A change of pace!

What is that change of pace I speak of? I’m actually GIDDY! With excitement! This has been a stellar week in so many ways!

First, remembering that whole Blathering thing I talked about a bit? Well, it’s happening again! In Chicago! And you should come! The ever-amazing Maggie is already putting the website together and the basic info is here. I even have a fancy badge below my flickr photos, to the right! I highly recommend you attend, I want to meet your faces, friends! Also, as Steve is deploying this summer, I don’t plan to attend any other meet-ups (sadly, no BlogHer like I’d wanted) besides this one.

Another super awesome thing? Steve had an interview yesterday and…..HE GOT THE JOB! I’d like to think it’s because of the super amazing cover letter I drafted for him, but really, it’s all my husband’s skills. Dude knows what he’s talking about. And really? I’m pretty sure YOU all had a hand in him scoring this job as well. Thank you all for every thought or prayer you’ve had for my family. Really, I couldn’t be a relatively-sane person without such tremendous support!

And a final super amazing cool awesome (no commas, I ain’t pausing this shiz) thing? My bff Heather and I are in talks of road tripping back east this fall! SERIOUSLY! How rad is that? I’ve mentioned it before, but Dublin and I are moving back to Vermont to be with family while Steve is deployed. It will save us on rent money and Dublin will get to grow up around all our amazing relatives. We have an in on a new-to-us car (our 12 year old Corolla is about to retire) and I’ll pack whatever we don’t sell off here and drive it back east, to store in our storage unit there. Anyway, I don’t want to do the drive with Dublin by myself, so I tried to casually mention it to Heather and she was all for it. SCORE, DUDES. I’m guessing it will be late September or early October, so the weather will still be nice and oh boy, this is going to be amazingly awesome.

Isn’t that great, y’all? I need me some champagne, stat. I was just saying how they should make box champagne, like they make box wine, because how epically awesome would that be?!

I have a job interview tomorrow and I’m trying not to be nervous, but embarrassingly enough, I have NO clue what job I am interviewing for? A crazy thing happens when you apply for WEEKS and finally receive a call back – you’re so flustered and excited over an interview that you forget to ask what you’re interviewing FOR. My best guesses are radio station work, freelance newsletter design or phone sex operator. KIDDING! I don’t think I have an interview for that last one.

On Friday, we move into our new digs and I’m actually REALLY looking forward to it! I’m all about organizing and as I’m the one in charge of unpacking (Steve is doing the actual lifting and moving), I can’t wait! I’m considering taking photos of the whole process, so you can pity my husband for having to deal with my anal tendencies.

How is your week shaping up? And tell me you’re going to the Blathering so I can tell you, in person, how much I adore you.

Where I Reveal My Crappy Tastes in Film

Note: none of these images are the same size and I could go back and fix them, but I have crappy movies to start watching, SORRY!

I don’t know as I mentioned it here, but after CABLEONE sent us a cable bill for over $700 (FOR ONE MONTH. NO PPV MOVIES. NO EXPLANATIONS.) we dropped the option of cable/satellite television altogether.

And then, in November-ish, we realized we could use Steve’s Xbox to stream movies from Netflix onto our television. And almost overnight, we discovered what the fuss about The Office was all about. We spent New Years snuggled on the couch with a bottle of champagne and watched the entire first season of Ghost Adventures. I watched a bunch of Dirty Jobs episodes and basked in the glory that is delectable Mike Rowe and watched the entire Harpers Island series. Having Netflix stream through the Xbox made us realize how much we don’t need cable. What isn’t available on Instant Play, I can always rent directly from the website, the “old-fashioned,” way (mailed), as we have the 5 movies at a time plan.

In our search for more series we were ignorant of, but needed to be addicted to like the rest of the world, we came across several other unknown shows (to us) and embarrassingly enough, I may have sent a 2 AM High Priority email to my mom that went something like this:

MOM. I HOPE YOU’RE AWARE THAT OUR FAVORITE SHOW EVAAAAAAA IS ON INSTANT PLAY WITH NETFLIX! MUR-SHE-WOTE!


