It wasn't too long ago that I was last in Europe. It's starting to seem like an eternity ago, though! DH, so far, has never left the United States, and although his first trip outside the US will be to Iraq, we've already started semi-planning a 6 month Europe stint which in the near future I'll have to start budgeting for, for when he gets out of the Marine Corps in 2011. I know it sounds like forever away... but we're looking forward to it irregardless!
Anyhow, I was flipping through my lovely travel snaps of Europe and it's occured to me that I really need to start learning how to expand my European cooking skills! I'm a master at most Pan-Asian dishes, fabulous at the basic British/Australian fare, and getting better at good old American down-home cooking and baking as well. But aside from westernized Spaghetti and Pizza, European delicacies I admittedly haven't attempted. So, that in mind, I'm going to begin collecting recipes of wonderful dishes I remember tasting on my travels.
And first of all, I'm traveling (virtually!) to Spain for some Tapas!
-Ajillo Mushrooms
-Pinchitos Morunos
-Pa amb Oli
-Patatas Bravas
-Tocinillo de Cielo
Take a while to peruse the rest of the Spain Recipes website as well- it's got a lot of wonderful dishes! In all honesty I've never liked Paella, and even though I ate it in Spain (who could avoid it?) I haven't liked it otherwise. So, after DH & I get settled in to our new house, I'm going to have to have a Tapas Night I've decided.
Gosh, 05/10 needs to hurry up and get here already! I miss DH like crazy :(
xA
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
How Do You Live Your Life?
How You Life Your Life |
 You tend to deprive yourself of things you crave, for your own good. You say whatever is on your mind. Other people's reactions don't phase you. You prefer a variety of friends and tend to change friends quickly. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable. |
The above is mostly correct- except about the friends bit. I have a few close friends who I have been friends with for years and years, although I guess I have had 'transient' friends over the years too. *shrugs* For the most part though, it's pretty spot on!
Everything Changes
It's one thing to be a Military Wife.
It's another thing to be a foreign Military Wife.
As I start the paperwork for my change of status to immigrant, it dawns on me what a huge ordeal this is going to be. When Chris and I got engaged, and married, I guess it was always in the back of our minds that there'd be some paperwork. But the sheer volume of forms to fill out, affadavits, certificates, this that and the other, is simply overwhelming.
I'm seriously contemplating hiring an immigration lawyer, but I just got quoted $1400 just for a consultation on top of approximately $1300 worth of US Government fees. Those prices seriously hurt my head.
The paperwork and the cost of this was the last thing on our minds when Chris and I decided to get married. We were just so stoked and excited (and still are) about starting a life together that the logistics of it all just seemed to fall by the wayside for both of us.
I remember my friend Giovanna, from Brazil, who married her sweetheart that she met over here while in college, mentioning this that and the other about the process, but she never went into too much detail, and never made it sound like much of an ordeal. Actually we never spoke about it much, period. We worked together and our conversations were usually either work related, or pertaining to her and her husband remodeling the basement of their house, which she was very proud of. :) Immigration and visas? Maybe mentioned once or twice.
Thankfully though, Chris is being awesome about this entire thing. He's probably keeping a more level head about it than me! That's one thing I've always appreciated about him, he rarely ever gets stressed, or if he does he doesn't let it show, whereas I stress out far too much at times, and it definitely shows! When I bombarded him with text messages today saying I needed his last three W2s, his last three income tax returns, his birth certificate, passport sized photos, etc etc, when he comes to St. Louis, it was all perfectly fine. Even if I felt bad about the amount of hassle, he easily agrees to do whatever it takes. He's truly wonderful like that. I really am lucky :)
Anyways, I probably will choose to get a lawyer just to make it easier, and I'll contemplate the cost and how we're going to afford it later. At least I'll know everything is done correctly that way, then I can just focus on being a fantastic, wonderful, less-stressed, wife :) Sounds like a plan, huh?
xA
It's another thing to be a foreign Military Wife.
As I start the paperwork for my change of status to immigrant, it dawns on me what a huge ordeal this is going to be. When Chris and I got engaged, and married, I guess it was always in the back of our minds that there'd be some paperwork. But the sheer volume of forms to fill out, affadavits, certificates, this that and the other, is simply overwhelming.
I'm seriously contemplating hiring an immigration lawyer, but I just got quoted $1400 just for a consultation on top of approximately $1300 worth of US Government fees. Those prices seriously hurt my head.
The paperwork and the cost of this was the last thing on our minds when Chris and I decided to get married. We were just so stoked and excited (and still are) about starting a life together that the logistics of it all just seemed to fall by the wayside for both of us.
I remember my friend Giovanna, from Brazil, who married her sweetheart that she met over here while in college, mentioning this that and the other about the process, but she never went into too much detail, and never made it sound like much of an ordeal. Actually we never spoke about it much, period. We worked together and our conversations were usually either work related, or pertaining to her and her husband remodeling the basement of their house, which she was very proud of. :) Immigration and visas? Maybe mentioned once or twice.
Thankfully though, Chris is being awesome about this entire thing. He's probably keeping a more level head about it than me! That's one thing I've always appreciated about him, he rarely ever gets stressed, or if he does he doesn't let it show, whereas I stress out far too much at times, and it definitely shows! When I bombarded him with text messages today saying I needed his last three W2s, his last three income tax returns, his birth certificate, passport sized photos, etc etc, when he comes to St. Louis, it was all perfectly fine. Even if I felt bad about the amount of hassle, he easily agrees to do whatever it takes. He's truly wonderful like that. I really am lucky :)
Anyways, I probably will choose to get a lawyer just to make it easier, and I'll contemplate the cost and how we're going to afford it later. At least I'll know everything is done correctly that way, then I can just focus on being a fantastic, wonderful, less-stressed, wife :) Sounds like a plan, huh?
xA
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Come Rain Or Come Shine
Serves me right for thinking negatively yesterday I suppose... DH's leave has been pushed back again. Yup. 5th time. They have to do something out at the Rifle Range so he can't come til 05/10 now. Oh my goodness :(
So, yesterday I had the first part of my medical for my new visa. Honestly I've never met such an incompetent Doctor! It was crazy, I was telling him what to check for, even though his surgery was in the directory for places approved to get full immigration medicals! Then, when I thought we were done for the day (it's separated into 2 appointments) I was out at the reception desk preparing to pay and the nurse asked me if the Doctor had given me a skin-test for Tuburculosis. Uh, no? So she had to grab the Doctor and sit me down in another room so he could do that. Insane! Now I'm just hoping like crazy that he's not really as incomptent as he seemed, and hopefully doesn't label my blood tests/skin samples etc wrong!
He wasn't even friendly which made the whole situation even more awkward. Honestly though, since moving to America, no offence, but I think I've only ever met 1 doctor that I've actually liked- my OB-GYN. She's a sweetheart. Thankfully I've never had much cause to visit doctors over here, but the experiences overall haven't been positive ones. What's up with that?
And I thought the state of health affairs in Australia were bad.
Ah well, what can ya do?
//end vent now. Like I said, thankfully I never have much cause to see doctors!
So, yesterday I had the first part of my medical for my new visa. Honestly I've never met such an incompetent Doctor! It was crazy, I was telling him what to check for, even though his surgery was in the directory for places approved to get full immigration medicals! Then, when I thought we were done for the day (it's separated into 2 appointments) I was out at the reception desk preparing to pay and the nurse asked me if the Doctor had given me a skin-test for Tuburculosis. Uh, no? So she had to grab the Doctor and sit me down in another room so he could do that. Insane! Now I'm just hoping like crazy that he's not really as incomptent as he seemed, and hopefully doesn't label my blood tests/skin samples etc wrong!
He wasn't even friendly which made the whole situation even more awkward. Honestly though, since moving to America, no offence, but I think I've only ever met 1 doctor that I've actually liked- my OB-GYN. She's a sweetheart. Thankfully I've never had much cause to visit doctors over here, but the experiences overall haven't been positive ones. What's up with that?
And I thought the state of health affairs in Australia were bad.
Ah well, what can ya do?
//end vent now. Like I said, thankfully I never have much cause to see doctors!
Slow Ride
DH really wants a new car. Honestly I think we've had this conversation about a million times. Sure, I'd love us to get a new car. I've got an old Buick that has more issues than you can poke a stick at (I get one thing fixed and then there's something else wrong! It never ends!) and he has a 2004 Tiburon which he, and the previous owner, unfortunately haven't cared for very well. It's got body damage from an accident which hasn't been professionally fixed, and there's some strange vibration happening all the time, and it seems like more than just the shock absorbers going but we're not 100% positive.
So, a new car would be fantastic. And we both have the same taste in cars, so that's not an issue. But what I keep reminding my dearest is that his car in it's current state is worth about $5000, yet he owes about $12,000 on it. Trading it in for a new car just isn't feasible with our current budget. My car is also worth about $5000 and I don't have any repayments on it, but I've never financed a car in my entire life. I'm the kind of person who will save up my pennies for something and then buy it outright. My propencity to do this though has resulted in the fact that I have no credit. I've never wanted a credit card, or a loan, so I don't have bad credit, just no credit.
And I hate to say it but, DH has bad credit, he's sunk himself in deep over the last few years it seems. So between us, to replace one of our cars with a new car, we'd also have to put down a hefty deposit and would be on excessive repayments. My darling and I have discussed this over and over again.
But alas today he calls me from a car dealership wanting my permission for them to run my credit because he had found a new car that he wanted.
Of course, my credit wasn't going to help because like I said, I have none. So it wasn't approved anyhow.
I've told DH that if he can figure into our budget to afford a new car and additional insurance, go for it, but it can't eat into rent, utilities, or groceries. I find it difficult to say No, No New Car! And after all, it's his money, he's the one working, he can do what he wants with it as long as the essentials still get paid.
And here I am looking to the bottom line of finances again. Why is it all of a sudden such a big deal? When we were dating, I don't think money was ever even discussed, let alone a budget. I think all of a sudden it's dawned on me that I'm going to be a dependent for a while, and in my usual overly-organized financial mindframe it's resulted in me being a bit of a nagging old biddy.
Gosh I can't wait to move into our new house and properly start our life together. I'll be a lot less stressed for sure!
Anyhow I'll quit my whining. I'm out! :)
So, a new car would be fantastic. And we both have the same taste in cars, so that's not an issue. But what I keep reminding my dearest is that his car in it's current state is worth about $5000, yet he owes about $12,000 on it. Trading it in for a new car just isn't feasible with our current budget. My car is also worth about $5000 and I don't have any repayments on it, but I've never financed a car in my entire life. I'm the kind of person who will save up my pennies for something and then buy it outright. My propencity to do this though has resulted in the fact that I have no credit. I've never wanted a credit card, or a loan, so I don't have bad credit, just no credit.
And I hate to say it but, DH has bad credit, he's sunk himself in deep over the last few years it seems. So between us, to replace one of our cars with a new car, we'd also have to put down a hefty deposit and would be on excessive repayments. My darling and I have discussed this over and over again.
But alas today he calls me from a car dealership wanting my permission for them to run my credit because he had found a new car that he wanted.
Of course, my credit wasn't going to help because like I said, I have none. So it wasn't approved anyhow.
I've told DH that if he can figure into our budget to afford a new car and additional insurance, go for it, but it can't eat into rent, utilities, or groceries. I find it difficult to say No, No New Car! And after all, it's his money, he's the one working, he can do what he wants with it as long as the essentials still get paid.
And here I am looking to the bottom line of finances again. Why is it all of a sudden such a big deal? When we were dating, I don't think money was ever even discussed, let alone a budget. I think all of a sudden it's dawned on me that I'm going to be a dependent for a while, and in my usual overly-organized financial mindframe it's resulted in me being a bit of a nagging old biddy.
Gosh I can't wait to move into our new house and properly start our life together. I'll be a lot less stressed for sure!
