12/23/2008

Just Wondering

Is there a polite way to tell someone to shut the fu@!< up, you drive me nuts?

Let me just say, being next to someone for close to 40 hours a week that likes to make sure everyone in the world knows there personal business is really doing no good when it comes to my sanity.

I'm losing it!!!

12/22/2008

Home for the Holidays

Matt is home!!!

I had booked him a flight for Sunday leaving at 1:30 west coast time with an hour layover in Chicago and arriving in StL at 9:30 p.m. Matt decided to go to the airport on Saturday morning because he says he wanted to be with me as soon as possible. (I believe it was because he was most likely horny and impatient.)

His tickets were through United Airlines and I have only flown United once. Matt has never. Well United won't let you fly standby until the day of your flight. He got set up with a standby flight at 6 a.m. on Sunday. So he slept at the airport.

When he woke up it had snowed 5 inches. Needless to say, his 6 am flight got canceled. By this time, Mr. Ruholl was not a happy camper. So he was left with his original flight. Well 1:30 got pushed back to 2:30 and 2:30 got pushed back to 3:15. This meant he would miss his connecting flight in Chicago to StL.

So to save Mr. Ruholl any more grief from sitting in airport and fighting through the crowds, I left here last night around 5 and drove to Chicago to pick him up. It took just as long for me to drive there as it did for him to fly there.

I found my husband at the airport and the feeling I get when seeing him for the first time in weeks or months never changes. It's hard to explain. We waited in line for about 30 minutes to find out about getting his bag. Too late for that, it was on its way to StL.

So tonight we are driving to StL to get his bag. But I could really care less, I have my husband home and that's all that matters. It's beginning to feel like Christmas now.

12/19/2008

Something I found

Matt and I decided to put some of our stuff into storage until he is done with the army and we get our own place. For the last couple weeks, whenever I get a night off (which has been 3 nights) I have been going through my boxes of junk and throwing stuff away. I literally have enough decorations to fill three houses. Some of it I know I will never use again so I have been throwing it away.

I was going through my cedar chest on Tuesday night and found all sorts of things I have not seen in forever. I found a photo album with lots of OLD pictures from high school. Some were with Dawn. I remembered then what a great friend she always was to me and how I enjoyed the times we spent together.

The best thing I came across was a paper I wrote about 9 years ago when I went to school at Carbondale. The assignment was to write about someone who had made a significant impact in your life. I chose to write about a friend of mine who had passed away a few months earlier, Matt Mader. I remembered awhile back that I had wrote this and even looked for it but I didn't find it until Tuesday night. I read it and re-read it and had tears in my eyes. I have never forgot about Mader and I have never forgotten how much it hurt when he died. I had, however, forgotten some of the specifics of his characteristics and ability to always make his friends feel good.

I will never misplace this paper again. It seemed like it was wrote so eloquently. Now I can barely even spell eloquently without spell check. I remember spending a lot of time on this paper and being very satisfied with the end result.

My class next semester is Comp I and I am hoping that I will be able to write like I used to be able to. I think maybe it is more about finding something that I am passionate to write about rather than just writing about things that don't mean anything to me.

I love you Mader!!! I always have and I always will!!!

12/17/2008

Rewind.... Our wedding

Matt and I got engaged in November of 2007. From the beginning of our engagement, the number one question we were asked was when we were getting married. When we first got engaged we wanted to go to Cancun and get married on the beach with a few friends and family. We were planning on doing this during the spring of 2009. The longer Matt was in Iraq, the more we wanted to be together and be committed to each other through marriage.

About 6 weeks before Matt came home we decided to get married by a hippie preacher in a little chapel in Shelbyville. We didn’t want anything fancy but to be honest it ended up being a lot more than we had planned on. However, it was ended up being absolutely perfect. We reserved the church and invited people through word of mouth. The church only held 75 people so we basically picked and choose who we invited to the church. (I’ll get back to this in a minute) So we wanted to have somewhere to party after the wedding without spending a bunch of money. I talked to Nate at the brickbat and he said he would hire the Rhythm Pigz to play there on the night of our wedding and charge a cover charge. That sounded great to me.

Maybe a week or so later were when problems arose. Problem number one: A friend and I had been out for a few hours having beverages and visiting every watering hole in T-Town when we ran into one of Matt’s cousins. Let me just say this guy is an arrogant piece of work. He proceeds to tell that his parents didn’t get invited to our wedding (yeah because we didn’t invite them). I had personally called this guy a few weeks earlier and told him what was going on and that we wanted him to come. I explained to him again this night that both of our families were huge and we couldn’t invite everyone. Basically he was an asshole to me and since I was drunk I cried a lot that night. Problem number two: The T-Town town board decides that loud, metal music is not allowed outside after 11 P.M. Basically they decided if you are on the town board and own a bar it’s ok to have bands and karaoke outside as long as the neighbors don’t complain. If you own a bar next to a bunch of assholes, it is not ok. (So, piss on the T-Town town board.)

So I freaked out, we weren’t getting married until 8 P.M. in Shelbyville and I assumed we wouldn’t get back to T-Town until 10. Basically it wasn’t worth putting money into the town’s pocket for an hour of entertainment. When Matt is home, he and I like to drink at Dozer’s once in awhile and mingle with the owners, who are extremely nice people. I called Tina, the owner of Dozer’s, two days before our wedding and basically said here is the situation, we need a place to bring a band and a lot of people. She was more than excited that we had asked her. The only downfall was that now we were paying for the band (no biggie though). So once everything was settled we both felt a lot better.

