Another appliance bites the dust.

Is it possible to steam clean your carpets too often?? I do it once a week, usually Saturdays but I was off today and bored. I loaded it up like I was preparing for a battle, against my carpets. So I turned it on and let it warm up a few minutes. I pulled the trigger, releasing the soap and it made this loud purring sound, only a lot less pleasant and much louder than a cat's purr. It also wasn't actually cleaning anything.
My conclusion is this: Another appliance bites the dust. I've averaged about one a month so far this deployment, so it's only fitting something else would go down for the count as we're about to start a new month.
The OCD in me feels very sad that I won't be able to clean my carpets every week anymore :( I am slightly obsessed with the smell of it being very fresh and clean.
I haven't told Ryan yet. He'll probably just laugh. I'm not good at stuff. I break things, I'm clumsy, and stuff falls apart when I touch it.
We're not even at the halfway mark yet so I'm wondering how many more things will break before he comes home! As long as I don't burn the house down, it'll be ok.

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Spring Break

For the first time in my entire college career, I'm having a real spring break. It starts tomorrow after I turn in my last assignment. I have no big plans of Cancun or Girls Gone Wild. I was thinking about painting the house but I'm going to wait, probably until May. I want it to still be fresh when Ryan comes home and I'll be done with the semester in May. I've already decided on the color I want, it's called brownstone walk up. Ryan wants to be included so I guess I'll have to do a test area and send him a picture.
Tomorrow I have an appointment to try on wedding dresses. Just for kicks, I didn't even invite my mom.( for some reason she doesn't think i'm serious about getting married in January) I'm a little worried I won't like anything, because I'm feeling so overweight right now. When I met Ryan I was down 96 pounds. Since then I've gained 25 back. I've been going to the gym recently and I was doing really well dieting...until I started baking cookies and brownies to send to Ryan. I was down 12 lbs again, but gained 5 back since I started baking and stopped keeping track of calories. I've decided since spring break is next week and I don't have any homework to do, I'm going to the gym everyday next week. Twice a day if I have to. I will live in the gym until I lose that 5 lbs again. I have to get back on track. I'm excited to be skinny again when Ryan comes home. It'll be like we just met all over again.

On another note completely off subject, I saw the Justin Bieber movie today. Don't hate. No I am not 15 but I do think he's cute and I love stories of people who made something from nothing. I even like a few of his songs. :) He definitely has a lot of talent.

7 weeks :)

It's been 7 weeks since Ryan left. I'm still doing ok I think. I went to Richmond this past weekend for the wine expo. I had planned to try on wedding dresses before coming home but ended up getting sick and spending the night in the ER. Being the hypochondriac that I am and completely obsessed with web md, I really thought I had an appendicitis, I was having extremely sharp abdominal pains. Turns out my ovary was really full and enlarged, and they recommended making an appointment with my regular doctor and scheduling another ultra sound.
Poor Ryan was completely panicked. He's had a rough week. At his annual physical, he learned he has a blister on his ear drum that's causing hearing problems. Hopefully that heals and he's not permanently deaf or he could be medically discharged. They were also unable to email because of the high security risks with the pirate/hostage situation near Somalia. According to the news they're headed for Libya now, but that hasn't been released from a military source so who knows. I've sent him a card every week, and 2 packages. I tried to space them out so he'd get something every month. Unfortunately with all the craziness he hasn't gotten any mail. When they don't follow their planned schedule of port calls it messes up the mail. He said they're supposed to be receiving over 100 pallets of mail in the next week so he'll be getting it all at the same time. Oh well.
My first class at liberty is coming to an end, it's hard to believe it's been 8 weeks already. As busy as I've been it's been hard to keep up with the cleaning the house. I read in someone else's blog about their schedule and daily maintenance. So I came up with my own schedule, so far it seems to be working. It's much less stressful to have a clean house with minimal work everyday. I am soo excited about my new classes starting in a few weeks. I am hoping to paint over the yellow and redecorate over spring break. I've decided I want tan, white and navy for the color scheme in the living/dining room. Anyone want to help paint?!?

1 month down...

 So it was a month ago today that Ryan left. I guess it's gone by pretty quickly. Aside from my forgetfulness anyway. Last Monday I baked chicken in the toaster oven at 9 am, making my lunch for the day. I got distracted, and left for work. (with my lunch but the toaster oven still on :O) When I got home I still didn't realize I'd left it on...in fact I didn't notice for about 3 hours! (when I went to use it)


This is what I said to Ryan :

So don't be mad but I accidentally left the toaster oven on all day. I've even been home for 3 hours and didn't realize it was still on. I didn't burn down the house so don't worry.

I know it's amazing how retarded I am sometimes. 

and this was his response:

OMG! OHHHH MMYYYYYY GGGGAAAAWWWDDDD!

You are really going to burn the house down, aren’t you. Anyways, I only have a sec, but I wanted to tell you that I am crazy about you and I love you and I miss you and I think about you all the time!!! I could not stop laughing “I know it's amazing how retarded I am sometimes. “

I can't believe he hasn't run after 436 days ;)

It's only been 2 weeks??

