Thanksgiving

This was my second Thanksgiving away from my immediate family in NJ. Last year I was in Disney, actually working that day come to think of it, and this year we went to South Carolina to be with Ryan's family.




I must say this getting older thing... it is strange. I know Ryan's family is my family, that is never an issue, but I did miss my parents, brother, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins! I have such a large family that it is always mass chaos when we get together. People are running around, food is everywhere, tvs are blaring, it is total crazy! And I love it. That is what I grew up with and know. Ryan's family is smaller than mine (but still of course can be chaotic!) and it was a different way of doing things. (ie buffet style in the kitchen vs all over the dining room... I'll post pictures tomorrow)

I still ate a ridiculous amount of good food and bonded with my inlaws. Some of the time outside. Outside comfortable on Thanksgiving! It was like, 70 degrees!! It was insane. My brother texted me a video of it snowing that morning in NJ, even if it did melt within a few hours.

We had a nice time though. We got to relax a bit and just be with his family for a few days. We watched the USC/Clemson rivalry game Saturday night (Go Cocks!) and saw USC kick butt. Very nice.

Of course what is a holiday without a rough patch? We were in the car nearly ten hours on Wednesday and about the same on Sunday... with traffic and back pain and general irritability a fight was inevitable. Especially when someone had one too many drinks on Thanksgiving and was up til 5am with the next door neighbor (I was in bed by midnight!) being drunk and disorderly... and even left cigarettes floating in said neighbors hot tub since he dropped the entire pack! Then the next day when they slept it off I put up the Christmas tree like he promised he would and watched way too much TV. So needless to say we had a bit of a fight driving home.

Nasty yelling, name calling, arguing, he said she said, you did I did, blah blah blah, ten minutes of silence....... Sorry I called you this. Sorry I said that. I didn't mean this. You're not really that.

Our fight. Paraphrased (:

But all is well. Last night I got home with a pizza from my new favorite pizza place and found my husband waiting with a bottle of red wine and a movie. Sigh. Nicely done. We watched National Treasure and stuffed and labeled our Christmas Cards before going to bed nice and early. Like..... 9 o'clock or so!

Today, well work has been rough. Same as yesterday. Days after long weekends are crazy and billing is underway and tempers are high and people are crazy. (excuse my run on sentence!) I just want to go home and curl up under the covers, but alas... physical therapy awaits.

Sigh.

Day 8

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Day 8: Least favorite thing about the Holidays

I hope this doesn't sound Scrooge-like of me, but the amounts of money that tend to get spent. I know there are thrifty ways to save for the holidays, but I always feel like so much money gets spent! Between travel (gas, pit stops, car maintanence etc), presents (big family, even little things add up!), mailing out Christmas cards (thank you Shutterfly for helping me out there), thank you notes, and other expenses it adds up. Ryan and I are getting a live tree this year, and ornaments, it is our first Christmas together so we don't really have much! Besides the tree we need lights (and other decorations for the apartment itself), a wreath, basic ornaments besides the one we stole from our parents, a tree skirt... it just goes on and on.

Scrooge-like much? I'm sorry! But it is my least favorite thing about the holidays!

Day 7

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Day 7: Holiday Craft/DIY (or if you are not crafty one you wish you could make)



I wish I could make a really nice Advent Wreath that my family could use and keep for always. Is it selfish to want to create an heirloom? :P

For non-Catholics, feel free to read a really great history of the Advent Wreath here.

My mom sent us one for this year, but my goal next year is to make my own! How about that? (: Even though Ryan and I got home super late last night we did bless the wreath and say the prayers for the first Sunday. It made me extra special happy!



Real update tomorrow - work was killer busy today and we got back so late last night!

Day 6

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Day 6: Gift ideas (what do YOU want? We all have family/friends reading our blogs...so let them know!)

Oh this is so selfish :P Ok, I like the picture/visual aid method...



Ryan and I are considering getting this for eachother, with a new laptop, care of a Best Buy credit card to build some more good credit. Sort of a gift to each other.

I love sweater dresses, they are perfect to wear to work as well as being so darn cute!
Puppy. 'Nuff said.
Read the book, loved it. Never got to see the movie... so the DVD!!


I'd also love to have my surgery approved so it can happen! (:


Unfortunately I may not be able to do the linky thing until Monday because I will be in SC with the hubby's family, so thanks for reading anyway!

Day 5

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Day 5: Favorite Holiday Movie/TV Show Special

I have a lot (: I will leave it in pictures... any of your favorites up here?











Unfortunately I may not be able to do the linky thing until Monday because I will be in SC with the hubby's family, so thanks for reading anyway!

