Meet Princess

Friday a lady a work with told me that her sister-in-law had a dog that they didn't want and needed a home. Her name is Princess. After a little convincing, I talked Matt into letting Princess come over and meet our boys.

We don't really need 3 dogs but she needs a good home. I knew that she wasn't treated great but I had no idea how bad she was treated until later. We decided if they got along that we could keep her. I mean look at how cute she is.

Saturday morning I called the lady who owns her and asked her when she could bring her over. She said that she would bring her over Sunday evening. She told me while I was on the phone with her that she was very timid because her husband has smacked her. WTF? It was then that I decided I didn't care if our boys liked her or not we were keeping her.

She came over last night. At first, she was scared shitless of our boys.

Here are a few things the owner told me about her:
- She's 5
- She was attacked by another dog and almost died
- She thinks she's up to date on her shots
- Her grandson kicks her
- She has spent most of her life in their utility room
- She's not allowed on the furniture
- She eats at 5 AM and 5 PM
- She's fed Ol' Roy

The owner left her. Did not give her a hug or kiss before she left or tell her bye or anything. Just said she was glad she was going to a good home. She left a bed for her and her food bowl. No collar and no toys.

We gave her a bath and she was covered in fleas. I gave her a flea pill too.

Princess is very shy and when I raise my hand to pet her, she thinks I'm going to beat her. I really hope she comes out of it and understands that we will be good parents to her.

She didn't want to leave our utility room.

We let her sit on the couch with us but she would wander back to the utility room. She sat by the front door for a while. I assume she was waiting for the idiot she used to live with to come back. It was so sad.

I tried to put her in bed with us but the boys were barking and raising hell and she wanted no part of it. So I put her in her bed in the utility room. I woke up in the middle of the night and she was laying under my nightstand. Then, I dropped my coaster on the floor and scared the shit out of her. Matt said he woke up and she was laying on the floor on his side of the bed.

This morning she didn't growl at the boys and she ate breakfast with them. I petted her before I left and told her to have a good day. I got a little teary eyed.

I called the vet she has been to today. They said she is 7, not 5, and hasn't been there since 2007. I made an appointment for Saturday morning for her to get her shots and get her toenails trimmed.

I hope she adjusts. I don't think she'll ever need or want a lot of attention, unlike our spoiled rotten boys. But if she does we'll give it to her. It breaks my heart that someone could treat a 10 pound dog the way she was treated or just "get rid" of a dog they have had for 7 years.

**Edit** I forgot to mention that as soon as she needs a haircut, I'm taking her to the doggie day spa for a little pampering.

Deployment Survivor

My bloggy buddy Amber at Goodnight moon has this great idea to do a link up for survivors of having their spouse deployed.

Matt and I had been friends forever before we started dating. When we first started talking, I knew that he was going to be deploying within the next year. Mentally I had to make a decision if I was prepared to handle it before we even started dating. Of course I decided he was worth it. Before he deployed, I took a leave of absence from work and drove out to Seattle from IL and stayed with him for six weeks. We had a great time and did lots of fun things in those six weeks.

D-day June 2007

He left at noon on June 10th. I'll never forget those buses that took him away. After he left, I had to pull myself together to drive back to IL. When I got back I worked at my office job and also a shit job. I worked between 50-70 hours a week. I paid off all my bills. I sent Matt care packages at least every other week. According to whoever check his mail, he got the best care packages of anyone in his unit.

His R & R was in November and we got engaged. R & R was bittersweet. We had a great time together but I knew I had to say good-bye again. By this time, he had already lost one of his best friends.

After R & R, he had another 10 months of deployment left. He was deployed for a total of 14 and a half months. We missed every holiday while he was deployed, some twice.

We didn't have the best communication while he was deployed. He emailed me most days but rarely called. He would go to an outpost that didn't have phones or internet for 3-4 weeks at a time. He did this 3 or 4 times. So that's 9-16 weeks where we had zero communication. There was no Skype. If there was we didn't know about it. We did do yahoo messaging with webcams but it would always disconnect and one of us would get fed up with it.

I like to think while he was deployed I was strong. Yeah, I'd lose it sometimes. I was grouchy at my shit job but hey it was a shitty job. I didn't whine about him being gone or complain about all the things we were missing. I might have thought it but I didn't whine about it. I held my head up high and tried to remember that most people couldn't do it.

The day he came home was the best day of my life. It was better than our wedding. Words can not describe the feeling of knowing he was safe, I was back in his arms, and that we had done it.

Homecoming August 2008

I've been thinking a lot about those who will never get to experience this feeling. The family of his friend that died and wives who lost their husbands will never know how great this felt. It breaks my heart.

We got married two weeks after the deployment was over. In some ways I'm thankful that we got to go through this. It's made us closer. And he understands that I will always be there for him.

Vacation Recap and whatnot

I owe you all a vacation recap. Ya'll know I'm not much of a weekend blogger and things have been crazy for us.

Our vacation started on August 24th at 4:00 p.m. One of our friends that Matt was stationed with at Ft. Lewis started his terminal leave a few days before and drove from the Seattle area to the middle of nowhere Illinois to spend a week with us. Matt left work a little early and when I got home, our friend "B" was there. It was great to see him. Tuesday evening we went to the VFW and drank a few there.

Matt and B when they were in WA.

Wednesday Matt and B went and did boy stuff during the day and I stayed home and did homework. :( Let me backtrack a bit, school started for us this same week so we both had to keep up with our school work while trying to party like rock stars be on vacation. Wednesday evening, Matt had school so me and B took a nap on the couch. Um that sounds weird. On separate couches of course.

