I Am Woman

Morning, all! Hope you had a grand day! Mine was filled with ups and downs, like normal :) That's normal, right? Although I don't often get accused of being normal... ha!

So I woke up at 6:30am. I didn't want to wake up at 6:30am. I wanted to wake up at 6:55 am. Well, really, if we're telling the truth, I wanted to wake up at 10:00am. But that's not in the cards. Anyway, the smoke detectors upstairs were freaking out again. And the dog awas freaking out because of them. He whines when they go off. And the kids were fighting about who had to turn them off. You just push a button on the smoke detector that's freaking out, and the whole series goes off. But if you push the wrong one, then nothing changes, and every smoke detector in the house continues to go off. SO not cool.

Anyhow, we couldn't figure out which one was going off. The little kids' room (that used to be Jake's room) upstairs, or the hallway upstairs, or Tom's room. I eventually took out the batteries, hoping it would help. Yeah, apparently Smoke Detectors now a days work WITHOUT batteries. Because after about 10 minutes, it started going off again. Really? Sigh.

So I put the batteries back in, and now, it only does one short beep ever 2-5 minutes. Not great, but hey, they don't set off the whole chain reaction of smoke detectors, right? I need to put in a work order, I guess. Cause I really don't know which one is freaking out... And I don't wanna be woken up from my remaining 15 minutes of sleep by an annoying alarm...

Anyhoo, I got kids off to the bus at 7:00 am, and then again at 7:30am. And then got ready to take Jim to child care. I had him there between 8:00-8:15. Can't remember exactly what time it was. Then I headed directly to the pool. Kari and I were swimming laps.

And I was SO proud of myself for sticking it out. And swimming the full mile. 16 full laps. I was SO gonna quit at 8. But forced myself on to 10. Then to 12. And if I made it to 12, I might as well do 4 more, and be at a full mile. Little steps, right?

I headed back to the childcare place, and looked real special.

Yeah, I took the goggles off. But still had on the swim suit, the hoodie, and the towel around my waist, with my zebra flip flops. Super professional, I know... Other moms were in there, dropping off their kids so they could go to work. And looked nice. And here I come in my towel. ROFL! I really have no pride.... ha!


See, my towel. hehe. I got Jim, and headed back home. He LOVED playing there today, and was all excited about having breakfast there too - ha! He's SO my kid! Friends, food, and fun, right?

I hopped in the shower when I got home, and washed away all the chlorine, and got pretty. And Facebooked in between make up and hair and clothes. And then noticed that Captain America was online (he was Facebook commenting) and Skyped him that I had to take Jim to school, but that I'd be back a little after 11am. And off I went to get Jim on the bus.

And I came back, and Captain America and I chatted for about an hour. And, for all of you ladies that have been through a deployment, you know that it's hard. That expectations are tricky. From what I've heard from ALL of my friends that have gone through a deployment, there has been stress over communication. When and how often, and such. It's hard to get it lined up, what with time differences, and schedules, and what not. While, of course, I'd like to be able to talk with Captain America each and every day, I have to continue to do my thing here. To do the things that will keep me going.

Anyway, we got into a little tiff over things like that. About scheduling and responding to emails and time frames and such. And I totally see where he's coming from. It must be hard to be away from family, and to have no one there to depend on, and to use your free time to trying to stay caught up with "home". And I'm sure it's frustrating to feel that the other person isn't doing that.

I hope that he can see my point, too, though. That I need to keep busy. That he's my best friend, and that I miss him terribly. And that dwelling on the fact that he's gone will make me sad. And lonely. And I don't wanna slip into sad and lonely. So I need to stay busy. We just need to come to a better balance. I'm gonna try REALLY hard to respond MUCH faster to emails. That's the best way to daily communicate with him. Not the most continent for me, but I'm willing to do it! Because, I want him to know how important he is to me. And how much I love him. And how much I miss him.

Anyway, at the time, the conversation didn't end well, and we both ended up just getting off of Skype. And yeah, then I felt like crap. I knew that my friends had been through deployments before, so I turned to them for advice. And Terra, since her hubby was on leave, had time to come and "pick me up" and we went to lunch. At Carlos and Mickeys! Here's me, waiting outside of my front door, to go to lunch.

YES! Carlos and Mickeys!

This is my "hmprf, I hate fighting" face...

Carlos and Mickey's is just RIGHT outside the gate, and is always busy. Luckily, we'd missed the lunch rush, and were seated right away. Check out the HUGE chips. And the salsa wasn't even spicy today. Score! hehe :)


Part of the reason that Carlos and Mickey's is one of my favorites is that they have DDP (Diet Dr Pepper). ALWAYS a nice perk! Today, though, they brought it to us in mason jars. SO strange! I've been to Carlos & Mickeys between 10-12 times, and NEVER have we had mason jars.... Amanda told me that she went there once, and they did that. I wonder if they ran out of glasses? hehe.

Terra told me that she was gonna keep up with my DDP consumption today....