I wish I could claim sarcasm for that, but growing up that show ruled my life. Yes, my mom watched it with toddler me and I was TOTES down with the Angela Lansbury amateur detective awesomeness! Investigating the millions of peeps dying all over her tiny Maine town! How can you NOT like that?!

And so my trip back in time reminded me of a billion other movies I grew up loving and wanted to see again. Two nights ago, I asked Steve, “Do you remember that movie where this pre-teen rebel kidnaps his mom’s gorilla and drives his mom’s van across the country, attempting the improve the gorilla’s quality of life and then the boy and gorilla have a fight on a beach or something?”

Normally, Steve knows EXACTLY where I am going with that sort of description, but he looked at me after that and said (CONDESCENDINGLY), “Uh, NO.” But guess what?! I FOUND IT!

Movie magic, I tell you. And you can bet your ass I not only added it to our Instant Play Queue, but that I moved it TO THE TOP.

Other movies from my past, available on Instant Play?

(SHUT UP.)

(What is up with the cartooned faces? Data looks like a little girl, poor Chunk looks like someone threw a shovel at his face and that blonde girl looks decidedly unfeminine.)

(Annnnnnnnnnnnnd here’s where my tastes go down the toilet.)

(Honestly, I don’t really remember what this is about. I remember watching it enough that I broke the VHS of it – VHS! Flashback!)

(And I just realized that in ten years or so, I’ll be telling Dublin, “Back when I was YOUR AGE, we had VHS tapes to watch movies. Only the rich people had DVDs. SO BE GRATEFUL.”)

(YES.)

(Okay, this movie is amazing. Not only does it portray my late amour, Heath, it also showcases Joseph Gordon-Levitt – who, to me, resembles my Heath a bit nowadays – along with a pretty stellar supporting cast. Enough can’t be said about this movie.)

(Remember what I said about my crappy taste in movies? Yeah.)

(OH, I bet I got you excited about this one, right? Well, sorry, I’m just as bummed as you will be when I tell you this is not yet available on Instant Play.)

(Before Macaulay lost his damn mind and became a total creepster.)

(Welcome to the Space Jam! Here’s your chance, do your dance at the Space Jam!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Okay, I could go on and on and link you to a billion Mary-Kate and Ashley videos (pretty sure I counted about 20 in a ten-second span of time), but I’ll stop here. If you don’t have Netflix, I HIGHLY recommend it. I’ve been a member with them for five years. When I was too cheap to buy The Shred, I rented it from Netflix. When Steve goes out of town for his Army business, I rent a handful of sappy movies and have myself a good cry. Cheaper than therapy!

And no, Netflix didn’t compensate me for this, but they damn well should, after the (GULP) thousand or two I’ve sunk into their awesomeness these five years.

Parenthesis A-Plenty

I feel like all I do is whine this month, but honestly? I kind of thought that when 2010 and I sat down for a wee chat, we agreed that S/he would KICK ASS in the most awesome way, but apparently S/he interpreted that as to KICK MY ASS instead.

I forget that not all my readers are my twitter friends (psst…why not?), so I’ll do a quick run down of everything going on.

-My mother in law is unable to come and watch D while we go on that weekend Army retreat, so basically, we’re NOT going.
-I received a long-awaited cashiers check from my tenant for first and last month’s rent plus deposit. Because our primary bank is not anywhere near here, we paid overnight shipping, so the check would deposit asap and we’d be able to have money in our account after already spending it before. Well, overnight delivery took six days and my bank LOST my cashiers check before “finding it” and telling me they were withholding the funds for…..FORTY DAYS. Because that’s how long it takes to clear a cashiers check nowadays I guess.
-The following day, our property manager announced that due to the noise level (he didn’t say my baby, but we’ve received warnings about my baby’s middle-of-the-night cries and overall loud baby business), we were being evicted. And he said we had to be out in two days.
-Did I mention, I started weaning myself off my too-expensive Crazy meds this week? Perhaps I should I have thought that out better.
-After a series of phone calls with some important people, we were given until the end of the month. Which is fine, because we only selected this too-expensive place due to its proximity to the bus stop for Steve’s former job, meaning – we do not need to be paying this much anymore. So now we’re able to terminate our lease and find an apartment for half, or even a third of this price.
-My bank then DEBITED (TOOK OUT) the amount of the check (that has yet to be deposited) FROM our account, instead of CREDITING it to us. Meaning we were overdrawn THOUSANDS of dollars. And not a single teller could explain WHY.

