Saturday, December 28, 2013

What I've done today

My wonderful husband had duty today which meant I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted, eat whatever I wanted and watch whatever I wanted on tv...SO when faced with so many options what did I do today???

I sat on the couch, in my PJ's and worked from home.  I have a friend from when I lived in Atlanta who owns a business that I do basic bookkeeping work for on the side, it is simple basic stuff but we both win from the arrangement, I make a little extra spending money and she has someone she trusts taking care of the records for her business.

I don't know what I want to be when I grow up but I would prefer to work from home over in a real office any day....Really I worked 7 hours today sitting on the couch in my PJ's and have yet to brush my teeth or put on a bra....living the dream...Now I'm off to brush my teeth because that's kind of gross...

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Daylight savings time

Normally in the fall I love daylight savings time because it means I get an extra hour of sleep. This year I love it because I get an extra 48 minutes to clean my house before hubby gets home oh-so-soon. No snooze button or even alarm for me this morning woke up on my own thanks to the beautiful sunlight streaming through my windows about an hour ago and am out of bed and have started my day with coffee and breakfast and now to clean for an hour or so before I get ready for church. 
This mornings goal? Vacuume the car and clean the kitchen. I think it's doable :)

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Sometimes the best plans are the ones that don't happen

I had a busy night planned for tonight. The local Panhellenic Alumnae board had a meeting tonight at 6:30 and as the VP I needed to be in attendance. So my plan was to come home, wash dishes while the dogs potty, go to the board meeting then come home and get some house work done. 
Pretty much the only thing that went according to plan was I did eventually make it to the meeting. 
I came home, started the dishes then got a text from hubby. So rather than finish the dishes I talked to him while the dogs ran around outside. 
Then I realized I was running late, threw on a hoody and ran out the door. Without my notebook...I ended up getting lost on my way to the meeting so I was not only 10 minutes late because of talking to Adam for so long but another 15 minutes late because I got lost and thought I knew better than my GPS (which it turns out I did I just turned one block too soon so instead of saving 5 minutes it took another 10 to get where I was going) 
Then after the meeting I realized I was very close to my friend Kim's house. And since today was Kim's birthday and she had had a hard day I decided she (we) needed wine and cupcakes. I stopped and grabbed the necessary supplies and headed to her house. 
Once I got there I had the most wonderful evening. We each had a glass of wine and just sat and talked for over an hour. It was so relaxing and just wonderful to hang out. I didn't get my cupcake though, her son is just too dang cute and hoodwinked me into promising it to him tomorrow if he comes home from school with a green bear (think a stoplight for behavior) so I guess ill just have to eat a chocolate chip cookie before I go to bed. :) 
Now I am home, completely relaxed and while the other housework didn't get done it can wait. I did finish my dishes at least. 
Good night world, hanging out with my friend was way more important than any cleaning I might have gotten done in the same 1 1/2 hours. 

Monday, October 21, 2013

Does Adam being in the Navy make me less happy?

Would you be happier without the military?
As many of you know I'm participating in "The Happiness Project" over at Spouse Buzz and so far I can honestly say I am making progress.  All of my craft projects have been completed and put away so I no longer have half-finished projects sitting around the floor to trip over and I changed my sheets last night so my bed is officially cleaned off, and I sleep a lot better without all the clean clothes piled up on hubby's side of the bed so I'm sure that will help make me happier :)  

Today Amy at Spouse Buzz posted a blog post that addresses a question we asked in our group discussion.  "would you be happier without the military", the majority of people in my group said yes which is reflective of the current responses to the poll on Spouse Buzz but for me, I was a dissenter in the group, I said no, and here's why:

Do I like being separated from my husband, no.  It sucks.  Who would like being separated from their best friend?  But I also realize that other jobs cause separation also and in this current moment in time I would be no happier without the military than I am with it.  This is different from saying that I am happier with Adam being in the Navy than I would be if he were not in the military at all.  There are positive and negatives to both and both would affect my happiness level.  I just think the net effect of the two would be zero.

Now ask me this again in six months when I'm yelling at Adam for leaving his socks on the floor again...then I might say we need more deployments to be happy :)

(For Amy's post visit  http://spousebuzz.com/blog/2013/10/poll-happier-outside-military.html )

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Happiness Project Progress report

So here are the goals I have set for the first month of my happiness project:

COMPLETE 1-finish any half finished projects I have in the living room and/or put them away, & don't start any new projects until after homecoming-By October 16

STARTED 2-get the clean laundry off of my bed folded & put away-By October 19

STARTED3-get the clean laundry I have kicked off the bed rewashed & put away-By October 23

4-find homes for the clutter in my living room-By October 26
(October 26 is my God Daughters 1-year birthday party at my house so I have to get this stuff done by then.)