Anyhow I'll quit my whining. I'm out! :)
Sunday, April 27, 2008
P.F. Changs Mongolian Beef Recipe
Courtesy of RecipeAzaar:
INGREDIENTS:
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon ginger, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
vegetable oil, for frying (about 1 cup)
1 lb flank steak
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 large green onion
DIRECTIONS:
-Make the sauce by heating 2 tsp of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over med/low heat.
-Don't get the oil too hot.
-Add ginger and garlic to the pan and quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches.
-Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then raise the heat to about medium and boil the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
-Remove it from the heat.
-Slice the flank steak against the grain into 1/4" thick bite-size slices.
-Tilt the blade of your knife at about a forty five degree angle to the top of the steak so that you get wider cuts.
-Dip the steak pieces into the cornstarch to apply a very thin dusting to both sides of each piece of beef.
-Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.
-As the beef sits, heat up one cup of oil in a wok (you may also use a skillet for this step as long as the beef will be mostly covered with oil).
-Heat the oil over medium heat until it's nice and hot, but not smoking.
-Add the beef to the oil and sauté for just two minutes, or until the beef just begins to darken on the edges.
-You don't need a thorough cooking here since the beef is going to go back on the heat later.
-Stir the meat around a little so that it cooks evenly.
-After a couple minutes, use a large slotted spoon to take the meat out and onto paper towels, then pour the oil out of the wok or skillet.
-Put the pan back over the heat, dump the meat back into it and simmer for one minute.
-Add the sauce, cook for one minute while stirring, then add all the green onions.
-Cook for one more minute, then remove the beef and onions with tongs or a slotted spoon to a serving plate.
-Leave the excess sauce behind in the pan.
INGREDIENTS:
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon ginger, minced
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
vegetable oil, for frying (about 1 cup)
1 lb flank steak
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 large green onion
DIRECTIONS:
-Make the sauce by heating 2 tsp of vegetable oil in a medium saucepan over med/low heat.
-Don't get the oil too hot.
-Add ginger and garlic to the pan and quickly add the soy sauce and water before the garlic scorches.
-Dissolve the brown sugar in the sauce, then raise the heat to about medium and boil the sauce for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
-Remove it from the heat.
-Slice the flank steak against the grain into 1/4" thick bite-size slices.
-Tilt the blade of your knife at about a forty five degree angle to the top of the steak so that you get wider cuts.
-Dip the steak pieces into the cornstarch to apply a very thin dusting to both sides of each piece of beef.
-Let the beef sit for about 10 minutes so that the cornstarch sticks.
-As the beef sits, heat up one cup of oil in a wok (you may also use a skillet for this step as long as the beef will be mostly covered with oil).
-Heat the oil over medium heat until it's nice and hot, but not smoking.
-Add the beef to the oil and sauté for just two minutes, or until the beef just begins to darken on the edges.
-You don't need a thorough cooking here since the beef is going to go back on the heat later.
-Stir the meat around a little so that it cooks evenly.
-After a couple minutes, use a large slotted spoon to take the meat out and onto paper towels, then pour the oil out of the wok or skillet.
-Put the pan back over the heat, dump the meat back into it and simmer for one minute.
-Add the sauce, cook for one minute while stirring, then add all the green onions.
-Cook for one more minute, then remove the beef and onions with tongs or a slotted spoon to a serving plate.
-Leave the excess sauce behind in the pan.
Better Stick Around
Haha cute. DH just called me asking how to get to our new townhouse from the base (he's showing a couple of his friends who are also considering moving with their wives to the same area). Anyhow the subdivision we live in has an old part from the 80s and a new part from the 90s- and even though they both have the same street name running through them, despite what Yahoo maps says, they haven't yet built a connecting road over the creek between the old part and the new part. So DH calls all confused because he keeps getting to a dead-end. I explained that the old part and the new part aren't yet connected, that he's going to have to go down Piney Green Rd and then turn off into the subdivision. Then he called back asking how to get there again from Piney Green Rd. Haha oh geeze. Even I remember that much! Haha ah, DH is precious when he's confused.
I just wonder how long they'd been driving around and hitting that dead end before he thought to call me?
I just wonder how long they'd been driving around and hitting that dead end before he thought to call me?
You Don't Know Me But You Make Me So Happy
I'm currently listening to Jenny-8675309 by Tommy Tutone. I still remember the very first time I heard this song, it was in Honolulu in April 2006. No idea why it had slipped my notice completely for the last 2 decades before then. Maybe it was never a hit in Australia, and never given any airtime on the 'Classic Rock/Pop' stations.
Anyhow moving on. One thing that still astonishes me about my Australian hometown, Brisbane, is the 3 degrees of separation that I always knew and that seemingly still exists. For a city with over 1 million people, it was always known as Australia's Oversized Country Town due to it's bizarre ability to somehow still be one large social circle.
Honestly, I couldn't go anywhere, or do anything in Brisbane, without someone knowing me, or me knowing someone. It was the most strange phenomenon. Maybe everybody just had really good memories for faces and people. But everybody just seemed to be somehow linked. I'm not the only one who found this, it almost became a running joke between myself and my friends.
What made me think of it today, was the fact that I found a friend named Mitch, who I went to college back in 2001 with on Facebook and added him. Anyhow, I was reading through his profile, and flipping through his photos, and in a couple of photos- there's my friend Melli's sister, Cathryn. I sat and contemplated for a moment. Did Melli & Cath know Mitch? Not when I knew Mitch. And not when I knew Melli & Cathryn. And I started flipping through a few more photos, recognizing even more faces. But not faces from College. People I knew after college, from different social circles. But evidently the circles have collided and are one happy family as often times happens.
In retrospect, the phenomenon was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing in that you never really had to make new friends anywhere you went, because chances were, after a few lines of conversation you knew people in common, and this automatically either made you friends or enemies. It was a curse, predominantly because you could never escape your past, no matter how hard you tried. I'd get random people asking me "Hey weren't you that girl who...?" "Hey, oh my gosh, Amber? Oh wow remember me? I remember you- I remember when you..." "OH no... Amber? Wow- you did such and such in such and such... right?" When you were somebody who got up to as much mischief in their adolescent years as I did, constant reminders constantly following you is never a good thing.
Maybe it's the Geographic make-up of Brisbane that makes it's people behave in such a way. For instance, here in Missouri, I live in a town approximately 25-30 miles out of downtown St. Louis. Even though I commuted to St. Louis every day when I was working, in discussion with a lot of people in my town, it seemed many didn't ever leave my town, or travel far, if they didn't have to. In all honesty, now that I'm not working, I don't leave my town much either come to think of it. But of course if every town in the county has the same attitude to a certain degree, it's possibly the reason I never observed the same phenomenon in this city.
In Brisbane however, to do almost anything, you had to go downtown. The outlying suburbs failed in being entirely self-sufficient and were for residence only. Consequently everybody divulged on the center of the city, the downtown/financial area every day, creating traffic chaos about 10 times worse than I've ever seen in America (I lived about 7 miles from downtown for most of my life, it took me over an hour by car to travel the 8 miles to my workplace during peak hour). Anyhow, everything happened in 'The City' (in America you go 'Downtown' in Australia you go to 'The City'), it's where you worked, it's where you socialized, it's where you went to Concerts (well until Festival Hall closed its doors), it's where you went to the Cinema, it's where you went Shopping. And somehow this made a city of 1 million + people, seem a lot smaller.
I know that a lot of American's commute to their 'downtown' for work, but they don't seem to stay downtown for everything else as well. Just an observation, speaking from a St. Louis perspective anyhow. It's possibly different in other cities.
Of course, now I'm getting set to move to a city of approximately 65,000 people. And it was one of those entropic chain of events which have landed me there as well. A friend asked me last night how my husband and I met. And in all honesty the story is so far fetched and still so bizarre to me that I just fall into the habit of saying "We met through a mutual friend" which is the truth, but it actually goes much further than that.
First of all, it must be understood that even before I moved to the United States, I had spent a lot of time over here, predominantly for one person in my life, who without, I probably wouldn't be quite who I am today.
Rewind to April, 2006, Jacksonville, North Carolina. I'd been traveling the East Coast for a while, and my ex-fiancee who we'll call W asked if I was going to be visiting him in Camp Lejeune. We'd broken up shortly after he came back from Iraq the previous year. His choice. Not mine. He still owned my heart, and when he said jump, I jumped. So I caught a flight from Boston-Logan Airport to Raleigh-Durham, picked up a rental car and drove to Jacksonville.
After a few days it was still far too painful, when we were together everything was good again, but it wasn't to last, he wanted me in his life, but not the way I wanted to be in it. So after breaking down in tears in an Arby's parking lot. (Not my proudest moment) I got in my rental car and drove back to Raleigh.
I remember staring at the departing flights wondering where looked good. I decided that Phoenix, Arizona sounded fun, and just like that, got me a flight to Phoenix. After a few days in Phoenix I was bored again and decided to move west again. I was leaning toward San Francisco but decided I hadn't been to Sacramento, so that was a good idea.
Then after a horrible course of events in Sacramento which I don't want to discuss, I found myself frazzled and at the airport again, determined to get even further away, emotionally and physically. Honolulu it was... and while on the beach in Waikiki that evening, I met a US Marine named Ryan who to this day I'm extremely good friends with. Anyhow, he was based at K-Bay but had just been moved from Okinawa in Japan. I'd heard of Okinawa. And Ryan had nothing but good things to say about Japan.
I had 2 weeks left of vacation time from work (I'd taken 6 weeks) and decided that Japan might cheer me up, I hadn't been to Japan in years. So the next morning, back at Honolulu International Airport, and managed to get me a flight to Tokyo-Narita. (For the record, this isn't all as expensive as it sounds, if there are available seats on the flight, and it's the last minute, and you don't have a reservation, you can usually negotiate the prices down tremendously at the airport ticket counter in person). After some time in Tokyo I thought I'd go and check out this Okinawa place. I needed an island paradise after all.
And it was even more than I thought it would be. Rocky Shores, Palm Trees, The Bluest Ocean I've ever seen in my life. It was the most gorgeous place I'd ever ended up and I was in love with it. I was still communicating with W via phone every now and again, and he was of course highly disapproving that I'd ended up in Okinawa. What in the world was I doing there, of all places?
Long story short, in a parking lot of a convenience store, I met a Marine from Louisiana named Eric. In fact, in the time I was there I met a lot of wonderful guys who I'm still friends with to this day. Eric and I though especially became good friends and kept in contact after I decided to go back to Honolulu, and then back to Australia.
Back in Australia I realized how utterly bored I was with my job, with the people, with my life. So I applied for jobs overseas, in Japan, in the UK, and in the USA. Astonishingly enough, I got every job I applied for, and it became a question of where did I want to move to most of all? The options most appealing were Japan and the US. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to go for the US as the job seemed more interesting (I was going to be teaching English in Japan, working in a hotel in America). So in September of 2006 I made the move to St. Louis.
W and I had remained friends, and he was now out of the Marine Corps and living in Florida. I visited him a couple of times. Eric part way through 2007 had been relocated to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina from Okinawa, and I promised to visit him.
In December 2007, I'd just got back from a month in Europe and W had asked me to come visit him. Things hadn't been going well for him. He was suffering from major Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. He'd been institutionalized while I was in Europe as he'd been considered a threat to himself and others due to his erratic behaviour and homicidal tendencies. Of course my heart went out to him and I visited. But as usual, any chance of a reconcile of our relationship was an absolutely lost cause on my behalf.
It was that weekend that I finally accepted, 2 years from the time we'd originally broken up, that it really was over. For the first time, I actually felt I could move on. Strangely enough, W has not been in a relationship with anyone since we broke up. Like he's told me, he needs to get his own life straight first. And although I vowed always to be there for him if he needed me, all romantic notions of everything all coming up ribbons and roses, finally disappeared.
