Her Perfume Smells Like Burning Leaves

I hope no one's begun slitting their wrists while reading this thing. It's been a shitty week, and today was another blah day at work. However, the dogs would have none of it when I came home. No napping with Oprah. No. So, frustrated, I ended up outside with them. We were gonna play ball, but I decided to first clean up the dog poo. (I read somewhere that one of the cons of having two dogs was that it somehow ends up equaling three dogs' worth of poo. That person was right.) So yard clean up evolved into a little bit of raking and then BURNING. I burned the shit out of some leaves tonight, and it was good. Peaceful. Until I thought my weird neighbors might call 911 on me. Yeah, I have no idea about the city ordinances, but to further liberate myself I decided just not to care. Do first, then apologize. YEAH.

As a reward, I came in afterward and watched the Pregnancy Pact that I'd DVR'd from Lifetime. From the very beginning I wanted to slap all the girls and shake them until their uteri fell out. (They can have them back when they are responsible enough to handle them.) But it was interesting, and of course it made me fear for possibly having teenagers one day, realizing how little I was told and that I was still a damn good kid who at least waited until after high school. Seriously, I know I'll be honest with my kids (should I have any), but I'll still want to lock them in a closet until their hormonal rage slows a bit. Teenagers having sex. Icky.

That's about all that's worth mentioning from my day. Except one thing. I'm pretty sure that when I forget to close my bedroom door during the day, Dexter sleeps on my bed. Doggies on bed is a no no. The laptop was left on the bed today, and when I got home from work, I flipped it up to find it was gritty on top. And after getting into bed a few minutes before starting this post, I realized the bedding was gritty too. NUTS. This explains the few times when Dexter isn't right at the door waiting for me. He's back here snoozing on our damn Vera Wang mattress. Next time he's slow to appear at the door, I'm going to run back here and check for body heat on my bed. Shit, pregnancy pact my ass. Give every high school kid a foster dog from a humane society and have them take care of it for a week. Then let the insanity begin!

Tres

I gotta write just a couple things here real quick before bed so I don't explode in my sleep. First, the good stuff: I got my ass up and to work on time, and it wasn't too taxing today. Also, I had a pretty good time at my key caller meeting, laughing, eating, and enjoying a 24 oz Killian's for only $1.75. Woot. The things I didn't like were at work the counselors disrespecting social work staff and thus my job further demoralizing me, my dogs literally eating shit, Lu chewing my stuff, and Joe fucking up his return home date so instead of coming home tomorrow, he'll come home Saturday. If you've ever seen the movie The Family Stone, there's a line where Sarah Jessica Parker's character says quite pathetically, "Doesn't anyone love ME?!" I sort of feel like that. I want to quit my job and give all those social work bashers the finger as they complete their own damn assessments. I want to beat the hell out of my dogs with their own chew toys o' plenty. Last, I want to just quit my wifely duties - no more laundry, cooking, vacuuming, dusting, paying bills, taking out the trash, picking up the dog shit out of the yard, mowing the grass - even the steep part where I have to wear cleats, doing the dishes, making sure the vehicles are serviced, tagged and insured (that he then loans out for a week without talking to me), grocery shopping, meal planning, coupon cutting, bathroom scrubbing, and whatever the hell else it is I do. And we'll just see how soon before the place is condemned, and we go to jail for non-payment. Also, I don't understand how I can ask so many times to know a return date from TDY, and it isn't communicated to me until I am dropping him off for the trip, only to be told the wrong date because he didn't double check. My dad sends out trip itineraries to the family weeks before he goes out of town, and I don't even live with him. Let's sac up here. C'mon, damn it.

Balance.

Feelin' alright tonight. I'm laying in my bed. Lu is on her bed next to Joe's side. And Dex is on the couch. (Joe's still gone.) The evening was decent. I came home after a short day at work (was pukey this morning, though not in a prego way - but rather a "that can of soup must have been off" way), snacked, played tetris and then walked the dogs. Two days in a row I've walked both dogs at once. Folks are probably laughing at me, but oh well. I need to exercise, and so do they. Time and help are limited. Dex has been wearing his gentle leader, so he has slowed down and stopped yanking me around, and Lu paces with him. We're getting a rhythm down, but the whole thing still goes to shit if Dex finds a nice place to hike his leg or Lu feels she needs to disobey the careful choreography that I've outlined. I should probably wear a helmet.

