My Life As An Army Wife

I wish I could celebrate with you!! I’ll have a drink for you here in NC!

LOVE YOU AND MISS YOU!

Hello! I know I haven’t posted in a while … I tend to do that every once in a while. Just dissapear. However I was thinking the other day that this is the longest I have kept one blog going without totally abandoning it.  I’m pretty excited about it!

Anyways, Happy FOURTH OF JULY to anyone reading! I hope everyone is having a great day off, and I hope it’s warm wherever you are! I, however, have to work this afternoon. I know, BOOOO! My company is a sponsor of all the events that will be taking place out at Fort Bragg this afternoon/evening, and since thats the case, my boss, my coworker and I will all be out at our tent, handing out free stuff! It won’t be ALL bad. We’re VIP so that means free food/booze in the VIP tents. Plus, there are concerts all day, vendors, etc (Wynonna anyone??!). And, Fort Bragg does a kick ass fireworks show.

(Speaking of fireworks … E, if you’re reading this, I just had a flashback to the Kelly Clarkson concert on the 4th a few years back. GOOD TIMES! I miss you!!!)

On another note, one of my goals as an Army Wife is to do as much as I can, while I can, while we are here in Fayetteville. If you’re reading this and are attached to the military, then you know you’re never really in one place for too long. So M and I try to do as much as we can, and really experience everything thats out here — all along the East Coast, too — because who knows when we will have that chance again. So, last weekend, the two of us with a bunch of friends headed over to Wilmington for a huanted PUB CRAWL! It was a blast, and if you ever get the chance to head over there, DO IT! We had such a good time!! Here are a few pics ….

We also went camping out at Carolina Beach the weekend before that with the same couple. There is nothing like falling asleep to the sound of the waves at night. Although when camping on the sand … I would recommend an air mattress!!

Happy Fourth of July! Drink lots and BE SAFE!

I swear, if I never have to search for another job again, it will be too soon. Today, after eight months of searching, finding, losing and hating … I was offered a job. A REAL job where I can use my education and hard earned training.

*Sigh* … i’m happy.

I will be working for Picerne Military Housing on Pope Air Force Base. They manage housing for military families. I’ll be on the marketing side, doing what I do best. Marketing stuff. Yay! An Army Wife working for a Military Contracor … loving it! Plus, I’ll only be about five minutes away from my hubby’s company area. I bet he can hardly wait for me to be dropping in all the time! Ha! [jk babe!]

I’m looking forward to sleeping tonight, knowing that next week I start a new path in my career.

Yay me

I apologize to those who actually check this thing for not posting in a while! A week and a half ago, I had my tonsils removed, as well as a deviated septum in my nose corrected. Let me tell you, I would not wish this procedure on even my worst enemy — at least not at the age of 27.

I was told that this was one of the most painful surgeries that you could have done as an adult. Well — they were right. Wednesday after my surgery, my loving husband took me home, where I proceeded to sleep until 8 o’clock that night. And the only reason why I got out of bed was because the Red Wings were playing. [I'm sorry, but I'm devoted. ]

No amount of liquid percoset or morphine pills could keep the agony away. Sunday night, I ended up in the Emergency room because the pain was so unbearable. There, they gave me a nice little concoction of pain medicine and some steroids [to bring the swelling down in my throat] and sent me home. Thank goodness for those steroids, because I had a job interview the next morning, which I’m thinking I aced, but time will tell. Well — aced as much as one can having just had surgery, being in the ER the night before, and not even being able to drive myself in because of the pain meds I was on [thanks, Rach!].

One of the reasons I started this blog was to bitch, and do a little bragging, about what life is like as an Army wife. Well, here is my first true post to what my life is like.

The day that I had my surgery, my husband was scheduled to go out to the field for two weeks. They “graciously” let him stay home that day/night to take care of me, and then it was off to the field for two weeks for pre-pre-deployment training. [That's right. A two week training course for the six week pre-deployment training course they will be doing in July/August. Whatever.] So here I am, in the worst pain of my life, and my husband can’t even be here to take care of me. Did I mention that we have three dogs, one of which is a now seven week old puppy? Fun! I can barely stand and I’m all alone.

