Happy Thoughts:

10/28/10

T5

Stupid, stupid blogger...

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Not sure what's going on, but I guess I'm gonna have to stop scheduling posts, because they don't seem to be posting for me... anyhow, it's time for Thursday Five!!! This week has been absolutely amazing for me! I couldn't ask for more. The only downside has been my friend came over, and we went to the craft store. While we were out, her dog got out and jumped off my balcony... we have yet to find her and it's been three days. :(

I hope you're all having an amazing week too, here are this weeks words...

Giggly

Snuggly

Thankful

Excited

GLEE!

One.  

My Daddycakes is home safe once again <3

Two.

I just ordered our new Droids and couldn't be more excited! We both were in desperate need of new phones. 

Three.

It's been raining here like crazy which is perfect snuggle weather! Can't wait to watch movies and cuddle up next to my sexy husband all weekend! 

Four.

It's almost Halloween!!! My favorite holiday, can't wait for our party. I made all our costumes (except flower's) this year. Mojo will be Gary, I am dressing as a jelly fish, my hubby will be spongebob, and I made this adorable cup cake costume for my bestie...


Five.

There are so many other things I could list that have been totally amazing about this week! I have to say though that the greatest is knowing I am about to have 4 amazing days to spend with my love!

10/26/10

Today

Today has been one crazy day! I spent the whole day getting ready. In just three hours my hubby will be home in my arms again, and I couldn't be more excited!

I spent the day getting as many orders put together as I could, getting the fogs bathed, and cleaning the entire house. The dogs look so cute in their little t shirts, and I think they are just excited as I am, I'm not sure they know why we are excited, but I think they know something is up. After everything else was done, I baked some nice delicious pumpkin honey muffins, and now I'm waiting patiently til I get the call that I can finally go and get him. It's been a very stressful underway for both of us, so much went on, and I am so glad it's finally come to its end. We have a lot planned over the next few weeks, including a trip to NC to FINALLY meet Nicole from Flip Flops & Combat Boots. I will be sure to keep you updated as much as I can. I can't wait to take some pictures now that he's home again!

10/25/10

Mili Mondays: MYCAA

We have a very special guest today! Shannon came to me and asked about sharing an opportunity with you all, and she actually works with the MYCAA program and has some great information she has generously shared with us! 

My name is Shannon, I am a Navy wife.  We have been stationed in Virginia Beach for 3 years now.  I live here with my husband and three daughters ages 2, 4 and 6.  I also have a two year old German Shepherd, Ada.  I was really happy to get involved with the program because as a military spouse it was so easy to do.  I can do everything from home and with three small children and never knowing when or where my husband will be it was a great fit for us.   Working with this program has been a great opportunity for me to meet so many new spouses and make new friends!
 
MyCareerSkill, in conjunction with Florida Gulf Coast University, is offering virtual, portable, self-paced certification programs for military spouses.

Spouses may choose from the Pharmacy Technician or Medical Office Administration/ Billing and Coding training programs. These career programs can be completed in about six months from home allowing you to set your own learning schedule and pace depending on your own needs and career goals and provide the necessary skills to earn nationally recognized certifications exams in high-demand areas.

MyCareerSkill's mission is to provide self-paced, user-friendly multimedia, simulations, and, more importantly, one-on-one assistance from expert instructors and certification professionals. MyCareerSkill is a MyCAA and CAA approved program and spouses are eligible for 100 percent tuition coverage.

Eligible spouses should contact MyCareerSkill today for more information. This unique program was designed to suit the needs of military spouses as they support their service members.

For more information please call 1-800-298-5226 or visit
www.mycareerskill.org

10/21/10

T5

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Good morning & Happy Thursday! I've had another amazingly awesome week! Here are this weeks words:

Happy

giddy

Joy

glee

thankful

Well here's my list, go ahead, grab the button, and start posting all that you have to be thankful for this week.

ONE.

It's almost over!

TWO.

I am on week two of working out and still going strong! I've lost 3lbs! woohoo (:

THREE.


I'm almost done with the book for the recipe exchange it will be going out VERY soon.

FOUR.

I've been extremely busy which has made life bearable since he's away.
 
FIVE.

I got this adorable custom collar for my little guy & it's so cute! He's now showing all his support for his "daddy"





Pin Ups are finally here!

I am so excited, finally got all my photos! Here are the ones I can show you:











10/18/10

Recipe Exchange needs a new name

So the book is almost ready to go out, and it's not too late to sign up if you want to join in! All you have to do is leave a comment with your email.

