Friday Follow & Blog Hop

Thanks to Riding the Roller Coaster for the

Blog Hop

idea!

My name is Marissa,

my husband's name is Jesse,

and he is an Infantryman in the

United States Army.

We have two fur children,

Stryker and

Spuz.

We are stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington

(also known as JBLM - Joint Base Lewis McChord).

Also, if you are new to following me, drop me a line...And I will follow you.

Tomorrow I will do The Tulip Festival - Part Two.

See you tomorrow!

The Tulip Festival - Part One

Here is the first of a few things we did on leave...Starting with the Tulip Festival.

Here is:

Jesse eating an elephant ear at the street festival...

Rows and rows of tulips, these ones were purple and white.

Red ones....

Me

Jesse - Who was pretty ticked in this photo, I'm not going to lie.

That and I believe his words were "I'm not taking a flower picture."

But....I'm spoiled, so....

and.... Pink ones.

I realized that I have too many pictures, so I'll have to do a part two.

So again today I am avoiding my house.  I can't manage to look around my house at everything still, so much so that I feel that it's suffocating me.  I have loads of laundry, vacuuming, dishes, and dusting to do.  I'm sure I will get sick of everything eventually and clean.  I start working again tomorrow, Stryker will be going to doggie daycare, and I will be attending an FRG meeting tomorrow evening.

Hopefully all of the distractions will be good for me...Even though I am not looking forward to anything at the moment.

I will try to post more soon....Have a great weekend!

Sigh.

So my husband is on a plane somewhere.  Lord only knows where.

It's really interesting because I'm experiencing a lot of anxiety that I felt before he even left for his deployment.  I really felt it last week, on our last day of our mini-vaca in Leavenworth (side note, this is a city in Washington that is a Bavarian town.  Just in case you were wondering).  Anyway, I woke up in the middle of the night, not feeling good and feeling a wave of anxiety about him leaving again.  Then I realized I couldn't breathe -- something that I felt often in the beginning weeks of deployment.  I realize at this point that I definitely could be on the verge of having a panic attack and start to calm myself down.  I go into the bathroom, shutting the door to block the light from filling the room with my sleeping husband, and get a drink of water at the sink.  As I turn around, there is a large wolf spider hanging from the vent in the B&B we were staying at.  HOLY CRAP.  Seriously, I almost screamed.

Getting back on track....I realized at that time that the next few days were going to be rough.  It's a really strange feeling because I'm one of those people who try to be positive but keep realistic.  It's really hard to try and enjoy those last few days when you know the inevitable is coming.  It's painful.  I was happy, sad, anxious, nervous, scared, and sick...  Making my entire body feel....  Pained.  I know it sounds strange, but hurts.

Having him leave once was hard.  Having him leave a second time was hard...  Even though I have to say it wasn't harder. I don't want to do this again, any of it, which is a total joke in the fact my husband wants to retire doing this.  There isn't and end of the wars on the horizon.  This is going to be a long journey.

I have also mentioned it before, but Jesse has a new address.  You can probably draw the conclusion that he is going back to a new location.  I am going to be honest, he had been in a "safe" area before (as much as I believe "safe" and words like "Iraq" and "Afghanistan" shouldn't be used in the same sentence) and now he is going to be in a little more of a dangerous area.  Communication is going to be sparse.  Likely much more so than it had been before.

An upside on it all though, we only have a few more months left.  It could be much worse.  We could be doing six more months.  But yet I have a very hard time being at home and looking at the pillow he slept on, the half drank bottle of water he left behind, and the laundry that still has his lingering scent.  I don't know if I am going to be able to get past that yet.

So in the coming blogs I am going to be concentrating on sharing with you the photos and stories from our time together.  I am also going to attempt to keep more optimistic, but we'll see how that goes.  I don't feel like that now.

I go back to work on friday, and I have a feeling that before long we're going to have a change up in that department.  That's all I really want to say about that though -- for now.

More to come.....later.  Have a great rest of the week!

Address

I want to let everyone know that Jesse has a new mailing address oversesas.  Please e-mail me if you did not get the e-mail I sent out earlier concerning this information.

He also has a cut off date for mail, and if you don't have that information I can also let you know that.

As for some happy stuff....

pink!

♥

Have a great week,

My First Blog Award!

Sorry this took so long...

A while ago I was awarded my first blog award, The Sunshine Award, and by two people on the same day!  Kristen at Requires Heavy Lifting and Laura at Diamonds and Dogtags both gave me the award.  The rules of this award are:

1. To put the logo on your blog or within your post.
2. Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.
3. Let the nominees know they have received the award by commenting on their blog.
4. Share the love and link the person who gave you the award.

I'm trying my best to mix it up a little...So many of the blogs I follow have gotten this award!  So I'm trying to show love to those who haven't gotten it quite yet.  The 12 bloggers I choose are:

1. Katie at The Provenchers Adventures.
2. Chantal at Chantal's Blog.
3. Heather at Becoming.
4. Kelly at Meet the Robinsons.
5. Amber at An Army Wife's Thoughts.
6. Valeria at Food & Stuff.
7. Nikki at A Day in the Life.
8. Sarah at Little Miss Collegiate.
9. Kellee at You+Me=Wii.
10. Katie at The Life of an Army Wife.
11. Beth at An Expeditionary Family.
12. Tiffinie at My Domestic Niche.

