New Year's Is Upon Us

With a new year just around the corner I know I need to sit down and evaluate all that has passed in the year.  I've accomplished quite a bit I think but I probably could have done a whole lot more.  So this is my year in review.

January:
I was alone this month.   I was diligently working on finishing up the last of the Deaconry Training Program updates.  I had finished the main body of the course work the previous month but still had two updates to finish and I did.  I would apply for my certificate.  I still had another seven months before my husband would redeploy and three more until he would come home for just a visit.  What was I to do with so much time on my hands?

February
The time was drawing ever closer to when my husband would be home on leave, only about eight more weeks to go.  How could I stand it?  I'm not sure I got through it all but more likely just existed.  I decided I would learn an instrument since I was now done with my course work.  But what instrument would I choose and how much did I want to put into it knowing I'd most likely be terrible.  So I researched, I'm a research junkie, and finally found something inexpensive to play.  I decided upon the Scottish Tin Whistle, but I found it for much less than the link and with only two left I had to make the purchase quickly.

March
Now I was only down to a few more weeks.  With him leaving Iraq in just a matter of weeks to visit me I felt the pressure.  I wanted everything to be perfect here.  I had yet to learn enough on my new instrument to impress a baby so there was none of me even thinking of playing a decent solo for him. It would have sounded more like a squeak.  I played the clarinet as a child and actually quiet well but for some reason there was just one note on this blasted tin whistle that wasn't coming out right. I was worrying that I hadn't lost enough weight just yet.  Only twenty pounds.  Would he notice?

April
My spouse left again to head back to the desert.  I was again alone.  How much longer did I have to put up with this crap?  Having him home was just a tease.  Vacation went by in a blurr and I can hardly remember what we got done.  I know we got my garden planted.  Next year I'm going to purchase from Burpee or so I told myself and I ordered their catalog.  Just after my husband left the hail started.  I lost ten of the sunflowers, all of my pumpkins and a few marigolds.  I would have to start from seed again this month.  My precious plants, I felt so bad.

May
Big tease from my spouse.  He didn't like hearing either that they were sending home some of the troops from his camp but he wouldn't be one of them.  He still had a while longer.  I watched as a new neighbor welcomed home her husband.  I later cried.  Why can't mine come home now?  More fighting in the province shortly after they left.  I was scared.  Sure this time around they lost less but they still lost soldiers.

June
Wow where did the time go?  I helped out the end of June with setting up the barracks for the soldiers that were soon to come home.  Did I say soon?  How could this be?  Yes, some had to start filtering home.  It isn't as easy as hoping on a plane and flying home.  Dust storms, canceled flights, insurgent activity all prevented the easy transport home.

July
All I could think of is how much longer.  He's been gone almost a year now.  Will he make it home for my birthday?  Okay fifty weeks down and that means they have to have him home in the next two weeks or I'll...what?  What could I do?  Complain?  Have a hissy fit?  No that wouldn't work.  Okay so I finally get that call.  Not the dreaded he's been injured call but the call that tells me how much longer.  I'm elated.  I couldn't sleep for two days.  I arrive early at the location.  I wait as there are more delays.  One homecoming group comes and goes.  Second, third and then I wonder what is the problem?  Where is mine?  I want mine.  Finally I get to see him disembark from the plane.  All is well.  He doesn't even know he is on camera.  I can see him sitting in the airport waiting area for the bus.  He is doing his chain maille unaware of the live feed camera.  I keep hoping he'll notice it and wave.  I wait more and more.  What's the delay now?  Oh the buses aren't back there yet.  Grrr...I'm so impatient.  Yay!  He's finally walking into the gym.  I want to grab him right then and there but I've been instructed that we aren't to touch them until they are released.  First they have to form up and hear their final instructions and reporting time.  Come on now get with it I want my man.  Oh the hug feels so good.  Its been so long since I've held him in my arms.

August
Almost my husband's birthday.  What should I get him?  What does he want.  He's changed.  I've changed.  He's been gone off and on now since April 2007 with the longest home being 6 months.  Maybe a vacation is in order.  Okay that's an idea.  We head out on the Olympic loop because that is where the Twilight books were based on. We'd just watched the first two movies on youtube together and he wants to see what inspired the writer.  Funny but Stephenie Meyer had never even visited Forks, WA before she began writing her series of novels.  On our first leg we stayed in a caboose up in Sequim, WA.  Rather nice place.

September
We are still vacationing.  Almost done the Olympic Loop.  My husband and I go with a friend of his to a gun show in Port Angeles.  Its not so bad going back there.  Just prior to the weekend with the gun show and his friend we were in Port Angeles again.  Wow three times in less than a month.  The Tall Ships, http://www.historicalseaport.org/ , were worth the trip.    For that particular trip we stayed at a cozy B& B Clark's Chambers.

October
Our plans for another trip failed when his training ran over.  I had to cancel our reservations.  Its part of the Army life.  I have to be ready for almost everything.  Luckily I wasn't charged for the late cancellation.   Leavenworth, the cute Bavarian town, would have to wait.

