So Long, Farewell: Saying Goodbye to Military Friends

 

I hate goodbyes and am very fond of the idea of rather saying "see you later." In the military, that's kind of true.  Eventually we'll end up at the same bases or in the same part of the United States or even deployed together.

While living here at Malmstrom we built a great friendship with our next door neighbors, Alex and Tabitha. It's crazy how the winters keep people apart here.  We hung out with them once before winter came and then didn't see them until spring.  When Alex and I were members of the CGOA board did we become really good friends. Tabitha and I are literally the same person and crazy as it is but we're from the same sorority.  Of course at this time we found out that in a few months they would be moving to Italy.  UGH

Tabitha and Alex are such a fun couple.  We had so many cookouts and game nights with them and it was a blast. They even got me to watch The Shining.

 Our lewd picture is actually a running joke where the guys kept trying to make the Theta kite and instead would make symbolic vaginas. Ignore their weirdness.

Our good friends are officially in Italy now. They have a wonderful blog and pictures of pizza dates and markets. I am officially jealous beyond all means. However, this does mean that Ryan and I get to work on passports and a trip to Italy (hopefully next year).

Although saying goodbye or see ya soon to friends is really difficult for me, meeting all of these wonderful people has been a blessing. Here's to a trip to Italy!

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Changing the World...One Spoon at a Time

In the past couple of months, I became the Public Affairs Officer for the Company Grade Officer Association (CGOA) for my base.  It has been a huge honor for me and if you don't know me, a lot of folks like to say that my fictional character twin is definitely Leslie Knope.

Now I certainly don't mind that one bit because I love Leslie and I love Amy Poehler.  When I became the PA officer, I knew that I wanted to make a difference and I also knew that the CGOA needed that boost of energy from me.  In working with five amazing, yet very busy people, our schedules don't always mesh well.  But honestly, that's where I come in.  We've created a new e-mail address, an updated Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a private CGOA board Facebook group.

I was honored when my fellow CGOs voted me in as the PA and although the position encourages community involvement and volunteerism, I wanted to embrace that and really become a positive influence on our local community.  For me, moving to Great Falls really flipped a switch on how active someone should be in their community.  I feel like it is every person's civic responsibility to give back in some way.  My friend May mentioned a local organization called My Neighbor In Need.  It's a really fantastic non-profit where local families can request assistance with a specific need.  For example, some people may need mattresses for their kids, so they'll put up a request online for X number of child-size mattresses.  Then people can visit the site, check over the requests, and see if they can help out.

From the end of February to the end of March, we are doing our first charity drive called Home at the Dinner Table.  We have donation boxes all throughout the local community and folks are asked to donate clean kitchen items.  These items will be given to My Neighbor In Need and then passed on to families in the community that need them.  Kitchen supplies are actually in the top three most requested items for the organization.

One of my personal favorite components of the campaign are the print ads:

 

   

I know every single one of these people and they have such beautiful spirits! It's been amazing working with all of these different people and supporting a great cause.  If you're reading this and are a CGO, we are brainstorming so many ideas and feel free to share with any one of your board members.  I can't wait for the rest of 2014 with such awesome people =]





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When I Married into the Military (The First Year)

A series of "welcome home" signs outside of the housing area we first lived at while stationed at Camp Pendleton

When I think of Memorial Day, I think of my family and the families I've met through being a Navy brat, marrying a Marine, and being an Air Force officer.  I have had so many experiences with the military.  I have known what it's like to not have your father there for your birthday and not understand because you're three years old.  I know what it's like to miss all of the major holidays during your first year of marriage because your husband is deployed.  I also know what it's like to have to pick and choose which special occasions you attend because you have alert and the mission is more critical than flying home to see a friend's wedding.  Everyday we are given choices.  Sometimes they're made for us and sometimes we have to choose the less of two evils.  We are taught quickly to appreciate the concept of time and to not worry about what we can't change.

