Losing my motivation.

I'm a little concerned that a little over 4 weeks out, I seem to have lost all my mojo. There are no nesting instincts. I'm not sure that nesting instincts are the same for hoarders as they are for normal people. I'm in no rush to pack my hospital bag when just a few weeks ago I woke up in a panic that I had no idea what to put in it. I was freaking out that my diaper bag wouldn't get here in time but now that it's here, it's just sitting in the room with nothing in it. I feel like it's almost too soon to be getting those final steps ready.

I've been complaining that it must be because I have no nursery furniture. Since I have no where to put clean baby clothes, there's no reason to wash anything. But in reality even if I had everything I probably wouldn't be any further along than I am. Part of me realizes that 4 weeks is not a very long time but the other part of me is convincing the first part not to get things ready too soon. Why do I always listen to the non-intelligent side?

I have an appointment coming up. I guess if the practitioner tells me to get ready, then I'll have to force myself to start. Part of the problem is that all my friends who have had babies on this island in the past 3 months have been overdue by 10 days. I don't think I can spend those 10 days just waiting for him to come out. All I know is that if he comes early or even on time, Shiggy will probably have to run home and do a load of baby laundry so he has clothes to wear and sheets to sleep on.

We had our maternity photo shoot yesterday. When I booked the shoot, it seemed really far away and I found a really good priced photographer so I told myself even if the pictures don't come out, it's not a big deal. The date kind of snuck up on me and right after the shoot, I started freaking out that none of the pictures would come out. She sent me "sneak peaks" of 2 and I think they'll be great...at least I hope so...

I feel so wishy washy these days. Sleeping is getting harder and harder. I sleep exclusively on my back because that's the only way I can get any sleep. At first I was neurotic about never sleeping on my back. Now I'll take what I can get. My ribs ache all the time. I can't imagine them expanding anymore but I know it'll be a couple of weeks yet before he drops. I'm also just all around grumpy because I've been fighting a cold for the last week and refuse to take anything for it.

Those are my random thoughts for the week because cohesive thinking eludes me at this point...

Running out of space....

Everywhere! In my body AND in my house. Why do babies take up so much space? I've been slowly emptying out the office to make it into the nursery. And by slowly I mean I started months ago and I'm about half way done. Every time I take out a box of office supplies, I replace it with a box of baby supplies. Luckily we don't have any nursery furniture to fit in there yet but I realized I'm probably going to have to get it sooner than I had originally anticipated. My brother and my friend Danna have started sending me their little ones' clothes that they've outgrown and there's just no where to put them all. Right now I have them in cardboard boxes, labelled and ready to pull out when the baby will fit in them.

Another item that's taking over the room...diapers. I went crazy during a Babies R Us diaper sales and stocked up on every size and every brand. I'm just hoping the baby doesn't skip sizes or I'm gonna have a lot of extra diapers laying around. Might even have to start a diaper cake business. But now I don't even look at diapers when I go out. Almost makes me consider cloth diapers except for the fact that I deal with poop all day long from the dogs, I don't want to deal with the baby's poop more than the time I take the diaper off of them and throw it in the trash.

The house is slowly coming together, a little slower than the nursery. We're having a post wide garage sale next week and I've never been this excited to get rid of stuff. I'm getting rid of a ton of stuff that I've fought Shiggy to keep over the years but realized that I really don't need and don't have the space for it anymore. So bye bye spare sewing machine, George Foreman grill, food dehydrator, rotisserie, Total Gym, extra TVs and 5 Brita water filters. I can't wait to have space in the storage closet for the office supplies and hopefully my sewing supplies so they aren't just chilling in the kitchen.

I'm also going to restart this blog with my other account. There's very few people that know about and read this blog and I've done that on purpose so that I can say whatever I want without offending people and hurting feelings. Really it was a place for me to vent without repercussions. But soon the focus of my blog will be changing and I know a ton of family members would like to be updated about the baby and the goings on of our new little family. Even without the baby I'm a horrible poster so we'll see how it goes once the baby gets here. Don't worry, I'll let all 3 of you readers know when I finally set up the new page!

6 more weeks to go!

Less than 90 days!

I don't remember what I was doing or where it popped up but I was looking at something the other day and there was a little counter that told me I had less than 90 days before this baby is born. That's crazy. In some ways, he can't come soon enough. But in other ways, I'm just not ready.

Shiggy and I were talking before we went to bed tonight. I told him I thought we were all set for the baby. I had my baby shower this weekend. It was way early but one of my co-hosts was going home for the month before her husband gets back and then there's army balls and block leave after that. It just worked out best this way. Well I ended up with a lot of blankets and towels. Not sure what I'm going to do with all of them as I only registered for a pack of 4 swaddling blankets and 4 receiving blankets. Instead I have about 20 with no gift receipt and no idea where they came from. Heck, someone even gave me a used blanket with yellow stains all over it. But it was fun and I got a couple of "you didn't register for this but believe me you'll want it" gifts from moms. And I got a diaper cake. I've always wanted one. It even had a bottle of Moscato discreetly tucked in the middle. My friends are funny.

