B is for insanely BUSY

I know I have promised that I would try to keep up with my 2 weeks per letter and in my mind I am. Everytime I do anything I think about how it could relate to my Blog but when it comes to sitting down and typing out the fun things I have done it just isn't happening. I just can't get time out of my day to do anything else. And my sleep schedule is really good right now so I don't want to risk screwing it up by staying awake too late. But now that I ran around like achicken with my head cut off on Friday I have a little extra time today at work to wirte! YAY!!!

I have been so BUSY. I can barely stop and take a shower (I do, I am super OCD so if I didn't shower it would be like not breathing and I might die). I started more habits, after work I run 5 days a week about 4 miles and then I have a smoothie. Honestly I think the smoothie is the only reason I can finish the run. The last mile I push myself so hard just because I can taste my strawberry bannana deliciousness and it feels so good to be able to brag to Ariel how good I did. He has always said I have "little heart syndrome" and I quit too easily so just the thought that I accomplished something without quitting makes me feel so good.

I also go swimming on saturdays. I try to do about 20 laps. Which I think is a pretty good starting point, I am hoping to go up about 10 laps a month. It felt pretty good when I went to get a new swimsuit this week and the girl at the register asked me if I swam pro. HA! I haven't swam hardcore in years so it felt good for her to confuse me for an actual athlete. I think I am still in the BLOB stage of my body but if someone could see this shapeless mass and confuse it for something better it gave me a huge confidence boost. The running had really been taking a toll on my knees and chins so swimming gave them a much needed rest and still gave me that endorphin high. I was walking on clouds the rest of the day!

Bravo

BRAVO! STOP! INSIDE! GO TO BED! PLEASE!!!! so basically after i leave work on friday and aside from when i talk to ariel by skype these are the only words i say when i am home. my vocubulary is reduced to a couple of commands and all pertain to my dog.

I love him more than anything (aside from Ariel of course). Bravo makes me smile and keeps me always entertained. he has the best personality. he is funny and stubborn. i love spending my weekends with him even when i feel like throwing him out of a a twelth story apartment window. My relationship with my dog is very love/hate. sometimes i want to kill him but most of the time i just want to tickle his tummy and take funny pictures of him.

Lately i think my dog is going through an identity crisis. i am almost positive that he thinks he is a cat. all he does is sleep and his new favorite place to sit is the windowsil. not like the sofa by the window, no he likes to go in the office and sit on the windowsil by the pool and absorb sun rays. sometimes he sits and stares out the window and sometimes he just naps there. he is a medium sized dog so i have no idea how he can fall asleep without falling off. either way its really funny.

his birthday is coming up in october and i swore to myself i would never be one of those people who celebrates their dog's birthday with a party but i think i might want to take him to the dog park that week. maybe i could stud him out or something. i really want a little girl puppy. he is so beautiful that he would make good babies.

A things!

So I have decided to close off each letter I will make a list of 5 things with that letter that I love or hate and why. And since I am done with A (Thank God! I was really looking forward to starting B)

1. Ariel- This is kind of obvious that I love him and he is my favorite A-thing ever! But, I wanted to list why; he is my best friend and literally completes me. We are so alike that it is sickening and not because we have been together for so long but because we have always had our similarities. I also love that he has adapted to me and become a better version of that boy I fell in love with so many years ago. He understands my ridiculous fears of  lizards and big crowds. He knows that I have panic attacks and that I am dry sometimes. That i do not know how to offer sympathy and sometimes I am disconnected. That I bitch about stupid things and brush off huge things. That all the wierd things that make me who I am and he stilll loves me for that. I do not only love him for how he loves me but for the man that he is. I am truly proud of my husband not only because he is a soldier or a medic but because he is a good man all around.

2. Aladdin- My favorite disney movie EVER! I love everything about it especially the fact that Princess Jasmine has long dark hair, big dark eyes, and a big nose in comparison to the other princesses. As a child she made feel like non tall blonde blue eyed girls could be beautiful too. 

3. the Army- This one is hard because it is a love/hate relationship. Sometimes (most of the time) I love the army it has brought us closer and given us so many opportunities that we other wise would have never had. But it is also the reason my husband is not with me right now. Regardless it is still a big deal in my life so I include it of course.

4. Ant hills- I absolutely hate ants not how I hate lizards and frogs but this annoyed hatred. Except for when they crawl  beteween Bravos paws because he does this super cute kicking motion that is hilarious trying to get them out from in between his puppy toes.

