Friday, January 27, 2012

Things I would tell my 19 year old self...

In twenty years I will be pushing 60 years old.  60.  Seriously. Things like retirement, and grand babies and whatever a 60 something person thinks about will be the present, not a someday when I am getting older kind of thing.  What will be my focus?    I don't know.

 My oldest with be almost exactly the age I am now, which I am not ashamed to say will be 39 in April.  Not ashamed to say it is one thing, but I am astonished it hit so fast.  That is the gospel truth.

In twenty years Savannah will be 35, Colton 32, and my baby...she'll be 26.  All adults, hopefully all done with college and their lives will be full of promise, love, and maybe a kid or two sprinkled in there somewhere.

Why does time just RUSH by the older I am.  Is it just me?  In twenty years will I look back and just be astonished even more so with my foolish 39 year old self than I am now looking back at myself at 19?

Turning 19 was hard on me.  I don't remember why, but I do remember saying that to people.  If I could send myself a message to my self at that age what would I say?

1.  Be nice to your sister.  Right now you kinda hate each other, someday she will be your best friend and closest ally in life and dreams.  All of a sudden one day your age difference won't matter anymore because you are sisters, both battling the joy and pains of motherhood, wifedom, and trying to navigate a family into the future.  She will know things about you than not another person on earth knows and you will be able to trust her with that.  It's kinda a big deal, don't blow it.

2.  Don't let other's opions of themselves belittle you in your own eyes.  There are so many people in this world that both knowingly and not make a habit of making others look stupid, or insignificant, or just not as pretty.  Their purpose is to make themselves look better than others around them.  They are insecure, and do not value you.  Stand up and be confident, own who you are.

3.  Go see your Grandma.  You will spend time with her as she gets older, and you will be lucky to be in her life in her last years, days, and moments.  But there could have been a better relationship there.  You should know better than to take her for granted, because you lost three grandparents in 11 months when just a toddler.

4.  Don't let people mock your talents.  Develop them.  You are NOT an underwater basket weaver.  Not everyone was born to do the same things.  You are NOT a mathematician and it is ok that you need a calculator.  Nurture your talents.  You will miss them if you don't.  Being a crafty artsy fartsy doesn't make you less accomplished, it just makes you different.  Continue to refine your appreciation for art and the creative world.  There will be days that it will be your only company.

5.  Stop bleaching your hair, and perming it to death.  The blond makes you look washed out and pink and weird in pictures, and the perm just is...bad. 

6.  It is NOT more important to take J.Badowski his check book than just miss that ONE little class in college.  It will turn out to be a surprise review for  a 2 hour final that will make or break your grade.  With out that review, it will break.

7. When you make mistakes, and you will.  We all do.  There is no getting around it.  Allow yourself to feel bad about it, and learn from it, but then pull yourself up by your boot straps and hold your chin high and get on with life.  You will have others around you that will never be able to forget the things they would like to point out as erroneous, but they are your mistakes, not theirs.  If you have repented, and found forgiveness from your God, then another person holding onto your mistakes is no longer your problem.  There will be people that you will come in contact with that will see you for who you are not who you were, and that will be something to hold onto.

8.  Learn to take care of yourself.  Your body only lasts so long, and you will look back and think that the body you have now and are so consumed with hating isn't so bad, actually you will realize that you had it pretty good.

9. Organize your life, learn how to live so the messes of life don't turn into monumental tasks, rather daily maintenance.

10.  Learn to practice the fundamentals of your religion.  Pray.  Read your scriptures, and write meaningful things in your journal.  It is awkward trying to learn to do that as an adult.  There really is something to the phrase "being as teachable as a child".

Braden

I have a tendency to post a lot about my youngest daughter.  It's not that she is the favorite, it's more of a matter of the fact that my other kids are sprouting wings.  Braden and Savannah leave the house at 6:30 every school day and Savannah gets home around 4 o'clock.  Colton's time at home is better, but he wants to be out in the neighborhood with is friends as much as possible. 

Braden however is on the North Side High School JROTC Rifle Team and practice and meets are after school so we don't see him or my Suburban until somewhere around 6 p.m., and on Wednesdays, he sometimes goes straight from practice to Young Men's meetings at church and then he's not home til 8:30 or (:00, depending on how much the boys horse around after meetings. I guess my point is, when they are younger, kids are a LOT easier to follow around and get cute pictures of them and hear the clever or ironic things they say.  In high school....wow, not even that, in middle school ... not so much.

