Mission: Move Home, Status: Complete

Well, I realize it's been a while since I've posted anything so here's an update. I'm sorry if it gets choppy too, there's just so much to go through and I don't want to write a dictionary like I sometimes end up doing:)

We made it down to South Carolina without any weather issues...that is until we got there. Obviously the South is not equipped to deal with weather like we have up North (NY, NY, MI, WI, etc...). Anyway, SC ended up getting a recordbreaking 4 inches or something, idk, but they literally shut down the ENTIRE town. McDonald's, Walmart, everything! We searched all over town for an hour to find a little podunk hole in the wall place that was open because we needed a bag of dog food.

When we went through the gate (finding an open gate was FUN...NOT...ALL except one was closed because of the treacherous weather lol!) we asked the guard where to find the Welcome Center. It seemed simple. Go to the third light, take a left, then an immediate right. WRONG. Somehow we missed it about twenty times and then finally found it by accident about an hour later after driving all over post.

Ugh...

Once hubby got everything situated and signed for his room, we took him to the building he'd be staying in and he took in some of his bigger stuff and packed it away in the storage locker in the room. He met his roomie who I guess is a pretty nice guy. They cycle drill sergeant classes in each week, so his roommate is actually a week ahead of him.

One more hassle down.

We then took some time to just hang out, which we haven't done in a very long time. We've had our issues but they seem to be smoothed over, atleast for now lol! We went to see Gulliver's Travels which I absolutely DO NOT RECOMMEND. It was horrible. It was almost as bad as Year One. Jack Black has really lost his credibility with those two "films". And we went to this really huge outdoor mall i guess you could call it. Almost like a strip mall that was super nice with tons of stores but go figure, half of them weren't open.

Hmm...

I had my first iHOP experience:) I ordered a chicken fajita omelette and it was AMAZING! LOVE LOVE LOVE it:) And their buttermilk pancakes are to DIE for! And if you know me well enough, you know I usually hate any and all breakfast food so that says a lot coming from me:D

Fast Forward...

Since Rich had to be up early this morning, I took him to his signed room last night and spent the night in the hotel by myself. I finally got myself to go to sleep around 11 but woke up around 4 because...

one of my dogs shat all over the cage. We forgot to bring their food with us so we had to substitute another kind and even though she went to the bathroom before bed, she still got an upset stomach from it. Thus, I woke up to the smell of poop and couldn't get back to sleep so I cleaned it up, ended up junking a blanket, and started the 15 some odd hour drive to my parents' house.

Drive was relatively uneventful except my windshield wiper fluid keeps freezing or getting clogged up or something. I had to stop and clean my windshield about 18 times because it kept getting gunked up from the muddy water off the road and all the salt buildup. Ick.

Driving through West Virginia was the absolute worst. Going through winding mountains with high speed winds, crazy drivers, and insane lack of visibility due to thick snow blowing everywhere. I white knuckled it the ENTIRE way through because I tend to panic in situations like that.

Other than those things, I'm not sure what else to go on about. It's 2343 right now and I've been up since 0400 and have been sitting for the majority of that entire time span and am about to go lay down. Mom said she bets that right once I lay my head down, I'll be out, and I don't want to put money on that because I'm guessing she's right.

Hope everyone's year has started off well!

Goodnight all

Ooh, wait, can't forget this: I walk in the door around 2200 and on the stove sits my favorite dinner: ma's homemade spaghetti!

(I deserve it for making it through the road trip alone, so...ha!)

2011 - Another New Start

I'm becoming increasingly anxious...not the good or bad kind of anxious...can't really pinpoint it, just anxious. About what? Getting everything cleared out and moved and secured, driving down to South Carolina and getting there without many glitches, leaving SC and driving home by myself when I've never driven down south at all let alone myself with the three little dogs, being home is totally great, I love it and take advantage of every time I get to see my family because as any military spouse knows, its not easy to make the sometimes day long drives to see families. I'm worried about driving down to SC from my parents' house on my own and navigating a new post, moving temporarily back up to NY so we can clear and then take leave to see each of our families and then making the final move down to Georgia. I'm so excited and nervous at the same time. Its my first pcs move and things are bound to drive me bonkers. Buuuuut, have any of you ever realized how just when you get reallllly acclamated to new surroundings/situations/people that *bam!* it's time to move on? I feel that same way. I feel like now that we have amazing friends, a house that works out perfectly, an amazing landlord, and just a cozy life, that fate has dealt me a new hand and said "time to play a new game".

I'm nervous about his job too when he graduates school and we move down to Georgia. His hours are going to be insane, he'll hardly have any time off, no decent travel windows to see family. Oy. My parents are getting up there in age so they said they'd love to come down and visit and see us wherever we are when they retire so that'd be great.