I was standing on my balcony enjoying the Florida sunshine and 85 degree heat in December (compared to the freezing temperatures I'd left in Missouri) when Eric called me to ask if I was back from Europe yet. I said I was, and said I was down in Florida. We agreed that it had been too long since we'd hung out and that at my next available opportunity, I'd have to visit in North Carolina.
Eric had kind of become like a brother to me. You know how it is when you just click with some people? Consequently we had always offered eachother advice on the opposite sex and dating advice and this and that and the other. It was a purely platonic friendship, yet remains to be a lovely one.
On the airplane back to St. Louis on Monday I felt a great weight lifted off my shoulders, given that I'd finally let go of something, someone that through no fault of his own, had always somehow been holding me back from being happy with anybody else.
A couple of weeks later I was all set to go to Jacksonville, North Carolina. Eric, his friends and I had planned to then travel to Myrtle Beach, SC for the weekend. The night before my flight left though, Eric called me, there was an unfortunate tragedy in his family and the Marine Corps had given him special permission to return to Louisiana that weekend. I gave him my deepest sympathy and my heart truly went out to him. Then he told me that all of his friends had heard about me crazy Australian girl he met in Japan and would be disappointed if I didn't come down. He told me to still go to Jacksonville, that his friends would look after me. I was honestly tempted to just cancel my flight and pray for Eric's family and reschedule to when Eric was back in town, but something told me to just go down to North Carolina, if worst came to worst, I still knew some of W's friends who were still in Jacksonville so I wouldn't be entirely abandoned.
That first Friday that I arrived in Jacksonville, I met Chris, one of Eric's friends, who obviously is now my husband. I'm not even positive when we decided for sure to get married. But I found myself back in North Carolina, whether flying or driving, almost every week from there on in. One weekend I even took my best friend, Katrina, another Australian girl living in St. Louis to meet him and get her opinion. Everything was met with approval. Chris and I were different, came from very different backgrounds, but somehow our personalities complimented eachothers, and our outlook on life, our aims and goals and dreams for the future were the same. And all of a sudden, everything made sense.
I had always questioned God's motives, and why he felt fit to take W away from me, I never understood why. But from that first weekend back in North Carolina, it suddenly made sense. I strongly believe that Chris and I's relationship was in God's plan for me all along. I had a lot of growing up to do in the last 2 years, I had a lot of living to do in the last 2 years, I had a lot of people to meet, I had to truly come to know and understand myself. Then as if by magic, the love of my life just fell into my existance.
And although I sometimes complain, although I sometimes get scared, I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. This was all part of the greater plan, after all.
So, there you have it, the story that starts and ends in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It's almost so far fetched I sometimes don't believe it myself. But if it wasn't for W making me cry in that Arby's parking lot, I never would have kept drifting west, and if it wasn't for the people I met along the way, I would never have ended up in Japan, and if I hadn't ever met Eric in Japan, I would never have met my husband. The full circle is now complete. And I've found acceptance and contentment. Finally.
Anyhow moving on. One thing that still astonishes me about my Australian hometown, Brisbane, is the 3 degrees of separation that I always knew and that seemingly still exists. For a city with over 1 million people, it was always known as Australia's Oversized Country Town due to it's bizarre ability to somehow still be one large social circle.
Honestly, I couldn't go anywhere, or do anything in Brisbane, without someone knowing me, or me knowing someone. It was the most strange phenomenon. Maybe everybody just had really good memories for faces and people. But everybody just seemed to be somehow linked. I'm not the only one who found this, it almost became a running joke between myself and my friends.
What made me think of it today, was the fact that I found a friend named Mitch, who I went to college back in 2001 with on Facebook and added him. Anyhow, I was reading through his profile, and flipping through his photos, and in a couple of photos- there's my friend Melli's sister, Cathryn. I sat and contemplated for a moment. Did Melli & Cath know Mitch? Not when I knew Mitch. And not when I knew Melli & Cathryn. And I started flipping through a few more photos, recognizing even more faces. But not faces from College. People I knew after college, from different social circles. But evidently the circles have collided and are one happy family as often times happens.
In retrospect, the phenomenon was both a blessing and a curse. It was a blessing in that you never really had to make new friends anywhere you went, because chances were, after a few lines of conversation you knew people in common, and this automatically either made you friends or enemies. It was a curse, predominantly because you could never escape your past, no matter how hard you tried. I'd get random people asking me "Hey weren't you that girl who...?" "Hey, oh my gosh, Amber? Oh wow remember me? I remember you- I remember when you..." "OH no... Amber? Wow- you did such and such in such and such... right?" When you were somebody who got up to as much mischief in their adolescent years as I did, constant reminders constantly following you is never a good thing.
Maybe it's the Geographic make-up of Brisbane that makes it's people behave in such a way. For instance, here in Missouri, I live in a town approximately 25-30 miles out of downtown St. Louis. Even though I commuted to St. Louis every day when I was working, in discussion with a lot of people in my town, it seemed many didn't ever leave my town, or travel far, if they didn't have to. In all honesty, now that I'm not working, I don't leave my town much either come to think of it. But of course if every town in the county has the same attitude to a certain degree, it's possibly the reason I never observed the same phenomenon in this city.
In Brisbane however, to do almost anything, you had to go downtown. The outlying suburbs failed in being entirely self-sufficient and were for residence only. Consequently everybody divulged on the center of the city, the downtown/financial area every day, creating traffic chaos about 10 times worse than I've ever seen in America (I lived about 7 miles from downtown for most of my life, it took me over an hour by car to travel the 8 miles to my workplace during peak hour). Anyhow, everything happened in 'The City' (in America you go 'Downtown' in Australia you go to 'The City'), it's where you worked, it's where you socialized, it's where you went to Concerts (well until Festival Hall closed its doors), it's where you went to the Cinema, it's where you went Shopping. And somehow this made a city of 1 million + people, seem a lot smaller.
I know that a lot of American's commute to their 'downtown' for work, but they don't seem to stay downtown for everything else as well. Just an observation, speaking from a St. Louis perspective anyhow. It's possibly different in other cities.
Of course, now I'm getting set to move to a city of approximately 65,000 people. And it was one of those entropic chain of events which have landed me there as well. A friend asked me last night how my husband and I met. And in all honesty the story is so far fetched and still so bizarre to me that I just fall into the habit of saying "We met through a mutual friend" which is the truth, but it actually goes much further than that.
First of all, it must be understood that even before I moved to the United States, I had spent a lot of time over here, predominantly for one person in my life, who without, I probably wouldn't be quite who I am today.
Rewind to April, 2006, Jacksonville, North Carolina. I'd been traveling the East Coast for a while, and my ex-fiancee who we'll call W asked if I was going to be visiting him in Camp Lejeune. We'd broken up shortly after he came back from Iraq the previous year. His choice. Not mine. He still owned my heart, and when he said jump, I jumped. So I caught a flight from Boston-Logan Airport to Raleigh-Durham, picked up a rental car and drove to Jacksonville.
After a few days it was still far too painful, when we were together everything was good again, but it wasn't to last, he wanted me in his life, but not the way I wanted to be in it. So after breaking down in tears in an Arby's parking lot. (Not my proudest moment) I got in my rental car and drove back to Raleigh.
I remember staring at the departing flights wondering where looked good. I decided that Phoenix, Arizona sounded fun, and just like that, got me a flight to Phoenix. After a few days in Phoenix I was bored again and decided to move west again. I was leaning toward San Francisco but decided I hadn't been to Sacramento, so that was a good idea.
Then after a horrible course of events in Sacramento which I don't want to discuss, I found myself frazzled and at the airport again, determined to get even further away, emotionally and physically. Honolulu it was... and while on the beach in Waikiki that evening, I met a US Marine named Ryan who to this day I'm extremely good friends with. Anyhow, he was based at K-Bay but had just been moved from Okinawa in Japan. I'd heard of Okinawa. And Ryan had nothing but good things to say about Japan.
I had 2 weeks left of vacation time from work (I'd taken 6 weeks) and decided that Japan might cheer me up, I hadn't been to Japan in years. So the next morning, back at Honolulu International Airport, and managed to get me a flight to Tokyo-Narita. (For the record, this isn't all as expensive as it sounds, if there are available seats on the flight, and it's the last minute, and you don't have a reservation, you can usually negotiate the prices down tremendously at the airport ticket counter in person). After some time in Tokyo I thought I'd go and check out this Okinawa place. I needed an island paradise after all.
And it was even more than I thought it would be. Rocky Shores, Palm Trees, The Bluest Ocean I've ever seen in my life. It was the most gorgeous place I'd ever ended up and I was in love with it. I was still communicating with W via phone every now and again, and he was of course highly disapproving that I'd ended up in Okinawa. What in the world was I doing there, of all places?
Long story short, in a parking lot of a convenience store, I met a Marine from Louisiana named Eric. In fact, in the time I was there I met a lot of wonderful guys who I'm still friends with to this day. Eric and I though especially became good friends and kept in contact after I decided to go back to Honolulu, and then back to Australia.
Back in Australia I realized how utterly bored I was with my job, with the people, with my life. So I applied for jobs overseas, in Japan, in the UK, and in the USA. Astonishingly enough, I got every job I applied for, and it became a question of where did I want to move to most of all? The options most appealing were Japan and the US. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to go for the US as the job seemed more interesting (I was going to be teaching English in Japan, working in a hotel in America). So in September of 2006 I made the move to St. Louis.
W and I had remained friends, and he was now out of the Marine Corps and living in Florida. I visited him a couple of times. Eric part way through 2007 had been relocated to Camp Lejeune, North Carolina from Okinawa, and I promised to visit him.
In December 2007, I'd just got back from a month in Europe and W had asked me to come visit him. Things hadn't been going well for him. He was suffering from major Post Traumatic Stress Disorder due to his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. He'd been institutionalized while I was in Europe as he'd been considered a threat to himself and others due to his erratic behaviour and homicidal tendencies. Of course my heart went out to him and I visited. But as usual, any chance of a reconcile of our relationship was an absolutely lost cause on my behalf.
It was that weekend that I finally accepted, 2 years from the time we'd originally broken up, that it really was over. For the first time, I actually felt I could move on. Strangely enough, W has not been in a relationship with anyone since we broke up. Like he's told me, he needs to get his own life straight first. And although I vowed always to be there for him if he needed me, all romantic notions of everything all coming up ribbons and roses, finally disappeared.
I was standing on my balcony enjoying the Florida sunshine and 85 degree heat in December (compared to the freezing temperatures I'd left in Missouri) when Eric called me to ask if I was back from Europe yet. I said I was, and said I was down in Florida. We agreed that it had been too long since we'd hung out and that at my next available opportunity, I'd have to visit in North Carolina.
Eric had kind of become like a brother to me. You know how it is when you just click with some people? Consequently we had always offered eachother advice on the opposite sex and dating advice and this and that and the other. It was a purely platonic friendship, yet remains to be a lovely one.
On the airplane back to St. Louis on Monday I felt a great weight lifted off my shoulders, given that I'd finally let go of something, someone that through no fault of his own, had always somehow been holding me back from being happy with anybody else.
A couple of weeks later I was all set to go to Jacksonville, North Carolina. Eric, his friends and I had planned to then travel to Myrtle Beach, SC for the weekend. The night before my flight left though, Eric called me, there was an unfortunate tragedy in his family and the Marine Corps had given him special permission to return to Louisiana that weekend. I gave him my deepest sympathy and my heart truly went out to him. Then he told me that all of his friends had heard about me crazy Australian girl he met in Japan and would be disappointed if I didn't come down. He told me to still go to Jacksonville, that his friends would look after me. I was honestly tempted to just cancel my flight and pray for Eric's family and reschedule to when Eric was back in town, but something told me to just go down to North Carolina, if worst came to worst, I still knew some of W's friends who were still in Jacksonville so I wouldn't be entirely abandoned.
