50 Followers!! (And an update)

So yay!!!! First real milestone for the blog reached! I am so blessed to see the big 5-0 finally hit this morning and realize that I am connecting with so many people already. 

On another happy note,

GYN appointment went really well today.

After having waited on this appointment for 5 weeks, I was really hoping SOMEONE would finally give me some answers. 

Luckily the guy understood that (probably when I told him that an almost 6-week period was NOT cool).

So I start labwork tomorrow to check my thyroid levels,

and then on day 21 of my cycle I will have more labs drawn for progesterone

to make sure I'm even ovulating.

Then, I see him back, where he says, "hopefully you'll be seeing me on the OB side instead of the GYN side." He meant well and it was nice, but I just chuckled and said, "I hope." 

I would really like to get pregnant in enough time to where we would have the baby while we were still here at this duty station, and I think once that little deadline passes where it won't matter because it's past the time we'll be here,

I'll probably lose a lot of the stress and that's probably when it will happen lol.

We'll see. I'm just glad that I got a good doctor and he seems to care

and has a plan.

Which already makes me feel better.

So we'll keep trying. 

Until then, this will continue to be my only child:

Not that I mind in the slightest :)

He's pretty darn cute, after all!

The New Age Is Upon Us (Apparently)

So I am now officially on Google+, which is apparently going to take the world by storm and destroy all other forms of social networking. Honestly, after playing around with it for a few hours, I can't decide if I'm impressed.

Yes, it will allow you to put different people in different circles (two of the pre-made ones when you first sign on are "friends" - who are the people you feel you can share "personal, deep" information with, and another is "acquaintances" - who are people you know but wouldn't want to share a lot with)... umm, is there really even a point to having people who you wouldn't consider a friend on there?? 

Personally, I feel like this is just going to allow people to be more fake. I mean, you can create a circle of all your church friends and then every day post really inspiring, "look at me I'm such a great person" posts up, and those people will think you live every day like a saint... while in another circle of "college buddies" you're posting the pictures of the insane party you threw last weekend. It's like having twenty-something different personalities, and there never has to be a "real you" that you are with everyone. 

Personally, I'd like to be a "real me" all the time.

Sure, it makes it easier to chat with groups or let certain people in on plans, or things like that. But I don't know. 

Plus, I feel like it's a lot less secure than Facebook. People you don't even know can add you to circles, and if you don't know them, you can block them, but you can't reject them putting you in one of their circles (so even if you block them, you remain in their circle, and they can still message you or send things to you)... and personally, that makes me a tad bit uncomfortable.

I debated making a page for the blog, but I'm not sure of it. I don't know if that's even something anybody is going to do. I feel like a whole new wave of unsecure networks is coming around. And honestly, I have WAY too much history on facebook to leave it. Pictures I don't have saved anywhere else, statuses my husband tagged me in way back when we first met. 

That's why everything has to be so secretive these days, you know?

I mean, I don't even have my first name on this blog.

And the vast majority of people on here will never even know it.

We are out here putting our lives out there, trying to find people to listen.

To care.

To understand.

To relate.

To sympathize.

And yet, we have to protect ourselves from people more than ever.

Ironic, isn't it?

What do you think about all this new social networking? What do you think about our privacy as individuals vs. our "for-the-world-to-see" lives? Just some food for thought on this Sunday evening :)

Milspouse Friday Fill-In!

Well, I'm sure most of you by now have been a part of the awesome meme sponsored by Wife of a Sailor, but in case you aren't, here's how it goes: head over to her page and answer the questions posed by other milspouses this week, making sure you link back to the blogs that submitted the questions. Then, head back to Wife of a Sailor's page and put your post into the Mr. Linky, and voila! Jump around and meet other military SO's who linked up!

1. If you could have a private concert with any singer, who would it be? Submitted by An Air Force Wife's BlogThat's tough. But if I just HAD to choose, I would have to say Jason Aldean. Hearing him croon out "See You When I See You" would just rip my heart to pieces. It's the song I always play when BE leaves and I'm in a down mood.

2. Is there anything you do to support your family's income? Submitted by Our Life, One Adventure At A Time
Well, at the moment I am studying to take my NCLEX-RN exam to become a licensed RN in the state of Florida... after that I will probably make more than BE lol. For right now I try to work coupons and case lot sales as best as I can and save money for us that way!