Day 4

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Day 4: Tips/Tricks to a Budget Friendly holiday season

I am sadly not the one to ask about this sort of thing. In college I'd work a few shifts at Kohl's and use that money to buy presents. This year we are getting crafty and making something for our families and some friends, but I am definitely not good at the thrifty thing!


Unfortunately I may not be able to do the linky thing until Monday because I will be in SC with the hubby's family, so thanks for reading anyway!

Day 3

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Day 3: Most meaningful gift/best gift you've received


Ryan and I got engaged in December of last year... it wasn't technically a Christmas gift but it is the best gift I have ever received. He came to visit me in Disney (technically it was for the holidays and with my family, but still early) and proposed during the fireworks. You can read the whole story here.

My ring is gorgeous, I won't dispute that, it is so so perfect. But what it stands for means more to me than anything else. I always told Ryan he could have given me a garbage can twist tie and I still would have said yes!!

Even recently we talked about it. Ryan said, "I gave you a diamond for a reason. Not a ruby or sapphire or emerald... diamonds are under pressure for thousands of years and they come out looking like that. If we are ever under pressure, we will do the same thing." and he also mentions, "I had to get the perfect ring for the perfect girl." (Ok I am nowhere close to perfect, but it is still sweet!)

It is a symbol (along with my wedding ring now) of my love and commitment to Ryan. That I will be loyal and true to him forever and always, under pressure or not.





By the way, Ryan is still trying to work things out for his next step. He is fliritng with Intel (which he doesn't think he will get) and MCCS (which personally I think he will be miserable in, but we shall see). We have an 8+ hour drive to SC for Thanksgiving to talk about it! Thanks for all your good thoughts and wishes. Fingers and toes still crossed.

HP Probably regrets this now...

This soldier in Iraq had an HP printer which quit working. He contacted HP tech support for help to fix it. HP told the soldier that he would have to pay them for the advice. Watch this 60 second video for his response to them.

I don't know how many folks will end up seeing this but HP customer relations probably wish they had helped him out or even sent him a new printer!

Texts

So at work, kind of a slow day, when I get this text from my husband:

I love you. I can't get any of the jobs I want. The corps is downsizing. I might have to re-enlist as infantry. Only for two tears then re up and lat move.

Cue stomach landing in shoes. We've discussed him re-enlisting for a long time, but not as infantry. Infantry is not the best for couples, for families, and quite frankly it terrifies me.

There is absolutely nothing else? - me
I'll find out at 1330. But if I lat move into something I don't like I have to be there four years. If I stay infantry I can do only two then move. Can I call you?
Don't have lunch for another hour.
That's fine because I will be finding out my options at 1330. Then I'll text you around 1400.
You know I love you and I will stand by you no matter what. I just know you know infantry terrifies me.
But I can do it... well. Only for two years then I can do what I want.
But that means a deployment, a fleet deployment. Maybe two.
Inevitable regardless.
Not true. A deployment yes. A frontline, fleet, infantry deployment... not inevitable.
True. Call you soon.


Keep your fingers crossed for some good news ladies. My stomach is in all sorts of funny worried nots :(

Day 2 - Black Friday

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Day 2: Black Friday/General Shopping Tips & Tricks

I must be crazy, because for the past few years I have never shopped on Black Friday... but I have always worked it! I would request to open Black Fridays when I worked at Kohls. It was such a rush! I would get up around 2am and be there by 3am. I remember the first year I worked there was a LINE outside of Kohls.

I go to ring the doorbell to get let in and the woman who was first in line was like, "Honey, we've been standing out here for an hour. You can't just walk in!" I turned to her and said, "If you want someone to ring up your purchases I can. Otherwise you stood out here for no reason." She then tried to elbow past me to get in when my manager opened the door for me and my manager had to guide her back out! Craaazy.

Sometimes if there was a good deal the managers would let us put a purchase aside and buy it with the Black Friday price (AND our discount) once our shift ended. Sometimes. It was a sweet deal when they did!

I used to love working because time went by super fast. I was always busy, and never doing menial tasks, I was ringing people up and running around... it was great. There were some massively crazy people but it wasn't too bad. One year we had a TV promotion and my manager had the tickets in her hand that customers would get, bring to the register, and we'd call to have it delivered up to them. When the door opened she got pushed back and into my register counter! She climbed up, stood on my table and yelled, "Back! BACK! Or NO TVS for ANYONE!" They all fell silent and stepped back. She climbed down and said, "Now, form a line and I will hand these out, in a civil manner."

And she did.