All in all, I guess I'm just being a worrywart but I hate the "unknown". I like to have a plan, a list, an organization over a lot of things. I guess I'm overly controlling and that's where the hating of the unknown comes in.

Oh well, I guess we shall all see where 2011 and the rest of the future takes us.

Goodnight and Happy New Year!

New Year's Resolutions and a New Start

Here we go folks, the New Year is upon us. In a little less than 12 hours, all the promises and resolutions we make for and/or to ourselves will take effect.

What are yours this year?

Mine...

No using the "F" bomb until 0001 on January 1, 2012
Limit soda drinking to 1 can per day
Read 20 classic novels
Lose 20 lb.
Save $2,000.00 for emergency purposes and/or downpayment on a house

The hard part for me is sticking to them...I usually can last about a month and then something causes me to revert back to "life before the resolution". I don't think I'll keep all of them for this year but I'm going to try and that's what matters right? That we all atleast try?

So when the clock strikes midnight, and you share a kiss with your special someone, remember to atleast make an attempt to keep the promises you've made to yourself.

Be safe and have a verry Happy New Year!

Almost Time To Go

So tonight for dinner, I'm making baked ziti with garlic bread. We rented The Other Guys on OnDemand and are just relaxing.

It's almost time to go...

meaning: we only have a little over a week before I say goodbye to hubby for 3 months while he's in school down in South Carolina and I move to Michigan to save a little cash.

Each time we take a load of stuff out to the storage place I realize just how close it is to the time we move for good down to our next duty station. Thankfully, it's someplace warm!

When I first got here a few years ago, I HATED it. We lived in a little apartment in Watertown. The landlord said appliances were included and when I showed up, there was nothing there. We bought our own stove and fridge and furniture which wiped out our deployment savings. Then we ended up moving on post thinking it'd be easier. NOT. Due to certain circumstances, we only stayed on post for the initial 6 months requirement and moved out to a little town about 25 minutes away. The house was crap, the landlord was a nice enough guy and his wife and kids were really friendly, but nothing ever got done. There was a wasp problem during the hottest months and a mold problem that got so bad the toilet fell through the bathroom floor!

Then we moved out to another town a little further away and shared an apartment with a friend of ours that had lived with us in the previous place for a while. I then moved home to save money.

Long story short: I left stuff at the apartment in the bedroom and some stuff in the garage and my friend had no problem with that. Then there were some court issues and legal issues with my friend and she got evicted. I couldn't make it back here to move everything out so I had someone else move my stuff to storage.

We showed up here after hubby got back from deployment and went to the storage unit to get everything out. After we started opening everything, we realized that there was a lot of stuff missing. So we have an allotment coming out because we had to pay for the stolen stuff but our insurance reimbursed us so I guess it's not as bad as I thought it woulda been.

And now we are here, in a log cabin type house with tons of property, a fabulous landlord and her family, and we are leaving. I don't really want to but it's necessary because we need to save the money to get us where we are going next.

I'm not really sure what my original intent for this post was, but I guess I'm just feeling slightly sentimental about leaving this place. We'll be coming back for a month and just renting a room after my husband graduates because we have to clear this post, i have to get my medical records, all that irritating stuff lol

So...that's it for tonight...nothing too interesting, like I said, just feeling kind of sentimental.

Made It Home Safely

So hubby and I made it back to NY safe and sound. We've gotten the jeep unpacked, organized a few things, and gotten some stuff done. The rest of our days here in NY will be spent packing up anything that we don't absolutely need, moving things into storage, and all that fun stuff. Sandra and her husband were kind enough to watch one of our dogs for us and we picked him up and kind of figured out a moving strategy since they'll be moving some of their stuff in while we're still here since we don't move until the 8th.

Speaking of the two of them, I am sooooooo thankful for them being gracious enough to watch our dog and they will be watching him for us while I am in Michigan and hubby is in school. It really speaks to the kindness of new found friends:) Thanks, Sandra!

Let's see what else...

Ordered a few things from the MAC Cham-Pale and Stylishly Yours collection so that should be here shortly and I've got a few other things to order when I pay down my credit card balance.

I had someone contact me by way of a friend of mine who does photography on Fort Drum about doing her makeup and hair for her wedding in February but it'd be a tight squeeze to get back up here from MI. I'm meeting with her anyway just to see what she's looking for. Fingers crossed:)

Hmm...

Other than that, it's back to life here in upstate NY but only for another couple weeks and then it's down to SC and back home to MI. Excited, nervous, anxious...all in one

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

The Gift Of Love

So just when we were all having fun and laughing, just relaxing this morning when present opening was coming to an end, my dad said he had one last present for my mom. Now, you'd really have to spend a few hours with my dad to understand his sense of humor and odd way about him, but I'll do my best to explain it.

