A Different Kind Of Date Night

Yesterday afternoon J and I had our first real date night in a long time.  His schedule has been to put it mildly, hectic.

Because of the fact that he has CQ duty today, he shouldn't have it at all since he has to be on call for the arms room but they are short handed so he was put on the roster this month, we went to church yesterday afternoon.  The only service available was Catholic.  Fine by me because I was raised Catholic but J was raised Episcopalian.  He isn't allowed to receive communion.

After pursuing the untamed ornathoid we finally found out where the Catholic service was to be held.  It was on McChord.  Our Main post chapel had been under renovations for a few years and the services have been tossed to the wind so to speak and ever changing at that.  Confession, or as they call it now Reconciliation,  was to be at 1600 to 1630.  We arrived at 1615 and no one was around to take my confession.  Thankfully I brought my rosary with me.  After hurrying through my sins and doing the rosary I felt confident enough to receive communion.

The sermon given by Father Tim, a New York native Long Island to be more specific, had us laughing a bit.  He was talking about how he was an "unclaimed treasure" when recalling to couples during a Strong Bonds retreat why he never married but felt he was still qualified to give advice on marriage.  One does often wonder what a priest can offer a married couple for advice on that particular subject.

J and I chatted with Father Tim after service and he was telling us how much we will love our new duty station.  He was wishing he was there now.  I think I wish I was too, I could do with some sun as this smog is killing me.

After mass we went to a fast food joint for dinner.  We were starved.  I have to admit that I did blow my calories for the day and then some but I'm allowed to splurge once in a while.

This morning I stepped on the scale and found that I lost another pound.  6 pounds off since starting up on Tuesday with calorie counting.  Not bad at all.  I know it won't last.  I know that I'll soon have weeks where I lose nothing.

But I'd like to think that I gained last night with the different kind of date night. 

Challah

This is my attempt at Challah.  I think it turned out pretty good and J came home from CQ pretty much just to sample the food.  He loves my cooking.

I decided to go for a real challenge and cut the dough into 6 balls then rolled it out into what is in this photo.  Now for the hard part, braiding the dough strips.

It took a bit of playing with but I got it finally.  I should have done a better job on tucking the ends in and under but well, this is my very first time making Challah.

I let the dough rise for one final time.  Don't mind the jelly roll pan its not really dirty but it is stained from the non stick surface wearing off.  I guess I shouldn't have used a metal spatula on the pan over the past decade but the damage was done with the first big scratch, after that I didn't care.
It really did rise nicely and I'm quite proud of the bread.

Fresh from the oven.  Even hours later when J came home to grab a bite to eat this bread was the first aroma that he had when entering the house.

Not the best photo, it looks really dark, but here it sits on my Grandma's cutting board.

There is a story behind this cutting board.  It was lost to me for 6 years while I moved about with my first husband.  When I got back to the states from Germany I went to my  first apartment, they were renovating it, I went in and asked the workers if I could get something.  Sure enough the cutting board was where I had left it 6 years before my first military move to Texas from NY.  I had used Grandma's cutting board to extend a shelf in a cabinet in my tiny apartment beside its original use.  I was so happy to have the cutting board in my possession again too.  With my move here to WA some how the board split in two.  J repaired it for me and I'm once again using it for its original purpose.  This is the only item that I can think of that I have from my mom's mother.  The cutting board has to be close to 80 years old and the handles broke off years before it was passed down to me.

Oh and I hate to say, but there is only about half of the loaf left.  Fresh baked bread doesn't last long in my house.

Just a little note, I got two lines today on my OPK.  The test line was darker than the control line.  We have a go.  Oh I highly doubt with all my issues this one will implant and there is of course the possibility that the follicle has no egg in it too.  But trying naturally is way more fun than any IVF!

Space Bridge

Early this morning I had a rather odd dream.  Okay I always have some odd dreams.  I was traveling back to the planet Earth via a space bridge.

The photo to the left is the closest I could find to the one in my dream without actually using my pathetic drawing ability to make an illustration myself.  The difference being that the bridge was over the planet Earth, it looked more like the Brooklyn bridge and it was all twisted and bent in on itself with pillars for docking hanging below.

In this dream I was an middle aged adult, born to Terrans that escaped Earth just before the Urban Wars began in 2012 due to the Mayan Apocalypse  and now was headed back to Earth from Mars for a bit of vacation.  Since I was born in NY I decided to go visit that place and get some pizza that they were so well known for, but I ran into a problem.