Also, I've laid off the sweets a bit. Well, as much as I can. I buy Fiber One bars and have them as my sweet snack after work. However, Joe bought me a Valentine's Day bag of Ghiradelli chocolate caramel squares, BUT I limit myself two TWO max per day. Today I only had one. I should have had a more balanced dinner than pudding, banana, and bread slice with PB, but damn it. It's just me.

Joe will be back day after tomorrow. He has stayed busy since the plane landed. I've been struggling with a few things lately - cyclical things that always come up again and again - not getting enough help around the house when Joe is home and getting even more mad about being completely alone when he is gone. I guess as a chick who grew up taking care of herself in many ways, I am ready to be taken care of, and yet I find myself to still be the caretaker...or everything. I don't see much resolution in the future, but Joe has vowed as he always does to step up to the plate more. I love him, and I know he loves me. He starts strong, but with time all the help tapers off. Sigh. We'll see. In the meantime I'm trying to figure out some fun stuff to GET OUT OF THE HOUSE and go and do together. Too often when we actually have time together, for the aforementioned reasons, I push for us to get stuff done together - clean, run errands, etc. It's not enough. We need to go do something fun. Callaway Gardens, Atlanta, a state park. Something's gotta give before he leaves again for a while.

Head Clearing and Maybe Punching

I went to the lady doctor on October 30, 2009. At that time, she was to send my BCP Rx in directly to Express Scripts (since the Army doesn't carry my kind) and said it would probably be a month or two before I got any. With that, she wrote me a script to fill off post for four month's worth. Well, I haven't gotten anything in the mail, nor are there any scripts on my ES online account. Oh, and I'm on my last pack of pills and would prefer not to reproduce at this time. GRRRR. It's life; I know. But it'd be nice for something to get done without me having to bitch to someone first.

*Letting it go until I can do anything about it. Exhale.*

Yes, I need to let go of the things I cannot control and take control of what I can. We all know this, yes? Of course. Hell, I even go to work and talk with patients about taking care of themselves - eating right, sleeping, exercise. Unfortunately, I haven't been doing these things for myself necessarily. When I have felt my best in life, I was eating quite well and exercising regularly. Sleep was in there too, but when you eat well and exercise, sleep will usually fall into place. My diet lately has kinda blown. Perhaps a product of the holidays or with Joe's homecoming the excuse to eat and do whatever? If that's the case then how the hell is he in such good shape? Because he exercises and is a former long-distance runner who can always pop out five miles just cuz. I can't really run like that. At all. But I know how to work out. And I have a gym membership. Gulp. I have everything I need to feel better. I just need to set aside some time and commit. I don't know if I'll have to wait until I feel more lousy. Or maybe until Joe scrapes me out of bed and forces me to run with him. (Which I have tried, and let's just say that he runs much, MUCH faster than me.) I don't know, but I must do something about feeling like hell all the time. I think the doctors at work call it "depression."

This weekend I tried to take the first step by getting organized at home and cleaning the crap out of this place. I did good, and I know it hasn't been this clean in a while. Also, I'm not putting off other stuff to let it continue to pile up. I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row to reduce what I believe to be "anxiety." Maybe with this step and becoming otherwise more healthy and balanced I can avoid going to the doc for medication. I need to do the basics first, and then if things don't improve I'll explore other options. I just can't do this never feeling rested and racing thoughts all the time. Sucks. But I feel better already with a clean house. And I love Joey. Miss Joey. But he isn't here to immediately destroy it. TDY = clean house. There are no dirty undies on the dresser!! Woohoo!!

More later. Must sleep and try to stay that way for the next 7.5 hours.

Penis

Damn it. I'm trying to be open-minded toward the good things that did occur today versus becoming violently drunk over all the shit that went south.

