Allergic to Washington?

Is it possible to be allergic to an entire state? I've been pondering this the past few months. Mainly because ever since Cpl D and I moved up here I have managed to get one bout of illness after another. I have honestly spent more time at Madigan Army Medical Center in 8 months than I have at any other hospital in my whole life, and as my family can attest to, that is darn impressive. I have been hospitalized for migraines, sinus infections, colds, and today I was informed that I most likely have pneumonia. So if it is at all possible to be allergic to a state, I think I may quite possibly be allergic to this one. It is either that or I am just so homesick for California that my body is attacking itself from the inside and will do so until Cpl D manages to get himself stationed in California. If that is indeed that case, I am in serious trouble as there are only a few duty stations in California and none of them have his MOS at them...

On another note, history was made last night and as a history major I just have to mention it on my blog. This country has nominated an African American man to run on a major political party ticket. It was an exciting night for our country and I can't wait to see what happens in November, both as a citizen of the United States and as an Army Wife, seeing as the person who is elected will be my husbands new boss.

Lazy Days...

Cpl D and I usually start our days pretty early on the weekends. We are usually up before 8 and moving, getting things done, but not yesterday. We didn't get up until well after 9:30 am, which is probably the latest we have ever slept in and the day just kind of snowballed from there. On Saturday night we had rented a movie, "I Am Legend" with Will Smith, and we didn't finish the candy we got to go with our movie, so we actually had candy for breakfast. (My mother would be so ashamed of me right now.) Cpl D had Junior Mints and a Hostess Cherry Pie and I ate half a box of Red Vines. We then spent the rest of the morning and much of the afternoon packing our apartment, doing army correspondence courses and I ate lunch - much healthier tortellini and chicken as compared to the candy for breakfast, Cpl D never had lunch. We didn't even manage to take showers until 3:30 in the afternoon. It was probably our laziest day ever, even though as far as the packing goes we got a lot accomplished.

We now have a veritable barricade of boxes going through our living room. The cats are so confused, the know what boxes are at this point, having gone through enough moves by now, but the last time they didn't move with the boxes, they moved 2 months later, so they don't have a clue what's going on. On the upside, with the exception of our clothes - which aren't getting packed, and our kitchen - which is the last thing getting packed, we are done packing. That is a nice sense of relief, considering how long it took to pack last time.

The Deal

You make this deal with yourself when you marry someone in the military, their career comes first. Usually it is because you don’t really have a choice, you got married really young, right out of high school, neither one of you really had an education or a skillset and the army guaranteed a life. It guaranteed housing, food, medical benefits, a pension if you lasted 20 years, and a salary that covered all your expenses if you lived modestly enough. If you are like me, you got married in your mid-twenties, you already had a pretty decent career going, and your husband was looking at making the military his career. You figured, 17 more years in the military would not be so bad and with your college degree and the skills you had already acquired working for nine years in the corporate world, getting a job anywhere would be a relatively easy process…that is until you got to your first military town, during a recession. The closest and best jobs are more than 50 miles away and while you get 1-2 job interview offers a day you can’t afford the gas, the commute or the time away from your marriage, even if you landed the job (and job title of your dreams). It comes down to sacrifice. You have to be willing to put it all on the line for your spouses career. As everyone keeps reminding you, you did sign up for this. You no longer live in Silicon Valley where there are job opportunities around every corner. You need to figure out how to make it work. Someone spent $150k on your education, they thought you were smart enough to invest that much money in you, prove them right and figure out how to make this work. Figure out how to “have it all”. The job, the husband, and the happiness you deserve.

Pushed Too Far

Cpl D and I have officially been pushed too far by our neighbors and we are moving. Unfortunately, we are not moving out of our complex, just out of our building and to a different building on the complete opposite end of the complex.

This blog is titled "Newlywed Adventures in the Army" and sometimes I feel as though I don't spend enough time talking about the army aspect of our newlywed adventures. Well, let me elaborate a little. The army doesn't tell us where to live, but they have this program called the "Rental Partnership Program (RPP)" where they are essentially "in bed" with Equity Residential Properties and they offer a 5% discount on rent, no deposit fees and if the person in the military is deployed you are offered the ability to easily break your lease. Equity also manages all of the on-post housing as well. As I said the Army and Equity truly are "in bed" with one another and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some form of kickbacks occurring on both sides.

