Standing by my decisions

Just got back from my trip to Florida! It was great to get to spend some time with my grandparents and my mom and brother. The villages is an absolutely beautiful place! I just want to skip my whole career path and go straight to retirement. Everyone has pristine gardens and there is not one piece of trash on the ground anywhere! They dance every night and with the exception of the one mean old lady who yelled at me from the passenger side of her car to cross the street faster, everyone seems very friendly!

With the exception of a nail in my tire that I had to get fixed before I left the trip went smooth! I ended up driving down a day early because my boss let me take it off, so I texted my mom this picture when I was a few hours away to surprise them and let them know I was on my way!

This is a picture from the back of the golf cart that I quickly snapped. It is just so beautiful!

When in Florida I had an interesting conversation with my grandmother (Mimi) about being in Alabama and living with my boyfriend before we are married. I completely get the fact that some people disagree with the fact that Grant and I are living together before we are married and I can respect their feelings. I was upset when I found out that his father felt so strongly about it and even more upset to recently find out that my Grandfather (Bumpa) wasn't too happy about it either, although he did a very good job and keeping it to himself. I can respect that  for religious reasons it is frowned upon or in the "older times" people just didn't live that way, but I am also a strong believer that I can make my own decisions and stand by those decisions. With the divorce rate as high as it is, especially higher in the Army, I am going to make sure that I am actually able to tolerate living with that person before I make the decision to marry them and then find out that I cant stand being with them. Which is not the case for Grant and I, I think that aside from his few things that drive me crazy (clothes go inside the hamper... not next to them, never closing the drawers in the dresser, and getting toothpaste all over the toothpaste container) things have been going smoothly. 

(If your ever reading this Grant, you know you do it! :p and I know I do things that drive you crazy too...although you never really say.)

Another question that she had for me was, "You made the decision to move out to Alabama right out of college and adapt to his life in the Army, do you think he would do the same if the situation was reversed?" The answer to this question was hard. Of course I would like to think if the situation was reversed he would follow me to a different state for a great career or just because but the truth is, I don't really know. Grant never forced me to move to Alabama. Truth is, in a perfect world he would have rather waited until he graduated from flight school to move in together but with flight school being over a year long, I honestly couldn't see myself waiting that long to start my "real life". I started looking for a career job, I don't know if I would have the option to move a year or so down the road. My mother always tells me not to lose myself to a man and says my grandmother is only concerned because I seem to have chosen a hard life in the military on top of how hard life is just by itself. I get why they are scared for me and honestly I think they feel that way because in some way my Mimi feels that she had to change for my Bumpa, and I know that my mother feels like she gave up herself to change for my father. 

I cant change who I fell in love with. I don't feel like I am changing myself. Maybe I am being naive about the whole situation but I don't think about it as changing, I think about it as adapting to a new situation to be with the person I love more than anything in this world. If people cant accept that, then they never will. Grant and I started our relationship with a lot of growing to do and I am happy that we have both gotten the chance to grow together. We are both not perfect and if I am making a mistake...I will learn from it eventually. All I know is that right now I am completely content with the decisions I have made and I know that good things will be coming my way in the future. 

Here are a few more shots from the drive with Dunkin. He is such a spoiled dog!

Here is a shot of my Mimi and her pup Ralphie. He is her baby

Well as for this week I have something planned for every day until Grant comes home! That includes getting a hair cut, going to see The Hunger Games and going out to dinner with the wives, making an ice cream cake, doing some cleaning, and Laundry. On top of that the hours at work are picking up which is what I need because my bank account is looking quite low after the cost of gas for the trip to FL. 

Only 5 more full days until he comes home!! :)

Birthday Cake Martini!? Yes please

Thankfully nothing interesting to report in the last few days. Just repetitive, ordinary days filled with the gym, work, and playing with the pup. I must admit that my gym sessions have been slacking because I feel so bad having to leave the dog in his crate :/ ...He shouldn't have destroyed my house.