That first Friday that I arrived in Jacksonville, I met Chris, one of Eric's friends, who obviously is now my husband. I'm not even positive when we decided for sure to get married. But I found myself back in North Carolina, whether flying or driving, almost every week from there on in. One weekend I even took my best friend, Katrina, another Australian girl living in St. Louis to meet him and get her opinion. Everything was met with approval. Chris and I were different, came from very different backgrounds, but somehow our personalities complimented eachothers, and our outlook on life, our aims and goals and dreams for the future were the same. And all of a sudden, everything made sense.
I had always questioned God's motives, and why he felt fit to take W away from me, I never understood why. But from that first weekend back in North Carolina, it suddenly made sense. I strongly believe that Chris and I's relationship was in God's plan for me all along. I had a lot of growing up to do in the last 2 years, I had a lot of living to do in the last 2 years, I had a lot of people to meet, I had to truly come to know and understand myself. Then as if by magic, the love of my life just fell into my existance.
And although I sometimes complain, although I sometimes get scared, I wouldn't trade any of it for anything. This was all part of the greater plan, after all.
So, there you have it, the story that starts and ends in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It's almost so far fetched I sometimes don't believe it myself. But if it wasn't for W making me cry in that Arby's parking lot, I never would have kept drifting west, and if it wasn't for the people I met along the way, I would never have ended up in Japan, and if I hadn't ever met Eric in Japan, I would never have met my husband. The full circle is now complete. And I've found acceptance and contentment. Finally.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Did It Again
... DH has increased some of his payments on his credit cards/ car/ personal loan. Always the economicly-minded one in the relationship, I reminded him that his car insurance has gone up within the last couple of months because of some issues. He'd overlooked his insurance completely.
And of course I asked him to tell me what he'd increased everything to, factoring in things that he'd forgot to think about (ie: water, trash/sewer, electric) in the budget- and honestly, we're going to be either overdrawn at the end of the month providing we don't spend any money on entertainment, or alternatively cutting it very fine if I'm able to save considerable money in the grocery department and use a minimum of electricity.
*sigh*. He knows that me working at this stage is not an option. My US Visa was based on my employment. I resigned from my job so that Chris and I could get married and I could move to North Carolina to be with him. So currently we're in the process of getting my Visa status changed but this can take months, and I'm not permitted to work in the meantime.
Thankfully I've got a bit of money saved up, so I can help out for a little while, but we're really going to have to see if we can get all those payments reduced again. He said he had no choice because he was behind on a lot of bills. When I get down there I'll see what I can do I guess.
I love my boy like crazy, and don't mean to be a nagging old biddy about money already, gosh we've only been married a couple of weeks! But he's always admitted that I'm the more practical one when it comes to finances.
I just wish I was allowed to work again as well, because having 2 incomes coming in would take a huge deal of financial stress off the relationship. I know I said I was happy about not working, and I was really excited about being a housewife for a while and just looking after my boy, but I don't like arguments, especially about money. Not that we really argued. But it was obvious that we were both upset when I broke it all down and pretty much told him we couldn't manage it.
I also wish I could just kick back and enjoy life without looking at the bottom dollar all the time. I used to be pretty good at this. I'm not sure when I got so financially responsible.
At least it seems like Chris may be coming on 05/07 on leave now, so that's a blessing.
Gosh I need to stop stressing and panicking over this asap! :(
And of course I asked him to tell me what he'd increased everything to, factoring in things that he'd forgot to think about (ie: water, trash/sewer, electric) in the budget- and honestly, we're going to be either overdrawn at the end of the month providing we don't spend any money on entertainment, or alternatively cutting it very fine if I'm able to save considerable money in the grocery department and use a minimum of electricity.
*sigh*. He knows that me working at this stage is not an option. My US Visa was based on my employment. I resigned from my job so that Chris and I could get married and I could move to North Carolina to be with him. So currently we're in the process of getting my Visa status changed but this can take months, and I'm not permitted to work in the meantime.
Thankfully I've got a bit of money saved up, so I can help out for a little while, but we're really going to have to see if we can get all those payments reduced again. He said he had no choice because he was behind on a lot of bills. When I get down there I'll see what I can do I guess.
I love my boy like crazy, and don't mean to be a nagging old biddy about money already, gosh we've only been married a couple of weeks! But he's always admitted that I'm the more practical one when it comes to finances.
I just wish I was allowed to work again as well, because having 2 incomes coming in would take a huge deal of financial stress off the relationship. I know I said I was happy about not working, and I was really excited about being a housewife for a while and just looking after my boy, but I don't like arguments, especially about money. Not that we really argued. But it was obvious that we were both upset when I broke it all down and pretty much told him we couldn't manage it.
I also wish I could just kick back and enjoy life without looking at the bottom dollar all the time. I used to be pretty good at this. I'm not sure when I got so financially responsible.
At least it seems like Chris may be coming on 05/07 on leave now, so that's a blessing.
Gosh I need to stop stressing and panicking over this asap! :(
Don't You Want Me Baby?
This weekend must be national Amber-Is-Popular weekend or something. 5 of my friends from North Carolina including 1 ex boyfriend either text or called asking where I am, if I've moved to North Carolina yet, do I want to hang out this weekend. Missouri, No and No. A friend from Kentucky, and a friend's wife from Indiana also called asking what's happening. I really do need to catch up with my friend in Indiana and his wife sometime in the near future- I haven't seen them in about a year and a half when they were still on the East Coast.
Honestly though, isn't that always the way with people, when it rains, it pours? I can go weeks only being in contact with DH and a select couple of friends, then all of a sudden everybody seems to think of me at once. Strange.
I was thinking this evening though, one thing I like about being married, and about my husband in particular, is the fact that he seemingly takes me into consideration. He text me today saying he'd found me a 'work out buddy' (as ya'll know I'm trying to lose weight & get in shape!). Apparently one of his friends wives recently had a baby and is trying to get her pre-baby figure back. He said I'd be happy to go to the gym or go jogging with her or whatever. Definitely sounds good to me. When I do things on my own I find that I get de-motivated really quickly. Also, it'll be a good chance to get to know some other wives in Jacksonville. I have met a couple of his friends wives/fiancees, but haven't really had a chance to get to know them.
Basically everyone I know in that area of North Carolina is a Marine and male. I need to mix it up a bit. Seriously.
Anyhow today I went to Walmart and bought some carpet stain remover to try and get some crap off my carpet before I have my move-out inspection. Also some other random stuff I figured I'd need to assist with the move.
It's unbelievable, when I moved to the United States in 2006, I came with 2 suitcases and a regular sized backpack. Now I've got an entire 750 square foot apartment seemingly filled with junk. Even though I rarely seem to buy anything?
Strange. It'll probably not seem like as much once I start packing it all up again though... at least I hope it won't! *sigh* such a big job. Damn I'm too good at procrastination!
Honestly though, isn't that always the way with people, when it rains, it pours? I can go weeks only being in contact with DH and a select couple of friends, then all of a sudden everybody seems to think of me at once. Strange.
I was thinking this evening though, one thing I like about being married, and about my husband in particular, is the fact that he seemingly takes me into consideration. He text me today saying he'd found me a 'work out buddy' (as ya'll know I'm trying to lose weight & get in shape!). Apparently one of his friends wives recently had a baby and is trying to get her pre-baby figure back. He said I'd be happy to go to the gym or go jogging with her or whatever. Definitely sounds good to me. When I do things on my own I find that I get de-motivated really quickly. Also, it'll be a good chance to get to know some other wives in Jacksonville. I have met a couple of his friends wives/fiancees, but haven't really had a chance to get to know them.
Basically everyone I know in that area of North Carolina is a Marine and male. I need to mix it up a bit. Seriously.
Anyhow today I went to Walmart and bought some carpet stain remover to try and get some crap off my carpet before I have my move-out inspection. Also some other random stuff I figured I'd need to assist with the move.
It's unbelievable, when I moved to the United States in 2006, I came with 2 suitcases and a regular sized backpack. Now I've got an entire 750 square foot apartment seemingly filled with junk. Even though I rarely seem to buy anything?
Strange. It'll probably not seem like as much once I start packing it all up again though... at least I hope it won't! *sigh* such a big job. Damn I'm too good at procrastination!
Friday, April 25, 2008
Moonlight Drive
I'm listening to The Doors to try and calm myself down. Chris put in another leave request for March 3. Now it doesn't look like he'll be able to come until March 9. If this is the case, this will be the fourth time his leave has been pushed back.
I text DH back and told him "Ok Honey, just let me know when you know for sure and I'll get your flight rescheduled". It's easier for me to organize his flight etc, because apart from working all day, he's never got around to getting a laptop (go figure!) and he has to go down to the Internet Cafe by his barracks if he wants to get online. It's too much unnecessary hassle for him.
Therefore, I'm letting the sounds of Jim Morrison's voice soothe me as it always has done. To be perfectly honest, I can't ever remember a time when I didn't like The Doors. When the other kids were jumping around to Madonna, I was listening to hand-me-down Doors Vinyl's on a hand-me-down 50s-60s stereo/record player. I've always thought that I was born into the wrong generation.
Anyways I guess I'd better cook myself some dinner, try to keep my mind off how long it's been since I've seen Chris, and then later tonight head down to the Walmart Supercenter to buy some more cleaning products because I really need to start deep cleaning my apartment sometime in the very near future.
Hmm. Sounds like an interesting night. Not!
I text DH back and told him "Ok Honey, just let me know when you know for sure and I'll get your flight rescheduled". It's easier for me to organize his flight etc, because apart from working all day, he's never got around to getting a laptop (go figure!) and he has to go down to the Internet Cafe by his barracks if he wants to get online. It's too much unnecessary hassle for him.
Therefore, I'm letting the sounds of Jim Morrison's voice soothe me as it always has done. To be perfectly honest, I can't ever remember a time when I didn't like The Doors. When the other kids were jumping around to Madonna, I was listening to hand-me-down Doors Vinyl's on a hand-me-down 50s-60s stereo/record player. I've always thought that I was born into the wrong generation.
Anyways I guess I'd better cook myself some dinner, try to keep my mind off how long it's been since I've seen Chris, and then later tonight head down to the Walmart Supercenter to buy some more cleaning products because I really need to start deep cleaning my apartment sometime in the very near future.
Hmm. Sounds like an interesting night. Not!
Blast From The Past
I was going through some old photos I had. And here we go, me about 3 years ago! I was 21, a crazy retro baby... but what was up with the bangs? Oh well I thought I looked so damn adorable at the time.
Now I wonder what ever happened to those cats eyes!?
xxxA
Now I wonder what ever happened to those cats eyes!?
xxxA
Alright, Wild Child
Based on the past decade or so of my life, people expect me to still be the same. But I'm so much more content now. At the same time, something inside me still wants to cater to my 'old' friends expectations of me.
Out of the blue the other day, a girl I used to work with 2+ years ago found me on Facebook, and after adding her it started a chain reaction of people from the past finding me through her Facebook and also requesting to add me as a friend, and emailing. And it's blaringly obvious that they don't expect me to have changed a bit.
I've had a lot of fun in my life, but most of my behavior has always been a front for the inner turmoil I've experienced most of my existance. Although not being officially diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder until the beginning of this year, I know that I've been struggling with it for many, many years. To cover up my problems, in public I was always a riot, a fast talking, hard drinking, chain smoking, outgoing center of attention.
One thing I was always responsible with was money, but then I'd blow all my savings on traveling the world and getting up to all kinds of mischief that more than anything would make an excellent screenplay that may even make the most seasoned of Hollywood veterens doubtful to it's credibility. I have sinned in almost every way possible. But I'm not proud of it.
Somewhere amongst all of the parties that lasted for days, the men, the substance abuse... I was still a self confessed history geek. Somehow I still managed to stick my nose in a book at every available opportunity, and not lose sight of the fact that despite my behavior, this wasn't really me. There was always a scared little girl inside simply seeking the approval of others.
In the process though, I pushed away a lot of people who cared about me, and had a lot of passengers in my life. People who were along for the ride, but not the journey.