We were led to believe that by becoming part of this program that the army would be our advocates if we had problems with the complex, especially if the problems involved other RPP residents. Boy were we wrong! Not only are they NOT our advocates, but they actually side with the rental property on everything, as though the fact that we have gone to both the rental property and the army on numerous occasions with complaints regarding noise violations and now property damage was not enough. Somehow we should have done more.

The worst part of all of this is that our lease isn't up until November 4, 2008 and we are stuck here until we get orders moving us somewhere else OR we are willing to pay 1.5 times our current rent to break our lease. The Army has proven that it isn't willing to go to bat for its soldiers and their families, and that they would rather protect their business partner. I feel totally violated, and the worst part is that there is nothing I can do about it. Come November we will be looking for a different rental property, not associated with the Army or Equity, and if we can manage we will be looking to rent a house so that we do not have to worry about sharing walls with rude, inconsiderate, childish neighbors.

I guess you could say...that I/we have been pushed too far!

Good weekend, gone bad...

Our Memorial Day Weekend started out kinda rocky...at least weather wise. We decided that we were going to head down to see Mt. St. Helen's, after all, we live in Washington, we figured we should see the Volcano that caused one of the largest natural disasters of our time. It poured rain the whole way down to the National Park, we were really hopeful that it would go away the further south we went, but no, it followed us all the way to the Monument. We finally got to Highway 504 and went to the 4 different visitor centers along the route ending at Johnston's Point. During a presentation by a very knowledgeable park ranger we learned that the mountain was only visible 140 days a year...go figure we visited on one of the 225 days per year when the mountain is not visible.

We went to bed trying to figure out what we would do on Saturday, we were thinking of heading back up to Olympia to go to the Farmers Market again or maybe heading up to Lacey to go to the spring fair. However, Saturday morning we woke up to a gorgeous sunny day, quite uncommon in Washington. We drove back up to Johnston's Ridge (skipping all the other visitor centers this time) and enjoyed the most beautiful view of the mountain. About an hour later, we headed down to the valley and went on the Hummocks Trail. A Hummock is a mound of earth caused by a debris avalanche, the ones we walked through used to be part of Mt. St. Helen's, now they are part of the valley floor. Our hike started out with beautiful sun, and by the end of the hike it had begun to trickle rain, as we got into the car it was a torrential downpour, and absolutely awesome to the weather turn so quickly.

Sunday was very relaxing. We celebrated the fact that one year ago on Memorial Day Weekend, Cpl D and I officially got engaged by going out to dinner. We what used to be one of our favorite restaurants, Sea Grill. We will not be going back. The food was wonderful, but the service left so much to be desired, that we feel next time we would rather spend our money and time elsewhere.

Monday is where the weekend all went downhill. We went grocery shopping and discovered that we had been the victims of a hit and run. My Rav4 had a bunch of paint damage to the passenger side rear panel and the best part was that it turned out that our next door neighbor is the person who hit us. I hit rock bottom with our complex. Cpl D and I just didn't feel safe living here anymore. Today though, we talked to our complex and they are offering to allow us to move to another apartment in a different building. Our rent will go up a little, but at least we will be away from the neighbors on both sides of us that have been nothing but nightmares since we moved in. I hope everyone else had a better weekend than we did.

Baking

I really do love to bake, don't get me wrong, I love to cook too, but baking makes other people happy and as I seldom eat what I bake, I love that what I bake makes other people happy. When I was down in California last month, my mom gave me a new book called Cookies, by Martha Stewart. Last week I made the Snicker Doodles from the book and as they didn't have chocolate in them I actually partook of a couple and they were quite delicious. Today I am making the chocolate chip cookies from the book, sadly I will not be trying any, as I do not want to tempt the migraine fates. I will have to wait until Cpl D gets home to find out if they are any good, but from the first batch to come out of the oven they are the right color and they smell divine :)

Since I haven't been working (one whole week now) I have baked cookies a total of four times. Once for Cpl D because he had duty and I always like to bake for him and the other soldiers he is on duty with. I figure it is the least I can do for the guys when they have to stay up for 36 hours straight. I baked peanut butter and chocolate cookie for a soldier friend of Cpl D's that is stationed in Korea and I also baked oatmeal cookies for a soldier friend of ours that is stationed in Iraq (I'm friends with his wife).

