One of THOSE women.

Okay, so right now I am going to be one of "those" women. The one that complains how much she misses her husband because she hasn't seen him in three weeks. But if I'm being truthful on my blog, I miss him. I miss him terribly. I live across town and between the whole bedbug issue, the school issue and the military, we don't get to see each other.

It has been really hard on us, especially since the engagement stage is supposed to be amazing and I guess we're supposed to move in together, buy furniture, etc. All that stuff is going to have to happen later because we just don't have enough time.

Granted, he isn't deployed yet and I no longer live 500 miles away...but COME ON. It has been nearly a month since we have seen each other. Ugh, it kills me and it kills him. I can't wait until he commissions and we can start our life together.

In other news, he sent me the final design of the patch that he made for the detachment. It looks absolutely amazing and I am so proud of him. Airmen will be wearing this patch for years, what a mark to leave on his detachment. I definitely think, that when we get married and are on our feet, we will donate to the detachment as alumni of the school..and perhaps visit as well.

Non-mantra-like day

Well let me just tell you, college is putting me through the ringer! I stay up until the wee hours of the morning....the time when I'm supposed to be waking up and you know, being productive. Does that happen? Nope! I wake up at five-o-clock at night! What in the world?! I just keep telling myself, "Mrs., its just eight more weeks. Only eight. Just two more months of this." Is it working? Sure it was, up until the point when I realized when that eight week mark hits, I will literally not be sleeping. At all. Ever.

Okay MAYBE I'm exaggerating but silly me, I forgot that after school is over, I have to get married and we have to move wherever the Air Force decides we need to go!! Please, for the love of everything that is good and holy, I pray that we don't get sent to the northern part of the country. Non-stop snow, less than productive population. I won't say where but I'm pretty sure you can guess.

My head is spinning. How did you get through those first few months pre-marriage, PCSing?

Also, for my lack of pictures, here is one of my future MIL. She is beautiful!

The not so happy-go-lucky moments.

What do you guys do when you're having an argument with your husband? With Lieutenant and I, it can either be very simple or very difficult. As much as we want to be "the perfect couple" (That's hilarious!) we understand that we're really not.

I'll admit that a lot of the time I can be a hothead. I get it from my dad who was in the Army for seventeen years. In my opinion, the way he raised my siblings and I was the Army way. If we got out of line, my dad would make sure we knew that he meant when he said we were in trouble. Since my dad was a single parent from the time I was two up until last June, I completely understand why he'd be a hothead. I mean, if I had to raise five children...under ten...ALONE, then I'd be one too. Oh yes, I would have no hair left on my head and I'd have wrinkles to boot.

Fortunately for me, Lieutenant is patient and understanding (when he wants to be!) and he basically goes into the "uh huh" mode when I start going off on a tangent. Then he waits until I calm down and we talk through it. That is how we have made it through all these years and it is how we will make it forever. We offer full explanations on why we feel the way we feel and then we help eachother figure out a solution. I am so blessed to have a peacekeeper as a fiance. If he were a hothead like me, it'd be one outrageous relationship.

Hecticity

So Lieutenant has officially hit the 9.5 weeks mark. So much is going on lately that time just seems to be whizzing by. It literally went from being five years, to six months and now it is 9.5 weeks....WOW. I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all.

There's no real update on the bedbug situation other than trying to pack up clean clothes in plastic bags and live out of them for three weeks. The pest control is supposed to come in and do two treatments but we literally have to remove everything but the furniture out of the house..oh joy. When the news said that bed bugs were becoming an epidemic, they weren't kidding.

In other news, I realize this blog is a bland, picture-less mess right now. I'm in the works with Lieutenant to give it some spice but as I said before, hecticity (yes I made up my own word) is everywhere.

I am also busy with school which is so consuming that every time I see Lieutenant I die a little inside over the fact that he's almost done.

My good friend from elementary school, Nell, is getting married - get this - to my middle school "boyfriend" on October 30th so I've been helping her with invitations and planning. I'm so happy for them. I love it when others find love! I also realized after going to her house tonight that I am kind of in love with wedding planning..and organizing. She laughed at me the whole night because I kept cleaning up scrap papers and organizing where scissors, glue and stamp books went. She said she'd recruit me to organize her house any day! I know Lieutenant is hoping (probably begging!) that this sticks with me, because I can walk into a room and make it into the scene of a tornado if the mood is right!

