What Just happened here?

Well it all started Wednesday afternoon when I told Ben that I wasnt feeling very good. I had a tummy ache and really just didnt feel up to anything. I went to bed that night thinking it was indigestion (from my very healthy diet) and that I would take some pepto and be fine in the morning. Well my tummy ache kept me up all night and by the next day it was just this huge pain in my side. We had promised the kids we could meet them for the Parent invited Thanksgivings lunch they had planned at their school, so I popped a Tylenol 3 and headed to the school. By the time the lunch was over I was in pain again and quickly headed home to put laney down for a nap and lay down myself. Ben came home at 5pm to me curled up on the couch in some pretty serious pain. So I went begruningly to the ER (thinking they were going to tell me I had gas or something equally non serious) and send me home. Turns out, not so much. My appendix as double its normal size and had to come out NOW. So I was taken via an ambulance to another hospital 30 minutes away and rushed in to the OR. It all actually happened so quickly that by the time my MIL drove a hour to our house and then Ben drove a half hour to the other hospital I was already out of surgery. They got the whole thing out and I only have three little scars to show for it. The only scary part really was that I almost just went to bed instead of listening to Ben and going to the ER. I really thought it was going to be a waste of time. Thank God, that I made myself go up there. Because from what I've heard a burst appendix is a whole lot worse then appendicitis. So here I am laying in bed taking it easy and trying to prep myself for the next crazy week we have coming up. Leave it to me to have minor surgery the week before a birthday, move and Thanksgiving... I'm such a drama queen. LOL

A true love of nature...

So I tried to convince myself to get up last night and write this post. Since I was just laying there thinking about everything I had to say and how I wasnt going to fall asleep anytime soon I might as well put the time to good use. Then the worst thing that could possibly happen to you when you're having one of those "words spilling out of your mind" moments happened... I fell asleep, so quickly in fact that I had dreams about what I was thinking about writing. So... Now I have to try to remember all the details of the quirky and funny story I was wanting to tell you last night. Since we are living on a farm (Ben's dream home... it even has a pond on it) Ben has taken advantage of the rural landscape to show the kids some of the things they just dont get to see as much living in the city. One day he was taking the younger two out for one of their nature walks (Carolina, like her mother, prefers to stay inside) and there were grasshoppers everywhere. They were jumping around so much one of them actually landed on George's hand. They all held very still and got a real good look at it. Finally after they had seen and talked about this cool new bug Ben and George decided it was time to let it go. So George moved his little hand and the grasshopper jumped right off onto the ground. Well I guess Laney wasnt done looking at it quite yet and she ran over to the rock that Mr. Grasshopper had landed on and with all the force she could muster... stomped on him. Yep, thats right... she killed him. LOL Ben said "Laney you dont kill the grasshopper, you set it free." To which she replied "Nope, he's deaded." Then she proceed to run inside to tell me all about the deaded bug outside. "Guess what Mommy!!!! The bug is deaded! I smushed him! He jumped off Georgie and I and I killed him!!!" She was so excited that she had gotten the better of this poor little grasshopper. Not quite the true love of nature moment Ben had intended it to be, but a memorable moment none the less. God, thank you for my beautiful crazy little children...

Three day weekends...

Well today is the first day of our first 3 day weekend. What do you do with a husband that only has to work four days a week? Well you put him to work of course. You make a huge list of all the things that have to be done on that one day. Thankfully I have plenty to keep him busy. I mean I wouldnt want him to get bored or anything. lol So today we are off to play catch up. I will get my official TX tags for the Sub and maybe even my very own TX drivers License!!! I'm so excited! I've never had a TX one before, but have always wanted one. It really makes it feel official, I'm really a Texan now... And speaking of being a Texan... I have news on that front to. At Tarleton State University they are called the Texans and as of Jan 19th I will be one of them. Thats right I'm going to a real University! I'm so excited about it, actually I'm not the only one... Ben's pretty excited to (partially because he will also be a student for the next 6 months at work) but mostly because I will be the first person in my family to get a degree. We decided that the older the kids get the more we need to be a two income family and we are blessed with the fact that the Navy is footing the whole bill. Thats right, something great is coming out of Ben's 12 years of service to the US Navy... a free degree for me! Thank you Post 9-11 gi bill!!!!!! I am planning to major in communications and minor in finance. I'm not really sure what kinda job that means I'm gonna look for after I graduate, actually at this point I'm just thinking about getting thru 4 years of school. Its been a long time and since I didnt technically finish school, I have a lot of catching up to do. But we are very excited about it and I'm very excited to have such a great support system. I'm a pretty blessed girl...

"Hey, lets let someone else move in our house!"