I swear if I could find a way to make money off of my baking and photography I would be a very happy woman. If you can figure out a way, let me know :)

Learning Photoshop

So for the first time since I bought a digital camera (2.5 years ago) I am finally bothering to learn Photoshop. I took a digital photography class last year, but I didn't actually learn photoshop, I have always relied on just being able to take a good picture. The book that was required for my class was Real World Digital Photography by Katrin Eismann, Sean Duggan, and Tim Grey, but to be honest I never actually opened it until now.


I spent about three hours yesterday learning how to insert layers and play around with the coloring, the hue & saturation, the color balance, the contrast and a million other things yesterday. Unfortunately, I am working with a really old version of Photoshop, version 7, but for now it will do.


I worked on two photos, one that I took back in 2006 at the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco, and the other that I took this past weekend at the Rhododendron Gardens in Federal Way, WA.

Here is the orignal photograph before any photoshopping:

Here is the photograph after I spent a couple hours playing with it:

Here is the original Fern Photograph:





Here is the finished Fern Photograph (this one I was able to do a lot quicker, b/c I was more familiar with Photoshop):

Washington State Capital

Today Cpl D and I went to Olympia, WA, the state Capital of Washington. It was another beautiful day and we just couldn't be couped up inside. We went down to the wharf and to the Farmers Market which is open May through September, Thursday thru Sunday. It was the perfect day for a farmers market.

After we went to the Farmers Market, and picked up a loaf of cinnamon bread (can't wait for breakfast tomorrow) we drove up to the state capital building where we discovered they were giving free tours of the capital building and joined in on one.

One thing that I personally found highly disappointing was the fact that there were several war memorials there, which was very nice to see, however, none of them had been well kept over the years. You could hardly read half of the inscriptions or any of the names. I found it to be really disrespectful, and it brought me back to Berkeley, CA. Everyone up here in Washington compares Olympia to Berkeley and for the first time it really felt true to life.

Oh yeah, and I just discovered a really lovely sunburn to go along with the beautiful weekend of sun that we had. It was well worth it though. Here is a picture to let you know what color my shoulders are right now :)

Rhododendron Gardens

Today it actually felt like summer in Washington. In fact we have had two summer like days in a row. It has been rather amazing. Cpl D and I decided to get out and enjoy some of this gorgeous weather and take some photographs, so we headed up to Federal Way, WA, which is located between Tacoma and Seattle to the Rhododendron Gardens. It was so gorgeous there, although, totally hot and a little uncomfortable due to the fact that there wasn't so much as even a little breeze, but beggars can't be choosers and I'm thrilled to death with the beautiful weather we are having.

I used our wonderful Nikon D80 in an effort to start working on building a true portfolio of the artwork that I love to do, Nature Scene, and Cpl D used our little PhD camera. Here are a couple of pics that I shot.

A view of the Ferns (looking down)

The most beautiful blue I've seen in nature...

More pics will be available on my Google Picasso account once I go through and work on somethings. I am really going to be working hard these next few weeks and months on getting together a marketable portfolio. Wish me luck!

Bad Blogger...

I seem to be suffering from a somewhat incurable case of Bad Blogger. I know it has been more than two weeks since my last post, and so much has happened since then. To start with, this past Tuesday I quit my job. I did this for a lot of reasons, the most important of which was that it really wasn't working out, the company I was working for just wasn't really ready for a full on Marketing program and all that entails. I thought that we would all be better off if I left, and I was right. I am now looking for work, and I will probably temp in the meantime, if anyone knows of any companies hiring in the Tacoma, WA area, let me know.

Other than that, Cpl D has finally selected the job that he wants to do in the Army and now we are filling out Top Secret clearance forms and waiting for everyone in our lives to be checked out so that he can find out if he can do this job. If he can, we may or may not be moving again. I am voting for the move. If nothing else, he will certainly be leaving for 5 months of training in Arizona if he does get the job, because that is where AIT is, I would personally love to get stationed in Arizona, right by Tucson.

