Idiots on the Internet

The other day I put an ad on craigslist looking for someone to swing by and install my light timer. I didn't offer any pay because (as stated in the ad), I just needed 5 minutes of time and wasn't really sure how much to charge for 5 minutes. I got a lot of replies from people in the area offering to come over real quick and hook it up. No one asked for monetary compensation. In the end, my neighbor came over and did it for me.

Well this morning I got up and checked my email and saw a message from this guy. He wasn't offering to help me with my light switch. No, he was insulting me because I was playing the "poor me" card to get free stuff. He said that at a minimum I should pay for someone's gas...which would have been a great idea, except every single person who replied to my ad lived within walking distance. He said that by not offering compensation, I was a thief.

Feeling a bit confrontational (and honestly in the mood for talking to ANYONE, even snarky strangers), I replied. I told him that did not make me a thief, my husband would have done it except he was deployed and that not everyone is blessed to have money, electrical skills, AND a stateside husband all at the same time.

His response? I'm going to just copy and paste this directly from his email and maybe all of you other mil spouses can set this mofo straight:

"You probably have a con for everything and military wives are the worst. I know and you know you get free cash but I also know you don't work. Why? You don't have to... right? Right."

*cough* what? Free cash? I don't work? Wow. I wonder what all those hours I just put in today working on my scrapbooking business are called? Volunteering? What about the job I just got with the Census? Oh, I guess that's called being a couch potato.

As for us not having to work? Oh I wish I didn't have to work. I wish I could stay home all by myself all day long hiding in my room sending total strangers snarky emails about how they're con artists. But I just don't have that much spare time to my day. We have bills, car payments, rent, down payments, automobile repairs, dental work, and school to pay for. I haven't worked for the last year, but every single month was cutting it ridiculously close and some months we couldn't actually afford to pay certain bills. So thinking about it now, yes, I DO have to work, if I care about my own mental sanity and don't want to have to cry over bills and debt anymore.

So really "pagedeziner"....go eff yourself.

(and for the record, Mr. "snarky stranger"...I did get my light timer installed. The Marine who lives next door said he cared about my safety more than he cared about a few bucks in his pocket. And that what makes him a better human being than you. Now enjoy your helping of STFU.)

Cookies and Care Packages

I FINALLY got to talk to DH this morning on skype. He hasn't been able to get on for about a week. One of the things he asked me to send him was Bratzelis and Samoas.

For those of you who don't know, Bratzelis are Swiss waffle cookies. My acnestry is Swiss, so I make them every year and I made some this past December for hubby's unit. They were having a little Christmas party and each Marine was supposed to bring something (which translates into each Marines' WIFE was supposed to MAKE something haha). So I made Bratzelis, stayed up all night slaving over these cookies, burning my fingers with hot griddle oil and setting of smoke alarms.

By the time he got back from his party, I was quite eager to know what people thought of my cookies. Everyone always raves about them and I assumed this would be no different. But I was wrong. Apparently when you put a bunch of dudes in a room with food and "The Hangover", no one wants to talk about cookies. So I was under the impression that they hated them, and it really bummed me out.

So you can imagine my surprise this morning when DH told me that people in his unit had specifically requested my "flat ice cream cone cookies".

On top of that, they all wanted Samoas. Now, ignoring the fact that Samoas are covered in melty chocolate, they also happen to be Girl Scout Cookies...and cookie sales ended almost 3 weeks ago. But that's where my true Girl Scout spirit kicked in (yes, I am still a Girl Scout. Going on 15 years...or is it 16? I forget). SOOO I have just spent the entire day on a wild goose chase for 1 specific kind of Girl Scout cookie.

I started with Craigslist, looking for people trying to bum their extra cookies off on the rest of us. It seemed like everyone was clean out of Samoas and I was about to just forget about it, but then I got a call back from someone. She had a bunch of extra cookies (120 boxes to be exact) and tucked in all those piles of treats were 8 little boxes of Samoas.