Kohls would give us Dunkin Donuts and Coffee in the morning (wish I drank the stuff, a sugar high had to suffice) and catered in lunch. They didn't want us leaving and wasting our lunch in line somewhere or losing our parking spot, so free food! I'd be out of there in the early afternoon and home with my family for the rest of the day (after a nap of course).

Working at Disney Black Friday wasn't bad, nothing changed there... except the traffic. My apartment was by the outlet malls and it was RIDICULOUS. I went the back roundabout way trying to get to work (while a couple of my friends who had later shifts tried to go to Best Buy...noooo way) and it took me a long time to get to EPCOT.

This year? We will be in South Carolina as Ryan's family is Thanksgiving this year. Will I brave the stores? Probably not. I am much more content to sleep off the Turkey Hangover!

TIPS: If you shop... be nice to the person at the register. They got up early and braved the masses and don't even get to get good deals. They don't have holiday pay or anything else special, they're working in madness. So smile, say Thank You, and be patient if something chaotic happens. It is usually not their fault!

I also heard on the radio if you are one of those people who waits in line before the store opens... do a buddy system. Have one person wait in line and the other sit in the car with the heat on, then switch! That way you don't both have to be miserable and cold for hours!

Rough Weekend, Holiday 12

I don't like airing dirty laundry on my blog, that is not the point of it. But we did have a rather rough weekend. Me on the couch Friday, him on the couch Saturday... but we got over it. Sat down and had two glasses of water, a note book and pen, and talked. If we got too emotional we wrote down what we wanted to say and cooled off. We made a pretty big breakthrough in our communication and figured a lot of stuff out. So as sucky as it is to fight, this one I think helped us a lot for the long run!

Enough of that, I am joining in this fun Holiday-ness!

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Day 1: Christmas/Holiday traditions

We have a few... my mom and I would always drive around and look at the decorations on other houses. Or we'd go to Christmas Village in Pennsylvania. We always do the Christmas vigil, it is a gorgeous mass, and I read at it every year. Now, we usually go to my dad's family for Christmas Eve. My dad has a massive Italian family, so I am very much the odd blonde stepchild out (in the physical sense of course, I love my family) when we go!



Can you spot me?

Usually my Dad's cousin John plays Santa and all the kids get a gift from him. It's so cute. Last time I went it was warm in the house so Santa's glasses got a little foggy... haha.



Christmas Day is brunch at my aunt's and dinner at Babci and Poppy's. Too. Much. Food.



Last Christmas I was home (08) we also went and saw the Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. Amazing show. I hadn't seen it since I was little and I still got goosebumps when the tree rose out of the stage!



The other tradition is Swedish Christmas. My best friend Sam is Swedish and ever since I was thirteen, and we were friends, I have gone to her house for a traditional Swedish celebration. There is a TON of food, glugg, aqua vit, ginger cookies, this awesome bread soaked in a broth that is my favorite, and tons and tons of other edibles. By the end of the night everyone is completely trashed and we give presents and sing bad carols and watch a movie as all the kids of our age group sleep in a massive line/pile on the floor. Breakfast follows the next morning and we have a delicious breakfast and nurse our hangovers til we can drive again!



But...

I am married now. Ryan and I will have our own traditions. I did none of those last year as I was working at Disney. Ryan and my family visted a few weeks before and we celebrated early, but I worked last year Christmas Eve. I was in EPCOT.

This year, Ryan and I are going to start our own traditions. Ok I called dibbs on this Christmas before we got married because my parents are moving to North Carolina next year and this will be my last Christmas in my childhood home. He didn't fight me on it, but he gets Thanksgiving! So we get my usual Christmas, but together, this year.

I am excited to see what traditions we will have for our family!

Busy Week!

Work was killer this week!

First on Wednesday our phones died for two hours. When your job primarily revolves around answering and transfering calls that is a big problem. It wasn't just our phones at the front desk though, all of our clients had no phone access either. Bad news bears indeed.

So Thursday has to be better right? You would think. Our internet was out. All day until 4:20pm. Man oh man were people pissed, and rightly so! How can a company not have a back up system??? In all fairness it was not our company's fault but the provider losing a giant server in Atlanta that we were somehow linked in with, but people were not too concerned with the reasoning, just the results! Ugh. We could do our job too well either. Our schedule for booking meeting rooms? Online. Our billing? Online. Luckily we had our outlook email up and running since it is operating on the server at our headquarters. Emailing clients, cancelling appointments... oh it was brutal.

