I'm Thankful.

This year I have a lot to be thankful for.
My Husband

My husband is probably one of the greatest people I've ever met in my life. He is incredibly giving and kind, not only to me, but to everyone. I'm thankful for all the hard work he does to provide for us, which allows me to go to school. I'm thankful for his eight years of sacrifice in the military, to include three deployments, to ensure the safety of Americans. Most of all, I'm thankful for his love and companionship. He is truly my best friend, lover, and life partner.

My Family

My dad, my two sisters, my step mothers, and my three nephews are an amazing part of my life. My sisters are truly my best friends and my father is one of my heroes. My step-mother and I had a difficult relationship when her and my father married when I was 12, but we have come a long way and I love her. My family is very close, my husband often tells me he wishes his family were as close as mine is. I wish we all lived closer, but it is not a possibility and we make the best of it.



My Best Friends



I really don't know how I would survive without these three ladies in my life. Rachelle (bottom picture) and I met when I was 18 and she was 19. I had just arrived to my unit at Fort Bragg, NC and didn't know anyone. Rachelle showed up at my door one day and invited me to hang out. We were inseparable after that. We went to Iraq together and she is one of the reasons I made it through. Ashley and I (left picture) met when I was 21 and she was 19 - through MySpace of all places. I had been living in TN for almost a year and my husband had been in Iraq for the majority of it. I felt very alone and had few friends, but Ashley and I had a great connection and a lot in common and we became besties very quickly. We endured two deployments (as wives) together and spent many a nights together, laughing, crying, and supporting one another. The friendship between Kelsey and I (right picture) was completely unexpected. We met in January 2006 in a biology class. We sat at the same lab table and when I made a stupid error with a gradulated cylinder, she made fun of me - not even knowing me. After a few more labs together, we were school friends, until she invited me to a hockey game. I had never been a hockey fan, but that first game, I fell in love with it, and so our bond grew the more classes we took together and the more hockey games we attended. All three of thesee ladies hold a special place in my heart and I love them dearly.

There are many more things I am thankful for - comfy P.J.'s, reality t.v., video games, my cats, and the list could go on. But I believe there is nothing more important in this life than family, friends, and love.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I Miss Her.

I always miss my mom around this time of year. Not only is it the 'holiday season', but December marks 16 years since she died. Today as my husband and I were driving, we were listening to Dr. Laura (as usual) and a woman with terminal cancer called in asking advice for how to tell her children she was dying. My husband looked at me and asked if I was alright since woman's story hit pretty close to home. I told him yes, and then he asked me to never die, because he doesn't know what he would do without me. I then told him that I often wonder how that must've felt for my dad - his wife of 16 years, dying and leaving him and three daughters behind. How does one live knowing their spouse will die? This of course made me cry out of sadness for my dad and out of admiration for his strength during it all.

I often tell my husband about my mother, the things I can remember in my nine years of knowing her. Mostly I tell him of her laugh, how contagious it was. How down to earth she was and that she would've liked him a lot. It makes me sad that he never got to meet her, that my future children will never know her, that she had to die so young, that my grandparents had to bury their daughter, and that I never got to know her as more than just 'mommy'. Sometimes I struggle to remember things about her, it seems so long ago and like yesterday at the same time.

As I was crying telling my husband things about my mother that he has heard before, but I tell him again because it's all I remember, he told me he doesn't like to see me upset. I told him some were tears of sadness, but others were tears of happiness remembering the greatest woman I have ever known. My mother was not perfect, but to a nine year old, your parents can do no wrong. My mother died being my world & perfect in my young eyes.

I miss you, Mom.

Oh Yeah, I Live Here Now.

My husband and I only have one vehicle, which is my car I bought before we got married after I totaled my other car. Anyway, it doesn't really bother me that we only have one vehicle, as my husband HATES driving! You may find it odd - I did for a long time, but the fact of the matter is he's never really drove (with the exception of military vehicles) since he grew up in NYC where people prefer the subway to cars. He actually didn't even get his license until he was 21! He did have his own car, but we ended up selling it because it had so many problems. So anyway, I take my husband to work every morning & pick him up in the afternoon. The other day I was pulled out of my driveway to pick him up from work and started heading down to the stop sign on the corner of our street. A woman in a mini-van across the street & a few houses down [i.e. kiddy-corner] decides to start pulling out of her driveway and into the street as I'm driving past her house. I literally had to drive on the other side of the street because I thought she was going to hit me - she didn't even stop at all. So me being me, I flash her a dirty smirk and carried on my way.

As I thought about this later in the day it crossed my mind that I live here now, as in for an extended period of time. As in I may see this woman many times over the next few years and perhaps I shouldn't be giving her dirty looks, no matter how right I think I am and how wrong I think she is. So I am going to attempt to not be such a snot to people who don't know me, I don't want to be known in the neighborhood as that bitchy lady :]

Update on Life

It has been so long since I blogged, but I have been so incredibly busy! The biggest piece of news is that my husband and are officially homeowners! We closed on the scheduled date of Wednesday October 14. I had actually called our realtor earlier in the day to see if he had heard anything about us closing, and he hadn't, so I thought it would happen on the following day, but he called me a few hours later and told us to come get our keys because we had the house! I hadn't posted the pictures of the house because I didn't want to jinx it in some way, but for those who are interested, you can view the pictures here. So after we got the keys, we started transferring our stuff from our roommates aparment into the house. And then I had to drive a little over an hour to the airport in Tucson to pick up my friend Kelsey - so needless to say, I was very busy that day!

