Countin' Down

We're officially back home from the holidays....woot! I'm tuckered out & grateful to be able to actually relax again, lol. I love the holidays and all, but sometimes, they're a little too much for my systerm... weither it's having to be extra extra happy and cheery, not be myself (ha) or just overloading on cookies and sweets.

Side note.. my laptop is pissing me off because it can't keep up with my typing speed...grrr!

Anyway, now that I've gained my obligated Christmas weight and my pants now officially feel like they're painted on.. now we get to buckle down and brace for the up coming move..whee!!

Tomorrow *cross your fingers*, Eric should be getting his official Orders IN HAND, so we can FINALLY start scheduling the movers. I'm lookin' around the house and startin' to kinda freak out about the move, especially since we have some pretty nice pieces of furniture that I don't want damaged. Eric and I went into town earlier today and popped into Monsoon Trading Company... GREAT place. Super super friendly and bent over backwards for us when we were looking for a new couch set , coffee table and end tables. Anyway, since we bought our furniture from them, it's all been in storage. To be quite honest, I forgot how the damn couch felt, lol. So, we took a lil' time and sat on the demo...relaxed...ahhh... Now I remember why we bought it, lol.

Anyway, the move has me a little nervous. Aside from the furniture getting moved, I'm also a little jittery about transporting our dogs. I mean, we've looked into all the flight regulations for them, carrier requirements, even the cost. We got all that covered... I'm just worried about them in general. Their my fur babies and I'd be so upset if something happened to them, even though we're gonna have them as carry on. I think the carriers are within regulation (42 cubic inches) so I'm assuming we're safe. The measurements that United airlines give as far as the size of a carrier....frankly...is ridiculous. Izzy is the smallest of our dogs at a grand weight of 11lbs.. so when we tried putting her in one of those carriers, you couldnt tell that the contents were a dog. Fur was poking out of any available air hole, it basically looked like we poured her into the actual bag. Agh... so, we took those carriers back and ended up picking out some Medium sized Sherpa carriers. Those fit perfectly, so all three weenies are now fitted for their "luggage". I just hope they don't go balistic in the plane.

There's just so much on my mind right now between finances, the move, the dogs, the car, the flight, the hotel, finding a suitable house..then me flying back to the states back in June...shit.. and it's not even 2009 yet!

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Froehliche Weihnachten :)

For those of you who don't speak German, the title says,"Merry Christmas" :)

The past several days have definetely been hectic, so please excuse my lack of posting. Although, I'm sure everyone has been fairly busy themselves between visiting family, bum rushing the stores for last minute deals, or just hunkering down for massive winter storms.

Let's seeeeeeee...............

I was going to type out this super long..super detailed blog about the last week... but... the end result would be me having cramps in my fingers from all the typing. All in all Christmas Eve was stressful between cleaning, decorating and cooking, but all turned out really well. I'll post a slideshow once things mellow out & I get a chance. We're currently waiting on Dad to roll out of bed so we can dive into our stockings. John is super itchin' to get into his since it's obviously buckling from the weight of all the goodies that's inside.

Anyway, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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Taking A Breather

Alrighty..now that I have some time.. I can actually catch up on some stuff that's been going on.

Johns "mother" actually got around to sending him a belated birthday / early Christmas present. This woman just makes me laugh because.. haha...shit.. she's just so worthless. She works for a video game store. So, it's expected that they get "swag" from time to time from Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo.. ya know.. some of the heavy hitting companies that cater to the typical gamer. In case you don't know what "swag" is; Swag is free stuff like t-shirts, key chains, mugs, bumper stickers, calanders.. ya know.... free cheapy things that companies use to advertise. Well, she sent John random pieces of swag. Tshirts that're meant for larger adults, promo booklets about games he has no interest in, postcards.....just...geez. What were you thinking? John even told me, "What was the point of her asking me what I wanted for my birthday if she wasnt even going to get them for me?". Hun... I'm sorry. Your mom doesn't want to spend the money on you if she can get your stuff for free without putting out effort. That's the sad truth. It's really sad because he could even see that this stuff was all free since he was all SO random. The note she included with the stuff is what got me. He showed it to me and he even said, "How could she say she's so proud of me and how I'm turning out when she doesn't even know what's going on?". Don't know what to tell you... some people can go through life faking things and faking that they're apart of their kids life. Sadly, she thinks she's completely "there" for him when she REALLY isnt.

In other news, looks like Eric and I are going to the Squadron Christmas Party. Honestly, I'm shocked we're going considering Eric normally has no desire to attend any of those types of events. I think it's because specific people aren't apart of his shop any more, therefore, they won't be there to ruin the party atmosphere. Keep your fingers crossed for us, lol.

Lesse....last night I was able to get us set up with Vonage, that way.. it'll be easy for friends and family to reach us overseas. Instead of having to call us with Calling Cards or international numbers, they can just dial us like the normally would within the United States. Pretty cool hunh? We still have an 805 area code number :) Although, we didn't keep our old house number considering we get bombared with telemarketers all the time.. and frankly..when I'm over in Belgium, I don't wanna deal with 'em. I should be getting the adapter in the next few days, so I'll test it out and see how it works :)

OH! Great news! Eric came home tonight with our official flight confirmation!!! YAY!!!! Thank FREAKIN' god!! It's always one thing after another! Geez! This base is ridiculous beyond reason. I don't get it how they wait to tell people things at the very last minute EVERY time you go to turn your papers in. We've jumped through constant hoops, were given last minute "speed bumps"..and they just keep coming! When Eric went to turn in our Medical Clearance paperwork today, they informed him "Oh! You have four more things you need to do before you can have your orders". For FUCKS SAKE! Why can't they tell us all this stuff up front?!?!? So, apparently Eric got the 3 other things done..but I guess I...ME... I have to do an anti-terrorism slideshow. Are you serious.. come on.

As far as our departure date, we're scheduled to leave February 23rd out of LAX! woot! We even have confirmation that all three of the dachshunds are coming on the plane as well, so that's one less stress for me.

I'm sure there's more to talk about..but I have a migraine forming on the side of my head and I'm feeling a little under the weather.

Just figured I should post some sort of informed update :)

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Vague

The past 72 hours has been nothing but complete stress and total bullshit...

Between my Dad having anger issues, the Military putting my No Fee passport to a complete hault all because of a hyphen symbol....and now my cat of 14 years dying...

I'm stressed out to the max :( I can see it's not going to get any better since we have 54 days till we're phyically going to be in Belgium.

Geezo... I just want to sleep this all away.

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Almost there!

I'm mildly groggy..so please forgive me if this blog is a little on the wonky side :)

Today's the day where Eric, John and myself had a meeting with the Medical Officers to make sure we're in the clear for Belgium. I had to laugh since we were directed to go to the "Mental Health" department ...this whole place makes you feel like you belong in some sort of nut house, lol

The meeting went really well, especially since Johns ADD is under control and they could actually SEE that his "issue" seems to be fairly mild. *whew*. When I went into the doctor on Monday, they did a blood pressure check and it was a little high (gee, I'm sick and stressed out), so that showed up in todays medical review. It's nothing serious, but I was told NUMEROUS times that I had to "keep an eye" on it. Normally, I don't have high blood pressure..between the meds I'm on, this PCS and some other things that we have going on, I'm a lil' on edge. Blah. Once the they were all done reviewing everything with us, we were given the "thumbs up" for our Orders...BUT... Johns doctor didn't show up to the meeting even though he was scheduled to. For the medical sign off, the doc has to sign everything with his approval...agh! Not only that, but we needed to get our immunizations "just in case" since we're moving to another country...lovely.