The Plus Sides?
-We have now switched to USAA for our banking, since we already receive great service from them (hello, $28/month for car insurance? YES PLEASE!).
-I’ve lost five pounds in five days! YES.
-While I wanted to continue to my role as stay-at-home mom, it’s obvious that we’ll need two breadwinners to get back on our feet. This is good in that while I didn’t want to put D in day care, he will finally have some other social interaction outside of Steve and I – aka the only people he’s been around in two months.
-Like I said, we are able to get out of our crazy expensive lease and move into a similarly-sized, incredibly cheaper apartment. It probably won’t have a 24-hour fitness center or pool, but we’ll be saving money. Which is awesome when, you know, you don’t have an income.
-We also don’t have to live above our grumpy-ass neighbors anymore. They’ve banged on their ceiling (our floor) when I was up with my crying, teething boy at 3 AM (mind you, I was caring for our kid above their LIVING ROOM, not bedroom, so they were likely already awake). I also don’t have cigarette smoke coming from their balcony into my apartment anymore. BONUS!

For the first time since…ever, I utilized Google Reader’s “Mark All Read” option and I’m really sorry! I’ll get back on the reading and commenting wagon again, I just need to pack up my entire house, again, for the second time in 6 months.

And I’m Getting a Bit Ridiculous

Hey, guess what I’m going to say in this post? A big, ginormous THANK YOU. I received SO much love in my email inbox the morning after my last post that I spent much of the morning crying.

I’ve said it a few times this week, but writing that post was incredibly cathartic for me. There are always underlying issues in my everyday life that I don’t feel comfortable saying on my blog and everything I said that night pushed my comfort to its limits.

While I am glad I did, I kind of need to have a breathalyzer on my computer, because vodka-fueled posts are my hangovers the following morning. I have a lot of things going on in my life that I shouldn’t talk about on the internet, like the summons I received a few weeks ago from a Vermont court. And if I want to keep writing here as freely as I do, I need to make sure that when I write, I am completely sober.

To avoid the melodramatic, I’ll let you know that while Stephen and I have a lot of obstacles, we still have a very deep, loving bond. Last night, we were watching the Office (sidenote: OMG, why didn’t anyone tell me of its awesomeness sooner?!) and Stephen absentmindedly kissed the top of my head a billion and four times and then he laughed and said, “I love the way you won’t let me put Dublin to bed without you being there as well. You are the best mommy for my son.” And while written the way it is, I know it might not sound very romantic, but to me? It is. Steve notices the little things.

He notices when I clean, even the most insignificant amount. He noticed the school photos of his brothers and sister I taped to the computer monitor and thanked me for it. He notices when I’ve put all his laundry away and remarks how great it is to not run out of clean undies and socks (can you tell he was a bachelor before me?). Granted, he leaves the toilet seat up and his dirty socks smushed under the couch, but he loves me in the best way possible: by not taking the little things for granted. And when so many big things go awry in our lives, it’s important to remember those little things.

Sure, I list him for sale on Twitter every other week. But, without laying on too much cheese, I’ll say that if you had asked me two years ago if I would ever feel this way for any man, feel this happy and this loved, I would have said you watched too many romances.