I went to bed last night reading the DSM-IV after an encounter with a patient I couldn't stop thinking about. It was about 2330 when I passed out. Of course then at 0430 (just like every damn day except Wednesdays when it's 0400), Joe's alarm went off. I never really go back to sleep all that well after his alarm goes off. He kissed me goodbye at 0530ish and by 0730, Lu started up. Still it was good. Got up did the coffee thing, cereal, puppies, showered, and got the day rolling. I didn't end up going to work but I kicked ass around the house cleaning instead. Until I had to go run my errands: I picked up a movie for us to watch (500 Days of Summer), paid the rent (the only thing that went right), and then went to post. Because my idiot doctor didn't want me to have to pay $3 for three months of my Rx that I could get in the mail through Express Scripts, she referred me to the "free pharmacy" on post. The drive to post is worth more than $3 in gas alone, but whatever. I decided to try it. Not only did I have to call my script in like a week in advance, but when I got there today, every surviving veteran was there to get a script filled. It was like something from Beetle Juice. I got my number - 471 and looked up in time to see 432 being served. Panic. See, I had a plan to breeze by the pharmacy on my way to the commissary where I'd pick up the food for a dinner date at home with Joe - it was to be stuffed pork chops and noodles. With that, I waited about ten minutes to see all of three people served before I busted out and went to the commissary. More veterans. And they do not move quickly. I hope I don't seem unpatriotic, but when you're in a hurry, the old folks just don't move quickly, though I still respect the hell out of their commitment to country. Anyway. I flew through the commissary nearly knocking people over right and left. I raced back over to the PX pharmacy refill to find them serving #498 after the 35 minutes or so I was gone. I guess things had picked up. So I got my new number 521 and settled standing in a corner away from the two rows of chairs that were completely filled. I stood there for just a few minutes before this lady in her early sixties comes barreling in to stand against the wall in my corner. She commented about having twisted her leg, to which I replied that she needed a chair and pointed out a recently empty one. She said no and informed me that she had been cleaning all day. I nodded and maybe said "Oh." She then went on to tell me about the "retarded girl" her husband had brought home to try to help and that she'd had to kick retarded girl out. Yes, retarded girl tried to fight old lady and then old lady's husband tried to leave with retarded girl. Old lady laughs as she's telling me all this and keeps saying "He's not getting a divorce. NO divorce." She then went on to say that they got married 8 years ago, and it's the first time she's had insurance, so yeah, NO DIVORCE. And throughout this I am in my head SCREAMING WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUCK. I mean seriously if I wanted that kind of information thrown at me, I'd have gone to work!!!!! I think I almost had a panic attack as I couldn't figure out how to get away from this woman without hurting her feelings (obviously her support systems are complete shit), and I didn't want to be one more person to reject her. I stood there heart pounding, sweating, and willing the numbers over the p/u windows to change faster. Finally, it was my turn. One Rx - called in well in advance. Chick can't find it. Second chick can't find. Stuff is typed in computer. Chick goes in "back" to look for it. Second chick then finds it while she was looking for someone else's Rx. It was in the correct bin the whole time. I got my Rx, ran to my car, rocked gently as I banged my head into my steering wheel and wept.

By that time it was around 1615-1630, and Joe still wasn't off work. I really wanted him to get off in time to go to the park and take a damn walk and then cook with me. No. I went home and cleaned some more and waited to hear from Joe before starting dinner. I heard from him around 5:30, as he was just leaving. However, he was in a rental car (don't ask), and had to gas it up and air up a tire before returning it off post where I needed to pick him up. When I picked him up it was after six and nearly dark. No walk in the park with the dogs. No getting a minute to sit down and say hi if I was to cook. So we went and ate Thai food as I broached the subject of why in the hell I do every fucking thing around the house. It was constructive and things got better. So much in fact that we went for ice cream afterward. Upon getting home, Joe threw some clothes in the wash for his TDY tomorrow, and then we started the movie. Or tried, rather. The goddamn blu ray player said it cannot play the disc. Folks, we have already sent our Samsung amplifier (main hub from our home theater) back to the manufacturer through Geek Squad, our computer is hanging on by a damn thread, and now the flipping blu ray player (also Samsung) is being a douche? WTF? (Please not our Samsung TV is wonderful) So Joe updates the firmware on the brp, which takes about an hour for some reason and just now comes back to tell me the disc still won't play.

I had this whole date night idea in my head - light, cheery, good food, good movie, annnnd no dice. I don't even know what Joe is doing now, but I guess we're going to go to bed soon so we can be up and at Groom (transportation service that goes to Atlanta) by 0700. Fucking shit man. I guess I give up today. I at least got things dusted, vacuumed, dog stuff washed, and both bathrooms cleaned. Not bad for pretty much taking care of everything by myself. As usual. I work, make a substantial wage, manage the money, pay the bills, have us in a place to be realistically out of debt in 7 months, make dinner (though admittedly not every night), and genuinely want to have things nice for Joe. Damn it. I want a wife who wants these things for me. God knows when I come home from work on the weekends (because that's the only time I come home to anyone) Joe's playing damn video games. Uggh.