So the next day, Kelsey and I drove up to Glendale, which is a suburb of Phoenix, the go to a hockey game. Granted it wasn't my Predators playing, but I didn't care because I just wanted to see hockey, any hockey would do! So we watch the Phoenix Coyotes take on the St. Louis Blues (Kelsey's 2nd fave team). The Coyotes won in overtime, but it was still a good game, and great to see our former goalie Mason again - I heart him! It was also weird to see our former player Fiddler do well, haha. We drove back to Sierra Vista that night and were so tired we just went straight to bed. The rest of her time here, we hung out, ran errands, and finally felt connected to the world again when I got my internet hooked up, haha. Kelsey left on Monday and I was sad to see her go - it was nice to have one of my best friends out here, even if all we did was hang out not doing a whole lot.

So we thought the Army was going to ship our stuff out here free of charge, well we were wrong. They wanted to charge nearly $3000 to do it, and I really didn't want to drain my savings to do so. So the hubby and I are flying out to TN on November 11, loading our stuff into a truck on the 12th, and driving right back out here. Yeah it's going to be a lot of work, but the Army will pay us $7500 to do it, and I think we'll only be spending about $2000 to do it ourselves. As of right now, we have two new couches we bought and a new bedroom set, but other than that's it's pretty empty. Oh well, soon enough we'll have our stuff, not looking forward to driving that truck though, haha.

So that's my update. I feel like I wrote a lot, so I try to update more often so I don't have to write as much, haha.

Annoyed.

When I woke up this morning, I looked at my phone and realized I had a missed call from my realtor and our mortgage broker. I immediately took this as a good sign, but I was wrong. I called our realtor first and he told me he had good news and bad news - which to me is always just bad news. He said that he wasn't sure if we'd be able to close by Wednesday because the mortgage underwriter was taking a long time. Something that should've only taken a week has taken two. So that was the bad news, the good news was that if they don't make the deadline, then they pay us $1300. Believe me, $1300 would be nice, that's essentially the rest of our closing costs, but I could care less because I just want to be in my home! Plus, my friend Kelsey is flying into town on Wednesday and I don't want her to have to stay in a hotel. So after I talked to the realtor, I call the mortgage broker back. He told me to go ahead and set up our homeowners insurance. I guess to make it go faster in case the loan does indeed come through this week. I was really hoping to close by the end of this week so we could go furniture shopping this weekend up in Tucson, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Aside from that, my husband called the movers yesterday and they referred us to the Fort Campbell Transportation office. Who told us it would probably be 3-4 weeks until we got our stuff. Mostly because it takes 10 days to process the paperwork. Annoying to say the least.

So that's all that's new with me. Hope to have a better update next week!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Cancer in general is a very important cause I support since so many people in my life have suffered or died from it. My Uncle Mark died when I was 8 from lung cancer, my Grandma in 2007 from cervical cancer, and my friend Sarah had lymphoma. But I hold the breast cancer cause especially close to my heart. My Aunt MaryAnn beat the disease about 10 years ago, while my mother died from it in 1993 when I was nine.

I encourage every woman to do a self breast exam every month and when the time is right, get yearly mammograms. And if your doctor tries to talk you out of it, find a doctor who will do it! My mom requested a mammogram when she was 26, only to be told she was 'too young' to get cancer. 13 years later she found the lump and had cancer. Granted that doctor got sued for malpractice - it didn't make up for the cancer that had already come. I will be getting my first mammogram when I am 29 - 10 years before my mother was diagnosed.

I know everyone reading this has been affected by breast cancer or just cancer in general. Don't let it be YOU.

Almost There.

When the husband and I first talk to our mortgage broker, he told us that we would need pay stubs from one months worth of pay, and we were told that my husband started during the beginning of a new pay period. Well, he got paid two weeks later, but it was only for one weeks worth of work, basically meaning that they're one week ahead with pay (if that makes sense). So we initially thought he'd have one months pay on Sept 18, but in fact he only had three weeks of pay. Our mortgage broker decided to try to submit the loan paperwork anyway and see if the lender would notice. That was last Wednesday. I called up there today to see if he had heard anything and he said he was just waiting on one last piece of paperwork - the approval of the mortgage underwriter - aka the last step in the loan process. I talked to our realtor too, and he think we should be in the home by next week! We scheduled our final walkthrough for Monday, to make sure everything we requested to be fixed was done accordingly.

I am really excited! I think I am going to call the movers from the Army tomorrow to schedule our stuff to be delivered next Friday (can always be changed if need be). The only other thing in our way is the cost this may entail. When one gets out of the Army, they will only move your belongings as far as your 'home of record' or where you entered in the service at. NYC was 900 miles from where we lived in TN, however AZ is 1500 miles, so we may have to pay whatever their price is for 600 miles. We do know one girl who said she never had to pay for her extra mileage, but we're not sure if we'll be as lucky.

Anyway, that's the latest news. I can't wait to get into the house & decorate and just make it my own. I will post pictures soon!