Our wedding was more perfect than I had ever imagined. We took pictures before the ceremony, as to not cut into our drinking time. A friend of Matt’s took our pictures and used them in her portfolio and they turned out great. Shelley, Jessica and I drank some booze before the ceremony in the basement of the church. I think I had duck shit in my ear. For our guest book, we had a plain white cardboard picture frame with one of our engagement pictures in it for people to sign. We decided a few days before the wedding to have a picture of Matt’s sister that had died next to our unity candle with a bouquet of flowers. We had only talked to the priest once for about 45 minutes before we got married. During the ceremony he talked about how hard it was for us while Matt was in Iraq and talked about honoring the people that couldn’t make it (Matt’s sister). It seemed like he had really taken the time to get to know us and made the ceremony very personal. During our vows, Matt’s voice was shaky and he was on the verge of crying. I was fine until after we kissed then I started crying.

Well you know how some people hand out birdseed or bubbles or whatever when you leave the church. We handed out shots. We actually had shot attendants. Even the priest did a shot. So we took a few more pictures and signed the license and we were on our way. On the way to Dozer’s, myself, Matt, Shelley and Jess downed a 12 pack of Bud Light. We got to the bar and there were more people at Dozer’s than I had ever seen there in my life. The band had actually just started playing right before we got there and they sounded great. Well, they sounded great to me. A lot of relatives thought that they were too loud. But it was nice outside so they stayed outside most of the time. I have known the guys in the band for a while and was so excited that they could be a part of our day. Everyone had a great time at the bar.

I know our wedding may have not been the most conventional wedding but to me it was perfect. The biggest prize of all was Matt and I publicly announcing that we wanted to be together forever. I love that man with all my heart and cannot think of anything that would have made our wedding day any better.

Photobucket

12/11/2008

Eat at Sonic!!!

Tuesday I got a letter in the mail for Matt. It was from Edward Jones. It said something along the lines of voting for the Board of Trustees for the stock he owns. ??? This is news to me. (Although they wanted him to vote, they listed the people they recommend he vote for.) Anywho, I deleted our texting conversation but this is basically how it went:

Me: Do you have stock at Edward Jones?
Matt: Hell I don't know. Why?
Me: You got a letter saying they want you to vote for something.
Matt: Oh... Might be sonic stock.
Me: Sonic, like the restaurant?
Matt: Yeah the restaurant.
Me: Why the hell do you have stock in sonic?
Matt: My grandma bought it for me because they buy our milk.
(Matt's grandpa and uncles own a dairy farm)
(This is starting to make more sense to me now)
Me: Oh
Matt: How much is that shit worth?
Me: It doesn't say you will have to call them.
Matt: Can't you do it.
Me: Nope but if we are millionaires I'm calling into work tonight.
Matt: OK

So Matt calls them later on and finds out his Sonic stock is worth $1200. SWEEEETTT!!!

So please eat at Sonic, at least till we pull out the stock. HAHA!!!

Who would have thought?

12/05/2008

Thanksgiving with my love

Let me just start out by saying, I had a magnificent vacation. I left work early on Wednesday and ended up being escorted to the airport by both my parents. They didn't bicker and argue too much on the way there so that was nice. Got out of the car and said my good-byes. As I was walking off my dad yells to me and says to make sure I hold on to my purse because their are probably a lot of weirdos around. (Nice, dad) I figured the airport would be extremely busy since it was the day before Thanksgiving but it wasn't. I found my gate quickly and then also located the nearest smoking lounge. Anywho, my flight left and arrived to Seattle on time at 11:30ish west coast time. My super handsome husband was waiting for me by the baggage claim when I arrived and let me tell you, seeing him, hugging and kissing him seems to make all the waiting worthwhile. He tells me he has a surprise for me at the hotel. We get to the hotel and he had got me a set thingy with an army wife hat, t-shirt, key chain and pin. He also got me one of those magnetic car flag thingers that says proud army wife. All pink too. I loved it.

Thanksgiving day we just relaxed and enjoyed each others company. We made a pretty descent Thanksgiving dinner considering we were in a hotel with only a microwave and refrigerator. We got a pre-cooked turkey and it was actually pretty good. We also had mashed taters, green been casserole, some broccoli rice stuff and rolls.

Friday we shopped. We went to Old Navy first and I got some killer deals. (Can't say exactly what). We also went to the Best Buy, which was a mad house, and got a few things. We also went to the mall, which as also a mad house. We didn't get much at the mall.

Since Matt was such a good boy while we were shopping, Saturday we went to the local watering hole and watched some football game. Well, Matt and his buddies watched. I mostly talked and drank. After the game was over we went to a different watering hole. I was drunk. Matt's buddies are all nice guys, they called me Mrs. Ruholl. One of his buddies asked me to help pick out an engagement ring for his girlfriend the next day, sweet we are going to Zales.

So Sunday, Mr. Ruholl was not feeling very well. He took naps most of the day. I went shopping with his buddies and helped pick out the ring for him. Zales was having an awesome sale and he ended up getting a ring that was originally $2100 for a little over a grand. It came as a set so he liked that he wouldn't have to go ring shopping later for a wedding band. Matt and I went and ate at Applebees that night. I had salmon and it was amazing.

Monday Matt had to go to the post to do pt and then wait around for formation. When he came back, we packed my stuff up and headed to the airport. I always get a sick feeling in my stomach when we are on our way to the airport. Only 3 weeks though and we will be together again.

I couldn't think of any better way to spend thanksgiving than with the man I love.