So back to our conversation. I told him all we needed was a bassinet and we'd be set. He did not agree with me. Then he started listing all the things we haven't bought yet that we might want before the baby gets here like a diaper bag, bottles, a breast pump, etc. He might have a point. I was thinking car seat, stroller, diapers, wipes, blankets and towels was good enough. Man, babies need a lot of stuff. I'm not planning on setting up the nursery or even buying baby furniture until after the baby gets here. We're not sure whether or not we'll be moving in the next few months so it just doesn't make sense to me to add furniture to the mix. Plus I just really don't want to clean out the junk room... But my in-laws will be in here in July so furniture or not, it must be done...

Of course, Shiggy bringing this up gets my mind all wound up and the baby started kicking and it's 12:30AM and I can't sleep because I can't shut my mind off or stop the baby from tap dancing. I think this has been the worst part of pregnancy for me...trouble sleeping. I can't complain because out of all the issues I could be having, this is pretty trivial.

I have the maternity and newborn pictures booked. Now I just have to schedule the birthing classes, lactation consultant and tour of L&D. Oh yea, I also have to do our taxes. Oh well, ready or not this baby will be here in less than 90 days!

Nesting

So I never understood this phenomenon of nesting. I understand getting ready for the baby, but not the increased OCD tendencies. It started with me wanting to make sure I get more chores done every day. Everyone who knows me knows how much I love doing housework...or avoiding it at all cost. The first few days went pretty well. I got everything done before noon including walking the dogs and prepping for dinner. Then I struggled for a few days and thought, wow that was fast. Last week went pretty well. I got everything done, just not on the right days. I also focused more on meals and making cookies. Then came yesterday.

It started out as a normal day of me checking to make sure my neighbor, who had texted me while I was sleeping to ask me to drive her to the ER, was alive. I totally missed her text! She was alive, thank goodness. Then I began my sitting around and doing nothing. My baby shower is on Saturday so I had to make sure the registry was all set. It turned out that I had changed my mind on just about everything and spent hours redoing it. Then I started scouring Craigslist to see what I could get from there. I realized the last day of the President's Day sale at Babies R Us was today and my friend had given me some pretty good coupons. Like a crazy couponer, I started writing down all the deals I could get crosschecking with Amazon for prices. I came up with a list of about 10 things I was going to buy.

Shiggy was doing something in the kitchen and asked for a small plastic container so I opened up the food storage cabinet and everything fell out, including the shelf. What better time to reorganize it. So I reorganized the kitchen cabinets. I found some stuff that belonged in the laundry room and decided to reorganize that as well. Then there was the storage room. Shiggy kept asking me what I was doing and why I was doing it right then. I didn't have a valid reason other than it needed to be done.

Shiggy had to wake up at 2AM for a formation this morning so he went to sleep super early last night. I finished up my shopping list and headed to bed at 10:30. I was tired but I couldn't make my mind stop racing. I also got up to pee 3 times in the course of 2 hours. I finally gave up a little after midnight and came back downstairs. I decided to research nursery furniture. I was trying to figure out the best deals. I didn't end up going to bed until 4AM. I was exhausted but as soon as my head hit the pillow I thought...I have a lot of gifts to make this week. Two of the girls in my coffee are having babies in March. One of them is having her shower on the same day as mine. I decided I was going to make each of them an embroidered onesie, a burp cloth, a taggie blanket and a little tote to put them in. Then my mind went to how Keri made her taggie with the crinkly stuff in the middle so I googled that. I found the most popular material was cellophane so I had to find a place that sold cellophane. But wait...don't I have cellophane bags somewhere in the house? I did and at 5AM, I found them. I got to the point where I could barely function and fell asleep around 5:30 after the baby freaked me out by moving across my belly for about 15 mins. Kicking I enjoy, feeling limbs stretch from one side to the other makes me think of aliens in my tummy.

I got up at 7:30 to walk the dogs and headed to Babies R Us with a friend. I realized prices at the store here are way more expensive then on-line. My 20% off coupons that I thought were going to be a great deal ended up making the price the same as the regular price on-line. So disappointing. It was also the last day of the sale so the shelves were pretty much empty. I am set with diapers for what I believed were months but my friend kindly brought me back to reality and let me know it would probably only last a couple of weeks. No great deals today but made my second substantial baby purchase.

Now I'm back to avoiding housework and feeling like I need a nap. I do have to get to the nursery. It's the only room that hasn't been touched since the week we moved in. The designated junk room. I have 3 more months! I'm also trying to teach myself to sew, embroider and crochet. Looking at cake decorating classes in April as well since my last class didn't quite work out. I feel like there's so much I want to do before I'm cleaning up more barf and poop than I already do! But first, a nap!

Another season of change.

I remember my friend Keri complaining about people leaving her. How she always felt like the one left behind instead of the one leaving. Lucky for me, I've never really experienced that. We've always been one of the first ones to leave or were waiting to leave when people started PCS-ing. I thought Hawaii was going to be another one of those experiences. I certainly wouldn't choose to leave Hawaii right now but I had mentally prepared myself when we first got here to only stay for 2 years. Although, I miss family and friends from the mainland terribly and wish my baby could grow up surrounded by them...I was happy when I found out there was the possibility of staying. But when I got up for my routine bathroom break at midnight, I realized that soon everyone here will be leaving me!

Everyone knows how hard it is for me to figure things out every time we move. I can't find a place where I belong or true friends to hang out with. It was especially hard this time living so far from post and having Shiggy deploy soon after getting here. My friend Marissa really helped me get out of the house and explore the island. In fact, I probably did 75% of my exploring with her in the first 6 months of living here. She's leaving in 3 weeks! She was one of the first people on the island I told about the baby and she won't be here when the baby's born.