I have decided that while I look for a job I am going to start re-focusing on my photography and really trying to figure out a way to sell it and make some sort of an income off of it. If anyone has any ideas or knows what I need to do, please let me know, as I am definitely new to this area.

I hope all my readers are well.

Here is a little something that I saw the other day in the town I live in and it should lift anyone's spirits and truly make you believe that there really are people out there willing to go the extra mile:

Love it or hate it

I am beginning to realize that I'm going to either have to love the army or hate it. There really is no in between. Not at this point. The army is in every aspect of our lives. We schedule our vacations around it, our weekend trips around it, doctors appointments around it, basically we schedule our lives around the army and the people who lead it and can arbitrarily decide whether or not we can do the things we want/need to do. I never realized that by marrying Cpl D that I too had joined the army. I mean, I knew my life had changed, but I didn't realize that we were essentially going to have to ask his command permission for everything. Permission to visit my parents, permission to go to the doctor, permission to have surgery, permission to go on vacation and for the location we want, permission to re-enlist and when we re-enlist permission to re-enlist for the 25 crappiest or most dangerous jobs in the army. The army controls everything, and from what I have noticed, the more you try to deny it, the more they take over your life.

Early morning wake up call...

Cpl D is basically a poorly paid baby sitter sometimes, and I have to admit that at times it drives me a little crazy. I have been sick all week, and this morning he had to get up at 4:15 am to be at work by 5:30am. Believe me, I don't envy him. He is so sweet though, he always gives me a kiss good-bye in the morning before he leaves, although most mornings I am up already when he leaves. This morning though, I was still passed out because I am still sick, trying to recover in time for a minor surgical procedure I am having next week. At 4:59am Cpl D's cell phone started to vibrate and it immediately woke me up and in an effort to get to it, as he was out of the room, I banged my head into the corner of the wall, so hard in fact that I still have an indentation. I hate starting my day like that. Now I am trying to concentrate and work, neither of which is easy with the splitting headache that I have...

Another example of life in the army, early morning wake up calls.

Facebook

It's official, I'm on Facebook. I've had an account for a while now, not that I've actually done anything with it, but last night Cpl D got one, and this morning I had a friend request from him and one of his friends. Then I started to play around a little. Imagine my surprise at all the people I found on there. People I haven't spoken to since high school are on there, people I have searched and searched for on Myspace but never found are on Facebook. So now I am on both, Myspace and Facebook. I'm sure for now that I will stick with both. I have already reconnected with a really good friend from college and a couple of really good friends from high school, and even a couple of Cpl D's friends. I put a couple of pictures up and we will see where this goes. I know after I graduated from college I dropped off the face of the planet, but now that I have moved out of my home state, I am beginning to realize just how important community is, and I need to rebuild mine, even if everyone in it is 800+ miles away.

Embrace the Suck

Embrace The Suck. That is what you are supposed to do in the Army when something sucks, like the weather or the overall situation. You are supposed to embrace and deal with it. We went to a battery BBQ on Friday for Cpl D's Battery Commander who is leaving this week for an appointment to go teach at West Point and to get his second Masters Degree. I guess you could say the guy is pretty intelligent. For those of you who don't live in Washington, let me give you a glimpse into our Spring so far this year: Rain, Sleet, Snow, Hail, and Sunshine (for about 10 min at a maximum of 45 degrees). During the BBQ we experienced each of these variations of weather. The guys in the battery kept saying "Embrace the Suck". I kept thinking to myself, can't we just go somewhere warm and inside before we all get sick. Now I'm not sure about that "we all" part, but I know one thing is for sure, I am definitely sick. I guess I didn't "Embrace the Suck," and to be honest I have no plans to so in the future either. The only way I am going to a BBQ in the future is if it is a minimum of 85 degrees out and there is no rain, sleet, snow or hail in the forecast!

