Looking Up!

This morning we had MORE work done on the furnace. It's almost done!! YAY!

I also posted an ad on Craigslist to try to get rid of the kittens and it WORKED *shock* *awe*. I got like 5 hits while I was at work! :D One person came and picked up her kitten today already, one is picking up her two on October 1st and I'm taking one to her new home tomorrow morning! That'll put us down to only Ninja, Zorro, Jedi, Yoda, Foofy and Skittles (aka Skitso). Yes, I am aware that that is still a lot but it's HALF as many as we've been currently living with. Zorro is already neutered and I'm going to call and make appointments for Jedi and Yoda tomorrow. I don't THINK that any of the boys have gotten their momma knocked up yet *fingers crossed* but I'll be sending in her ESNIP application early November (I want to give her a full 6 months to recover from her last litter).

We also (seem) to have gotten a handle on the fleas. We've been vacuuming pretty much every day and I've treated every room in the house except for the cat room (I KNOW I KNOW! that probably should have been the FIRST room to be treated but the living room and the couch were more important to me!). We've also only treated about half of the bedroom... still need to move the bed and the dressers out away from where they are ad treat the rest of the room.

I've completed my essay, I'm not editing it anymore! I'm planning on doing the handwritten copy tomorrow, I'm going to write it out once and if it's good, it's good. I'm hoping that it'll only take one try but I'm so OCD about it that I'll probably be writing it about 3 times hehehehehe. I got a letter from one of my peoples but there were a couple of typos so he's gonna fix it and resend it to me tomorrow. Hopefully I'll get it by Friday, also hoping that I'll get a couple from some other people who said they'd get them to me but haven't yet. Perhaps I'll also resend my email to a few people who never responded.

Just wanted to update things! So far things seem to be going smoothly and Tim and I are starting to feel MUCH better! Seem to be conquering our cold!

I Hate Being SICK!

Soo, hubby has been getting sick since Sunday, came home early yesterday and called off sick today :( He slept all day today though so hopefully he'll feel better soon.

We're getting the furnace put in today... well, more work on it... i don't know if it's gonna be ready or not today... I kind of doubt it but we'll see.

There's a person in Corry who wants 2 kittens but apparently doesn't "have the gas money" to get here... *sigh* I told her we'd hold the kittens until she comes to Erie on the 1st. I'm so sick of these freaking kittens.

I've had 4 people tell me that they'll get me letters of recommendation but I don't actually HAVE any yet... One should be coming on Saturday, and I hope the rest get here by Monday... I'd really like to take a few of them into the recruiters office sometime next week.

In other news, I am also coming down with something I think... I've had a sore throat for all of yesterday and today... It's kinda going away though now, I'm hoping that I'm not still sick tomorrow 'cause I have to work.

I'm excited to have a new furnace though! It's been getting really cold at night lately.

Things are definitely moving forward on all fronts!

A couple weeks ago I got my 10cent raise (passed my 90day review at PetSmart) but my hours got cut a couple times... did manage to pick up hours from other people though.

Sunday I sent one kitten home with his new owners and a coworker picked out a kitten that she wants.

Yesterday someone texted me and they want TWO kittens, they're gonna pick them up either today or tomorrow.

One cat out of 6 has been neutered and I'm setting up the appointment for 2 more (almost half way there!).

And today I got my eye exam done so that I have a current prescription for my recruiter! :D
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Still to get done...
get rid of 2 kittens, type and write an essay for my OCS packet, get a bunch of people to write me letters of recommendation, and wait til my recruiter gets everything typed into his computer and calls me! I'm starting to get excited... Tim is starting to get worried... he's still hoping that there is something wrong with me that they find out at MEPS so that I can't go... I'm gonna be bummed if that happens but at least I'll know I tried.

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The in-laws are coming up this weekend also... so that'll be interesting... they're bringing DH's older brother and his other brother's son. YAY! (I loves my nephew!!).

and so far only a select couple people know that I'm working on enlisting... so I think I'm good... I'm terrified of having that conversation with my parents... I know HIS parents will be OK with it and all our friends will be OK with it... just worried about my parents, they've never been supportive of my ideas of joining the military... Oh well. I'll deal with that when I get to it I guess!

I love my Hubby!!

So yesterday at work, I picked up hours for today... like 1-9 so ALL night long (and the entire time that he'd be home). I really NEED the hours which is why I took them, but we had other things tentatively planned so I was kinda bummed... and then he bought the most beautifullest card and put it under my windshield wiper for me for when I got out of work! :D

Fair Results...