5. Apples- My favorite A food. Not any apple just crisp delicious juicy ones (I hate it when they are mushy). I also like apples because they remind me of my favorite job I have ever had. When I worked at Bally's, there was regular who came in every morning and on his way out dropped an apple off at my desk it always made me smile that this man old enough to be my grandfather sweetly dropped off an apple for me everyday because one day I commented on how good teh one he was eating looked. It was also the snack that the trainers would come by my desk and munch on while we gossiped about who was hooking up with who or who was quitting or what new client they had picked up and the ridiculous stories they had. I loved apple time!

Arrange

This long weekend was AWESOME. so much so that i did not really have time to sit in front of the computer and tell what has happened. I spoke to Ariel so much that I ran out of things to say and we just started making faces to eachother on skype. I am so happy to have my best friend even when he is a million miles away he is still my best friend he still cares about every stupid little thing going on in my life. He even asked me to try on the jeans i had just purchased. I know the connection was pretty crappy and he couldn't really clearly see what i look like but like any good husband he tells me "babe you've lost weight and look great".

While he slept I got to work on my final A project, I took the whole weekend to ARRANGE my house. I cleaned the bathrooms re-did my closet, emptied out drawers of clothes and put everything back together in the most prefect way I could think of. It was completely my happy place... I am the most OCD person I know and to spend days organizing my already almost perfect house was so refreshing. It made me change my outlook on everything and just want to strive for perfection in every aspect of my life.

My closet looks amazing and even after three days of working on it I still feel it could be better. I have it seperated by sleeve length and then color but I think I want to switch that up. I don't feel it is the most practical way for me. So maybe today I will redo do it. Aside from my OCD I also think I have an  intense love for clothes, shoes and purses. I could sit for hours staring straight into my closet envisioning outfits or occasions where I could wear somethings to. It may not be normal or actually even a good quality but it helps me pass the time and if there is anything I have noticed about army life it is that you need to do things that help you pass the time as fast as possible.

Apathetic

Let me start by saying I have been annoyed for the past three days and I learned a lesson in putting things online when you are mad so decided against blogging when I am on the verge of throwing something across the room. Now that I am better I have decided to be APPRECIATIVE. I am so thankful that Ariel is safe and I get to somehow communicate with him everyday. I take this for granted and I guess I am expecting it but sometimes he won't be able to talk to me and I am happy that for now I basically hear from him at least some way every day. I am also appreciative that I am not stressed about money or work or my pups health. I am appreciative of my new friends and the fact they invited me to dinner, which I am really excited about.


I have discovered that I am not as APATHETIC as I thought. I was kind of worried there for a little bit. I had not cried, I had not gotten angry, I was kind of enjoying my time alone. Looking at the bright side, I kept telling myself. But last night I felt pain. This hurt deep down in my chest, turning my stomach inside out, breathing felt heavy and my head felt as if there were a hundred horse running in it. I looked at a picture of Ariel but forgot what his face looks like. It sounds silly but a picture is not a person. I couldn't remember expressions or his voice. I don't remember what it feels like to be touched (not sexually or anything), just holding hands or his hand grazing my thigh to try and get my attention. I found myself changing the channel because a couple on HGTV working on their first home made me nauseous. They really just reminded me too much of us and I couldn't stand it. I guess I also hadn't had anything bad happen to me since he left until yesterday and it bothered me not to have him here to talk to.

Today I felt as if I was losing momentum, but I guess its like skateboarding just put on foot down and push forward. Life happens and it sucks but (shrugs shoulders) I can't change anything right now except for my attitude so I think I am going back to positivity. I felt better when I woke up and told myself only 51 weeks left. It was easier when I didn't think about it. I had been treating this like NTC of SFAS I know hes coming home so lets just not think about it for now. I think I need a happy medium, so that i don't look like I dont care and so that I don't look like a whinny army wife. Maybe I am just tired. I haven't been sleeping well lately. But tomorrow welcome back APATHETIC robot, I have missed you!

Awesome Addictions

I had an AWESOME weekend, considering the circumstances of course. I started the weekend off with a raise! I had a feeling it was coming but I had been warned not to get my hopes up that it would barely be noticeable. Yeah right! I am a school secretary married to a soldier and a $180 raise is enough to get me jumping for joy. Sorry we are not as financially privileged as some. Then I got an email with a link that said "pics of our soldiers in Maine". I didn't get my hopes up because normally when there are pictures being taken Ariel is always avoiding the camera. and the person who sent it had her husband leave in another group so i didn't think Ariel would be in any pictures. to my surprise he was in 3 of them even one where he is sitting looking straight at the camera and smiling! he never smiles for pictures so i was ecstatic to see these pictures. they were public so i was able to save them to my computer which was an added plus.