While we were waiting on the doctor to show up to sign our paperwork, we made our way over to the Immunization Office to get checked out. Eric's in the free & clear since the Air Force loads him up on everything..John and I weren't so lucky. If anything, I got the worst of all, lol. John needed his 12 year booster, tetnis and one other shot in addition to getting the Flu "mist" through the nose. I felt so bad for him since he HATES needles...what kid doesn't hate needles? All the while, Eric is gigglin' and telling the TSgt who was administering the shots to just give John even more, lol. What a nice Dad! John was ok up till the point where the TSgt pinched his arm for the injection...once he did that, John completely lost it. The needle made it so much worse since the second it hit him, he was in absolute tears! Geezo :( I know this sounds so bad of me, but in a way, it was kinda funny to see him freak out over such a tiny lil' thing....especially since he's 12 years old. All the while, Eric kept egging him on, laughing and teasing...poor Monkey. Atleast he wasn't like the little girl that came in after us...now THAT'S a cry baby! She was freaking out while in the waiting room & SCREAMING like crazy..agh! I feel pretty sorry for the TSgt that was working.. non stop kids crying, lol. Its gotta get pretty old some days.

Once John was taken care of, the TSgt looked into what I needed...and man.. apparently I need everything since there's no medical history about me in their data base. Greaaaaaaaaat.... So, I ended up getting the Flu shot, Hep A and something else.. AND 6 viles of blood drawn. I think John felt a little better knowing he wasn't the only one getting shots today. As for the blood, they're going to run tests on the viles to see what I actually NEED shots for..yippy... SO, next Friday I gotta go back to the clinic to see what my lab results say, in turn, I get even more shots. BLAH! My left arm is totally killin' me right now from one of the shots and I'm "supposed" to expect to have pain for a few days ..can you sense my enthusiasm?

Once we got home, we got a call from the Mental Health department and the doctor finally showed up and signed off on our papers. *woot* So I scampered back over and picked em up :D Got back home and it felt like I instantly hit a wall... super super tired, very lethargic.. ughh.. I crashed out around 5 then woke up at 7.. now I'm ready to crash out again. I'm thinking it's the shots that're making me feel like this, or the meds for my respitory infection. Hum..

All in all.. it's been a pretty long day.. I'm just glad most of our stuff is taken care of and we're that much closer to physically getting our orders in hand :)

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Puppy Love

I love how pets know when you're not feeling good. Notice how they always seem to "behave" more? LOL.. if only they were like that all the time rather than when you're sick.

For the past week and a half, I've been really under the weather. Between a completely stuffed up head, throbbing sinus pain and congestion that is unbelievable.. I've been pluggin' along and trying to get stuff accomplished around the house. Eric managed to get me a doctors appointment on Monday to get checked out... turns out I have an upper respitory infection (yay). I feel completely drained of all my energy.. just walking around the house feels like a chore..and I have a pretty small house!

All the while, Cole..aka "The Bubby" has been velcro'd to me the entire time. Sure, he's usually my little sidekick anyway, but it seems since I've been sick he's even more attentive in making sure I'm "ok". He's always within a few inches from me if he doesn't happen to already be laying on me. I'm not allowed out of his sight. He's always watching me...always. If I get up to change out the laundry, I know he's right there because he sits next to the laundry basket as I'm putting the clean clothes in it as he watches me. I just don't know how to explain it.. but for anyone who has a dog, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

When I feel like poo, I can just look into my dogs eyes and see the love and care he's got. Animals are not just our pets.. they're our loved ones & our little gaurdians. So when I look into Cole's eyes, I see all the love in the world he's got for me and totally makes me feel better. I think that's the best kind of medicine I can get when my real meds aren't working very well :)

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WOOT!

After a month and a half of waiting....Johns mother FINALLY got off her ass and sent us the forms we needed from her to get his No Fee Passport processed! Thank freakin' God!

We'll be heading over to Outbound in a little bit once John is home from school to take care of the paperwork. Once that's taken care of, we can finally get TMO scheduled to pick up our stuff & have it shipped over to Kleine Brogel.... get our flights taken care of... MAN...we're finally able to get GOING and get MOVING!

YAAAAAAAAAY!!!

On a side note... I love how the housing office was going to issue us a noise violation for my dogs yet it's the NEIGHBORS dog that's been howling all day...actually..all week. They just knocked on my door to tell me about a complaint, but my dogs have been inside all day with me passed out on the couch. They've barely gone outside to stretch out and do their business! Right when I was telling her "I'm sorry, I think you have me mistaken for someone else"... the neighbors dog started going nuts again. It's a Aussy / Lab mix and he's been barking NON STOP...I can ignore it, but apparently our other neighbors have been pretty sick of him, lol. So, the housing rep went next door and sure enough, the dog was barkin and going gonzo, so the notice was slapped on their door. I've been gone for maybe an hour today and all the dogs were indoors because of the weather...don't give me a violation when I didn't do anything! GAH!

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Ramblings

This is probably going to be one of those posts that jump around to different subjects... No, I'm not drunk. I just can't keep all my thoughts organized / focused long enough sometimes, lol.

Topic #1

While surfing through the MySpace world yesterday, I happened to come across Andrew. Andrew is Johns Step-Dad...errrr... Ex Step-Dad. While browsing through his profile, he talked about his kids including John, had pictures on a slideshow that had nothing BUT his kids. It's sad because you can genuinely see that this man loves his kids to death ( any parent would ). The reason why I say it's sad is because Andrew doesn't currently have his kids. I understand that he's deployed right now in Iraq, but they were also out of his custody prior to his deployment due to * dum dum dum * Ginna. Anyway... I was reading his blogs and came across one that painted out the exact same scene that played out when Ginna left Eric & John. Yet, this time it was Andrew, Hunter & Bella. He wasn't bashing her too severely throughout his vent, but you could feel the full pain and frustration he's dealing with because this woman found a loop hole way to have his kids taken away. The sickening part is that their kids aren't even with her.. she doesn't have them. The kids grandmother in an entirely different state has them. Back to what I was going to talk about.... While reading his blog, it dawned on me. I realize this woman is completely worthless, but this really clarifyed it to me. She will never settle down. She will never manage to focus on her KIDS needs, it's all about her and what she needs to do for herself. She will never grow up. There's a point where you're young at heart but still take care of your responsibilities, then there's Ginna. Ginna just doesn't grasp the concept of being a responsible adult and mother.

As for Andrew, he'll be receiving some school pictures of John as well as some soccer pictures from this season. John absolutely adores Andrew (as does Andrew to John), so I'm very happy to hear that they're still on close terms. When I contacted him to see if he'd like some pictures, after I updated him on Johns school performance, how he's growing and changing SO much & how we're proud of him... Andrew was nothing but positive and sounded like a loving dad who was proud of his kid. "I'm extremely proud of John for doing so well in school; I just can't believe how much he's grown! He was only about 3, maybe 4 when I first met him and he's probably almost as tall as I am by now. *laughs* It's very heartwarming to know that he speaks as fondly of me as he does. I hope he knows that I do the same, and just as often. At the risk of sounding mushy and overly-sensitive, he's always been like a son to me and has always treated me like I was just a second Dad.. not some strange guy his Mom fell in love with. Even almost a decade after meeting him, I'm still taken aback by his thoughtfulness, helpfulness, good manners and positive attitude. Well, as much as a 12 year old can have, anyway. *chuckles* Hunter and Bella miss him an awful lot, especially Hunter. He really knows how to be a great big brother. Anyway, he's such a wonderful kiddo and it's been a blessing to have him in my life since he entered it."I have absolutely no problems what-so-ever with him, he's a very intelligent and caring guy who got royally screwed by someone who doesn't think about anyone but herself. I definetly would love it if he and John kept in touch because I know they both have a step father / step son bond that isn't very common. As for Andrew, hopefully he'll be able to get full custody of those kids once he's back from his tour... if Ginna gets 'em, I'd be seriously concerned.

Topic #2

I realize when I was younger, I thought I was the shit and knew everything. People would give me their advice and I'd half listen, but atleast I'd take into consideration as to the type of advice that was being dished to me. Now that I'm older, I'm a wee bit wiser to life and how it's gears work when it comes to bumping my way through things. Common sense has always been a huge life saver. Using my brain to actually research my options rather than giving up and asking others to give me things I'd want to hear got me SO much further with my life. I don't understand people who dont try. Effort works some major magic rather than just bumping your way through life & having things handed to you on a silver platter. Frankly, it's quite irritating when I see someone be a repeat offender when it comes to being lazy rather than extend a little effort. Life isn't as hard as some people make it out to be. It is what it is. It is what you make of it.

