It's not pretty

So if you came here for a "feel good" fix, you might as well stop reading now.I don't write this blog to make army life look pretty. To be the perfect 50's poodle skirt wife is not me. That's not my life. My life involves joys and hardships, the gritty and the pretty.

Adam was bummed that I wasn't "happy" to see him. It is not that I am not happy to see him it is that I am not jumping up and down to comfort him about his missions. I know they were tough and I know they sucked and I am sorry. It is hard to be there for him 100% when I had a bad week too. I am sorry I am not gung-ho about being happy. It's hard to bear the weight of your life and my life. You only want to hear about my happy moments. I mean yeah we both do lots of things to "get along." I am very happy to do things to get along. I love him dearly and if getting along is what we need right now to stay together cleanly, where do I sign up? I know that being with you is way more important than my bad last week and my week in the grand scheme of the rest of our lives this is just a blimp on the map.

But right now, when I am tired and have a lot of vicoden in my system, I am sorry if I seem to complain a lot and you want to give my worries a passing nod and say I am mopey. I get he can't deal with my problems here in the US. I just can't deal with my problems being dismissed right now. I will be happy and get along, because I love him and I want to support him in the war effort. I am only human.

I tried to tell him about the things I was happy about, my best friend is getting married and she has arranged the dates around Adam's most likely leave so that he can attend. SHE IS PLANNING HER WEDDING AROUND WHEN WE CAN ATTEND! She is amazing.

So yeah, it's not pretty. I am grumpy. I had a yucky week. It was tough and stressful and I feel under appreciated. I know that is my lot right now. I get it, and I can take that, but I can't do it all. But I love him.

I broke my hand

So I probably will be forced to lay low. It's pretty embarrassing how I did it so we will leave that cute little detail out. I dislocated the right most bone on my right hand and they had to knock me out to reset it. They took another xray after they reset it and the xray showed that I had broken 2 bones. So I am in a temporary cast. It sucks.... grrrrrr.

Happy Birthday Lala!

You love who you love

Hmm I watched the season premier of Grey's Anatomy last night. It is one of my very favorite shows. I know it is just a drama and a show yadda yadda, but I do have to say one thing that really struck me about this episode that reminded me of Adam. Two of the characters decided it would be best if they broke up, because it may have been the right thing to do. But in deciding to break up they ended up kissing and we all know what that can lead too.

What it made me think about is this: Adam is the only thing I can choose. Whether it is wrong or right, I don't seem to be able to choose anything else. I am inexplicably drawn to him, like an Adam force field. Even when it was not in my best interest to love him I hoped against hope we would some day be together. It looks like dream will come to fruition. I look at back at these characters and smile, because I feel like I have been there. If there is anyway it can work out it will because no matter what you do you still always choose that person you love. I always choose Adam. Every time.

lol "HEY MISTER! YOU DIDN'T WARN ME?!?!?!"

So small...

Adam left again. I am sitting around "taking a vacation" from my life, though that just means I take the time to clean the house. Sigh. So I am sitting around, sifting through letters he wrote me, old pictures (ones of before we were dating and ones not),reading his myspace for like the 50 millionth time and just generally missing him. Where I am and what I do every day seems so small and far away form him and what he does everyday.

Last night I was looking at the almost full moon and thinking when the moon shines next where he is he will see it and probably think of me since we have such a funny history with the stars (we met in astronomy class) and he will know that the moon is WAXING lol. I drove home from helping my stepmom's house. It was cool and the moonlight was so clear and crisp it was crazy and perfect. It was like being the only human being on the planet, so vast and pretty.

Whenever I feel crazy or frustrated or think this will never work out, I just look at everything that has happened so far and look at all the little signs that turn up every single day. Some people don't believe in signs. All I can say is the probability of all of these things happening as coincidences is like less than winning the lottery....SOme coincidence, and honestly if it is a coincidence, I would much rather see it as a sign from God (that is a "please don't screw this up again sign, it's exhausting to watch!" sign)

I think the most obvious sign is that when we both found out we could talk to each other again, we both jumped at the chance.....

The Little Things

When Adam is gone I find there are little things that remind me of him really strongly and a evoke a certain moment we were together. I was playing around with my new video ipod and I watch movies on it not because it is all I have to watch movies, but because he gave it to me and I feel special that he cared enough to spend the money he earns literally with sweat to spend it on something for me. Something that he took the time to figure out that I would like. I just feel a little closer when I think about all those things. So as materialistic as it is I always feel cozy when I watch movies on it.

