Deployment and hairballs!

Deployment looms, made even more real when my husband put on his new multi cam uniform this morning.

I look all around and see women talking about it and getting depressed. My neighbor was looking forward to deploying with her husband (I was going to watch her cats while they were gone) and just found out she was not going to be allowed to deploy. She is heartbroken. She says she feels like a family member died. She talks of how many soldiers she sees trying to get pregnant or hurt on purpose so they do not have to deploy, and here she is trying everything she can to deploy, but is being denied. She has turned to pills (prescribed) and drinking (yes together), and I told her that she needs to find the silver lining in this. Things happen for a reason, and she will get through. I also pointed out that alcohol is a depressant, and that drinking will make it worse. 

People ask me if I am sad about my husband leaving. I tell them the truth. I try my best not to think about it. I want to spend the time left before he leaves being happy and spending quality time with him, not spending weeks or days crying over someone who is not even gone; the tears can wait.

Last night my husband was working on some counseling statements for work. One of our cats was lying behind my head and ran down to the floor to hack up a hairball. My husband started yelling at her to stop, that it was disgusting...

"Apparently she needs to get it out, don't yell at her!"

"But is is disgusting!"

"Well now she is done. She is your cat, so you can clean it."

"She is your cat too!"

"No, when you are home she is yours. When you are gone she is mine. You are home, you get to clean it up."

Made perfect sense to me, but when he went to clean it up he grabbed five paper towels.

"Do you really need that many???"

"Yes! It is disgusting!!"

I will miss all of these little moments that make me giggle, but in the meantime... I am going to enjoy them.

Man flu (or men are such babies).

So I posted earlier in the week that I got sick. It was bad for me since I have not been sick for almost a year... well nothing that lasted a week!

I know I got it from my husband, because he came home hacking and coughing from work one day last week. He was doing the whole:

"Uhhhhh..... I don't feel good..... uhhhhhh...."

I just told him to shut up, that he had the man flu. A few days later I got sick, and had to take care of myself. Hot tea, NyQuil, DayQuil, Sudafed, etc...

The last few nights he has been hacking and coughing like he is going to lose a lung (as he steps outside in the bitter cold to smoke a cigarette), so tonight I poured NyQuil in a cup for him.

"Here, drink this. You are going to sleep tonight without coughing so that I can sleep."

"But it tastes so bad!!!! I don't like this!!!"

"No one likes it! Stop being a pussy and take the damn medicine!"

"You gave me too much! It is supposed to be filled to the line and it is over the line!"

"It is not! JUST TAKE THE FUCKING MEDICINE!!!!"

"It tastes nasty, I don't like it.... I don't want any!!"

"No one likes it. I don't like it, the kids don't like it, but we all take it anyway without crying like a girl. Just take it!"

He drinks about half of it and then tries to hand it back to me.

"Uhhh... no. Finish it."

"Hmph."

Why are men such babies when they get sick? They get a little sniffle and they are "gonna die".

BlogFrog Community

I have been a member of BlogFrog for a short while. I have fun perusing the different communities and reading the discussions and participating in some of them... sometimes it gives me ideas for a blog, sometimes not.

Today I decided to create my own community on there and see if I can get anyone to join my community at some point and have some fun discussions at some point (I hope?).

I just wonder if anyone else is like me and sees a forum with no active discussions and just keeps going, I mean, who wants to talk to themselves? Hello?? Anyone there??? Hmmmm... see?

If you have a blog and want to chat with other bloggers, have questions on blogging, want to check out new blogs, or get some views on your own blog I highly suggest this community. They are great!

My community is HERE and if you go to the top of my blog and click on Community Forum! there you will see my community there as well!

Don't forget about my Facebook Fan Page <--here.

