MIA

Woah it's been quite some time since I have been on here. Well actually I log in at least once a day and read everyone's blogs but I haven't written one myself in a while. I've been on overload with this class and the amount of work it takes. Plus catching up on all my dvr'd shows of course... haha.

Anyways, I'm super excited for this month to be half over with. Memorial day is coming up at the end of May and we are headed back to NY for our family reunion and a friend's wedding. I love going to weddings. It's crazy selfish that one reason is I get to dress up and look nice but that doesn't happen too often in this household so I can't help it. But I also love them because they're sooooo romantic!! I just love romance.

And of course our family reunion is going to be awesome. It's Jon's side of the family and I have been to more of them since he's been in the Marines than he has. In the past 3 years I have been to 2 of them and Jon has been to zip. Although he swears we have gone to one together I'm not sure. I have a horrible memory if you didn't know. I'm not talking oh she can't remember to buy the milk I'm talking I don't remember a good amount of my life until it's brought up and thought about for a while if at all. It's kinda strange but I think it's due to a crazy concussion a couple years ago. But anyways, the reuinion. We are finally making it to one together (even though Jon thinks we already have)! I'm sooo excited!

Plus to top it all off we get to spend 10 days with our family. I miss my Ooma (grandma) sooo much. We are staying with her so I'm sooo excited to spend some time with her. Maybe some kyaking and definitely some cooking. And then my incredible in-laws! I am so lucky because for some odd reason a lot of people don't like their spouses family but I LOVE mine. They are such amazing people and always make me laugh and happy! I miss them sooo much.

I also get to see my dad and step mom. I just got to see them at Myrtle over Spring break but it's not fair because it was only a couple days so I'm looking forward to some more time with them.

And the best part?? I finish my class the first couple days of June!!! So we will be heading up there and while I'm enjoying my week + up there I will also be enjoying the fact that I will be graduating college!! Woo hoo!!!

Ok, that's a huge update for now.
Here's a picture of our monkey girl<3

Alone time

How important is "alone time" in a marriage? By alone time I mean any time away from your spouse. I had an "alone" day today since my husband won't be home until very early morning but I was with Abigail all day so technically I wasn't alone. More so, girl and/or guy time.
In the movies guys have one night a week they get together to shoot the shit, drink some beers, and play poker. Are we supposed to take the time to be away from one another?

Jon and I have brought this up a couple times. I'm not sure if it's just the military speaking or if we are strange but we really like being together. All the time. 24/7. We have been together for almost 5 years now and we aren't sick of each other at all.

I can honestly say that I can spend every second of every day with my husband and still kiss him goodnight with a smile on my face. Is this strange? Does it have a ticking time bomb strapped to it? I don't know. All I know is that people are constantly telling me that it's their definition of healthy to designate time to themselves and/or with their friends.

I will admit that I feel awful when the girls are all getting together for dinner and I decline because it's a night that my husband is home and I don't want to leave him. But that's the military wife in me. It physically sickens me to purposely take time away from my husband. I just feel guilty for doing it. We went a year without one another and even before his deployment we would go months at a time without one another so it seems like I'm unappreciative of our time together.

I know that some girls get pretty annoyed by this. I can't blame them. I mean who wants to be scheduled in only when my husband isn't home so they can feel clearly inferior?

I wonder if this feeling will go away once he get's out? Am I seriously the only one or are you all just holding back on me?

Although I do have to admit, I really enjoy time away from my mommy duties. I think about her the entire time and I feel horrible about leaving her but the freedom I feel is incredible.

Procrastination

I always find myself waiting until the last minute to write papers for college. I'm so organized and on top of everything else in my life. If I have a trip I mentally pack weeks in advance. Oh...I just figured it out. Because I hate writing papers. Who is going to chose to do something they hate when they have time to do something else? Not me.

Thankfully I work really well under pressure. I actually did all of the required readings ahead of time and took the necessary notes so that writing the paper was simple. If I had to do all of the readings too I never would have finished let alone presented a reasonable excuse for a paper.

But anyways, I just wanted to once again vent on my hatred for academic papers.

EAS

Jon's regular EAS date isn't until March of 2013. But it has recently been brought to his attention that there is a 6 month early out program offered to marines who have a job or schooling lined up and would need to get out early in order to take those opportunities.

Six months early for Jon would be September. He has recently been considering becoming a police officer. There are openings in Charlotte which is where we planned to move next. If he can get accepted into the classes then he will getting out in September. Like holy cow. That's so soon.

Thankfully I will be done with my bachelor's the first week of June but looking into jobs possibilities has left me falling short without my master's. Thankfully there will be enough time between now and September for Jon to become a police officer and therefore get a job before we move. That takes the stress off of me to rush into a job that can support the family and allow me to take my time and grow within a company.

It's all coming so fast but it's exciting. I'm definitely a lot less stressed now. I'm hoping this can all happen.

I need to Vent

Warning: this is just a vent session. If you don't want to waste your time don't read any further.

I have started my last undergraduate class yesterday. It's nothing like the rest of them. All of my other online classes were 4 weeks at a time. This one is 12. That's a huge transition when I've been doing 4 week intervals for about a year now. The difference being it's 3 classes in one. All of my other classes were group discussions, reading assignments, and then either a weekly assessment or once for the whole class. There were hardly any papers and the only in depth written assignments were the discussions and a journal for each class which was the same 3 questions pertaining to each class.