I have another close friend who just found out she also might be leaving soon. I always knew Marissa would leave soon after redeployment, but this other one came as a shock. We thought she was going to be here for another year. No orders have been cut yet but it's looking pretty good that she'll be leaving this summer. Then we thought, at least she'll be here when the baby's born. But now even that might not be a possibility.

At the same time that news came about, another friend told me they might be leaving this fall. This is my core group and they're all leaving me as I start this new chapter in my life. Now I know it's horribly selfish of me to want them all to stay and they have bigger and better things coming up for them but still... I'm just sad.

Luckily I have one friend who said she will be staying here forever, at least that's what they're hoping for. It's hard knowing that in the next 2 years I'll see all the people we moved here with leaving one by one. But it's amazing that I get to meet people from all over the world and although we have to say "see ya later" for now, you know there's always a chance you'll get to see them again at another duty station. Ahh...the army life...

Man I'm gonna have my hands full...

So it's a boy! We're pretty excited. I really would have been happy either way. Shiggy wanted the first one to be a boy but he had already gotten accustomed to the idea that it might be a girl and he'd have to teach her all kinds of martial arts to keep the boys at bay. My dad's excited because it will bring the grandchildren count to 5 girls and 4 boys. But knowing the kind of child Shiggy was scares the crap out of me. It will certainly be interesting. I'm trying to get the dogs prepared.

It looks like we have a really good chance of staying in Hawaii for a little while longer with no deployments. But nothing's official yet so we're just playing the waiting game for now. I know we'll feel blessed enough just having a little boy and having his daddy here for the birth. Anything else would just be extra!

I think I'm going to have to go facebook official soon. I was going to keep this pregnancy off facebook, not because it's a secret or anything, just because I feel weird posting something like this on facebook. But in this day and age when almost all communication with long-distance friends and family are through facebook or blogs, it's hard to keep it off there completely. And of course everyone wants to see the dreaded belly pictures. At least now, it's starting to look more like a pregnant belly and less like I need to stop eating girl scout cookies. It's also weird how much bigger your stomach looks and feels when you're looking down at it rather than in a profile picture.

I've started to feel little baby kicks. I try to agitate him daily for my own peace of mind. It's still only a few times a day and I feel like he's mostly kicking my bladder. Shiggy's only felt it once. I find it really weird that I can feel it from the inside but we can't feel it from the outside.

My friend Jordan is going nuts with baby shower planning. She keeps asking if I've registered, picked out a name or picked a theme yet. She also sends me links about names, strollers, car seats, etc. I'm feeling like I might disappoint her with my sad little list of friends to invite. She's funny. I really appreciate her excitement.

Now that the anatomy scan is over, I feel like there's nothing to look forward to until the actual birth. Which still seems soo far away. It's probably a good thing because the conversion of the office into a nursery has not begun and so far the baby has a winnie the pooh blanket that I bought 4 years ago when it was on clearance at Target...and some clothes I bought for other people's babies but never sent out... I'll get there eventually.

Is everything ok in there?

I have to say I've been getting more and more anxious waiting for the next ultrasound. The "what if's" have been piling on hard. It doesn't help that I've barely felt any movement going on in there. I haven't bought a single baby item and went to Babies R Us once only to run out panic stricken. It's still relatively early so I don't really have to worry about that stuff yet.

I found out yesterday that I have an anterior placenta which explains the lack of movement I'm feeling when in reality the baby likes to tap dance all around. The ultrasound tech kept asking me if I could feel that and acted surprised when I said I couldn't. You just told me I probably wouldn't! Why are you surprised? I don't care. I'm just glad everything looked good. We're up to 12 oz with a heart rate of 150.

We're telling our families the sex today. It's my mom's birthday so I figured it would be a nice present. We discussed it over and over again and decided we could wait a day to tell people. Well imagine my surprise when someone texts me and asks if he can tell one of his friends. I told him absolutely no one was to find out until we talked to our families. This was also our friend who outed the pregnancy in the first place. Wait a second...did he already blab? He had to come clean and give me a list of people whom he already told or might have "overheard" as he was screaming it out. It bothered me because some of these people I don't even know and I had considered talking to him about not telling anyone for just a little while longer. I would have at least like to tell some family and friends before he blabbed to random co-workers. But how can I be mad that my husband is so excited about having a baby that he can't keep his mouth shut. I'm actually surprised now that he was able to keep the pregnancy to himself for 3 months. And in the end, it doesn't matter who found out what first.

Now I have to deal with a dog who's vomiting blood. Poor Denny. Every time he feels sick he'll let me know and try to get outside. Since I don't like to wake up in the middle of the night to let him out, sometimes I ignore him. It's never a good idea. It's also never a good idea to walk around in the dark when there's the possibility that there's vomit on the floor somewhere. Hopefully I can get him to eat in a few hours and all we be good again.

We're halfway there. For now I just have to continue impatiently waiting for both the baby and my Girl Scout cookies to get here.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! I'm just chilling by myself right now so I figure I'd break my rule of only blogging once every 3-4 months again. I'm very grateful that my husband is home for Christmas this year. He volunteered for staff duty today since most people either went home or have family visiting and it's just us so we can delay our Christmas festivities. His plan is to pop in and out until his shift is over at 5. He came home for breakfast and we opened gifts. He definitely went overboard this year. I told him to choose something from my amazon wish list that I really just keep for myself and he bought almost everything off it. Someone will have to remind me to trim the list down to 1 or 2 items before he looks at it next year. Although I have a feeling I will be completely overlooked next Christmas which is definitely ok with me.