Novemeber
Well I started a blog last month and it seems to be going quite well now.  I wasn't sure I would even keep up with the writing.  At least the blog is keeping my writing skills active and I'm trying to improve them but we'll just see where this takes me.  Thanksgiving was spent with my husband's family on the West Coast, maybe next year we'll be somewhere else.

December
Where did the year go?  I'm still not pregnant.  Yes, even though I had four follicles ripe with four assured eggs it just didn't happen.  Maybe next cycle with the IUI I'll have better luck.  I'm just so confounded as to why its not working.  I'm fertile my husband is fertile its just not taking.  Every time I get a negative home pregnancy test I want to cry and I usually do.  I keep wanting to just give up.  Five more cycles left to try.  This bring me to the present time.  I'm about to head out for the New Year's Eve grocery run.  We are staying in tonight.  There is a marathon of the Three Stooges on tonight. We don't want to miss it.  We haven't have a New Year's Eve together in two years.  I'll take what I can get for holidays.  Even if tonight isn't spectacular its still a whole lot better than last year when we had to be apart.

J, I love you.  Thank you for being with me this year.

Don't Knock The Romance Novels!

I'm wondering just how many of my readers also read romance novels.  I fully admit to curling up with a romance novel and a blanket on a cold night or taking one to the bath with me to read while soaking in the tub.  Romance novels get a bad reputation for being trash reading.  What folks don't realize is that the authors of the books take a lot of time and effort into doing research.  I in particular like period pieces when I indulge in reading this particular genre.  I read basically whatever I can get my mitts on and in fact have even read a manual on how to repack bearings for an Army vehicle.

While in college I took a class on Chaucer, specifically his Canterbury Tales in the original English which isn't as easy to read as one might think.  I noticed that while reading these tales my previous choices of genre, especially books by Jude Deveraux, Johanna Lindsey, and a few by Catherine Coulter all helped with my understand of Chaucer's works.

Maybe you wonder what one has to do with the other as Chaucer is a classic while the others are modern novelists?  Well it helped me to imagine how the people of Chaucer's time period lived.  How they ate, what they wore, and how they traveled were well described by the above three aforementioned authors.  Those romance novelist took the time to do their research so that my job was easier.  I not only understood the courtly ways of the character the Knight in Chaucer's Tales but I knew that he shared a trencher of bread filled with meats and vegetables with his maiden fair.  He would also serve her first.  I was able to answer questions by other students in class because of my reading choices.  Okay I'm also a research junkie but then again most avid readers are fact checkers.

Bringing this topic back to present day we have some folks out there that also knock the works of Stephenie Meyer.  Some critics have even had the audacity to compare her to J. K. Rowling who isn't even in the same style of writing.  Why?  Well those that can't write often complain about those that can and how they are lacking in qualities.  I loved both of the above authors.  I have read their works and find them equally enchanting.  Rowling wrote mainly for the younger child while Meyer wrote for the older teenager and young adult of which I am neither but it didn't stop me from reading the works.

If you want to read in public, don't hide your book behind a newspaper just because you are afraid of being judged by what you read.  I read classics, I read modern works, I read pulp fiction and sci-fi.  If someone is going to judge you by what you read then so be it but don't let it stop you from enjoying the adventure of reading.

I dare you to be seen in public reading a book that you would otherwise hide from others.  Well, okay within reason as there are some laws restricting what one should read in public because of public lewdness but I think you get the gist of my dare.

Go forth and read.

The Dog Bowl

image from Claydesign

This Christmas I was waiting for a very important package to arrive via UPS, Tracking The Last Package.  It finally arrived at 1900hrs but its late arrival made going to the party a no go for us at it was a long drive to get to the party destination.

After reading an excerpt from Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn to my husband, I decided to get him a dog bowl.  I looked at dog bowls from several different web sites.  Should I go with stainless steel or ceramic or should I just get him a hard plastic one were a few of the decisions I had to make.  I ended up getting him a microwavable, dishwasher safe ceramic bowl from Clay Design.  I'm sure that had I gotten him a stainless steel bowl with the word Fido on it he would have loved the joke.  But I decided that a ceramic one with the US Army crest and his last name on it would be a bit more practical.  My husband can eat as much as the character Jacob Black.  This dog bowl is just perfect.

So we brought the unopened carton with us.  He had no clue what was inside the box delivered by UPS except that he was going to like it.  He'd better like it after what I paid in shipping to get it here on time.

His family on this coast opens their gifts on Christmas Eve with all the friends invited who also exchange gifts.  The next day is family only gifts and a brunch.  We decided to exchange our gifts on Christmas Eve.  My husband opened up the box and everything got really quiet.  They knew we had missed one party they were having just because of this package.  Packing peanuts went flying as the box was tightly filled and compressed with them.  I'm rather glad they were in there even though they weren't rice but Styrofoam as the dish made it safely to its destination, my husband's hands.  He loved the gift.  I was happy.

The next day he brought  it over to the other side of the house for the family unwrapping to show those that didn't see it before what I had got him.  The black lab saw the dish and thought it was for him.  Perfect.  Now that a dog has approved of the gift my husband is sure to use it more.  In fact he stated he'd bring it into work just to eat his lunch out of the dog bowl.  I made a joke that if he's bad I'll get him a dog house next.