If you ask me for an opinion, I'm going to give it to you. I don't sugar coat, especially if you're really needing a swift kick in the ass. If you're asking for "help" when it's obvious you're too lazy to find the answers yourself .. or... to be blunt.. too stupid.. do me a favor; Don't breed. I already have to pay with my tax dollars for immigrants popping out babies who have no intention on ever doing anything productive in this country. I certainly don't need you adding to the pile. It's frustrating to hear someone complain about a current life situation and needs advise... advise is given, yet they don't listen at all. If anything, they become pissy an offended and make up excuses as to why they can't change their current situation or why things are happening the way thy are.

Just.. agh... it irritates me.

I think that's enough rambling from me for now.. my sinus' are going insane and I feel like my throat is swelling up. Being sick sucks balls :(

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Stick Family!

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Christmas Shopping

There's several people I know who were all balls out to go battle the Black Friday crowds at 2am, 3am, 4am and so on... screw that, I cherish the days where I actually get to sleep in with Eric, lol. I heard on the news about someone actually getting trampled to death while trying to get into a store for the "amazing" sales. Seriously? Is that possibly $40 savings worth your life? I understand that some people really save a ton of money by doing that type of stuff, but damn.. I've heard some gnarly stories about people getting SERIOUSLY injured, attacked, STABBED and mugged... STUPID! Stuuuuuuuuuuupid.

So anyway...

Yesterday, Aunty Loo, my Dad, Eric, cousin Kendall and myself decided we were going to hit up Borders in Monterey. I was anticipating the worst considering it was Black Friday, right? No parking spots, long lines, jerky people getting super pissy due to long lines... you know..the whole "essence" of the Christmas shopping cheer. WEEEEELLLLL.... We got there and found a parking spot right off the bat. SCORE! Walk into Borders and honestly.. if I didn't KNOW it was a "massive" sale day, I would've assumed it was like any other normal day. No huge crowds, no long lines, no shoving and elbowing to get your desired merchandise. None of that. Totally calm and mellow. I remember last year being a complete nightmare, so to see the complete opposite this time around was a major relief. It wasn't like that just at Borders... same deal with Game Stop as well as Best Buy, which TOTALLY shocked me.

Even today when Eric and I migrated to Del Monte in Monterey...sure, the parking lot was full..that's to be expected there since the parking layout isn't the most convenient thing on the planet. I got a parking spot without any hassle right behind Macys, walked over to Mervyns and picked up some goodies since they're currently 50% off where we were the only ones in line, then headed over to Game Stop & I managed to pick up some UMD movies for my PSP at the grand price of $4 a piece (they're usually $20 a piece), went over to Chipotle for some burritos without having to wait in line forever (normally they're super slammed)... I mean, it was unreal to me. When I lived in the area, I worked for Macys at Del Monte and I DREADED Black Friday and the following weekend since it was always a mad house. So, to see just "average" foot traffic rather than the crazed stampeding crowds I'm used to.. it's just... humm... how can I put it...

It solidified every ones financial woes regarding our economy. No one is wanting to spend the extra money & everyone is cutting back... it SHOWED. It really showed. I'm sure retailers are going to have disappointing sale numbers for the month of December dispite the fact they're offering deep discounts and what not. Although, I must admit... figuring how I've been in retail for a good 10 years now, it makes me a little biased when I walk into a store and see something for $100 with a 30% discount. I know what that merchandise really cost and how large the mark up really is... half the time when I go out to buy stuff, it's really a challenge for me to spend my money, lol.

Ok, time for me to get back to the family :)

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Happy Post Glutton Day!

My bad, I forgot to post a Happy Thankgiving bloggy.. oppsy!


Eric, John and I hit the road for Salinas on Wednesday around 12:30p... and what normally takes us three hours to get from once place to another, actually took us five. In addition to that, it was raining so freakin' hard, I could barely see the road for the majority of the trip. It finally cleared up once we hit Paso Robles, but at that point.. it was a straight shot to Salinas without too much traffic to deal with, ya know, other than the stupid asses who liked to tailgate at 80mph. Once we made it into Salinas, we unloaded our new age Grapes of Wrath vechicle and got right to work on prepping the food for Thanksgiving. While I was prepping the food / turkey, Eric was workin' away on the internet set up so we could get all of the Xbox's in the house enabled for Xbox Live. With a house full of gamers, you HAVE to get the 360's up in running or there WILL be blood at someones expense!

Yesterday went VERY well & I was so relieved that I didn't screw it up, lol. This was the forth or fifth turkey I've done, but I've never tackled a twenty eight pounder... the prior turkeys were around sixteen to twenty pounds. Major difference!

In addition to the turkey, I made a Green Bean Casserole, Cheddar Bacon Potatoes, Stuffing (but that was cooked in the turkey so I forgot about it half the time), picked up some cranberry/orange mix that tasted fabulous, dinner rolls, turkey gravy...man, just talking about all of it is making me gain weight!

Look how juicy it is!!

Luckily, my Aunty, Uncle and two cousins were able to come from Washington for the festivities! I was really wanting them here since obviously it's a family get-together holiday, but this is my last Thanksgiving in the states for a few years, so I definetely wanted to have a great holiday with the majority of the family from the West Coast, lol.

Grandma brought Pumpkin Pie & Pecan Pie while Eric made his classic White Coconut Cake... it was a diabetics nightmare but SO tastey!

Everything went swimmingly! VERY happy with the outcome, no food poisoning so that's a plus right there. Loads of entertainment between family members talking fun shit to one another, cousins picking on everyone, killing zombies on a flat screen tv, family putting each other into headlocks and beating the crap out of kids....ahhhhhh... good ol' family fun :)

More pictures to come! Especially since everyone is in town till Sunday...therefor...more insanity will insue!

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*SIGH*

I guess you can say I'm a little grumpy today... my headache won't go away and it's starting to really piss me off. I'm not sure weither I'm getting them because of the bi-polar weather, or just everything that's been thrown at me regarding this PCS and it's little loose ends.

Since I've taken up my new career as a SAHW, I've been constantly cleaing my house. CONSTANTLY! It's super clean (as it should be), everything is organized, you can tell I've been busting my ass on it! When I was working, I'd do my 8-5 shift, come home.. cook dinner & try to clean then eventually go to bed. Since I'm home all day now, I can focus all my energy into cleaning / sorting / prepping / packing things for the move. Although, I can say I'm getting a little miffed. I'm not a personal maid. I do laundry all day long, put things away...yet when eveyone gets home, everything gets tossed and lands on the hallway floor. COME ON! Put it in the friggin' hamper!! Don't giggle and think it's funny... it's actually really irritating to constantly clean up after everyone! The kitchen was perfectly clean when I went to bed last night, so WHY does it look like the cereal box barfed all over the counter? If you have a soda and you're done with it, don't leave the empty can on the counter! Put it in the friggin' recycling bag....

GAH!!!!!

I know this sounds so stupid to get pissed about, but there are days where I don't feel appreciated. There's cultures where the woman is EXPECTED to wait on the guys hand & foot, have the house always looking perfect, be the perfect cook.. just agh. Eric doesn't think along those lines, but it's just irritating when I have the house all vacuumed up, he comes home from work and tosses his clothes all over the floor. Come on now! COME ON! Are you serious? I do Johns laundry because he can't comprehende the entire notion of "folding" rather than stuffing his clothes in his dresser. When I put his FOLDED clothes on his bed for him to put in his dresser.. I tend to find them scattered all over the floor which ends up migrating back in the "dirty" clothes pile for laundry because he's too lazy to put it away. GRR!!!

I left the house yesterday for about an hour to run into town & pick up some medications. Honestly, I should've known better than to leave 3 dachshunds in the house unsupervised, but I figured they'd be on their best behavior since they've been REALLY good....ha... I swear, if there's ANYTHING they can get their teeth on, it's fair game. When I came back, my house looked like the inside of a snowglobe. Fuuuuucckkk... they got ahold of some styrofoam insulation for our glass shelves (they were in the hallway closet). Not only did the living room looked like it snowed, they tore apart the cardboard that was holding it.. knocked over the trash can in the laundry room and dragged it throughout the house...*whimper* I think they knew they were in deep shit because the second I walked into the house and they saw me, they all BOLTED out of the doggy door and hid out till I got the house all cleaned up again. WHHHHYYY!! WHYYYY ME??