I tried to get a Christmas picture to post here since he had to wear his blues today but it didn't quite turn out. He looked pretty spiffy but me with no makeup, having not brushed my hair and looking unusual large. It was not quite the look I was going for and there was no time to fix it.

The cat is almost completely out of the bag about our little blessing to come. I find after 3 months of keeping it secret, it's really hard to just let it go. Sometimes I forget that there are people who know. I also realized when my parents asked me who Shiggy was that I probably should have kept the "Shiggy/Tim" in our Christmas card. Now I will have a poor illegitimate child with an identity crisis.

I find the more people who know, the more anxious I get so I almost wish we kept it as our own little secret. I'm not quite at the excited phase yet just because I seem to spend most of my time worrying. Maybe if I give it a couple more weeks. I know I have a bunch of wonderful people who have been praying for us and continue to pray for us.

Now I'm just waiting for our Christmas dinner date at 9PM. I could say we're going out that late because we're young, hip and cool but in reality all the restaurants are booked up for Christmas. I'm just hoping we can both stay awake until then.

As this year starts winding down, I am so grateful for all the blessings that have been bestowed upon us. We have great friends and family. My husband made it home through another deployment and hopefully will not be deploying again anytime soon. We're ready for our next great adventure!

Happy Birthday, Jesus and thank you for making it possible for us to have a Merry Christmas!

A time of reflection...

It's been kind of a rough week for me. My cousin passed away a few days ago and it has me stuck in a tunnel of emotions. She was a distant cousin, who was quite a bit older than me. Honestly, we were never close. She tormented me when I was little with comments about my weight, acne, and just about anything you can make a young girl cry with. She wasn't trying to be mean. It's just the Chinese way.

She was one of those people that I saw almost every time I went home, usually at some kind of family function. I had no idea she had beaten cancer once only for it to come back. She and her husband have 2 daughters. One of the girls is a senior in high school and her older sister is a freshman in college. Not that there's ever a good time, but what an absolutely awful time to lose your mom.

It brings back a flood of memories for me. That's about the age that I found out my mom had cancer. I was away at college and my family was able to hide it from me for a few months. They finally decided to tell me because they figured I'd notice that mom had no hair when I came home for Christmas break. They even tried to convince me that it wasn't cancer, they were just trying to treat her condition aggressively with chemotherapy. Going back to school after that break was really hard. But God decided that it wasn't her time to go. I can't imagine what those girls are going through.

Then I thought about my uncle. He passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack in his 40's also about this time 10 years ago. I remember I took a break from my finals to go to his funeral. He has 3 beautiful girls and a handsome boy. They adored him and things were difficult without him. I think it's part of the reason my cousin has put off marrying her boyfriend of 12 years.

I don't think my cousin's family believes in God at all but I just hope they can still feel his comfort through their anger and sadness. I don't know how you get through these times without God. I hope those girls remember and cherish every single one of their memories of their mom, even when she was yelling at them to only drink skim milk so they don't get fat. It's funny, when I was younger I took a lot of offense to what she said to me. Now I know it was her way of showing love and concern. Please pray for the Chung family.

A Final Ultimatum

It seems my laziness and lack of motivation has been spiraling out of control. I can't seem to get the little things done let alone the big things that are really taking it's toll on us. So I was offered a final ultimatum. Shape up or I'm canceling the cable and internet!

My immediate response was to defend myself. When I found that I didn't have a leg to stand on, I decided to go with the silent treatment. Five minutes later I had to admit, he might be right. Ok, this might be the kick in the pants I've been needing. Sad, that we have to start with that as my motivation instead of the fact that if I actually did "my job" there would be a lot less stress for us.

So I told him to give me until the week after Thanksgiving. This week I am hosting 12 people at our house for Thanksgiving and no matter how motivated I am, there is no way I can prep for that and get to my huge "to do" list.

Along with canceling the cable and internet, he also wants to get rid of the XBox because he feels like he would also benefit from less idle time. That makes me feel really bad because he works at least 14 hours a day and goes in on most weekends so he definitely deserves that hour a day to just relax.

So now I just have to get through this week and organize a plan of attack for next week. This is definitely a good thing because I don't think I have any inward motivation. Time to turn things around!

Rain, rain, go away...

I know no one has any pity for me. It's been raining for a week now but I still live in Hawaii and I'm still wearing shorts and flip flops. But it's just really dragging me down. When we lived in Kapolei, it hardly ever rained. In fact, you prayed for rain because it was so hot and dry. Now, it rains every single morning and for the past week it's been raining throughout the day as well. It's just so dreary outside. The dogs are going crazy and every time they go outside to potty I have to mop the floors...again.

And I miss the change of seasons. It has snowed at least once every where we've ever lived. It's great not to have to change your clothes out or freeze your butt off for a whole season but I don't like that I have to blast the air conditioner to truly enjoy some soup or stew.

Maybe I'm just losing it. I've become a bit of a hermit since we moved on post. I told myself I'd go to the gym classes all the time but I've only been once in the past 2 months. I stopped walking the dogs because I hate walking in the rain by myself and then smelling like wet dog for the rest of the day. We're closer to the commissary than we've ever been before and it's a battle just to get groceries every week.

