TMI- B/C Vent

I woke up this morning with the worst cramps I've had in a while. This new bc they have me on is really messing with me. This is the first month I'm taking it and to say that I have every weird crazy ass side effect is putting it mildly. I've had migraines for weeks. I have one for 3-4 days at a time, then a day of relief, then its back again. Worse than the actual migraine though is the nausuea that comes with it. My boobs have been sore for over a week. I was seriously starting to get worried I was pregnant. Then I started the placebo week in my pack on Sunday and no period. I was in a constant state of panic. This morning I woke up and it was here. I've never been so excited to get my period! I've been on so many different bc pills that you would think when my cycle isn't exactly like clockwork the first couple months I would be used to it, but no. It always freaks me out everytime. I think because the first 2 times I was pregnant I got that way during the first month of a new birth control. So I don't totally trust them until I've been on them a while.

I think Matt is finally on board with the whole one kid family notion. He's starting to see the reasons why out weigh the ideal in his head of we're supposed to have 2.5 kids and a dog and live happily ever after. He's started talking about going to the urologist for the informational meeting on a vasectomy. Then I won't have to take this stupid birth control anymore. Although my dr will likely want me to keep taking it to help keep my medical issues at bay for the next couple years until I have a hysterectomy but I won't have panic attacks about becoming pregnant again.

I love Logan an unimaginable amount and he's such a quirky great kid. I'm content to quit while we're ahead lol.

Disney Love

10 days until my mama gets here!!!

Okay, just had to get that excitement out of the way. I'm honestly more excited about her coming than the fact that she's coming so we can all head to Disney World for a few days. But I'm SUPER excited about Disney too!!

I have a Disney obsession. I don't mean the way most people say they are obsessed with Disney. I mean full on own every single movie (literally if its a Disney production, I own it). I can name all animated movies in the order they were made. In French class in high school we had to pick french names to go buy during class. I chose Cendrillion (Cinderella in French). I collect Cinderella snow globes and crystal figurines. I mean I have a problem. I even went out and bought a $35 tiara to where while on this Disney trip because I am in fact, a pretty pretty princess.

It's actually quite sad when you write it out like that....oh well!

I'm not quite sure where or when this hobby (I like that word better than obsession. Looks better on paper lol) but I've had it since I can remember. I've been to Disney Land 4 times and went to Disney World in 2003. My mom said for my graduation she would take me on a week long trip anywhere in the country. And I picked Disney World lol! I haven't been back since. Matt went on a Disney Cruise with some friends when he got back from his first deployment in 2004 and part of the package was a day ticket at Disney World. So I don't really count that. They went to Epcot for a few hours because they have a Beer of the World thing and they never made it any farther than that.

Matt is also giving me crap about taking Logan when he's so young. No, he won't remember it but we will. We'll have great pictures and memories and he can do most things there so its not like he's going to get left behind. We'll have a great time!

Now I have 10 days to get this house in order. Not so much because my mom is coming, but because we have a house sitter for the dog while we're gone. I'm so unmotivated though. There is a clothing drive for the homeless teen shelter in town this weekend. I've managed to gather most of our clothes that we've outgrown together but beyond that, not much is getting done. I had hope to organize it all and perhaps inspiration will strike between now and then but I don't really seeing it happening.

New Blogs

I'm thinking of starting a new blog. And I think I've decided to go with a cooking theme. Not because I'm some great chef in the making. Nor do I have any insight better or smarter than the 3 million other cooking blogs out there. I just love to cook. For the most part. And I think I want to expand my culinary horizons a bit. Try out some things I've never done before and perfect some of the things I can manage, but not without some swearing and throwing things.

So stay tuned. I don't know what it will look like or what it will eventually end up being but this is where its starting.

I'm also going to start a blog in the coming months about school. I should start by the end of September and I don't want to weigh this one down with the technical jargon and rantings of a frustrated student.

Perhaps I'm biting off more than I can chew...

Dear Universe

I'm pretty much done now, ok? Whatever this cosmic lesson I'm supposed to be learning from this just isn't sinking in. So instead of continuing with the crap can we just call it a draw and move on!?

Is it that I need better communication skills? Thats true, but now you've got me so pissed off that I don't care to work on them so not much is going to change in that area anytime soon.

Is it that I need to be less emotional and more level headed? Sure, thats true too, but again, there's that pissed off thing that kind of gets in the way of any kind of emotional growth.

So lets just say I get the lessons and agree to disagree on the timing.