Snoozin'

I have a few minutes to blog before we get ready for bed, which doesn't always happen anymore. We're all on the couch, except that both pups and Joe are already asleep. Joe has an old back injury that started flaring up yesterday, and as I was rubbing it, he passed out. Dogs followed suit. NOW NO ONE WAKE THE BABY, SO MAMA CAN BLOG!!

Man, for what's only been a three day week at this point, I'm exhausted. Today I put in a full 8 at work, which if you all will remember, I'm hourly and weak and do not like full 8 hour days. But I was doing some good investigative work on a patient's history, so I stayed and documented...for days. Anyway. I have tomorrow off but I may go in anyway. Short day. And Joe works so what's the point of staying home. Sadly, he leaves Saturday for a week long TDY. I don't mind him being gone during the week, except he's leaving on a damn weekend I have off and returns in time for me to go back to work. CURSE YOU, POOP DOG. Some good news is that Joe's schedule has been revised and his extensive training got pushed back to the end of February. How that happened is worth mentioning. Joe was going to take in a calendar to show one of his higher ups how much our schedules conflict and see about getting some additional time off before training. I then decided to write a letter and then I decided to not write a letter and then I decided to just write the damn thing and if Joe wanted to send it up his COC, then it was his call. I did my best to be respectful in my explanation of the situation, and Joe thought it was worth turning in since his own efforts at relaying the information to a fruitful end had failed. The day he took it in I was pretty nervous and read the letter over and over in my head. At work that morning - 11:24AM to be exact - I ended up getting a new voicemail, and as I frantically tried to delete messages in front of it, I accidentally deleted it just after hearing, "Hi Katie, this is the (fill in high ranking NCO)." AND THAT WAS IT. I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS SAID NEXT. I figured Joe was in deep shit, and I was being tactfully informed to shut my mouth. Not wanting to call Joe at work if he was in trouble and unable to reach him by his cell since he is not allowed to take it in his building, I settled for leaving him a voicemail. And then I continued to shake at work and avoid seeing any patients for a few minutes until I could determine that I could indeed hold down my multigrain cheerios. Finally, Joe called me back and said everything was fine - he had a meeting with a couple of the higher ups and they determined that I was right. Something was said that it was the best way to go about it and I'm not a wife who bitches about anything and something about I'm outstanding. Soooo, they gave us some extra weeks together and said we could have a four day weekend as well. I tell ya...I was fucking thrilled. Shortly after I learned this news, a patient walked up to the window of the office that myself, a couple nurses, and a psychiatrist were working in and grabbed his crotch through his sweat pants as he yelled at each of us individually, "YOU CAN SUCK MY DICK." All I could think of was 'Dude, you are the least of my worries today.' I felt on top of the world and came home with energy. This has seriously restored my faith in having a voice. I mean, it's not to be abused, but I have spent 2 years feeling powerless, and yesterday, I got a little back. It's good.

In other news, a random dog walker guy stopped Joe in our driveway right after he got home today and asked if we'd been getting any e-mails from the neighborhood watch. When Joe told him no, he informed that the latest situation was that a big black dude operating out of a black suburban with rims is breaking into houses and that if he knocks on your door, don't answer, just call the police because he's going to break the door down anyway. Apparently he broke into a house on a connecting street last week. So uh, yeah, bring on next week with Joe being out of town! I figure I'll just let Dex answer the door while I hit the panic button on the alarm and simultaneously call 911 using the barrel of my .45 to punch in the numbers. Asshole criminal. We gotta get out of this city...

Now I hope everyone is watching 30 Rock. Happy almost Friday!

Because We All Need This

I think the world is a little less balanced when I'm not bitching about something in my blog. :-) Well, I mean, it's not always bitching...right? Sarah asked me to please update my blog, so I finally am. I've really been meaning to lately. I'm sure most people reading this understand what it's like to encounter various thoughts/situations during any given day, which you make mental notes on to include in a later blog. Yeah? With that, my head should be full, but as I now type, I can't really remember anything too remarkable over the two weeks since my last blog.