Now I just have to figure out the best way to ship them, in case theres a bit of melting. Should I send all 8 boxes at once, or should I just tuck 1 box in with the next few care packages so the cookies can "trickle" into the country? What do you think?

I hate Deployment Internet

I mean really? We have a bunch of exciting and expensive equipment, but we can't get wireless internet in the barracks? That is completely ridiculous. Whatever.

I don't want to jinx myself, but this week has actually been somewhat decent. I did a little shopping, a little restaurant testing, cooked some chicken Vindaloo (there are NO Indian restaurants here...it's depressing). I also mailed another care package.

This one was themed after movies, because DH asked me to send him a few flicks. I got a little gutsy and actually sent him some snickers (in plastic bags, in case they melt). I found this crazy cool collection of every single Alien and Predator and AVP movie ever made all rolled into one boxed set- so I bought it for him. I was trying to decorate the box all cute, but I did it at about midnight so my creativity was sorely lacking.

And I have finally been able to sleep a little. I found the problem lay more in my feelings of being alone. So I started leaving the hall light on. When I was a kid, I always loved the nights that my mom would turn on the hall light, because it was a really warm, sunshine-like light that would creap through the door. So I just decided to continue with that practice and leave the hall light on. It makes me feel like maybe DH is just in the living room playing video games or something.

The only problem is, I felt bad about wasting electricity. So I bought a timer, and the light automatically switches itself off in an hour (which by that point I'm pretty much passed out).

Oh, and I'm trying to hone my green thumb by actually managing to not kill plants. So I planted some tomoatoes, jalepenos, and aloe vera out on the porch. But my most prized potted plant is actually a dwarf orange tree I picked up at Home Depot. It's a little patio-sized orange tree that already has 2 orange dangling from it. I'm quite excited to actually be growing citrus fruit, as that is something you totally cannot do back in Utah.

Wedding Scrapbook

So I finally got around to organizing my crafting corner, so now I can hopefully actually use it. Anyways, I found my scrapbook that I was working on last year with our wedding pictures and I thought I would post a few pages (sorry I didn't take better pictures)

I also took a few pictures of this sweet roll of fabric scraps I got at walmart:

Ricky Ticky Recon

I promised an explanation, so here it is (and in case you forgot what photo I'm talking about, or else you came in late, here it is):

I blogged about our roommate back in February. Well, he moved out (or more or less my husband and I kicked him out because it was right before the deployment and was causing unnecessary stress). Well, the entire month he lived with us he never paid any rent. Not a damn cent. I partially blame myself for that because I never really "enforced" it with him. I left that up to DH, and although I love him to death, he's not the greatest person to leave in charge of conflict resolution (not that I'm any better...as you will soon learn).

So, after bumming a room off of us for a month, and joining us for family meals that I cooked, and tagging along to all of our weekend fun, drinking our booze, and requiring transportation everywhere, we finally got him out. He found a studio out in O-side. The only problem was...the car. He needed a car to get around, and we happened to be selling one.

Now, I would have happily signed my title over right then and there, except for 1 little fact: his driver's license was suspended. As a car seller, I want to protect myself from liability and I cannot sell a car to someone who doesn't have a valid driver's license. Why? Because in order to release myself from liability on the car, I need to transfer the title and that requires them to appear in person at the DMV with a valid license. So I declined to sell the car. He asked if he could borrow it until he got his license. Pssssh...that's even more of a bad idea. I certainly don't want to be responsible for car accidents or moving violations done in a car I own by a guy without a license. And I'm not saying he would have done anything, I'm just saying it's not responsible.

He allegedly called the Oregon DMV and got his license issue fixed, and so we were just waiting for it to come in the mail. A few weeks later I went and got my car smog checked as per California regulations. It failed. Miserably. Well there goes the grandiose plan of selling it. In order for the new owner to register the car, they would need to pass smog. So I decided not to sell. And I have no idea how that kid got to and from work everyday, but that's really not my concern.