Last Friday I went out with a few of the girls for one of their birthdays and their husbands for dinner and then to go see a comedy show on post. It was hilarious and we had a great time! Then we went back to their house for delicious raspberry chocolate birthday cake (which reminds me, I am going to have to ask for the recipe!) I made birthday cake Martini's which were yummy! I made them with pinnacle cake vodka, cranberry juice, and a bit of sprite. Then I lined the rim of the glass with frosting and sprinkles and topped it with champagne! 

(obviously not the best picture but it was the only one we took!)

The weekend was boring! Dunkin and I just stayed at home and watched movies and went for walks. 

Boring boring boring 

:)

but relaxing!

oh Sunday I went to Ozark and picked up a bakers rack I found on craigslist so now I actually have some counter space! I love it and am so excited I found it for such a deal! 

Seriously Craigslist is the way to go for DIY projects and great deals!

I also fixed up my tree picture I painted by adding a black boarder so you can see it better with the lights off and also by adding a few more branches and thickening the trunk.

I got my diploma in the mail over the weekend so I have proof that I graduated from college! I was actually getting worried because I graduated about 3 months ago and hadn't gotten it yet so that was a relief! :)

yayyy me!

This weekend I will be embarking on a 6 hours journey with the dog down to the Villages Florida to visit my grandparents and my mother and brother who have flown down for the week!

It should be very interesting! I am driving down Friday afternoon and will be returning very early on Monday morning in time to go into work by 1pm. 

Hopefully the Dunkin will behave himself and hopefully we don't get lost!! :)

I am excited to see them all!!

I will leave you with this adorable picture of my snuggle bug laying with me in bed!

Grant isn't going to be happy when he finds out Dunkin has been sleeping with me every night! :)

12 days left!!! :)

Thanks USAA!

I am happy to report that the dog did not eat his way out of his crate last night!

After I cleaned up the mess yesterday I seriously needed a big glass of wine!!!!

Such a relaxing way to wind down :)

Now for today:

I seriously wish that my life wasn't a big joke right now.

So my job while my soldier is gone was to check on his bank account to be sure that the bills were being paid and there was enough money in the checking account for the automatic withdrawals. 

Sure...easy enough!

WRONG!

This afternoon I went to log onto the USAA account to make sure everything was running smooth on the bill front. 

Enter username: check, 

Enter password: check, 

Enter pin number: check,

what is your first college roommates name?

WTF...

So I thought I knew the answer to this question. Turns out Grant had two college roommates his freshman year. Didn't know that! I have officially locked myself out of the USAA account. Now I start to panic thinking they have frozen the account and the bills are not going to be paid. So I call USAA with every single piece of information I have and they tell me they cant do anything unless I have power of attorney. Well...of course we have never discussed POA because we are not married yet and because I just didn't think about it. Next I call his mother thinking after 10 years as a military wife herself maybe she could help me out! So she calls USAA thinking that he most likely gave her or his dad POA. 

No such luck!

Thankfully all I had managed to do was lock myself out of the online portion of the account and the bills will still be paid...I just cant check on them to make sure there is enough money in the account.  So hopefully he was diligent enough to calculate out all the bills right! If not... Just for the record I am saying right now that its not my fault because I wasn't given all the information I needed. Its really not even USAA's fault because I know that they don't know who I am or if I am making up this information just to steal all his money and empty the bank account.

I would really just like to point out that it has legitimately  been 4 days since he has left...

and nothing seems to be going right. 

Cannot wait to go out with the girls tomorrow and have a nice big drink!!

Military girlfriend

Also wanted to share this. 

Since first hearing it, it has stuck with me and I thought it would be appropriate to share:

I am a military girlfriend. I hold no formal recognition with the powers that be I am at the bottom of the chain. I hold no Military ID card; I am not a dependent or a parent. The man I love may face unspeakable dangers and I am at the mercy of those who possess this recognition for news. I understand this and accept this.

