Getting this off my chest.

This is just a personal blog/vent I guess. Sometimes I feel like I won't make it as a military wife. I'm a complete hermit and people tend to judge me before they ever get to know me. I feel awkward going to things like military ball and dining out because I don't talk to anyone but Lieutenant. Then I see how easy it is for the other wives to carry on conversations with ANYONE...why can't I be like that? What am I so afraid of?

I just don't know what I'm doing wrong. I'm a nice person, I find a lot of different things funny and I am easy to get along with. Growing up, everyone who had problems and needed someone to talk to came to me. I listened and empathized with them. I don't know what changed.

I want to be the type of wife who isn't afraid to carry on a conversation. I want to be the wife that doesn't have awkward moments of silence (or awkward moments in general.) I feel like I have this wall built up that was built so well it can never be broken down.

You know whats funny? I always wanted to be a part of an FRG and have friends and go out for lunches or go shopping. The reality is I'm sitting at home with no girlfriends who are military wives, and the girls I hang out with are my sisters or my sister in law. They're wonderful but they don't understand military life...I just want a connection and girls I can rely on who understand exactly what I am going through.

I just want to be accepted.

Blah, again?

Last night I was feeling pretty ill so I went to bed around 2100 hrs. Lieutenant called me at about 2130 and I could hardly speak. Yes, yes, I am getting sick again. I guess living with a three year old, a two month old, and two adults can get you sick real fast. My brain is complete mush at this point. I usually only get sick once per season but nooo, this year it has to be different.

Lieutenant has been at the optometrist all day long so he can be cleared of all eye problems. The Air Force demands a certain level of perfection from their officers. That sounds extremely snobby but its basically true. If they're putting down the means (read: thousands of dollars) to train him, he needs to be exemplary. That is exactly why he got Lasik eye surgery. I believe he got it done over a year ago but I'm no good with time lines. All I know is that he paid $5,000 for it so it had better be done correctly. I freaked out two weeks ago when the doctors said he would still need to wear glasses! Luckily today he was cleared with 20/20 vision.

He commissions smack dab in the middle of December and everything is starting to hit me. I've been reading other wives' PCSing mishaps and it makes me want to hide in my closet! I just don't know what is going to happen and that is no good for me. I am half the "need to plan everything" person and half "let's be spontaenous!" When it comes to the military, I am the "need to plan everything" person and well, basically I am being told that its virtually impossible to have everything planned on the first PCS.

It's barely 15:45 hrs over here and I feel like falling back to sleep. (I woke up at noon because I was so sick..) So sorry if this blog is incoherent. Everything is starting to get blurry!

Edit:// Oh in spite of my sickness, I tested out my camera on my nephew. I'm getting better at it, I think.

A quick update.

Lieutenant and I finally got to see each other. To be honest, we argued. A lot. After talking things out and listening to how each other felt, it became easier. He makes me realize a lot of things that I wouldn't have otherwise thought about and he helps me to see alternative ways of doing things.

I can't even begin to explain how hectic things are right now. I am pretty sure I bombed one of my midterms and it is four in the morning here so this is the third week of insomnia that I've had. Let's just say that I am having a bad week and leave it at that. I guess I'll try to sleep now, not much to write about.

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.

Headache!

*Screams into pillow* URG! I hate tech support for two reasons.

1. They do not know the first thing about being technical support. Reading a 10 page manual doesn't make you a genius.
2. They are not supportive! They are drones. My fiancee could fly them. Sheesh.

It all started when my newly acquired internet decided it wanted to take a break. I guess I was on Blogger and Facebook too much... Anyway, so it stops working and I immediately call Belkin's tech support. I get a woman who I can hardly understand who is telling me that my laptop isn't sufficient because I am not running Windows 7 nor do I use Internet Explorer. First off, Internet Explorer, really? No offense to you IE users...but it sucks. I am a diehard Firefox fan. Also, I don't use anything higher than XP because its filled with crap that I have no use for. I don't want extra stupid stuff, I just want a fast computer and XP gives me that.