The book needs a name though. So the person who comes up with the idea I like best will get the book first. Just leave a comment with the name you come up with, and your email.

The theme of the book is red, white, pink & blue. It has lots of cute polka dots, stripes, nautical, and other military stuff. It's for all sorts of recipes so anything is fair game. (: Put your thinking caps on ladies! As soon as I get a name it will go out!

Mili Mondays: Navy Seals



When I married my husband, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I looked at the opportunity as an experience of a life time. Of course I loved him and with out a shadow of a doubt, at the ripe old age of 20, I knew he was everything I could ever want and more. I didn't realize, or care, at the time that I was taking the biggest risk of my life. I left everything I had ever known on a feeling, to enter a world unknown to me. Only now looking back do I realize how big of a risk it actually was. 
 
There I was, diving head first into the life of a Marine wife, and with it a new world opened up to me. I became apart of something big. It was the first time I had ever felt at home in my life. It wasn't until, just this past May, when my husband EASed did I really feel everything I had been through and the changes that had happened in me.

Weeks went by and a strange feeling began to grow inside of me. I was missing something and it was quickly becoming apparent what it was... I missed the military life. It took me sometime before I ever expressed these feelings to my husband. But when I did it turned out we both had been feeling the same thing. There's some people who are just cut out for the military lifestyle, we are those people. 

We eagerly agreed that the Navy would be our best option. He expressed his desire to become a SEAL. Absolutely not. No way. I couldn't possibly handle that type of stress! But he was very serious and incredibly  persistent. The more he looked into the SEALs, the more I looked into them. I did what any sensible woman would do, I googled! 

As it turned out, the life of a SEAL wife wasn't much different from that of a Marine wife. They had the same basic deployment cycle just a bit more training. I was also able to get in contact with a real life, honest to God SEAL wife. Imagine my excitement. There was only so much I could find on the internet and "how you feel about your life" wasn't part of it. She was excited to help and answered every question I threw at her. It relieved me a little to know that the SEAL teams are a close knit group, and that includes their families. 

With my mind at ease it was time to fully give my husband my blessing. The process moved on. He has always worked out pretty consistantly, but once he had set his mind on going to BUDs he kicked it into overdrive. Swimming, running and cross training. Sometimes, he was doing 5 work outs a day. BUDs is mentally and pysically exhausting, he had to prepare himself. On top of the work outs there were the typical enlistment to-do's: Physical, PST, ASVAB, paperwork releasing him for the Marine Corps, hoop after hoop... We're not quite through all of the steps, but we are pretty close. Anyday (in military world this could mean quite some time) now he will sign his papers! 

This time around I know what I don't know, and it scares me. I know this world is going to be much the same as life in the Marine Corps, but I know there is a laundry list of things I don't know. One day at a time, one step at a time, with my husband by my side (most of the time) we'll ease our way back into this life. 


Over the next few months we are going to be picking a coast. I could use the help of you wonderful ladies to tell me your experiences on the coasts you've been on. The good, the bad and the ugly. 


A big thanks to Mrs. Gamblizzle for letting me guest blog this week! You can stop by my blog at 


 http://untilyoucomehome.blogspot.com/



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10/14/10

T5

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Good morning ladies! It's time for Thursday Five and I have had a pretty amazing week, aside from the fact that the Navy still has my husband. This week's list should be pretty easy for me, I hope you've all had an amazing week as well! This week I feel so...

Grateful

Adored

Motivated

Happy

Blessed


Well here's my list, go ahead, grab the button, and start posting all that you have to be thankful for this week.

ONE.

I received this absolutely amazing email from my sweet angel face hubby yesterday morning...

"Today the sun will rise, and the world will look as majestic and awesome as it has for eons! For some this will be the most important day of their lives however tragic or joyful it might be, and for others it will simply be just another day but know that for me my love it is another day in paradise consumed simultaneously by the terrifying thrill and joyful calm of loving you and having your love in return and as these words have brought that realization to light for me may they do so for you as well! I know that I get wrapped up in the everyday goings' on and sometimes forget to remember all that I have... that we have... (its to be expected I am only a man) but know that when I do its a splendid thing for me, have a great day today my love, have fun with it and know that I trust you and that my heart aches to know I can not be there to share the day with you! I love you Marie MUAH!"

TWO.
I know I am blessed, but sometimes we all forget just how blessed we are. I was reminded several times this week & it made me stop and think. So I want to do something this week to make someone else feel blessed as well.