Joe and I have both returned to work. He seems to be working later than usual, and I do my best just to get to work. I can't remember the last time I woke up energized, either on a work day or a day off. I really need to adjust my diet and actually begin to exercise again - still waiting for that last little bit of boot in my ass to get going. Joe is doing well with his PT, though. I'm a lucky gal. Now I just need to pick fights for him. A creepy coworker I've never met before that today looked me up and down as he asked how old I am and if I'm married is my natural first choice for Joe to fight. And after telling Joe the story, I believe that dude is Joe's first pick as well. The guy even said "Tell your husband he's lucky." I soooo need mace and a taser.

Speaking of my job, I want to quit it. Or, I want to have some magical job that is available as soon as Joe leaves for long stretches but that I don't have to work at when he is home. Not possible, right? I just hate working weekends when Joe is in town. Granted, I don't work every weekend, but I feel like every day - every minute counts, so any day I work while he is at home really eats me up. But then I think of the money we would give up if I quit. Of course my next thought is that there is more to life than money. Time together is the most important thing. Still, I won't be quitting anytime soon. No point. Joe is about to leave again for several months, and of course my student loans aren't yet paid off. However, I must report that they are now in the teens (of thousands) - no more twenty-something-thousand dollars worth of debt. WOOT. If any of you are on the fence about paying off your debt or have a plan to just let it hang around forever, then let me tell you that it feels AMAZING to pay off. You literally almost feel a physical weight lift off your body. It's a great feeling of empowerment. Try it.

But anyway. Joe and I both have tomorrow off - our last day off together until something like Feb 6. Ain't that a damn bitch. I have no idea what we'll do. I had all these plans in my head of things to get done in the house between absences - painting, curtains, purchasing of yard equipment, furniture staining, other painting, patching and caulking. But here we are at the end of our time again. I can do these things myself. I just don't want to. A little sad, but I'm alright.

With that, I'm going to end this now in an effort to get my arm scratched (we're laying in bed) before Joe goes to sleep. Night all.

WHAT THE WHAT??

Joe has been back for a little over two weeks, and the time has flown by. Preparing for and having Christmas then a brief visit from Jeff and Janiece and then New Year's. I have been working occasionally as I did today, but we've soaked up a lot of home time (and running around time) together as well. Tomorrow is the last day before we both go back to work and life is "normal" again. In many ways I want it to be normal again just for the sake of having such, but in others I don't. We're about a month away from 3-4 months of Joe being gone for very extensive training, followed by another deployment, and so on. It's the life I've heard it would be and now we're living it. Holy hell. The irony is that we're becoming much more secure in other ways - I'm one payment away from my student loans dipping into the teens; Joe and I are really good minus some negative comments about the Eagles this evening and a little too much Seth McFarlane; we have a decent rental with good credit hx for buying once the market is more secure and we don't live in GA; we now have two dogs which is balancing life out pretty well - minus the fact that when I re-read the lease yesterday it said we could only have one dog; and despite this shitty economy, we're both of course employed. With all that, we've been talking (amidst cold sweats and nervous stomachs) about when to have our first child. Bad or good, we've narrowed it down to sooner than later so at least one kid is paid for by the Army. I mean that's not unhealthy decision-making, right? Ha. The hardest part is figuring out when the hell Joe's schedule allows (HA) for a kid to be born and to iron out what parts of the pregnancy and the early parts of the kid's life that Joe will miss. Of course, when it happens it happens and no amount of scheduling will matter, I hear, and shit, that's assuming I can even get pregnant. Who knows. In the meantime, we'll continue to work on our financial fitness in preparation for life in general. Woot.

So things are good. Joe is in the bathroom and has been for some time now. I'm on the couch blogging with both the pups who are crashed. I have several choices of books to read thanks to Walden Books going out of business here, and I'm all ready for bed minus brushing my teeth. Yeah, life really is good.

After writing everything I have, I feel a lot better than when I started. I think it's easy for a lot of 20 somethings to compare themselves to others as we're all starting out. I hate to admit it, but I know I do. I was having issues earlier this evening with folks younger than me having everything fall into place - I mean, the fairytale bullshit stuff. The cynic in me doesn't understand how it's possible. You gotta put in the time to get to the good stuff, right? No? How does that happen? Things just fall into place?! That is not life how I know it. But regardless, I guess what has to happen is for me to focus on my own "good stuff" because it's here, and if I keep worrying about what other people have, I'm going to miss out on what's happening in front of me. With that, Joe just got out of the bathroom, and we are going to go lay in bed together and read. Now THAT is good stuff!