I love reading all of your blogs....Including all the ones I didn't mention :)

Isn't He Handsome?

You thought I was talking about my husband,

weren't you?

As much as I do love my husband to death, I also love my crazy cute doggie, Stryker.

I don't know how anyone can get through a deployment without an adorable dog to keep them company!

Just A Taste....

Of what we've been up to...

The Tulip Festival

Mount Vernon, WA

2010

Friday Follow

I haven't done this before, but I have been noticing an increase in my following so I wanted to make sure I got to know who you are.

So if you are new, drop me a line.  I will make sure I follow you!

Thanks,

Hiatus

Hey all,

As you can tell I've been very absent lately from the blogger world.  Thank you so much for the two who gave me awards, I promise I'll do a post as soon as I can.

I am going to be spending some much needed time with my husband, so there might be a post here and there but no promises!

Thanks everyone & I will talk at ya soon. ;)

Injured Soldier & Care Package Ideas

So I'm posting my second entry for today...I don't count my blog at 12 AM as an entry :)  Stryker is at daycare so I can get some stuff done (Spuz is acting like an only child right now)...And here I am!  I was supposed to be cleaning, but oh well...

I want to first say that if you are interesting in sending items or cards to an injured soldier in Jesse's company, please shoot me an e-mail or Facebook me.  We're trying to give him as much support as possible as he goes through this difficult time.

I also want to share with you this entry from Laura from Diamonds and Dogtags.  Amazing ideas on stuff to send to your soldier/marine/airman/sailor.  Seriously, I'm stealing some of her ideas.

Happy Friday!

I Need Some Ideas....

Sorry I haven't been updating the blog often....I've been a busy girl!  I've also been very frustrated...I lost the charger for the battery of my camera.  It makes me want to pull my hair out!

On another note, I've been trying to brainstorm some FRG fundraising ideas.  Does anyone have any good ones?  Our company has done shirts and sweatshirts, the battalion has done ribbon magnets.  Any good ideas for an item or event that doesn't require a ton of people to run?

I'm heading to bed...It's almost 1 AM and I need to get some beauty sleep! ;)

Soon?

Hopefully, very soon :)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter Everyone!

I know it's super late in the day to be saying this, with only 2 hours left of the holiday left on the west coast, but better late than never I always say!

This year I had Easter dinner at our house.  My mom and dad came, my brother staying up at school today.  We tried to call him, but of course he ignored didn't answer the phone when we called.  Go figure.

I started my day with a brief conversation with the hubster, then got ready for the day.  Stryker and I went out to Steilacoom to the dog park out there.  Let me tell you, I've been missing out!  I really have to say that in all the time I've lived here I haven't truly brought Stryker there.  He had a good time playing and meandering out of my eyesight, but slept like a baby when he got home.  Thanks Nikki for bringing the dog park to my attention!

So when I got home I did some laundry, some vacuuming, and stuck the ham in the oven.  I frosted cupcakes, and by the time I had started that mom and dad arrived.  We made dinner which was an awesome ham, balsamic potatoes, a green salad with strawberries and lime dressing, brown sugar carrots, and crescent rolls.  For desert we had cupcakes.  This is my little display:

After we measured a million windows (mom is going to make me curtains) they headed home and I started my second load of dishes through the dishwasher.

I hope by the end of this week I have some amazing news to share.  I hope that everyone has a great week, and again, Happy Easter & Happy Spring!

It's April!

Before I start rambling, I want to say thank you for my new followers!  I feel like I'm getting new people, and I'm following so many, I had to adjust one of my feeds...It was getting so long!  I will probably work out a  few more adjustments yet before I call it good.

So the "issue" that I've been working on -- and mentioning -- in my past few blogs I think I've worked out. Lets just say it's Army related so I don't want to jinx it.  I know that most of you know how things in the military can be, how things can change at a moments notice.  So, I don't want to jinx it.  Chances are if you have seen or spoken with me in the last week you know what's going on, but I still don't want to talk about it.  Which, is very frustrating because I have a lot to talk about.  No complaining here, I feel as though the leadership in my husband's battalion has been amazing, supportive, and helpful.  If things don't pan out, I feel like at the end of the day I won't have anything negative to say.  Honestly, seriously, and wholeheartedly they have been amazing.

There's not a lot more to talk about besides I just realized my Easter cards are waiting downstairs for me to finish up.  Here I have most of the week to get them done and...Nope.  So, I think I'm going to get crackin.'  Tomorrow is friday, here comes the weekend and a mandatory day off.  Heck yes :)

So I am going to go because nothing important is going on in my life as of now.  Tomorrow the 'rents are coming over to help with some tasks, so we'll see if I have better things to talk about then.

Happy 1st Day of April!