Then today while I was hanging around I decided to watch Night at the Museum on the the ipod. This made me really happy because we went to see Night at the Museum together at the theater right after we had argued about something and we were trying to chill out and just have fun at the movie theater. The movie was great and we left really happy. So when I see the movie now I remember going to see it and how happy we were when we left. It is these little things that are like having special little moments where he is not so far away. These are the little things that sometimes make you happy. Sometimes they make you sad because you miss them more. Today they made me feel better and I didn't feel so far away.

Fanks Sweetheart- for the little things.

Guilty and the Post Office

I am guilty of a lot of things. Adam accuses me of not putting him first sometimes. He is right, it's same reason that an electrician's wife's wiring never gets fixed. You neglect to do things in your own backyard because you know the people you love are more forgiving then people who don't know you very well.

I know that putting anything on the back burner is dangerous especially when you take loved ones for granted. I don't want to do that. I get so caught up in my work thinking that is what is important that I let a lot of things slide. Housework, laundry,etc. It drives my Dad up the wall. It is because I don't prioritize the things that I do for myself as well as I should. I consider talking to and hanging out with Adam as something I do for myself and that is why sometimes I don't stop for lunch and talk to him. I don't have time for lunch, I have too much to do. Too much to do is relative. Relative to doing what is important.

Case in point: A friend asked me to mail him something priority. I have had boxes of stuff for Adam, ready to go by the door and just needing notes for like two weeks. Today I managed to mail the other stuff out, but I didn't have time to write Adam's note for his box. Obviously I have a priority problem.I fall into this trap easily. It is quite a bit of work to put together a box for him, but not nearly the amount of time I would be spending if he were here. It's easier for me to get through my day with Adam on the back burner, not constantly intruding on my thoughts distractingly. I have to be careful about putting the most important part of my life on hold like because if I lose it, I will be pretty miserable.

So as I said before I went to the post office. I am beginning to hate the post office. The clerks there are really friendly and nice and helpful. They always ask how Adam is and give me a deal when they can. It's hardly ever too busy in there and there are always friendly people in line. So why do I hate the post office you might ask? Every time I go there I am reminded of how far away Adam is and how much I miss him. It's like 25 minutes of intense missing Adam. I try not to be grumpy about it and be happy I am sending him stuff and usually that cheers me up. But going to the post office is one of those reality checks that hits you really hard. There is no room for denial there.

Anyways I am also guilty of snapping at Adam...even though I was telling him how I feel, I did it in a way that hurt his feelings and I do feel bad about it. Sorry sweetheart.

New Apartment

I am putting up this blog so that Adam (and everyone) can ENJOY all the selections I have made for new apartment that is going over the barn. I will put up floor plans as they become available.

So the first thing was choosing the flooring for the kitchen, and i have been instructed to go el cheapo and go with linoleum. Ok so here is the one I really liked.


Here are two picture of the linoleum I like, if you click on the picture it will take you to the website:






And this is the color of the cabinets, but not the style. Adam doesn't like light wood, but since I have cabinets that were left over from another project and I am just going to match them and I like the wood finish..Oh Well. That's all I am going to say.





Here is the counter top color I was thinking.





I really want to do laminate flooring for my bedroom and the living room, but we will see about the cheap factor. Oh and I love this tub, but it's kind of on the pricey side too, check out the dimensions. I have yet to find a pattern that I like for the bathroom. I am temped to do a black floor with a white tub. I am told that I should do bright colors in small spaces, so maybe I should go with a white floor? I will keep looking. Then I have to figure out what to do about the office/computer room....

Acceptance

Being an army girlfriend is about acceptance. I think that God sits up there and laughs when he sees me every day. He sees me struggle with accepting what ever Adam and the army throws my way. I am not the kind of person who is a follower and just goes with the flow. I like to influence the flow.

When we started dating Adam said to me,"You can't get mad at me for things I can't control." What he means is, you have to accept the punches the army with throw if you want to date me. I agreed to do that. I agreed to accept his crazy schedules. I agreed to wake up at 2 am to talk to him.

You have to accept these things because if you don't you will go crazy. It's not like there is anything you can do to change it. I accept that when I get up in the morning and he is not online that I have to move forward with my day. I accept that he will get lonely and upset and that there won't be jack I can do to cheer him up. I accept that he will get really close to his army buddies in ways that we will never be close.

