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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