Braden does love being on the rifle team, but it is a strange sport, because it isn't really a spectator sport.  If you were to go and watch it you would sit in the corner and be thoroughly silent as to not to distract the shooter.  For hours.  They shoot standing, and kneeling, and on their stomachs. It sounds like a big yawn to me, and besides that, the kids provide their own transportation to meets from the school and Braden has my car.  As a result I haven't seen the kid in action. BUT Ret. Col. Brewer emailed me this picture from their last meet here on Fort Benning, where they kicked bahonkus again.  They are making quite a habit of winning and may have a shot of going to state if they can keep Columbus at bay.  Fingers crossed!

He is enjoying it a TON, and just started JROTC as part of his classroom studies this semester.  I have to admit it makes me nervous to think of him leaning towards a military life, but hey, it's what his parents have shown him.  Maybe he will decide to get his degree and come out of the deal free of education debt.  THAT would be a plus side!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

DOGS

Meet Mork and Mindy.  Yes we got dogs again.  After leaving Mattie behind in Kuna with the most awesome family ever Colton went into severe dog mourning.   He really was sad.  Not pouting sad, but my best friend went away and I can't see her ever again sad.  We reminded him of all of the reasons we had to leave her behind.  Her back legs may not have tolerated all of the travel as she would be kenneled for hours on end while we drove, and THEN she would have to stay inside (which I know a lot of people think is natural, but she would disagree).  The list just went on and on.  Our smart happy loving Mattie got a new home and she gets to go running and get furminatored and spoilt and she might even be a library therapy dog soon.  She is in awesome hands. 

Enter Mork and Mindy.  Jack Russell Terrors Terrier mix (Chihuahua maybe?) dogs with so much packed in per square inch, I do not think they are aware that they are small and have limitations.  I wish I was more like that!

Mork and Mindy
(at the shelter they were "Spunky" and "Schooner" and they did NOT answer to them so we changed them and they fit them PERFECTLY)
Morky, Dorky, Morkus Dorkus, Dorkasaurus Rex and many others is the smallest of the two.  He has one ear that sticks straight up, and one that is Jack Russell floppy.  He loves to "kill" tennis balls, and really does not like other dogs not of his pack.  (This is creating a bit of a problem)  He got over a HORRIBLE marking habit, and has settled in quite well.  He will do anything for someone to throw the ball, but hasn't figured out that he is supposed to bring it back and drop it yet.  (Not quite the brightest dog...that, or he just looks dumb)  He does have a new skill though.  He can climb ladders.  Yes Jack Russell Terriers are NOT to be under estimated.  So maybe he isn't so dumb.
Mindy, or Mindimus Maxiumus if your feeling regal and Roman, but she just doesn't lend to silly nic names.  She has two huge ears and big ol eyes that make people say she looks like a miniature deer, when she is in trouble she gets a weird expression on her face, and I swear she looks like a house elf.

The dogs are fun.
They drive me crazy.
They have fur.
They live in my HOUSE (getting used to it...slowly)
My kids adore them.
Mork adores Chris....Chris thinks it's strange.
They have fur.
Dogs stink.
My kids adore them...well the jury is out on Braden.
They can climb ladders...and I think that is weird.
Savannah thinks it is equally weird when they climb up her bunk bed ladder to wake her very stealthily awake.  Probably more startling than weird.  I am too busy laughing to notice.

LooOoong Story ( no pics )

I forgot how BADLY I needed to update my blog.  It is a HUGE case of making a long story short less long.

Chris commissioned and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING went nuts. 

We had some big decisions to make, and hardly had the time to make them.