The transition away from the life I was leading was a gradual one, but it took a few events in which I truly hit rock bottom, to make me realize that I needed to change. I'd only succeed in destroying myself otherwise.
But it dismays me that so many people were attracted to, and liked, who I was. Even the guy I met my husband through, who's known me 2+ years, still seems to expect me to be the outgoing, extroverted, but shallow and stupid Australian girl who will drink everyone under the table and behave like the world is going to end any minute.
It also makes me wonder about the conversations he and my husband have had about me. DH asked me recently "So where's this wild side I keep hearing about? I've never seen it." No. He's never seen it. It was over and done with and locked away by the time I met him. But seemingly he's still heard the stories. Funny thing is, I wonder if he too would have preferred the wild child facade. But would he still have fallen in love with me, then?
There was a lot of lust associated on behalf of men, with who I used to be. But nobody could ever truly love the twisted creature that I was. I was so out of touch with myself, and with reality. I've still got the scars from it all though, the emotional and the physical.
I can see why my DH is intrigued by the girl he's heard about. But it seems so far removed from everything I stand for now, who I am, and who I want to be, who I need to be.
I pray for strength. I pray for sanity.
But I wonder if it was really all completely a facade, or whether somewhere, deep down, the evil rebellious spirit is still inside me, and will want to escape some day? It scares me that I might go back to my old ways someday. That I might just snap.
Deus, dona mihi firmitatem. (God Give Me Strength)
Out of the blue the other day, a girl I used to work with 2+ years ago found me on Facebook, and after adding her it started a chain reaction of people from the past finding me through her Facebook and also requesting to add me as a friend, and emailing. And it's blaringly obvious that they don't expect me to have changed a bit.
I've had a lot of fun in my life, but most of my behavior has always been a front for the inner turmoil I've experienced most of my existance. Although not being officially diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder until the beginning of this year, I know that I've been struggling with it for many, many years. To cover up my problems, in public I was always a riot, a fast talking, hard drinking, chain smoking, outgoing center of attention.
One thing I was always responsible with was money, but then I'd blow all my savings on traveling the world and getting up to all kinds of mischief that more than anything would make an excellent screenplay that may even make the most seasoned of Hollywood veterens doubtful to it's credibility. I have sinned in almost every way possible. But I'm not proud of it.
Somewhere amongst all of the parties that lasted for days, the men, the substance abuse... I was still a self confessed history geek. Somehow I still managed to stick my nose in a book at every available opportunity, and not lose sight of the fact that despite my behavior, this wasn't really me. There was always a scared little girl inside simply seeking the approval of others.
In the process though, I pushed away a lot of people who cared about me, and had a lot of passengers in my life. People who were along for the ride, but not the journey.
The transition away from the life I was leading was a gradual one, but it took a few events in which I truly hit rock bottom, to make me realize that I needed to change. I'd only succeed in destroying myself otherwise.
But it dismays me that so many people were attracted to, and liked, who I was. Even the guy I met my husband through, who's known me 2+ years, still seems to expect me to be the outgoing, extroverted, but shallow and stupid Australian girl who will drink everyone under the table and behave like the world is going to end any minute.
It also makes me wonder about the conversations he and my husband have had about me. DH asked me recently "So where's this wild side I keep hearing about? I've never seen it." No. He's never seen it. It was over and done with and locked away by the time I met him. But seemingly he's still heard the stories. Funny thing is, I wonder if he too would have preferred the wild child facade. But would he still have fallen in love with me, then?
There was a lot of lust associated on behalf of men, with who I used to be. But nobody could ever truly love the twisted creature that I was. I was so out of touch with myself, and with reality. I've still got the scars from it all though, the emotional and the physical.
I can see why my DH is intrigued by the girl he's heard about. But it seems so far removed from everything I stand for now, who I am, and who I want to be, who I need to be.
I pray for strength. I pray for sanity.
But I wonder if it was really all completely a facade, or whether somewhere, deep down, the evil rebellious spirit is still inside me, and will want to escape some day? It scares me that I might go back to my old ways someday. That I might just snap.
Deus, dona mihi firmitatem. (God Give Me Strength)
Thursday, April 24, 2008
A.N.Z.A.C Biscuits
Well, tomorrow is A.N.Z.A.C. day, the Australian & New Zealand equivalent of Memorial day. A.N.Z.A.C stands for Australian & New Zealand Army Corps and is in honor of those who have served and fallen for our respective countries.
A little tradition I'd like to share however is Anzac Biccies (Biccie = Short for Biscuit = What American's refer to as a Cookie). Australian Women's Weekly posted a recipe for these delicious goodies, and while grocery shopping today I bought the ingredients so I can bake some tomorrow! In the meantime, check out the recipe!
ANZAC Biscuits
Serving size: Serves 10 or more
Cuisine type: Traditional
Cooking time: Less than 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 cup (100g) rolled oats
½ cup (70g) white flour, sifted
½ cup (70g) wholemeal flour
½ cup (100g) brown sugar
¾ cup (75g) desiccated coconut
125g butter
4 tablespoons golden syrup (100% pure cane syrup in North America)
½ teaspoons bicarb of soda (Baking Soda)
1 tablespoon boiling water
METHOD
Preheat oven to 160°C (320°F). In a large mixing bowl combine rolled oats, flours, sugar and desiccated coconut. In a small saucepan melt butter and golden syrup.Combine bicarb and boiling water and stir into butter mixture. Stir liquid into dry ingredients until combined.Place spoonfuls of the mixture on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden.
A little tradition I'd like to share however is Anzac Biccies (Biccie = Short for Biscuit = What American's refer to as a Cookie). Australian Women's Weekly posted a recipe for these delicious goodies, and while grocery shopping today I bought the ingredients so I can bake some tomorrow! In the meantime, check out the recipe!
ANZAC Biscuits
Serving size: Serves 10 or more
Cuisine type: Traditional
Cooking time: Less than 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS
1 cup (100g) rolled oats
½ cup (70g) white flour, sifted
½ cup (70g) wholemeal flour
½ cup (100g) brown sugar
¾ cup (75g) desiccated coconut
125g butter
4 tablespoons golden syrup (100% pure cane syrup in North America)
½ teaspoons bicarb of soda (Baking Soda)
1 tablespoon boiling water
METHOD
Preheat oven to 160°C (320°F). In a large mixing bowl combine rolled oats, flours, sugar and desiccated coconut. In a small saucepan melt butter and golden syrup.Combine bicarb and boiling water and stir into butter mixture. Stir liquid into dry ingredients until combined.Place spoonfuls of the mixture on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden.
Long Time Gone
So I was speaking via IM with an old friend today who I hadn't spoken to for quite some time. Anyhow I found it quite amusing
friend: did i hear that you are getting married?
me: you heard correctly, i got married almost 2 weeks ago =)
friend: wow...congrats...
me: thank you so much! but yeah, who'd have thought? I never appeared to be the marriagable type in the past, eh!
friend: well im sure guys have wanted to marry you for a long time.. i wanted to marry you for a long time... i just never thought it was what you wanted...i think its awesome that you found that though
It's bizarre isn't it? I had no idea that he was even slightly interested in me. Crazy what people fess up to years down the track!
Of course, I don't regret a thing- because everything in my life has happened for a reason and turned out for the best in the end. I still think it's highly amusing though that #$% wanted to marry me and never told me. Funny, that :)
What Are Wives For?
So, just after 8am this morning central time, DH calls me and says he's organizing the DEERS stuff (Tricare, his extra pay, etc etc). To tell you the honest truth, I was still asleep when he called. Anyhow he needed my social security number.
"You don't know it yet?" I enquired. I was joking as this was what he said to me when we'd gone to get my dependent ID and for whatever reason the woman had asked me what his social security number was! Anyhow I gave him my SS#, told him to call if he needed anything else, rolled over and went back to sleep again.
3 minutes later my phone rings again. "Babe, is it ### -------- Court that we're moving to?" No, honey, it's ### -------- Lane. "Okay babe, thanks!"...
Haha it's astonishing, isn't it? He's the one with all of the paperwork pertaining to our rental agreement, but he still needs to call me for the correct address of the house we're moving to. Ah, bless him.
Needless to say I couldn't go back to sleep a second time. Probably a good thing. When I first left my job at the Hotel, I was still waking up at 6am like clockwork, even without setting my alarm! Gradually my body has readjusted into the no reason to wake up early for work anymore! phase. Although I'd better readjust to waking up at 4:00am quick, as that's what time DH has to wake up when he has PT in the morning. I actually had this conversation with my mother recently, she said "Just because he has work doesn't mean you have to wake up at the crack of dawn as well!" And I explained that it's a respect thing, besides, I intend to fix him breakfast before he goes. My dearest Mother still doesn't quite understand my logic behind this but, I understand my logic behind this :)
In only a few more weeks, we'll be moved into our new townhome and our proper married life will be starting for good. I'm so, so excited!
For the record though, I'm still procrastinating packing! As excited as I am about starting married life, leaving Missouri is a somber prospect. The Show-Me State has showed me a lot about life and how beautiful it can be. But alas North Carolina is wonderful as well, and I'm sure that once I'm settled in I'll treasure the Tarheel State just as much.
xxxA
"You don't know it yet?" I enquired. I was joking as this was what he said to me when we'd gone to get my dependent ID and for whatever reason the woman had asked me what his social security number was! Anyhow I gave him my SS#, told him to call if he needed anything else, rolled over and went back to sleep again.
3 minutes later my phone rings again. "Babe, is it ### -------- Court that we're moving to?" No, honey, it's ### -------- Lane. "Okay babe, thanks!"...
Haha it's astonishing, isn't it? He's the one with all of the paperwork pertaining to our rental agreement, but he still needs to call me for the correct address of the house we're moving to. Ah, bless him.
Needless to say I couldn't go back to sleep a second time. Probably a good thing. When I first left my job at the Hotel, I was still waking up at 6am like clockwork, even without setting my alarm! Gradually my body has readjusted into the no reason to wake up early for work anymore! phase. Although I'd better readjust to waking up at 4:00am quick, as that's what time DH has to wake up when he has PT in the morning. I actually had this conversation with my mother recently, she said "Just because he has work doesn't mean you have to wake up at the crack of dawn as well!" And I explained that it's a respect thing, besides, I intend to fix him breakfast before he goes. My dearest Mother still doesn't quite understand my logic behind this but, I understand my logic behind this :)
In only a few more weeks, we'll be moved into our new townhome and our proper married life will be starting for good. I'm so, so excited!
For the record though, I'm still procrastinating packing! As excited as I am about starting married life, leaving Missouri is a somber prospect. The Show-Me State has showed me a lot about life and how beautiful it can be. But alas North Carolina is wonderful as well, and I'm sure that once I'm settled in I'll treasure the Tarheel State just as much.
xxxA
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Second Hand News
I'm currently resisting the temptation to scream out a long line of expletives. DH was originally meant to be going on leave April 20. This leave got cancelled. So he resubmitted and got approved for April 28-March 16, which would mean I'd be seeing my darling on April 29.
This leave got cancelled.
I don't know exactly why, I'm not sure he knows exactly why, it's something to do with training or this that and the other. But either way it's frustrated both of us. We're still unsure as to when he can get leave now. *sigh*
The Marine Corps has to be the most frustrating thing on the planet right now. It's been almost 1 week now since I've seen my husband (okay so it's not that long, I admit) but it feels like an eternity.
A friend of mine, Rich just tried to call and I rejected the phone call. I am really not in the mood for talking to anyone right now. :(
Sad thing is... it's only going to get harder, isn't it.
This leave got cancelled.
I don't know exactly why, I'm not sure he knows exactly why, it's something to do with training or this that and the other. But either way it's frustrated both of us. We're still unsure as to when he can get leave now. *sigh*
The Marine Corps has to be the most frustrating thing on the planet right now. It's been almost 1 week now since I've seen my husband (okay so it's not that long, I admit) but it feels like an eternity.