But the ultimate highlight of my weekend was a weight lifted off my shoulders, literally! I have a tattoo on my shoulder that i got with Ariel before he left it says 'amor vincit omnia', love conquers all in Latin. This tattoo means the world to me, it makes me who i am, it gives me strength every morning when i look at it in the mirror. Ariel also had the same saying across his chest and in a way it gives me a greater bond to him. But, as much as i love my tattoo i also love and respect my dad and never wanted him to think any less of me, so i never told him about it. but this weekend i talked it over with my mom and we thought it would be better if she told him for me so i would be able to stop hiding. so she did, and he wasn't even mad. he said he had a feeling something was up when the last time i went to visit them i was wearing my hair down (which i don't usually do) and i didn't wear not even one tank top (which is very out of character for me). I am so relieved!

Now to the alphabet portion of my weekend. To anyone who knows even a little bit about me you would know that i have a very ADDICTIVE personality (or am obsessive but for the purpose of this exercise lets go with the first word). So I knew it wouldn't be long before i found a new addiction since i gave up so many of my old ones. mainly the ones that have to do with Ariel (wink, wink). I decided to search through netflix see if i found anything on the xbox that would let me immerse myself completely in. After about 20 minutes of debating whether classic movies or a new tv show were the way to go, i decided to give Nip/Tuck a try. Oh! was that one of the best decisions i have made recently? I am completely addicted! i have watched 20 episodes in 2 days and seriously considered pulling an all nighter to finish season 2. Responsibility got the best of me and i decided to go to bed, after one more episode, of course.

But getting a new addiction isn't all, I have decided to give up one of my old ones as well. I have struggled for years with my intense need for caffeine, mostly i have been a avid follower of the Pepsi Gods. Well technically i ran out of soda and think i would rather save the money than spend it on something that is working against all the working out i am doing. Ugh! I am still not sure about whether i will commit or not to this. Its only 10AM and my head is killing me already. But i will try not to think about it all day. worse comes to worse i found a whole bottle of sour mix and Makers Mark so, maybe a new vice will be the only way to forget the old one.

AA?

I thought of going to alcoholics anonymous but out of fear that they might convince me to actually stop drinking I changed my mind. I need my whiskey sour or arbor mist in a brown paper bag every now and then. So, I figure I could use some of the methods they teach. Especially the ones that start with A. For today I am ADMITTING and ADJUSTING while wearing ANIMAL PRINT and entering ATTENDANCE. Overkill on the A? Well I thought it was clever.

I work as an attendance secretary and last year I was at a middle school where I kind of knew every one, and had my group of friends. This year as if I didn't have enough change in my life, I transfered over to a high school and had to start over. So I am admitting to myself and y'all that I am very intimidated and scared. I miss everyone back at LORMS. Here I feel like a little fish in a big pond and all these bigger fish are freaking me out. I know my job and I do it well so that doesn't scare me much but getting to know a new staff about 3 times the size of my old staff is a lot, especially when I am so shy and (also admitting) kind of socially awkward. Moving on to adjusting, I met some teachers and started going to their lunch group, I hope I don't make them uncomfortable since I am just a secretary budding in to their all teacher group. I guess after I get to know them I won't feel so awkward. Plus it always motivates me to go back to school when I hang out with teachers. I am also getting used to the building and knowing where everything is.

Sticking to the AA thing I have a sponsor. A teacher at my school who has gone through this deployment thing and knows what the heck I should expect. Hmmmm... being an english teacher maybe she should write "What to Expect, When your Husband is Deployed and Everything Sucks". But for now I think I will just email her when I am relapsing or don't have a clue what to do. Thanks Jenn!

As far as my life at home, I think I have to admit that I haven't yet accepted the fact that ariel is gone. His sneakers are still in the bathroom like if he is going to shower and slip them on, his sandals are on his side of the bed, his shaving cream is on the side of the sink, his shorts are on dresser like if he were to put them on. I leave the security lock open sometimes when I get home just so that if he comes home and I am making dinner he can unlock the door. Then everynight when I check the doors I lock it knowing full well that he is not going to come home any time soon. But I am adjusting, I kind of have a system going I come home let the dog out and watch what ever I want on TV (mostly the office). Then I usually do my aerobics (which is still kicking my ass), drink a lot of water, shower and go to bed to wait for Ariel's phone call. And start over again tomorrow, except wait... tomorrow is saturday, (four letter word) first weekend ALONE.