The week after DH left, I got a call. It was our ex-roomie was asking me if I was still interested in selling my car because he got his license, and he was going to just fix the smog issues himself. We agreed to meet up and he would give me a ride back home. I transferred the title over to him, he gave me $2,000. Now what happened was, I forgot to take the plates off the car, so he drove off in my (now his) little Taurus with plates registered to me. I let it go for a few days because I expected him to go to the DMV and get a temporary registration until he could fix the smog issue. He decided a weekend trip down to San Diego to get his d*ck sucked was a more responsible idea (*sigh* Marines).

About a week later I still hadn't heard anything about my plates. I kept telling him, and expected him, to go and get a temporary registration. It's really not that complicated. For some reason he kept trying to hold the car repairs over my head as an "excuse" and I bought into it for a while until a friend of mine reminded me that I really didn't owe him anything. I let him live with us for free, eat our food, DH gave him rides to and from work (EVEN during his week off, which really just threw me over the edge), and I gave him a pretty good deal on my car. There's no reason why I should "owe" him the use of my license plates. What if he was in an accident or got a parking ticket? That's going to come right back to me.

So after a few days of pestering and getting no response I finally asked him again on facebook. His response? "Don't exploit my personal business on facebook!" Well! I'll be! So I tried calling him and he didn't answer and that's when I decided I couldn't do it anymore. My friend and I planned a recon mission into O-side to get my plates back. We were simply going to unscrew them from the car. And if you're wondering if this is illegal, it's not. Those plates belong to me, are registered to me, and thus are legally my property. Also, the car title had not been transferred over to his name yet so technically I still had a small claim to the car as well. So we did it. 12 AM in my black truck, we snuck over to where my car was parked armed with screwdrivers and simply reclaimed my personal property.

I found DH's grease paint from boot camp in his old sea bag and decided to play around with it. Now first of all, I have never worn grease paint in my life and I have no clue how to appropriately apply it so that it doesn't make me look like a green zebra. But whatever. There you have it. Secret Recon Mission to O-side was a success.

And I woke up the next morning to see that apparently I had ruined his entire day and he was depressed and was losing his mind. Did I feel a little bit bad? Yes, I did. Actually, I felt terrible. But you know, I can't be responsible for him anymore. I gave him 14 days to go and get his temporary pass and he decided that weekend sex excursions to San Diego and 29 Palms was more responsible than making sure he wasn't illegally operating a motor vehicle. So I washed my hands of him.

Sleeping Alone

Well I'm trying to fix my sleeping schedule again. It got completely out of whack by the many days last week I spent sleeping during the day and staying up all night. So now I'm really trying to get it back on track using an interesting combination of medication, white noise machines, and discipline.

Last night, I didn't wake up until 3 PM, so needless to say I was pretty wired by about midnight. I hunkered down on the couch with my blankets, pillow, and TV remote and bought a pay-per-view ("The Blind Side"...which was actually a GREAT movie). In an attempt at tricking myself into being sleepy, I hit the medicine cabinet. Now, I don't actually own sleeping pills. They freak me out, because my dad used to always tell me stories about how they make you groggy the next day. But if there's one medication I can always count on to make me sleepy, it's Nyquil. So I took a Nyquil (and please, spare me the lecture about using cold medication as a sedative. I'm aware the box specifically frowns on that use...but I was desperate). It's something I've done a few times in the past, and it seemed to work. I started getting sleepy around the time my movie ended, although it was more of just a "fake tired". My eyes were telling me to shut down and sleep, but my brain was screaming "no no no! Get up and do something!"

So I turned off the TV, locked the cat in the bedroom, closed my eyes, and started up my iphone's "white noise" application (ocean waves and crickets). I kinda just drifted in and out of sleep for the next 5 hours, dreaming about sea turtles. Around 8:30 AM, I accidentally swallowed a cricket in my dream, which instantly woke me up sputtering and hacking on said imaginary bug. And I forced myself to get up. I turned on my music (geez...I am just loving this iphone), fought the urge to go back to sleep, and made myself get up.

So I'm mildly tired right now, but I think I might actually get to bed at a reasonable time tonight *crosses fingers*

Oh, and did I mention grease paint is a pain in the ass to scrub off?