Top Ten Fears

I like Top Ten Thursdays, it makes me think hard... either way. The pet peeves went over well, so how about you have a good laugh about my fears :)

10. Spiders- I hate spiders with a passion. I kill everyone I come across or suck it up in my vacuum. Don't preach to me about how they are good to have around because of blah.. blah... blah.. I do not care. They are evil and should be killed. I would have killed Charlotte (of Charlotte's Web) too, especially before she had those thousands of babies *cringe*

9. Crunchy bugs- OK, I hate bugs of all types, and I kill all of them (except lady bugs- I don't know why), but I am afraid to kill the crunchy bugs (the ones with a shell) because they CRUNCH *shudder*




8. Slugs- See a pattern here? I never had an issue with slugs before I moved to Germany, because I never SAW a slug. The slugs out here are HUGE, slimy, and OMG if you accidentally step on one you can feel it all the way through your shoes up your legs. Just trying to get around slugs after a rain (and it rains a lot here- it is the Seattle of Germany) makes you look like you are doing some strange interpretive dance.

7. Driving in the dark- I have HORRIBLE night vision for one, but I hit a deer once on my way to Canadia (Canada) right before dawn, and since then I have been convinced that a deer is lurking at every point waiting to leap in front of me to commit suicide. For some reason this does not cross my mind in the daytime.


6. The dark- I am afraid of the dark... or rather what is LURKING in the dark. It seems like there are always a bunch of undefinable noises that only occur when it is dark and you are alone.





5. Heights- Or rather a fear of FALLING from those high places. Every time I am up somewhere high I feel like I am going to plummet to my death. Yeah, the Grand Canyon was not the most fun place for me as a child. I can feel my legs get wobbly, and vertigo hits. I could be 6 feet from the ledge and I am still convinced that I am going to fall!

4.Clowns- Clowns are just creepy. Blame it on Poltergeist. Nuff said.








3. Rejection- I am so afraid of being rejected. It does not keep me from trying new things or applying for new things, but it makes me so sick to my stomach. Just writing this blog is hard for me sometimes. What if no one likes what I write? What if I suck? I just try to truck on.

2. Failure- I am so afraid of failing. My new job gave me 16 hours of training... not a lot. I am so afraid of screwing something up and getting fired. I want to be good at whatever I do, and to fail at something makes me feel awful... so needless to say, until I get the hang of my job I will be in constant fear (unless I get fired first).

1. Death- Yes, I know everyone dies, but I am afraid of dying before my children grow up and go out on their own. It happened to my mother... I am afraid it will happen to me too :(






There you have it... my fears... what are your fears?

Till next time... *snort, cough*

If I could breath out both nostrils I would be just peachy! I am still coughing up a lung, but I got my cold meds and the beloved NyQuil, so my drug induced coma will be upon me shortly. I worked this afternoon on another post and LOVED that office! It was so bright and cheery, not like the bomb shelter here locally, lol.

I have a full day of work tomorrow, then Friday off. This week is finals week in my class as well, so this ought to be fun! I do think I should hold off on blogging till I am feeling human again because I can barely put a coherent thought together as it is right now.

I keep begging my husbands soldiers to kill me, but they just laugh, give me a hug, and tell me to get better soon... hmmm...

Really makes me wonder...

A quick blog before I go to bed. The DayQuil did not work too well, but no matter... I am home and the NyQuil is calling me! Work was interesting with my trying to get all of my log in's situated (really hard to concentrate when you are feeling like crap lemme tell ya!), and trying to fill out my security clearance paperwork. It makes me a little nervous, because what if I filled it out wrong? What if I forgot something? Will I get fired? I just need to relax and try to sleep this ick off.

A few things first. How many of you with spouses in the military have nightmares before they deploy? By nightmares I mean death dreams. I am very curious because a few friends of mine are having dreams like that, and I have had one myself. I honestly cannot remember if I had death dreams before the last deployment... but seriously, what is the point in this????

I am really annoying myself because if I think about the deployment at all I have the worst thoughts ever, thoughts that I do not want to have or even come close to imagining. I do not want to talk to my husband about this because he has enough to deal with... so I have my few lady friends in the same situation as me to lean to.

I am trying my hardest to be normal and truck on, but every time I look at him I say to myself "Only XX days till he is gone." I hate pre deployment, and I hate what it turns me into while I try not to become what I hate. Just sayin'.