When I married Ryan, I had spent years away from the military.  I had just started the AFROTC program at the University of Wisconsin and apart from that, I hadn't known military life in quite some time.  My dad ended his career with the Navy when I was a little kid and we moved to Wisconsin where he hoped to find better employment.  Moving to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California was this exciting adventure to me.  I had been watching episodes of Army Wives and I'm a huge fan, if you didn't know.  I sort of expected Claudia Joy to stroll in with some military flavor pie to help relinquish any of the stress that came with being a Marine wife.  Of course Claudia Joy is an Army wife and the obvious, not real.  When we first moved to California we stayed with friends in their apartment and I could not have been more awkward.  It was weird living with people that I barely knew and I just really wanted to have a house of our own.  When we moved into a housing area of C.P. called Serra Mesa, I was ecstatic.  Of course, there were stories.  Stories that involved new Marines with very young wives who were far too loud and rambunctious for their own good.  There was even a story of of a guy who killed his wife and tried to bury her in the wall.  I hadn't been with Ryan when he chose our house, but he was given three options and he chose a house snuggled into the middle of the housing division.  It was a smart choice.  We were surrounded by older service members and their families.  They were never too loud or rowdy.  Our house had been renovated and I was convinced it was because a woman had been buried in the previous walls.  No pets were allowed, but people still snuck in dogs.  I don't blame them.  I spent a ridiculous amount of time by myself and I would have appreciated the company of a friendly puppy.  Of course, when I moved back to Wisconsin at the end of that summer, dogs were allowed in our housing division.

Military housing is set up like a duplex.  Two houses often share the same walls.  Sometimes they back into other houses as well.  That's how our first house was; we shared multiple walls.  We had very little money.  One thing you should know about military folks, especially enlisted members is that they don't get paid nearly enough for what they do.  I submitted application after application trying to find some element of work in that area.  We only had one car, which we still have today.  I have a few pictures of our house at the time, which was small but still nice.  We didn't have a lot; just livin' off of love ;)

 

Right when you walked into the house, you were in the living room with a staircase directly in front of you.  Past the living room was a decent sized kitchen and a half bathroom to the left.  Up the stairs was a loft style bedroom that also had a full-sized bath.  There wasn't a door upstairs, only doors on the closets and bathrooms.  We also had a very small concrete patio that was more like a storage area for military equipment.   

Most of Ryan's income went to groceries and bills, we didn't really have anything extra to spare.  We saved and some of the extra money went into an end of the summer trip to Disneyland which I had been looking forward to for that entire summer.  Our decorations were things we received from our wedding and things that were supposed to be a part of our wedding.  We received a ton of gift cards and most of those were used to buy kitchen supplies and things like hand towels.  We started off with nothing, except for a Ninja Blender, a fancy platter, and a few other things.

   

Despite being newlywed-military poor, I took great pride in decorating our house.  I was so proud of the bathroom upstairs and coordinating the towels with a military theme.  Our kitchen was red & white (Badger colors) and even our pots and pans stayed with the motif.  I was thrilled to make friends and one of the first couples that I just fell in love with were our friends Jeff and Meagan.  They were dating at the time but are now happily married (they got married earlier this year).  We've been through a lot together and they're fantastic people.  The picture above is when we had them over for dinner and we went to the county fair the next day. 



Like I said, when I first got to Camp Pendleton, I thought making friends would be a breeze.  I'm a Theta and went through so many recruitment processes that I could small chat with anybody (but seriously, I loathe making small chat).  However, I was rightfully put in my place as I learned that my housing area really wasn't set up in a way to make friends.  People kept to themselves and the hospitality that my Wisconsin neighborhoods were known for, were seriously lacking on this military base.  Of course because I knew no one, the Marine Corps needed Ryan to train all of the time.  He would be gone during the week and even weekends and I was by myself.  I soon became incredibly lonely and filled my hours with cleaning our small house (well that took an hour) to working out and going to the library.  The large base gym was down a hill from where we lived so I would walk there (since we only had one car) and the library was just past it up a very large hill.  I would often go work out and then head towards the library to check out books and movies.  We also had a neighborhood pool that I would frequent to either swim or tan.  I desperately wanted to make at least one friend and so I looked to the online Facebook groups.  There are a ton of military support sites and information pages.  I joined several and learned that many of them had more drama than support and found it more discouraging than helpful.  One of the wives needed a ride to see the chaplain and I offered to give her one.  Of course she was at a friend's house on the other side of base (C.P. is huge- like the size of San Diego) and when I got there, her friend was there with a baby in tow.  Apparently all three needed a ride to the chaplain.  I was already there and didn't really know what to say so I gave them a ride.  The same woman would text me constantly asking for rides and so after that first one, I learned to ignore the number.  That being said, that's not like me.  However, I quickly learned from people that I met that not all military wives are the Claudia Joys that we'd like them to be.  One of my good friends from back home was already a military wife for several years and taught me a lot about the base and military life.  We all come from varying backgrounds and education levels.  Some of the wives were straight out of high school and had never been out of their hometowns.  Others met their spouse the day before at a club and got married (I'm not even kidding).  We're all just really different.