–

Over Christmas, we received a web cam from Stephen’s grandmother, as a way to allow Steve to see Dublin grow up when he deploys. I just hooked it up a couple days ago and have yet to use it for any real purpose. So hey! If you are on skype or gchat, say hi so I can show you my dirty house and unbrushed hair!

See that blue camp chair leaning up against the wall behind me? That’s one of two camp chairs in our house, which, coincidentally are the ONLY two chairs in our house. The other is our “computer chair.” Just trying to keep it classy, folks!

That Post That Made Me Cry…

The last thing in the world I like doing is airing my dirty laundry in a public manner. But my heart has been heavy for the past two months and I really need some sort of talk-therapy.

There is a distinct strain on my marriage. Nothing too dramatic, but a strain that shouldn’t have impacted our very young marriage, not this soon or so hard. It’s no secret that we’ve had financial problems and if anything can breed stress in a relationship, it is MONEY.

Thankfully, Steve and I have handled the stress, the strain, relatively okay, apart from all the “you drive me crazy!” comments (made by me, FYI). But the combination of my increasing health issues, our unpaid bills and Steve’s impending deployment has been a bit difficult to deal with, to put it mildly.

Let me admit something to you right now. Steve and I? We don’t have friends here. At all. Sure, he has his Army buddies, but he doesn’t seem them outside of the armory. We have family in town, family that has ignored my emails and voicemails and did I mention, we’re broke? All of this explains why I’ve left this apartment twice since November and each time was to grocery shop. That’s embarrassing to admit, how much of a hermit I’ve become, by default more than anything.

This is STIFLING. And I’m harboring so much bitterness in my heart towards the family that lives just up the road who pretend we don’t exist, when the family Steve and I both have in Vermont miss us terribly. I draft emails to my mom (among those I miss so much) nearly daily, all venting, “I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong, how someone can be this selfish.” (Followed by a billion “FUCK”s and “DEPRESSING”s.)

Living in Idaho has been immensely lonely. My crazy pills can only do so much. They can’t heal the pain of rejection from the immediate family nearby, or replace all the family and friends I miss to the depths of my soul. I don’t handle things of this nature well.

The Army does this thing, when deployments are imminent, for couples called Strong Bonds. It’s an all-expense paid weekend retreat at a nice hotel, with a bunch of relationship-strengthening activities. Obviously, kids aren’t part of the picture. The one for Steve’s unit is next month.

My first thought was, “wow, how perfect would that be?” But then I remembered, we have no one, NO ONE, who could take Dublin for two nights.

Thankfully, my mother-in-law, who lives in Vermont, offered to fly here to watch Dublin. It’s pretty sad that my mother-in-law can tell, just over phone conversation, that we need this weekend to ourselves, right? It’s also pretty sad that a family member has to drop several hundred dollars and fly across the country just so Steve and I can go on a date.

I don’t know how to tie this up neatly. This post was more or less a mad jumble of everything I’m feeling, not cohesive or coherent. I’m sorry to continue my Debbie Downer posts, but I can’t keep writing anything here without getting this all off my heart, my mind.

Comments are closed mostly because I feel lame, writing this. My email is always open. And thanks for sticking around, mucking through my melancholy.

Because I’m All About the Fail

Remember when I asked you all to come out of your corners of the Internets and say hi? That would be this post.

I think I said I’d pick a winner for my super secret prize on January 2nd and close comments and, well, I don’t really know how to do the latter turns out. Whoops! And I’m kind of a few days late, but hey, at least you’re not waiting five months after your wedding without any photos! No, I’m not bitter. (Actually, I’m really not bitter, I’m just all about whining! Weee!)

I received 23 comments on that post, but 120 unique hits, so apparently some of you don’t want a special prize*! Who wins a prize, according the Random Number Generator?!

Number 20 is from….. Erin from The State That I Am In! Yay! Erin, I already have all your deets, so expect something in the mail as soon as I brave the snowstorm that is crippling my wee town.

*Big thanks to those of you who did come out and say, “hey!” That was fun. We’ll do it again, sometime!

