Hot Dawg!

This is Piper.

Also known as Peeps, Peeper and Peeperton.

She's my little rag-a-muffin side kick that I picked up while I was visiting family in California back in September through November. Over the course of time, I think I've figured it out that she's part Rat Terrier due to her wire hair, and part Yorkie because she has a really soft undercoat. All in all, she's a ridiculously cute lil gremlin...or as Eric refers to her, she's a "face hugging spider monkey".

For the last week or so, we've been enduring a heat wave that's pretty miserable. The main thing that makes it miserable is the high humidity. I'M not a fan of it because I have naturally curly hair..so of course humidity and I are mortal enemies..

...apparently Peeps isn't a fan of it, either. In fact, she's not her usual self..not bouncing off the walls, mauling our faces, running like a ferret around the house. None of that. She's just a lump on the marble flooring so she can cool down since I don't think she's used to *this* amount of hotness. Given, she's from California, and so am I ...but this heat is for the birds. 

After some debate, Eric and I decided to buzz her. Yes, I did some research to make sure it wasn't gonna mess with her fur since she's a wired hair thing-a-majigg mix. If anything, it's all meant just to keep her cooler since she really looked miserable. The dachshunds had already figured out three years ago how to ward off some of the heat by laying on the marble flooring directly under the ceiling fans..Piper isn't that sharp, apparently. She'll wander the house and sleep next to the water bowl. Completely pitiful. 

Before:

Once she was all buzzed, she had a nice cool bath and lots of pampering. 

Here's the finished product:

After:

Truth be told, I miss her "mohawk" on her back, but she already seems A LOT happier with the removal of her extra fur. She's already running around the house, nomming on things and causing all sorts of hell. 

What have I done?!

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"You can't see us! BOO!"

Ahhh yes yes yes..I'm actually blogging! Amazing, right? I thought so, too. On that note, here we go:

Throughout the lifetime of this blog, I've mentioned Eric "here" and "there" in terms of how supportive he's always been whenever it comes to stuff I wanna attempt, not to mention, my various shopping adventures. Now, this post is alllll about him! 

Six weeks ago, Eric had to leave in order to attend something called Non-Commissioned Officers Academy. It's basically a class that helps guys learn management and business skills since they've reached a certain rank and have to deal with more responsibilities. It's a six week course where they work on speeches, how to address certain situations via the Air Force way in addition to team building skills. Once you're there, you're assigned to a flight within the class; Eric ended up in Phantom Flight whose motto was "You can't see us! BOO!" He jokingly said that it should've been called "Profile" Flight, since everyone who was in that class is older, physically broken in some way or another and have some sort of medical "profile" put on them because they're not running at 100% capacity. 

Over the six week course, he had told me about his classmates and how well they've all bonded. Basically, there were fifteen different versions of him in this class...ohhh man! The stories about the things they've done were pretty hilarious, although I can't really repeat them on here..but all that matters is that he actually liked his classmates and managed to pass the class! HOORAY!! 

Of course, that meant there was a graduation ceremony to attend. This was the first time I was able to go to  something like this for him since we didn't know one another when he went to Airman Leadership School when he made Staff Sergeant many many ...many moons ago.  

The ceremony itself bordered on four and a half hours. If you know me, you know I have a short attention span..also known as "shiny syndrome". Lots of awards were given out to the Tech Sergeants who were top of their flight, scored well academically, and a variety of other things. Lots and lots of clapping..so much in fact that my hands were getting rather puffy by the end of the night. Every time a Tech Sergeants name was called, their affiliated flight or base that was there for support would scream their motto. One base in particular had A LOT of recognized Tech Sergeants, so by the end of the evening, I was extremely tired of hearing "SEEK, ATTACK, DESTROY!" followed by what sounded like a death scream. Good times!

When everything was finally done, Eric was given his fancy diploma he had worked so hard for and actually SMILED when the time came for a picture! SWOON! He never smiles in 'em, so this made me extremely happy cause I know he was pretty proud of himself for making it through NCO Academy. 

A nice group picture of Phantom Flight 2012-4 

Of course, we got some pictures of us together schmoozing for the camera since it's not very often I see him in his Blues, or with me actually all dressed up. I think the last time I did the whole shebang (dress, nice makeup, special jewelry) was our wedding day..which was almost five years ago. Good grief..it's been that long?!