Friday I thought had to be better! We came in early Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to set up a beverage service (aka coffee) for a client, so I got some overtime doing that, but Friday I came in at normal time and had phone and internet! Then around 10am one of our clients came in with a project for me, also known as an Admin project. They pay the company for it, I do the work. He is a lawyer and just inherited a bunch of cases from another lawyer who just retired. He needed the papers relating to each case organized and re-filed. Man. Oh. Man. I had to divert from the phones to just do this project. I worked from 10am until 5:30pm finishing it. Loooong day. He was very nice and appreciative so I honestly did not mind doing the work, but it was Harry Potter Day! I had to get to the theatre!

I flew out of work and to the theatre, glad I got tickets ahead of time, and met Ryan, Russell, and Lauren. Russell and Lauren got their before us so they were in line and got us some good seats with them. The movie? Fantastic. I won't spoil anything, but I enjoyed it. Some things were left out but it could have been worse. I cried once. And now I cannot believe I have to wait until July for the next one!!!! Oy.

We're at the barracks now doing laundry. Being the adult I am I woke up at 8:30am and couldn't go back to sleep. So I watched the rest of one of my favorite movies (Under the Tuscan Sun), ran to the bank, and then grocery shopping. Go me.

Happy weekend!!!

A Lesson Learned

A lesson that should be taught in all schools . .

And colleges

Back in September, on the first day of school, Martha Cothren, a social studies school teacher at Robinson High School, did something not to be forgotten. On the first day of school, with the permission of the school superintendent, the principal and the building supervisor, she removed all of the desks out of her classroom.

When the first period kids entered the room they discovered that there were no desks.

'Ms.. Cothren, where're our desks?'

She replied, 'You can't have a desk until you tell me how you earn the right to sit at a desk.'

They thought, 'Well, maybe it's our grades.'

'No,' she said.

'Maybe it's our behavior.'

She told them, 'No, it's not even your behavior.'

And so, they came and went, the first period, second period, third period. Still no desks in the classroom.

By early afternoon television news crews had started gathering in Ms.Cothren's classroom to report about this crazy teacher who had taken all the desks out of her room.

The final period of the day came and as the puzzled students found seats on the floor of the deskless classroom, Martha Cothren said, 'Throughout the day no one has been able to tell me just what he/she has done to earn the right to sit at the desks that are ordinarily found in this classroom. Now I am going to tell you.'

At this point, Martha Cothren went over to the door of her classroom and opened it.

Twenty-seven War Veterans, all in uniforms, walked into that classroom, each one carrying a school desk. The Vets began placing the school desks in rows, and then they would walk over and stand alongside the wall... By the time the last soldier had set the final desk in place those kids started to understand, perhaps for the first time in their lives, just how the right to sit at those desks had been earned..

Martha said, 'You didn't earn the right to sit at these desks. These heroes did it for you. They placed the desks here for you. Now, it's up to you to sit in them. It is your responsibility to learn, to be good students, to be good citizens. They paid the price so that you could have the freedom to get an education.

Don't ever forget it.'

By the way, this is a true story.

SO EXCITED

Harry Potter tomorrow at 7pm! (Because being an adult means no midnight showings with work... lame).

More update tomorrow. Rough two days.

This made me laugh though...

Movie Trailers - Movies Blog

Shutterfly Deal!

If you are going to get one of our Christmas cards (AHEM MOM) don't look!


But here they are! My 50 free Christmas Cards. We used a picture from Great Falls this past weekend to make a gorgeous card to send to our family and friends. Such a good deal. I saved $120 by using this promotion and my husband was quite thrilled. The process of making the card was wonderful too. I just uploaded pictures from my computer to the site and then got to play with them. I did a few in black and white and a whole variety of different pictures.

I tried five or six different cards before settling on this one, and of course asking Ryan's opinion along the way. I think he got a little tired of it but he chose this one in the end (I liked it too!) and was super excited about how much money we saved on them. Thank you Shutterfly! We'll be ordering something else very soon.... (:

All Wrapped Up Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Link to the stationary here

Wordless Wednesday - Great Falls 2nd Edition

Oh what a weekend...

My brain is fried right now. Work was super busy yesterday and the weekend was jam packed with happenings and today the phones went down at work so blogging definitely hopped into the backseat! I don't even know where to begin. The only think keeping me sane right now is that I am listening to Josh Groban's new album Illuminations and it is of course fabulous (and has the same name as the EPCOT fireworks show, which I love!).

Where to begin?

Let's start with this:


That is my car. Remember my car accident a few weeks ago? Well Saturday I go to Geico to get an estimate done. Well Ryan decides to meet me there because we are going to go to Great Falls after. Long story short we decide to leave my car there and come back for it later, but my husband apparently does not know how to back out of a garage and my driver's side is now banged up. I have no door handle. To get in my car I have to open my back door or passenger door!

