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!

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.

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?

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

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 :)

4 months

4 months, that's how long it has been since I blogged.  Yes that is exactly how awesome I am.  I have a lot going on and will blog soon about all of my awesome Christmas swap partners because I really had great people this year.  My husband bought me a new ASUS tablet which I am typing this on now, have to try out all of the awesome new aps! :)  Right now we are in pre-deployment world getting read for a ton of underways and workups followed by hubbys 8-12 month deployment.  It'll be our first, wish me luck!
I finish my MBA in May so between hubby being gone and not having class work I am fairly certian I will be back to regular blogging this summer, maybe sooner now that I have this nifty tablet :)

Thank you faithful followers for sticking with me through so long of an absence.

Happy anniversary to me!

I am a horrible blogger, not only have I not blogged in like a month I also am insanely behind on reading and commenting. Im starting to get caught up but it's been mainly skimming not much in depth reading or commenting. Thank God for twitter i love keeping in touch with all of my imaginary friends :)

My birthday was pretty uneventful we went to dinner nothing exciting. We are now moved into the house and I spent about 4 hours last night clearing out the weeds in a flower bed :). I promise pictures as soon a we get stuff set up. It's coming together slowly but surely.

Today is my three year anniversary. I have no clue what we are doing if anything Adam has mentioned a few different things but not sure what he has settled on. I know one of his ideas involved a carnival but it's storming pretty bad so I'm pretty sure that one is out the window :)

Oh and BIG news in our house. Adam officially has a rate!!! He's no longer a pee on undesignated seaman. Now he's a pee on seaman with a title and he's going to be able to take the advancement test in September :)

So how have you been??

Descriptions of people

A coworker (also a navy wife) and I were just discussing how different milspouses and girlfriends act. Really we were just reflecting on personalities in general but we were talking about specific people we know. She said one thing that completely cracked me up when talking about a couple attached to her husbands last ship:

They had this whole Barbie and Ken thing going on and were just too intense for me. They were the type of people who just don't cuss and don't drink and don't not wear polos...

Ok maybe it was funnier in person but I laughed. :)

Jolly Box

By now I am sure you have all heard about Jolly Box but I was given the opportunity to review the first delivery in the form of a care package for my husband (right before his super-long, 3 whole day, underway/sarcasm) and wanted to give everyone my opinion.  I was not paid for this review, but JollyBox did provide me with a code for a discounted box to check out.  I didn't want to endorse something that I wasn't sure was legit.  So here is what I think!
The box arrived right on time, and the contents were definitely worth $30, especially considering that it includes shipping & during deployments they take care of the customs forms. 

When I got home Adam had already tore into the package but I got a few pictures before he ate anything at least. :)

I decided to select the "healthy options" package since it was coming in right before Adam's PFA.  I was impressed with some of the items included. 
The package contained a Mojo bar, and a bag of whole cashews, (which are his favorite)

2 sticks of beef jerky, a giant bag of sunflower seeds, one 5-hour energy, and one Eternal Energy drink  

But it also contained some not-so healthy stuff which kind of surprised me (not all pictured because like I said, he already dove into the package when I got home.) Two small bags of chips and a box of skittles

Even tho I was surprised to see the chips and candy overall I think it was a great package.  Adam was happy and healthy people still like treats like skittles and Doritos from time to time.  I don't think I'll purchase one of their monthly subscriptions when Adam deploys but I will probably order him one from time to time if I know getting a package out to him will be hard one month or he is going to have to go extra long without port visits. 

What Adam Thought:

Adam thought it was great.  He had a friend with him when he got home and opened it.  They both thought it was the best thing every to have all of those yummy snacks delivered to them.  They also seemed to get a kick out of the JollyBox sticker that was on the label and had fun sticking the few in the box on people at work.
Granted I could accomplish the same thing but this took me no time and I'm fairly certain after postage etc. it would have cost me just as much to send the exact same stuff. 

From the company:

With JollyBox, we send a care package every month filled with fun (and sometimes practical!) products to help them get by. It's a super easy way for you to help them out from afar.

Want to check out JollyBox for your own special service member or college student?  Check out www.myjollybox.com and use the code FIRST10 to save $10 off of your first order.

ENJOY!

Great timing...thanks navy.

My dear sweet husband has duty tonight. My mom will be here tomorrow night through Tuesday morning. Something happened this morning that I really need to talk to him about in private. Hope he's home early tomorrow.
Great timing navy, thanks a lot.

**no I'm not pregnant and I don't think it is anything that will cause a fight etc. it's just something no one else, least of all my mom, needs to hear.

Sorry for the vagueness but this is my blog and I need to complain about crappy timing somewhere. :)