and my staff. If one of those things gets screwed up it throws my whole life into upheavel.

This week my staff fucked me, not all of them, just one. I won't go into major details just yet, if ever, just know that I am one pisst off bitch right now. Unfortunitely that one cog screws up the whole chain. The week before Christmas that's the last thing I need.

I have a job that you can't call out without screwing up everyone elses lives. I don't sit at a desk and process numbers so if you dont show up no big deal. I have a job that if you dont show up your store doesnt open and you dont make any money. The week before Christmas.. that's a very bad thing.

That being said ,I love my job. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world but sometimes being the boss blows. I'm in charge, so if someone doesn't show and no one else can cover.. it's me. I do it, not by choice.. cuz I don't have a choice.

The other night, that's what happened. Usually I don't mind, I leave the kid with the hub and off I go. There's no hub to leave the kid with, and I'm not going to make the babysitter work her 8th straight day in a row for an hour at 11 pm, , so I had to take her to work. On my day off.

Does anyone actually know what it's like to take a 1 year old to the mall at 10 pm at night for a hour and a half.

It sucks.

She was pretty good for a while, until she got super tired and cranky. We tried to be entertaining. The 2 girls I had working with me were super good sports about the whole thing and totally tried to entertain her while I worked. They wheeled her around the store in her stroller, gave her those little puffy things( which I refer to as Kid-crack) and danced with her around the store. I'm incredibly blessed my sales team likes me otherwise I prolly would've been majorly screwed. It's hard to count money and hold a baby at the same time.

Finally, I'm done. We've collected all the trash, straightened everything, closed the registers, just about on the way out the door and what happens.

The "pumpkin" pees...not just in her diaper, but through her diaper, through the stroller and in a nice little puddle on the floor under her stroller. " oh pumpkin". I do have to admit though it was kind of funny to actually see the little sprinkle trickle out on my sales floor.

So I do what every good mom does... pull her out of the stroller, change her diaper, clean up her little puddle with antibactiarial windex and paper towels and carry her out while I push the stroller. Sigh, oy vey.

The second I put her in the car seat she was out like a light. So peaceful. 3 Doors Down plays in the car and I enjoy my ride home.

I can't wait til next week is over.

Ok , now what?

2007-12-17T20:51:00.000-10:00

I totally thought that when started this little endevor that every day I would come up with somthing clever and witty to write. Instead I really don't. When people say life goes on.. it really does.

Every day I get up, get dressed, get the baby up. Somedays she goes to the sitters, somedays she doesn't. Most days I go to work. Either way..it's the same as before only now I do it all by myself, alot more tired.... and way more sad.

Christmastime really blows....it's depressing. I can see how people kill themselves over the holidays. Now before anyone gets all panickey., I'm not suicidal. I don't have time for that... I'm way too busy and stressed out,lol. Besides.. then my kid will prolly end up having some "skank" as a stepmom.... I digress.

This year I put up no decorations...correction, I put a $3.00 wreath from walmart on the door. Call me Scrooge but I see no reason to put up decorations that no one will enjoy or that my kid is too little to understand. I work/commute like 60 hours a week, I barely see my kid, I never see my husband and I'm barely ever home. Coming home to an empty house every day just plain sucks. So why go through the effort to put them all up just to take them down.( myself) No real point to that. I can enjoy the lighted palm trees at work. (You just can't understand the concept of a lighted palm tree unless you live in "paradise")

Also, all day I watch people buy presents for other people. Living far away is a great money saver.. it means you really don't have to buy presents for anyone.. also means I'll get no presents in return. Checks and gift cards are great but some wrapped presents would've been nice. Hubby got presents before he left.. what did I get, jack shit. I got a " Buy what you want with money from the next check", a kiss on the head and a see ya in so -in-so months. Not the same thing, but thanx, I'd rather get nothing.

Don't get me wrong, it doesn't totally suck... At least my house doesn't get as dirty.

End of week one. The calm and the quiet.

2007-12-12T23:57:00.000-10:00

So since the Firsesone fiasco... nothing really exciting has happened. MY life now basically resolves around my pumpkin and work. Oh so exciting.

Its seems as if the days are all starting to blend. Sunday I picked up the pumpkin's Christmas pictures and she's so ridiculously adorable I can't even stand it.

After sunday, the pumpkin peed through her diaper and soaked the pack-n-play, but honestly I can't even tell you what day. It sucked though , cuz she she's sleeps in my room and I use her crib basically as a place to store her clothes. So trying to empty the crib and get her to sleep in a place that she's not familiar with, at like midnight, is super inconveient. Needless to say, she didn't sleep and I had to wait til her pack n play was dry before she went back to sleep.

Monday the hub's sister went to have a baby checkup and they decided to induce her labor. So after 19 hours( yes i said 19) of labor.. they had to give her a c-section. Fuck that shit.. that's why I OPTED for a c-section. Tuesday, little baby "J"was born.... he's adorable. My hubs family apparently makes great looking kids. It's actually why I married him,lol. She was kinda bummed that her bro counldn't be there... but I sent the hub a text message ( Yes the cel phone works in undisclosed location #1) and he called her and all was good with the world.

Now here we are. End of week one. Not so bad. The baby is at the babysitters so I have the first peace and quiet I've had since the hub left. I kind of enjoy the solitude. I miss him bunches and bunches but in a way it's like he's not really away(he just called asking for money,typical,lol). I'm totally waiting for the hard part to start. I know it's coming.

I'm totally in the calm before the storm.