You know how there are those kinds of people that like to wrap a present inside a box inside a box inside a box inside ANOTHER box? My dad is kinda like that. He wrote out "instructions" that my mom had to follow, things like, "To open this present you must first stand up, grab your tongue, and while holding your tongue say 'biddie biddie bidde'," stuff like that. So he goes through this whole set of instructions right?

Finally she gets to open this present which ends up being a beautiful photo album with pictures that he had professionally taken off their original wedding slides (yes, they're old enough to have used slides) all put into 4x5 slots in the album with their wedding picture on the front. He also had a dvd slideshow made of the photos that played through while their wedding song was played in the background.

My father is 67 and my mom is 58 and they've been married for 30 years. How awesome is that?

Divorce has NEVER once come up, they fight but it's mainly cute old people fighting, and they just seem to be as happy now as they ever have been.

Because they adopted us when they were older than most adoptive families, I never met or remember meeting my grandfathers. My mom's mom is still alive and I see her as much as possible but she's in pretty rough shape. Dad's mom passed away a few years ago. I don't really even remember seeing any pictures of either grandpa except for the small ones my mom has in frames here at our house.

But I looked through the album and saw pictures of my cousins as children (cousins who are now in their 40s) and I finally came to one of a face I knew all too well, a younger face of my Grandma B, dad's mom, my mom in her wedding dress, and there stood Grandpa next to them. It brought a tear to my eye because I always hear stories of grandpa's and their grandkids and how they teach them the ways of the old world and tell them stories on their laps, and I never got that. I never even met him. As a baby, I was able to meet Grandpa S though, but I was only months old and have no recollection of him whatsoever. Kinda sad:(

Alas, the photo album let me look into a side of my family history that I never knew. My parents would every now and then describe their wedding to me when I saw their wedding photo and asked about it, but it was always so hard to imagine. I was able to see my parents on one of the happiest days of their lives together and I was able to see my grandparents, all together.

The Gift Of Love sure is a rare thing these days and when we find it, we need to hold on to it. Maybe in 30 years I'll give my husband a wonderful gift like that or vice versa. It's amazing to think that in 30 years, cell phones will probably be considered a thing of the past and who knows what new technology we will see. But one thing's for sure...the human capacity for LOVE will always be here until the end of the earth and as long as humans inhabit it.

MERRY CHRISTMAS! (I haven't even slept yet)

So it's 0154 and I've been playing Farm Frenzy Pizza Party for the past I don't know how long. I've gotten into a terrible habit over the past few years of staying up as late as possible just doing nothing in general and then only going to sleep when I'm absolutely exhausted and then the vicious cycle continues.

Hubby has been sleeping for a while and no stores are open so I'm just sitting at my dad's computer messin' around.

It's Christmas morning:)

I'm really thinking that I'm going to grab a pillow and blanket when I eventually do wear myself out, turn out every light in the house, turn on the Christmas Tree lights, and go sleep by the tree like I used to do when I was a kid. I just feel a bit nostalgic this year. My parents have a big tree in the living room, and a smaller one sitting on top of the dining room table so they can fit more of their collected ornaments instead of just keeping them in boxes.

I LOVE our Christmas ornaments. I always (when I was a kid and now when i'm home and able to) help mom put up the ornaments and we have a few very special ones. There's tons of original ceramic Disney ornaments that are a blast to hang up each year, we have 2 wooden baby rattle ornaments that were handmade by a lady from one of our old churches when my parents adopted one of my older brothers (the one that's here right now) and one when I was adopted, and then...there's the plastic pickle. It's just what it sounds like, a little 4 inch plastic pickle. We used to play a game that whoever found the pickle in the tree could open up the first present or would get to hand presents out. Needless to say, I'd scope out the pickle during the night and always be the first one:)

I always used to be a little present snooper too. I'd carefully untape boxes or peek through the tissue paper to see if I could get a glimpse of what was inside and waiting for me lol!

See what I mean about nostalgia?

Orrrrr...my brother (again, the same one who's here at the house right now too) and I would wake up at 0200, turn on A Christmas Story (yeah, you know the one. the one that loops 24 hrs a day every Christmas), line up our presents, and fall asleep on the couches.

I was telling my husband on the way here that I miss asking for toys and games and stuffed animals. I thought of this when I realized the first thing that came to my mind when my mom asked what I wanted for Christmas was quite literally, "kitchen stuff". I asked for things like mixing bowls, cook books, pans, etc, anything for the kitchen. When did I get so boring?

No really, when did we all grow up? I'm 22 almost 23, haven't graduated college, and am now asking for kitchen stuff...

What did you ask for/get this year?

Alright, well I think it's time for me to go curl up out by the tree. Goodnight/Good Morning, MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, HAPPY FESTIVUS, HAPPY KWANZAA, and all those wonderful things:)