However it was in one of those groups that I met one of my best friends, Ashley.  She was moving into a house across the way from mine and I was so excited to meet her.  A group of wives already living in Serra Mesa were introducing her around but to be blunt, I didn't like the group.  It turns out that Ashley didn't either.  The ladies were rude, catty, and just plain mean.  Ashley and I became fast friends and I love her style and personality.  We went to base classes together, painted pottery at the Hobby Shop, and saw movies.  We even met Tom Hardy together.

Our husbands deployed around the same time, so when I went back to Wisconsin, she went back to Texas.  Of course, we met back up again at C.P. the next summer.  No longer were we living in the same housing division (which sucked) but we had girl dates all of the time.  But back then, we were in the same boat- living in Serra Mesa and no monies.  We did everything free on base and had a ton of days spent at the beach.  We even spent the 4th of July together watching the fireworks with other friends.

We had so many memories back then that I just love and cherish.  A lot of that time I spent frustrated because I spent most of that summer by myself but the thing about military spouses and significant others is that you learn to be resilient.  You have to because if you don't learn how to be independent and flexible with whatever the life throws at you, it'll swallow you up.  At the end of the summer we took a trip to Disneyland with our friends, Meagan and Jeff.

Ryan had never been to Disneyland and it was a really fun trip.  I got my Duffy the Disney Bear and in that picture you can see me wearing a name tape bracelet.  That summer I became completely military-obsessed.  I wore the shirts, got the bracelets, supported small businesses that sold military stuff, etc.  I was all about it.  Nametape bracelets are a really popular accessory and I actually made some for awhile for friends and family.

It was such a cute trip because we got to sport our "Just Married" buttons and Ryan went on all of the rides.  I went a little picture happy with him and took hundreds of photos of everything but I know that he loved it.

There are a ton of memories to be made in this crazy military life.  You meet people from all over and they contribute to your experience and those memories that you cherish.  Living in Montana now, I still keep in contact with all of our old friends and they living in California, Texas, Wisconsin, Colorado, etc.  It's a challenging life and presents many obstacles.  But when someone comes up to me and thanks me for my service, which happened three days ago, it completely takes my breath away.  I am honored and those little things mean everything to us. 

Have a great, happy, and safe Memorial Day.

250 Words

Story of My Life's first challenge: "the story of your life in 250 words or less" (a very brief auto-biography).  

This is going into way more than 250...I apologize in advance.

I'm the blonde-looking child and that's my cousin, who I just placed a block on because we enjoyed nudity in our youth...hey it was always scorching hot outside!

I was born in the Philippines and grew up as part of a rather large Navy family.  

My mom came from a large family and so I have several aunts, uncles, and cousins who still live there.  My mom worked in a bar/restaurant owned by family friends who were practically family and it was located very close to a U.S. Naval base (my memory wavers but it could have actually been on the base).  My mom met a sailor with a son and ended up becoming a nanny for him.  The sailor and my mom ended up falling in love and eventually had me.  This is a tough part of my history because that man was unfaithful to my mother and he left for the U.S. without her.  Over time my mom met another man, named Jim, and married him.  Although he's technically my step-dad, he's always been dad to me.  We lived in Southern California for several years and moved back to Wisconsin so my father could pursue employment by his family.  I spent most of my life in Wisconsin and am a proud Sconnie.  My brother Jimmy was born when I was 8 and we ended up moving several times, all within the same city.  I have so many fond memories of different families back there and of different school programs.  My favorites come from a charter school that I attended from 6th to 8th grade.  One of my best-friends that I met during Middle School is getting married this summer and I can't wait to see her!  During high school I was one of the captains for my swim team and spent a total of 10 years competitively swimming.  Looking back, I wished I had taken it more seriously because I had a lot of talent and wasted it by loathing practices.  Also in high school, I was part of your yearbook program which competed nationally.  That's where my love for design and journalism blossomed.  It was further cultivated in DECA and our Advanced Marketing program.  