Of course there are problems trying to order pizza in a dream.  Nothing can ever be simple can it?  I decided to order the pie from the docking bay on the space bridge but when I called the parlor they wanted an order of a minimum of 70 pies.  How was I, a lonely female, going to ingest 70 pizzas? 

"Look", I said, "I'm willing to pay extra if you just let me buy one pizza." 

The order taker said, "Okay but that will be 1 million Sheqel." 

I said, "Forget it". 

I don't know about you but that is way too much to pay for one pie.  That is where I woke up.

Its A Beautiful Morning

This morning dawned with fog covered trees and ground.  Oh no I thought, we are going to get a rainy day.  Suddenly the fog lifted and across the street the beauty was revealed.  Overnight the oak tree changed colors.  Its not as beautiful as the trees back home in the Adirondack Mountains but still its a sight to behold.  Well okay except for the trash can my lazy neighbors have left out since last week Thursday.

Since its such a nice day, albeit a bit cold for my taste, yes I've become a wimp living in such a mild climate and it being only 30 degrees Fahrenheit outside, I would get outside and do some morning photography.

I've always enjoyed getting up early in the morning except when I have to get an injection in my arse, when someone calls me in the morning asking a question that they should know the answer to or like when I was a kid having to get up to catch the bus to school.  Now I look forward to someday walking my own kid to school in the fall of the year.

This Year J is doing the decorating outside for Halloween.  I had only one gravestone and he liked the idea of putting it in the flower bed.  Yes I still have flowers and other plants growing.  Just yesterday J picked the last of the red ripe strawberries off of the plants from this particular flower bed.  Ah I so miss Summer.

 This is also the work of my husband.  I'll not tell you what is behind the black curtain as its a surprise.  After watching Martha Stewart's Haunted House on television last night J wants to stop by a hardware store this weekend to spruce up his scary look.  I don't mind one bit the things that he has planned as long as he knows what he wants to do with it all after the the 10th of November when the decorations have to be down.

Getting To My Happy

Finally I'm ready for the weekend.  I'm ready to get my own Happy on.

Its not going to be easy to find my happy today in the midst of chaos.  J flooded the bathroom when he didn't put the shower curtain liner inside of the tub.  Fun time cleaning that one up with several soaked towels and two soaked bath rugs.  Add on two loads of laundry to my domestic responsibilities today.

Part of I-5 is closed and will cause a three hour delay in getting anywhere north of JBLM for the weekend.  They are working on the bridge that takes us into the town area we like to shop in.  I wanted to head out to the craft stores this weekend and find a hook I needed for a project.

I'm still having pain and bleeding.  I'm now 4 days past ovulation with 10 days until I can test.  At this rate I'll not know if I get implantation bleeding or not. 

I'm really going to search long and hard to find my happy this weekend.  The day isn't even half over so I still have another 36 hours to this weekend and I plan on making the best of it.

My hanging tomato plant broke.  I still have five more tomato plants in the ground.  Usually I just do the tomato plant in the hanging basket.  With not enough warm weather this Junuary (Junuary = January weather + June) my veggie and fruit crops aren't producing well and some not at all.  So I've decided to buy some more potting soil and start over in that particular hanging basket with some flowers.  Better than nothing, right?

Looks like the weather is going to hold and I'll be able to go to a green house and flower cage to select my plants after all.  It wasn't looking so good before with the dark grey clouds.  Just yesterday I was wishing for a nice thunder and lightening storm.  We got the thunder and rain but no lightening.  Still it did remind me a bit of summer in NY but not to the scary awesomeness I'd of wanted.

So that's all I have for today.  I'm off to go find my happy today.  I won't stray far due to the pain but I'm still going to go have some fun or die trying.

Memorial Day Weekend

Memorial Day Weekend is upon us here in the USA. I'm hopeful that all my non-military friends and non-veteran friends will remember to take a few minutes out of their National Holiday weekend to give thanks for their freedom.  Take the time to visit the graves of those that fought and died for our freedom, maybe place a flag in remembrance of their sacrifices too.

When I was a kid my family and I would travel to a small cemetery in Essex County, NY where we would place flags and flowers on our families graves.  Many of my ancestors fought and died for our freedom.  Pierce, Wolcott, Gladd, and Tyrrell were just a few of the surnames on my ancestors grave stones.  One of my ancestors, Oliver Wolcott, signed the Declaration of Independence.

This country has always been something that my family has fought to keep free.  I'm proud of my heritage.  I'm proud of my husband who is enlisted in the US Army.  I'm proud to know so many friends that have also fought and served.