On that note, I am going to down some NyQuil and crawl under my warm covers... I can hear them calling me :)

P.S. If there are any military spouses reading this, please let me know about the dream thing and your experience.

Share the wealth, eh?

Go figure, it is my luck... I am sick. My 2nd day at work and I am going to go in hacking and coughing like I am going to lose a lung. My throat is raw from coughing and my chest hurts like a bitch... ugh... but I am still going in, and maybe I can spread the wealth :)

I blame my husband. He came home from work last week coughing and whining. I told him not to breath on me... did he listen? Apparently not. On top of all this the youngest one is sick too. I kept him home from school today and he is still in bed sleeping (it is almost 10 am here).

Last night I drugged myself up on NyQuil, and today it will be DayQuil... I loves me some NyQuil!

New job= new photo

So today was my first day at work. it was a lot of paperwork and mind boggling information that I am sure left me with a glazed look on my face. I think I will get more hours than I thought I would, so that will help. I also learned that I had to take my own picture for the work ID... so...

I took a picture with my webcam (because I am too tired to get up and set up my camera~ hey, I have been up since 4:30 this morning!) and got this:

Yeah, I did not like it, so I did a little editing. This is going to be my work ID photo... what do you think?

It is also my new facebook profile picture, haha!

I love this time of year!

I have to say that I love tax season. Many people hate this time of year, but since we have children and two of us are in college, the deductions are AWESOME!

I just filed our income taxes for 2010, and I swear to you I almost passed out when I saw what our return was going to be. Now we can pay off bills so that during the deployment we can just save up money! I am excited, I am happy... but I have not told the husband how much we are getting yet. I am kind of afraid to say anything because I am afraid he may have different plans for the money than I do.

Hmmm... what to do?

By the way, KUDOS to Turbo Tax for being there for our income tax needs! I am so happy I could SPIT!

What would you miss?

Yesterday I blogged about my coffee addiction, and talked about my love for my pumpkin spice creamer (seasonal damnit). One of my friends in the States told me she was going to get me some creamer and send it to me since the creamer in the commissary here consists of French Vanilla, Caramel Vanilla, Hazelnut, and some nasty chocolate creamer that makes the room stink of tootsie rolls.

There are things that I could get Stateside that I cannot get here, like certain creamers, spices, IHOP... Oh , how I miss IHOP... so my friend Sarah is sending me creamer, my father and a friend of his are sending me the spices I love so much, but there are things I am curious about in other countries that I am oblivious to!

If you left your home country, what is something that you would miss so much that you would ask for it to be sent to you? My kids asked for Slurpees...

Oh, and if you are not following me here on Google Friend Connect, please click on the Facebook link to my page to the right ----->
and click "Like" to get blog updates!

My name is Laura, and I am an addict.

I feel like I should clear something up, just because I know I did not specify, and after reading my OWN post it seemed like something left up to question...

No I do NOT take the pills prescribed to me to help me sleep and the wine together, ever. That would be just stupid! The pills are actually an antidepressant and they are also prescribed for anxiety, but it was prescribed to me for sleep because they knock me on my ASS! I do not take them every night, and take them only when I cannot sleep. Actually I still have pills left from the last deployment!

Now that I have covered that, I feel I should cover my addiction. Yes people I am addict. The scientific name for it is 1, 3, 7-trimethylxanthine, Methyltheobromine, 7-methyltheophylline. Formula: C₈H₁₀N₄O_{2.... yes people I am addicted to caffeine. I have to have my coffee in the morning, at least two to three cups. If I don't then by 10 or 11 in the morning I have THE WORST HEADACHE EVER!!!}

It is a real thing people. I have experienced it twice since arriving here in Germany. The first time I was on post shopping, I had been so busy I forgot *GASP!* to get coffee in the morning, basically because I got up running and never had time to make coffee. My head started hurting so bad, I went and bought Excedrin migraine, and it did not help... I could not figure out why my head hurt so bad until....

