Back to the Grind

Well I'm back to work today, so sad.  I love having time off from work to spend at home with my hubs and puppies!  It's so nice and relaxing, usually haha.  Thankfully I only work today and tomorrow and then I have another 4 day weekend for New Year's.  Yay!  Next week will be brutal with having to work 4 days, I know I'm such a big baby.  Oh how much I wish we lived out in the middle of nowhere where me and the SIL could start our own horse boarding stable.  We could totally kick ass at it!  So how was everyone's Christmas?  Mine was very nice.  We spent most of the holiday with the in-laws and my hubs side of the family.  It was our first Christmas in our new house and our first Christmas together as a married couple where we did not have to drive all the way from Jville to see the family.  My in-laws got me a sewing table for my new sewing machine.  I'm so excited because sitting it on the coffee table and sitting on the floor while using it is a bit difficult.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to start gathering up material soon to make a new quilt for our bed.

Before Christmas I sent an email to an old friend that I lost touch with when I moved down to Jville that I used to ride with and this morning I had a response from her.  I was super excited because I was not even sure that she still used that email.  I used to lease her horse and even named my horse after her horse because they are cousins.  Most of my horse friends from back in the day are no longer into horses due to college and life in general so it will be super nice to get back in touch with an old riding buddy.  It's nice to get in touch with old friends and learn what's been going on in their lives and the lives of people that you know (what, good ole fashioned gossip is fun haha).  The hubs is going hunting yet again soon, so hopefully I'll be able to meet up with her then since I'm sure I'll have extra time to do absolutely nothing.  What did I do when the hubs was deployed for 7 months???  I'm bored when he's only gone 2 days now!  It's too cold to spend hours at the barn, so that leaves me watching Netflix, a lot.  Oh what would I do without Netflix???  Guess I better get back to working since I'm only here a couple days this week, yay!

Merry Christmas!

Ok so I know it's a few days early but still, I'm excited!  I love Christmas!  Today is our Holiday Potluck at work and so I got to start my baking last night.  I made fudge!  Yummy, my favorite holiday treat!  Thankfully my wonderful hubs went out at the beginning of the week and got all the ingredients for everything I plan on making.  Last night I just did the fudge for today and made a venison brown sugar meatloaf.  It was so yummy!  I've never tried the brown sugar recipe but it was so yummy!  I'll definitely be making it again.  Tomorrow I get to make more fudge, a pumpkin roll and a cookie pie (regular cookie dough placed into a deep dish pizza pan).  I love baking!  


Last night the hubs took me on a drive to see some of the local Christmas lights.  People really do some amazing things with them.  There was one, quite large, house that had tons of lights that were flashing and blinking and the neighbor next door put up a lighted sign that said "Ditto" with an arrow pointing next door to the flashing light house, so hilarious.  That was my favorite haha  I love looking at the Christmas lights.  Would have been a bit better if there was some snow on the ground instead of puddles of water from the excessive rain we've been getting but oh well.  It was still super nice to spend time with the hubs and see all the lights.


Christmas Eve the in-laws have a party with all the extended family.  Lots of food and drinks and fun times.  I think afterwards we might bring the cousins back to our house for a "younger generation" party.  I don't think the older ones would like it very much if we cranked up the music and started dancing around the house.  We are making red and green (cherry and lime) jello shots with rum!  They were a big hit last year.  I'm really looking forward to having our first Christmas in our new house!  We've always traveled back home for Christmas since the hubs was in the Marines and we were stationed down in Jville, NC.  No traveling this time, except to drive to the in-laws, 10 min away, for Christmas dinner.  I'm really looking forward to it!


So, what do you guys do to prepare for the Holidays and what are you favorite parts?

Mani Pedi Mondays

Who likes Mondays?!  I do not care for them too much because that means I have to pull my butt outta bed at the butt crack of dawn and drive through crazy traffic with inpatient stupid drivers (I mean really people, slow down and stop tailgating, you might prevent an accident!)  Anyways, when the hubs is in school (he's currently on winter break) he has class on Monday nights, so double boo to Mondays.  Well my sister-in-law's boyfriend also has to work on Monday nights, so we decided to make Mondays a lil bit more tolerable that we would have Mani Pedi Mondays.  This involves my SIL coming over after work and us either making dinner of some sort, something like frozen pizza or left overs or takeout, and watching shows, on Netflix until 2 Broke Girls comes on and then it's CBS Monday night shows, while doing our nails.  Now we have started to get a lil bit creative with our nail painting as we progress.  