Alarm Clock

Well now I'm exhausted. Logan's been up a whole hour and I'm ready for bed again. I was woken up this morning by sirens blaring down my street at 0345. This is never ever good. The sirens got louder and louder and then stopped at the house next door to me. Then within the next 60 seconds 4 more MP's had parked stratigically all down the street and they began systematically knocking on every door. Matt spoke to them and they said they were looking for the parents of a 3 year old little boy. We don't have a 3 yr old boy on our street so as quickly as they arrived and knocked on everyone's doors, they left. Left not a trace like they had never been here in the first place. I was certain they would wake Logan up. Not a peep. I even went up to his room to check on him to make sure he was still breathing. Thats how quiet he was with 5 sirens blaring and pounding on the door right beneath his window. He was out. Didn't so much as flinch. Thank goodness. Needless to say, I was up. No going back to bed for me.

At first I thought it may have been about the people across the street. We have strong reason to believe that he has gone Unauthorized Absence (AWOL). The MP's do a search of the house every few hours and the other day they came and knocked on my door asking that if we see any activity to call them immediately. He also told me not to engage with them at all. Well you can imagine how that set my mind at ease. I mean, what if he comes back for his stuff or something and they corner him. I'll have a shoot out in my front yard. I was glad he's not on the loose somewhere around here and thats not who they were looking for, but I'm worried for that little boy whomever he is. Was he hurt? Did he manage to get out of the house in the middle of the night and they found him wandering scared somewhere? They only searched out street, didn't go down any others so I can only imagine that being 3 he only had part of his address memorized (or the people he was staying with) and thats all they could give them to find his parents. Ugh. I can't imagine getting that knock. Thinking your son is sleeping over a at a friends house or worse that he's snug in his own bed just down the hall, and then BAM! No thank you. I would just die.

We've had a few occasions with middle of the night police. The normal drunk domestic fights that they've had to break up ( I say normal, because it appears to be what a lot of the couples in this housing development like to spend their weekend nights) and of course the soldier that used to live across the street who killed himself. There were MP's here for days after that. Its always in the middle of the night.

So I have to finish getting the house cleaned, go to the grocery store and get some side dishes made for later and start marinating the chicken. Then maybe I can sneak in an hour nap or so. If Matt has finished his chores by then....Oh and I see the next door neighbors are having a yard sale....I should get dressed and do the same to Logan so we can wander down to say hello and see what they have going on....I'm such a yard sale whore.

Training Can Be Deadly

There was a helicopter crash here on Post the other day. The memorial service for the 2 pilots who died is today. They weren't based here and were actually from Ft Campbell, but they train very closely with the 75th down here all the time so they had many friends. One of them was actually from a small town not far from here. So they are doing a ceremony here for those who won't be able to attend the official ones at Campbell.

I had just talked to my mom the other day about my lack of love for helicopters. I dislike them. A lot. I'm not a huge fan of when Matt jumps but I literally have panic attacks when he jumps a chinook or huey. I can't watch them at all. I will never get into a helicopter. They just make me nervous. I remember Matt's last deployment, he spent the last 12 weeks or so as the CSM's driver. It was supposed to be a reward for being so awesome through the deployment. A little rest and a desk job in a/c for the last couple months. Matt absolutely hated it. He was bored out of his mind. Except when the CSM would visit different bases and camps around the area to see how things were going. He did this about once a month. Matt, being his driver (which is really his personal assistant) would have to go with him. Because these bases and camps were quite small they would have to take helicopters. No runways for big planes. Ugh. I hated when I'd get an email saying he'd be gone for a couple days so don't worry if I didn't hear from him. I knew that meant that he was going to be flying around in one.

There have been a few training related accidents around here the last couple months. We had the helicopter crash, a soldier was killed at the range, one died on a jump (another died just a couple days before at Bragg which was also a particular hit to our shop) and we had a heat stroke that was fatal on Post too.

You almost forget. I mean, when Matt is deployed he could die any minute of any day. Thats the mind set. You know it dangerous and its life and death. But when they are home, you forget about all that stuff. You completely take for granted the going to work in the morning and the coming home in time for dinner at night (most nights) But they are doing their job during the day just as they would out there. In more controlled settings I'll grant you, but you can only control so much when using real bullets and flying real helicopters. We forget that training to go do the dangerous stuff, is just as dangerous. I would lose my mind if Matt died in combat. But I can't even imagine the emotions I would have to deal with if he lost his life during a training excersise. The anger and confusion that must go with that would be insurmountable.

The whole reason this is on my mind is because yesterday Matt come home and told me he has a jump next Thursday. Why, I'm not sure because he just jumped before we went home in June and he's good until the end of the year. But for whatever reason they put him on the manifest. Then he tells me that he's jumping a T-11 parachute. My stomach churned.