 I HAVE NOT HAD COFFEE!!!!

I went immediately to the Java Cafe (like Starbucks) and ordered a Venti Cafe Mocha! My headache went away almost immediately. Same thing happened in Paris. We left Baumholder at around 2 in the morning, and I never had coffee. This time it was about one or 2 in the afternoon before I was about ready to crumple in a ball and die... I was lucky enough to find a Starbucks somewhere in Paris (oh I was sooo happy), ordered my mocha, and went on about my day headache free. 

Me and the three kids in Paris. The hubby could not go since he was off training somewhere. If I waited for him we would never see anything. The kids were really tired at this point, the oldest was good though, at least he could muster up a smile!

Right now I am drinking my coffee with my pumpkin spiced creamer (mmm... heaven). I love coffee, I really do. The only other addiction I have is smoking cigarettes. I need to smoke at LEAST once every 2-4 hours otherwise my jaw becomes clenched, I get anxious, and I get HIGHLY irritable. So, on that note, I am going to go have ANOTHER cup of coffee, and go have a smoke ( I smoke outside).

Breakfast of champions

On an unrelated note, tomorrow I will be doing my first photo shoot with people. My friend has asked me to take some pictures of her and her husband before her husband deploys. With her permission I will post some of the pictures in a blog tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Sleep? What's that??

My days are relatively uneventful. Some days I struggle for things to write about. I mean seriously, do you REALLY want to read about how the highlight of my day was going to the doctor to get a prescription for something to help me sleep after my husband deploys? Hmmm... maybe there is an explanation in order.

When my husband was deployed to Iraq I discovered that I could not sleep very well/at all. I turned to drinking a bottle of wine every night just to get some shut eye, but how healthy is that? How pathetic is it that I was drinking alone every night for 3 months?

Not me... but it is how I felt, lol!

I went to the doctor to get a refill on a medication for my blood sugar, and he asked me how I was sleeping. I literally laughed in his face. He said he was going to prescribe me something to help me sleep at night. It worked like a charm, and eventually I was able to start sleeping at night without the aid of medication. It still took me 6 months before I could sleep in our bedroom...

So with another deployment coming up very soon I decided I should go to the doctor beforehand to get the medication to help me sleep. I am also stocking up on wine, but I keep drinking my supply...

TOP 10 PET PEEVES!

Let's go over my top ten for  this week! I need something to do...

TOP 10 PET PEEVES!

#10. Poor Grammar/Spelling- It drives me insane to see something someone has written and it is full of spelling errors, using the wrong words (their/there/they're- you know what I mean), using words out of context, or text speak. It seriously makes my head want to implode.


#9. Ignorance- I love a good debate/discussion. But if you are unwilling to listen and discuss, if you are unwilling to learn, if you cannot be as open minded as I am then don't even TRY to have an intellectual conversation with me. Please...

#8. Whining- from my children, from my husband, even from myself. If I hear myself whining I piss myself off. I do not like being weak. Whining is weak... which brings me right to #7...


#7. Helplessness- I cannot stand it when a person is or acts completely helpless. It REALLY pisses me off when it is an Army wife. Why? Because you are going to spend the majority of your time alone and you have no one to depend on but yourself. So stop acting like a little girl, put your big girl panties on, and LEARN TO DO IT YOURSELF!


#6. Backstabbing (being two faced)- OK... I am not going to pretend to like you if I do not like you. If I have not made up my mind yet I will be nice, but if I do not like you I do not fake it. I will just pretend you do not exist. So... if you have a problem with me tell me about it or remove yourself from my life. Backstabbing and being two faced only causes pet peeve #5...

#5. DRAMA- Don't, just... don't. If you are out of high school, just don't go there.

#4. Know-it-all's- Look, no one knows everything about everything. And even if you do no one wants to hear it.