Random blog.. I know.. I'm just starting to get a little pissy about stuff, especially when I have a headache that won't stop thumping.

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Small Victory!

HA!!

I finally got my medical clearance!! YAAAAAY!!!

The Family Practice Doc gave Eric my EFMP ( Exceptional Family Member Program )paperwork & signed off on everything. I guess since I don't have any mental problems (ha) or any physical issues that they can see from what little reports they COULD find on me, they don't have enough NOT to give me clearance. So,the Doc scribbled in all the right spots and gave me the green light.

*WOOT WOOT*

Another good note, my No Fee Passport was submitted today, so, I should be gettin' that back in a few weeks. Hopefully Johns mom will get off her fuckin' ass and send us the paperwork we need! I'm just REALLY hopin' that gets sent to us REALLY soon. Eric has to get Johns No Fee stuff turned in, go shoot some guns (Dec. 4th) then we OFFICIALLY have orders in hand so we can FINALLY get our freakin' flights scheduled, TMO scheduled..ya know..the stuff that needs to be done NOW. lol

*Crossin' my fingers!*

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Revolving Door

Man.. I'm so tired right now... I'm debating on crawling into bed.

So this morning I had an appointment with Family Practice to get my Exceptional Family Member bullshit done... ya know, for clearance. I get there and they're basically interrogating me as to why I don't have a medical record there. Say what? I've seen them multiple times for the past 2 years... how do they not have anything on me? Then they're asking about my "last" base... I don't have a "last" base considering this is my FIRST base. So, they don't know what to do with me.... literally. They're going to let me know what to do since they have no medical records to send to Kleine Brogel... they don't know what to put on my EFMP paperwork... I even offered to have a physical done so they can SEE that I don't have any health problems that will cause any problems overseas. John has clearance as of now.. I dont. Fuck.

After having fun at Family Practice, I headed into town to have my filling replaced in one of my teeth. I had the old silver filling and it was actually starting to crack...caused ALOT of pain. After getting shot 3 times in the mouth for novacaine, they switched out the silver filling to a "natural" ivory to match my tooth. My mouth is so swollen on the right side and everything hurts.. I don't wanna even eat dinner even though I'm starving. My head is thumping and I've been dealing with this all day... blah..

Once I got back on base, Eric gave Ginna a call to see if she's changed her mind about the paperwork. She still stuck to the fact that she's not signing anything till the Child Support is done. In which, Eric replied with ,"Are you sure you want to go that route?"...she got really quiet and said , "What do you plan to do about it?". Eric basically said, "We've already contacted Legal about this. You should be hearing from an attorney later today". She got quiet again and said, "Look... we're adults. We can handle this without the courts getting involved". It just went on and on from there.. but she got the gist that this is going to court if she doesn't get off her high horse...so she sounded a little more open to signing papers... we'll see...

Then, Eric and I head over to the Legal Office to address the situation with Ginna. Nomally they get you in and out in 15 minutes (the revolving door policy)... they spent an hour and a half with us. The Captain that helped was SO nice & was lookin up everything under the sun to relate to Nevada child custody law s (that's where Eric and Gina got divorced). The wording for Nevada's child custody doesn't match California's wording for child custody...even though it means the same exact thing. It's irritating how one word.. LITERALLY...one word can fuck an entire situation up. The Captain called Child Support Services and discussed the situation at hand... they said that at this point, Ginna doesn't owe us any money so where shouldn't be a reason NOT to sign the paperwork. Hunh? She owes $19k...where'd it all go? Apparently Child Support reset itself to zero since Eric's divorce paperwork contradicts itself. The odd part is... they had Eric resend his claime and we're doing this whole process all over again. BUT, in the mean time, we have a printed document STATING that she doesn't owe money........for now. So, I'm going to scan it and email it off to her to show that she doesn't have a balance anymore. Funny part is... she'll owe money yet again in 2-3 months. Ha!

I still hadn't heard from Family Practice about my EFMP papers, so we swung back to the clinic since we had to go there anyway. Johns EFMP paperwork was ready though, yay! Picked his papework up.. they kinda blew me off like it wasn't important. HELLO! It's important! Fuckers! UGH! I might get a call within the next WEEK as to what they're going to do about my medical records.. or lack there of.. grrr... We heade to the pharmacy to pick up my BC ..but alas... they don't have it. My re-fill order was dropped because the system crashed YESTERDAY and they didn't reboot the system till today. Whee!! Now I got to wait till Friday to go off base and get my re-fill else where since the base pharmacy won't have it till NEXT friday. FUUUUUCK...
Got back to the house, picked John up since he just got out of school... then rolled over to Out Bound Assignments. These monkeys have been giving Eric nothing but a hard time due to Ginna not signing the conscent forms. The Captain at the Legal Office printed out legal forms that stated that Eric has the right to get Johns passport without Ginna. The guy at Out Bound said "No". He didn't want to acknowledge what the Captain (ATTOURNEY) had issued for him.. he wants a signature from Ginna. He basically told Eric "We need her signature. There's no way around it. If we don't, you have a few options: Your orders get canceled, you go without your son, or you go TDY there for 2 years". Uh. No. We're ALL going weither it kills us. My paperwork was submitted without any hidden snags, so my No Fee Passport should be on the way in few weeks.

Just SOOO much bullshit to deal with and it's really wearing me out... and the hectic part hasn't even started yet! It's irritating that John has Medical Clearance, yet I dont. BUT, I have clearance for a No Fee Passport but John doesn't.

BLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!

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Oh! For Fucks Sake!

To be blunt... Johns "mother" aka Womb for Rent... is a REAL piece of work. It takes a lot to get me pretty fired up, but this woman has managed to piss me off in more ways than I'd ever imagine.

Throughout the time I've been with Eric and John, I've noticed that Johns mother has managed to alienate him and make it a point to be a void in his life. Given, she's not physically present since she walked out on both Eric & John when John was at the ripe age of 3. She remarried to a guy who in all honesty, sounds like a nice guy... popped out 2 more kids...then BAM, divorcing husband #2 and is now living in Indianapolis with a guy who is 6 years older than JOHN that she met off of the internet. Stand up individual. She offers nothing as far as emotional love towards John. I LOVE John like he's MINE. What absolutely infuriates me is that she always tells John that she's "too busy" and she'll call him when she can... which is extremely rare. She'll text rather than call. HELLO! He's your SON. He wants to hear your VOICE, not a fucking text you stupid bitch!

Eric filed for Child Support last November since she had finally pissed us off enough to where we're holding her financially liable. Out of all the years she's been gone, not once has she taken it upon herself to actually assist with anything to do with John (finanically)..hell.. anything to that matter. Never buys him clothes, nothing for school.. hell, when she actually sent him something for his 10th birthday, it was something that was meant for a 3 year old, not 10 year old. John will call, call, call, and call, but she'll never pick up, BUT, she'll text him back. It's to the point where he doesn't even bother attempting to call her because he knows it's a waste of time. He'll try, but it's not as often as it used to be. How sad is it to know that your 12 year old kid actually BET that his mom wouldn't call for his BIRTHDAY? Hummm?? The brutal truth is that you, as a mother, have failed this kid in so many ways.. he's starting to see you for what you really are.

Worthless.

In the midst of dealing with Child Support, as I had mentioned earlier, Johns mother is now living in Indianaopolis with her new boy toy. She texts Eric these little sob stories about how Child Support is garnishing her wages and wants him to "call them off" since she needs the money. She's "trying to survive on her own with two babies". Lady. Hate to break it to you.. but you're a big girl now. It was your choice to pop out two more kids. It was your choice to walk away from your husband not once, but twice. You tell us that you can't afford the Child Support payments, yet you moved across the country for an internet love interest, got enrolled in Culinary School.. dump money into World of Warcraft... YET.. you can't pay what you OWE to John? Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? Seriously? Your two younger kids aren't even with you. They're staying at your Mothers in Georgia, or did you not notice that? Oh that's right.. real mothers take care of their kids, not dump and run.