These are the newest, latest and greatest parachute the Army has designed. And they suck and are horrible. Basically the Army sunk so much money into the design that they can't afford to scrap it and start all over again. Even though the Riggers all over the world are telling them they should. This is the one that killed the soldier at Bragg. The old parachutes take 4 seconds to open. So if you hit that and no chute, you know to pull the reserve which takes roughly 2 seconds to open. You have roughly 10 seconds from time out of the plane to ass on the ground. So you have 4 seconds of reaction time if your main doesn't open. The new T-11 takes 6 seconds to open but their reserves take 4 seconds. That gives you no time to react. Which is how the soldier at Bragg died. He knew his chute didn't open, he pulled his reserve but he knew it wouldn't be open in time. You can hear him say it on the malfunctions tape. I know because Matt had to watch it over a dozen times after it happened. They call it jumper error. Meaning that there was nothing wrong with the parachute or the way it was packed. That it was the slow reaction of the jumper that caused his death. How do you react quickly when you have an admitted 0 seconds to react?

Here at Benning they jump with a little more altitude because its the Airborne school. The students need to have a little extra time to react and learn to steer and it gives them a bit of a softer landing. So when he jumps on Thursday he'll have that extra 2-3 seconds he'll need if something goes wrong, but it terrifies me to think about it if we get moved to Bragg. Talk about crazy.

Why is the wine gone?

Today has not been a good day. In fact the last week has been horrible. I don't know what it is but it seems to be going around. Its not just me and selfish as it is, that actually makes me feel better.

Right now I have a hell of a headache, my wine is gone and my husband and I are fighting. Which is always nice. No one ever taught him how to argue. So when we argue and I tell him whats bothering me, he takes it really personal and starts to say the meanest things to me. Borderline vebally abusive. He doesn't mean it in a mean and nasty kind of way. He just wants to shut down the conversation as fast as he can and he knows thats the way to do it. He says something that he knows will hurt my feelings so I shut down and walk away. Then after a couple hours of me giving him the cold shoulder he acts extra nice and sappy to make up for it. But I'm getting really tired of the cycle.

First I wish he would just learn to say "I'm sorry." Thats the first step. I want him to acknowledge that he was wrong and that he knows what he did/said that was wrong. Not just "my wife's pissed at me so I should say sorry for whatever it is she thinks I did." No. I want you to say I'm sorry for.... That doesn't make me less mad about what happened but it doesn't completely piss me off further the way him acting as if nothing has happened does. I've told him this repeatedly but he just doesn't seem capable of saying those two words. In the 6 years we've been together I've heard them less than a handful of time.

He needs to learn to verbalize his feelings. Instead he turns 12 and acts like a moody teenager.

So I have a headache and want to go to bed, but he's up there sleeping because he has to go into work for a couple hours in the middle of the night tonight and honestly the thought of laying up there next to him makes me want to punch him in the face. Ugh. This is what I need on top of all my stress.

I'm sure it will only help my insomnia...

Insomnia

I really hate not being able to sleep. For the last week I've gotten no more than 3 hours sleep on any given night. And that is only 2 nights. Mostly I've slept about 90 minutes and then tossed and turned for an hour or two and then finally gave up and got up around 3am. Its amazing how much you can get done at 3 in the morning without a husband or a toddler getting in the way. The only things I can't do are vacuum and I'm pretty sure if I really wanted to I could do that. But I won't risk it with Logan.

The worst part about it is that it is stress induced insomnia. So no matter what pill I take, how much wine I have with dinner, its not going to away anytime soon.

I'm stressed about starting school again in the next couple weeks. Though I've been taking programs for the last year this one is different. Its craming 2 certifications into half the amount of time. PL (pre-Logan) this wouldn't have been a problem at all. I often took more than a full course load in school. But with Logan the idea of getting this done is just scaring the crap out of me. Its no secret that Matt isn't the most take charge person in the world and I'm really going to need him to step up with Logan so I can get my work done.

Money is also a stresser. Only because we have Disney coming up in a few weeks and we just had to spend all our savings plus part of his bday money to pay off Matt's government travel card because they effed us over. The Army is paying us most of it back but we both know there is no way its going to be paid before we go in September. I'm almost wishing that we weren't going.

I just don't know what to do to get some sleep. I'm not a very nice person when I'm tired and I have little to no patience. Something you have to have plenty of to live in my house lol. Guess I'll just roll with the flow and keep on trucking. It will figure itself out in the end.