The list.

Last week I was reading one of the blogs I frequent and was pretty intrigued by her post. (Army) Wife posted a blog that included a list of things she'd like to accomplish before she dies. I have one of these lists also. It's long though. I tend to add to it from time to time and so it doesn't seem like I ever cross much off, but I'm working on it :).

I thought for a couple of days about putting some things from my list on here but then decided that the point of my blog isn't so much about me (although I do discuss my life sans Army/Deployment/Sgt. from time to time) but about me and Sgt. and how I'm sort of dealing and surviving and even on occasion kicking ass through this deployment :). So with the original idea in mind and throwing a little bit of my own blogger purpose in here, I've made a list of things I want to accomplish during the rest of this deployment. Here we go! In no particular order.

1. I want to send Sgt. at least ONE book that he's never read before that he also enjoys. I've been sending him books by his favorite author but he's already read them all! I've threatened Nicholas Sparks books from here on out... I might follow through :).

2. I want to discover the mystery that is the FRG online... I've got access, I can log in and look at stuff but it seems like they don't really keep up with it. Surely I am not the only family member (significant other... someone other than spouse personnel) who is interested in knowing whats going on who doesn't live OCONUS. Maybe one day they'll, I don't know, post a newsletter up?

3. I want to figure out exactly where he is on a map. How can I know the name of the outpost, the name of the district, the name of the FOB but not find a map in existence with this information on there. I would even settle for knowing it's X distance from this place and Y distance from this place and closest to Z.

4. I want to convince Sgt. that writing another letter back home, in his own handwriting is a FANTASTIC idea.

5. I want to get really really good at Guitar Hero 3 on hard so that way when he comes home I will actually be able to follow through with our bet.

6. I want to be able to run 3 miles and then go jogging and beat him when he comes home.

7. I want to get my window fixed on my car before he gets home and makes fun of me :)

8. I want to think up a really great birthday gift and surprise him with it... something he would never expect. (anyone know how much it costs to ship yourself to Iraq?)

9. I want to pay off my credit card

10. I want to figure out a way to get him to WANT to send more pictures home.

11. I want to get the courage to say hello to some of the wives of the men he's serving with....

12. I want to plan a surprise evening for him when he's home on R&R... what to do what to do.

13. I want to sign up for an outrageous event. Skydiving, bungee jumping, or triathlon.

14. I want to learn an amazing recipe for home-made granola bars and finally send him something home-made that isn't incredibly bad for you.

15. I want to save enough money to be able to go over to your homecoming ceremony... even if we decide I shouldn't.


Well I suppose that'll do for now. Nothing really outrageous on there but if any of you more experienced out there have suggestions or want to add to your own list, by all means!

Dog sitting.

Well today is the day I start my adventure in dog sitting. Their owners are on a 2 week vacation to New Zealand and asked if I wouldn't mind house sitting, dog sitting and plant sitting for a little while. I don't have much else going on so I said "sure!" Maybe if nothing else this will assuage my desire to get a dog. The way these two puppies are spoiled it wouldn't surprise me! Kind of like the whole babysitting episode reaffirmed my hold off on having children until later in life.

I went over to their house yesterday evening so they could show me where everything was and tell me about the dogs routines.... yes they have a "routine." I will most DEFINITELY be taking pictures of this little adventure and posting them. These two bundles of fur are not necessarily my type of dog, but they're cute in their own respects. Stay tuned for more on the adventures of KJ, Cricket, and Tooter. The human, the shitzu, and the westie. - Apparently Cricket only sleeps in bed with you, not in his own bed.... we will have to just see about that.

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In other news, I think I have decided that I want to train for a triathlon. A girl at work asked me today if I would train with her for the one she's planning on doing in May and I thought that sounded like a fun idea. She actually told me I should sign up as well but I don't think I'll be ready in May.... I figure if I'm going to do this, I want to make sure I plan ahead. Seeing as my birthday is in August, I decided that August and my birthday would be a great goal to shoot for. I'm not 100% on it yet... but I enjoy working towards goals, and I've never done a triathlon so... why not? Haven't even mentioned it to Sgt. yet but I know he'll be encouraging.

Sgt. is doing good! Lots of e-mails back and forth lately but haven't talked to him on the phone since... well... whenever the last time I posted on here that I talked to him was. Is it bad that I lose track of that? *shrugs* I figure it's easier this way rather than losing my mind. There has been more talk of moving his R&R up till even SOONER that the sooner one. (Did that make sense?) I must admit, while "excited" and "ecstatic" were very clear emotions I felt upon hearing of this possibility "anxious" and "nervous" were also both very prevalent.