The fair was FUN! and then I ended up having to ride the horse home on Sunday because my friend was having a problem with her trailer, then they went out at like 11pm on Saturday to pick up the horses and I didn't want to be out that late... It worked, took me just under 2 hours to get him home (and we made it before it rained!).

Friday we got 4th in Cutback (it's a confusingly patterned game...), 5th in Trail and 5th in poles. Not too bad considering that the judge hated my guts... she seriously like reprimanded me in front of the entire group because my phone accidently went off and I got seen turning it off. Like, seriously? It's the FUNSHOW!! and where did she want me to leave it? There was no-one else with me! Was I just supposed to throw it on the ground and hope nobody ran it over or stole it?

Anyways... I picked up Stevie yesterday! He's really, really cute and super tiny. He's not even as long as my thunb (his body WITH his tail). He's really cool though, he kinda just chills in his little container, gonna have to get him some sort of a heat lamp though because the house is cooling off a little too much for him at night I think.

Today I'm going to drop off Zorro to get neutered... the first of several cats that I need to take in! Thankfully there's a program here where I can get them done for virtually nothing. I'm not sure yet if they're gonna charge me for flea meds (probably since they ALL have fleas) but I can't really do anything about that, I've been TRYING to get rid of the fleas... Oh well, I don't really care, this is gonna save me like $50 a cat to get them done. 50 bucks which we don't have to spend on cat neutering right now!

Hopefully everything goes smoothly with that though, not really worried except that I'm pretty sure he shoved the door into the cat food open and ate a little bit, which he wasn't supposed to do, BAD KITTEH!! lol

Fairgrounds and Geckos...

So Tim and I have talked about it and we've decided that we're gonna get an Eyelash Crested Gecko! I can't wait! He's really cool. Hopefully gonna pick him up this weekend, I've got everything ready for him except for food... Still debating whether I'm gonna feed him mostly fruit and Eyelash Gecko food (yes, they make such a thing!) or whether I'm gonna feed mostly crickets. I'm thinking I'm probably going to feed crickets like MWF and gecko food the rest of the week. We'll see.

While I was at the fair yesterday I got 5th place in Keyhole and Poles... utterly failed at the Break and Out and got 6th (beat out by like a tenth of a second) for Barrels. Hoping for a little better on Friday but not unhappy with how my old man horse did.

I shall be back with another quick update later this week! Thanks for reading!

Updates are good

So I decided to start a little bit of a workout plan this fall... for no particular reason... :D Anyways... I found a couple of cool sites that inspire me with hope. 100pushups.com and 200situps.com they both claim they can take anyone and get them to 100pushups or 200situps (depending on the site obviously) within 6 weeks. We shall see. I did the initial test for both of them today and.. uh... well, I squeeked out 5 pushups before I died and 16 situps. I probably could've gotten one more pushup but that would have put me into a harder workout schedule and I want to actually succeed. I'd rather take an extra week to reach my goal instead of giving up 'cause it's too hard or risk hurting myself. I want to start running too but I'm gonna wait until after the fair (so I'll start next week) because there's no way I'll keep up with a running plan while I'm going back and forth to the fair. The pushups and situps I can do while watching TV in the evening or right before bed or after I get up.

I've had a lot of things change since the last time I posted... Tim and I have a house now! YAY! We're just renting from my parents but it's a nice little house, only 5 minutes from work! Also, I'm working at PetSmart and he's working at both Dicks Sporting Goods and Advanced Auto.

Well, I should go! Gotta get go shopping for spurs before the horse show tomorrow and I need to pick up my paycheck!

TTYL!

Figuring it out....

Sooo you know that Tim's coming home... he's actually home... got to his place Saturday evening... I still haven't seen him though, he's coming down to my place Thursday! YAY! I can't wait to see him, it honestly feels like it's been years!

I had an agility trial over the weekend... first one of the season... We did pretty well, the Twig-dog ran fast and was motivated the whole weekend so I was pleased even though we didn't Q. Friday we tried Time-2-Beat (T2B) and he got a little spastic half-way through and then I forgot where I was... it was just a bad story. Then Saturday we had Standard and Jumpers With Weaves... Both of those runs he missed ONE jump :( again, it was ok because he was running with speed and actually enjoying himself. I'm just hoping that next trial we can run with speed AND accuracy!! I'm sure it'll come... just gonna take a little time...