5-Organize my sheet music/hymnals on shelf besides piano (November 2)

6-Organize kitchen cabinets (November 9) (I may have found someone I can pay who will do this for me. We just have to work out a time. She is going to organize my kitchen cabinets, Adams closet, and help me finish unpacking the 1,000,000 boxes of books I still have in the garage.)

So as you can see progress is being made and I am on my way to meeti my deadlines. Now just to keep up the momentum. 

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Happiness project update

So when I got home tonight this is what my living room floor looked like from the different projects I had going on. 

I finished both diaper cakes, put together baskets for the two people I will be booing tomorrow at work and finished the presents I'm making for my fellow FRG officers & the Ombudsmen. (Ill post a picture of those later, I'm not sure if any of the officers read my blog or not but just on case. 

I also got this sign in the mail that I plan to hold at the pier for homecoming. Isn't it awesome! :)

My goal for tomorrow is to get all of the craft stuff organized and put away before bed. Wednesday will begin my laundry journey so stay tuned :) 



Sunday, October 13, 2013

The Happiness Project

Have you read the book The Happiness Project?  I haven't but I fully intend to.  SpouseBuzz is hosting their own happiness project right now and my group just wrapped up our first meeting.  I'm so excited for the potential this project has to help me meet other amazing women and hopefully insert more happiness into my own life.
Apparently one of the ideas of the happiness project involves taking things one at a time.  So my first to-do item is to break cleaning my house down into sections and finishing each item individually, so dear blog readers...here is my breakdown of things I am going to take one at a time and hopefully get them all done by my deadlines so here it goes.  (Note we meet on Sundays but I work better with Saturday deadlines.)

My first few items/areas of the house are:
1-finish any half finished projects I have in the living room and/or put them away, & don't start any new projects until after homecoming-By October 16
2-get the clean laundry off of my bed folded & put away-By October 19
3-get the clean laundry I have kicked off the bed rewashed & put away-By October 23
4-find homes for the clutter in my living room-By October 26
(October 26 is my God Daughters 1-year birthday party at my house so I have to get this stuff done by then.)

Other items I want to accomplish by our next meeting:
5-Organize my sheet music/hymnals on shelf besides piano (November 2)
6-Organize kitchen cabinets (November 9)

Who knows what my one-item will be next month but I think getting these things taken care of (especially items 1-3) will go a long way towards making my mornings go smoother and life feel less chaotic and will help make me a little bit happier.  I will post pictures of my progress as I go, and promise to try (yes try, that's my loophole in case I fail) to do a better job of keeping you updated as I go.  I have lots of blog ideas floating around in my brain I just need to sit down and type them up.



Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Old Friends

As we travel through life there are people who tend to float in and out of our lives.  Occasionally we meet people who we care about and want to stay in touch with.  Sometimes these people are people who we lose touch with despite our best efforts.  I had an absolutely wonderful conversation with one such friend on Sunday and I am so glad that he reached out to me so that we could get back in touch!

This friend is a very special friend, and probably the only person from my Kentucky elementary school I care to ever see again.  He, one of my girlfriends, and I all went to senior prom together.  We just clicked which in hindsight is hilarious.

Why is it hilarious? Stick around and I'll tell you all about it.  For the sake of clarity we will refer to my male friend as Guy and my female friend as Chick, clear as mud? Great lets go!

So when I was in 4th grade I moved to Kentucky and I did not fit in even a little bit.  I had a few friends but not very many, which was strange to me because I had been the super popular social butterfly in Indiana.  One of my friends was Guy.  My dad, who has never been knowing for being politically correct or for having a filter referred to Guy as "Shanon's little faggot friend," which while not necessarily being the nicest way to refer to an elementary school-er was a correct observation. (For the record I never heard my dad refer to Guy this way, I learned this later in life & he didn't mean it in a mean way, Guy was a kid who was obviously gay and dad knew it, he didn't have a problem with it that was just the word he had been raised to use to describe gay guys.)

In middle school I became friends with Chick.  On the surface the two of us have about as much in common as...well nothing in common what-so-ever.

So Guy, Chick, and I remained friends (though not in the 3-musketeers since) throughout middle school and high school.  Both Guy & Chick dabbled in the more mystic religions and witchcraft (i.e. Wicca/Earth Worship etc.) I was always the goody-two-shoes, ultra conservative, super Christian girl.  Everything I embodied and believed pointed to me being very evangelical and closed minded to "people like Guy & Chick".  But I wasn't, I never was.  I accepted that they had their own beliefs and they accepted that I had mine. We would sometimes have rather heated religious debates, getting deep into the historical context and meaning of things but we never said anything to insult one another.  And probably most importantly, I never tried to force my beliefs onto either of them nor judge them.