Army Whiplash

I am now suffering from a severe case of Army Whiplash, or at least that is what I am going to call it. Not 20 minutes after I posted my blog yesterday did Cpl D call me and tell me that 31B was already filled and it wasn't going to happen. In a matter of 24-hours the army had already turned him down. What I really don't understand, and what I really truly want someone to explain to me, and not one of my readers (sorry, but I want an answer from the army this time), is why are they making it so damn hard for someone who genuinely wants to stay in the army to stay in the army? Every time he finds a job that is open, they close, every time he finds a job that he is interested in, nope he doesn't have the right outside the army training (which by the way isn't even listed on the goarmy.com website). It is downright frustrating and to be perfectly frank it is starting to piss me off. For an organization that is having trouble reaching its enlistment goals, let alone its re-enlistment goals, you think they would work a little harder with the soldiers to make sure that they stay in. All this is doing is making us want to finish up the next year and get the hell out. We are not going to do that because that isn't part of our "plan" but it is certainly starting to rub me the wrong way.

I will do my best to keep you posted on Cpl D's re-enlistment and job change status, and in the meantime I am going to schedule myself a massage for my severe case of whiplash!

Things change fast...roll with the punches!

I received a phone call yesterday while I was at work, Cpl D is going from 13M to 68T to 31B. For all of you non-military folk who read my blog that translates thus: 13M is a Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS/HIMARS) crew member - Cpl D's current MOS. 68T is an Animal Care Specialist - which is what Cpl D wanted to do, but it turns out you need to have vocational training for before you even can be considered for the MOS. 31B is Military Police - which is hopefully what Cpl D will be approved to do by the DOD. Things change fast in our lives, so fast that sometimes I don't know what page I'm on. If you can't keep up, I don't really blame you.

We should find out by May 15th if Cpl D has been approved to go to 31B AIT (Advanced Individual Training), which will consist of 12 weeks of training in Missouri. This means I will be home alone, with the attack cats, yet again. The nice thing about 31B, if he is approved and gets through all of the training, is that all military bases have Military Police units, this opens up our choice of duty stations to a lot more options. Who knows we could even end up in Europe.

Go GIANTS!

I'm at home right now, in the bright, sunny, warm, and DRY state of California visiting my wonderful parents for the weekend. Last night I had a W family Spring/Summer tradition for dinner - frozen yogurt, don't knock it till you've tried it. It really hit the spot when I got off the plane and immediately started to sweat. I guess I have finally gotten accustomed to the 30 and 40 degree weather we have every day in Washington, so pretty much anything California could throw at me was going to feel warm.

My morning today started out so wonderfully. I woke up around 8:30, visited with my parents and ran to the Farmer's Market with my mom. Then dad and I went up to the San Francisco Giants game against the St. Louis Cardinals. We took the train up, seeing as I've never actually taken taken the train to a ballgame before it was fun. The game was a pitcher's battle until the bottom of the 6th when the Giants scored 5 runs in the inning. It was starting to look like the Giants were going to run away with the game, but alas, they blew it in extra innings.

While at the game my dad and I did manage to find something that I have been wanting for a very long time, which I am very very excited about. We bought me an "I See Orange People" t-shirt. I have wanted one of these ever since they came out, which I believe was about 5 or 6 years ago the last time they were in the running for the World Series. We also got Cpl D a really cool retro blue t-shirt that I think he will really like too.

I must be off as we are about to go have dinner at one of my favorite Bay Area restaurants, Central Park Bistro, on 4th Ave in San Mateo. If you are ever in San Mateo, CA I highly recommend it.

Our First Field Problem

Cpl D just got home from his first field problem since we got married. He spent 10 days in Yakima, which is high desert in Washington, babysitting a radio living and off of less than 4.5 hours of sleep broken up into 2 and 2.5 hour chunks a day. I stayed home with the cats and was pretty much lonely the whole time. My parents were great, they talked to me every night, even on the nights when I'm pretty sure they wanted nothing more than to just eat dinner and veg out, they kept me company. I read three books, watched re-run tv and several DVDs to keep myself busy. It still felt like a good portion of my life came crashing down...sorry faithful readers, but I will not discuss what aspects came crashing down out of respect for my family and also because I have brought some of the issues to the army, and I'm not really sure I can discuss them on my blog.