Final Score: Terra -2 , Bethany -4. Yeah, I win!

Here's my Beef Sombrero Bowl

And Terra's chicken one. Both were hold the guac

She had a little sword on her salad, so, of course, I had to take it, and pose with it - hehe.
We had a real nice lunch, and chatted about deployments. It's SO nice living on post, having friends who have been through the same things that I'm going through now. To know that what we're thinking/feeling/experiencing is "normal". I think that was the hardest part about living in Florence with my family back when Captain America was in trainings. No one really "got" it. They hadn't been in the same situation that I was in. It's SO nice living in the Army Community.

Anyway, she dropped me back off at home, and I sat outside in the sunshine for a little bit. SO nice today! I designed a weeks worth of freebies, and then it was time to go and get Jim from the bus. See where I parked??? ha!


We came back home, and waited for the other kids to start filing in. Jake came at 3:30pm, and the others came at 4:00pm. At 4:10pm, Jake and Boxer and I headed to the truck, leaving Tom in charge. The kids were to stay inside the house, and watch TV. Easy, simple. I knew Tom could handle it - hehe. No chores until I got back home, too. They were all pretty excited :)

And we headed to the Vet. Boxer needed his round 2 & 3 of heartworm treatment. Tomorrow we got back for #3. Anyway, we drove on over to the Humane Society, and went inside. And had to wait about 15 minutes for our turn. And Boxer was going NUTS trying to get at the cats. The had 2 cats in a cage over by the main desk, and he wanted to GET them. I don't wanna think what he would have done had he actually gotten one...

Finally, Jake had to sit on the floor with him, to keep him calm. He was breathing SUPER hard. That's what dogs do when they get excited, right? I'm dog oblivious, you know....

And then it was our turn. The Vet and the tech said that Boxer looked really good, all healthy and muscular and stuff. Awe, at least we seem to be doing what we're supposed to for him, right? Again, pet clueless...

The Vet said that the heartworm treatment was SUPER scarce, and this batch had come from England. Dang! They were rationing it out, and it was hard to find. Well, I'm glad that we got some for Boxer!

We also found out that he needed to be doing little to no exercise/excitement. Oops. Because of the heartworm meds. Apparently the drugs kill the heartworms, and if he does too much exercise or such, a chunk might break loose, and he could keel over dead from it. Um, yeah, not good! I didn't know that! Sorry, Boxer, for almost exercising you to death!!!

The Vet said to lay off the exercise/excitement for about a month, and he should be good to go. Then we'll just do heartworm preventative meds. Sounds good to me!

The Tech dude held Boxer still, and the Vet injected 2 different shots into Boxers back. He took it SUPER well. The Vet said that it might make Boxer sleepy. And thirsty. Or not. Each animal reacts differently to the meds.
We headed back home, and had a nice, relaxing evening. The kids all did chores, then had free time. I helped Jake clean up the backyard, and we got a TON of trash picked up. The wind blows SO hard here, that it's tricky to stay on top of blowing trash - hehe.

It looked SO much better. And we watered the grass a little bit. It's already starting to get a tad bit green. We just turn it on for 3-5 minutes. Maybe not even that long...

Jake went to play at the neighbor kids house for the evening, and Joe and Jim played outside for the longest time.

At 7pm, the kids were all inside (minus Jake), and the little kids were in the process of going to bed. I left Tom in charge of himself and Eme (and the almost sleeping little boys), and I went to Kohl's (right outside the gate in the mall) with Amanda.

She had some clothes to return, and we looked around for a little bit. Then went to the Jewelry Box. Nice bow, huh?I found to hair clips that I liked, and then we headed to Target. I wanted to get some Contact Cleaner stuff that a blog reader had told me about. Something about a 3% peroxide solution. Yeah, I don't remember exactly. Probably should have read it a bit clearer. But I think I ended up finding what I needed. hehe. I got a few other things, and we headed out.

And, to finish the night off right, we stopped at Howdys on the way home. My treat!!! I got the 64 oz-er, and she got the 44 oz-er :)

I got home, and put Eme and Tom and Jake to bed. Jake figured out that he wasn't gonna be able to go to the youth center tomorrow because of Boxer and some school activities, and had a melt down. But it was a short one, and he came back right away, recognizing what had happened, and asked for a do-over. So I gave him one. And he was much more calm. And rational. I'm hoping that this might work... If I can just get him to catch himself BEFORE the meltdown, right? But then, the same can be said for ALL of us, right???

Poor Boxer has been real sleepy all evening long. And he puked once. But it was just water and grass. Poor thing. I hope that he's feeling a lot better when he wakes up in the morning...

It's now just after 11pm. And I'm sleepy. And I'm gonna go to bed. And hope that the smoke detectors play nicely....

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the pNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. thanks!

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Sharon, my dear, I ABSOLUTELY love this page!!! LOVE the kit, too! This is SO my kind of kit. All the flowers, and the colors. Yeah, JUST what I look for in a kit - hehe. Love me some flowers :)