After she told me that it was me that was the problem, I politely hung up and called the ISP. They too went through the SAME. EXACT. INSTRUCTIONS. My temper started flaring. Of course I kept my cool over the phone because it isn't their fault, so I politely hung up with him and then went and raged into the nearest couch cushion I had access to.

Finally, I decided that I was smart enough to do it myself. Google on my phone was too slow so I decided I would just re-enter the code. This time, against the instructions of two "tech supporters," I entered the code in all caps. Guess who fixed the internet? ME.

Why am I not getting paid for this? I was irritated but now I'm liberated. At this rate, I'll be able to even program a television. Lieutenant will at least take comfort in the fact that I can take care of things whenever he deploys.

Bad camera blogger.

Wow, I have had an outpouring of support these last few days from the blogging community. Let me just say I appreciate it! Lieutenant keeps telling me not to be nervous but I am. Its such a big change. Especially since during the move and wherever we go, I'll still be a full time university student. I'm about a year away from getting my Bachelor's degree in Psychology. Since I lived with my dad and he owns a home here, I can still claim it as my house. Okay, so technically I'm cheating the system but come on, out of state cost add ons are outrageous!

Other than school, if you don't remember, I am staying with my brother and his fiancee until Lieutenant commissions. It saves us money and it also gives me time to spend with my nephew and my now one month old niece. Let me just say, I'm a cell phone photographer. I can never get my act together enough to charge the battery to my Kodak Z812 IS. Its not a perfect camera but its got some mega HD video!

So in the mean time, while I figure out where my unlazy-bone went, here is picture of Mira, my youngest niece.

P.S. All the new followers...I love you and thats so exciting haha!

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.

Illness, itching and the waiting game.

Lieutenant has just hit the 11 week mark! That is, he has 11 weeks until he graduates and commissions. I know he is nervous but he is also excited. The one thing he is nervous for is getting the job he wants. For his sake, I hope he gets it as well. There truly is nothing like a disappointed Lieutenant (and I’m already planning in my head on the proper cake to bake, so heck, I need to know too!) In all seriousness though, as if there needs to be any, Lieutenant has worked extremely hard to get to where he is and he genuinely deserves what he is after. He designed the detachment patch which cadets and commissioned airman will where for years and he is presenting it to the cadre today. I love it, and I’m ordering some. I’m such a ham for personalized knick-knacks.

As for myself, I am seriously sick. I was going to be cliché and put “sick as a dog” but I don’t understand that phrase very well. I mean, not all dogs are sick, so how does this make sense. Well, I won’t go off on a silly tangent about clichés…Anyway, I’ve been SICK. My nephew LJ gave it to me, his new baby sister and my brother. I don’t know where he got it, probably just from being three. It has literally disabled me to the point where my eye sockets hurt. I won’t blame it ALL on LJ because, well, here comes the gross part: I dropped my cell phone in the toilet. Yes, the woman who said she’d never be the one to do that, has done just that. I scrubbed my hand and arm to death but the germs combined with LJ’s germs and created a big ol’ germy catastrophe. Being a full time student and being sick is not a good combination, not a good combination at all. I loathe being sick…

Oh and the return of the bedbugs has commenced. After not being able to move positions without feeling like death was upon me, I laid on the couch. Day became night and the bedbugs came out to feed. My arm is swollen, my lower back itches, and those suckers bit my TOE. Really? My toe? Why my toe? It is the hardest place to itch and it never feels relieved!

On a good note, I was able to catch up on most of my subscriptions in the blogosphere and MAN are you guys funny. I’ve got a few “heroes” on the blogosphere, let me tell you!

Well I guess that is all for tonight…this morning…probably this week since the internet is so freakin’ slow! I’ll be up for the next, hmm, eight hours reading anthropology books about primates, intimacy, and fatherhood. Yeah, I don’t get it either.

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!