It’s a Small World After All…

Back in 2006, I was hanging out with one of my cousins, Crystal, during the summer nearly every day. She had just moved into an apartment with her boyfriend and I was helping her unpack, organize and browse nearby yard sales for cheap furniture. Things between my boyfriend at the time were rather tense and we seemed to both need a break from each other. Crystal knew how strained things were becoming between Shane (that boyfriend) and I, so she offered me a ride to Lake George, New York to spend the day at the Six Flags there.

I was unbelievably excited about this trip, as I’d spent nearly every day, bored to tears. I didn’t have a job that summer, so my schedule was pretty clear. Still, I felt guilty about doing something fun without Shane around, so I told Crystal I would talk to Shane first, to see if he wanted to come along, too. Long story short – he didn’t. And I was so bummed out that he wasn’t willing to consider going (it would have only cost $15, which I offered to pay), that I decided not to go, too.

Crystal returned from this trip and told me all about how she vomited all over this guy’s back seat (the one she rode with) and used a stuffed animal to sort of mop it up. We had a good, long, laugh about this and I didn’t think too much of it.

Fast forward exactly two years later. I had met Steve and just begun dating him when Crystal, her fiance, Steve and I were all sitting around, shooting the shit. Crystal started laughing about how she’d met Steve and said, “Steve…I hope you don’t think any less of me, but on the way home from Lake George, I definitely lost my lunch all over your backseat.” It didn’t click at first and I looked at her, puzzled, until she said, “Whitney, remember when I invited you and you didn’t go? That was the weekend I met Steve.” Steve looked at me, confused, and I suddenly remembered.

We found it kind of funny that I could have met Steve way back in 2006 (right before he was deployed), but stayed home, moping instead. But this story gets a bit more involved.

About a month after I started dating Steve, we ran into someone at Wal-mart who seemed very familiar to me, but I was too absorbed in paint samples to really pay attention. Steve, surprisingly, knew him and struck up a conversation with him while I wandered around the home improvement department. After a few minutes, Steve rejoined me and explained that the guy we ran into was a guy he was deployed with and I kind of nodded and didn’t pay too much attention to it.

About a year later, my mom was talking to me about my cousin, J.R. (who is the biological uncle of my adopted sister, but that’s an entirely different story). She told me that he was getting ready to be deployed and casually said, “Maybe Steve knows him?”

I’m sure you can see where this is going, right?

Anyway, I called Steve up and said, “Hey, do you know a J.R. [last name]?” Steve sounded confused and said he knew a guy with that last name, but he called him Johnny, not J.R. My mom confirmed to me that the J stood for Johnny and Steve interrupted, asking, “how do you know him?” When I explained that he was my cousin, Steve said, “But we ran into him at Wal-mart and you ignored him!” (I’m clueless.) Needless to say, it was kind of ironic that Steve was deployed with my cousin – small world or what?

A few weeks later, we sent out wedding invitations and made sure to send one to J.R. The funny thing is, when he received ours, he knew INSTANTLY who Steve was (last name and all), but because I had my father’s last name, he didn’t think twice about my name, until my mom called him and explained the whole story.

We still laugh about all of this, thinking of all the times I could have met Steve, between the Lake George trip, a few 4th of July’s (that Crystal spent with Steve and his friends) and all the times I saw my cousin’s unit before they were deployed. However, I’m thankful that we met when we did, even if it was years later. We were both completely different people than we are now – in the way that we wouldn’t have been compatible, AT ALL. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have liked the womanizer Steve from almost four years ago.

Have you ever had a similar experience with a significant other? Or even a good friend?

Vibrating, Ghosts, Baby Vomit and Rice Krispies

Um, you might want to skip the third one if baby milk-vomit makes you sick.

1. Stephen and I were hanging out on the floor this weekend, playing video games and we heard distinct vibrating, like a cell phone. Which would be pretty normal, right? Except, well, we haven’t seen our cell phone in over two months. Yeah. I know, from calling the number, that it’s dead (it goes right to voicemail), so what the hell? And damn it, as soon as I sat down to type this, what do I hear? Another vibration! We’ve searched high and low, under the couch cushions and behind our furniture, but it’s no where. I don’t get it!

