One of Those Days...

First of all...I LOVE my kids. I love them with all my heart and with everything I am.

That being said, when they make me angry...they REALLY make me angry. I'm not always so quick-tempered. I guess I just get overwhelmed sometimes...and today was one of those days.

First I got an email from one of my son's teachers about his grades in one of his classes. Not really a surprise, because it's typical for him. Laziness throughout the grading period, then hustle at the end and scrape by. He's my social butterfly, and school just has never been the priority for him that it should be. It's FRUSTRATING for me, but I accept him for who he is...but I won't accept failure. He's too smart for that.

Second, they got home from school today and started arguing and sniping as soon as they were in the same room together. I was trying to work, and the constant arguing and sniping was distracting, to say the least. Strike two.

Finally, the third and final strike...I got a call from the high school that the boy has detention Thursday for tardies.While I think detention is probably sort of extreme, considering they're almost three-quarters through the school year and he has a total of three...I also kinda almost get it. Almost. Kinda. But I was pretty much at the end of my rope for the day, so completely lost my patience. I hate when I do that, but I'm only human.

But at the end of the day...I LOVE my kids. With everything that I am. And yes...I remind them of that, even when they piss me off.

Say What???

So the hubby is going through a Medical Evaluation Board (MEB). He had a stimulator implanted in his spine when we were stationed at Fort Knox, a little over three years ago now. It seems he should have had to go through an MEB then, but somehow that ball got dropped at every post we've been at over that time period. Wonderful system we have here.

As part of the MEB process, he's having to see different providers in different specialties to evaluate his different complaints to send to the VA to determine his disability rating for benefits after the Army. This is the part that has had me the most concerned. I just want him to be able to be taken care of, since the Army is the reason he has the issues he has.

My gripe today? While I'm really happy they're going through the process to evaluate his issues to make sure he gets the care he needs, I really wish that they could find a way to utilize providers more local to us for some of the specialty services. Today we drove to Jacksonville, FL to see a specialist, when I know for a fact that there are doctors in the Savannah area who practice the same specialty. While normally it wouldn't bother me, I think it's rather ridiculous to make a 4-hour round trip for an appointment that lasted about 15 minutes. Yep...four hours for 15 minutes!

Don't get me wrong...the doctor was just as sweet as he could be, but the situation annoys me.

Changes

I swear sometimes I think change defines my life. Whether it's family changes, change of scenery (moving or travel of some sort), job changes, etc. Some changes are exactly what one or more members of the family needs, some are good for me, and some are...meh.

There may be more changes coming. NO we're NOT moving...THANK GOODNESS!! I've had enough of that particular change to last me for a long time. Now it will remain to be seen what effect the changes will have. Hopefully it'll be better than...meh.

Ahhhhhhhh

So we find out this weekend that apparently a set of our neighbors is leaving. To say there's no love lost between them and us would be a major understatement. The hubby told me he saw two moving vans there Friday, then we found out that they rehomed one of their dogs to somebody else in the neighborhood.

Just to give a couple of examples of why there's no love lost...my husband started one of the motorcycles in the driveway one afternoon, around 4 pm. Mind you, they also have Harleys, so the noise should really be no issue. The wife came and told my husband that she had woken the baby from its nap. I don't mean to sound bitchy, but we're not friends so have no idea what the baby's schedule is like. Plus, it was at 4 in the afternoon, not at some unreasonable hour. I'm sorry, but my life doesn't revolve around you and your baby's schedule. I never would have done that when my kids were babies. She has also, from my conversations with other neighbors, grabbed another man's arm as he rode by their house...on his MOTORCYCLE!! So incredibly dangerous!

At this point, I hope they really are moving out, and I really hope we get good neighbors to replace them. Maybe they'll like Scentsy!

Frustration

I'm frustrated. I'm almost always frustrated. I love my husband with all my heart and do my best to stay patient, but am frustrated. 

This may sound incredibly selfish, but there is so much that I miss from our early life together. We used to do so much together. Danced, golfed, rode horses, and a number of other things. But thanks to his years in the Army and crap that goes along with that, there are days when just getting out of bed is an accomplishment, much less any other fun activities. 

He's too young for this crap, and so am I. 

Packrat

So I've always teased my husband about being a packrat. If there's even a remote possibility he can use something he has in his possession, he refuses to throw it away. Even if he hasn't even laid eyes on it in 20 years. Does it irritate me? Yep!