THREE.
Those of you who are military wives know the importance of having either GOOD military wives in our lives, and how meaningful their friendship can be. Well I've found a few of those since becoming a Navy wife, and I am beyond thankful for it, there is one friend who has really stood out to me lately, she has motivated me in so many ways! I recently started going to the gym with her working out everyday, and i feel great! I wanna thank her, and I want her to know how important she is! 

FOUR.

Happy. That's a word that is being used a lot lately. I have never been so happy in my life. My husband plays a huge role in that. This week I have many, many reasons to be happy, the list is too long to post! I will tell you one though, I am super excited to babysit this Friday night! You might think I'm wired but I absolutely love children and any chance I get to be around them makes me smile. :)

FIVE.

This week, as with many other weeks, I am grateful for my jewelry! It has kept me so busy & helped the time fly by til he is home again, I've started making plans to meet with Nicole which I'm super excited about, so the day he comes home can't come soon enough!






10/11/10

Mili Mondays: Do You Re-enlist?

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To re-enlist or not to re-enlist
That is the question
Whether tis nobler in the mind
Ahem... *hastily grabs the inner theatre nerd and tosses it back into the closet*
Sorry about that. Theatre Major. It happens. But in all seriousness..

Re-enlisting. It is a choice nearly all military members and couples must face the possibility of at least once. You made it through boot camp, training, schools, deployments, separation, duty, pcsing, and a host of other things the military throws at you for four years (or in my husband's case, five). After all of this the big question arises.
Do you re-enlist?
The possibilities suddenly seem endless. Of course there is the obvious choice to re-enlist. Four more years of military life. More deployments, more nights in the field, possibly more school if you suddenly decide to change your MOS.
My husband is due to re-enlist (or not) in May 2011. Depending on the day you ask him that choice is always different.
"I am going to re-enlist and try and get into CID."
"I want to train FBI Agents in Quantico."
"I am going to work in security for the government."
"Maybe I will go to college."
"You don't like it, but what if I re-enlist and stay infantry? Or maybe stay for now and try for CID later?"
"Do you think I would be a good cop?"
"How do you feel about me joining the Air Force?"
Yes, all direct quotes care of my husband.
At this point Ryan's real goal is to apply to CID in February after being a CPL for a year and re-enlist to do that. I support it. Now if he deosn't get into the program we have some more thinking to do. Hence the other ideas. Our plan now, wait for February.
This talk was triggered again yesterday when I got a slight chip in my tooth enamel and tried to figure out how to enroll myself in dental... we've only been married five months so I put it off. On the website it says you cannot be enrolled unless your spouse has twelve months of service left.
"What do you mean!? I am re-enlisting, so why would that be a problem??"
....
"You are?"
"Yea... probably."
Full circle.  We have talked this topic to death. Ryan is kind of into the "perks", as he calls it. He loved military discounts, shopping on base at the PX or commissary, getting gas on base, insurance, BAH... yes it sounds great I know. But the downsides are huge too. The moving around, the long hours, and of course the dreaded D-words, deployments. One was hard. Not going to lie at all. You cannot sugar coat a deployment. They suck. Iraq is far away. It's dangerous. It goes on and on. Afghanistan would be even worse. That scares me.
Can I really accept the fact if Ryan re-enlists that we would move from an area we are really happy living in, a job I like, and that he would more than likely deploy again? Of course I can. I am a Marine Wife. That's my job. I married Ryan under the impression that he would be re-enlisting. It was only around June he started thinking of other things. He has always said if he re-enlists now, the next time it rolls around he'd be at nine years and at that point we should just go for the full twenty.
Only fifteen more years! Or maybe seven months. Or four months. Either way, I will know by May for sure. Hurry up and wait indeed.


10/7/10

T5

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Happy Thursday everyone! Sorry it's late, blogger has been giving me issues! So I'll make this fast! Here are the Five words for this week:
Happy

Thankful

Joy

Glee

Giddy

I've not had the best week, so my list might be a little strained, but here goes!

1. I've had a ton of work, and a long to do list to keep me busy, and help keep my mind off my sailor who's gone again.

2. I got to watch this adorable baby last night which made me smile, he's precious.


3. I found some amazing recipes to add to the book which will be going out shortly! I'm gonna send it around my area first because I have a few wives here who wanna add to it, if you wanna join it's not too late! Click here!

4. I've finally scheduled a trip to meet with one of my FAVORITE bloggers! Nicole from Flip Flops & Combat Boots! I'm so excited about that.

5. I'm uber excited to get my package from the fall swap!

If you wanna join in, just use the linky below!