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving. We're having it at our house this year. But as it gets closer I'm starting to get a little stressed out because I realize how much there is to do and how lazy I've gotten. We're not even fully unpacked yet.

Hopefully the sun will come out soon and this mood will pass. Surf competitions start this weekend which I'm pretty excited about. I just need to get out of this house!

A long overdue post.

Wow it's been a while. I am a horrible blogger even though I stalk everyone else's blog on a daily basis hoping they've updated. On a day to day basis I feel like there's not much going on with me but when I realize how long it's been since I last posted, there's been a ton of new stuff.

I can't believe my husband's been home for 4 months now. It's been great having him home but I have had to make a few adjustments. The hardest thing for me so far...deciding what to make for dinner. After a year of living by yourself, you get used to eating whatever and whenever you want. If I planned a meal and just didn't feel like making it, cereal was alway a suitable option. Unfortunately my husband doesn't have that same love for cereal or random snacks. He also wants to eat healthier which rules out a lot of my cheesy/creamy dishes...the best kind in my opinion. He also thinks I spend way too much time and energy trying to make dinner. He can just throw stuff in a pot and make it taste good...I can't!

The next big adjustment, sleeping arrangements. I always get used to sleeping in the middle of the bed during deployments. It's hard for me to stick to one side of the bed for the whole night. We moved on post about a month ago and now things are even more wonky because we ended up switching sides. Every night he tries to push me off the bed. I think he's trying to get back to his side. I offered to switch back but he doesn't want to. Hopefully we resolve this soon because we're both exhausted from trying to eject each other from the bed every night.

So we're on post now. I put our names on the list in March and we came up for a house in June. We decided not to take that house since it was redeployment month and my in-laws were coming in July. We got another call in July for an opening in September. We decided we would just stay put. We don't know where we'll be 6 months from and an extra move just seemed unappealing to both of us. Right before I was supposed to decline the house and a few late night phone calls and trips to post in the middle of the night later, it was decided at least at this point in his career it is best for us to be as close to the MP station, I mean post, as possible.

In September we made the move and it was definitely a wise decision. Instead of a 30-60 min drive to post (depending on traffic), we live 2 miles from his office. I've been able to bring him dinner on late nights and taking care of problems is not nearly as time-consuming. I started hula lessons which was very short lived. I am not coordinated enough to move my hands and feet in opposite directions at the same time. I've been taking ukelele lessons for the past 5 weeks. Cooking classes are offered at our community center twice a month. This Saturday I'll be starting basic cake decorating. I'm hoping to do hand quilting in the spring. I'm back to my plethora of useless activities.

I've resigned myself to the fact that despite my struggles to get my Hawaii pharmacy license, I will probably never use it. It's been much harder to find job openings than I thought it would be. I was thinking I could always work for a temp agency or find something part-time but apparently no one wants me. That's fine...I'll just enjoy the rest of my time in Hawaii.

I started the Bible study "The Excellent Wife" at PWOC. Notice, it's not the excellent housewife. It's been a really good study. Although I don't necessarily agree with everything she says, for the most part it's been pretty eye opening. Over the course of 2 months I learned that I'm a horrible wife. I've also learned that my husband is a wonderful husband. Stings a little to have to admit that he's better than me but it's true and it's something I have to work on. When I hear the complaints of other women, I realize how lucky I am and how considerate he actually is. Then I realized that over the course of our marriage I've become more selfish and less considerate of him. Whenever I get aggravated with him the first thought that comes to my mind is that he takes me for granted. In reality, I'm the one who takes him for granted. I'll probably never be an excellent wife but at least I can strive to be a more Godly one.

The dogs are doing great in their new home. They have dog friends that come over every day to see if they want to come out and play. Unfortunately we also have a few neighborhood kids that will aim their bows and arrows at them if they think I'm not looking. I'm glad that they're all supposed to be supervised by their parents so the minute any of their "toys" make contact with my dogs, I can call the MP's. And they actually come and drag the kids back to their houses.

That's about all the updates I have. I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even though I miss my family a lot, at least I get to have my husband home this year!

Feeling like a human being again!

I no longer feel like I'm on house arrest. This week was the beginning of getting back into a routine. I got a little depressed last week when the doctor felt like my nerve pain might be permanent. I tried a new med and I think it's actually working. I don't feel so much pain as I do tingling and irritation. I'm no longer a druggie!

I started running(slow jogging) again. I'm sad because I was up to 5 miles and now I'm down to 1.5 miles. I have to get up to 8 in a month. I wanted to run the full 8 miles but I guess I can walk some of it if I have to. I'm trying to get into the routine of walking the dogs. I love my dogs but I hate walking them. They drive me insane when they know it's time for a walk. Then they go nuts when I try to put their leashes on. And now they know where every dog in our neighborhood lives and want to visit all of them...even the growling pitbulls. So I'm trying to walk them at least a mile a day and then running Scout a mile 3 times a week. It would be so much easier if they were good dogs and I could just bring them on my runs.