But I think I've come to realize that I'm a bit of a packrat myself. But I save different kinds of things. My things are more sentimental. Or sometimes more than that. I hold onto emails and other electronic messages (FaceBook, texts, etc) because they might have information I need later. I don't forget much of anything. But everybody around me does, so I need written proof for things a lot of times. I've gotten myself out of more than one argument because I keep messages in one format or another.

So I guess I'm a packrat too. Under the circumstances, I'm ok with that.

Veterans Day

This photo says it all so well. And a cashier in the local Bass Pro Shop made a good point when we were in there this evening. Although our nation has one day set aside to thank and honor our veterans, they sure don't set aside one day out of the year to do what they do to protect our freedom and way of life. No...it's a way of life for them. So while I definitely hope you took a minute out of your day to tell a Veteran thank you for what he/she does every day, I also hope it's not something you think of on only one day out of the year.

The kids and I had the opportunity to spend this Veterans Day with our favorite veteran. They made him pancakes for breakfast and put candles in the pancakes to form a "22" to represent his 22 years in the Army. Some of the candles were trick candles, and they had a BLAST watching him trying to get the candles to stay out permanently. He and I pretty much had a lazy day, in spite of all the things I really needed to get done around the house. But that's ok. Quality time with him is always a good thing. Tonight we took him out to dinner at the restaurant of his choice. He chose Texas Roadhouse. Then we took a little time to explore the Bass Pro Shop and pick up a few things we needed in another store.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to spend the time I was able to spend with him and the kids. I'm always thankful that he's home with me, when so many can't say the same. So THANK YOU to all of you who have served this country and those of you who are still serving. We appreciate you!

Profile Change

So since it's been so long since I blogged, all my sidebar pictures and information are really old. I'll eventually get around to updating my pictures...maybe. I did at least update my profile narrative. Every time I scroll down and look at it and read the first sentence..."I am a 40 year-old..." Wait...what?? 40 year-old? How the HELL did that happen?!? I sure don't FEEL like I'm 40.

I remember having mixed feelings when I turned 30. But then as time went on, I came to like myself more in my 30s than I did when I was in my 20s. I grew to know and be more comfortable in who I was. There is so much going on in my life right now, that I hope I can come to say the same about my 40s as I did my 30s. I guess time will tell.

Long Time...

Wow...It's been a LONG time since I blogged. Judging by the date of my last entry, almost three years. I got involved in so many different things...internet forums based on different interests I had, MySpace, then  FaceBook, and other things that grabbed my interest and took me away from blogging. But I came to realized tonight that sometimes I REALLY miss blogging. It's a format that allows me to ramble a lot more freely (hence the title of my blog...lol) without character or word limits. I can say whatever I want to say without my thoughts popping up on someone's feed when they may not be interested in what I have to say. That way people have the choice to read or not.

So for those of you who followed me, or those who happen across my blog now. Stay tuned. More random ramblings to follow...

Moving Week!

The day I've been waiting for has finally arrived! Moving week is here! The movers should be here some time this morning to start packing our home. I haven't heard from them yet this morning, and we have snow on the ground...I hope that doesn't put us too far behind. Our schedule is really tight as it is. Movers are scheduled today through Wednesday, I have an appointment to have the carpets in the bedrooms cleaned Wednesday afternoon, and our termination inspection is Thursday morning.

I decided to pull the kids out of school a day early. The official last day here is Thursday, but if I waited until after they got out of school, that would put the three of us getting to Fort Benning pretty late in the evening. Since it's my first time traveling there, I'd rather get an earlier start. So we'll be hitting the road sometime Thursday morning, headed for Georgia. I can't WAIT to see Fort Knox in my rearview mirror for the last time.

Movers have called and are on their way!

Love the Army

We've been really busy the last couple weeks trying to make sure we are ready for our upcoming move to Fort Benning. My last day of work at the hospital here is Friday. The movers come to pack our house up Monday through Wednesday of next week. I had our housing appointment scheduled at Benning, with a move in planned for the same day, which was Monday the 20th. The plan was to leave here on the 18th and head down.

I got a call yesterday from the moving company. They needed an address for delivery (housing office wasn't willing to give me one a couple of weeks ago because anything could change), AND had us on their schedule to deliver on the 17th. Ummm...WHAT?? We're not even planning on being in town until the next day. She tells me if we can't accept delivery that day, then our household goods will go into storage...who knows how long it would take me to get them then.

So the dance begins.

I managed to get my housing appointment changed. So I now will go to the housing office first thing in the morning on that Friday, the 17th. And I told the lady at the transportation company that they will just have to be flexible with me, give or take a couple hours that day...that I will be able to accept delivery. If I can jump through hoops for them, they can compromise some to accommodate me.