As an army wife, you sort of have to learn to lean on others really quick. I’m a pretty independant person. Always have been, always will be. Its taken me three years of being with M to even learn to ask for help from HIM sometimes. And now all of a sudden I was calling my girlfriends asking them to bring me toilet paper from the store because we were out and I couldn’t drive anywhere. [Thanks Belinda!] The timing of his training couldn’t have been more perfect. And lucky for my husband. He gets to come home to me being all “better,” or close to, and got to miss all the fun stuff of me waking up in agony all hours of the night, making me chicken broth for dinner, dealing with my crying and whining because it hurts so bad … lucky him! [I have a feeling that this is what it will be like when I get pregnant. He'll knock me up and then miraculously be gone for the entire nine months, missing all the hormones waves!]

Anyways, so that’s what that is like. I’m 10 days after my surgery and JUST now starting to eat solids. But yay for the fifteen pounds that I dropped in the past week and a half! Eating nothing and drinking lots of water/juice will do that to you. Hopefully I don’t gain it all back And I get to spend this lovely Saturday afternoon cleaning my house and doing all the laundry that hasn’t been done in two weeks. My idea of a good time … or not ….

That’s right. Jenna Fisher. From “The Office.” Didn’t you know we were best friends?

Just kidding. I wish. I just stole this from her blog, which I cyberstalk quite frequently because I sort of have a girl-crush on her. Anyways — The 88 Calorie Brownie [this is for you, Jess! Since we're always on the 'search' for low cal yummy stuff!!!!!]

Ingredients
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon instant espresso powder (note: I couldn’t find this and my brownies came out fine without it)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips (semi-sweet)
Butter-flavored cooking spray

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8×8 inch non-stick cake pan with spray.

In a medium mixing bowl, using a sturdy whisk or spatula, mix the applesauce, vanilla, egg whites and sugar until they are well combined.

Add the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, and salt. Stir the mixture until it is just combined and no lumps remain. Pour it into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the chips evenly over the top. Bake the brownies for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry (a few crumbs are okay).

Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and allow them to cool 5 minutes. Cut into 12 equal brownies. Makes 12 (1 brownie) servings.

Each brownie has: 88 calories, 2 g protein, 19 g carbohydrates, 1 g fat, less than 1 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber, 133 mg sodium

Traditional Double Chocolate Brownies have: 260 calories, 3 g protein, 37 g carbohydrates, 12 g fat, 3 g saturated fat, 15 mg cholesterol, 1 g fiber, 165 mg sodium

When I was in graduate school, single, lonely and living an extremely boring and unhappy life down in Colorado, this little book came out that my girlfriends and I all forced each other to read. You may or may not have heard of it. It was called “He’s Just Not That Into You.”

If you’re a Sex and the City fan like myself and all my other gal pals were, then you’ll remember the episode which spawned the book.  When it came out, myself and the other two girls in my threesome [not THAT kind, silly!] — Tanaya and Laura — passed it around to each other as we read it and all sort of laughed, but I think secretly agreed that it was probably true. I remember getting somewhat angry towards the end of the book, because the message that I was picking up was something along the lines of “get over it … no matter what you think, or how independant you are, the fate of all your relationships still lies in the hand of the guy you’re dating.” I was totally blown away, thinking NO WAY! I have control!!!!!!!!

Well, sure enough, that summer, I dated a guy that I had BRIEFLY been with right after I graduated from high school. We ran into each other thanks to the wonderfulness that is Myspace. He came to visit me in Colorado, confessed his undying love for me, blah blah blah. [Can you tell where this is going?]. I was smitten, but something seemed funny … he wouldn’t ever talk to me on the phone, only on IM chat [lame], wanted me to come see him in Portland, but was like “but we can’t stay at my apt.” all this lame crap. Suddenly, that book came flooding back into my brain and I figured it out. He wasn’t quite as into me as he said he was. So I dumped his sorry ass, and that SAME day I met the wonderful man that I am now married to. Go figure, eh?!

Anyways, I know this is somewhat random, considering that book came out AGES ago, but I just saw the preview for the movie based on the very same book. Ginnifer Goodwin is in it, and I love love LOVE her [if you aren't familar with her, she is one of the wives -- yes, plural -- on the HBO show 'Big Love' ... also a favorite.] as well as a very large and yummy cast [Justin Long, Ben Affleck -- YUM!!!!!]. So, I was just going to share the trailer, but as usual, i got sidetracked and thought I would share a story. So here you go … the point to this whole blog:

[for whatever reason, it won't let me imbed the player on here, so just go check it out here!]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3oWY4gV4ec

My friend Diana had her baby! Baby Nicholas was born last Wednesday in Spokane, Washington. Congrats to her and the proud papa!!