We had a brigade function to signify the half-way mark last week. Part of this was the Biggest Loser Contest....just within our brigade of course. I didn't sign up for the competition but I did take their health assessment. My weight was actually lower than I've seen it in a while since I lost so much muscle weight while I was sick. Blood pressure good. Resting heart rate good. Then we did the "how much fat are you carrying around" test. He did the measurement and it was a little higher than I expected but still within normal limits. He tells me that I'm still within the average. Then he asked me if I was happy with just being within the average or if maybe I thought I could lose some weight. "We" decided I could lose about 8 lbs which turned into 10 lbs this week...what can I say, I love my food! Hopefully once I get back into running I won't have to change too much. I might have to pick up some healthy snacks this week.

Well this led me to weighing Scout. Since we moved here I've had 3 vets tell me that she's overweight. I could tell she was overweight but it didn't seem too bad. I tried 2 kinds of diet foods, both of which she was allergic to. I knew I needed to exercise both of them more but let's face it...I'm a little lazy. I can't even use the excuse that I'm busy anymore. I'm just plain lazy. While I was looking for pictures to put in our Christmas card, I ran across pictures of Scout when we first got here and she was already a little overweight. Ok...my baby girl got fat! I weighed her on the scale...let's just say she's supposed to be 55 lbs. She was 75 lbs! I felt awful that I let her get so out of shape. I cut back her food months ago but that hasn't made a difference instead she eats grass, flowers, garbage, anything she can get into. So the plan is to walk them every day, run her 3 times a week and bring them on a hike at least once a month. Hopefully we'll both reach our goal.

I also got to go surfing last week. It was awesome! I was a little scared at first because it's been almost 2 months and the waves were bigger than I've ever surfed on. Still really really small but looked ginormous to me. Usually I can stay out for 1.5 hours before taking a break. I returned my board after 40 minutes. I was a little embarrassed. The rental guys was like "seriously? you didn't even have it out for an hour!" Hopefully I can build those muscles back up as well.

My next milestone...Shiggy should be home for R&R in just over a month. It that isn't motivation to get my butt in gear, I don't know what is. Now if I could just get my act together...

All better yet the pain lingers...

Well I'm done with the shingles. The active part at least. Unfortunately the pain has chosen to remain. It didn't seem so bad at first, just a little annoying. But then my first night without pain meds began and it was awful. I didn't ask my doctor for any meds yesterday because it didn't seem like they were working anyways. Boy was I wrong. They may not have alleviated the pain completely but apparently dulled the pain down to a tolerable point i.e. sleeping 2 hours at a time instead of 15 mins at a time. I felt like a druggie calling the doctor to try to refill my prescription only to be treated like a druggie by the receptionist who obviously did not believe I was in pain. It didn't matter, the doctor's not in today anyways.

We're giving a new drug a try but it'll be 2 weeks before I can tell if it's working or not. If not I get to go see a neurologist. Too soon to tell if this is temporary or will be permanent. The worse part is that Shiggy comes home for R&R soon and I have to decide if I can tolerate being off the meds for a month for the chance at getting pregnant or if we should just wait.

My running has come to a halt. I'm supposed to be doing an 8 mile run in February but since I can't even walk the dogs without pain, I'm not sure how the running is gonna go. I might try it out tonight and just try to work through it. There's also no point in me buying a surf board anymore. It's getting very depressing around here. My friend volunteered to throw me a birthday party but she was a little sad by my lack of enthusiasm. I don't mind getting older, but every birthday is becoming a reminder of each year we've been trying to conceive. If you don't include deployments it will be 2, if you include the deployments it's 3.5.

For now I'm just going to concentrate on studying for the boards and slowly getting the house together. I'm not as bad off as I make it seem. I'm just mentally and physically exhausted and ready for a change.

Nothing but time on my hands!

This has been an interesting week. It started out with a 4.5 mile run on Sunday which resulted in chafing under my arms. Apparently I don't have proper arm placement when I run. I took what I thought would be the most painful shower of my life. I don't know if you've ever tried to wash your hair without getting your arms wet...it's just not possible...

On Monday, I went on a 2 hour hike that turned into a 3-3.5 hour hike when we lost a dog. We ended up having to leave the dog behind. Luckily he was quickly found and returned to his owner by the next day. But the stress of that day might very well be the reason for the following days.

Tuesday was another run day. It was just a 2.5 mile run and I was able to keep my arms out the whole time. But for some reason on Wednesday I started getting that prickly sensation of chafing again but with no rash. I thought maybe I had brushed up against a poisonous plant during the hike. The pain got worse on Thursday. Then I started getting chest pains and shooting pains down my left arm. I tried heart burn medication, asthma medication, and motrin. I even tried to make my house presentable just in case I had to call 911 in the middle of the night.

I woke up on Friday morning with the same pain but a little more intense and had a panic attack. I don't know what happened but before I knew it, I was crying and couldn't catch my breath. I was able to calm myself down and had to wait for the doctor's office to open. He checked for heart problems and muscle involvement. Then we found the rash. A tiny rash the size of a dime under my arm that looked exactly like the chafing I had earlier in the week. That's when he tentatively diagnosed me with shingles. I was skeptical at first but over the course of the day the burning sensation spread and got worse. Now the rash has spread across the left side of my chest. I guess the nerve fibers involved are the ones that stretch over my heart and go down my arm. So every time the pain flairs up it feels like I'm having a heart attack. And I thought I wasn't getting any Christmas presents this year...

I had to cancel all my plans for the week and it looks like I'm going to have a lot of time to myself. Other than the burning pain, I'm perfectly fine but the doctor doesn't want me to do any kind of physical activity for at least a week. I'm also self-quarantining myself. Although shingles is not contagious, there's a very slim chance I could pass the chicken pox virus onto people who have never had it before. I would feel awful if I gave a baby chicken pox.