Okay so this ones gonna be a rant... So sit down, hold on tight and prepare for maybe some bad language. About four months ago Ben and I had an Epiphany. Since we cant sell the house, lets just rent it out. We'll find some super nice people and let them live in our beautiful home for a monthly payment, that I'm sure will always be on time (if not early) each month. Lets post an ad, meet with them and maybe even become friendly with them before they move in just to get to know them. Check, check and check... So month one arrives and hey, something funny happened at the bank and the direct deposit didnt go through. Well thats weird, but she's gonna wire us the money ASAP (one week later and 200.00 dollars short) and everything will be fine next month. She'll even change banks if she has too. Month two rolls around and wouldnt you know it, rent doesnt show up again. You know rent, plus the 200.00 dollars that she owes us from last month... Okay, well just send me a check. waiting....waiting....waiting... NOTHING. Then out of the blue one day 1200.00 shows up in my bank account. Then a couple of nights later (like 10) she shows up at Ben's house with 800.00 cash...and assures us that this will NEVER happen again. October 1st rolls around and thats right you guessed it, NO RENT!!! Only now we are waiting for her rent to pay our rent and things are starting to get ugly. I have to call the property manager and actually ask her to hold the check that I wrote her so that it doesnt BOUNCE!!!! UMMM Can you say embarrassing... Finally we get a hold of her "husband" (we're still not really sure about that) and he wires us 1500.00 dollars. Great, thats only 300.00 short of what rent is... I guess in their little world you just pay what you can and assume the universe will take care of the rest. So the decision is made that these people have got to get the H**L out of our house. Not to mention that we cant sell it with them in there. Oh and lets talk about selling it for just a second. They also told us that they wanted to buy our house and we went thru a entire month long process with them to close on the house, which they backed out of at the very last minute... So on Oct 15th we told them they had 2 weeks to find somewhere else to live and that we would be putting the house one the market. Meaning that they would be moved out by the 31st. Well the 31st came and went and they were still in there. Ben and I get a phone call yesterday ( the 1st) telling us that they house they were supposed to move into was suddenly bought over night, with cash, oh my!!!! And now they have no where to move :-(

So not my prob. So Ben spent the better part of yesterday watching them get all their shit stuff out of the house until 1am. Well all of their stuff except for the HUGE pile of trash in our garage and when I say huge, I mean taking up a whole parking spot huge and the broken furniture off our lawn!!!! But this is actually a good thing, well sorta...

They are gone and out of my house and it can now be placed on the market will we will NEVER EVER EVER rent out again...

Its a whole new world...

Ok so this post will most likely be premature. But I felt the need to say a few things about the fact that in just a few short hours my husband will no longer be active duty in the Navy and I will no longer be a submariner's wife. This change, as with all changes, will come at a cost. There have been many many many times over the past 10+ years that I have wished that we never had to have anything to do with the Navy again. A fact that ALL of my military wife friends can agree with. Being a military wife is HARD to say the least. We are the moms, the dads, the taxis, the bookkeepers, the maids, the chefs and the cheerleaders for our husbands. Some days it just comes naturally and when someone says " I just dont know how you do it." You smile and say " You just do." Luckily for those people that is usually a good day. Most of the world doesnt see the bad days. The days that you spend most of the day crying and telling your kids you just dont feel like coloring today. The days that you serve cereal for dinner because you just cant bring yourself to make a full dinner when the only other person that would eat it is gone. Those are the bad days, the days we as military wives try our best to hide and only share with each other.

But each other is what we have. I cant say there has ever been a time in our military life that I havent had a shoulder to cry on. The submarine force has always been like a family for me. Theres the family members that you love and feel like you were truly related to and then the family members that you "avoid" at the family reunions. Ha ha ha Theres the family members that take charge and make sure everyone is doing okay while the guys are gone and then ones that need that extra bit of help getting thru it all. But in the end the only word that comes to mind about my fellow submarine wives is... family. A family I now feel like I am losing. I have so much respect for all the wives of the guys that are "career" guys. They will do 20 years doing things everyday that women in the outside world would never understand. I'm proud to say that I was part of that. That I was strong enough... To all of my friends out there that are still doing the Navy thing, I love you, I'll miss you and just always remember.... YOUR DOING A GREAT JOB!

A Texas pumpkin patch

So every year we take the kids to a pumpkin patch. There has never been a year that we missed and even though Ben isnt here with us, I decided to hitch up my big girl panties and take the kids myself. Wow... I so should have rethought this idea. Not that we didnt have a good time. We had a great time! Despite the fact that there was NO pumpkin patch! Thats right there was only a big barn with a bunch of pumpkin sitting in rows. But thats not even the worst of it. After driving for about 45 minutes we were greeted at the gate by a nice lady (with a cash register) informing me that it would be $9.00 for me and $8.00 for each of the kids to get into the "pumpkin patch". Well we were there and its not like I could have looked at the kids and said something along the lines of "Sorry y'all, but mom isnt paying this outrageous fee just so y'all can roll around in some hay." Nope I gave the girl the money (after asking if they had a military discount, which they didnt. But the nice lady did say "But we sure do appreciate y'all" to make her me feel better) We went in and I paid yet another 18.00 for pumpkins for the kids to paint and 10.00 for a pumpkin to carve. So all in all it was a very expensive day...

That being said it also ended up being a great day for pictures. I got some really beautiful shots of the kids that day.

A castle of cardboard...

So we have been living in a much smaller house then we were in before. Which has meant that we have had to leave a lot of our stuff in boxes, Lots of boxes. We currently have one whole bedroom, the office and a storage unit filled to the brim with said boxes. At first I thought it would be no big deal, that in fact it would teach me to live without so much stuff and help us in our attempt to downsize our life. Which is something that we have talked about doing for quite some time now. Dont get me wrong I am still all for downsizing and I still truly believe that we have WAY TO MUCH STUFF. That being said I feel like daily something I need is in one of those boxes. Which I am trying very very hard to not unpack. Some of them just cant be unpacked due to the fact that in our current temp house we have not garage, but some of them we have just decided arent needed right now. But the problem with a box is that although you might not need 95% of whats in there.... that other 5% would really come in handy. So between living without and convincing myself NOT to buy something to replace something I know I already have life has been trying to say the least. I will be happy the day I dont have to see a single cardboard box in my home again. Even more so, I will be extremely happy the day I am no longer in a "temp" house and finally in our home.... So pray for us, keep us in your thoughts or just wish us luck. This to shall pass....