3. During your pregnancy (whether past, present, or future), what did you nickname your unborn baby before you knew the sex? Submitted by Explosions of Love
Kind of a sore subject actually. Currently we are having a hard time getting pregnant, despite my constant (begging) prayers for it to happen. Of course, everyone else around me is pregnant though lol. That's the way it goes. But because of that, I would probably just call it a Miracle... when and if I eventually experience it.

4. Have you ever won a blog giveaway? If so, what did you win? Submitted by Mrs. O's Life
Sadly, I have not! I have entered a few though. I should probably try more if I want to win some! I am thinking about doing a giveaway when I hit 50 or 100 readers though!

5. If I looked into your refrigerator right now, what would I find? Submitted by Married to the Army
Lots lol. I just went shopping! I drink a lot of juice, so there's a bunch of that, as well as some leftovers from dinners I've cooked this week. On the other side is DH's beer collection haha! My freezer is a bit better stocked right now though because I got a Food Saver for Christmas and have been using it like it's going out of style this week! Love that thing!

Thursday Link-Up

So I FINALLY get to premier the new blog design and I'm so happy!! It still needs a little work and rearranging, but I think it's so cute! I am also happy to announce that one of my Dr. appointments has turned up a good result - over a year ago a tumor was found in my breast and ever since then I have been going for re-checks and ultrasounds every 4-6 months. Today I had another, and the mass has decreased in size so much that it is no longer detectable!!! The surgeon shook my hand and told me that he didn't see any need for me to continue the checks unless I find something else down the road. Gotta give that one up to God, who knows that I'm going through too much other stuff right now to worry about tumors!! Here is the link-up for this week:

From Goodnight Moon,




My song for this week is one that is special to BE and I (and who doesn't LOVE them some Tim McGraw??) Enjoy a classic :)

Oh, Wednesday

Well, today is back to Day One with the hubs - CSO school officially began for him bright and early this morning (the alarm went off around 0430 and I wanted to punch him), so I'm left to tackle my NCLEX-RN studying alone, which I thought would be a good thing but in reality has completely and totally killed my motivation with no one in the background like a second father telling me to STUDY! constantly. So Animal Cops Houston has been the majority of my morning lol (Buster watches tv if there are dogs on it, and we're all about some justice seeing as how he was a humane society dog himself). While my husband struggles to survive death by powerpoint, I am left to stare slack-faced at my computer screen for the rest of the day, and try to break it up with chores around the house as I go.

I am pretty excited to be going to see Winnie the Pooh in theaters this Friday - judge me all you want but I LOVE those old stories and can't wait to see what they did with it in movie form. You are never too old for Disney.

One week from today I FINALLY have my GYN appointment. Only took me over a month of fighting to get it. You would think being on your "week" for over a month would be considered slightly emergent - guess not. Luckily I have stopped (for longer than two days this time - WOOHOO!!) and so BE and I are back on the baby-making warpath. I am treating this like a personal battle against my own body - and trying to overcome my faith doubts in the process. It's hard seeing people like Casey Anthony and young adolescents having children and then look at us - married with a home, the finances to support it, and all the love in the world to give - and make sense of it. Sometimes it's easy to convince myself that either God has abandoned me or that he doesn't hear me when I fall on my face and pray. It's easy to waiver in faith when your body doesn't work "the way it's supposed to". Somehow I have to trust that he knows my heart and how badly I want this, and trust that he has the power to make it happen. Fingers crossed that he will.

Friday Fill-In (And I'm Featured!!!)

So here is the Friday Fill-In from Wife of a Sailor, which I always love, but that is so much more exciting this week because one of my questions has made the cut! I can't wait to see how many newcomers visit the blog and become followers! Hope everyone will stop back in within the next few days to see the blog's facelift and totally new template!! :) Happy filling!

1. Does your significant other read your blog? Why is this a good or a bad thing? Submitted by Mrs. Alana's Miscellany
Actually, BE does read my posts usually the day that I post them (probably because they show up in his Facebook newsfeed). It has its good days and its bad, mostly because he keeps a lot of things a lot more close-vested than I do. For me, this is a catharsis, so I tend to let it all out, but for him sometimes he rolls his eyes and says "did you really need everyone to know that??" Sometimes guys just don't get WHY we do it.