The first thing we were up against, was that Chris wasn't due to begin active duty in the Army aka, bringing in a PAYCHECK until November.  It didn't take long to figure out that it would be next to impossible to find a job where the employer would be ok with him hiring on with a pre set termination date.  So what he did was volunteer to be on staff for LDAC ( Leadership Development Accessions Course...I think) at Fort Lewis for the summer.  During that time it would be up to me to make our household move from Kuna Idaho to Fort Benning Georgia go smooth as buttah.  Chris would be gone right up until the time we would need to pack the things we needed and get into the car for a grueling cross country trip with four kids, one of which thinks that being in a car just to go a block or two is torture and has an affinity for asking every form of "Are we there yet".  It often will come out, (as we are putting her into a buckle) as "Is this going to be far?"  "Will this take long?"  "Is this going to take foreeeeever?".  She detests the car.  By the way...whoever invented the in car entertainment systems, and the Leap Frog people... THANK YOU!!!

I had the fun of trying to throw away everything that wasn't nailed down   organize the house, and the garage...all three bays of it.  Which by the way, each of the three bays were loaded full.  It was harder than you might think.  One bay was food storage, another was camping gear and antique furniture, with a little office supplies thrown in.  The last had useless things in it, like a motorcycle and a lawnmower, tool chests, treadmill,two chain saws.... (I will quit there, I am getting tired thinking about it all).  What it comes down to is that as a Second Lieutenant in the US Army our household is allowed 15,000 pounds.  Which sounds like a lot, until you add in all the said food storage (more on that later), mechanical and camping hoo ha, and the nice quality furniture I have managed to hoard on to collect.  None of which were a pleasant thought of tossing out.  But things did go, and off the went, and it made my heart heavy and I let it go.  Except the freezer.  MAN I wish I had an upright freezer. 
\
The movers came, it all went ok-ish.  There were defiantly things I would have done differently, but nothing was a disaster.  I was way over it by then.

Our things didn't fit into the Mayflower truck because our goods were sharing the load with another house that had already been loaded.  They offered to do an "overflow" shipment, and I declined.  I could just see all of the "over flow" which happened to be things like a gun safe, a  motorcycle, a barbecue grill/smoker ...all of which are my husbands dearest things...gone forever due to it being in it's own little limbo.  I was also terrified of our shipment going overweight, which....was a valid concern.  The penalty for going overweight?  ONE DOLLAR PER POUND OVER.  Yes ma'am, that's about what a can of soup weighs and I did NOT have the kind of money to blow off getting stuck with overage fees. It would make overage on a cell phone bill look like lunch money.

We ended up loading a few loads of extra stuff into my Dad's 6 horse trailer, and going west with it to my parent's farm where we would meet up with Chris, and then decide what we could do with what was left, or if it was going to go away.

We ended up taking the two largest U-Haul trailers and both vehicles packed full.  It took us 2 days to drive to Cleveland, Missouri to visit Chris' family and we took 2 day RnR there and 2 days to hit Columbus..

After that were 14 days in hotel hell limbo as we waited to see if we could live on base.  On day 14, when we were just THIS close to being too broke to stay in a hotel any longer and out of money for a down payment on an apartment or rental home things broke through.  Literally, Chris' brand new  (to us) vehicle broke down just outside the housing office.  He went inside to use the bathroom and to wait for the tow truck and the housing rep saw him coming.  I guess I might have been dinging them about availability, because she met him in the reception area with the good news that she had a house she could show us and we moved in a few days later.  It was such a relief.  Chris' car was supposed to cost over a thousand dollars that we didn't have, but SOMEHOW the dealership got the warranty to cover it.  It cost us the deductible which I think was like 80 bucks or so.

We got our things from Mayflower the following Friday and we were off and running (limping) and have been ever since.  Getting the kids into school was a nightmare.  We found church, and found out we were attending the wrong ward.  Chris started ABOLC (Armor Basic Officer Leadership Course), and it has been going fast and furious since.  We have done a few things I am hoping to do separate posts on. 

Museums, history, geoColton did play football and Braden has been in JROTC and has been on the North Side High School rifle team.  Savannah's school doesn't have an orchestra (what's that all about) and so she took a semester of guitar lessons and really liked that.  Colton has had to deal with wearing a uniform to school ( I love).  And Olivia has started kindergarten.

We are due to move to Fort Stewart soon.  Chris is done with ABOLC on Feb 10 and it's all kind of up in the air from there.  I am hoping I have learned enough to have this move go a little smoother, and hopefully we will get housing on post again.  I really like having in house security guards around my subdivision.  It's gated living at the maximum don't you think?

I also had to get a new computer.  So I have pictures all over the place, and don't have any to share.  I will work on that.