So, this past weekend, we unexpectedley [i think i totally butchered that spelling. My bad!] got a new dog. If you’ve been reading, you know that we’ve been EXPECTING a new puppy in just a couple of weeks — a German Shorhair Pointer that we put a deposit on MONTHS ago. Well, we’re still expecting her to arrive on schedule!

However, I’ve always been a sucker for animals in need. I once stopped my car in the middle of traffic on a busy downtown Everett street to help a group of baby ducks [my BIGGEST weakness!] cross the street. They had plopped themselves under a car that was waiting in the turn lane to take a left. Luckily, the woman driving had seen them, and stopped. She tried to get out and help, too, but once she went to one side of the car, they scurried to the other, and vice versa. So, it took the two of us and some construction worker who had seen us help get them to the other side.

I was late for work that day. That was a fun one to explain!

But I digress! Animals in need = Brittany’s a sucker. There you have it. So when a woman came to our door at 7:30 on Saturday morning saying she couldn’t keep this puppy anymore, she had found it, and nobody has claimed it, OF COURSE we were going to say yes! We didn’t even think twice about it [although now I wish we WOULD have -- three dogs?? Yikes!] but she really is a sweetheart. A little skinny, a little skiddish — definitely not taken care of wherever she came from, so she’s better off with us! So here  you go … introducing, Maggie the wonder pup!

Ok, so I’ve always had a passion for photography and one of these days, I’ll own one of those super fancy digital 35mm cameras — but until then I’ve been making do with my regular every day digital camera.

And I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job.

So, I’ve decided to put some of those snapshots up here. I have found that its important to have a hobby. And with M’s looming deployment, it’s something that I want to get more into.

So look for a new page on here dedicated to my work. I’ve got some work to do — you know, photoshoping in “property of Brittany” on all of them just in case somebody wants to steal them [not that anybody would, but it's a good ego boost!] But I would love to share it with everybody and get some honest feedback. I think that I have a skill, and before I take it any farther in the art aspect, I would like so opinions!

: ) Brit

So, the campaign trail is over [at least on my end] and the unemployment trail has started up again.

It was so easy to forget how hard this is. I got very lucky working for HRC in that I was at the right place at the right time. But, that month of fun and hard work is over. And now i’m back to needing a job.

My husband is getting ready to deploy again in just a couple short month [trust me, that will a whole other blog. What happened to the "promise" of a year home in between deployments? Last I checked, 10 months -- while being gone for almost two months of that during that time for training -- does not equal a year.] and I have been faced with the question of “what am I going to do?”

No matter what people tell you, if you are not an officer in the military, you’re not making very much money. One paycheck is just not cutting it. The sad thing is, is that if I stay unemployed — which I absolutely do not want to do — we will be ok when he deploys because of all the extra $$ perks. But how sad is that, that we have to rely on him being gone to survive? So, we’ve talked about me going back to Seattle for that year. I could continue to waste time searching for the job I’ll never find here, but be with my friends, our house, and the life that we’ve worked hard to build for ourselves here in Fayetteville.

Or I could go home, be with my family, and find a wonderful job — only to have to quit in a years time which inevitabley would leave me bitter and angry about having to move back to Fayetteville when my husband comes back.

I actually do love my life here. I have a wonderful group of women that I hang out with [we call ourselves the bunc-ho's! No need to explain that one -- I'll just keep it to myself!]. Fayetteville really isn’t that bad. It has grown on me these past couple of years. But it’s not a place for a motivated, educated woman trying to survice on her OWN, which us army wives ultimately end up doing when our husbands are gone for 15 months, home for 10 and gone for 12 more.

I applied for four jobs today. I also submitted my resume to a staffing agency with hopes that they will be able to help me out. I’ve got two more jobs in which I’m planning on applying for, just as soon as I get through the massive amount of paperwork that is the application process. Something has to happen soon. I keep telling myself that, that something has to come along — but it’s getting harder to believe that as the months go on.

On a brighter note, “Army Wives” starts up again soon! I know it’s cliche, but I really like that show! I find it refreshingly accurate to the army wife life — except that us lowly NCO wives don’t really hang out with Officer wive. I don’t think I know a single  wife of a Ft. Bragg Officer. But the rest of it seems to be pretty accurate! I know the producers were here at Ft. Bragg at the end of the season last year to hold a focus group, making sure that they were making the show as accurate as possible. We’ll see what kind of changes happen but I sure am excited for something to watch on Sunday nights again!

Alright people [all three of you that check my blog daily] … peace love and happiness! Keep your fingers crossed for me!