oh, I never blog anymore!

Hi all!  Sorry that I haven’t been around much!  I’m working again and my husband is gone right at the moment.  Don’t worry.   Not deployed, just in training and he’s been gone for sometime now!  Kind of looking forward to having him home for a while!

As for me, nothing much is new.  We bought a new house in C. Springs.  It doesn’t really have any of the things that we were looking for in a house, except that it does actually have a fireplace, that’s the only thing about this house that had anything we ACTUALLY wanted!  I think we just got wrapped up in the whole thing.  Ah, well, we’ll know for next time!  I can’t even take a bath in this house cuz the tub is shallow and the hot water heater doesn’t produce enough hot water to fill the entire tub (yeah, shallow tub that can’t be filled with hot water–tells you how big my water heater is!)

There is a nice view with this house, it’s what I refer to as the $20,000 view cuz that’s how much more we paid for this house than the house that had ALL of the things we wanted–like a two car garage and a fenced yard!  Anyway, I’m not complaining…it’s mine anyway.

Dogs and cat are doing well here!  Gizmo doesn’t really try to get out and when he does leave, I don’t think he leaves the yard.  Codi and Casey are learning to get along and play better with each other.  Since I work now, they have been spending quite a lot of time outside alone–left to their own devices which sometimes spells trouble–especially since Codi’s a lab and if you’re at all familiar with how labs can get when they’re bored…well, let’s just say, he’s decided to chew on my vinyl siding and other interesting things!

I quit smoking a month ago.  After the 2 week mark, I almost started smoking again, but decided to find out about acupuncture and I have been doing that for almost 3 weeks now.  Interestingly enough, I used to have pretty severe headaches…but ever since I started acupuncture, my headaches have almost completely gone away!  It’s really amazing!

Well, that’s all I’ve got for right now!  Thanks for reading!

a while

Hi all!  I know that it’s been quite a while for me and I hope that you weren’t waiting too anxiously for me to come back.  I do apologize for the update.  My husband and I moved successfully from Germany to Colorado Springs.  My family lives in Denver, so it’s just about a 75 mile drive to see them on occasion.

Since the last time I updated you, we moved, my mother was evicted.  She is currently living in her car and without a job in sight.  I think I have a better chance of getting a job than she does at this point.  Granted, it’s only been 2 year for me 3.5-4 for her…

Anyway, not much else to report.  Will get to see my husband over Columbus day weekend  and he should be home for good by Thanksgiving, so here’s hoping! =)

Weigh-in

Despite having gone out to eat for three meals this week, my weight-loss seems to be on track. I started at at 170 on Wednesday and have nearly hit the 165 mark. Granted, most of the weightloss that I’ve seen this week is probably due to losing some water (more like retention), but it’s a start.

I’ve started eating AT least two fruits a day and increased my water consumption by nearly 200%. Everyday this week, except for yesterday, I’ve made my two lap trek up and down the infamous hill. Today, I managed to do three laps, which I thought I could go another lap, but my knee was bothering me, so opted to just go home. Codi was done, too. He was ready to call it a day.

Tomorrow, I’ll keep it up at 3 laps until I feel comfortable and confident in those and increase it from there. Starting Monday, I’m going to have Rob help with some strength training–that is sit-ups, push-ups and dips.

Still nothing

It’s been 3 weeks PAST the date that we were told that we would be getting orders and nothing!  Rob’s tried to call several times, to no avail.  He’s also sent several emails that haven’t been responded to.

So, what’s the #1 question we get asked?  Where are you going?

What’s the #2 question?  When are you going?

I can not answer them because I do not know.  I ALWAYS qualify my answers with:  We still don’t have orders yet, so nothing is set in stone.  The only question I can answer with confidence is (and I qualify this with: I have only KNOWN this for less than 1 week!):  When is the Change of Command?  11 Jun at 10 am.

Anyway, tomorrow night is the BN CDRs farewell dinner.  It promises to be fun.  I have to get some stuff done for his wife that I promised to do…why am I such a lazy slacker?  Meh, I thrive on deadlines and it’ll get done…if at the very last second!

Monday, Rob and I are going to take the battery on a trip to Europa park.  Tomorrow, Rob and his 1SG will have to do vehicle inspections and I NEED to get that permission slip typed.  Man, I’m glad I KNOW how to write one of those!  All those years teaching gave me one good skill…lol!

Friday is the BN Org day (friendly competition between the batteries–good food, good friends–lotsa girl talk!