I was nervous about getting into a good school but after ramping up my resume, I had nothing to worry about. I got into 11 different universities and was going to attend the University of Central Florida but after representing Wisconsin at DECA Internationals, I changed my mind.  I called my dad up and told him I wanted to go to Wisconsin and he was so excited, especially since he's a Wisconsin alum.  He drove up to Madison the next day and changed over all of my paperwork.  That's just one of many reasons that I absolutely adore my dad.  I attended UW-Madison and it's one of the greatest experiences of my life.  I can only look back on fond memories or ones that taught me so much.  I'm a Theta and I did the recruitment process, all while balancing the last part of try-outs for the Wisconsin Band.  Love the band, but boy howdy was that rigorous.  I didn't make the band, percussion killed my legs, but I did get a bid from Theta and it was a wonderful experience.  I did several jobs while I was there, including being a tour guide, event coordinator for Sex Out Loud, and a House Fellow for Sellery.  These were the best jobs ever and I miss them so much.  Being a tour guide helped shape my public presentation skills and I met so many awesome people.  Sex Out Loud is an organization at UW that does peer-to-peer sexual health education and advocacy.  That job taught me so much about the necessity for sexual health education and how drastically different the education process is for different school systems.  We got the results of that with incoming college freshmen.  A lot of my beliefs come from those experiences.  I was a House Fellow or RA for one of the rambunctious dorms at Wisconsin.  It taught me a lot about being a role model, multi-tasking, patience, time management, and how I would like to raise my future kids.  I also joined the Air Force ROTC program after my freshman year and then a few years later became an officer.

I also got married while I was in college to my best-friend, Ryan.  I have discussed so many aspects of the joys and issues that came with this in previous posts and I'm sure I'll keep on talking about it in the future.  I moved to Southern California twice (each summer), where Ryan was stationed for the Marine Corps.  I then moved to Central Coast California, where I was stationed for training and now to Montana where we live with our two German Shepherds.  There's so much I can go into about certain elements of my life, but I'm just excited to have the opportunity to be a part of this challenge.

     

Looooong Distance

Photo Credit: Images by Jaimie

My best-friend and I have been in a long distance relationship for over two years.

My husband is my best-friend and "best-friend" as in soul-mate because let's face it, Ryan would rather stick a pencil in his eye than stand in line at Victoria's Secret or see a new Broadway Show.  However he is my absolute best-friend and I love him for many reasons, but you'll find out one of those many reasons with this post.

  

This past week has been challenging.  Scratch that, the past two weeks.  It's just one of those times when things just aren't going your way.  To give you an idea of what my job is without getting into details, here's kind of what I do:

 

So to say the least, it requires a lot of time studying and 100% perfection.

It's stressful and I have spent a lot of time focusing on that.

Things weren't going my way the past two weeks, no matter how much time I was putting in and it was frustrating.  I started feeling down on myself and my confidence was severely lacking after awhile.  My husband spent our entire Thanksgiving break motivating me.  I know it sounds silly but he would occasionally remind me of my past accomplishments and just give me affirmations.  He put so much energy into making sure that I felt better and today went off without a problem.  I had to re-take a test and although it wasn't flawless, I got through.  

I also took a quiz on new material and got 100%

BOOYAH

My husband couldn't have been happier.  It's absolutely wonderful to be able to share in that type of happiness with someone.  It wasn't a fake or planned type of happiness, he's genuinely happy that I'm so excited. So to say the least, I have an amazing husband (yes, I'm bragging) but he's also a wonderful partner.  We aren't without our occasional fights, arguments, and moments of deep loathing stares, but we work through all of it.

We're a mil-to-mil couple, meaning that we're both in the military.

He's in the Marine Corps and I'm in the Air Force, and if you know anything about the different branches sometimes working together, the Marine Corps and Air Force don't overlap.

So Ryan is stationed in one place and I'm somewhere else.

This is where you can insert the whole, "well that totally sucks."

Why yes, yes it does.

It's been like this for two years.  I'm either in school and he's stationed at a USMC base, or when I became active duty, we're at two different locations.

It's not like this was some kind of surprise...

If the military wanted you to have a spouse, they would have issued you one.

It comes with the territory.  You could both be in the same branch and never be at the same base.  It all just depends. We're actually incredibly fortunate for multiple reasons but Ryan and I did plan on when/how we got married due to our military lifestyle. 

However, the good news is that Ryan is almost done!!

We're fortunate to be stationed fairly close to each other so that we can visit twice a month.

Thanksgiving was a treat because we had four days together.

Soon, we'll get to be together fo-eva.

I know, it sounds like the lyrics to a bad love song, but I am sooo excited.

We finally get to be together and just be married.

One of the most challenging aspects of being married and long distance would be the  

constant pick-up of where we last left off.

It's easier to get into petty arguments because you're not used to the way someone does something,

but on the flip side, it can be easier to ignore certain things because you don't want to waste the time you have together with fighting.

It'll be an adjustment, but something that I'm definitely looking forward to and quite possibly the best birthday/Christmas present I could get :)

\\\in other news///

 

I just saw Lawless and it was intense.  I don't do well with graphic violence/blood and there was lots of it.  The movie is dark and covers a family who sells their own batch of moonshine during Prohibition.  There were many parts where my roommate let me know when it was okay to look at the screen again.  

Despite all of the violence, Tom Hardy was in it and I adore him.