2. What is one item in your house that holds the most sentimental value and why? Submitted by The Albrecht Squad
Wow that's always such a tough question to answer. I always try to think of it in terms of "if the house was burning down and I only had time to save one thing, what would I want it to be?" and when I think of it that way, there is only one answer. My strand of pearls. Before you judge me, let me explain. Pearls are a big deal in my family - a girl gets her first strand from her fiance/husband either soon before or soon after the wedding; it symbolizes the beginning of a new chapter of womanhood, and I have been waiting my whole life to get my own. My husband presented me with my strand of pearls the night before he graduated Officer Training School, as a thank you for sticking by him and enduring our first separation with him. I wore them the next morning to his commissioning and cried like a baby. I had only ever mentioned the pearls once before - but he remembered. That's why they are so precious to me. :)

3. When it comes to water fun in the summer do you prefer the beach, the pool, a lake, or the sprinklers? submitted by The Tervo Times
Definitely the beach!! I think that's why I love living in Pensacola for the moment so much. The sun, the sand, and the water all in one... plus, I've managed to (falsely) convince myself that I get a better tan there than anywhere else ;) LOL

4. Now for MY QUESTION!! What is the one special thing that you do for yourself to get you through the first week of a deployment/separation? Submitted by yours truly :)
To jumpstart my first week alone, I always make myself a list on the magnetic dry erase board on our fridge of the ten things I want to accomplish during that separation (no matter how big or small). That way I see it every morning and it encourages me not to just sit around the house! Also, I get a new kind of coffee creamer :)

5. What is your biggest guilty pleasure website? submitted by Christine's Little Blog
Ok, so I could spend HOURS on Facebook, but that's no surprise to anyone who knows me! Other than that I'm a total sucker for E! Online. I MUST know exactly what the Kardashians are doing at any given moment. It's bad.

Facelift and Other Ramblings

So I heard back from the blog layout company and the new layout should be done soon!!! I am so excited to see how this facelift for the blog hopefully brings more readers as well as just makes it look a lot more professional than I was able to do myself. So excited :)

Let's not even talk about the Casey Anthony trial... all I have to say is that thank goodness eventually there will be justice for that poor little girl when her family is judged by the One who doesn't need lawyers and reasonable doubt to hand down a verdict. Personally, I think they all probably had a hand in it. But I guess no one will ever truly know what happened - too many lies have been interwoven now to make much sense of it all.

I read an article the other day that said that 85% of women get pregnant within the first year of trying. So far it's not looking good for us. I'm so frustrated I can barely stand it. I just want my body to work right, the way it's supposed to. Once I stopped my pill I had two normal cycles and then a week after that second one I started back again and haven't come off my "week" yet (over a month later). After much argument with my PCM, I couldn't get an appointment for a month. So now I'm still waiting on that. Who knows what that appointment will tell me anyway, other than that despite lots of trying, I'm not pregnant. I think about it all the time. It probably doesn't help that since we've started trying it seems like every friend I have is getting pregnant. No matter how excited I am for them, it still doesn't take away from how badly I want it for myself, and jealousy hits me hard sometimes. I hate how this is the one thing in my whole life that is entirely out of my control, and I go back and forth between praying harder than I ever have with my face to the floor and wanting to hate God for the fact that everyone else's body seems to be working except mine. Even though we haven't been trying for a super long time or anything, I guess you just always assume that your body is going to do what it was made to do and unfortunately, unlike a broken snack machine, you can't just kick it and make it do what you want (I wish). So every time a big fat NO shows up on a test it hurts. So I guess we'll just go to the appointments and try to get some answers, keep on trying, and keep on praying.

On a happier note, the Blue Angels come to town this weekend for a show, and we have some friends coming over for it (which I am super pumped about because I haven't seen them in a while) so hopefully it will make for a fun weekend! Plus it's always nice having someone to cook for.

I also scheduled my NCLEX-RN exam today (eeek!!!!) so now the nerves can really kick in (and studying also HAS to become a priority...sigh...). I'm really nervous about it since everyone I know has passed it so far and I don't want to be that one dud that doesn't. Plus, I really need to start working here soon so that we can afford to do a little more and save some, especially since I want a new camera SO BAD. I started editing some of the pictures I've taken with our dinky little old digital camera in the meantime so that by the time I can get my Canon Rebel I'll really be a pro. One day I would love to be good enough to photograph peoples' weddings and things like that. Anyway, in the meantime, here are a few I edited yesterday :)