*** VENT VENT VENT VENT VENT ***

I'm so irritated right now because this wonderful specimen of TRASH has found yet another way to slow down our process of moving. We needed her "conscent" for us to take John overseas, otherwise, we can't taken John without BOTH paternal parents acknowledging that he'll be out of the country. She actually filled out that paperwork and notarized it, sent it back. Got Johns TOURIST Passport all taken care of which is actually sitting on the desk next to me. The pisser is that we need an additional passport for him called a "No Fee Passport". That passport allows John and myself to live in Belgium because we're there on government orders rather than being there just as tourists. In all honesty, I wish to hell that the Outbound Office pulled their heads out of their asses and informed us of that at the SAME TIME they informed us about our orders to Beligum. But no, that'd be something that requires common sense.

So now here we sit "needing" Johns mother to sign yet another release form for a passport. This time, she's not doing it. Why? Because she doesn't want to pay Child Support. Hah. Nice. Eric contacted Child Support about the situation, and they even send her a registered packet containing the passport information because it's NEEDED. She never responded. I personally sent her the passport forms in addition to some pictures of John she was wanting. Yet, no response. I see how this is gonna be.

Eric contacts her today and she made it loud and clear... she's not signing anything till Child Support stops garnishing her checks. We're not stopping the garnishing. Every penny we get from her is getting locked into a Savings Account for John. WE'RE not touching it. Everything that he receives from her goes to him and him only. This woman doesn't comprehend the concept of responsibility. She has the nerve to give us an ultimatum like that? Sorry Hunny. You have no idea what you just started.

Is it me or did I just hear the fight bell ring?

Bring it.

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Work it, Baby

It's weird for me to just "relax". I mean, when I was working..I'd come home, lounge for a little bit after I made dinner.. but I still managed to do stuff around the house. I guess I don't know the real meaning of relaxing, lol

Now that I'm completely jobless, Eric has flat out told me,"I want you to RELAX today. NO housework". Say what? Given, my job wore me out entirely and now I'm sick (yippy)..Eric was getting concerned since I developed some serious insomnia,headaches/migraines, severe back pains and overall anxiety problems stemming from my employer. The dark circles under my eyes are starting to go away, my muscles aren't so tight and tense around my neck..I actually feel like I used to. When it comes to "relaxing", I don't want to be a growth on the couch! There's times thoughout the day where I veg out to my favorite TV show or check my emails, but other than that, I'm busy with organizing the house, doing laundry, working on the yard, hittin' the gym or walking the dogs. If I'm not doing all of that, I'm out running errands out and around town. I can't seem to sit still! I guess I just like being productive? Somedays it just doesn't feel like enough though...once it's clean, it's dirty again.

Random rant, I know...

As I've been cleaning out stuff from the house.. things are starting to become bare & minimal. Less junk (thank gawd), figuring out what to keep and what to get rid of. This weekend is going to be REAL interesting since we're finally able to bulldoze through our garage & pull out everything to take stock of what we're dealing with. Lots of stuff to toss, donate, demolish.. just lots of shit to do and the clock is ticking down.

SOOOOOOOO much to do.. gah!

Well. On that note, I think I'm going to bust out some "Gears Of War 2" and blow some people up. WOOT!

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My, What Cute Roots You Have

I've been to the dentist a grand total of maybe 5 times in my life.. I HATE going to the Dentist. The whole part of someone sticking their fingers in my mouth.. then poking my teeth with sharp tools is a little unsettling for me.


The last time I went to the Dentist, it was when I was 19 years old. The ONLY reason why I went was because my goddam Wisdom teeth were making me absolutely miserable and they needed to be yanked out. Well,the Dentist I went to.. who just happened to be named Dr. Slaughter.. did my X-rays and didnt see anything that could cause a problem prior to my extraction. When I woke up from my procedure, all I could smell was burned flesh since he cauderized the hell out of my gums... apparently I have dry sockets and wouldnt stop bleeding. Was given MINIMAL pain meds and I had to change out my gauze literally every 30 minutes for a day because it wouldn't STOP bleeding. When I called and complained about the pain (after day 3 and no more meds since he only perscribed enough for 2 days), I was told I was pretty much out of luck. AGHHH!! Great Dentist!


Turns out for us to go overseas, I have to get checked out by a Dentist or else I can't go with Eric. BLAH! Eric kept telling me, "He's a great great guy. John loves him to death otherwise I wouldn't take him there". I've heard all this before so I'm still really hesitant.


When we stepped into the receptionist office, the office staff was very friendly *shocked me to say the least*. Apparently the majority of the staff there are Military dependants so they understand what it's like to get papers filled out for PCSing and anything else under the sun. I was first up to get checked out (John was also there for his paperwork). The whole xray process was pretty cool since it was all digital.. SO, I could instantly see how my teeth looked on this massive computer monitor that was set up infront of me. The dental tech that was taking all the xrays was really sweet & kept remarking on my teeth. Apparently I hav "cute roots", lol. Even the dentist made a comment on 'em saying that they're "unique" and lucky. Say what??

The xray below is NOT mine, but this was a perfect example of what they were talking about. See the circled tooth? That's how ALL of my roots look. WEIRD!

After the dentist did an exam , he informed me that he's impressed with my teeth. They're in great shape and there's nothing wrong with them, even with curved roots. All I need is to have my teeth cleaned, which is happening next Tuesday :) He was actually a pretty funny guy, which definetely made me mellow out. The only thing I need to worry about is Gum Disease. Apparently my teeth are in such good shape, that I don't "need" to go to the dentist all the time.. but he reccomends I just keep an eye on my gums because if I dont.. I could potentially end up toothless by the time I'm in my 40's, no bueno!

All in all, this experience with the dentist was THE best I've ever had. The staff was excellent and very very caring. The Dentist had a great sense of humor and was also very sweet.. it was all about helping the patient for them.Not the dollar signs.

Ok.. it's time for bed! I only got 3 hours of sleep last night!

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*POOF* My Work Here Is Done

Ahhhhhhh... being unemployed feels ....euphoric...

Yesterday was my last official day with my employer. I finished out my accounts and pretty much loafed around for the remainder of the day. My supervisor pretty much knew I couldn't start any of my usual projects considering they're normally 2 day deals, so, I just putzed around and got paid for 8 hours. Wheee!!

Today was just weird for me. I haven't been able to sleep in.. like REALLY sleep in for God knows how long. Keep in mind, I normally wake up at 5:30a everyday, so for me to sleep in till 7am is a friggin' miracle! I was pretty worthless for the most part, but I managed to clean up the house a little bit, straightened up the kitchen, basically did the usual cleaning routine for the house.

MAAAAAAAAAAAAN, I'm so glad to be done with my job! SO glad! I don't regret my decision to leave that place early. I was totally miserable there, the work environment was unbearable and was completely unappreciated and taken advantage of. When I signed off on my termination papers & turned over my keys, it literally felt like the weight of the world was taken off my shoulders. I'm totally fine with being unemployed till we move...it allows me to catch up on things with my house, focus on my support board, work on my artwork and get back into my normal workout routine.

I'm just RELIEVED to be done with them! Can you tell? :D

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Catchin' Up

I haven't posted on a few days (obvious statement), but that's because alot has been going on. It's time to play catch up.