That's so... soon.

I know that sounds like a weird comment to make and please don't misunderstand IF it does happen sooner then YAY! I would be thrilled! Overjoyed! I'd see him YESTERDAY if I could... but when you haven't seen someone in over a year.... I think it's normal to be a little bit nervous. Are things going to be awkward? Will he still feel the same way? Will it be hard to readjust? Will I be able to say goodbye again? The answer is probably yes to all of them in some way or another. I'm trying not to get my hopes up. I know nothing is ever guaranteed until he's actually here, I'm still planning on the further, original leave date and if it happens sooner than it's just an extra blessing.

Frankly, as long as he comes home safe, I'll wait as long as I need to.

For lunch today I had one of our favorite meals and was listening to my iPod when one of our favorite songs came on. I missed him. I went into my e-mail and reread some of the e-mails I've saved of his. I'm not having a bad day or even a sad day really, just miss him :-). Wish he was here to pick on or to go jogging with or to cook dinner for. I think people don't realize it's the little things that you miss the most when they're gone for so long. No worries though. :-) I'm glad I still have him to miss.

I'll keep y'all posted on the dog sitting situation... is it crazy that I'm a little bit scared that I might LITERALLY sit on one of them? They're so small!!

Oh - and exciting news!!
The post office now offers a larger (50% larger) Flat rate box and are offering a discounted price for shipment to an FPO or and APO. YAY! Thanks USPS.

Still no word on the package arriving in Iraq yet, and we'll have to wait until Easter to see if the Cascarones made it there safely. I don't know what I was thinking sending them.... I highly doubt they'll still be in tact but hey, it's worth a shot right?! :-)

Easter goes Army green.

Yesterday I went shopping for Sgt.'s Easter package. (One for every holiday also remember :) ). Now, I don't claim to be very old, I'm in my twenties... that doesn't really speak volumes about life experience in relative terms. I know that, I acknowledge it. However, I am now confident enough to use the term "Well back in my day" or "When I was your age" - especially after my stint through Wally World last night.

Back in my day, we had Easter baskets. That's it. Just baskets. I never had an Easter bucket, a cloth and collapsible Easter pail or an Easter dump truck. When we hunted eggs in the back yard, we hunted plastic multi colored eggs of the blue, green, red, pink, yellow, orange variety. These eggs were filled with jelly beans, pennies, those large hump looking candies that were different colors and white in the middle. I'm still not exactly sure what they were. Imagine my surprise when I went to pick up some things to put in Sgt.'s Easter package and I see CAMO EASTER EGGS. Yes - you read that correctly. Of course they are still of the old BDU variety camo, not the new digital we've become accustomed to but camo they are indeed. Easter has also become mindful of the current conflict, for they have both jungle camo and desert camo. YES I did get them. I could NOT pass up camo Easter eggs for my soldier. It's just too funny. I wander a little further down the aisle and I spot camo Easter buckets and camo Easter grass... a plethora of Military friendly Easter decor. I refrained from creating an entire camo package... although I will admit it was tempting.

It wasn't only the camo colored eggs that surprised me. Easter has become so high speed!! I swear, I saw a package of glow in the dark Easter eggs complete with accompanying flashlights for those families who just can't fit in an egg hunt in the light of day. Easter candy has become somewhat of an industry boom as well! I've never seen so much pastel colored and bunny shaped candy in my life! The Super Wal-Mart had to devote TWO AISLES for this Easter sensation... I can't imagine kids would have survived Easter back in my day. Of course we didn't know any different and we were still thrilled with grass stained dyed eggs and 62 pennies and that weird unknown candy.

After getting some Easter themed treats I strolled on over to the card aisle to get an Easter card because, I can't imagine what my soldier in Iraq would do without an Easter card. The thought nearly brings tears to my eyes. :). Should I have been shocked at the amount of sexually charged Easter cards? Maybe not... I don't ever remember seeing so many but I suppose I never really looked. I got two cards because I just couldn't resist. The funny card says "The Easter bunny is so kind, always passing out candy with that big grin on his face..." on the outside, then you open it up and it says "Well if I was having sex 12 times a day I'd be happy too!!" - hilarious.

Of course all of this stuff pretty much misses the point of Easter in it's entirety. I know how I feel about it, but I'll leave you to your own opinions.