I get it that he is tired and misses me and is grumpy about something non-important. I am not going to apologize for living the way I do, but I do try to listen to his concerns even when the seem unreasonable to me. I don't he thinks that they are unreasonable. I accept that his doubts and fears are very real to him and that there isn't a whole lot I can do to ease those fears anymore than I already have. I understand that even though he doesn't always seem to appreciate the things I feel I would like to be appreciated for, he doesn't do it from a place of malice or ill will. You have to accept the Army and the lifestyle as best you can. If you love someone there you don't really have a choice. The Army doesn't give you a choice and neither does love. So you have to accept the person exactly as the come and with their army baggage whatever that may be.

Obsessions and Adams's Blog

I am obsessed with things that make me think of Adam. Sometime it is certain songs that I play over and over again (Hey There Delilah- Plain White T's, Be My Escape Reliant K, and Kiss the Rain - Billie Myers). Sometimes it is certain books. Right now: Howl's Moving Castle, an anime movie based on a book by one of my favorite authors. I watch it EVERY NIGHT. Usually I get tired of movies after I have seen them once. I watch between 15 and 30 minutes on my special ipod that Adam got me. It just seems like the right thing to do. I don't know why.

Adam out of the blue started writing a blog. I love it. I am especially impressed for several reasons. One being Adam didn't seem to used to like to share his thoughts. Now all I have to do is read them. I really like this. Adam sometimes has had a hard time putting feelings into words. Thirdly, Adam usually is a pretty private person. When I asked him if I could link his blog he said sure it is up for the whole internet to see.... I was like, oh ok cool beans! It might be weird to read both sides of an argument we are having, but most likely will be really funny. Another thing that is funny is that Adam is not afraid to wear his "cheese" where as I don't wear mine as often. It is there just as much, but he is braver than I am. The best part is that when I feel like I need perspective I can go read all thing sort of stuff Adam goes through and get a good dose. I can be reminded about how he is frustrated about not being here to help me. He told me that blogs count as question game (which means that if I choose to read it I can't get mad about it). That's fair I think. Though I know I wouldn't be able to tear myself away from it if my life depended on it. I linked his blog in my links.

QUICK DRAW HANCOCK

So two loves of my life being Adam and horses I gave Adam a horse for his birthday last year. When he came to visit the ranch I told him to look at all of the new foals on the ground and if there were any that caught his fancy to let me know. Well one did catch his eye. There was a friendly good looking stud colt out of one of my best mares, Roan Ann Hancock by my stallion TRR Blue Pistol.

Here he is:


HI! I'm Quick Draw! In this picture you can see my shoulder on the other side of my face, I know it looks funny, but it is just because I am a super muscley super stud. Just ask Adam.



Here I am with my Mom, she is a BIG mare.



Sometimes I feel like I am being watched... Oh what's that over there?



I had better go check it out.



Oh Jenna! It's just you, do you have any treats?






Anyways he is the image of adorable if you look in the dictionary. He is going to be a great horse, I am really excited for Adam. I have to figure out what color he is going to end up. I was hoping red roan, but he looks kinda of gray in these pictures. Time will tell.

Upbeat

Someone commented to me that my blog was kind of depressing to read, because I always seemed to be struggling. I laugh because I do usually write as a sort of therapy to move through whatever is upsetting me, or trying to explain the frustrations of Army significant-other-ness and put it into a context with which I can understand and tolerate. Well folks today I am going to blog about some of the little things that Adam and I do to survive in a relationship.

Adam and I have a couple of rules:

1. We never hang up on each other.
2. We don't accept silence as an answer, (that's one more for him because sometimes when he is angry he doesn't want to say anything) instead I ask him, "Are you to angry to talk? Because when you don't say anything I feel like you ignoring what I am saying." This is especially important when I feel like I am being shut out!
3. If one of us says I love you, no matter how angry we are the other one says I love you back, in general. I can't remember a time that we haven't, if the other person doesn't they are pretty mad. This is really handy because if its bedtime and we are still arguing, we can remind the other person we still love them just before bed so that they know going to bed that we will be there in the morning and maybe not be happy but we will be there.
4. We have the question game: you say question game before a question and the rule about the question game is you have to tell the whole and complete truth no matter what the question, but the person asking the question can't be mad or hurt at the answer. Someone can refuse to answer a question game question, but we usually don't because I refuse a question, then Adam is more likely to refuse a question then neither of us gets the answer we wanted. That is counter productive.