A little recap from last Sunday to Friday- either some freak in my neighborhood or a cat (I can't decide which) left a mutilated squirrel on my front porch. I have yet to clean up the remnants because 1. we don't own a shovel (I don't know what I'll do if I ever need to bury something or someone haha) and 2. I don't want to touch it or go near it. I am now paranoid and not sure I can live here alone for the rest of deployment. I know Ryan's worried. He should really be worried about the power bill...I've been sleeping with the lights on :O

 And the transmission in my car died. My car that I just got last October. That only has 59,625 miles on it. :( 

Sooo I'm driving Ryan's truck for now, which is breaking the bank over gas. It cost me 52 bucks to fill it up today!!! And that was at 2.93/gallon, the cheapest I could find. 

 I am definitely ready for this summer. Mostly because I want this semester to be over with! I'm already over it. Not to mention I've had enough of the cold weather and I'm ready to start laying out at the pool again. I plan to be skinny and tan when Ryan returns :) My goals for this summer are 1. To be black 2. Look damn good in a bikini 3. Learn to sew 

   On a brighter note, I went to my first bridal show today! I think I'm now even more confused about what I want. There's just too many choices! It was a blast. There was cake EVERYWHERE! yes, I broke my new year's resolution already and cheated. I couldn't help myself. We're talking cake here. I am very weak when it comes to cake and theres not a gluten free option. I'll be honest. I sampled about 15 different flavors. :O 

   I'm sending Ryan his first care package tomorrow. He's decided it would be fun to send each other videos. Since the ship's email blocks any kind of media over a certain amount, we're exchanging SD cards (the little thing in your camera that holds pictures/videos). When I say videos, no they are not dirty. He thinks it'll be better than email, but honestly I think mine are boring. lol. They are all "Hey, this was my day...." and "heres Gigi being crazy again..." He's sending me a video and pictures from his first port call to Portugal (that's where they were last week). I'm excited to hear all about his experiences with their green wine, and what the food was like. I'm sure he has a lot more exciting things to tell than I did. He's been hinting around about snickerdoodles, so I'm going to include a batch of those too. We'll see how well they hold up in the mail for a week or so. 

  I found a farm in Ohio that makes jam, and all sorts of other goodies. So for his next care package, I ordered some gooseberry jam (his favorite) and boysenberry jam (since I ate all of it). He thinks I'm nuts for eating it with a spoon but I have a feeling he'll be doing the same. 

  I'm not sure how this post turned out to be about food after beginning with a dead squirrel, but regardless now I'm hungry and it's too late to eat :( Guess that means I should stop procrastinating and write my paper and go to bed!

4 Days In

    I'm still feeling good. Even though the blender blew up today, and I can't figure out how the heck to get the apple tv connected to my itunes, I'm still feeling good. I know Ryan's feeling homesick already, but I'm confident this deployment is just going to breeze by. I have no doubt we'll be a stronger couple for it. I'm so excited about the future and when he comes home, I'm not sure how I'm going to find the focus to get anything done!
   My classes start tomorrow and I'm really excited to be starting classes online. I think it'll make my life so much easier, I can do them whenever I feel like it. I am so ready to be done with school and move on with the rest of my life.
 On another note, I've been looking at paint colors. I told Ryan before he left to take a good look around, because it was going to be completely different when he came back. I'm really looking forward to selling this house and Ryan and I have a place that's really ours. Meaning we picked it out together. I will NEVER live in a condo again. I really hate not having a fenced in yard for Gigi to run around in, or even a yard period. I hate the Condo Association and the Home Owners Association here. Between the two of them, we can't plant flowers, not allowed to have a storm door, not allowed to have anything other than the ugly white vertical blinds, not allowed to power wash the house (it seriously has cob webs), and the list goes on and on.

It's a brand new year.

Last year was one of the best years of my life. I am kind of sad to see it go but definitely excited about the coming year. I usually break New Years Resolutions, so I'm hesistant to make any. However I do want to stay active, get healthy, feel comfortable in a bathing suit this summer (if that's even possible!), and maintain a 3.5 GPA. Maybe if I don't refer to them as resolutions, they will come true. So we'll call those my short term goals.
On another note, we took down the Christmas tree today. My house has officially been "undecorated." This makes me a little sad,it's my favorite time of year afterall. It's only 313 days until I can decorate again :) yes that would mean I put my tree up on veterans day. A month just isn't long enough to celebrate Christmas. I like to decorate early. I am already thinking about next Christmas, and getting a REAL tree. I think we should have one upstairs (Ryan's artificial heartfelt, meaningfully decorated tree) and downstairs in the kitchen will be my pretty tree.
This past Christmas was pretty amazing. Ryan and I flew out to California to spend it with his family. I discovered I don't like flying, Ryan's mom makes the best potato salad I've ever had, I learned how to make tamales, and realized we will have really well-behaved children or they won't be able to sit down. I'm not sure how we'll top it next year but we'll see :)
I am really looking forward to the future and spending the next year with Ryan .