*1* The owner for the company I work for is a total asshole (nothing new there)
*2* Celebrated my 26th birthday
*3* Obama is now our President
*4* Submitted my resignation letter with my place of employment
*5* Soccer season is officially over for John

*1*

Well, on Friday... a shipment arrived while I was taking care of some new merchandise. When new merchandise comes in, I have to prep it, enter it into the system, price it out for store codes, invoice stuff... it's alot of work. So, basically imagine my office buried in 300 different pieces of lingerie (corsets, petty coats, chemises, body stockings). Nice hunh? UPS arrived with the shipment, unloaded it and came over for my signature. In the midst of being buried, I made it out of my office.. I stopped about 20 feet from the shipment since I could count the amount of boxes from where I was,verified it on the signature pad for the total and signed. Wished the driver a nice day and got back to work. *Sigh*When I left my office to make copies of all the receiving reports and invoices, I walked past the stack of boxes that were delivered..I walked to the other side of it and *bam*. MASSIVE hole ripped open on the side of it. Inside is a machine that we sent off for repairs and there it was.. scratched and bent. Fuck. I called my co-worker out and she looked at it, said she'd get the claime started on it and it'd be good to go. Sweet. Asshole also known as Steve (the owner) comes in and INSTANTLY yells "WHAT THE FUCK!?!? You better have filed a claim for this shit!!". Mind you, I'm still literally buried in additional new product..it's an ALL day thing to do.. I said "Honestly Steve, I didn't see the gouge before. I was....." and he cut me off to say. "Are you fucking blind!? How do you not see that?! DO I look that stupid?? HUNH?? You just didn't get off your fucking ass to look!!". That's when I kinda lost it and replied with, "What do you want from me, STEVE. I bust my ass, I do beyond my job requirements... I was in the middle of getting new stuff ready.. WHAT do you want me to do!?". He stormed off & called my supervisor to tattle tail even though I had already given her a heads up. Then he comes back out with his camera phone, takes pictures of the whole shipment and sends it off to her. Fine..just go away and leave me alone. Fast forward to today...Julie (my supervisor) tells me she needs to talk to me. Turns out Steve and his wife (she's an evil bitch) both harrassed Julie over the weekend as to how I didn't "follow company policy" by inspecting all the boxes before signing for them. THERE IS NO WRITTEN POLICY STATING THAT!! I even looked through the company handbook and it's not in there! Steve's wife told Julie that I need to be an "example" when it comes to following the rules.. so..issue me a formal write up. Make me an EXAMPLE??? What. The. Fuck. WHAT THE FUCK! I've NEVER gotten a write up out of all the years I've worked...NEVER! Yet they have th gall to make an "example" out of me?? Julie was really resisting giving the write up..they basically told her to issue it or find another job. So, I got the write up. I wrote "Refused to sign" considering this is a railroad thing that's going on.. the entire office knows it's bullshit. Julie even logged into the video system and SAW the entire thing.. she SAW how slammed I was and saw nothing wrong with what I did.THEN... Steve has the nerve to come in later in the day and ask me "SO, having a good day?".. I just smiled and said."It'll get better once I'm done with my paperwork". He thought I was talking about my company orders.. I was talking about the claim I'm filing with the Labor Board.This is THE final straw. I've been verbally abused / harrassed non-stop. The work environment is hostile all the time and it's time to throw the battle flag up. All his dirty laundry is getting thrown out..everything. The lack of compensation for employees vehicles being used for his personal errands...the insulting manner he treats us... gawd, the list goes on and on. My official notice of seperation has been submitted. My last day of employment is November 11th, but I'm debating on even hanging out that long.

*2*

Not only was it a historical day, but November 4th was also my birthday...WOO HOO!! That's all that really mattered, my birthday, not Republican / Democrat mudslinging bullshit. Just me turning 26! Wheee!!

*3*

It's official. Obama is now our President. I'm actually still in shock considering I really didn't want him in any sort of postion along the lines of PRESIDENT, but, it is what it is. There's nothing that can be done other than hold on for our lives and see how this all goes. Honestly, I'm just glad all the political ads, radio ads, mudslinging, bickering and anything else you can think of revolving the election is OVER! Talk about beating a dead horse.. it was never ending between McCain and Obama.. NO MORE ads!

*4*

Here's my official notice of my job:

Mr. Diamond,
I am notifying you that my employment with Diamond Video World will end
November 11th, 2008.

I find the work environment of your company to be extremely hostile due to your conduct as observed and noted over the previous 11 months. I have experienced and observed your incessant disrespectful, belittling and unprofessional public behavior to other employees, including my supervisor. This has caused me great distress both personally and professionally despite my attempts to ignore it. Your sexual discrimination has also been of concern to me.

I have come to this most difficult decision as I enjoy my work as evidenced by my efforts to provide better inventory controls and accounting that I have initiated since my employ began. This has resulted in better customer service and faster order processing as well as
improved inventory control and better relations with various vendors. I have performed my duties and then some despite the stress of having to prepare my family for relocation due to my husband’s impending deployment as well as the issues listed.

As stated in my opening, my last day of employment will be November 11th, during which time I will conduct my duties as per my job description as outlined upon my
hiring.

Respectfully,
Erika Vandegrift-Hall

Since he was notifyed about me leaving, he's been hiding out and avoiding me as well as the other employee's in the building. When my supervisor gave him the heads up, he pretty much said, "Oh shit." considering there's no one to take my spot. Not only that, but he realizes he screwed up and not only pissed me off, but a handful of other people because of the way he treats us. Since I'm leaving, they're trying to shift / pile additional work onto the other people in the office WITHOUT a pay raise. Management feels as long as you're on payroll, you'll do WHATEVER is required of us. Needless to say, there will be some additional people following my lead..

*5*

Johns official last soccer game was this evening. By FAR the best game we've seen all season. The real pisser though is that they lost the game due to an inexperienced ref calling a bad play..and he KNEW he called a bad play once he was done talking to the other ref. The ref closest to the "foul" didn't call it, yet this particular ref was further away and could barely see the foul from where he was standing. Even all the parents were screaming because of how lame the call was.. it cost us the game. Our team coach even lost his cool and he NEVER does that! I mean, all that really matters is that the kids had a great time.. they were the #1 team all season (till now), but it's just irritating to know that thieir season ended a week early because a ref wasnt using his head. UGH! At the end of the game, the coach held a team meeting, gave a very motivating speech for the kids and handed out the team metals. All in all, John loved playing soccer and can't wait to play some more once we're overseas. Except once we're overseas, he'll be playing with kids that're more advanced in the sport.. so it'll definetely be a challenge for him! :D

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Bubby On The Bounce

Since we're moving overseas in ...hmmm.. 100ish days, Eric and I realized we need to get special carriers for the weenies considering they're going to be our "carry on" pieces.

Cole aka "Bubby" is the largest out of the 3 doxies... he tips the scales with 23 pounds of solid CHUNK. When we first got him, we were told that he was a "mini" dachshund (he was only 8 weeks old at the time)...well..time has shown that he's not mini by any means when in actuality, he's a typical standard sized dachshund.

Eric and I did our research as far as airline requirements for carry on pets...so..we hit he road in search for a carry on piece that'd be able to contain "The Chunk". After a little bit of footwork and digging in PetSmart, we ended up finding The Sherpa "Original Bag". Here are some specs from the companys web site:

• Durable quilted nylon construction
• Mesh panels for ventilation
• Front and top entry
• Washable faux lambskin liner
• Seat belt safety strap fits conveniently over upright luggage handle
• Two convenient zippered pockets
• Adjustable shoulder strap
• Washable faux lambskin liner
• Fits comfortably under cabin seat

I must say, Bubby was very well behaved while we were going through all the bags. He was sittin in the PetSmart shopping cart the whole time watching us like a hawk...as if we were gonna abandon him or something, lol. While he sat there, he had little reindeer horns on and when people passed by him, they kept wanting to play with him cause of how cute he looked :) We ended up getting the horns because it's just so silly and it's a good cheap laugh when you need one:

Once we found a bag that look like it could handle "The Chunk" in all his glory, we made our purchase and headed on home. Here's some pictures of the Sherpa :)

My Sherpa! Mine!



Look how cute he is!


Me modeling the size of the Sherpa bag :)

Eric simulating rushing through the airport to catch our flight with Bubby in the bag

All done!

The most important thing is that Bubby was able to stand in the Sherpa, turn around and still had a little room to spare. SO, we're feeling pretty good about the purchase since he'll be comfortable for the flight...ya know..with the assistance of a veterinary issued tranquilizer :)

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Thank You Internet!

Gotta love the internet.. it really makes things SO much easier to blow a chunk of my paycheck without really having to travel anywhere.