This weekend I'm headed up to Tim's family's house for the weekend... I have to drop off a kitten for his sister (they're having a welcome home party for a cat....) and Saturday I have my bridal shower up there... and Saturday evening we have a Halloween party at his sister's place (I've actually NEVER done ANYTHING for Halloween...). So it's gonna be a pretty hectic weekend!!

well... I need to get to lab... be back later!

Bah Humbug!

Blah...

That one little word depicts much of my day today... actually... much of my life at present...

Let me explain... or... try to explain....

Timothy is probably coming home early... (yeah, he's only in Kansas, but since HOME for me is PA then he's coming "home"). And it ain't for a good reason... like, seriously... he's apparently done with the Army... paperwork is being filed as we speak... briefs are being done... like... it's for real, he's coming home for good. And I don't know how I feel about it. Honestly I should probably be thrilled... but I'm not (anyone care to explain that!? lol). I mean, I'm happy he's coming home, I'm happy I'm gonna get to see him, I'm happy he won't be deployed.... but I'm not happy that he's quitting. I keep telling myself it'll be ok... and I keep telling myself that this is gonna be better for both of us... but for some reason I don't believe it. Jeez, my brain doesn't even believe that he's actually coming home yet! Seriously. And he should be home in like a week and a half... And my brain won't process it... I was talking to my agility instructor the other day and she was like, well, probably it's because you've had so much emotional upheaval about him almost coming home once before and then being restarted... which is probably true. Tim and I have both said that this just feels like a dream, like nothing's real, which is weird... 'cause usually we're both more... sensible... than that... He's said that everything has felt like a dream since he saw me at the Turning Blue ceremony... He's said that he can't focus on his job, he WON'T focus. He hates it... I don't know why. I don't get it. I don't understand. How can he just hate something he's only been a part of for 10 months? I feel like he's shutting me out of some parts of his brain, I know there's another side of him emerging and, to be honest, it kind of scares me. I know that Timothy is still there... it's just that every now and then I get the feeling I'm not talking to "Timothy" I'm talking to someone else... it's like his alter ego... I don't know. It's the military him... the part of him that takes orders, gets angry, wants to throw things around, wants to kill the world. I don't know what to do with that part of him. I can control it but I don't want to. I don't want to HAVE to control it. I hope it goes away eventually. I don't think it will ever completely go away though. I'm working on planning our formal wedding ceremony and he gets upset because he can't be there to help. It's OK! I don't mind doing it. It's not that big a deal!! If I have something I need his opinion on I text him, mostly it's my parents planning stuff anyways, not like either one of us can control what they're doing. And Heaven-forbid I should say anything about him "quitting" or "losing" or "failing" 'cause he'll go off the deep-end... it's like suddenly there are these unseen rules about what I can and can't say around him and I'm still trying to figure out what they all are. I've figured most of them out in the past couple weeks but every now and then something has happened during his day and our whole conversation that night is sour and sullen. When I ask what's wrong he either won't answer or I get his canned response "I just hate it here" "I miss you" "I just wanna go home". If I ask why all I get is "you know why". And I try to understand, I really do. But I don't get it. I don't think I ever will. I don't regret marrying him. Honestly, I think that's one of the only things that has kept him sane, the fact that he has someone else that he has to pay a little bit of attention to and that's always gonna be there for him. I dont know... it's times like these that I remember why I started blogging however many months ago... Times when I just need to vent and have a blank screen to fill with thoughts... thoughts that many times never get proofread and never get reworded before I hit "publish". I just send them in, let the world look at them... at my private thoughts... but it makes me feel better. I can get it out there and let someone else worry about it. And I can keep telling myself I'm fine. Yeah... fine... Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, Emotional. That's how fine I am... except its usually just teh Emotional part lately... which I don't understand at all... I'm like, the least emotional person I know... and there are some days I just wanna cry... When did that happen? I think that the only thing that's kept ME sane the past few weeks is school... I just keep trying to bog myself down, deeper and deeper. Tuesday mornings I get lab reports back and Tuesday I get the damn things done.... Like, totally done... I get assignments and they're done about two days later. Focusing is a problem but once I get the focus I can accomplish anything. It keeps me busy. The birds keep me busy, the mice keep me busy. I've got a couple games that keep me busy. Our internet still sucks so I try to avoid it as much as possible... it just acts as a catalyst to make me upset...