#3. Certain Army Wives- Sorry, I HAVE to add this in here. There are wives I cannot stand to be around, ever. The ones that wear their husbands rank (they earned that rank, not you). The ones that have a pity party about their husband being deployed (HELLO! ALL of our husbands are or will be soon) for the WHOLE YEAR! The ones that make it a competition about how often their spouses call/write while deployed.

I swear to you I had a wife call me last deployment freaking out because her husband had not called her. I asked when the last time she heard from him was.

"Yesterday."

REALLY?? OMG!!! She then went on to tell me (after I told her I was lucky if I heard from my hubby once every two weeks) how her husband called her everyday, and since he did not call her that day she just KNEW something was wrong!!!

*cough* moving on... my rant about Army wives could be a WHOLE new blog, so no... not going there...

#2. One Uppers- You know these types. The people that no matter what you have done they have done it bigger and better. Stop... just ..... Stop. Sooner or later if you continue to one up, everyone around you just starts to fantasize about bashing you over the head with a baseball bat. Just me? Ok then....

#1. LIARS- What is the point in lying? I am not a stupid person, and I ALWAYS know (sooner or later) when I am being lied to. Just save yourself the hassle and be honest with me. It also gives you more credibility if you are honest. I lose instant respect for people when they lie to me. You tell one lie, then continue to lie to cover up the lie... sooner or later you cannot remember what you have said. Mark Twain had said "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything." It is true.

So much history for such a small town....

Yesterday I was walking back home from the clinic and I meandered over behind Coyote Ugly because I knew there was a trail leading up to my house that would get me there quicker. When I went behind there I saw an old dilapidated building that I fell in love with. I decided I would come back the next day to get pictures of it, and I am glad I did...

It snowed a little bit last night, and I love the way snow makes everything look! I have no idea what this building's purpose was, but I know that Baumholder post was constructed in 1937 as a result of German rear armament. The Third Reich was looking for an area with appropriate terrain to be a large military training area and Baumholder was the choice. The government appropriated over 22,000 acres, displacing about 842 families from 14 different villages around Baumholder, and resettled these families in the surrounding areas. After the resettlement of families was completed, construction began immediately.


Three thousand laborers worked rapidly and by 1938, 20 houses, an Officer's camp with post headquarters, a quartermaster depot and separate barracks for each company were completed. Large numbers of German and Austrian units were trained in Baumholder after WWII began in 1939. The year 1944 brought allied bombing raids on the post, in which several buildings and the rail yards were badly damaged. This building was right on the other side of the railroad tracks...

 

      I am willing to bet this was the railyard station, now it is Coyote Ugly

There is History all over this area... but one of the most obvious marks of history on Baumholder is on one of the buildings on post. No one ever believes me when I tell them that it is there... until I take them and show them.

Was My Face Red! Wednesday

This story traces back to this past summer. My husband was getting ready to be gone for a month training, and I had to run back home to get something and take it back to him (or get him a soda or something). I just pulled put of the parking spot and made it to the top of the hill and my Envoy died... just died.

I tried starting it up again, no dice. The gas gauge said I had a little over 1/4 of a tank left, so I knew I had gas. WHY WON'T IT START???

It figures that the DAY my husband leaves this would happen... but it wasn't a deployment, so it wasn't supposed to happen! FYI- whatever can go wrong at home during a deployment, will go wrong. Last deployment my dryer died, I got a flat tire and bent the rim by hitting a pothole, and the back patio door fell out of the track and SHATTERED one pane... all within the first three months he was gone.

No one was around that could or would help me, so the next day I called a German mechanic and had them tow the Envoy to their shop. The next day they called me and told me that I could come pick up my vehicle. It was fine, just out of gas. Wha???

Apparently my gas gauge was not working due to a sulphuric buildup on the fuel sensor, and it was reading that I had gas when I really did not. I felt a little embarrassed, but not too bad until I went to the shop to get my Envoy. The slip/receipt that the mechanic had written the problem of my Envoy as: "Sometimes a vehicle needs gas!!" and underlined it twice. I asked the shop manager where this mechanic was so that I could kick his ass.

