(655) Pissed off

I am so sick of the army messing with my life. After a year of deployment, I just want it to stop. Last week, I had planned to visit my family 4 hours away because my sister and nephew were moving out of state. Thursday (the day before we were supposed to leave), he gets a text message from his boss saying  he has CQ (24hr duty) on Saturday. I got so pissed off. My husband is home, he's supposed to be able to do things with me instead of the army taking more of his time. He was able to trade his CQ for another person's who had it on Tuesday. We even paid this person $50 to trade since Mike's CQ was scheduled for the weekend.

Then today he sends me a  text message at work saying that he has it tomorrow. WTF. I hate things brought on me at the last minute. I'm sick of his unit's incompetence when it comes to simple things.

I can't take this anymore. I was not made to be in this life. I'm just not happy here. Ever since I moved here, I feel like I've lost myself. I don't know who I am anymore. Every day seems like the last and I'm getting frustrated.

(654) We are debt free!!!

We have paid off all of our student loans, car loan, and credit cards. Such a great feeling not to be buried under that much debt.

We started by paying off all of the higher interest debt first - credit cards, car loan, then each of the student loans. Every paycheck of his (2x month) we put $1000 into our extra loan payments account and $200 into our regular savings account. We also track everything in Quicken... we enter our receipts and itemize them so we can see exactly what we are spending, we have our bills listed so we can see when things are due.

Graph of our Net worth (March 2008 - May 2011) Green = assets; purple = liabilities; red line graph = net worth

Our next step is to save up for furniture and other things that we want/need. We're going to try not to buy things on credit. We do use our credit cards for day to day purchases, but we pay them off as soon as they appear on our account.

We are also going to start putting money in our retirement accounts.

This is such a great feeling.

(652) Easter Weekend

Friday started off a little bad. I woke up to use the bathroom and when I came back Toad was peeing on my comforter. It was 630am so we washed the comforter and bed sheets.

Toad

Mike came with me to work and hung out in town so we could just leave for there. When I got in the car, the low pressure indicator came on, so we had to figure out where to get some air. Anyway, we got that no problem and hit the road. First stop, Olive Garden near Rochester. Food was yummy as usual. :)

We then headed to my friend Heather's house, which is about 5 mins away from Olive Garden (lucky her!). We spent time with her and her son, Ben. He is such a cutie. He's about 6 months old now. He wouldn't let Mike hold him, but he kept staring at him.

Baby Ben

     

After that, we headed to the Buffalo area and spent time with my sister before heading to my dad's.

Saturday morning, we went to Dennys and had breakfast with Sarah, Heather, and Bridget, friends I have had since elementary/middle school. I was pretty sick so I could barely speak and my nose kept running, so it wasn't as fun as it could've been, but it was nice to see them again.

After that we stopped at Hall's Apple Farm. They are a local place and they have the BEST chocolate. I bought some for my nieces and nephews and myself of course. Mike got candy corn (wtf).

We went back to my sister, Chrissy's house and hung out until the girls and boys separated for lunch. Chrissy and I went to TGIFridays with my favorite Aunt Dawn and the boys (husband Mike, nephew Mike, and Al-Chrissy's husband) went to a buffet.

I took the Mike's to my other sister's house about 45mins away. We had pizza and played outside with my niece and nephew. We also gave her my old computer because she doesn't have one.

Nephew Willy and Michael

Nephew Michael and husband Mike

Later that night I took the kids to my dad's so they could see my brother. He got all pissy because they were only there for a few minutes before Chrissy picked them up.

The next morning we went to church and Mike went with me! It was nice because my sister, brother-in-law,   niece, and two nephews, and husband were all there. We said our goodbyes and went to my dad's house.

At my dad's we were waiting for dinner and my brother gets on our butts about not having a "real" wedding and how we should plan a "real" wedding and reception. I was like, I'm not spending our money and time on a "real" wedding and reception just for everyone else. I liked the way we had our wedding, it was just my dad and Heather and her husband. It was low stress and drama free. Anyway, he would just not let it go and it started to piss me off.

Soon we ate "dinner", which was more like lunch, but it was good. Ham and scalloped potatoes and a bunch of veggies. After that we hit the road back to the Rochester area and had some pizza with my friend from college, Jesse. Finally we headed back home.

All in all, it was a good trip, minus me being sick for all of it. We limited the amount of time we spent with my brother. He can be a lot to handle. Lots of driving too. It was really nice to see my family and friends who I don't get to see that often, but luckily we are in driving distance of them, so it isn't too bad.

How was your easter weekend?

(651) Heartbreaking

This has been floating around the military spouse blogs that I read.
http://misadventuresofanarmywife.blogspot.com/

I don't know her and I didn't read her blog, but a few people's blogs I do read had linked to it. It breaks my heart. I know what it's like to feel that low that you consider/attempt suicide. I've been there, many years ago. I don't know both sides, but it seems that this kind of thing is too common in the Army/military... the wife giving it all to her husband only for him to cheat on her and leave her. I've read it before and it is completely heart breaking. It just makes me sick, the things these husbands do. I hope that she gets the help she needs to rebuild her life and feel better again.

(650) Yay! I won!

I won this from Annie's giveaway at Live it. Love it (or not). Included is everything pictured below, except for the kitty, she was just interested in it. Thank you Annie!

(649) He's Home!!

My husband is home from Afghanistan for good (at least until he gets deployed again but who knows when/if that will be). For the most part he sleeps... and sleeps... but I am really glad to have him back.

(648) Is it that time already?

Homecoming is in a couple days. I'm feeling so many different things.

• Disbelief - I can't believe the deployment is over. We got lucky and it ended up only be 11 months minus 2 weeks of R&R. Maybe that's why I can't believe it. 
• Grateful - Our first/second year of marriage survived a deployment. We were only living together 4 months before he deployed, so most of our marriage has been spent apart. I'm grateful he's on the first flights out. I'm grateful to have my husband back in a few days and to just be together. 
• Happy - doesn't really need an explanation
• Scared - since most of our marriage has been spent deployed, I wonder if we'll get along being together. I'm scared we each have changed. I'm scared things wont be good. 
• Nervous - seeing him for the first time in months, being intimate again. 

I just have these moments lately where I'm overwhelmed with emotions. I've been trying to trick my mind into thinking this is a normal week, because it pretty much is until the very end. That's actually helped a lot. I've played a lot of mind tricks with myself. My favorite being vividly imagine the next day's activities, then by the time I realize it, it's the next day. 

I can't believe it. 

My husband's coming home soon!!!!

I find myself cleaning the same things over and over. This past weekend I pretty much cleaned every little thing I could think of. Of course I still live here, so things get messy again. I don't know why. He's not going to give a crap about how clean/messy/dirty the house is/isn't. He wont care if there's a sign/banner. He wont care if there's yummy food in the house. He just wants to see me. I told him that I want things to be perfect for him and to fulfill his expectations, but he's made it clear, that all he cares about is seeing me. Doesn't change the fact that I want to make sure things are perfect in my mind and that he has yummy food to eat and pretty much anything he wants when he comes back (within our budget of course). Now I need to remember what foods he likes other than the stuff I sent in care packages. 

I kind of feel like this is a dream and I'm going to wake up soon and discover the deployment just begun. If this is a dream, it's a very boring one. 

Please please God let him come home safely and without delay. Please.