I have promised to be here for him upon his return no matter how long he is away. They may say I am insane for making such a commitment, but I hold onto our promises and have faith that he will come home safe. I know well that my love for him fuels him in the worst of times.

There is no ring on my finger to symbolize our commitment, though I love him no less for it. I hope every day that he will be able to call because a simple 30-second phone call can bring the greatest spectrum of emotions smiling with tears in my eyes from so much joy and pain. My relationship is based on a brief communication where I love you and I’m okay speaks more than volumes and gives me the strength to keep going.

I take no moment spent together for granted. I hold onto every touch, caress, kiss, and every word. I have memorized the feel of his skin, his smell, the sound of his voice and I play it over and over in my mind so that I will not forget. I cry myself to sleep some nights because missing him hurts so badly, but wake up the next morning, brush myself off and start a new day.

The events of the next several months hold my life, my love, and my future in the balance. When you watch the news reports, you may turn away and go about your business relatively unaffected. When I watch news stories of the war, I do not see nameless soldiers half a world away. I see individuals who will be forever changed by war.  News of every casualty causes me physical pain and deep sadness.

I am a military girlfriend. Not a spouse or family member. When you say your prayers for the husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters…please don’t forget about me.

Seriously Dog?

No but really....Seriously?

Listen...I know that I was the one who wanted the dog and I still do! I love him like I can imagine I would love a child. But, I am praying to the good lord that a child cannot cause as much destruction as my pooch does. 

I do not know if he has gotten nice and comfy at the house and has come to the realization we are not going to give him back or if he just misses his daddy and is acting out doing the physical damage that I wish I could do.

Either way...

I am done

The past three days have been hell when I come home from work. As you can tell in the post I posted a few days ago, it seems as if my precious pooch tries to one up himself on the disaster scale every single day! 

Day one:

The only picture I have was of my favorite Moccasins destroyed 

Other than that there was: 

Two cases of water 

Two cardboard boxes 

three books 

He ripped the wall hook off the wall by chewing my jacket (2nd time he has done that)

and a bag of peanut butter treats

He also destroyed the trash can and spewed trash throughout the house

Which later he went outside and ate grass and decided to throw up the grass plus the bag of treats :/

This was when I decided either I needed to lock him up in the kitchen with a gate, or take drastic action and get a kennel where he would stay when I went to work.

Day Two:

As you can see on day two he only destroyed mostly his own things which I could live with for the time being. Somehow he managed to drag his bin from where we keep it in the corner and rip the LOCKED top off . This day he ate:

Two cases of water (which he bit through all the bottles so the floor was soaked)

A box of milk bones

his retractable leash 

and 

my jacket

Day 3 (today):

So I had to work a full day today and I had a feeling that today would be the worst of all 

I was right!

After frantically running to Walmart on my hour lunch break and driving 20 minutes home from work this is what I found

No more Blinds

Yes that is my scrap book that I have been working on for years and a plastic bin that he opened and chewed THE PLASTIC

Here we see the remnants of some window blinds, my D&G purse, and my high school diploma!

If we are looking on the bright side, the good news is that the furniture is still intact!

Also If you are wondering why I didn't go get the crate the first day this happened...

I have literally been on my death bed with what I can only imagine is some sort of flu and of course my soldier is off training in the woods somewhere.

So now here is my darling dog in his new home where he will be living from now on when I am at work

Cant wait to go home after working for 10 hours and clean up the mess he made!

Lets hope he didn't chew through the kennel because that is seriously what I am expecting to find :)

A little bit of background

So I thought I would dedicate this post to explaining some things about myself.

As you can already guess I am a military girlfriend and absolutely in love with my soldier. Growing up in a small town in NH I was very sheltered and had a great group of friends in middle/high school. Don't get me wrong! The close friends I made in high school will most likely be my friends for the rest of my life and I don't regret a moment with them and the great times we shared. 

Obviously I didn't venture very far in my college choices and settled on the University of New Hampshire to obtain my business degree. After a brief set back the first portion of my freshman year (wanting to move to Oregon and go to school out there) I settled in and set my sights on being an independent woman who didn't need a man in her life! I made great friends who will be in my life forever and pretty much lived my life the way a crazy freshman should! Some of the best times i'll never remember!