I was checking my yahoo mail this morning when I saw a notice from Old Navy about their winter stuff...YAY! I was just talking to Eric last night about how I really need to get some winter type clothes considering Belgium is gonna be in the mid 30's when we move there. Most of the clothes I currently have are either too big on me, or are meant for California type weather, not SNOWY / FREEZING weather. So, I decided (after combining forces with Eric) that I'd get a few outerwear pieces just to up my arsenal when it comes to battling the cold. The damage wasn't too bad, but it'll help me get by if I layer my clothes :) I'm just super stoked on the pea-coat and insulated hoody! As for the rest, I'll see how it fits once it arrives, otherwise I can just return it all when I head up to Salinas in a few weeks.

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Beast of Burden

First off..I have my brand spankin' new Skull Candy headphones on ... I LOVE 'em! Best sound quality I've had in a long time for a very reasonable price. I mean, I love BOSE and all, but for the money you gotta spend for a decent set of BOSE headset, I could put John through a semester of college. So, I'll enjoy my Skull Candy in the mean time :)

So yeah... life kinda got thrown into over-drive within the past week. Eric received a notice from our next base that they're needing him there sooner than anticipated. Rather than gracing Belgium with our presence in June, we'll be busting down their door in February. Whee!!

Since last Monday, everything has been a tad bit on the stressful side. Eric's been running around the base like a chicken with it's head off to start the whole out processing chain of events, but it seems like every freakin' snag along the way pops up. I know I know.. it's the Military and I shouldn't expect anything less, but STILL!! Fuuuuuuuuuuuck! We originally got these orders back in February of this year.. right? So, we got our passports taken care of (I already had mine & just had to update my last name) which was a process in itself considering John had to get additional paperwork done. Since Johns parents are divorced, his mother needs to give permission for him to leave the country..which involves a notary to complete the passport process. That took a little bit considering she lives out of state and was in transition to a new state/city/house. Once we got all that tied up, we were good to go. Well now we need ANOTHER type of passport called a "No Fee" passport. It's basically for John and I to live in Belgium since we'll be there with government orders. Otherwise, I'll never use that thing while we travel to the neighboring countries. Kinda stupid if you ask me. WELLLLLLLLLLLLLL now Johns mom has to sign yet another form to give permission. It's just irritating that NONE of this was mentioned to us MONTHS ago when we started all this crap! BLAH! Now we're almost 100 days out from our departure date... we still need to get the No Fee stuff dealt with (even Eric's sponsor and the 1st shirt at our new base is baffled by it), apparently there's medical stuff that has to be addressed, dental appointments because lord knows we need good teeth to fly to a foreign county, get our flight shit dealt with, figure out how we're getting the dachshunds over there, packing our house, shipping the Xterra...blah blah blah blah. I know there's tons of other Military families that's done all of this like pros, but I'm just at a loss as to what the hell I have to do since there's forms for EVERY little thing you wanna get done. Everything revolves around schedules...it's just irritating.

In the midst of all the BS we're dealing with, my job isn't making things any easier. To be more specific, the owner is a complete dick. He's still being a flat out jerk to anyone in his path..it doesn't matter how much you bust your ass, its never good enough. I finally snapped yesterday when he was nit-picking over the most trivial bullshit ( me ordering an additional movie for a store that constantly sells out of that specific title). "Is anything I do EVER good enough? HONESTLY... give me a break!" .. he basically told me that it'll never be good enough and that I'm worthless. Yay. I keep having to remind myself I "only" have four more paychecks left with them till I leave, but MAN, that feels like forever! AGH! Oh yeah, let's not forget all the interviews I had to do for my replacement. Out of all the people we interviewed, there were only two potential candidates, and one of them wasn't up to the standard my supervisor wants. The other guy is so overly qualified, there's no way he'll get paid what he's wanting. Then my supervisor tells me today that she's not really sure she wants to hire someone to take my position... SO WHY HAVE ME WASTE THE TIME INTERVIEWING PEOPLE??? Shit! So, just for the sake of keeping busy, I'm redoing my entire filing system so it'll be a little easier for the next person to find anything / everything they're gonna need for accounts / orders / everything to do with my job. I'm pretty much on the edge of saying "Fuck this" since I really have a lot to get done before we move and things with work are adding unnecessary stress.

"ONLY" 61 more days left at my shit hole job!

*Think happy thoughts* Think happy thoughts* Think happy thoughts*

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Good Things

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.... I finally got a moment to plop down and blog! Whee!!!

Lesse..the last time I posted, it was on Thursday night after I got all settled into my Aunts place. Time to fill you in on everything else that's happened in the mean time considering I'm already back in California.

*Friday*

Despite the fact I really wanted to sleep in, everyone was already up and shuffling around the house (there's wood flooring) so I can hear EVERYTHING at the grand time of 6:30am. Keep in mind, I was up till 2:30am talking to Kendall (my cousin) about his life choices, life's events and other things he wanted to talk about without catching flack from the rest of the family.

After hitting up Country Cousins for breakfast; Dad, Uncle Sonny, Uncle Tim & I were determined to go fishing! The last time we attempted fishing (5 years ago), the motor in the boat happened to die right in the middle of the lake and it was just a total nightmare. Dad was livid, threw a huge piss fit and always bitched about how the trip was a total waste. WELLLL now my Uncle Sonny has a pretty nice boat to hit the lake with so NOTHING can go wrong! YAY! When we finally made it out to the lake, it was around noonish but it was absolutely GORGEOUS out there!

There's a good / bad thing about Uncle Sonnys boat... it has a little sonar in it to determine how many fish are in the area. Pretty cool right? Well, it was cool to see how many fish there were around us, but it started to become rather irritating to see THAT many fish yet catch nothing.

The whole time we were on the lake, we were trolling. My Dad is really into bait fishing (just sitting and relaxing) but Uncle Sonny and Uncle Tim insisted on trolling since they "always" hit their limit within an hour. WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL..... 6 hours later and nothing to show for it..here's my Dad...the happy camper:

After all was said and done, Uncle Sonny ended up catching 2 little rainbow trout that we ended up bringing back with us & released into the pond that my Aunt & Uncle have on their property. Once we were back home, I HAD to take a shower considering we were in such a hurry that morning to get breakfast and hit the lake, my personal hygiene was tossed out the window (yuck).

Kendalls' girlfriend came over and I had a chance to meet her. At that point, my headache was already in full swing and I actually slinked off to bed without really saying anything. I was really tired and everyone was pretty engulfed with "Iron Man" on the mini big screen they have in the living room.

*Saturday*

Today's the day!! It's the big rumble between the hedges! The Centralia Tigers verses The Chehalis Bear Cats!! It's the 101 year rivalry game! Can you tell I'm a little excited?

Last year when we attended the game, it was flippin' freezin', raining non stop and the wind made it so much colder! This year, it was sunny, barely any clouds in the sky..still cold, but it was totally do-able compared to last time, lol. I was keeping my fingers crossed for Kendall and his team considering it's his Senior year... you wanna go out with a *BANG*, especially when it's a rivalry as massive as this. A few days prior to the game, Kendalls attitude was not really stellar..it was actually quite disappointing to hear such negativity about his teams spirit and confidence. The local news paper even dubbed the Tigers as the "under dog" considering the game they had played the weekend before was awful (offensive wise). While everyone else in the family was giving him rations of shit for being so negative, I just told him this WILL be the game he'll always remember for his highschool football "career". If anything, just have fun with it because that's really the most important part.

Well, looks like something kicked Kendall and his team in the ass considering they won the game :) They beat the Bear Cats 21-3, a few interceptions, sacks.. they were on fire and did an AMAZING job!

Once the game was done and over with, we headed back to the house since I needed to attempt to get rid of the awful headache I had. I maybe passed out for...hmm...30 minutes until my Dad, Aunty and Uncle Tim wanted to head out to the Olympic Club. I've always wanted to go there to check the place out considering my Dad always rants and raves about it. I just wished I had felt a million times better since I felt super sick to my stomach, the headache made it hard for me to hold any sort of conversation and here I am sitting in a BAR. The place was really cool and the appetizers were most excellent.. I just felt awful the whole time we were there :( When we got back to the house, I crawled right back into bed with some cold packs in hopes the headache would go away... it didn't, but it was manageable so I was able to hang out with my cousins a little more.