This new class requires a 1,000 word paper each week as well as a ton of reading assignments and the discussion board. It doesn't look like there are any tests though which is a plus. The biggest negative of all though? I have to do 5 weeks of volunteer work and write yet another paper on it. I probably just sounded like a huge ass referring to volunteer work as a negative but let me explain.

This class has screwed up my plan for this year. I had a plan to get a job so that we can save all of the money I make to put towards our move and a new house. Now that I have a glimpse of what this class is going to demand of me work seems impossible. If I didn't have a daughter, totally doable. But she makes it impossible to get anything done as long as she is awake so that leaves me maybe 2 hours (non consecutive) during the day, after about 8 or 9pm, and some time on the weekends if Jon decides to babysit to get things accomplished. If I add a job into that schedule I am eliminating the 2 hours during the day, possibly weekend days all together depending on the job, and slimming down the amount of time I'll be able to stay awake at night to do things. So where would volunteer work fit in? I would have to give up the idea of working all together. Unless I found a job that didn't require weekends which would then allow me to spend 5 weekends volunteering instead of with my family or doing classwork or making money. You see my dilemma?

All I can think about right now is that I need more hours and less kid during the day. This is the reason why people finish their degrees before they get married and have children. Because life gets complicated after that. And the worst part? This is my bachelor's degree. Not even my masters. I feel like you can't do anything unless you have a master's these days. Jon is planning on EASing in February. He has a technical degree so he has to go back to school leaving me to be the sole income provider minus the housing allowance while he is in school. That means I have to get a pretty damn good job with benefits. So I will have to continue and get my master's too.

Want to hear the actual worst part? I don't even like what I'm getting my degree in. Which is business by the way. I know what I want to do and that's become a sonographer so I can do ultrasounds. I can't do that without an associates in it which I can't do online. I can once I get to Charlotte but Jon is going back to school first.

I seriously want to bash my head against a wall. I feel like I like in this ridiculous maze or something. No matter which route looks good it leads no where.

I'm stressed out, scared, and nervous. I've already cried but I still feel like I'm one more obstacle from my breaking point. I need a break.

It's been a year!

Today is Abigail's birthday!! She is a one year old! Where did the time go?
I'm going to admit that I didn't make a huge deal out of her birthday today. We had a party when Jon's family was down for his homecoming and she didn't care for it so I wasn't going out of my way to do it again. I'm pretty sure she doesn't even like cake anyways.
I did buy her a ton of new clothes yesterday though so presents were still there.
We just got back from vacation yesterday so honestly, mommy and daddy are exhausted. Actually I should probably catch you up on the past week.

We took a trip to Florida. We left last Thursday and got home last night. We went to the Florida zoo and aquarium with Abigail. She honestly didn't seem to care much for either. I think we hit them at nap time though so she had exhaustion against her. But she had enough energy to refuse to sit down in her stroller and insist on standing backwards in it.

I don't think I even have any pictures of the aquarium to show you. 

On Sunday Jon and his uncle headed to Daytona for the race. It got rained out but they were still there all day. Unfortunately his uncle had to work on Monday so I got to go with him. It was my first Nascar race ever. I've been to dirt track races but nothing this big. Of course we got there at 10 am, it got postponed until 7 pm and didn't get over with until about 1 am. So we were there for like 15 hours. But I will admit that I had a lot of fun even though it took so long. 

Here's proof.

Jon and me

My new Dale Jr swag. 

The next day we drove to Myrtle Beach to meet my mom who moved down there. We got there a day before her so we pretty much just went to sleep since we were exhausted. The next morning we moved my mom in and hung out for a bit. Yesterday we did some shopping and then headed home. It's never felt so good to be home I can tell you that. 

And now it's Abigail's first birthday. An entire year has gone by. Jon is home from this deployment and I should be able to relax right? Wrong. I still have this constant on edge, worried, stressed feeling like I did this whole year. I'm hoping once Jon gets the hang on being a dad and a semi normal human again that I will relax. 

But regardless it's been an entire year and I'm still trying to grasp that concept. Thanks for listening and all of the love and support. You helped me get through this and I'm forever grateful. 

To send you off here's a picture of the birthday girl <3

Muahaha, sort of

First of all, MUAHAHAHAHAHA the race was canceled!

Secondly, I may have agreed to go with him tomorrow since it got rescheduled to then.

Right about now you are probably shaking your head and calling me a hypocrite. Don't worry I don't blame you. Let me tell you the story of how we got here.

I was doing my pout and ignore routine for when I'm mad at him. He text me on his way to the race asking me when I was going to stop hating him. We talked it out for a bit. He explained that he feels overwhelmed being home because he feels like I am expecting him to immediately be a perfect full time dad. He has been a little confused and absent lately which explains it. He has lost his keys at least 5 times since he's been home. He NEVER loses things.

I should have realized that it was going to be a huge culture shock coming home to a baby and all of his family but I was too focused on not being a single mom anymore and jumping into being a family that I didn't focus enough on him. In my defense though, he never once led on that he was struggling until he explained everything today.

He played the 4 hours of video games because he didn't have to think he could just unwind and de-stress. Which I can't blame him for that. I do feel bad.

So now we are here with me going to the race tomorrow. It's my peace offering and outreach. If he needs time to not think and just relax then I want to be there with him. He loves nascar. He used to work in Nascar so it really is a part of who he is and I need to accept that. And hey, if I learn to like it then that's just more time we get to spend together instead of me running into another room.

And a plus side? No baby for the day. It's just going to be the two of us which we haven't had in a year. So I can't help but be excited.

Reintegration is a struggle after all. I didn't think we would have to worry about it but I need to be patient.