Then are other things that we both tend to that aren't really rules. When I am sad or upset about the separation, I just say that I am a little sad or feeling a little down. He usually says, me too and sometimes will ask me about it if he feels up to it. Sometimes he feels really sad about it too then and we commiserate. Other times he feels guilty about being away so we leave it. I don't ever know what he will feel so I leave it very simple and open ended. Adam can tell when I am upset or off. So I think it makes him feel better to know why so even if I don't go into details about my feelings, he doesn't have to worry that it is something major I am upset about that is going to bite him in the butt.

Adam and I have gotten very good at apologizing to each other. I think that allows us to talk more freely because we know that the other person is going to take responsibility if they say hurtful things. It causes me to try not to say things I know I am going to have to apologize for later. That helps because when I want to make my point I can say mean things or be kind of forceful.....

I also feel like Adam and I don't see eye to eye a good chunk of the time, but we make concessions that we can live with, and Adam really tries to understand where I am coming from. When I see that he is trying so hard it really makes me smile because he must love me a ton to really look at things in a different way. I try to remember that he doesn't go back to the barracks and talk about "stuff" with his army buddies for an hour or two like I will with my best friend.

People say that women always try to change men and that you have to accept people exactly the way they are, and I try to remember that when I am asking him to do something. Accepting him the way he is means accepting that he may never be able to or want to do what I am asking. It help me be more appreciative when he does make an effort to do something different. However the truth is we both have changed to be together. He comforts me when I have nightmares. I buy him junk food. I try not to badger him or nag him. He tries to talk to me when I ask him. I don't ask for things that are not my decision to make (ie we are always complaining that the other one eats poorly or isn't sleeping enough). Anyways. He has been gone for 5 days :( and I know he will be back soon. I sure do love that butthead. :)

PS I might be making some blog for my family and his mother that contain kind of personal information I may not want air on the internet. Since everyone would like updates on where his is and what he is doing and I don't feel like that a safe thing to display to everyone. So if you see a blog you cannot read, that will be why. Sorry.

Didn't Expect

it to be so damn hard!

Stella wrote a good comment on my last blog and one of the things she said really caught my eye,"I didn't expect it to be so hard." I was thinking the same dang thing today. I was thinking on the drive back from visiting my stepmother about how I didn't have much to say for my blog and I was depressed because everything I could think of to write was a corny," I miss him, I love him," yadda yadda. The last couple of days they have had Adam working so hard because he had a long outside the wire mission he had to do that we hardly go two words in edgewise! It was like Hi, I am here, got to go. He left with out writing me a quick good bye email. I know he didn't forget, or it wasn't that he didn't mean to, he just flat ran out of time! I guess I can only say that I hope he is not worried I am upset with him for not writing. Under other circumstances (i.e. non-army related) I might have been, but I know that he cares and is doing the very best he can. This is the part where I have to be understanding, because he can only do so much before he gets burnt out. I am happy to be understanding, I feel like in some small way I am contributing to his war effort. Whether I am or not, I have no clue.


The last couple of days have been horrid about missing him. I thought I was over this constantly missing and pining for him phase. I mean dang, I knew what the deal was, I understood how this works and I have even done it before, why the heck is it so hard now? I thought the the worst part was over, sending him off again. Especially now that he has internet and it seems like I talk to him way more than I used to. Yeah, we knew it was going to be hard, ;) but I didn't expect it to be this hard.

Though I think its like a pendulum, it swings pretty hard one way, and then you have days when it doesn't seem like the end of the world. So yeah. I think that trying to find some perspective (that what I say when I am freaking out about something) helps. Trying to frame things in a way that makes me feel better rather than worse. So good luck Stella with the perspective. :) Just remember you didn't sign up, so you can go out on weekends if you want to. I personally find I am too tired and plus I really want to steer clear of any good looking, nice, smart, males my age. I don't want to meet them, I don't want to see them, I just want to make it easier to wait patiently for Adam. No use in complicating things.

The weekend

Everyone looks forward to the weekend. Yesterday when I was driving back from the vet (I had a horse cut her leg a little). I was trying to psych myself up for the weekend. I mean I wasn't trying to psych myself up for time off, no no. I was just think about how excited people get for the weekend, I mean other people. Like going out with their friends and maybe partying, and sleeping in on Saturday. So I am driving back and I am thinking about all the things the weekend means to these people. I don't know. I couldn't get into it. I use the weekend to watch oodles of television and block out the world until Adam gets online. I was really angry this morning so I went to the barn to ride a horse and feel better, because my horses are always so calming and comforting. However when I got there I felt sick and did some other stuff instead.