*Sunday*

I got up at the lovely hour of 4:30a to get ready for the flight home... MAAAAAAANNN I didn't wanna go home! Don't get me wrong, I wanted to head home because I missed Eric and John like crazy, but I just love how Washington has pretty landscapes, people are NICE..the list can go on and on. Once Dad and I said our goodbyes, Aunty rolled us out to Portland International Airport so Dad and I could do our checkin process. Luckily, I had carry-on luggage only so I didn't have to bother waiting in line to get things checked in. Not to mention, I was able to do "self" check in and managed to upgrade my seat to First Class, yay! Tell ya what...First Class is an entirely different atmosphere! The flight attendants are even more attentive to you, bigger seats, more drinks... I loved it even though I obviously stuck out like a sore thumb (everyone was dressed in business attire) all the while, I had jeans and a t-shirt.

After a 2 hour layover in San Fran, I finally made it back to San Luis Obispo by 3pm to see Eric and John pressed up against the chain linked fence to see my arrival. I missed them SO much!! I got a massive hug from John and lots of love from Eric... I guess I should go on vacation more often :)

Sorry things are so spastic in this post, but I seriously have a hard time remembering EVERYTHING that happened...besides, if I put in ALL the detail to every little thing, you'd be here forever reading and reading and I'm on the verge of carpaltunnel as is ;)

I'll post tomorrow about some of the other events that've been going on since I came back from vacation!

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And The Cradle Will Rock...

Wooo HOOOOO... it's been a LONG day!



I'm here in Centralia, Washington visiting my relatives for the next few days :)



My day started at 2:30 this morning... and man, what a day it's been! Eric drove me to San Luis Obispo (it's about an hour from where we live) since that's where my flight was departing from. I hit the flightline at 6am on the dot and caught my connecting flight by literally 3 minutes in San Francisco. I managed to entertain myself throughout the flight by rockin' out to my Zune in addition to playing some Tetris on my Nintendo DS. I think the guy that was sitting next to me was staring at my game the whole time.... ya know that feeling you get when someone's watching you? Yeah, that's the feeling I had... wasn't really a fan of it. I mean, I'm not really a fan of people being in my personal space...and airlines are definetely anti-personal space.



Once I landed in Portland, Oregon.. I gave my Aunty a heads up that I landed and was expecting to wait around a little while considering my Dad was also going to be landing within the hour ( he ewas also flying in but from San Jose airport). Well, Aunty informed me that my Dad had missed his flight. I thought she was joking since this whole week up till the day we were gonna fly out, I had kept telling Dad "Remember: San Jose. not Monterey"...last year he misunderstood and thought we were flying out of Monterey rather than San Jose...so at that time, we missed our flight. Turns out he left early in the morning to get to San Jose airport and traffic was a total nightmare, not to mention, the parking shuttle was running extremely slow so he wasn't able to make his flight...he literally missed it by 20 minutes between the shitty traffic and lack of shuttles for the parking structure. So in the mean time, I had to wait in Portland Airport for my ride since Aunty was running a lil' late and Dad wasn't going to be landing until 2pm...several hours way after I landed.

In the mean time, Aunty and I did some retail damage considering we were waiting for my Dad in a state without sales tax. WOO HOO!! I ended up getting Alexandra's birthday present in addition to a massive birthday card that sings silly stuff, picked up Johns birthday present since his is coming up on November 11th. After all that, we ventured over to the Burlington Coat Factory and I scored on a really nice wool peacoat... we really don't have those available in California considering it's really never cold enough to offer those types of jackets. Plus, I was wanting something that'd work fairly well for me in Belgium. I have one other nice winter coat, but it's white so I'm afraid I'd get it dirty. So, I got the peacoat! It's a graphite gray color, has a hoody and it's a double breasted front...LOVE it! Definetely kept me warm :)

When Dad finally arrived, we swooped back by the airport, picked him up and headed out to pick up Alexandra's birthday "cake". It was actually really cool...a ton of cupcakes formed together to look like "16" in green with black dots (her favorite colors). Once that was picked up, we gathered up Uncle Sonny and Uncle Tim & rolled off to Alexandra's volleyball game which was a little over an hour away. I gotta say... FALL / WINTER here is GORGEOUS! The leaves look so beautiful especially when it's altering every other tree (yelloweee/red/green). Then you see the colors near the lakes we passed and man... I wish we had that in California! Where we live on base, there's NOTHING like that. Just dry brush and fire hazards everywhere...really sucks :(

We ended up catching the end of Alexandra's volleyball match & surprised her with the cake. Got some pictures of that and hung out for a little while. Rolled out to some Pizza Hut in Aberdine (I think that's the town). The houses there cracked me up since you'd see some really beatiful little homes, then right next door you see one that's all run down and cracked out. Didn't make any sense to me!

After dinner, we rolled back to the house...all the while I'm hearing all these incriminating stories about the things my Aunt and Dad would do when they're kids. Half the stuff they were talking about would be highly illegal now a days, but then again, times are definetely different than how they used to be back then. After about a good hour of just constant stories, it totally gives me a different view on my Dad, Aunt Vickie and Uncle Tim, lmao.

Alexandra ended up scoring a 120g iPod Classic, $125 worth of iTune gift cards as well as some movies she was wanting. During the course of her opening her presents, I was getting blinded by the onslaught of pictures everyone was taking of her. I still see spots in my vision!!

There's more to come within the next few days... I just figured I needed to blog what's happened thus far considering I have the memory of a gold fish and won't remember half of this stuff by the time I get back to California on Sunday afternoon.

Much love!

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Oh goodness...

Lesseeeeeee...the last 24 hours has been a bit interesting for me...

Eric calls me at work yesterday with good news. I mean, it's good news and kinda not good news. We were originally scheduled to PCS (Permanent Change of Station) to Belgium in late May 2009. Weeelllllll... he called to inform me that he received an email from a personalist from USAFE stating that they're going to be short manned in January & if he'd mind being bumped up to move sooner. It's funny that this popped up considering he and I just happened to talk about trying to move sooner since he's officially been at Vandenberg for 5 years now. We just toyed with the idea of leaving sooner considering I still have stuff to deal with regarding my moms estate, I had a surgery scheduled for January 2nd and we STILL need to go through stuff that we're wanting to keep / get rid of. Now the surgery is canceled since I won't recover in time to leave, Dad has to pick up the pace on the estate probate and Eric will be bulldozing through a lot of stuff this weekend while I'm out of town. So...now the rat race begins since we had 4 months of prepping for the move taken away from us. LOTS of stuff to do... it's a little overwhelming.

Work wise... I was conducting interviews starting at 8am all the way up to 4:30pm today every 30 minutes. It's a little funny that my work is NOW scrambling for my replacement even though they've known for months that I'm leaving. By the time someone is hired, I'll have 2 months (maybe) to have them trained up to the level that I'm currently at. My job is really fast paced, A LOT of computer work is involved as well as juggling multiple things at once. Let's not forget that there's A LOT of stress. I was honestly amazed with some of the applicants I dealt with. I mean, isn't' it common sense / knowledge to "dress to impress"? Don't look as is you literally just rolled out of bed.. or give me a resume that appears as if a ten year old filled it out for you. For example, a gentleman I interviewed today wore Hawaiian board shorts, a tank top and flip flops...ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Another gentleman was upset that our dress code doesn't allow shorts. Uh..alright. ANOTHER one had massive mis-spellings throughout the entire resume yet was happy with the 2.5 GPA he maintained in high school...WHAAAAT? Out of all the applicants I interviewed today, only 1 wore a dress shirt, slacks, neck tie and dress shoes AND was prepared with an additional resume. That's the ONLY one I'm interested in hiring even though he doesn't have much of a back round affiliated with the job requirements... he still seemed more competent than the others! I swear.. it just boggles me how applicants just don't seem to care when it comes to interviewing with a potential job. AGH!

Tomorrow's my Friday and I'm EXTREMELY excited to go up to Washington to see my auntie as well as cousins :) My cousin, Kendall, is a Senior in high school and he has a really huge football game this weekend. Not to mention, October 23rd is my cousin Alexandra's birthday...which happens to be the day I'm going up there. I've been in desperate need for a vacation & this is definitely is going to appease the need to get away from work!

Ok, time for bed... my sleepy pills are kicking in!

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