A friend of mine, Rich just tried to call and I rejected the phone call. I am really not in the mood for talking to anyone right now. :(
Sad thing is... it's only going to get harder, isn't it.
Apronista Flirty Apron Give Away
Somebody posted a link to a site called The Apronista today and I'm already in love with it! Anyhow, they webmaster is doing a Flirty Apron Give Away http://apronista.blogspot.com/2008/04/flirty-apron-giveaway.html <<-- here. The Aprons you have a chance to win are just delightful, and don't forget to browse the rest of her adorable blog! Enjoy!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
DH's Deployment
It's confirmed. DH will be deploying with a mid-team to Iraq in September. He's excited. I'm not so much. It will be his 1st deployment, and he'll be away for 6 months, back for 1 month, then away for another 6 months.
I'm just feeling blank right now :(
I'm just feeling blank right now :(
Monday, April 21, 2008
Wreck This Heart
I don't really have anything to base 'how to be a good wife' on. Unless of course you count the numerous 50s TV shows such as Leave It To Beaver and I Love Lucy that I grew up adoring and watching religiously. But it's far from reality, isn't it?
Growing up, I never had any positive role models pertaining to the cliché family. I'm an only child to a single mother, who was rarely ever there. I love her with all my heart, of course I do, but not only are we in different countries now, we've always been on different planets. As I've gotten older, I've come to understand why my mother is who she is, why she does what she does. But for the longest time I've vowed never to become her.
I understand that my mother needs love, attention and adoration from men. And I understand that I was always perceived as being in the way of her life. I know she feels she could have achieved so much more had she not had a child. She probably would have, too...
Don't get me wrong, I know that my mother loves me, cares about me, but she doesn't really know me.
These days though I am speaking to my mother a little more than usual, I used to speak to her maybe once every few months, nowadays it's once every week or two, so that's an improvement. She's indifferent to the fact that I got married- it's better than her being against it at least.
Too many people have been against it. And I truly don't understand why they are.
A man I became friends with down in Tennessee while on my travels, had been married 3 times, divorced 3 times. He always told me that the piece of paper changes people. To be careful. To think about what I'm doing. And although he had never met Chris, he had issues with the fact that Chris was only 21. "I've got underwear older than that kid!" JC would say to me. Too much information, buddy!
But I chose not to listen to others. This was my life after all. Even so I've looked in dismay at a lot of the married couples I've known in my life. A constant case of infedelity, bickering, backstabbing. And it scares me.
I'm a perfectionist in everything I do. But I often learn by example. And due to the lack of good examples in my life, I'm terrified that I'm going to fail as a wife. Maybe I'm the one who's changed since I got that bit of paper. Maybe I'm all of a sudden analyzing this situation too much. Maybe it will be better when we move in together for good in May.
The thing is, I don't really know how to tell Chris about my concerns. I've never been good at expressing my emotions verbally to others (despite being able to write them in diary entries and blog entries). I know it's something I need to work on. Nevertheless, I'll try to talk to him when I see him next week, it's not the kind of thing I can discuss on the phone, (I hate talking on the phone).
Anyhow, today I've got a lot of cleaning up and packing to do. I've decided I'm going to deep clean my apartment room by room. I'll start with the bathroom and my walk in closet today. I don't have long before the move after all. Tomorrow I'll get the kitchen and living room out of the way. Then I'll conquer my bedroom. It's not really anything that hard, but I've decided to clean my carpets, flooring, walls, dust, and of course pack everything that I don't need immediately.
It least it will distract me for a while.
I think too much.
Growing up, I never had any positive role models pertaining to the cliché family. I'm an only child to a single mother, who was rarely ever there. I love her with all my heart, of course I do, but not only are we in different countries now, we've always been on different planets. As I've gotten older, I've come to understand why my mother is who she is, why she does what she does. But for the longest time I've vowed never to become her.
I understand that my mother needs love, attention and adoration from men. And I understand that I was always perceived as being in the way of her life. I know she feels she could have achieved so much more had she not had a child. She probably would have, too...
Don't get me wrong, I know that my mother loves me, cares about me, but she doesn't really know me.
These days though I am speaking to my mother a little more than usual, I used to speak to her maybe once every few months, nowadays it's once every week or two, so that's an improvement. She's indifferent to the fact that I got married- it's better than her being against it at least.
Too many people have been against it. And I truly don't understand why they are.
A man I became friends with down in Tennessee while on my travels, had been married 3 times, divorced 3 times. He always told me that the piece of paper changes people. To be careful. To think about what I'm doing. And although he had never met Chris, he had issues with the fact that Chris was only 21. "I've got underwear older than that kid!" JC would say to me. Too much information, buddy!
But I chose not to listen to others. This was my life after all. Even so I've looked in dismay at a lot of the married couples I've known in my life. A constant case of infedelity, bickering, backstabbing. And it scares me.
I'm a perfectionist in everything I do. But I often learn by example. And due to the lack of good examples in my life, I'm terrified that I'm going to fail as a wife. Maybe I'm the one who's changed since I got that bit of paper. Maybe I'm all of a sudden analyzing this situation too much. Maybe it will be better when we move in together for good in May.
The thing is, I don't really know how to tell Chris about my concerns. I've never been good at expressing my emotions verbally to others (despite being able to write them in diary entries and blog entries). I know it's something I need to work on. Nevertheless, I'll try to talk to him when I see him next week, it's not the kind of thing I can discuss on the phone, (I hate talking on the phone).
Anyhow, today I've got a lot of cleaning up and packing to do. I've decided I'm going to deep clean my apartment room by room. I'll start with the bathroom and my walk in closet today. I don't have long before the move after all. Tomorrow I'll get the kitchen and living room out of the way. Then I'll conquer my bedroom. It's not really anything that hard, but I've decided to clean my carpets, flooring, walls, dust, and of course pack everything that I don't need immediately.
It least it will distract me for a while.
I think too much.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Shake, Rattle And Roll
So, that earthquake that hit the midwest yesterday... that was pretty interesting! It woke me up and I honestly thought I was having one of my nightmares when I heard all of the noise, so I put my pillow over my head willing it to go away. I didn't find out til I woke up for good Friday morning that it had been an earthquake.
Then at around 10am I was sitting here at my computer desk when the aftershock hit! I definitely felt that one! So, during my time in the midwest, I can say that I've survived flooding, a tornado (when I was down visiting in Tennessee earlier this year), and now an earthquake. I'm just thankful that there were no injuries or great losses in yesterday's tremor! Thank goodness!
In other news- I officially decided yesterday that it was time to do something about my weight (for the millionth time!). I know my husband says I'm pretty, and that I'm not fat, but I am pudgy/chubby- and he does want me to tone up. I want me to tone up. My husband doesn't know how much I weigh, most people are astonished when I tell them, but it's because I carry it well I guess.
I need to lean up for my health though, the extra pounds can't be good for me. I've struggled with my weight my entire life. Going everywhere from underweight to obese. I've officially messed up my metabolism, and it's something I need to rectify soon.
So yesterday I logged back in to weightwatchers.com and renewed my long-ignored membership. I got out my scales, and after a bit of frustration at the weight they read out (even I had underestimated what I now weigh!) decided today was the day for healthier eating.
With my husband back in North Carolina and me obviously back in St. Louis, it's a good opportunity for me to get a bit of a kick start. No matter what he eats, his weight remains in the same 10lb range. It's frustrating! But of course he does PT every morning which probably makes a huge difference.
Today I'm super proud of myself because I did the 15 minute work out in this month's Good Housekeeping magazine, then I did the 1 mile walk as suggested in Family Circle magazine (it took me 13 minutes which I think is pretty good!). So all up, almost 30 minutes of exercise today. Nothing extraordinary but it feels good all the same. I know if I start exercise regimes to the max (ie: attempting to do 1 hour of hard cardio or whatever) I soon tire of them then give up completely!
Anyhow, I need to go down to Walgreens and buy some bottles of water, and I've decided to treat myself to a Sandwich at St. Louis Bread Co (if I eat everything in moderation and stick to the WW points plan it's fine!).
Hope everyone is doing well!
God Bless!
xxxA
Then at around 10am I was sitting here at my computer desk when the aftershock hit! I definitely felt that one! So, during my time in the midwest, I can say that I've survived flooding, a tornado (when I was down visiting in Tennessee earlier this year), and now an earthquake. I'm just thankful that there were no injuries or great losses in yesterday's tremor! Thank goodness!
In other news- I officially decided yesterday that it was time to do something about my weight (for the millionth time!). I know my husband says I'm pretty, and that I'm not fat, but I am pudgy/chubby- and he does want me to tone up. I want me to tone up. My husband doesn't know how much I weigh, most people are astonished when I tell them, but it's because I carry it well I guess.
I need to lean up for my health though, the extra pounds can't be good for me. I've struggled with my weight my entire life. Going everywhere from underweight to obese. I've officially messed up my metabolism, and it's something I need to rectify soon.
So yesterday I logged back in to weightwatchers.com and renewed my long-ignored membership. I got out my scales, and after a bit of frustration at the weight they read out (even I had underestimated what I now weigh!) decided today was the day for healthier eating.
With my husband back in North Carolina and me obviously back in St. Louis, it's a good opportunity for me to get a bit of a kick start. No matter what he eats, his weight remains in the same 10lb range. It's frustrating! But of course he does PT every morning which probably makes a huge difference.
Today I'm super proud of myself because I did the 15 minute work out in this month's Good Housekeeping magazine, then I did the 1 mile walk as suggested in Family Circle magazine (it took me 13 minutes which I think is pretty good!). So all up, almost 30 minutes of exercise today. Nothing extraordinary but it feels good all the same. I know if I start exercise regimes to the max (ie: attempting to do 1 hour of hard cardio or whatever) I soon tire of them then give up completely!
Anyhow, I need to go down to Walgreens and buy some bottles of water, and I've decided to treat myself to a Sandwich at St. Louis Bread Co (if I eat everything in moderation and stick to the WW points plan it's fine!).
Hope everyone is doing well!
God Bless!
xxxA
Friday, April 18, 2008
Wedding Photos Etc
Click Images for larger view :)
Onslow County Courthouse- Where We Got Married! April 11, 2008
Chris & I
Chris & I
Chris
Me!
Chris & I at Texas Roadhouse
Chris
Me Again
The House That We'll Be Renting As Of 05/15/08!
Camp Lejeune, NC
Married!
On April 11, 2008 (last Friday!) Chris and I got married at the Onslow County Magistrates Court in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Our friends Eric, Michael, Brandon, Crystal, and Brandon's mother and sister attended. Afterwards we went to the Texas Roadhouse for lunch- not exactly the classiest thing in the world but a darn good meal all the same!
Before going to the restaurant though I changed out of my dress & stockings into jeans and a tshirt. It was a very warm day and I wanted to be more comfortable! All in all, the entire day went smoothly and without issue- although unfortunately Steve and Kim didn't attend.
That evening, Chris and I got in my rental car and drove all the way to Indianapolis to see his parents and family. I was so nervous about meeting his folks, but they seemingly like me well enough! (And yes we did it the wrong way round, married then meeting the family! Chris won't get to meet my mother until she visits in July, and won't get to meet my extended family until we can afford to visit Australia which may be a ways down the track!).
Chris also showed me a bit more of Indianapolis, and we went to a restaurant called Champs at the Circle Center for dinner which was awesome. I classify it as our 'honeymoon dinner' for this reason! We had chicken lettuce wraps for starters, and then we both had a chicken dish for our main course. Delicious!
I actually hold the honor of first introducing Chris to Lettuce Wraps- on the very first weekend we spent together down in Myrtle Beach South Carolina, we ate at a restaurant called Buddha's Lounge & Grill- where I enlightened Chris to one of my favorite dishes :) Thankfully he definitely approves of most of the new things I've been able to introduce him to!
So after our brief stop in Indianapolis, we again drove all the way back to North Carolina as Chris had to check in to work on Tuesday, and on Monday we had to find an apartment/house!