As an adult, while I still lived upstate NY, I would go to the cemetery alone and place flags and flowers on the graves.  On one particular trip I took my camera so that I would have the photos as a remembrance of what they gave so that I could live free.

Here are just two of those photos:

GEORGE F. GLADD
NEW YORK
MECH. 71 INF. 11 DIV
JULY 6, 1940

FREDERIC A. GLADD
A1C  US AIR FORCE
KOREA
JAN 6 1934 - JUL 29 1975

Nice Weather Means Construction

Every spring warm weather means construction time.  It doesn't matter where I live in the world, even if its warm in winter, when spring rolls around the construction begins.

Right now my nice, lush, green lawn is discolored with blue, red, white, and green spray paint lines.  This seems to be the norm for my neighborhood as I look up and down the street on my walk to get the mail and find I'm not the only one soon to have trenches in their yard.

Needless to say my husband is rather upset that the lawn he worked so hard on is going to be destroyed.  We've been told that they will restore the lawn after they tear it apart.  I have my doubts as to how good of a job they will do in its reconstruction.

This morning a man in a hard hat was walking up and down my street with white sheets of paper sticking them in every door on the street.  Oh dear, this just can't be good is what I thought.  Its not good.  This is going to be a long process.  I now know the window of destruction.  Starting this Monday, a holiday mind you, February 21st through June 30th our street is going to be crowded with earth moving equipment, loud noises and more often then not rude construction workers.  I realize they have a job to do but I don't like it when they block driveways and make it quite difficult to navigate the narrow road.

In this four months of construction work we are to also have power outages they stated on the paper.

POWER OUTAGES ASSOCIATED WITH THIS WORK WILL BE SCHEDULED AT A LATER DATE AND TENNANTS WILL RECEIVE SEVERAL NOTICES OF PENDING OUTAGES TO INCLUDE TWO WEEKS IN ADVANCE AND UP TO THE DAY BEFORE.  OUTAGES WILL BE KEPT TO A MAXIMUM OF 4 HOURS AT A TIME. 

Note the typo of "tennants" that should be tenants.  I highly doubt they'll keep it to just 4 hours without power as we've gone 16 hours before in cold weather.  This is not going to be my cup of fun. 

Yoga, Tai Chi, and Zen breathing will hopefully get me through the stress of living yet again in a construction zone.  In NY I lived in a construction zone for two years.  I thought I did my time in Hell, I guess not.

Sand Castle Dreams

photo by me Sequim, WA

There are days like today when I'm exhausted that I just like to sit back in my chair and stare off into space.  I'll day dream about all the things I could be doing if only I had the energy.  Occasionally I think up something rather interesting and run with it.  Browsing through my photos from last summer's vacation I stumbled upon the one above.  The sandcastle isn't what it seems.  I mean its sand alright but its built over Spackle buckets and glued into place.  Sequim is one of the driest places in Washington state and I guess they wanted to prove just how dry it is by having a sand castle withstand the elements.

So as I stare at the sandcastle I'm thinking about the hopes and dreams I have.  Some are yet to be fulfilled like the dream of starting a family.  I'm waiting on the blood work results as I type this.  Yet again the home pregnancy test was negative.  Full of self pity I wonder why my body is betraying me.  What am I doing wrong since I produced five follicles this month and went with an IUI.

One of my other dreams is to be a writer.  I guess this blog is as good of a place as any to brush up on my writing skills.  I'm not going to brag about having my bachelor of science in English, but I do have one.  Odd as it might seem to have the science and not arts it was because I had quite a few science classes in addition to all my English classes. My grammar skills are sorely lacking.  I forget to use proper punctuation.  Maybe I need an editor to review my blog?

The final dream that floats through my head today is the dream of owning my own home and a nice size piece of acreage to go with it.  I grew up in Upstate New York on fifty-seven acres of woodland.  I'm used to wildlife, trees, and quiet neighbors.  My parents would always tell me how lucky I was to have all that land to play on when I'd beg for a ride to the mall to meet up with friends.  Guilt trip or were they correct?  I'm inclined to think its a bit of both.  They wanted to spend some time at home with one another while we played outside but they also wanted us to appreciate what they gave us with all that space.  I do miss Upstate New York but I don't miss the drugs, crime rate, and strict gun laws.  I will most likely never move back to my hometown no matter how much I long for the fresh air and old faces.  My home now is with my husband where ever the US Army might send us.  One day we'll have our own house, our little castle built on a foundation of love.