Did I ever tell you guys about when I met him?

They were doing premieres on military bases for the movie, Warrior, and he 

literally sat right next to me in the theater.

We were c-h-a-t-t-i-ng. I was probably 50 shades of red (haha get it) and the man is gorgeous and his accent, whoa man.  But anyways, I'm a huge fan and The Dark Knight Rises comes out on December 4th!  Oh hello Bain.

x-o-x-o

Sinus Pressure & Carpets that Smell...Off

I don't know what it is...

it could be allergies,

a wicked cold,

or life just spitting on me in the form of copious amounts of snot.

ewwwww

But, I'm sick.

Nevertheless, I thought this would be an ideal time to reminisce on the move up to my new base.

My roommate Brittany and I are renting a house.

It's big, it's nice, it's ballin-shock-callin.

It seriously is a nice house in a beautiful neighborhood.
I Google Mapped that ish before we moved.

I mean it was key that I figure out the distance from work because I don't like long commutes and to figure out if the neighborhood was majorly sketchy.

It's not...that's a good thing.

We also have a big yard which is perfect for the Hollinator and all of her romping around adventures.

I'm debating whether or not to post pictures...I may post a few in the next couple of days but I do like my privacy so please don't be offended if I ask you to use the brilliance of your imaginations.

--------------------------------

Ok so we arrive on base and are staying at base lodging.

Brit and I are total newbs.

Wee lil babes lost in the world of becoming a part of the "real Air Force."

Everything is going well until we drive to our property manager's
office which is over a half hour away to sign our lease.

As the reader, I'm sure you'll recognize several key "red flags" in this post.

Like hey Kim, you should have had your property manager meet you at the house instead of haulin' your booties all the way to their office.

I would promptly respond, why thank you reader for saving me the time and hassle.

I really could have used you in my backseat at the time.

So we drive to their office, have a little difficulty finding it and then sit down to sign the lease.

SHE (the property manager staff member that we've been working with) basically pro-rated us for the days that we haven't been living there.

Mind you we just moved, so there is no way that the military has our stuffed moved from multiple states yet, plus we're staying at base lodging.

We even expressed this to her before we left our respective dwellings.

Since the earlier date was on the application, that's what she went with.

Of course, she didn't tell me this until the day of 

but hey there's nothing like scamming two fresh-out-of-college butter bars.

It gets better.

So we drive back to our new house and it's amazing.

Three bedrooms, two full baths, a living room, kitchen, dining room, two-car garage...the works!

The kicker is that the previous owners basically ran their house into the ground.

The carpet reeked of animal.

Like they just let their dog and/or cat just mark everything.

Oh hey every corner in the house, if I haven't peed on you yet, 

don't worry I have you booked for after lunch.

It also didn't have a working smoke detector or carbon monoxide detector.

Joyous.

Well after several phone calls and some detective work on my part,

everything was taken care of...except for the carpet.

Brittany autobahned (I don't think that's even remotely close to how it's spelled) the carpet when I went to pick up my dog (she was back in the old town) and then I rented a Rug Doctor and we went to work on the house.  

I videotaped every aspect of the house.

There are holes in the walls where nails used to be, weeds in the cracks of the back patio, lack of door stoppers, mildew underneath the sinks because of the lack of exhaust fans and just some jankiness going about.

With a little TLC- it's back in business.

We have our things moved in, fully utilized Bath and Body Works candles, and the carpets are amazing because we cleaned them ourselves.

Btw, I am obsessed with B&BW candles, scents, plug-ins, etc.

Holy geez it smells so good and I'm doubly obsessed with fall scents,

especially anything with a pumpkin scent.

I also went to Home Depot and got my DIY on.

I installed new doorstops where they didn't exist, put up new blinds, and I think something else but let's just say I was pumped to be a handy lady.

Yes, they were really simple jobs but I had never done them before so I was and still am excited.

Walking through the enormous aisles of Home Depot almost made me wish the house was ours so we could actually invest time and money into it.

It's a shame that the previous owners did such a crap job.

I'm now waiting on one more shipment of goods from Wisconsin and I will have so many awesome things to remind me of home.

--------------

Have you ever gotten jealous of someone else because of the stuff that they had?

My roommate has a kickass bedroom set...I'm jealous.

Her room actually looks like a bedroom and mine looks like I'm a starving artist that enjoys Pinterest.

 However, I have been making the occasional trip to Marshals and Goodwill.

I'm determined to make my little space a beautiful room without breaking the bank.

The Goodwill here has the most amazing book selection that I have ever seen.

I seriously am loving it.