We looked at 4 properties together, I'd already inspected 3 others myself some weeks ago so knew the kind of thing I preferred. Thankfully Chris and I were on the same page, and agreed to narrow it down to 2 townhouses. One was an older, 1960s, 2 bedroom 1 bathroom going for $650 a month, the other was a 2004, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom going for $750 a month. After viewing the properties we decided that the older, cheaper house was what we needed, but the newer more expensive house was what we wanted. So, after some deliberation we decided that we'd go for the older property- we could make it nice after all!
We got back to the real estate agency however, and got the news that another couple had just put a deposit down on the older property not 5 minutes before! So after a brief discussion we decided to take the more expensive house then and there... we had both fallen in love with it and it is what we wanted after all, despite the extra $100 a month!
So we filled out an application, paid our deposit, and the next morning signed the lease! We can't move in until May 15 however, so that's why I'm currently back in St. Louis. I need to get all of my stuff packed up, and Chris is going on leave at the end of the month so he can help me move.
I'm so excited about our new house though- the element we both liked the most was the huge eat-in kitchen! And the living room has a beautiful polished wood floor, and a fire place! Upstairs are two bedrooms (both kind of small but that's okay) both with ensuites. There's a small backyard and a small frontyard- both of which we are responsible for maintaining. Even though Chris's logic has immediately drifted to putting some stones in the backyard and getting a BBQ set up, I'm thinking more along the lines of planting new grass and planting some flower beds (we're allowed to do whatever we want to the garden as long as it doesn't intefere with the integrity or value of the property). But I'm sure we can come to a compromise on that as well!
Admittedly, over the first few days of being Mrs. L, I was a nervous wreck. I almost had a panic attack driving back from Indianapolis because I was so scared that I wouldn't make a good wife, that Chris would get sick of me and leave me, that I'd mess up, that I wouldn't live up to expectations. And although my fears are always at the back of my mind (I swear I'm too emotionally fragile at times!) I'm very, very content and plan to make the best of it.
During the week I already found great satisfaction in my new role- I washed Chris's uniforms, scrubbed his boots clean, ironed everything that needed to be ironed... I swear I was born into the wrong era. I have always had a preoccupation with the lifestyles of the past, when being a housewife was something to be proud of, not to be ashamed of. And it was so enjoyable to be able to do something for someone else. My entire life has centered around me. Only child to a single mother who was barely ever there. I got a job. Moved out of home. Got another job. Moved to another country. Everything I do, everything I eat, every decision I make has always been for the sake of selfish reasons. But now I get to be selfless, and take pride and joy in being there and living for someone else... and I really, really enjoy it already.
I have always tried my best to achieve in everything I set my mind to. So I make this promise to myself and the world now, that I'm going to aim to be the best wife I possibly can be. This is the start of a new and interesting journey, that's for sure :)
Before going to the restaurant though I changed out of my dress & stockings into jeans and a tshirt. It was a very warm day and I wanted to be more comfortable! All in all, the entire day went smoothly and without issue- although unfortunately Steve and Kim didn't attend.
That evening, Chris and I got in my rental car and drove all the way to Indianapolis to see his parents and family. I was so nervous about meeting his folks, but they seemingly like me well enough! (And yes we did it the wrong way round, married then meeting the family! Chris won't get to meet my mother until she visits in July, and won't get to meet my extended family until we can afford to visit Australia which may be a ways down the track!).
Chris also showed me a bit more of Indianapolis, and we went to a restaurant called Champs at the Circle Center for dinner which was awesome. I classify it as our 'honeymoon dinner' for this reason! We had chicken lettuce wraps for starters, and then we both had a chicken dish for our main course. Delicious!
I actually hold the honor of first introducing Chris to Lettuce Wraps- on the very first weekend we spent together down in Myrtle Beach South Carolina, we ate at a restaurant called Buddha's Lounge & Grill- where I enlightened Chris to one of my favorite dishes :) Thankfully he definitely approves of most of the new things I've been able to introduce him to!
So after our brief stop in Indianapolis, we again drove all the way back to North Carolina as Chris had to check in to work on Tuesday, and on Monday we had to find an apartment/house!
We looked at 4 properties together, I'd already inspected 3 others myself some weeks ago so knew the kind of thing I preferred. Thankfully Chris and I were on the same page, and agreed to narrow it down to 2 townhouses. One was an older, 1960s, 2 bedroom 1 bathroom going for $650 a month, the other was a 2004, 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom going for $750 a month. After viewing the properties we decided that the older, cheaper house was what we needed, but the newer more expensive house was what we wanted. So, after some deliberation we decided that we'd go for the older property- we could make it nice after all!
We got back to the real estate agency however, and got the news that another couple had just put a deposit down on the older property not 5 minutes before! So after a brief discussion we decided to take the more expensive house then and there... we had both fallen in love with it and it is what we wanted after all, despite the extra $100 a month!
So we filled out an application, paid our deposit, and the next morning signed the lease! We can't move in until May 15 however, so that's why I'm currently back in St. Louis. I need to get all of my stuff packed up, and Chris is going on leave at the end of the month so he can help me move.
I'm so excited about our new house though- the element we both liked the most was the huge eat-in kitchen! And the living room has a beautiful polished wood floor, and a fire place! Upstairs are two bedrooms (both kind of small but that's okay) both with ensuites. There's a small backyard and a small frontyard- both of which we are responsible for maintaining. Even though Chris's logic has immediately drifted to putting some stones in the backyard and getting a BBQ set up, I'm thinking more along the lines of planting new grass and planting some flower beds (we're allowed to do whatever we want to the garden as long as it doesn't intefere with the integrity or value of the property). But I'm sure we can come to a compromise on that as well!
Admittedly, over the first few days of being Mrs. L, I was a nervous wreck. I almost had a panic attack driving back from Indianapolis because I was so scared that I wouldn't make a good wife, that Chris would get sick of me and leave me, that I'd mess up, that I wouldn't live up to expectations. And although my fears are always at the back of my mind (I swear I'm too emotionally fragile at times!) I'm very, very content and plan to make the best of it.
During the week I already found great satisfaction in my new role- I washed Chris's uniforms, scrubbed his boots clean, ironed everything that needed to be ironed... I swear I was born into the wrong era. I have always had a preoccupation with the lifestyles of the past, when being a housewife was something to be proud of, not to be ashamed of. And it was so enjoyable to be able to do something for someone else. My entire life has centered around me. Only child to a single mother who was barely ever there. I got a job. Moved out of home. Got another job. Moved to another country. Everything I do, everything I eat, every decision I make has always been for the sake of selfish reasons. But now I get to be selfless, and take pride and joy in being there and living for someone else... and I really, really enjoy it already.
I have always tried my best to achieve in everything I set my mind to. So I make this promise to myself and the world now, that I'm going to aim to be the best wife I possibly can be. This is the start of a new and interesting journey, that's for sure :)
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
The Unknown Soldier
I thought I'd share this news article. It's disturbing to say the least. I can barely read it due to my own personal experiences with close military friends who have suffered dramatically due to what they had to suffer through while in Iraq or Afghanistan. I pray every day that this war will end soon... somebody very special to me deployed to Afghanistan in 2004 and Iraq in 2005. Although he came back physically in tact, part of him never came back at all, his soul, the person I knew before, had died. He is still dear to me, but a stranger to me although we still talk and see eachother quite frequently. Sadly it doesn't seem like his circumstances are uncommon.
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - U.S. soldiers are committing suicide at record levels, young officers are abandoning their military careers, and the heavy use of forces in Iraq has made it harder for the military to fight conflicts that could arise elsewhere.
Unprecedented strains on the nation's all-volunteer military are threatening the health and readiness of the troops.
While the spotlight Wednesday was on congressional hearings with the U.S. ambassador and commanding general for Iraq, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody was in another hearing room explaining how troops and their families are being taxed by long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the prospect of future years of conflict in the global war on terror.
"That marathon has become an enduring relay and our soldiers continue to run — and at the double time," Cody said. "Does this exhaust the body and mind of those in the race, and those who are ever present on the sidelines, cheering their every step? Yes. Has it broken the will of the soldier? No."
And it's not just the people that are facing strains.
Military depots have been working in high gear to repair or rebuild hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment — from radios to vehicles to weapons — that are being overused and worn out in harsh battlefield conditions. The Defense Department has asked for $46.5 billion in this year's war budget to repair and replace equipment damaged or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Both the Army and Marine Corps have been forced to take equipment from non-deployed units and from pre-positioned stocks to meet needs of those in combat — meaning troops at home can't train on the equipment.
National Guard units have only an average of 61 percent of the equipment needed to be ready for disasters or attacks on the U.S., Missouri Democrat Ike Skelton lamented at Wednesday's hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.
Cody and his Marine counterpart, Gen. Robert Magnus, told the committee they're not sure their forces could handle a new conflict if one came along.
The Pentagon and Congress have worked in recent years to increase funding, bolster support programs for families, improve care for soldiers and Marines and increase the size of both forces to reduce the strain. Cody said the U.S. must continue the investment, continue to support its armed forces and have an "open and honest discussion" about the size of military that is needed for today's demands.
An annual Pentagon report this year found there was a significant risk that the U.S. military could not quickly and fully respond to another outbreak elsewhere in the world. The classified risk assessment concluded that long battlefield tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with persistent terrorist activity and other threats, are to blame.
The review grades the armed services' ability to meet the demands of the nation's military strategy — which would include fighting the current wars as well any potential outbreaks in places such as North Korea, Iran, Lebanon or China.
Similarly, a 400-page January report by the independent Commission on the National Guard and Reserves found the force isn't ready for a catastrophic chemical, biological or nuclear attack on this country, and National Guard forces don't have the equipment or training they need for the job.
Strain on individuals has been repeatedly documented.
It contributes to the difficulty in getting other Americans to join the volunteer military. The Army struggles to find enough recruits each year and to keep career soldiers.
Thousands more troops each year struggle with mental health problems because of the combat they've seen. The lengthening of duty tours to 15 months from 12 a year ago also has been blamed for problems as has the fact that soldiers are being sent back for two, three or more times.
President Bush will announce on Thursday that the length of tours will go back to 12 months for Army units heading to war after Aug. 1, defense officials said Wednesday.
Some 27 percent of soldiers on their third or fourth combat tours suffered anxiety, depression, post-combat stress and other problems, according to an Army survey released last month. That compared with 12 percent among those on their first tour.
In Afghanistan a range of mental health problems increased, and 11.4 percent of those surveyed reported suffering from depression.
Medical professionals themselves are burning out and said in the survey that they need more help to treat the troops. The report also recommended longer home time between deployments and more focused suicide-prevention training. It said civilian psychologists and other behavioral health professionals should be sent to the warfront to augment the uniformed corps.
Though separate data reported on divorce rates appeared to be holding steady last year, soldiers say they are having more problem with their marriages due to the long and repeated separations.
As many as 121 troops committed suicide in 2007, an increase of some 20 percent over 2006, according to preliminary figures released in January.
If all are confirmed that would be more than double the 52 reported in 2001, before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted the Bush administration to launch the war in Afghanistan.
By PAULINE JELINEK, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - U.S. soldiers are committing suicide at record levels, young officers are abandoning their military careers, and the heavy use of forces in Iraq has made it harder for the military to fight conflicts that could arise elsewhere.
Unprecedented strains on the nation's all-volunteer military are threatening the health and readiness of the troops.
While the spotlight Wednesday was on congressional hearings with the U.S. ambassador and commanding general for Iraq, Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody was in another hearing room explaining how troops and their families are being taxed by long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the prospect of future years of conflict in the global war on terror.
"That marathon has become an enduring relay and our soldiers continue to run — and at the double time," Cody said. "Does this exhaust the body and mind of those in the race, and those who are ever present on the sidelines, cheering their every step? Yes. Has it broken the will of the soldier? No."
And it's not just the people that are facing strains.