I'll have to post the story behind that picture later today (oh it's good lol)

Insomnia

I have officially become a terrible insomniac. If it's not bad enough that I slept through the entirety of last week and spend each and every night waiting for the sun to come back up, I now can't even sleep when I'm drop dead tired.

I've been lying awake for the past 4 hours unable to stop my racing mind. The house is too empty and quiet, it's too dark outside, and I hate being the only person awake. I watched tv hoping it would put me to sleep like it did last night but it was distracting. So I relocated myself and my permanently on laptop to the bedroom and tried to sleep in the bed for the first time in a week.

So far that isn't doing anything either. I can't get things out of my mind. It's like I am constantly haunted by the thought of being alone and it heightens my awareness of my aloneness.

Last week was a pretty crappy week. I didn't have the will to leave the house. The one day I managed to wake up in the morning my husband told me things that made me crawl right back into bed and pull the covers over myself and try to escape back to sleep... Which I did for the next 15 hours.

Well I guess I will try one last time to sleep tonight.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

That darn cat!

Not leaving the house in a week has had its perks. For one, I finally discovered why there always seem to be little tracks of cornmeal throughout the kitchen.

The culprit?

I shouldn't have been surprised, as he has managed to weasel his way into other cupboards, I just never though he had figured out how to get past the child locks. I mean, if our cat is that smart I hate to think how devious our actual offspring will be.

In other news, I finally have plans to go to the gym. It took a bit of convincing and schedule rearranging so as not to miss any communication (DH said he'll try to get on each day after work, which equates to 9 AM my time), but if all goes well I will be working this flab into shape at 5 AM!!

Oh and I'm cleaning the house so I can finally start my crafting business. I am SOOO excited.

And how the heck do people manage to get HUNDRED of followers? *jealous* :)

Photo Time!

So I got the CD with the photos on it (woot!)

There are quite a few, so click the picture below and it will take you to my photobucket album:



I'm not sure why, but for some reason when I re-sized that in microsoft it warped the coloring a little bit. Oh well. The original is in the album :)

I totally cannot wait to scrapbook these (actually, I can't wait to just start scrapbooking in general. I have been putting it off for so long and I want to start getting back into my crafts and card making). I sense a trip to Michael's coming up!!

Credit given where credit is due: Photos courtesy of Brooktown Photography

Top O' the Mornin!

So I sent my first care package off last week (And yes, I'm aware that I probably should have blogged about it THEN instead of NOW). It was St. Patrick's day themed.

I put in some Lucky Charms, Irish Spring, Oreos, Pistachios, Green mentos, starburst, cigarettes, and spaghettio's. I posted something on facebook about the spaghettios and DH saw it and said "don't send the spaghettios, I don't have a way to cook them" but it was too late...the package (spaghettios included) was already in the mail. So I guess he'll have a nice paperweight.

Now I'm paranoid though. Should I have bagged them in plastic? Are the lucky charms going to explode marshmallow clovers all over the box? Will the soap (despite being sealed in 4 ziploc bags and wrapped in paper) infuse it's soapy goodness all through the box? Does he even like pistachios? Did I write too much random crap all over the inside of the flaps? Will the box fly open? Did I give him enough cigarettes? Will the green Easter grass melt?

Gah, whatever. It's too late now. What happens, happens.

By the way, did you know they don't actually say "Top O' the Mornin!" in Ireland? True story.

Deployment Photography!

So our pictures are done today! I went and looked at them on the website, I just have to get the CD before I can post them, but I'm very excited!! I'll try to have them up tomorrow, in between all this miscellaneous house cleaning I have been putting off for 2 weeks (ug).

I talked to DH for a bit last night (well, this morning to be exact). He gave me the specific times that he should be online each day, unfortunately it's between 5-7 AM for me lol. But whatever. If I have to stay up all night just to be there each day, I will do it.

Oh and I cut off all my hair. Yup...all of it. Quite a change, but take a look:

 And another one:

As is the curse with women, I haven't been able to get my hair to do that again haha. Oh well.