Peyton left on Monday. His parents took him to MEPS on Monday evening and he flew out to start basic training Tuesday afternoon... I've already written him two pages of letters... He's gonna be almost as swamped with reading material as Tim was! But it keeps me focused and upbeat. I know he needs to hear happy things, things that are going on, what's the weather like, how school's going... and it makes me focus on the good things that have happened in the past 24 hours. It helps. I can't wait until he sends and address so I can actually mail the letters and look for pictures online and stuff. I really hope that they have a facebook page for his group... which reminds me that I deactivated my facebook account like 2 weeks ago... dang... I might have to reactivate it if he's got a facebook page... Oh well... We'll think about that when it comes around....

Facebook was too much drama... too much information... I don't want to know what you drank last weekend, how drunk you got, who you slept with or who you're mad at. I've got my own problems and you had better believe that I don't post them all over the internet... well... OK, I guess I am posting them all over... but seriously? how many people read this blog? not as many as see my facebook profile... and at least here people can't make stupid comments... and here, it's like I'm posting my problems to get them off my chest, not to get answers and crap from people. I see blogging as a way to relieve tension without using paper... Writing helps. But I can't write... my wrist hurts too much when I try to actually WRITE on paper... dang wrist. I don't know what the freak I ever did to it to make it so angry but the past year the mf-er's been killing me. I can't even write a decent essay without stopping like 15 times to make it stop hurting.

Speaking of essays... I need to start studying for the GREs again... and yes, that is related to essays 'cause they have an essay portion on the GREs... and yes, I'm taking them again 'cause my first scores suck. Hopefully this time around they are better. I'd like to have scores that are competitive enough to actually get me into a graduate program that I like!

DAMN I forgot I had lab teardown today... at 3... and it's 4 now... fml... Although class did run late... whatever... Guess I'll hop into lab tomorrow and teardown my crap when I drop my lab reports off for my people.... I wonder if that last kid actually did the lab... he never showed up Tuesday morning and then Wednesday afternoon he talked to the prof and wanted to know when he could make up the lab and she told him the other times were on his syllabus and it was his responsibility to find a time that worked... so I don't know if he ever did... I guess I could email Mrs. R. and see... she should know by now... I'm pretty sure that her labs were the only ones that he could've gotten into... I don't know though, there's one other person who teaches a section of lab and I'm not sure which day/time her lab is at.

Well... I guess I should stop rambling... there's probably some unseen law that says that I can only make blogs of a certain length... and besides.. who is seriously gonna keep reading... if they've read for this long... and in case you were wondering, there ain't no way I'm proofreading this... it's entirely too long...

Until next time...

End of Summer...

Soo apparently summer is over... This would be noticed by the last week of camp ending, the horses going home and us spending about 6 hours cleaning up the tack shed/stall area. Kind of bitter-sweet 'cause I'm not sure what's gonna happen next year... I know Peyton won't be there... he's leaving for Air Force basic training in September and probably won't get time off for camp... I don't know if I'll be there, depends on where I'm working and where Tim and I are living... It's all just very confusing and stressful right now.

School starts on Wednesday... I'm kind of excited 'cause I know that I've got a lot of fun classes... Already heard back from one prof that he doesn't care if I use my computer to take notes on... YAY! I love using my computer to take notes on, last semester my hand hurt so bad I could hardly take notes by hand... it was miserable. This year I've got a wrist brace that'll hopefully help some... We'll see.

I'm also getting a new computer! Well... I'm getting a tablet... the new Toshiba Thrive has a full-sized USB, full-sized SD, mini USB and a full-sized HDMI port, 10 hour battery life... user-changeable battery and back cover... Tons of stuff. Dad got a deal on it on Amazon so he ordered it sometime last week... I'm just waiting for it to show up now!! It's gonna be so much fun!! My current laptop is kind of dying... it doesn't start up as fast anymore, freezes randomly, doesn't shut down all the way all the time... the internal wireless died last year so I'm using a little adapter critter to run internet and it still doesn't connect real well all the time. I've had it for 3ish years anyways (maybe a little longer, I don't remember) so it has lived out it's life I guess. I've done really well with computers, I'm only on my 2nd one (tablet makes 3) and I got my first one when I was a junior or senior in highschool (I graduated highschool in 2008). I'd say 2 computers in 4 years isn't too bad! And I'll be hanging onto my tablet as long as it runs.

Also at the current time I'm waiting to hear back from KSU, I'm not even sure at this point whether I should be hoping to be accepted or not... I mean, I'd love to go out there 'cause I love the research that they are doing but Tim won't be out there for much longer anyways soo... I don't know... If I get declined then I'm gonna apply to a few schools up in the Rochester area I think... or I'll apply to a business program at Gannon... I could be happy with either one of those... I guess it'll depend on where I end up in the next 3 months!! (Yup, only 3 months and 20-some days until graduation!!)