Military depots have been working in high gear to repair or rebuild hundreds of thousands of pieces of equipment — from radios to vehicles to weapons — that are being overused and worn out in harsh battlefield conditions. The Defense Department has asked for $46.5 billion in this year's war budget to repair and replace equipment damaged or destroyed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Both the Army and Marine Corps have been forced to take equipment from non-deployed units and from pre-positioned stocks to meet needs of those in combat — meaning troops at home can't train on the equipment.
National Guard units have only an average of 61 percent of the equipment needed to be ready for disasters or attacks on the U.S., Missouri Democrat Ike Skelton lamented at Wednesday's hearing of the House Armed Services Committee.
Cody and his Marine counterpart, Gen. Robert Magnus, told the committee they're not sure their forces could handle a new conflict if one came along.
The Pentagon and Congress have worked in recent years to increase funding, bolster support programs for families, improve care for soldiers and Marines and increase the size of both forces to reduce the strain. Cody said the U.S. must continue the investment, continue to support its armed forces and have an "open and honest discussion" about the size of military that is needed for today's demands.
An annual Pentagon report this year found there was a significant risk that the U.S. military could not quickly and fully respond to another outbreak elsewhere in the world. The classified risk assessment concluded that long battlefield tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with persistent terrorist activity and other threats, are to blame.
The review grades the armed services' ability to meet the demands of the nation's military strategy — which would include fighting the current wars as well any potential outbreaks in places such as North Korea, Iran, Lebanon or China.
Similarly, a 400-page January report by the independent Commission on the National Guard and Reserves found the force isn't ready for a catastrophic chemical, biological or nuclear attack on this country, and National Guard forces don't have the equipment or training they need for the job.
Strain on individuals has been repeatedly documented.
It contributes to the difficulty in getting other Americans to join the volunteer military. The Army struggles to find enough recruits each year and to keep career soldiers.
Thousands more troops each year struggle with mental health problems because of the combat they've seen. The lengthening of duty tours to 15 months from 12 a year ago also has been blamed for problems as has the fact that soldiers are being sent back for two, three or more times.
President Bush will announce on Thursday that the length of tours will go back to 12 months for Army units heading to war after Aug. 1, defense officials said Wednesday.
Some 27 percent of soldiers on their third or fourth combat tours suffered anxiety, depression, post-combat stress and other problems, according to an Army survey released last month. That compared with 12 percent among those on their first tour.
In Afghanistan a range of mental health problems increased, and 11.4 percent of those surveyed reported suffering from depression.
Medical professionals themselves are burning out and said in the survey that they need more help to treat the troops. The report also recommended longer home time between deployments and more focused suicide-prevention training. It said civilian psychologists and other behavioral health professionals should be sent to the warfront to augment the uniformed corps.
Though separate data reported on divorce rates appeared to be holding steady last year, soldiers say they are having more problem with their marriages due to the long and repeated separations.
As many as 121 troops committed suicide in 2007, an increase of some 20 percent over 2006, according to preliminary figures released in January.
If all are confirmed that would be more than double the 52 reported in 2001, before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted the Bush administration to launch the war in Afghanistan.
Nothin Could Be Finer
Tomorrow morning I'll be flying back to North Carolina! So of course that means I get to see Chris tomorrow afternoon, and then if all goes to plan, we'll be getting married on Friday! I'm so excited! Then we need to go house hunting. I've already done my research and inspected a few places available in Jacksonville, so I know what to expect for our budget.
I just can't wait for my new life to begin :)
I just can't wait for my new life to begin :)
Nothin Better To Do
Believe it or not, one of the things I'm really looking forward to about moving (apart from being married, of course!), is the fact that I'm determined that the next place I live has a washer-dryer hookup, and in an ideal world I'd like a townhome with some garden in the back so I can actually hang up my washing to air dry!
I have loved where I have lived in Missouri for the past year and a half- but I despise walking back and forth to the laundromat and spending $1.25 to wash, $1.25 to dry, and then worrying that the dryer is going to mess up my clothes. Consequently I'm now sitting here in damp jeans, trying to stretch them out because I left them in the dryer a bit longer than usual and of course they've shrunk. Oh what I wouldn't do for a clothes line!
Unfortunately my apartment complex doesn't allow us to hang our clothes on racks on our porches. Looks too messy or something. I can understand that. But now my bedroom looks like a harem with clothes draped to finish drying here there and everywhere!
Now I know this may be a strange train of thought, but it occured to me tonight that I never see Hills Hoist Clothes Lines over here in America. I took them for granted in every back yard in Australia. Now I want one over here in America! I miss the rusty creek as the breeze slowly pushed the hoist around, and I remember playing on them as a child, pretending I was a gymnast by swinging off the supporting bars. Wow I must have been a bored child. But I do remember it being fun all the same!
I'll have to do some research on the net as to whether I can even buy anything similar here in the US. There has to be something. I probably just haven't found it yet. But I highly doubt they'd know what I was on about if I went into Home Depot and asked for a "Hills Hoist"!
Speaking of line drying though, there is an entire blog about it here. To be perfectly honest I took line drying completely for granted until I moved to the US and found that the 'norm' seemed to be putting everything in the dryer.
I don't think I actually ever owned a dryer that worked back in Australia. And having worked for my State's electricity department (now privatized, unfortunately!) for 3 1/2 years, I was always anti-dryer due to the fact that they cost so much per cycle. That's one thing I've always been frugal about- electricity. One light bulb per light fitting (even if it requires 3), lights only on in the room that I'm in. I know some people may think this is strange and retarded. But nobody who's ever come to my apartment has ever commented on a lack of light or anything. It depends on the size of your place I suppose. I used a lot of candles though. I prefer dim light. Bright lights give me far too many headaches. Maybe that's from working in an office environment for so many years.
Anyways, that's enough of a ramble for one night. Wow. What's my world coming to? Blogging about laundry? Tsk! I must be getting old!
Which Little Women Character Am I?
| Which Little Women Character Are you? created with QuizFarm.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You scored as Jo You are a free-spirited dreamer who longs for a bigger world than your small little town. You are a tomboy but are capable of acting like a girl once in a while.
|
Does This Look Delicious Or What?
I found this recipe on The Australian Women's Weekly website. Does this sound good or what? I plan on trying it out in the very near future!
Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup
Serving size: Serves 4
Cuisine type: Asian
Cooking time: Less than 30 minutes
Special options: Diabetic, Heart friendly, Kid friendly, Lactose free, Low Carb, Low cholesterol, Low fat, Nut free
Course: Entree, Lunch, Main
Favourite flavours: Chicken, Easy recipes, Soup
INGREDIENTS
750ml salt-reduced chicken stock
chinese cooking wine or sherry
fresh ginger
garlic
salt-reduced soy sauce
2 (400g) chicken breast fillets
1 egg
420g can creamed corn
310g can corn kernels
3 green onions (green shallots)
METHOD
Bring stock, water, wine, ginger, garlic, soy sauce and chicken to the boil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer for about 7 minutes or until the chicken is just cooked through. Remove chicken from stock; when cool enough to handle, shred coarsely.
Return stock to the boil. Break egg into a small bowl and whisk lightly. Slowly pour egg into stock, whisking constantly so it forms small threads.
Add creamed corn, kernels and chicken to stock and return to the boil.
Ladle soup into serving bowls and sprinkle with onions.
Suitable to freeze without egg. Not suitable to microwave.
Chicken and Sweet Corn Soup
Serving size: Serves 4
Cuisine type: Asian
Cooking time: Less than 30 minutes
Special options: Diabetic, Heart friendly, Kid friendly, Lactose free, Low Carb, Low cholesterol, Low fat, Nut free
Course: Entree, Lunch, Main
Favourite flavours: Chicken, Easy recipes, Soup
INGREDIENTS
750ml salt-reduced chicken stock
chinese cooking wine or sherry
fresh ginger
garlic
salt-reduced soy sauce
2 (400g) chicken breast fillets
1 egg
420g can creamed corn
310g can corn kernels
3 green onions (green shallots)
METHOD
Bring stock, water, wine, ginger, garlic, soy sauce and chicken to the boil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Reduce heat and simmer for about 7 minutes or until the chicken is just cooked through. Remove chicken from stock; when cool enough to handle, shred coarsely.
Return stock to the boil. Break egg into a small bowl and whisk lightly. Slowly pour egg into stock, whisking constantly so it forms small threads.
Add creamed corn, kernels and chicken to stock and return to the boil.
Ladle soup into serving bowls and sprinkle with onions.
Suitable to freeze without egg. Not suitable to microwave.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Great Southern Land
First blog on blogger. I think I used this thing years ago but soon bored of it. Lately all of my insane ramblings have appeared on My Space under one of my pseudonyms. But it's occured to me that even my My Space persona has become a charicature, writings directed towards the expectations of my friends and readers. Maybe that's what studying Journalism in College taught me- know your target audience.
But as I am finally finding happiness and contentment in my world, it's confused my public. People see me how they want to see me. They love me or hate me. But seemingly me and my life has somehow intrigued people. You Should Write A Book! How many times have I heard that? Too many. Maybe. Someday.
It's occured to me that I've matured, but some people just aren't quite ready for me to grow up just yet. For me to change. Maybe people have been living vicariously through my misadventures for the past 4 years. I'm not sure.
So it's time for a change. New simpler site to express my beliefs on. Reflective of all of the wonderful changes coming up in my world in the near future. I've never been more thankful to God for leading me to my current path. I finally understand why I was challenged so much over the years, and why I've now been given so much strength and independence.
Within a matter of days I'll be married to my wonderful U.S. Marine. Again, this has come as a shock to some, but been met with support by others. Is 5 months a short engagement? Possibly. But this is what he wants, this is what I want. And more than anything else, we want each other. He was there for me in my time of need, he listens to me when others don't, and always tries his darndest to ensure my happiness. Who could ask for anything more?
I've traveled the world- Malaysia, Iceland, Croatia, Turkey, Japan, you name it, I've probably been there at some stage. I've lived my life. I've made both good and bad decisions along the way, there's no denying that. And my existance has definitely been a roller coaster of paramount proportions! But it's time for me to settle down. It's time for me to dedicate my life to someone. To stop being selfish. To stop living so recklessly.
"Behave, Baby, Behave" my Fiancé often tells me. I've always taken care of myself in the past, because nobody else has been there for me. Finally someone is.
And I couldn't be more content.
xxxA
But as I am finally finding happiness and contentment in my world, it's confused my public. People see me how they want to see me. They love me or hate me. But seemingly me and my life has somehow intrigued people. You Should Write A Book! How many times have I heard that? Too many. Maybe. Someday.
It's occured to me that I've matured, but some people just aren't quite ready for me to grow up just yet. For me to change. Maybe people have been living vicariously through my misadventures for the past 4 years. I'm not sure.
So it's time for a change. New simpler site to express my beliefs on. Reflective of all of the wonderful changes coming up in my world in the near future. I've never been more thankful to God for leading me to my current path. I finally understand why I was challenged so much over the years, and why I've now been given so much strength and independence.
Within a matter of days I'll be married to my wonderful U.S. Marine. Again, this has come as a shock to some, but been met with support by others. Is 5 months a short engagement? Possibly. But this is what he wants, this is what I want. And more than anything else, we want each other. He was there for me in my time of need, he listens to me when others don't, and always tries his darndest to ensure my happiness. Who could ask for anything more?
I've traveled the world- Malaysia, Iceland, Croatia, Turkey, Japan, you name it, I've probably been there at some stage. I've lived my life. I've made both good and bad decisions along the way, there's no denying that. And my existance has definitely been a roller coaster of paramount proportions! But it's time for me to settle down. It's time for me to dedicate my life to someone. To stop being selfish. To stop living so recklessly.
"Behave, Baby, Behave" my Fiancé often tells me. I've always taken care of myself in the past, because nobody else has been there for me. Finally someone is.
And I couldn't be more content.
xxxA
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