Bird Watching

Photos by me in this blog post

Every day my husband and I make sure the birds have seed, suet and peanuts.  Sometimes we end up feeding the squirrels when the Stellar Jays aren't quick enough to get to the peanuts.  When we have a chance we sit and watch our wild pets from the dining room windows.  Today I took a chance to get some photos of my birdies.  By the off chance I even found a new nesting pair that I've never seen in the almost three years of living here in Washington.

I have no idea what species of bird this is and I'd love to have some help in identifying it.  If you know, please tell me.  Its larger than the Stellar Jays.  It has red on its back behind its head and the wings expanded also have red on them.  Its looking like something in the grouse or quail family to me but I haven't seen one of those since I left Upstate NY.

The two sites I used to try to identify the bird were:
http://www.audubon.org/
http://www.whatbird.com/

If you have a better site and a thought as to what the bird could be, please let me know.

Tracking The Last Package

Ever notice how annoying it is to wait for something?  I swear waiting for this last gift to show up today is driving me crazy.  The parcel was scanned out for delivery from Fife, Wa at 3:36 A. M.  Yes early this morning.  Its now 1645 hrs.  Still no package.  Its like waiting for the cable guy to show up and install the cable.  I keep looking out the window every so often when I hear a heavy truck lumbering down the road.  I get fooled every time with so many moving vans going up and down my road this past week.

I ordered this particular item for my spouse on the 2nd of December and was informed it would take about 14 days to process the order and create it.  Okay I can deal with that.  After the 14 days were up I finally notified via my email that they were going to ship it.  What I didn't expect is that they said it would take 10 days to get here.  Its coming via UPS.  Normally I'm quite fine with that and have never had a problem with their service until I moved to this state.  My first Christmas season here we had snow and UPS refused to deliver the flowers my husband had sent to me on the day stated.  They arrived dead.  The amount of snow we had was next to nothing compared to what I'm used to NY.

So here I sit and wait, all day mind you, for this particular package.  Its a really important gift.  I ordered it well before the deadline for shipping.  I keep checking to make sure they didn't just bring it back to the warehouse and sign it back in.  That would really tick me off if they did considering I have places to be today still and might have to cancel my plans for the evening.  I'm not a party animal but there is a holiday party that we were supposed to go to this evening.

Its raining here, as per usual, there should be no delays in the package reaching its final destination.  But I'm having my doubts about this particular UPS crew.  With any luck it will be here in the next hour.

Voting Absentee If Possible

This year I'll be voting again with an absentee ballot.  Two years ago when I moved out of my home state to my spouse's new duty station I voted absentee ballot for the primaries.  This year I was hoping to vote the same way again. Somehow I doubt I'll even see the absentee ballot.

I found out through an email that my home state is one of those being sued for not sending out the absentee ballots nor updating their addresses.  Yes my address did change but I did update it.  I was told this would take care of the problem.  I went online today and found out that I'm still listed as the old address!  So much for updating the physical and voting address through the DMV, that was a wasted call.

 Taking matters into my own hands I researched my options.  I decided to go to the home state web page for the voting registration.  After finding a pdf file where I could type in my responses online then print, sign, stamp and send it out I did just that.  My husband came home on lunch today and I had him update his registration as well.

 Folks voting is very important, not just to the military but to every one that has that right to vote.  I'd rather know that the candidate that I voted for didn't get elected then to just complain about who is in office knowing that I didn't vote and could have changed who is in that office right now.

 According to what I read in order to vote absentee I must have my registration paper work in the mail 25 days before the voting.  I don't think its going to make it at all as I'm way past the 25 days.  But at least I can honestly say I tried.  My home state is the one that screwed me over but next time they'd better send me the ballot option.

 On a side note the friend problem still exists.  The soldier co-worker is now talking about getting out of the Army after getting married this time. I can only hope.  As for the EFMP paperwork to ACS, well they emailed me today stating that my spouse had to go in there and fill out some paperwork which would take about 15 minutes.  So why they gave me a whole new set of forms that a doctor had to fill out I have no idea, do you?  I can't figure out the military paper work system.  Finally the lawyers in NY I mentioned a few days ago...I have a phone conference with them on Thursday to see how my case is progressing.  Don't ever get hurt at work because Workers' Compensation will fight you tooth and nail for a single dollar including the medical.

 That's my update for today.  Off to go finish up the second load of laundry now and try to get in a shower.  Finally a day without drama.  YAY!