2. At night, I like to head down to my club house gym and use the treadmill for 45 minutes. I usually head down there right before sunset and end up walking back in the dark. Now, clearly, I have been watching WAY too many Ghost Adventures episodes (we watched Seasons 1 & 2 on New Years Eve), because I always end up losing it when I hear noises and see no one around me. And then I have to talk to myself, like, “Whitney, get a GRIP. You live in Mormon-town, Idaho. There are no demons haunting your brand-new apartment complex.” But then I always flashback to this photo of where I live (in that circle):

And then I’m all, “we probably live on top of a Native American cemetery! There are warriors and ghosts and shit that are just waiting to corner me alone!” And so I end up running, in the cold without my inhaler, all the way back to my apartment and up the three flights of stairs like an insane person, hearing the sniggers of our Mercedes-driving neighbors from their balcony (there are 4 college kids living there with FIVE MERCEDES. WTF.). Then when I take out the trash the following morning, there are our neighbors with their smug smiles as they smoke with their cancer sticks and I’m overwhelmed with embarrassment. But what do I do later that night? The same process, over and over again. I have issues, clearly.

3. My son? Is adorable and funny and I have an awesome time with him. But the kid vomits like he’s trying out for some Olympic vomiting team. My mom tells me I was a vomiting baby, too, so I have to assume he gets it from me, but seriously? ICK. I’m not talking a little here and there. It’s to the point that BOTH he and I go through around FIVE outfits a day, not including pajamas. I usually end up showering twice and giving him two baths every day as well. And I spent a good 30 minutes every day, scrubbing the hell out of my rugs and carpets, trying to get it all out, but then I look over and HEY, vomit on my stereo. I just don’t have the stomach for it, I have vomitaphobia (or whatever it’s called). It doesn’t help that Steve dances with him (SHAKING UP THE CONTENTS OF HIS FULL BELLY) as soon as he gets home and then hands him to be right before another vomiting episode. His pediatrician says it’s completely normal, especially because he doesn’t want anything to do with crawling, he’d rather roll all over the house, thus shaking up his belly even more and yeah, GROSS. I’m sorry for grossing you all out.

4. Ever since I started this mandatory diet and had to cut all dairy and chocolate from my life, you can guess that my snacks and desserts are pretty lame. Every night, Steve comes into the bedroom with a sleeve of Oreos (yes, A SLEEVE) and a tall glass of cold milk. I usually follow with a glass of lemon water and yeah, that’s just not comparable. So a friend who is on the kidney disease diet suggested Rice Krispies treats. Not the kind you buy in a store, but homemade. The marshmallows and Rice Krispies are fat-free and you only need three tablespoons of unsalted (has to be unsalted for this diet) butter for a whole casserole-dish worth. I’ve never attempted them homemade, but I did it last night and WOW. Delicious. It made me feel better, having a relatively diet-friendly snack to satisfy my wicked sweet tooth without feeling deprived. But at the same time, I guess eating the ENTIRE PAN over a course of two days isn’t very diet-friendly. (Okay, in all honesty, it was a half-pan. Which is still pretty disgusting, RIGHT?)

Ask Stephen a Question – The Answers: Part One

Almost two weeks ago, I posted this post, opening up my blog to questions for Stephen (my husband), regarding deployment, military, his family, etc. He received quite a few questions, so he’ll be answering them in segments, as the answers are pretty long. If you have any questions, feel free to add them in the comments, Stephen insists that he will answer every one, he is an open book. Enjoy!