My husband called me later that afternoon and I told him what the issue was. He just heard I ran out of gas and did not let me finish the story because he was laughing at me and calling me a blonde...


yeah... my face was red.

It didn't work like I planned...

I am pleased to announce that Since I started my blog on December 13, 2010 I have had over 700 blog views in many countries including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Croatia, Madagascar, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia!!! I am honestly tickled about this !!!

OK, enough of that... on to more stuff about me :)

What is it that makes a blog interesting? Is it the stories? Is it a niche? Is it pictures? I hope that I write things interesting enough to make people come back for more, and my little "make fun of my husband" thing last night did not go over as well as I had planned. When I started my little mocking session he mocked me right back...

How funny is it to ask him where his shit belongs just to have him tell me "Wherever I put it!"

How funny is it when I ask him if he would accept that answer from the kids or allow them to do the same, he replied "No, but my shit is more important than your shit!"

Well, yeah... he got me there. That is what he said... and the mocking was not as fun as I thought it would be. He ruins everything... Hmph...

I told him no matter how important his shit was that it did not mean he could leave it laying all over the floor, or even in a pile in my living room corner! He replied that he likes it in the living room because he knows where it all is (and he wouldn't if he took it downstairs??), and he could get to it easier (rather than going down a few steps and grabbing it?).

It is always a constant battle with that man, but I know through it all he loves me and would do anything for me. And through it all I love him and (eventually) would do anything for him.

The conclusion to my husbands madness... and the cure!

So, this morning I wrote about how my husband left a nice mess on my living room floor, and how I was going to chastise him when he returned. More on that later... but it got me to thinking. He had a room specifically for his Army gear, but it was small, and nothing was organized. So I had a mission for the day...

I went downstairs and decided to switch out the large storage room for the "Army room". This is what the "Army room" looked like before:

Yeah, it was a MESS... MUCH worse than how he left my living room... see a pattern here?

The storage room was not much better:

Yes, that is a DOOR in the middle of the room!

So I had my work cut out for me. I started by getting EVERYTHING out of the smaller room, then moved the stuff from the larger room to the smaller room. It all just barely fit. 

Then I had the task of organizing the husbands Army gear. I separated it into BDU, DCU, and ACU. Simple enough...

Then I separated it into medical gear, gloves, belts, thermal inserts, big Army gear, and stuff that I have no clue what this is so it goes in this small bag.

It took me all day, literally... but this is what I ended up with:

Small storage room- I have yet to move the cots... those are Army.

And now the large storage room is the husband's "Army room":

His new multi cam is in this picture because I was late getting the photos done...

So when he got home I did ask him "Is this where your shit belongs?" He said "Yes." Yeah, that did not fly over to well! He was very quick to pick it all up and take it downstairs to his new "office space". He seemed to think he should have been allowed to keep everything upstairs in the living room because it would have been where he knew where it was... um.. huh? 

On another note... call me crazy. I have offered to foster my neighbors 3 cats for the next year while she is deployed. I have three cats on my own, so that is 6 cats in this place!!! Her cats are gorgeous though. Two are Persians, and I will DEFINITELY be taking pictures of those giant fluffballs! She is leaving them with a years supply of cat food and kitty litter, lol... 

I think I need another storage room....

He has lost his mind... seriously.

OK, someone PLEASE tell me what is going through my husbands mind?? He just got his new multi cam gear last week. This morning he comes home from PT and lays out all of his gear to "inventory it"...

I kid you not... he put everything out on my floor like this, looked at it, then left for work!!!

He left my living room looking like this!!! 

What is going through his head when he does this? Would it be acceptable for the kids to leave their shit all over the floor like this? NO! So why is it ok for him????

I am going to take all of it, put it BACK in his bags, and throw it downstairs... when he asks why I did it, I will ask him what I ask the kids...

"Where does it belong? Does it belong all over my living room floor?"

and then I will proceed into a five minute rant where I mimic my husband and his responsibility lectures that he gives to the kids...

It will be good for laughs.

On the other hand, Draco does not mind the new stuff to explore!