And what is his reaction?

He laughs. It is soooo ironic. The door I am claiming damages on gets more damages... at the claims place! Needless to say I punched him. In the arm. Hard. I was so mad at him! More so that he kept laughing at it, he eventually apologized, but this is my car! If it had been his I doubt he would have laughed. He keeps saying this is why I need to learn how to drive stick (NO) so I can use his car. UGH.


We had a blast at Great Falls with Russell and Lauren. I will post pictures later as I have something else important to mention.



The D-Word has arisen.

Deployment. It is still something he is looking in to, but he wants to go. Again. 8th and I is a nondeployable unit. The way to deploy from there is on a Security Task Force, which is what Ryan did last year when he went to Iraq. It is not a fleet deployment (with him being infantry I SO do not want) but a security task force. Basically they stand post on the FOBs and Bases and do relocations and maneuvers outside the wire in MRAPPS.

When Ryan was on duty and I visited him his friend Randy was there. He was like, "Hey did you hear about the task force starting to train up?" I turned around with my massiva bag of laundry and looked Ryan dead in the eye and said, "No. No. No No No."

"But I didn't even get to talk to you about it yet!"

Ugh.

So we've talked. It is a good time for him to go. No kids. No pets even. We're in an area that is close to family (ish) and I wouldn't have to move. We love the area we are in. I have a good, steady job. His re-enlistment bonus could be tax free if he does it in Afghanistan. He can pick up Sgt quickly. He has done this Security Task Force before. He knows the protocols and what to do and when to do it. We would help out our savings quite a bit. He wouldn't be fighting with a fleet unit right up front.

All the positives.

The negative?

He will be gone seven ish months and I will miss him and don't want him to go.

Can't compare right? I am a military wife. This is what I agreed to. It is almost petty to try and talk him out of this, that is not what we do. I just didn't think it would be happening again so soon. He was going to re-enlist, go to CID (six months on the job training then five months at school) .. then maybe deploy. I had over a year just to be with him and start our lives. By the time he deployed, in my mind, we'd have been married nearly two years. Now it may not even be a year. Or just barely.

Nothing is definite yet. He is still looking into it, investigating. Then there will be a work up for however many months then he could go.

Gosh, even the possibility just makes my stomach hurt.

Ugh.

See why the brain has been fried? I will keep you all posted, as per usual.


On a brighter note, we watched all six Harry Potter movies and are all caught up for Friday. I am bummed being a working adult means I cannot go to a midnight showing, but we are all going right after work Friday. Have tickets already too! SO excited!

Friday Fill In

Hubby has duty tonight :( May go to Happy Hour with Meghan before going to the barracks for laundry though! Tomorrow I am going to get my car inspected for damage after I got hit a few weeks ago. Then Russell and Lauren are going to meet us at Great Falls for some awesome pictures, I hope!

Enjoy the weekend!


Head over to Wife of a Sailor's Blog to join in!

Were you named after anyone?

I cannot believe I am admitting this, but Allie after the TV Sitcom from the 80s Kate & Allie. My middle name Suzanne is after my biological father's sister who died of SIDS when she was three months old... on Saint Patrick's Day. Hence the reason my extremely Irish grandparents never celebrated the holiday.

What color, if any, are your toenails usually painted?

Usually pinks in the summer (or bronze, tan, goldish) and red in the winter. They are a fun red with gold glitter now from the ball, a color called Santa Claus!

How do you flush a public toilet? Hands? Feet? Something else?

Feet! ... what would something else be???

When you were a little kid, which TV character did you have a crush on?

I never really crushed when I was a little kid, but I liked Sam from Clarissa Explains it All!!! I also liked Brad from Hey Dude.

Let’s say you had to lose one of your five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell). Which one would you choose? Why?

I have had a lot of conversations about this before... and if I really really had to lose one it would be smell. I know I would partially lose taste too, but I want to see and hear and feel more.

MilSpouse Weekly Round Up #10

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I am so excited that I got asked to host the round up this week! Especially since this is the week of the USMC Birthday and Veteran's Day, two very improtant days for many bloggers, it is even extra special! I have been doing this for quite a few weeks now and I think it is such a terrific idea. We all lead busy lives, and this is such a wonderful opportunity to post our favorite blogs from this week to share with others!

It's simple, pick your favorite entry this week that you want to share, and add it to the linky below. After you link up feel free to read the other entries shared by amazing women just like you! You may get yourselves a few new followers in the process! Link up and enjoy.

Next week head on over to Abby @ Trading Diamonds for Dogtags as she hosts the 11th MilSpouse Weekly Round Up!