Thursday evening we partied like rock stars went to the local watering hole and had a few drinks. And then partied like rock stars relaxed on the deck until the wee hours of the morning.

Friday morning I didn't feel so well. We left around noon to go to Southern Missouri. We went there to visit the family of a friend of Matt and B's that died in Iraq. His name was Rickey. We went there around the end of June too and I wrote about that here.

Friday evening we went out to eat with Rickey's family and went to a very nice Chinese restaurant. The Chinese places around here are shit compared to this place. It was seriously so good and I wasn't afraid that I was eating cat. After we went out to eat we went back to their house and talked and told stories.

We stayed at Rickey's sister's house. Their family was not going to let us get a hotel and told us she had plenty of room for us. It's still hard for me to believe how nice of people they are.

Saturday we went over to his parent's house and had breakfast. His mom made chocolate gravy for breakfast. I had never had it or even heard of it. It was good but I couldn't eat that much of it. It's basically like a runny chocolate pudding that you dip a biscuit in. (So much for my diet).

After breakfast we went 4 wheeler riding with Rickey's dad and sister. It hadn't rained there in like 60 some days so it was extremely dusty but we had a great time. Matt and I rode Rickey's 4 wheeler which was nice. (His parents refuse to sell any of his toys.) Oh and we saw some cotton fields, which I thought was neat.

After the 4 wheeler ride we looked like a bunch of dirt kids and had to go take a shower. Then we went back to Rickey's parents house and they had a party and invited all their family over. They are all such great people and have the biggest hearts ever. His dad made like 70 pounds of chicken wings. They had the best coleslaw I've ever had and a spaghetti salad. I ate way too much.

We did a little drinking at the family function as did some of Rickey's cousins. Before we headed back to his sisters, his mom had some late night munchies with us and we talked and cried and laughed.

It was hard to say good-bye again Sunday morning. Rickey's parents both told us again that they were so glad that we came to visit and that it meant the world to them.

Sunday evening when we got home, we loaded up the camper and the dogs and went camping. We camped Sunday and Monday night in a small campground close to our house. The boys loved it. Matt had school Monday evening and I had school Tuesday morning.

Tuesday I did 6 loads of laundry. Wednesday we came back to work and B continued on his "roadtrip across the country".

Sorry for the lack of pictures, I suck at taking pictures.

All in all, vacation was great!

Back to School

Before I get into our vacation, I would like to backtrack a little bit. Last Monday was the first day of the semester at our local community college. Matt and I are both going this semester.

Illinois has an Illinois Veterans Grant that will pay for all of Matt's classes. His GI Bill will pay us a certain amount depending on the amount of credit hours he takes. Cash money. This semester he is taking two classes. They are both mod classes that only meet half a semester. I believe he has a total of 8 or 9 credit hours this semester.

Matt is in enrolled in the HVAC (Heating, Ventalation, Air Conditioning) tech program. My husband is smart. He's way smarter than me when it comes to common sense stuff. However, sometimes he has the attention span of a fly. He's never really liked school.

Last Monday, Matt and I drove up to the campus and picked up our books. Matt also had to get his picture taken for his student ID.

Notice the guy looking at me like, WTF is she doing.

After we picked up our books and stuff, we had about 45 minutes to kill before his class started. He took me on a nice romantic dinner to McDonald's. While we were at McDonald's, he was cracking me up. He was saying if he had to introduce himself he was going to say, "My name's Matt. I work full-time. It's my nap time right now." He also told me that he was afraid the "little kids" in his class would want him to buy them beer after class.

After our "date" we went back to campus and I walked him to his classroom.


And like most of your kids, he didn't seem to care that I was leaving him there. He was only there for about 5 minutes before he texted me and told me he hated school and me. He was joking. I hope.

He came home a little bent out of shape because the class he is taking now is a blueprint reading class. The first night he came home with a whole list of crap he needed (protractor, about 7 kinds of pencil lead, 3 different rulers, ect.) He also had to do around 100 math problems. The teacher gave them time to work on it in class. It was all multiplying and dividing fractions. I can do this but if I had to do it without a calculator I would come home pissed too. He was upset because it was past his bedtime. (His class is from 6 to 10:15 and then its about a 45 minute drive to our house.) I felt bad for him but the next day I checked all the problems he did in class and he had about 90% of them right.

Each time he goes, he feels a little more confident. He says most of the people in his class are dumbasses and "don't even have f@#$#@ing jobs". He got all his problems except one right on his first homework. And he had a pop quiz last night and said he thought he did good.

I'm not going to tell you all how proud of him I am because it embarrasses him but I am.

My classes this semester, well one of them, sucks bad. But, I'm going to keep my chin up and set a good example for my hubby. So during our vacation, we were both dealing with going to school too.

It's me! I'm back.

Vacation was awesome.
Coming back to work today is not so awesome.

I'm tired and I could have used a day to clean house and lay around. Although, I did 6 loads of laundry yesterday. I believe that may be a record.

Thanks again to my guest bloggers. All of your posts were great and I appreciate the effort you put into putting something on my lil ole blog.

Welcome to my new followers. I promise I'll stop by and read your blogs. I have no idea how far behind on reading blogs I am. If your blog's name starts with anything from D-Z, I haven't been there yet. This may take awhile.

As soon as I get caught up on reading all of your blogs, I will post something.

Hope you are all having a good week!