Random Thoughts from an Army Wife...

Soo officially I'm not an Army wife... I admit that... but I AM gonna be an Army wife soon so I'm gonna claim the title :D Ya'll are just gonna have to deal with that.

Anyways... Tim is currently out in the field for a 2 day FTX... he gets back to base on Friday then leaves again on Monday for a 10day FTX... lots of training!! He's been way stressed for the past few days too... there was talk of possibly staying back during the 10day FTX but I'm not sure if that'll happen yet... We'll see.  I kind of hope he ends up going 'cause I don't want anything to happen that'll make him end up leaving (I know, that sounds weird that I WANT him to stay in the Army but I really kind of do!).

We are getting a pool put in at the house... We got a bunch of trees taken out a couple weeks ago, then while I was in Kansas they got the hole dug, yesterday they got everything smoothed out and today they are actually putting up the pool!! YAY!

It's been so much cooler here than basically everywhere I've been the past 3 weeks... I spent the last week of July up at camp and it was pretty warm... then I spent 10days in Kansas (80-100degrees the ENTIRE TIME!) and now home has pretty decent weather!!

I found an exercise plan online yesterday that I'm gonna start working on as soon as I get back from camp.  I don't really want to start it now because the week at camp is gonna screw me up and I figure that since it's only another 10 days until my schedule gets to something normal I can wait that long!!  I'm hoping that I can actually keep on track with this one and get in decent shape by the next time I see Timothy.

The county fair starts in about 3 weeks... I still need to work on getting a ride 'cause I'm taking Buckwheat... I really hope that the people I usually trailer with will take me even though they aren't taking any animals this year... Oh well.  Worst case scenario I just ride him down!

Well...I've got lots of things on my to-do list and I need to get to work on them... I'm gonna try to start updating daily (or at least every couple days!)

Back from Vacation!

So, I had an AWESOME vacation!! Preteen3 at camp with Timothy... we had a great week, I was head wrangler and it went pretty well, had a great group working with me though so that definitely helped.

After camp I went on a vacation to Kansas! Visiting with the hubby! Working on getting paperwork done so that we actually have housing after our wedding ceremony this December! (Eh, who needs a house right?! lol)  Well... I don't really have much more to add... I'll be getting home late tonight so I'll probably update some stuff about home and mice and all that good stuff either later tonight (ha, don't count on it!!) or tomorrow... maybe... Not sure when I'm driving up to Rochester to get the Twig-dog but I'll let ya'll know!

HOT!

It's kinda warm out lately... been in the 90s every day this week!! Can't really complain though as I know many of our military are in hotter places than I am and they can't strip down to shorts and a tank top!!

Tim is looking forward to coming to camp next week and things are pretty much falling into place as far as that goes... still not exactly sure who's picking him up from the airport but I think we'll get it figured out soon enough...

Not much else going on here... Just wanted to throw a quick update on!

News from.... er... me!

OK... sooo Tim and I have NOT set a date... well... we kind of have... we've set half a date... We know  we're getting married in December of 2011 but that's as far as we've gotten... :(  We just don't know exactly when he's going to be home at the moment... Now we think he's deploying in like March or April... still don't know for how long and, in all reality, that date might change again before it's all said and done. It's very exciting though!  I've got my dress, we've both got our rings... I've got my maid of honor and a bridesmaid and he's got a best man and groomsman picked out (only having 2 people each) and we've got the flowergirl and ringbearer picked! Still don't know stuff like flowers, music, reception, etc. but i'm sure it'll come together pretty quickly once we get a date...

I'm off to camp again on Saturday... head wrangler!! YIKES! I'm sure it'll go smoothly though... the horses have been pretty decent so far this summer and PreTeen 3 isn't usually a real busy week... I'll be working with Peyton, Katie and Tim and possibly 2 W.I.T.s (Wranglers In Training) so that'll be good... between just the 4 of us we won't have any problems.  I need to talk to a lady I know about getting my Responding To Emergencies training done this week too... It won't take long but I've got to drive into Erie to get it done... and take a test... which means I should probably read over the book... Oh well... I'll call her tonight and set up an appointment!

I filled out a job application for the school semester too... Hopefully I'll be working at a doggie daycare Thursday and Friday afternoons!! I hope it doesn't interfere with agility trials though... that'd be a bummer... I also finished up my graduate school application... mostly... I think I just need to get my transcripts released to them which I'm doing tomorrow morning on my way into town.

Well.... I suppose I should go do something productive.... I shall be back later!