Then, the week after we land right on the changes of command.  3 of them that day.  Starting at 8 am.  I am video tapping the ceremonies for posterity.  I figure it’s a nice bookend to the command.  That reminds me, I’m going to need to get that bad-boy charged…3 hours worth of battery time…might not make it!  I’ll have to see if I can get another battery this weekend…not that I’ll necessarily need another battery in the future…it’s just something else to buy and clutter up my already cluttered house!  How do two people, two dogs and a cat accumulate so much CRAP!?

I found out yesterday that a friend that I went to high school with committed suicide on Saturday.  He had a wife and an adorable little girl.  I feel so sorry for that family.  In 8th grade, one of the girls I went to school with committed suicide and that same year, another friend of mine’s dad committed suicide.  What a sad situation.  The Army is trying to stop people from committing suicide and they require all Soldiers regardless of rank to attend a Suicide prevention class.  I’ve attended many of these briefings because I am the FRG leader and I invite the Soldier’s family members to attend as well.  That’s just one of the differences between being married to the military and civilian life!

Anywho, I need to get busy.  I woke up nearly 2 hours late this morning–the dogs didn’t even try to wake me up, either (strange!) and so they had a late breakfast.  It’s after 2pm and I haven’t eaten anything yet, either.  Need to get it into gear because I still need to go for a walk and find a way to replace those calories that I’m missing for today.  I just don’t feel up to it…maybe because it’s overcast here, today.  It’s not as warm today as it has been in the recent past.  Okay, so…buuub-bye!

This past weekend

Well, it hasn’t been very exciting.  We went shopping yesterday and got a new haltee for Casey-puppy.  He’s terrible to walk, but took him out yesterday using it and it was much, much easier!

Today, we went to the base exchange and I got a new movie, “Marley and Me”.  We’ve seen it before, but I just loved it so much that I wanted to own it.  I have all the movies that are related to our animals, and Marley is so much like Codiak that it’s just a little eerie.  I know, I’m weird when I pick out movies! 

And that’s all that we’ve done today.  We’re so boring.

nothing interesting

happens to me. I’m currently baking cookies for the FRG fundraiser and that’s really not interesting at all.

Everyone’s freaking out about the Swine flu, but I’m not.

I’m drinking a beer, half watching re-runs of friends and all of the animals are outside, so as to not bother me while I bake.  Have I mentioned lately how much I dislike baking?  I’m good at it, but I don’t find anything relaxing about baking or cooking.  Nothing.  I haven’t been able to sit down for more than 5 minutes at a time.

Speaking of, I’ve been sitting for 7 minutes.  Gotta go.

Penciled In

Well, it’s officially unofficial!  We’re currently scheduled to head to Ft. Carson.  This could change since there are no orders, but this is how it stands at the moment!

Just wanted to let you know.

Amsterdam

While we were in Amsterdam:

* I took a toke of someone’s “cigarette”–one puff was more than enough! WOW!
* Saw the Red-Light District and got gesture-yelled at by one of the prostitutes. The red-light in Amsterdam is not like the red-light in Germany! Sex–no, they put it OUT there. It was reminiscent of a live “JC Penney’s” ad. The girls were in undies posing or whatever, but nothing overtly sexual. There was a door behind them and it seemed pretty sterile to me…a bed with clean white sheets and a sink.
* Walked down “CoffeeHouse” row. The entire street smelled like pot. Sweet cigarettes. No, I didn’t go in. My husband is not allowed inside and out of respect, I did not enter one either. Considered getting an “Amsterdam” bong from a head shop for a souvenir, but wanted the wooden clogs more.
* Went to an Irish pub and met some interesting peeps. That’s where I had the toke.
* Saw the tulip gardens.
* Did not visit any museums (and I ALWAYS visit museums!) The Anne Frank house had a line that wrapped around the street at 10 am. We considered standing in line, but we considered the historical significance about the house, instead. Walked to the Rembrandt museum, which cost 8 euro and didn’t seem worth it. We then walked to the Van Gogh museum. There was also a line that wrapped around the building an hour before it closed…also not worth it…then there was the Rijksmuseum which was 11 euro (way too much!) which was also closing in an hour. We considered going to the diamond museum which was free and no lines (ironically) but we were already so tired by that point!
* Visited the Keukenhof gardens. My husband was bored after an hour, but stayed with me for nearly 7 hours. I couldn’t get enough! It was fabulous!
* We thought that we’d visit a military museum in Arnhem, but it didn’t work out so well and we became pressed for time. We did visit a cemetery and saw the famous Arnhem bridge (but did not drive across it). The cemetery was not an American cemetery, either. We were the only ones there besides the grounds keeper. The people who were buried there were polish, british and dutch. We noticed a stark contrast between American and non-American soldiers–non-American soldiers were older and many with families. There were very few men who were in their late teens and early twenties. Many of them were in their mid to late 20s and even some privates as old as 38. It was pretty impressive. As Americans, we tend not to think about the other people who lost their lives in the war and come to think of it, never seen a cemetery for German soldiers who fought. They may have been OUR enemy, but they were someone’s HERO! And I think the point gets lost sometimes…they were just people, kids like our grandparents were back then. They were just as much sons, brothers, uncles etc as our guys were and all of the guys who lost their lives need to be remembered…not just the “good guys”–insomuch as the men and women (all 6.5 million of them) who innocently lost their lives.