Oh well...the good news is, I'm getting out of this hellhole a couple of days early!

Goofy Kids

My kids drive me absolutely nuts, but in the next minute they will have me cracking up.

The boy has been driving me nuts all evening. I took them to family day at Bullion Bingo here on post. I enjoy going to bingo about once a week, and I always figure it's something fun I can do with them. They do family day once a month. Every time I've taken both kids with me, I've had to spend the majority of the time there calling the boy down. He's 12...I kinda think he should have outgrown that by this point. But anyway...I was beyond aggravated with him by the time we got home.

I'm sitting here, finally relaxing, and the kids are in their rooms. He had been in and out of the living room a few times. After he left the living room once, I heard him jump in his sister's room and say "BOO!!" This was immediately followed by a squeal from her, resulting in tons of giggles from him. He came back in the living room, doubled over laughing. Of course, I'm already giggling by the time he gets back in here, because this kind of thing brings back memories from my childhood.

My little sister and I shared a room when we were kids. Our room, and our parents' room, were upstairs. There was a little half wall at the top of the stairs that we had to walk by to get to our room. Every night, on the way to bed, I would go up the stairs, hide behind the wall, and jump out and scare my little sister once she got to the top of the stairs. She KNEW I was going to scare her, and would chant on the way up the stairs "don't scare me, don't scare me, don't scare me," but still jumped and squealed when I did. I NEVER got tired of that!

Guess I can't deny that's my boy!

Fingernails on a Chalkboard

That's what I've been hearing here tonight. I swear the hubby is trying to drive me nuts. He's working on one of his guitars and is scraping and shaping, and whatever else. Some of the scraping he's doing is making a noise that makes me cringe as badly as hearing somebody drag their fingernails across a chalkboard. UGH!

Work

So...I share an office with three other women. I have to say, I'm incredibly fortunate. The ladies I work with are wonderful, and incredibly smart. How often is it you get that much estrogen in one room without some sort of drama from time to time? I'll tell ya...not very!

Well, the office we are in used to be a hallway. They converted it to an office to add work space to increase the coding staff at the hospital here. They still need to add to the staff some, but that's beside the point right now.

Since the office used to be a hallway, there are TWO speakers in the ceiling for the intercom system. Those damn things get LOUD, depending on the person who is paging over the system. It's so loud, that we have to pause our conversations in the office, which is really a nuisance when we're asking each other for advice. And heaven forbid we should be on the phone. I was in the middle of a phone conversation today when somebody started paging over the intercom, and had to apologetically ask the person to hold because I couldn't hear what he was telling me.

About three weeks ago, someone from the maintenance department was in our office checking on something else, and I asked him about disabling the intercom in our office. Most offices don't have speakers, so I didn't really see any need for us to have them. He kinda laughed me off...guess he thought I was kidding. A day or two later, our supervisor was in our office talking to us about something. The intercom went off, loudly, and her eyes got big. I asked her that day about putting in a work order to disable it. She sort of hemmed and hawed, and again, laughed me off. I don't know why people think I'm kidding about this crap.

Last week, we had a bit of an impromptu meeting in our office. For some reason, our office tends to be the gathering place when our supervisor wants to get everybody together. Again, the intercom went off, and one of our other coworkers who isn't usually in our office said something about it. I said that I had said something to two different people about it. Right about that time, our supervisor walked in, and I mentioned it to her again. She said "yeah, I need to make a call about that." Ya think?

Today, Maintenance was in our office to see about disabling the speakers. Lesson learned...if we want something done, make the request in front of everybody.

Oh well...at least something good has come of my experience in this hellhole. My coworkers will have one less aggravation to deal with.

The Hubby's Latest Hobby

Since we moved to Kentucky, and are on post in a much smaller space with different rules, we no longer have our garage or the space to work on our motorcycles. When we were in NC, P's passion was motorcycles...either working on the ones he has or working on an old Ironhead he's rebuilding. But since we moved here, he had to put that project in storage. But not one to sit idle, he has taken up a new hobby.

What would that be?

Building guitars. He finds guitar parts or complete guitars that need work on eBay and goes from there. How many guitars does one man need? Apparently there's no answer for that. How many does he have? I've lost count. LOL!! But it keeps him busy which keeps him happy, for the most part, so I don't bitch.

Here's his latest (mostly) completed project...

From Just Pictures

Halloween 2010

I was minus one kiddo for Halloween this year. The boy was invited to a sleepover and birthday party for a boy that goes to their school. He went over yesterday and spent the night and stayed all of today. They ended up inviting him to go trick-or-treating with them, and he had a great time.