I need to take a step back and breathe because once he commissions and I become a wife, its going to be nuts!

The will to wed (and the changing of the name!)

Lieutenant and I have been engaged for one month now and everything seems like it is getting down to the wire. The semester is over in December and it is already almost mid-September! Yikes! I am cringing with fear, nervousness, and excitement. Yesterday we were discussing how many bedrooms we wanted and how much it would cost to get married in a courthouse, as well as realizing that my name was going to change. That, for me, is perhaps one of the scariest parts of realizing that I am going to be a wife. Giving up my birth name, my maiden name…well that is a big aspect of who I am. My last name is completely unique in such a way that any one else that has it is blood related to me in some way. It is not such a common name as Smith or Johnson that you have to wade through piles of names before you recognize any. Also, my maiden name is special to me because in a way, it defines parts of me. It gives me character and mystery. It brings out my humor and makes me a part of a rare group. But I digress, to put it blatantly, I have a lot on my plate right now. I am so thankful that Lieutenant is here to support me and put up with my stress levels!

The airman and the children.

Yesterday evening, I met up with Lieutenant at my older sister’s house for a family barbecue. If you’re just tuning in, he and I do not live together yet. At present I am living across the city from him and lately due to school, seeing each other is at best, once per week. Ah, but I digress. When I saw him it was almost like seeing him for the first time. Call me cheesy if you must, but I still get butterflies when I look at him. I am pretty sure I always will. My nieces and nephews adore him, which is odd because he is an only child and doesn’t see his younger cousins very often. I think that they must be on to him and his childlike heart. He likes to speak in “Valley Girl” with my oldest niece, Lil, which she finds hilarious to boot. Then there is my second oldest niece, RL, and her sister, Red, that believe being picked up and twirled twenty times is the best thing ever. I think that it is adorable that my rough, tough, ready for action, fighter jet and race car loving, manly man Airman is also a teddy bear (but don’t tell him I said that. I know he’d like to keep his cover!) From the way that I’ve seen him act around them, I see how wonderful he is with children and how blessed I am to have someone who will make such a great daddy. Hmm, there goes those butterflies again!

Ready or not.

Lieutenant completely shocked me today by asking me if I was ready. Oh the dreaded word that is "ready," no, I guess I am not. By "ready" he meant his graduation, commissioning as an Officer, looking for apartments, buying furniture, moving in together, GETTING MARRIED... Am I ready? No. I am the least ready for this of all the things that I should be ready for. Like equations, I try to piece together how it will all play out and the answers just aren't there. I suppose I shouldn't be thinking negatively. After all, moving in together, getting married and having a life is what I've been waiting for this entire time... I just don't know how prepared I am for it.

When it comes down to it, I really just need to pull up on my boot straps, tie my hair back and dive head first into this. I'd rather free-fall into it than have it hit me like a freight train.

Engaged!

Hello world, I am engaged! Its taken nearly four years of hard work to get to this point. You might be thinking to yourself, how?
Our story starts out in the year 2004. I met Lieutenant (psst, that's my fiancé!) when I was fourteen years old when we were both Air Force JROTC cadets. We met through a fellow cadet whom he is still good friends with and without the slightest doubt we knew that the connection was strong between us. He and I clicked instantly and over the course of two years we had become best friends. Lieutenant and I had a rough time during my senior year, I had been between a bad relationship and a depression, so as much as he had professed his love for me, I continued to say no. By the end of my senior year, however, we had fallen madly in love with each other. Everything felt right and we knew that we had a much stronger bond than we had first thought. This love and relationship carried on until the beginning of this year.
Lieutenant and I ended our three year-plus relationship so he could test the waters before graduating college. I moved to Phoenix and he continued school in our home town of Las Vegas. This break up only lasted three months. We couldn't be without each other. Fate brought us together and it kept us together.
I recently moved back to Las Vegas to finish my Bachelor's degree, save up some money and ultimately to be with him. We went on vacation a few days ago and he proposed to me on the beach. I can honestly say this is the happiest time of my life. I couldn't see myself marrying anyone else. By December, Lieutenant will be commissioned in the United States Air Force and [hopefully] by then, I will be his wife.

- Mrs. Air Force