I don't know why but even as a dumb kid I was a little bit of a hippie.  I understood that it was more important to treat people with kindness than to try and force feed them some religious line that they had heard 100 times before.  Even Jesus ate with the sinners, and I am a sinner too--just like them--so who was (am) I to judge. Granted when I was younger I never saw it that was I just simply saw it as me being nice to people I liked and engaging in intelligent conversation but as I have grown older and had conversations with other people I realize that is what I was doing.

I am so glad that I was able to grow and develop my friendship with Guy & Chick over the years because even though I haven't seen either of them in 4 years, or talked to them outside of Facebook since then I know in a couple of months when we meet up for dinner we will pick up right where we left off and I will once again be engaged in intelligent conversation that will help me grow as a person and feed two friendships that mean more to me than most.  These two people helped shape me into who I am today.  They helped me understand that just because someone doesn't hold the same beliefs as I do that doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad people.  I adopted a saying when my super-christian friends would try to criticize me for being friends with Chick and Guy since they all very strongly believed that Chick & Guys beliefs led only to one place. That saying was "they know what I believe and I know what they believe, I can't do any more than share my beliefs, I can't force them upon my friends.  Am I happy with what my beliefs say about my friends no, but I do hope that I am the one who is wrong.  Either way, if I am right-I go to heaven, if I am wrong-I go to heaven, that doesn't seem like bad odds to me."

Now granted, as an adult I realize that that saying was a little self absorbed and slightly skewed but I do hold to the meaning of that mantra--There is no reason to be mean to someone just because they have different beliefs than I do.  I have come across many people over the past 10 years who have different beliefs than I do, and some of them have turned out to be the most amazing, caring, wonderful people I know.  And I am so glad that I know them and can count them as my friends!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Coming out of the infertility closet

So my friend Wife of a Sailor is on vacation this week and asked for a few of her blogging friends to help her out with guest posts, specifically about infertility. 
Most of my readers don't know this but I am lumped into that group. So I decided it was time to share. You can read my guest post by following the link below. Sorry it isn't a nice pretty embedded link, I'm posting this from my phone. But I promise more posts here on my blog in the near future. http://wifeofasailor.com/2013/07/16/guest-post-coming-out-of-the-infertility-closet/#comments. And 

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Procrastination

Yep...that's the name of the game today.  Last night I watched my Goddaughter overnight (she is 9 months old!) and it was her first night away from mommy.  We actually had a pretty good night, She went to bed on time, woke up around 4, took her bottle then went back to sleep like a good little girl.  She woke up for the day around 7 and we got ready for church, it was great.

Today I was supposed to clean the house, why because in about 3 hours I will be going to pick up my 18 year old sister in law who is coming to spend a couple of weeks with me before she goes off to college.  I am so excited to see her but can't get myself off the couch to clean the house...This is a problem because the room she is supposed to sleep in is completely trashed...

Well guess I had better get to work...Maybe I'll find some motivation soon.

Oh and yesterday was the kids halfway party for hubby's ship...So excited to say we are past the 1/2 way mark, the adult party is still a few weeks away which I think is awesome because it makes the second half shorter than the first one :)

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Am I really this gullible?

Sometimes I accuse my husband of being pessimistic.  But in reality I think he does a great job of balancing me out.  I always think the best of people and expect them to do what is right.  Unfortunately that means that when they don't do the right thing I tend to get my feelings hurt.  Right now my feelings are very, very hurt.  I wish my dear, sweet husband was here right now to tell me I'm an idiot and people are assholes and that we should always expect them to take advantage of a situation.  Instead I am going to have to grow some balls and have a very not-pleasant conversation with someone who is taking advantage of my kindness.