Still in Limbo-Part 2

A couple of days ago, we got a little bit more information, but getting this bit of information has actually broadened things a bit and it is more unclear than ever before.

The news that we received was that our FSTE was approved until Aug.  Change of command will be on June 4th at 10 am.  If you’re here, you should come.

We are going to take advantage of the short time that we have left here and Rob is busy planning the last three weeks that we will be in Europe.  On the agenda: Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Zurich, Innsbruck, Salzburg, Venice, Rome and other places that I can’t quite remember because the list is rather long.

The other bit of information that we can “probably” count on is for Rob to attend IO school at Ft. Leavenworth for 12 weeks.  I still don’t know where I’m going to be.  We should have that bit of information in the next 6 weeks or so (or so I hope!)  So, since there’s not much else to say, I will bid you a fair goodbye and will keep you posted as we get more information.  Ciao!

Still in limbo

My husband just spoke to his branch manager today. He has the extension paperwork, but will not approve it…at least not yet. There is still no one but my husband to fill this slot and time is becoming more precious.

Rob will call again next week to see if there is any other news. I think there are 2 things about being married to the military that are the most stressful. 1) Deployment. It is never easy to see your Soldier deploy. 2) Not knowing where you’re going to be stationed and when.

If I were a betting woman, and I only occasionally gamble, I would put my odds on we’re moving soon–as in April–soon. I hate not knowing. I hate not being able to plan certain things. I’ve always been the kind of person that can live by the seat of my pants and just go with it, but certain things need to be planned. Like: I want to go back to school. I can’t won’t submit applications to any school if I don’t know where we’re going to end up living.  I would like to have a look around the web to see about a place to live.  And I’ve done some of that already, but in all likelihood, the houses that I am looking at now will not be available when we move.

There are a couple of possibilities, however, the strongest of all the scenarios seems to be at Ft. Lewis, Washington (state).  If we get stationed there, I will likely go to school in Tacoma.  Where should we live?  Should we try to get quarters on post or off?  Will the quarters on post have a yard for my dogs to play in?  The number of animals that we have shouldn’t be a problem.  It’s simply a matter of getting an exception to policy, and for that, it’s pretty easy to do.  We have numerous friends that have more than 2 animals and live on post so I really can’t see why that would be a problem.  I just want a yard.  My dogs deserve to play outside and off leash.  If we opt for on post housing, Gizmo will not be allowed outside.  He’s not really an outdoor cat, but he needs exercise too.  I have put both Lilo and Gizmo on leashes and it just looks silly.  I definitely get looks for it–and quips.  Gizmo never goes far and he’s scared to death of traffic, but he still needs to be able to play outdoors.

On the other side of the coin, living off post, we just have to find a landlord that allows us to have pets in their home.  Typically, a pet deposit will be required and if we live in an apartment building, there might also be additional requirements such as nutering our dogs.  It’s probably going to happen anyway, but I don’t want my landlord to tell me what to do with my pets.  I’m responsible and they don’t go off leash outside of my house or my property.  Some apartments also have additional rules as to the number of pets that can live there and sometimes weight can be a factor.  We most likely won’t be living in an apartment building, but I don’t want to rule out anything at this juncture–I don’t even know where we’re going to get stationed.  Living off post also has other considerations.  Deposits and pet deposits, where to live that is most convenient to both my husband and I and that is a nice neighborhood.  School districts don’t even enter our thinking right at this stage because we don’t have children, but I do want to go back to college, so we need to find a place that is somewhere in the middle for both of us.  However, college will be a temporary thing, so it doesn’t matter if I have to drive an extra say 15-20 minutes to get to campus.  That really doesn’t bother me.

Oh, the life of the military family.  I hate sitting in limbo like this.  I want answers!  (and I am not the only one!)