These next few are from later on in my college life but I wanted to put them in 

because I love my college friends too <3

 (all the cousins <3)

...Then I met Grant and he changed my world

I met Grant a little after my second semester freshman year. (yea I know...so much for being a single independent woman but hey..when you know, you know)

I remember the day like it was yesterday. It was a snow day at UNH and they had made the mistake of cancelling classes the day before. Naturally my group of girlfriends and I went in search of the biggest party we could find. We ended up at the Gables because we were underage and that's where you went as freshman/sophomores when you couldn't get into the bars. Anyway after drinking substantial amounts of alcohol in walks Grant. Naturally being the outspoken girl that I am...I went to hit on him. Lets just say that Grant is the POLAR opposite of me in that he is shy, conservative, and up until then he really wasn't that much of a partier. So here I was...this drunk girl making fun of his clothes and telling him I had bigger muscles than him! I'm sure he didn't know what to do with himself.

The night started to wind down and naturally I gave him my phone number because i'm not sure if he was going to come out and ask for it. 

Welcome to 2012 ladies!! 

No longer should a girl sit back and wait for a guy to take the initiative!

Anyway the next morning he friended me on FB and after a couple dates to the Dining hall and nice conversation the rest is history. 

Here are some pictures of us throughout the years: 

This was when we first started dating 

My Sophomore year

My Junior and his senior year

 I have always found a man in uniform to be the sexiest of all men but didn't realize how much of a commitment it is being a part of the military lifestyle! Grant is a year ahead of me and completed ROTC at college meaning he graduated and commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Army. We have been together almost all of my college career so I guess that means you could call us college sweethearts? Sure that sounds nice.

Grant found out his senior year that he had gotten Aviation as his branch hence why we have ended up in Alabama of all places. I could not be more proud of my soldier and the man that I have watched him become since first meeting that shy boy at a party my freshman year. 

 

This past New Years

(we have grown up so much :p)

As of right now I am settled in to my life in Alabama, missing my friends and family at home in NH, but excited for my future in the life the army has to offer us...even if it is the life of separation, combat boots, moving, and helicopters :) 

Lonely

Its day one of Grant being gone and I am already  lonely :( Today has just been a horrible day entirely.

First he left around 4AM and the dog was going absolutely insane and driving me crazy! I was finally able to get back to sleep around 5:30 for a few hours. The dog finally settled down and went back to sleep and then woke me up by licking me around 9. I let him out and apparently he ate a shit ton of grass and decided to puke all over the carpet.

After cleaning that up he finally calmed down and let me relax a bit. I got to shower and then had to leave for work. After a long day at work all I wanted to do was relax but instead I came home to a disaster zone! He ripped through the entire house destroying the trashcan, spreading trash throughout the house, eating my favorite pair of moccasins, and then when I yelled at him...he cowered and peed everywhere!! I wanted to kill him ughh

So after a phone call with my mother and lots of tears over my shoes (RIP moccasins) and being lonely I am finally done being upset for the night.

Just a portion of the disaster!

Now I am panicking to find a crate for him while I am gone for the day or a gate that I can confine him to the kitchen. Of course he is a perfect angel (or close to it) up until the day that grant leaves and then all hell breaks loose!


I cant stay mad at him for long though...especially when he falls asleep like this..

All I can do is to think of this as a practice for when Grant gets deployed. It calms me and also scares me to death that this is me, being an independent woman but also being so dependent on my soldier. If I can get through the past training sessions, this month of SERE school, and the future deployments I know that I can literally handle anything that this world hands me. I honestly don't think this leg of training would bother me so much if communication was allowed. I am not even allowed to pretend like I am in the Dear John movie and write letters to my soldier...and the worst part about the whole thing is he is literally about 8 miles down the road from me somewhere out in the woods.

ah the life of the Army!