Cpl D's homecoming was great. We had a pizza dinner on Thursday night, he got home far too late to cook. We have spent the past 72 hours doing nothing but laundry. Every single item from boots to back packs to socks to sleeping bags had to be washed. Not to mention regular laundry. We have tripped our circuit breaker at least 6 times, we have had to give one cat a bath due to his personal health issues (we actually felt really bad for him), and we still need to vacuum up all of the Yakima dust that Cpl D brought home with him in his ruck sack, duffel bag and back pack. While he was there some of the most immature hi jinks I have ever heard of occurred, and let me tell you, I'm glad he is in the army and not me, with my temperament, I know I would not survive.

I am so glad he is home. I missed him dearly, and I am not looking forward to his upcoming temporary duty assignment to White Sands, New Mexico which has been pushed back to sometime this summer. I am looking forward to Cpl D working on his correspondence courses, making his sergeant, and looking for a new MOS so we can get out of this unit!

Welcome to the Army

Well, for the first time since he came home from Germany in October, I am going to bed alone and Cpl D isn't going to be coming home in the morning. He is in Yakima, Washington, in the field for 10 days of training. It is cold, rainy and snow is expected on Thursday there, and he has already text messaged me once informing me that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong, and they only left 12 hours ago. I am not that lonely yet, after all I have my attack cats, Patches and Paws, to keep me company, and so far they are doing a great job. Both of them are on herbal pep up supplements (as I have to put it in their communal water bowl) and let me tell you, it is amazing, they are like different animals, I am tempted to try a little myself - don't worry it is for humans too.

I am trying to think of ways to keep myself busy until Cpl D returns so I don't get too down while he is gone, so far I have purchased two new novels that I intend to read, I'm going to try one new recipe that I know he will not eat and I really want to, and I am considering getting a massage this weekend seeing as Friday is my payday, but we shall see how everything pans out. I am going to be a pathetic girl and do what I did for the 4 months between when I saw him in May and when he came home to me in October, I am sleeping with his Notre Dame sweatshirt, it gives me comfort and frankly that is all that matters, I don't care if it makes me a little pathetic, so long as I'm not crying myself to sleep or anything. Besides this is a good test for White Sands, which is supposed to be for an entire month...eeek!

Busy Busy Busy

Cpl D and I have been super busy the past couple of weeks and it does not help that I was struck down with a nasty sinus infection that sapped all my strength and made me miss 4 days of work (luckily I can work from home). To say the least, yet again, I have been a bad blogger. Let me catch you up on what has been going on in our lives, the three second update. Cpl D turned 24 last week. We didn't really celebrate too much though because I was really quite sick although I was able to surprise him with dinner reservations for this past Sunday night in Seattle at the restaurant on top of the Space Needle. He was, needless to say, really excited because he has been wanting to go back and had really wanted to try the restaurant there. The above picture is the two of us all dolled up for dinner. I think we look pretty cute.



We spent the afternoon in Seattle, going to Pike's Place Market to buy my dad some Turkish Delight (I now know why he didn't share the last time he was here...adult food my foot! It is just yummy and he didn't want to share any!). We wandered the market trying to find a unique gift for Cpl D's father who has a birthday approaching soon. Then we headed over to the Seattle Center and the Space Needle where we were lucky enough to catch an amazing view of the Space Needle at sun down. We had an amazing dinner in the revolving restaurant at the top of the needle, where, over the course of two hours we made two full revolutions and enjoyed a complete view of the Seattle skyline.


For the other big news going on in our lives, I can only provide limited details, and for that I am sorry. I will, however, tell you all that I know at this point in time. Cpl D has decided to re-enlist, for those of you who are hearing about this for the first time by reading about it on the blog, I'm sorry, please feel free to call us and yell at us, but the decision was only made on Thursday evening of last week. He has also decided to change careers within the army, and has picked Military Police, or 31B, as his new MOS. The Advanced Individual Training (AIT) for this MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) is 3 months and takes place in Missouri. I will not go with him for the three month training, but will remain behind in Washington and continue to work. We do not know when he will get a school date, although we are hoping for April, so that it will not interfere with our October "Honeymoon" plans in Hawaii. Sorry all, but I do not have any more details than that. I will try to blog more regularly this month, as I know I have been a bad blogger recently.