Yummy Apples

This weekend I went to my mom's without hubby for our local po-dunk festival. I bought yummy apples and met up with old friends. It was a lot of fun. I went down Friday night to a friends house where a lot of people were gathered. There I caught up with about 75% of the people my age from that area I can stand to talk to, let alone care to catch up with. Saturday I went to the festival and after being there about 3 minutes met up with one of my moms’ friends and her daughter. I walked with them for a little bit then ran into an old high school boyfriend (we are still friends, it ended dramatically, but what high school relationship doesn’t, we have both grown up and realized that as adults we can/should be friends still/again) for the sake of ease and to protect the innocent I will call him Drago. I stopped to catch up with him and we talked for a few minutes when some other friends we used to run around with came up. I walked around with all of them for pretty much the rest of the day. I was amazed at the friends from high school who had served in the military who were telling me not to let Hubby join the navy. Drago--Spent the past 4 years in Afghanistan and Iraq w/ the army--Said that he knows I'm strong willed and can handle it but that if we are going to do this I need to make sure that hubby & I are both doing everything we can to cover our own Asses b/c he saw more than one person get royally screwed for stupid stuff that has nothing to do with the military. JU & EU--Married, I knew him (J) but was good friends with her (E)--he was in the Marines and is now a prison guard or something at the state prison near where I grew up--E just simply said please don't do it. I had already been told by another friend whose husband is in the Navy stationed in CA that she hates it and gave me her reasons why, but I am far more independent than her and most of her hates are things I would probably love but that was when we were first just throwing the idea around not since we've made up our minds to commit. After seeing Drago and JU my heart reaches out to all of the military wives with "broken" husbands. I have no doubt in my mind that PTS is real and I never doubted it but after this weekend I'm realizing that it is far worse than I imagined. When I saw JU and EU last year my father had just died so I wasn't very observant to the people around me, however JU had been discharged less than a month prior to me seeing them. Looking back I realize that both of them looked pretty ragged. I noticed this b/c when we walked away Drago said something about how rough JU looked this weekend, so I thought back to last year and realized that yeah, he looks really rough (like he hasn't slept in a month) but that EU looked a lot better. Last year she looked like she was constantly on edge and worn ragged. This year her eyes were aged but she looked well rested and healthy. To me that was a sign that he was doing better, otherwise she would still look just a bad as before. This conversation led to one about Drago and how he was handling being "back from the Middle East. He said that on Friday he saw dental picks at one of the booths and got very excited because they are apparently perfect for cleaning weapons so he bought a handful, then realized that he no longer needs them. I pointed out that he can at least send them to friends which he thought was a good idea. It seems like Drago is handling himself well, but I know that what he saw changed him. I couldn't imagine how hard it has been for EU since JU came home, Just talking to Drago made me almost want to cry but to have the man you love and are married to come home and have to live every day knowing that he isn't ok would kill me. After all of the conversations I had this weekend with people who have known me for a long time I am even more sure that Hubby and I are doing the right thing. I think if he were considering the Army or Marines they would have successfully talked me out of it, however knowing that he is going to be gone, and having the security of knowing that it is normal for him to be gone, not having to worry about him being on a battlefield somewhere...I know it isn't going to be easy but I'm the lucky one. My husband will be gone, but I know that going into this I don't have to worry about war, I'm the lucky one and I can't imagine how much harder it would be to be EU right now....

Welcome Aboard!

The proper place for a first post would be after hubby actually signs his Navy paperwork right??? WRONG!!! I know that he is committed, he knows that is committed, his recruiter knows that he is committed, that being said, sometimes I think that I should have him committed. :) If you decide to listen to all of my ramblings this is your warning...sometimes/usually my brain works so fast that my thoughts aren't exactly coherent for other people. Since I am posting this in a public forum I will do my bestest to make sure that they are as coherent as possible, however sometimes that isn't exactly possible.Hubby is actually ahead of schedule on his weightloss, and he just started actually trying to lose the weight last week! The plan was get married then he would start working on the 50 pounds that Navy World told him he had to lose before he could go to basic. (For the record at that point in time he was 6'5 and weighed 260ish) by the wedding he was down to less than 250, and now, one month after the wedding he is at 230. So he has 20 pounds to go and we both started watching what we ate last Monday. (In typical girl fashion I REALLY want to lose 20 pounds). Last week before we started "officially" trying to lose weight Hubby went to his recruiter to fill out all of his paperwork (had to waite until we had the marriage license so that I can go in the seabag!) and his recruiter told him that given his progress so far that it would be better if we waited until Hubby has lost all of the weight to avoid the un-healthy ass kicking that Navy diet plans are. The Navy is closed...apparently they are only taking new recruits for the highest ASVAB score level...lucky hubby he's so smart they can't dumb him down for the tier 2 job (meteorology) that led him into the recruiters office in the first place, meaning he will ALWAYS have a place available according to his recruiter. SO now I get to look forward to being able to say "My husband's a NUCLEAR ENGINEER in the US Navy!" Sounds a lot more prestigious than "oh yeah, he's a meteorologist," doesn't it. I'm excited, and he's is even more excited than I am. We are both really looking forward to the grand adventure before us. Hopefully we'll love it and in 20something years he will retire and we'll live happily ever after, but worst case scenario we both hate it and in six years we are back where we are now, only he'll have the training to be a nuclear engineer for someone other than the Navy...As for tha having him committed part....I was joking however last night I thought he was absolutely nut-so and it was driving me there! I came home from helping lilshutterbug fix her dryer and hubby is sitting on the computer in the living-room. He is looking at information on Nuclear Engineering, The Navy and Aircraft Carriers (he isn't allowed to volunteer for a sub, that was my one stipulation for going along with this I don't want him to volunteer to go UNDER the POLAR ICE CAPS) This is good, I think. "he wants to be fully prepared and know what he is getting into." I went to get in the shower and get ready for bed...Hubby followed me into the bathroom, armed with his laptop and starts reading facts about Nuclear Aircraft Carriers to me while I am in the shower...I'm glad that he is prepared, but do I really need to know how many people fit on each of the carriers stationed in Norfolk, VA? or what countries have aircraft carriers? or that China has exactly 0 aircraft carriers but still has the worlds 3rd largest air force? (how do they expect to get the planes to other countries?) I might want to know this stuff tomorrow, but can't I shower in peace????Today I am back at the Theme Park and I should be working on things for month end but starting a journal was far more important even tho I hadn't planned on needing to vent until at least after hubby signed the papers....