Oh, bugger. (Part Two)

Oh, bugger: Part Two

Well the quest to find and eliminate the bed bugs is still ongoing. I am ready to pull hair and teeth out on this one. Even after all the spraying, vacuuming, steaming and scrubbing that has been done, I found an adult bed bug today – IN DAYLIGHT. I really dislike when I see bugs because I become the ultimate hypochondriac, itching away at my body until it’s raw. When J got home from work and I told him that I saw one, he immediately flipped the couches over. The first couch we looked under had nothing but a few pools of dried blood from the bugs. The second couch, however, was a different story. Underneath this couch is where I believe the bed bugs were nesting. I found one egg sac, larvae, baby bugs, medium sized bugs, pools of blood and poop, but no adult sized. When we found the bugs – alive I might add - we busted out the bottles of rubbing alcohol and started frantically spraying. We didn’t have a flashlight handy so we used a lighter. Needless to say, we lit the bottom of the couch on fire for three seconds and started blowing at it like it was our birthday cake. After the couch stopped burning and we stopped laughing we sprayed and doused it with the Diatomaceous Earth. Now all we can do is wait but I believe that this is one race that the bed bug epidemic has lost - - I hope.

Oh, bugger.

Oh, bugger.

We’ve all heard the fable “Don’t let the bed-bugs bite” and many of us have brushed it off as just something our parents used to say. Boy, was I wrong. My brother has a case of the bed bugs! The creepy, crawly tiny little critters have bitten me all over! I look like I have the chicken pox in some places and bee stings on other places. Most of all, they itch! I just couldn’t live getting bit every night by these vampire bugs so I decided to take action. I started ‘Googling’ away trying to find any sensible (and cheap) solution to combating these pests. The first query that came up was rubbing alcohol. Sensible, cheap, hey I was all over that. I enlisted the help of my brother, J, and his fiancée, KM, on this matter since they have a three year old and a newborn. KM promptly went out and purchased a brand new vacuum, rubbing alcohol, and borrowed a steam cleaner from a friend. I sprayed down the couches with the entire bottle; I was on a mission. When I left, KM and J steamed and vacuumed.

My sister Peej told me about the product they had used to get rid of their own bed bug problem called Diatomaceous Earth (Food Grade) so I eagerly awaited the time when I could test it out. They gave me almost half of a 5-quart bag to take back to the house. As soon as I got through the door, I displayed the find. When their children were put to bed, I got to work. I first powdered down all of the pillows and then the back and sides of the couches, and finally over the cushions and underneath them. Since I am heavily covered in bites already, if I sit on the couch tonight, I won’t know if I’ve been bitten again.

I sincerely hope this works. Peej and her family have already gotten rid of all of their furniture due to the bed bugs. The devastation was so bad for them that they are now sleeping on air mattresses. I am hoping that if enough letters are written on their behalf, a local furniture company will donate to them.

But I digress...Please wish me luck, my arms and legs need it!

Good News?

Lieutenant received his first assignment today. At first, I was extremely excited. See, Lieutenant is “slotted” for one job but he is technically on hold for two other jobs. His slotted job is guaranteed if his alternates don’t work out. I know you are probably asking yourself why I am no longer that excited.

Back in the year 2000, a boy in my grade attacked me. I won’t go into detail here but I will tell you that it has haunted me ever since. I know I should be far past moved on since he did not succeed in his attack, but for some reason I just can’t shake it off. Where he comes into play in this blog is that the place where Lieutenant got our assignment is where the boy moved to immediately after my attack because his father was in the Air Force.

When Lieutenant told me that would be his first assignment, my heart started beating fast, I felt dizzy, hot, and sick to my stomach. While I am always proud of him and always willing to see new places and have new experiences, I have to admit that this has shaken me.

I realize that I need to be strong for him though, as well as myself, and not let this eleven-year-old incident break me down. I love the Air Force and I know that they will send Lieutenant where they need him so like I have said and always will say, I’m just going to have to pull on the boot straps for this one, give the past no room to move into the present, and be excited for yes, good news.

Edit: On a completely unrelated noted, congratulations to Andrea over at Sgt. and Mrs. Hub for winning the My Air Force Life photo contest and being featured on AF.mil!

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