And I should have some of those pictures up tomorrow(ish) when I actually have time to get the CD. She said she would come and drop it off, but I don't want to open the door and have her see this disgusting mess that is my apartment, so I'm putting off calling her until at least the carpet is visible. *wink*

New iPhone

So I'm blogging this from my new iPhone. I finally caved and bought one because I wanted to be able be connected to DH even when I'm out and about. I got the Twitter, facebook, and skype apps so I will never miss a call again! I feel so connected to the world. Too bad I don't have a mobile job that requires actually having a life haha.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Um...is it too early to send a care package?

Well the dramatic pre-deployment phase ended...very anti-climatically might I add. It started yesterday when we found out the unit had been delayed and wouldn't be leaving for another 13 hours. As much as I hate to say it, that was bittersweet. Sure, it gave me more time with my husband, but we had already said our goodbyes, come to terms with the seperation, and were ready to go. A delay at that point was just like trying to pretend the inevitable wasn't about to happen.

We got there this morning bright and early only to find out the unit would be yet again delayed...this time by only 5 hours. Since it wasn't prudent to let the Marines return home, the 100+ deployers and their families hung around the gym parking lot for 5 hours. It started out with children laughing and wives crying and slowly escalated into people catching Zzzzz's on their duffle bags. Families slowly trickled off to get food and go home. By the time they marched us into the gym for final formation there was just a smattering of wives left here and there.

After final formation things picked up...and I mean REALLY picked up. They went from "hurry up and wait" to "get on the bus now!" I spent a brief 10 minutes permanently attached to my husband's neck, trying to configure myself comfortably around his M-16. Then he was ushered onto the bus. I stood and watched them drive off and that's when it hit me...my last image of him for the next 12 months is his hand slowly waving at me through the tinted windows of an old white bus.

I jumped in our truck and left the parking lot. I wasn't going to hang around any longer than necessary. I could see his bus 10 cars ahead of me in the traffic and I felt like I was trying to catch it. The bus would turn left and I would turn left. The bus would turn right and I would turn right. The closer I got to catching it, the farther away it got until I got to the part of the base that went back home. The bus went straight and I turned right.

Of course, the second I turned the corner my face broke into a giant grin. There, in the back seat of our truck, was a pair of pants. Not just any pair of pants, but the pants of a guy in his unit. This particular guy is always bumming rides from DH and every single time (without fail) he leaves something in the car. One time he left an entire Dominoes pizza. We had given him a ride over to the armory and he had an extra pair of jeans that he forgot to put in his storage unit. DH suggested he throw them in his sea bag as an extra pair of civies for R&R, but I guess he thought leaving them in the back of our truck would be better. Typical ;)


Oh ya...I got home and noticed my nose and arms are sun burned *sigh*.

Yellow Ribbons

Yellow Ribbons...Traditionally tied around trees or worn in the hair to represent a loved one away in a war, are receiving a lot of negative press recently. In the town of Litchfield, the city council just recently decided to remove the years-old yellow ribbons tied around the oak trees in the town green. Citing potential damage to the tree and "unsightly" wear and tear, they cut down all the ribbons that have been displayed in the Green for 7 years. And by doing so, they started a war all their own.

The act of removing the ribbons absolutely infuriated townspeople, who immediately rushed off to get new yellow ribbons and tie them back up around the trees. Those ribbons were then once again cut down. So new one were erected...and cut down...and erected...and cut down.

I don't really want to take sides on this issue, but I think both groups of people are being absolutely moronic. A yellow ribbon is not going to damage an oak tree, and if it's unsightly then perhaps remove it and allow a new one to be left (untouched) in its place. And to the townspeople...maybe you would have better luck supporting the troops if you tied a ribbon on a tree in your own front yard. That way it can't be removed and you can sit and fawn over it as much as you want.