From Katherine: What was your first impression of Whitney when you met each other?
She was sitting on an end of a couch when I walked in the doorway and to be honest, I didn’t think too much except, “heh heh, awesome, there is a good-looking girl here.” She was supposed to heal my then-best friend’s broken heart, but I wasn’t let in on that little idea. I thought she was a lot older than 21, based on how she spoke, acted and if I am being honest – her clothes. She wore a lot of older clothes, I found out later because of the professionalism of her job. After a few drinks though, Whitney sort of let out her wild side and everyone started taking photos of her. It was pretty funny. I knew I wasn’t driving away from the party that night and hoped that she would stay as well.

Also from Katherine: Why did you want to join the Army and when did you actually do that?
After 9/11, there were a bunch of guys in my group of friends in high school that decided we would all join together. Except I ended up being the only one who actually followed through. I was 17 years old.

From Walker: Was being deployed rough on you and your family?
It was rough on everyone else, especially my three younger siblings. I left with a smile on my face, actually. (Whitney note: see here.) Deployment went by real quick for me, I was always busy and only had one day off, which was usually used to catch up on sleep and play volleyball. You just have to realize that this is your job. You can’t go overseas with the mentality that you might not come back. I loved being deployed, it remains the best job of my life.

Also from Walker: Were you allowed to talk to your family much or anything?
When I was deployed, it was pretty easy to attain an Iraqi cell phone, so I did. I was able to speak with someone from back home about every other day (online or through the cell). The only time we weren’t allowed was during Blackouts. Blackouts happened when another unit in our battalion lost a soldier. We were cut off from talking with anyone back home until the Red Cross contacted that soldier’s family. We had those at least once a week.

Again from Walker: Where did you go for Basic?
My basic was set up as a combined basic (training) and AIT (Advanced Individual Training – where you learn your trade). The summer after my junior year of high school I went to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri for nine weeks of basic training and the summer after graduation I went back for six weeks of AIT.

To be continued!

*Note from Steve: I really enjoyed answering these questions so feel free to ask more if you want. Or you can email Whit if you’d rather.

2010, I have big expectations for you

In all honesty, 2009 kicked my ass. We totaled not one, but two cars. We had another car stolen, three days before I was due to GIVE BIRTH. I kicked off the year with a “gang” hanging outside my house with GUNS, threatening to shoot my house up. My father-in-law, brother, best male friend, husband’s coworkers, several male friends and 40ish strangers ACCIDENTALLY saw me naked at my husband’s bachelor party. I was hospitalized FOUR times (once was for giving birth, so hey). We sold all our belongs and moved 2500 miles for my husband’s promising job, only to have him laid off five months later. My kidneys decided to revolt and my ovaries started being cyst-y old bitches. I accumulated a LOT of debt, supporting people who took advantage of us.

On the upside, I gave BIRTH. To the most amazing person, ever. I married the love of my life. I flew to Sacramento and spent the weekend with some amazing women. I was on health insurance for the first time in five years (only to lose it two months later).

But really, I’m leaving 2009 with a pretty sour taste in my mouth. (And a big, fat middle finger.)

There are a number of things I want in 2010, so I’ll be relatively brief:
-I don’t want anyone besides my husband to see me naked again.
-I want to lose a substantial amount of weight, so I can look myself, naked, and not cringe.
-I want to get in shape, to send my husband off to war with a great memory. Sounds shallow, but I don’t care.
-I want to get my health together, even if that means excluding all dairy, most carbs, all chocolate and salted foods. Yes, that means I have to give up my favorite food, BACON!, in order to get my kidneys back to working order.
-I want to let go of a lot of people who continually hurt me.
-I want to honeymoon with my husband. ANYWHERE.
-Hell, I just want a date with my husband. It’s been FIVE MONTHS since we had one.
-I want to not just run, but finish a half-marathon.
-I want to meet more bloggers in the flesh!
-I want to remind Dublin of his daddy, daily, while Steve is deployed.
-I want to learn how to snowboard.
-I want to teach my son how to walk.
-I want to be strong when Steve deploys, to not lose it completely.
-And I to start college classes again, next fall.

What are your goals/resolutions/etc (it’s all semantics, I know) for 2010?