All in all it was a successful trip. Tonight I'll get to pack his two care packages and get them off before the weekend gets here. The same requests were made as last time. At least this time around I knew exactly which gas station to go to for those ranch flavored sunflower seeds :). The person behind the counter just gave me a weird look and began counting out the 14 bags of sunflower seeds.... I didn't explain lol.

I wish I could see him open those camo colored eggs though :) In fact, I think I'm gana keep one.

Word Cloud!

Oh my goodness... I just figured out how to add pictures to my blogs! Amazing. Two of the blogs I frequent, Trying our Best and USO Girls, put up word clouds so I thought that Cabin Fever needed one as well! This nifty web site searches your blog for words you frequently use and then arranges them in alphabetical order. People can come up with some pretty awesome things :). Enjoy the word cloud folks!

** oh man... my links all worked as well! I'm impressed with myself :).

Horses, maintenence workers, timelines, and other things that are dangerous.

This past weekend was pretty eventful. Well, if you call getting bucked off a horse eventful, most people would so I figured I'd classify it as such. Also, the maintenance man saw me in my underwear when I so carelessly opened the door to take out the trash early Saturday morning in a tank top and boy cut undies. It wouldn't have been so bad had he not openly and without abandon looked me up and down and smiled. Creepers. Oh well... such is life :).

The horse story goes like this: Saturday I invited Sgt.'s cousins out to go horseback riding with me. They really enjoy riding but hadn't been in years and since I love to ride and have been working with some of the horses out here I figured it would be fun for all of us! They came out and it was great! We all DID have a lot of fun. I've been working with a one eyed horse trying to get him used to that blind side and I suppose Saturday he had just had about enough of it. Had he ever given me cause for thinking otherwise I might have been more prepared (although I should've just been prepared anyway) but this was the first time he even crow-hopped on me, let alone actually bucked. Anyway, long story short, I was thrown off and landed with an impressive thud. No harm done. A few bruises and one very sore knee are about as serious as it gets. Got back up, Sgt.'s cousin chased down my horse (who then proceeded to trot back off to the stables... jerk), caught him, I got back on and we continued our riding. I would normally make some funny cliche comment here about when you fall off a horse you just have to get back on, or maybe something about Texans and horses but I'm not just channeling anything tonight. Sorry folks :). All is well, it's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last.

Later that evening I spent some time with Sgt.'s cousin. She is really more like his big sister than his cousin, and she's a good person to turn to when I might need a little extra boost in support or understanding. She's very honest, which is one of the reasons I like her so much, she won't sugar coat things. We had a great visit, just talked and she was able to give me a little bit of clarity into a deployment (being prior service herself and remembering how Sgt. was on his last one) and how certain things are to be expected. It was a detailed conversation, that I won't go into now but I will say that I walked away from it feeling lighter, yet stronger. They're such good people.

The past couple days I have been at a conference for work. I've really really enjoyed it!! The industry has such awesome people, everyone is so encouraging and kind, it's very inspiring. I didn't think with the way my schedule was today that I would even be able to e-mail Sgt. let alone talk to him, but it's funny how things work out :) I was able to do both!

Finally, a phone call after the failed "I'm tired" "well go to bed" conversation. What is that, a couple weeks? *sigh* I lose track. I try not to keep track of how long it's been for those types of things... it just makes me crazy. We got to talk for maybe 15 min and it was great! Just us, exactly how I like it to be. He's doing well, just really busy, is on a weird schedule right now but his morale seemed to be good which is important to me. He asked me what I thought about possibly moving his leave date up! Nothing is set in stone, and the way the Army works I probably wouldn't be at all surprised if tomorrow he said he wasn't even getting leave and then next week called me from the airport. Apparently someone wants to trade or something? I wasn't exactly positive, I just know we were discussing it because although seeing him earlier than planned would be an amazing and welcomed blessing... I also work at a job where summer IS 80% of my job. It would be hard taking off the time from work, even though I think my employers would be understanding. In the end though it all boiled down to, he's got the harder position, so I told him to do what he needed to do and I would figure out a way to make it work. I love it when he asks my opinion or for my input on things like this though. It would be very easy for him to say "she'll make it work" but instead he cares enough to ask if it's ok... to ask how it might affect me, even if it's not something he has a lot of control over (specific dates and such). I love that. At this point it's kind of a wait and see sort of thing. Either way will be fine with me! :)

Oh - and the other thing that is dangerous - giving blood. Don't get me wrong, I love to donate blood, and do it every 8 weeks... but every time, my arm/vein hurts for like 3-4 days afterwards. I think next time I'll give them the other arm.