Oh, and some people were curious about my dress. I got it from a fabulous site called Kiyonna and they cater to women who are curvy :) I actually got the Retro Glam Lace dress earlier this year since that's when Eric was originally supposed to go to the academy, but ended up getting pushed back due to a serious back injury he had. Like I mentioned earlier, since this was the first event I had to actually dress up for, I was nervous that I was potentially under dressed...

...turns out, I wasn't! This gals dress kept having technical difficulties, and by that, I mean it kept lifting in the back and showing her ass cheeks every where. You could hear the necks breaking in a room of 400 people whenever she walked past tables to go say hi to someone. It was rather entertaining. 

Then there was this gal who sat at the table right behind ours. She looked like this lil petite thing when she was sitting there, but when the time came for us to have a 10 minute "intermission" so the tables could be cleared...my jaw dropped when I saw her booty. Even Eric was like "OH MY GOD." I gotta hand it to her, girlfriend knew she looked good and rocked her curves like a champ. 

After all was said and done, Eric ended up walking away with a lot of good friends from his academy experience as well as lots of fond memories. I'm ridiculously proud of him and SO happy to have him back home :) 

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Footing

Oh goodness...where do I even begin. 

*DEEP BREATH*

I haven't been too active lately when it comes to writing some beefy or interesting posts for my blog. Honestly, I've lost the desire to write. I don't want to really do a whole lot of anything anymore. Hell, I even gave up on my camera...I don't even know where it is..it's somewhere around here. Oh, and my home businesses...given those up as well. All three of them. Buh-bye. 

It feels like I've hit this imaginary wall of total bull shit and anxiety that I can't seem to move past...I dunno what it is. Actually, that's a lie. I know exactly what it is, but there's a whole lot of "nuthin" I can do about it. For the last several months, I've been fighting some serious depression which has made me feel like a shell of my former self. I don't want to go anywhere anymore, I talk to a very limited amount of people, I suck at getting back to people via email, I screen phone calls, and I have a ridiculous amount of anxiety when it comes to going anywhere near individuals I don't want to be around. 

I'm told "Oh, it's the weather that's making you feel this way". No, no it's not... it's the people. At my ripe age of twenty nine, I'm still learning that the only people you should rely on is family, and friends who are family. Over the last three and a half years, I've definitely learned who my friends are and who was a complete waste of time. I've learned who my true friends are, who is a friend out of convenience, and who has forced me into viewing them an enemy. It sucks, especially since this is somewhere where I've made fabulous memories with a variety of people...and I am now forced to wipe some them from the adventures. 

In my eyes, I'm a push over. I put up with peoples bullshit and lies for the sake of not causing waves. I get told that I'm "too nice". Is there something wrong with being nice and going with the flow? I'd rather invest my time with making memories, having laughs and all that other fun shit. But, apparently that's not how it goes...at least that's how it seems for this place. Where I was hoping to make a gaggle of new friends, I've made a few good ones...but others have showed me how sharp they keep their daggers when the time comes to plunge it in others backs. It's depressing and makes me wonder about myself.... THIS is the type of person I hang out with? What the fuck.. 

At this time, we have eight or nine months till it's time for us to move elsewhere. I'm excited all while nervous because, to be frank, I don't want to end up at another small base where women are catty bitches. It's a constant grind and emotionally draining. I don't want to put my self "out there" anymore..I'm perfectly content with what friends I have. I'm sure that probably sounds so "woo is me", but I've just had it. I've had enough with people lying to me, letting me down, falling through, flaking..oh the list goes on and on.....and on..

In addition with that weighing my heart down, I'm also addressing some health things that have made me wanna curl up in bed & not do anything. Since November, I've been in and out of the doctors office to figure out what's going on with some severe pains I've been experiencing in my stomach / intestines. Thanks to socialized medicine, it takes 10x longer to be seen, hear results, more blood work and all that fun shit! In March, I was rushed to the emergency room because I had a serious infection in my large and small intestines in which they took blood samples and did ultra sounds. Found nothing aside from the infection...yay? Once the infection is clear, the pains are still happening and causing extreme discomfort. Finally get an appointment to have a biopsy done (that happened in April) and I just got my results back on May 3rd. The doctor still can't find anything, but has decided to test me for Chrons disease, which frankly scares the shit out of me. So, between getting poked, stabbed, scanned, popping medications and avoiding anything with flavor..it's all wearing me down.

I'm twenty nine. Come on now. 

...I'm just trying to get my footing back. 

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