this sucks.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Funk

So I know I haven't blogged in a few months but in my defense I did finish my MBA. But that isn't why I haven't blogged. I just haven't had any motivation to do so. 
But the last few days I've been in a funk, like a serious the deployment is winning kind of funk and I just feel like I need to vent. I try not to be Debbie downer but it is soooo hard right now So I'm turning to my personal space that is relatively free of real life people who might make a big deal about what I say. 
I seriously miss my husband. A lot. A whole whole lot. We are roughly 3 months through deployment and the past two weeks the deployment has been on the verge of winning. I have been super homesick and I miss my husband. I've had an almost impossible time getting out of bed but I realized tonight that is because I'm having an even harder time getting myself to go to bed. It's so lonely sleeping by myself every night. I just miss him. 
So hopefully venting will help me and tomorrow I will be in a better mood. Since I knew I was in a funk I went ballroom dancing two nights over the weekend which helped for the time being but all of the good happy ballroom endorphins wore off by the following morning. Friday is my husbands favorite holiday, flag day :) and some friends and I are going to a baseball game which I am looking forward to. Saturday another friend is celebrating her 30 th birthday at Busch Gardens so I'm super stoked about roller coasters and if I get back to town in time I'm going ballroom dancing again Saturday night. Hopefully all of this fun stuff will kick me out of this rut. 

Here is a picture of the progress I have made on the deployment paper chain. It now covers 1 complete wall in my living room and goes across my front door. I'm thinking it is going to snake it's way out of the living room before deployment is over. Should have picked a bigger room. :) 

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

St Patricks Day, deployment style

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

So apparently my hubby had fun on St Patricks Day. Before he left we bought this stupid hat at WalMart and he claimed he would wear it all day. I rolled my eyes but it was only $3 so I bought it for him expecting him to forget it was even in his rack or leave it at home. Yesterday I got this picture from him. Apparently he really did wear it all day Sorry for the poor quality, since his name showed and some other guys were in it i had to open it in paint brush from my work computer to edit slightly don’t want to be posting peoples pics on my blog without their permission!

Friday, March 15, 2013

Love letters


Do you write real true to goodness letters? Not emails, not cards, REAL pen to paper, pour out your heart, letters?

I actually do from time to time. My grandma has email but who doesn’t love getting a letter in the mail every now and then? So sometimes—even though my handwriting is horrible-I will sit down and send her a letter. She has never mentioned them to me directly but apparently every time she gets a letter she calls my mom and goes on and on about how much they enjoy getting letters from me. I don’t send them nearly enough but about 3-4 times a year I sit down and for no reason other than because I know they will appreciate it, I write my grandparents a letter.

But what about love letters, I have no idea how to write a proper love letter but I do love my husband very much, and I do send him letters on a regular basis.

Let me start at the beginning:

When my husband went to boot camp I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know how often he would have access to email, and I knew how many spam emails he received so I didn’t want to risk him missing my quick notes to him buried in the spam. So instead I started writing him letters. I knew he would get mail on a regular basis so I wrote him a letter every day (almost) and mailed them at least 3X per week. He said between me and a few old ladies from the church he received some sort of letter or card almost every day at mail call. These notes and letters helped keep him from getting as homesick and made the time pass a little faster.

My husband also sent me letters while he was in boot camp, and boy oh boy did I LIVE for those letters. He usually mailed them once a week(ish) and if I hadn’t received one by the time the mail man came on Thursday I was pretty antsy at work on Friday knowing there should be a letter waiting on me when I got home. There was something about seeing his handwriting that just made the separation a little easier. I carried the letters around with me in my purse and would read them over and over again.

After my husband graduated from boot camp I took all of the letters from boot camp and created three binders full of letters, notes and cards in page protectors so that in 20 years we can look back on that time and remember (or in 100 years our great-great grandkids can talk about how funny cursive handwriting looks!) One binder is letters from me to hubby, one is letters from him to me and the third is all of the other notes and cards and letters he received from friends and family. I did my best to arrange the binders in chronological order but of course not everyone dates ever card/letter so the third binder is arranged more by person than time line.

Now my husband is gone on his first deployment. We are lucky because his job gives him constant access to internet (as long as they aren’t in River City) and therefore we can send and receive emails throughout the day. However there is still something special about a written letter, so I have once again started the practice of writing a letter every day. I hope that they mean as much to him as they do to me and he keeps them again so that I can add them to the collection. I’m also anxious to see if he sends me real letters again, I hope so because I did love them so much during boot camp.