So Adam was supposed to be able to get online today, but he said he couldn't and we were both bummed, but I just smile sadly and say,"I love you and I will talk to you when I can. Don't worry I will be here when you get back." These last couple of days sleeping has been hard, lots of bad dreams. Fortunately the last couple days when I have had bad dreams, Adam has been there to comfort me in the morning. I have just been really lucky that way. I don't know what it is about me and bad dreams they really are horrid. I think being worried just manifests that way for me. :: shrugs:: Anyways, not much to say. Hope everyone is having a GREAT weekend! LOL sigh.

NTL and the Post Office

The army loves its acronyms. The other night when Adam and I had a rare moment where we were just happy to see each other and not overly stressed out we were talking about his new team leader. His team doesn't seem to get along with him very well and thats kind of a disappointment because Adam really liked his old team leader and Adam has been training to be team leader. So anyways, I am very proud of myself because I made my first VERY OWN army acronym: NTL. New team leader doesn't get a name he gets to be my new acronym.

So yeah. Adam seems to be doing well, his back is recovering and I sent a bajillion boxes for our anniversary. Unfortunately he has to wait for 2 weeks to get it. Oh well, such is life. It's too bad it costs so much to mail him stuff or I would mail him stuff even more than I do now. Adam thinks all mail going to and coming from Iraq should be free. Well his letters come to me for free, but not boxes to him. Or maybe if you could just get some sort of discount? That would thrill me. I got charged extra because of the box's dimensions. I usually use flat rate boxes, but this time I couldn't get the thing I was sending to fit in it. It is a pain in the butt to be penalized cuz something is a little larger. The post lady told me anything over a cubic foot gets penalized, my box was 14 by 14 by like 7 inches and that was more expensive :: rolls eyes:: whatever. I am a regular at the post office and the clerk knows me by name and thinks its great that I send Adam boxes so often. LOL She keeps a stash of flat rate boxes for me and customs forms. I try to have everything all in order when I go in to mail them. It's quite hilarious that the best way to show my love for my boyfriend is filling out customs forms before I go to the post office. It makes you wonder, how the hell did I get here? And when is this going to make sense again? No regrets though.

Anyways. Night All.

Last....

.. bit of clean Adam clothing going into his box, rinse of his toothbrush before storage, whiff of his body wash before sealing and putting away, and last COKE CAN RINSED OUT AND PUT AWAY. Adam has this funny, slightly irritating habit of leaving half drunk coke cans EVERYWHERE. I finally found them all and threw them all away. It has been just over a month since he left. I am still hanging on to his stuff and not putting it away like I could have done weeks ago. The stuff is out and cluttering the house and my Dad insisted that I pick up before he comes home in two weeks. So I am reluctantly picking up and moving on. I haven't changed the sheets since Adam left and I should definitely do that. I know its kind of weird, but I will do anything to hold onto a bit of him a little longer.

I have started to count time in weeks because unlike days they don't seem so overwhelming, and unlike months they seem to pass a little more quickly. 48 left! :)

PS The cake in jar seems to work really well as far as I can tell. Jury is out until Adam receives it and gives proper feedback. Thanks for the tips on care packages ( a series of links left in a comment two posts ago), they are invaluable!!

Ups and Downs

Well I haven't written in a while because Adam and I have been going around and around about stuff. Our squabbles are interrupted by periods when one of us has to sleep, and then you wake up angry or hurt or frustrated and then you get to start you day that way. In addition to that there is nothing you can do until he has time to talk to you again. I think we came out of this one pretty clean. So I spent the day hanging around the computer chatting with Adam and just generally being there for him (and really for me too). Courtney left a comment on my last blog about good care package tips and I have to say the one that links to http://www.marriedtothearmy.com/ is amazing. I haven't had a chance to look at the rest, but I am sure they are just as good. I had never scene the cake in a jar thing. What a cool idea! I love to bake cakes, but I don't think Adam likes cake very much. I'll ask him.

Speaking of downs ONE MONTH DOWN! 11 to go. Though I have been counting in weeks, it seems like a week passes fast enough and is not as overwhelming as days. Another important milestone is that Adam's and My one year Anniversary! Mmm every day I am reminded why we got back together, even when we argue it comes full circle and clean. He is the love of my life and I know it sounds corny, but when it you know it is true you know. We can get past our fears and seem to really communicate well with each other which I would think is our difficult point. We both have had a hard time communicating because neither of us wants to lose what we consider the most important thing in our lives, so we don't always say everything we probably should. Well toast (and pray) to making it to our next anniversary!