The point it, a yellow ribbon is a yellow ribbon. Yellow ribbons do not support war efforts, they merely represent one person's feelings of patriotism. If the aim of the ribbons is to actually support the war, then perhaps letters and care packages would be a better use of money then simply replacing every ribbon cut down by the city council. But if those who erect the ribbons don't even care about them enough to replace them when they get tattered and dirty, then I really don't see any TRUE support. I see a symbolic and meaningless gesture meant to make one feel good about oneself. It's ironic that those ribbons were left on the trees for years without so much as a second glance at their tattered and ratty bows until someone tried to *gasp* remove them.

So to the Litchfield city council...get over it. Find something important to spend time on, such as failing infrastructure or schools. Let them put up their new ribbons and leave it at that.

And to the people of Litchfield...find a more concrete way to support the troops. Use the money you would spend tying yellow ribbons all over the place and adopt a soldier. And if you see one of your ribbons is tattered, replace it. Don't only support the troops when it's "convenient" for you (like when you see your ribbons being cut down and feel the need to create drama)

Blog makeover!

What a feat! I think I have been working almost all day coming up with both a new name and a new design for my blog. But I am finally satisfied!

Well...sorta.

I have been procrastinating on purchasing photoshop for this laptop, meaning I've had to do all of my editing in Paint.NET. Don't get me wrong, PDN is actually quite a groovy program, but I am and always will be a photoshop girl. I worked with photoshop for HOURS at a time back in my photography days and can do pretty much anything on it, so to suddenly jump ship to PDN is a bit confusing. I haggled with that banner for a good portion of the day, trying my hardest to get the edges even (to no luck).

So unless someone would like to clue me in on the secret of using PDN to cut things out of other photos, we're all going to just have to just live with the blotchy, un-clean edges on my banner: a testament to the fact that I slaved on my blog myself rather than paying someone to do it for me.

Which reminds me...I need to upload some photos. This place is looking a little bit un-personalized (is that a word? Unpersonalized?)

Gasp! I made it to 5 followers!

And 1 of them isn't a family member...hahaha!

Sweet.

On another note, we FINALLY got that photo session in after only 3 reschedulings. It felt kinda funny because we were hanging around at the beach and hugging and stuff and having our picture taken and a woman walked by and started fawning over us about our "upcoming marriage". I told her we were already married and these were pre-deployment pictures and she switched instantly into somber patriot mode, lowered her eyes to the ground and said "thank you for your service". DH just looked at me like "why is this stranger talking to us!!!"

The photographers were awesome though. They got some shots in that included his dog tags and combat boots so I'm excited to see how they turn out (hopefully I actually looked remotely photogenic).

Then we took my new handgun to the range. I named him Siegfried because I thought...if I'm going to own a weapon it might as well have a name and Siegfried just popped into my head first. But apparently I can't shoot it worth shit because I shot 50 rounds and missed 90% of them (and I don't mean missed as in I missed my aim...I missed the ENTIRE TARGET). That's pretty strange considering I'm actually a decent shot, but Siegfried behaves differently than other handguns I've used. The trigger takes more effort to pull and you have to pull it back farther, and something about that finger movement forces me to tilt the gun too far down. So hopefully as the weeks go on I'll figure it out.

We also packed his gear today. Boy was that NOT FUN. Well ok...I might have had a little teeny tiny bit of fun slipping love notes into all his skivvy rolls.

I'd say the phase of deployment I'm in now would be....the "Wtf mode". Everything that happens just makes me say "WTF life". Like yesterday and that whole California Tsunami thing. We don't even live near the beach but I had to say WTF because it was like the last week of him being here has just been one thing after another and then a near-natural-disaster to top it off.

Oh and did I mention that our neighbor apologized for being a douche? He picked a terrible time (seeing as I was just returning from a pre-deployment party that I left early because I was about to burst into tears every 5 seconds and I didn't know anybody). But still....as I was getting my depressed little sulking self out of the truck he found a few moments to yell over his balcony that he acted "hastily". I'd say "idiotically" would be more like it, but I'll accept hastily. I also noticed he stopped parking there. Instead his roommate parks there and his car is smaller and he actually knows how to park, so so far the parking situation seems to have improved slightly.