STFU

Dude, I totally had to take a minute to cool off before proceeding to write anymore. A ton of stuff has been going on, and I guess now we're steadying off into "our" routine again:

Joe graduated from Ranger School last Friday, and since the day prior to yesterday we had a steady stream of friends and family in town. It was really good to see everyone - Dad, Alex, Ashley, Janiece, Jeff, Sarah, Mama Lowrey, and of course it's been good having Joe back. I was a super proud wife at graduation, and was one of the first ones down and out of the stands for the "tabbing." Heck yeah. What he has accomplished is amazing. Some 300+ started the class, and less than half made it to graduation. Joe barely did, as he was almost a heat casualty in Florida. After five hours of cooling down one day, his body temp was still at 102.4. He apparently struggled to adjust his body temp for several days, despite consistent hydration, and on the final day made it through by the grace of a couple lightning storms. Each time he started feeling particularly shitty that day, a lightning storm caused them to shut down operations until he felt better. I guess prayer does work. So all that on top of no sleep and no eating from the two prior phases. In Mountains he sometimes only slept for 15 minutes a night. For food, they would have breakfast at 3AM and then dinner at 6AM and nothing all day. So then all THAT as well on top of the fact that he had to be a leader in those conditions and get those who were starving and exhausted to do what he said and do it right. And he did it. As Fatboy Slim has sung, "I want to celebrate you baby; I want to praise you like I should."

Now it's just us again. Back to work and trying to find our newest routine. It's so strange, and in many ways it's hard to get re-acclimated (as usual). I had these plans - pay off student loans, quit job, etc, and save, save, save. Joe was totally agreeable to me quitting my job and sort of happy about my student loans getting paid off. (Yeah, they're done now - how anti-climactic.) But to hell with savings, he was ready to spend. New video games and new phones. Sigh. It has all completely over-shadowed my loan pay-off, but whatever I suppose. I'm realizing that we may not be able to buckle back down and live off only Joe, which sort of blows. Either way, I won't continue to work where I do presently.

I'll bet you're thinking "Wow, Katie, your husband is back, yet this is still a 'slit your wrists' kind of post. WTF?" And you'd be kind of right. The downside to all of this is at the end of the day, he has a Ranger Tab to show for his hard work, along with the other pins and patches on his uniform, and I still have nothing. Actually, that's not true. At his graduation, whilst in the restroom, I was hiking my undies back up only to realize a stinging pain right at the top of my butt crack. Yes, something bit me; I don't know where it came from but suspect the outdoor bleachers I'd been sitting on for a couple hours. It itched horribly for a few days. Now it is still somewhat itchy, purple, and the size of a quarter. So literally, for my efforts, I got nothing more than a bite in the ass. I'm still just me, the wife. And ironically, the only thing that I have my name to that doesn't in any way have something to do with Joe (hell, even my ass bite was at HIS graduation) is my shitty job that I'm about to quit. HA.