My girl was home. She and Daddy carved her pumpkin late this morning. She got ready for trick-or-treating this evening, but we live in a very SMALL neighborhood on post, with not many kids. I can count on one hand the number of kids that came to the door tonight. So I ended up driving her to another nearby neighborhood to trick-or-treat. My timing was perfect, because she ran into a couple of her friends as soon as she got out of the car and walked with them as I followed. It made for a much more fun experience than she would have had otherwise. I actually think both my kids had more fun than they would have had if they'd gone around our neighborhood together.

Here are a couple of pictures...

A with her jack-o-lantern

From Halloween 2010

My little sorceress

From Halloween 2010

Happy Halloween everybody!

Not to be a snob or anything...

But I'm so freaking sick of this house, it's not even close to being funny anymore.

It's a well known "fact" that "rank has its privileges" in the Army. Well, you know, time goes along with that. I was still in NC when my husband accepted our house on post here at Knox. I know he was kind of thinking that we wouldn't really be here all that long, so the loss of space for a temporary situation wouldn't be so bad.

He's been in this house now for 7 months; the kids and I for 4 months. It's all we can do most days to walk through the house without stepping on each other or running into something. This house is the same size and layout as the one we were in 10 years ago...the year he was promoted to Captain. Something's gotta give here.

Hopefully the situation at Fort Benning will be better. I've already let the Housing office there know what neighborhoods we prefer. I really don't want to have to deal with the hassle of renting a home and getting into a lease. I don't know how long we'll be there. My preference is to utilize Government housing until we're able to return to NC and live in our own home. As much as the thought of the hubby's retirement petrifies me, part of me is so ready to go home permanently.

FRUSTRATED

I don't seem to be having a whole lot of luck with laptops these days. The monitor on the one the hubby got me for Christmas a couple of years ago is kaput. I was able to manipulate it for a while and get it to still work. No can do anymore. So I started using the baby girl's computer. Well now the mouse touchpad on it has stopped working properly, and even every external mouse I hooked up to it started acting stupid. So I put it away for now and pulled out the boy's. It seemed like it was going to act stupid, but I rebooted it. Seems to be doing ok right now.

I can't wait to get the MacBook that I have said for a while would be my next laptop. Guess I know what my Christmas present is going to be!

Ugh

I'm so fed up with being sick, it's not even CLOSE to being funny. I'm feeling a good bit better, but have congestion and a cough still lingering, and it's enough to drive me insane.

As you can see on the right side, I got my logo added to my blog, and made it a clickable link to my website. Fortunately, I have a good friend who's a geek by trade, and he helped me figure out how to do it a couple of weeks ago. I might have figured it out eventually, but he saved me a lot of time. I had forgotten how much fun it can be (although sometimes very frustrating) to play around with HTML code to get something to look the way I want it to.

Busy, Busy Fall!

It seems that I always manage to stay busy, no matter what. Even as some aspects of my life seem to wind down, others pick up to fill the void.

We've had an incredibly busy fall. J decided he wanted to play football, and A wanted to be a cheerleader. Cheerleading was easy...no worries about A not getting to participate. Football, on the other hand, was a different story. We remained frustrated most of the season as the coaches played the "first string" the majority of every game, while J and some other boys sat on the bench. I finally had enough and said something to one of the coaches at the end of one of the games. After all, we all paid the same registration fee for our kids to play football for the season. There were not separate fees for "my kid plays" and "my kid rides the bench." After I spoke my mind, J got to play more each game for the rest of the season. I can't be sure that was the reason, but I can be sure that keeping my mouth shut would have been no help at all.

Our football season is now over. J's team, the Eagles, won one game during the regular season, and it was against the other Fort Knox team. It seems the way they do playoffs here, all the teams get a chance, regardless the kind of season they had. We played the other Fort Knox team again the first game of the playoffs and won, so got a chance to advance. Unfortunately, we lost the next game. But at least the boys got a chance.

P and I have both been sick the last couple of weeks. There's something going around post. I don't really think it's the flu, but it's icky...kept me out of work two days, which is rare.

On a GOOD note, I have started a new business. I recently learned of Scentsy and immediately fell in love with their products, so it only made sense to sign up to be a consultant. I am having fun with it already, and am excited about the earning potential. I'll have to put up a link once the upgrade to our websites is finished.

Anyway, it's been an eventful fall, and winter will be even busier, since we're going to be moving again in a couple of months. P got orders this week...Fort Benning, here we come!!!