So for now I'm just stuck at home with burning sensations that come and go as they please. Here's to the pain subsiding for long enough for me to do anything productive!

The ups and downs...

It's been a while. A lot has happened since I last posted. I had a wonderful time on my family trip. Spending 24/7 with my family members was exhausting but definitely worth it. Sharing a room with a 6 and 7 year old was also an interesting experience. Little sleep was had on this trip but memories to last a lifetime were formed. As soon as I can find the adapter to upload my pictures, I'll get on that. I have a new bond with my nieces that we've kept going with the help of Skype.

Then it was back to reality. As much as I enjoyed sleeping in my own bed without monkeys jumping on me, it was really lonely to be home. We had 2 casualties while I was on my trip. It was hard to come back to that as well. So the weeks afterwards I was determine to keep myself busy.

I've applied to get my pharmacist license here. I'm still waiting for a date to take the test. I joined the Spouse's Club and many of the clubs within it. I went swimming with the dolphins, eagle rays, and about a million fish. Went on an awesome hike and finally stood up on a surfboard by myself.

The hubby took command and I was moved into a new battalion. The transition didn't go as I had hoped, but we'll see how it ends up. I care too much about what people think but no matter how hard I try not to...it just happens. Like a little kid, my feelings always get hurt. As soon as I joined the battalion we had 9 more casualties, 2 KIA and 7 wounded. Of course they were the first ones right after a certain speech was given so the notification process was hampered. It was just an awful situation. The memorials are this week.

I was offered a job and within days the offer was taken back. I just took a blood test to see if maybe there's a simple solution to our problem with starting a family. Still waiting on the results. I just feel like as soon as something good happens, something bad immediately follows. I just don't know what to do with myself these days. The good news of the week...we're a quarter of the way through this deployment...

Sometimes you're just amazed.

A few days after I wrote my last post, I went to PWOC and almost started laughing. We've been doing a Beth Moore study. For the first few weeks I didn't feel like any of it pertained to me. Slowly as the weeks went by, little things would pop up and make me think. But this last week was written just for me.


The study is about the Psalms of Ascent and taking the next step in your journey. The last session was titled My Hope Is in the Lord. It was about being effective to fellow travellers on the path. It reminds you to forgive one another, encourage each other and to love deeply. Then she said, if you can't love deeply you're going to say "fine" to everyone who asks you "How are you?" Then she asks if anyone has ever done that before. It just reminded me that while I struggle on my journey I need to make sure I take a quick glance around to make sure no one else is stranded.


I had the chance to experience some more Hawaiian adventures this past week. Took a break from the snorkeling and boogie boarding. This past weekend we headed out to find the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Carribean. They've been filming here and on one of the other islands. The ship has slowly made it around the island and they just wrapped up the filming on Sunday. Unfortunately, I was not enough of a fan to wait there all day to catch a glimpse of Johnny Depp. But we met many people who were able to shake his hand, take pictures and have conversations with him. I guess he's a pretty good guy. Got some pictures of the ship. They were doing stunt work and smaller scenes when we got there. I thought it was pretty neat!

Sunday was supposed to be a stay at home and do everything you've been putting off kind of day. Instead I left my house at 8:45AM and came home at 11PM. I've been going up to North Shore to partake in the farmer's market every Sunday after church. This week is a short week where minimal groceries are needed so I decided not to go. But a friend enticed me with promises of laying out on her "private beach" (it's not nearly as private as she thinks it is). So we went to the market, grabbed lunch and laid out on the beach. I tried to swim a little but the water made me shiver. A few hours later, some of the girls had to leave and we started talking about hiking. My goal is to do one new hike a month and try to visit as many beaches on the island as I can. Jennifer told me she'd be glad to join my adventure club. Then she told me about this hike she did with her husband while looking for fresh dirt for his garden. The more she told me, the more excited about it she got. At about 5PM we decided we should just go for it. So I threw on a pair of her shorts and a pair of sneakers one and a half sizes too big and started off.

What she failed to inform me was that you had to go off-roading to get to the start of the trail. I envisioned driving over to a trailhead, walking up, taking pictures and coming back down in time for dinner. What I got was much more adventurous and I had a blast. We did about 20 mins of off-roading which was approximately 1.5 miles. It made it crazier that she just learned how to drive stick! We walked up the easy part of the trail, saw a gorgeous view of the ocean and mountains and realized that we weren't satisfied. We climbed up some rocks made it to several old bunkers and then I found out I am terrified of heights. As the wind blew and an airplane flew next to us, I started to panic a little. Going up was much easier than going back down.

I lost my inhaler, but it's not a good hike unless you loose something important. At least this time I made it to the top. We could have gone up further but daylight was fading fast and off-roading in the dark with the ocean next to you is probably not a good idea. We ran back to the Jeep and got out as the sun was setting. We would have made the perfect Jeep commerical!

Today I hurt and have tons of chores to do but I had to get one last adventure in before heading back to the mainland for a few days. I get to see my entire family (parents, brothers, sister-in laws, nieces and nephews) in a few more days. I'm just sad Tim won't be there. It's going to be an exhausting vacation but I will probably fill up my story books for the year.

I'm good...