But the question still stands…How does one write a proper love letter? In my head I envision myself writing flowery prose about how my heart flutters at the sound of his name like something from Jane Austen, in practice I when I reread my letters they sound more like a note passed across a kindergarten classroom, do you like me check yes or no. In reality I am sure I fall somewhere in the middle…so how about you? Do you write love letters to your significant other? Any tips on how I can make my letters something that would make Jane Austen proud and a Nora Roberts blush without being embarrassing? I promise to share any secrets I come up with over the next XX months while hubby is gone.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

It has begun

Hubby is gone...I have set some goals for myself for deployment since we have no idea how long he will be gone, well some idea--though if the rumors are true he is scheduled to be home roughly 10 months sooner than he will be, I don't put much weight in the rumors though.
I took some awesome pics of his ship pulling out, I will post them soon, once I have time to recover from everything and work up the nerve to look at them all.
So here are my deployment goals, what do you think--are they realistic?
Stop biting my nails
Reach a healthy body fat %
Do 100 sit ups (at once)
Do 5 push ups (at once)
Define Abs
Run a 5k
Read the Old Testament
Read "A Tale of Two Cities"
Finish my MBA
Pass at least 2 parts of the CPA exam
Pick a career path
Finish my wedding scrapbook
Help Hubby's sister sort through all of the crap we have to get rid of
Visit friends/Family
Finish unpacking & decorating the house
Plant a garden
Become a vegetarian for 1 month

Some of these are on my 30 before 30, some aren't what do you think? Doable?

Friday, March 8, 2013

Weary Worker


As I type this I am sitting at my desk at work, part of me is simply refusing to work—the other part, doesn’t want to.  Don’t get me wrong, I like my job and I for the most part like what I do, but lately it just hasn’t felt right. 
Deployment is looming in the very near future, in fact my husband should have left already but due to some weather issues and other things their pull-out date has changed, which I am happy to say gives us a few more days together but at the same time completely throws a wrench in my weekend plans of sleeping, doing homework and spending money J  oh well, guess I will have to catch up on two of those three things (the homework is kind of non-negotiable as it is due before he will leave) when he does actually leave. 
How are these two things related?   Well as deployment kept creeping closer and closer I started loosing more and more motivation at work.  My performance is fine, I am getting things done but I also am not doing anything extra.  The 800 special projects on my to-do list on January 1 are now 803 because I just keep adding to them not making time to get any actually done.  My willingness to offer my help when I have a little extra time is completely gone.  I just don’t want to be here.  I can only assume that I don’t want to be here because I want to be at home either snuggled in bed with my hubby or hiding from the world in my blanket fort waiting on deployment to swoop in and turn my life upside down. 
I’m nervous, I’m stressed, these are normal feelings and nothing I am going through is strange—but it is strange to me.  I don’t normally shut down when I get stressed, instead I get amped up, run off the adrenaline and get not only my have-to finish stuff done but also accomplish tons more from running on the adrenaline.  This time, there is no adrenaline…there is only … I don’t know what it is but I’m sure some of you can relate.
I’m not depressed, but I’m a little sad
I’m not scared, but I’m a little anxious
I’m not nervous, but I’m a little hesitant
I don’t want hubby to leave, but I’m excited that he gets to go
I am a walking basket case of contradictions and I think these contradictions have made me a little apathetic at work.  Hopefully once hubby leaves and I get the hang of life without him once again (I was totally in a groove 3 weeks ago when he was underway, why didn’t they just stay gone???) I will get back to normal.  But for now at least I guess I’ll keep being a bit of a stick in the mud.
And here’s hoping my employer doesn’t check my search history on my phone…because I’ve totally looked up new-careers from my personal smart phone 27 million times in the past week…at least I’m smart enough not to use my work computer! J

Monday, February 18, 2013

Impending doom

Or another "D" word.  It's coming up soon, DEPLOYMENT.  I'm really not sure how well I will do but I guess the next 8-11 months will tell us.  My schedule is starting to slow down a little and it will slow down even more in May when I am finished with my MBA so I hope to get back to blogging more regularly and paying attention to those of you who are crazy enough to stick with me despite the fact that I haven't blogged in almost 2 months!  Needless to say, I love you all and appreciate you're patience.

I received and interesting Facebook message last night from our FRG president asking if I would want to take over as the secretary.  I was a little apprehensive at first since I am trying to learn when to say no but after talking (emailing) it over with hubby and lots of praying, thinking about it all day at work, and sleeping on it I just hit send on an email accepting the position.  I'm really excited and know this will be a great experience.

Life has been busy.  School is going well, one class is complete BS (it's HR in an MBA program, if you don't want to go into HR by this point you have enough experience to know the basics and that is all it covers.)  The other class is international business and while I feel like I have had better/more hands on instructors in other classes I really like the text book and despite the fact at I am scared to death about our final paper I am also really excited about it. The class has one exam at the halfway point and a huge paper for the final product, the paper is almost thesis level but I think it will be fun doing the research (Yes, I am a nerd!) and will learn a lot.

Hope you are all doing well.  I will try to do better with keeping you up to date on m life :)

PCS Updates

 Wow I can't believe it's been almost 3 months! SO much has happened and I honestly feel like I've barely had a chance to breath...