For the first time since we moved here, I feel good. Most days I wake up with a crappy attitude and hope that I snap out of it. Last week at PWOC the topic was how has God been good to you. I honestly could not think of a single thing. Everyone was soo happy talking about the topic and going on and on and all I wanted to do was move onto the next topic. It's not that God hasn't been good to me. It's just that I've been soo caught up in myself and my own misery that I couldn't see past that.


Before I got here whenever someone asked how I was...I would say good. If I was questioned further because I looked like I hadn't showered or slept in days, I'd just say I was tired. Ever since we got here I've been overly honest. I think people got sick of asking me how I was because I would just dump on them. But today I woke up thinking...you know what God is good and he's blessed me with soo many things. Things won't always go my way but like a loving, patient parent....He lets me have my tantrums and hopes I learn something afterwards.


It's kind of weird. Today is no different than any other day. It's not like some miracle happened or my prayers have been answered. Although I know people have been praying for me, so if you've been praying for me...I'm here to tell you that this is God's answer.


I've been going to church and Bible studies thinking I'm not getting anything out of them! Why am I here? But I continued to go knowing that not attending could only make things worse. Suddenly, I'm sick of being selfish and only thinking of myself. I enjoy fellowship and am always on the lookout for someone who might be going through what I just went through.

So for right now, I'm good....I really am! Maybe I'll even start posting pictures on this thing or something. Ok, I won't get ahead of myself.

Sick of being a second-line friend....

Not all friendships are established the same. They simply can't be! But lately I've been getting so sick of being a second or third-line friend. You know, the ones you call when all your good friends are busy. I can't say I have many second or third line friends. I have friends that I hang out with every day, once a week, once a month because that's what works for us. Heck, I talk to my best friend once a year and see her once every 2 years but she's still my best friend! But I need a go to person here. A person I can call at any time of the day and know they won't get mad. Someone whom I can just drop by on unannounced and know that they'll let me in their house even if it looks like a natural disaster occurred in it. I've got a bunch of those across the country but none here.

I have made some wonderful friends who's husbands are not deployed. But they actually have lives. They still look forward to weekends. I miss having days to look forward to. I didn't submit my spouse preference paperwork before submitting my resume so that throws me further down on the list of qualified applicants. Still haven't heard anything from them but if the 25th comes and goes that means the job is gone.

I went to a new Bible study on Wednesday. It seems promising although to be honest...I'm not much for studying the Bible these days. The ladies there were just so supportive of one another and it also reminded me that my issues are so trivial to other people's. It's funny because I guess I still think I'm 22. I've noticed that whenever I meet a group of people that are my age, my first thoughts are...these ladies are great but they're so much older than me. Then I find out that a lot of time, I'm one of the oldest ones there! I'm going to start lying about my age. My range will be 22 to 35...I just want to see which end of the spectrum is more believable.

It's been a month and my house is still a mess. It's in that stage where you can't tell if the person is moving in or moving out. I debate every day about whether or not I should move on post. The grass is always greener.... I just don't want to work myself up thinking that will solve all my problems. I did discover while making eggplant parmesan that along with not having a clock/timer on my oven, there is also no way to know when the oven is pre-heated. This is a brand new oven...I didn't know that was possible! Kind of sad that it took me 30 days to realize that...

I can't claim that my life is all that bad. After all, today is a beach day. Time to go lay out in the sun with a mediocre book (I've started reading the Shopaholic series). I've decided that every week requires at least one good beach day!

holding my breath...

My meltdown has subsided for now. I went to a friend's BBQ on-post which made me want to live on post more than ever. Come on 2 living rooms in army housing? I digress, it was nice to hang out with people. These friends are in another brigade so their husbands are sticking around for another year. The funny part? This is the neighbor that lived across the street from me at Benning whom I ignored up until the last possible minute of them moving out. Her husband kept reminding us of how much fun we could have been having there had we both not decided to be anti-social hermits. And their daughter is absolutely adorable. Apparently she used to come and visit Denny and Scout whenever they were chilling in the backyard.

Today I'm spending the day with another person I met briefly at Benning. I didn't make very many friends while I was there but apparently I made a heck of a lot of connections. She's still staying at a hotel so I'm going to join her for some pool time, then some sushi and outlet shopping. Her husband is also in another unit so he's sticking around but when they move into their place they'll only be 15 mins away from me.

Now if only I could find some people who have husbands who are deployed. I love that the other couples try to include me in activities but I just need someone I can call at anytime and just say hey, I'm having a rough day...wanna go to the beach? Of course this also requires said person to be a lady of leisure. There is a serious lack of those women!

Tomorrow is PWOC. I've seriously been waiting for a meeting since we got here. I'm a little afraid that my expectations are too high but I'm just gonna put myself out there and see what happens. I've never actually made a friend through PWOC before so here's hoping for the best.

And the news I'm holding my breath about? No, I'm not pregnant. Life would be too easy if I didn't have to be poked, prodded and cut open for that to happen. I submitted my resume for a possibly non-existent job about 2 months ago. And according to the website, my resume was selected for review a few days ago. There is one federal job that opened up on Friday. So it's a long shot. Personally I think my resume looks pretty dang impressive with my inpatient skills but all it takes is for one veteran to knock me out of the running. It's also not very impressive that I've been unemployed for a year. So please pray that I accept whatever the outcome is.

Now, time to clean my house so when my friend stops by she isn't scared away by my clutter!