What do these

plus these

plus this equal?

It equals these....  
       Snowflakes! (Sorry my phone camera sucks, so not the best quality). Yes I painted part of my fingers as well but hey it washes off your finger part within a couple of days and since it's a light color you can't tell too much in person.  Besides, how accurate can you possibly be when you include a nice large glass of wine into the evening.   


So, that's right we started using nail stamps!  It's a bit tricky to figure out how to do but we are progressing and learning how to do them better and better.  Some of the designs that have more details, like the snowflake, are harder to get to come out all the way.  My SIL used a mistletoe last night and that one turned out great!  So if you are bored with just plain old nail polish, try nail stamps!  They last a lot longer than stickers and are much easier than free handing it.  And if you don't like Mondays like me, try adding in a mani pedi day.

Using the GI Bill

Who would have thought that using the GI Bill would be such a pain in the ass!?  Are we extremely grateful that the hubs' education is paid for by the VA, yes absolutely.  However, the process sucks!  There are so many rules and regulations when using it, it gets a bit ridiculous.  The hubs was a mechanic on the Amtracks in the Marines.  So, logically he is going to school for his associate's degree/certification in auto mechanics.  So, he has to go full time in order to get full time BAH, no problem.  All of his classes that he takes have to be on the list of required classes for his degree program, no problem, until you see that a few of the classes have prerequisite classes that are considered "remedial" classes.  According to the VA coordinator at his school, the remedial classes must be taken on campus and not online (even though he has to go to campus for the other auto classes, it's not like he's taking all online classes) in order for the VA to cover the class.  Please tell me why this makes any flipping sense?!  It's an entry level math course, he could probably do it in his sleep but now he has to drive the 25 minutes to campus an extra 2 days a week during the winter to take the class in person so they will cover it!?  Why?!  Asked if he took the class online and paid for it himself if the VA would still consider him full time, nope because he is not taking the class in the required manner.  I really want to know who makes up these dumb rules.  Really, who even thinks of a rule like that?!  I can see wanting to make sure that the veteran is going to some on campus classes to ensure that it really is the veteran taking the class and getting paid to go, but one very simple class, come on people!


I'd have to say though that the VA really has not been much of an issue and that the greatest issue and frustration is with the school and their "VA department."  I really believe they are either extremely lazy and inadequate or just ill-informed and ill-trained in VA education matters.  We typically have to pay upfront for his classes because they do not get the paperwork in in a timely fashion and we personally have to remind them numerous times to send it in, even though it's "supposed" to be done automatically each quarter.  And then since they wait until so late to send in the form that if there are any issues, like said class above, it's too late to really do anything about it.  And we are not the only ones who have this issue.  I'm just very frustrated by this whole process and I wish it was easier.  I mean I really do not see how people who cannot pay for these things upfront can even afford it.  Thankfully we can just put it on the credit card and pay it off when we get the money.  I really think that service members who are going through the checkout process though should be made aware that they will likely have to pay upfront for school costs and be reimbursed later due to most colleges being extremely behind on VA verifications.  And I know so many people at different colleges that have this problem so I really think that in order for a school to be certified or verified, whatever it is, to receive VA funds, then they need to have better training and awareness for their VA coordinators.  VA coordinators should be veterans or spouses of service members/veterans, haha.  School and getting out is stressful enough on veterans and their families, I just think we should be able to make the process go as smoothly and easily as possible.
I would like to say that we are very fortunate for him to have this opportunity and for the VA to pay for him to go to school but sometimes you just want to scream at the people who make it so damn difficult to process it!

Puppy Physical Therapy

So, our smallest member of the family, Ren, our lil Italian Greyhound, our baby, is having physical therapy today.  So cute!

Physical therapy, for a dog?  Yes indeed, I didn't know there was such a thing either until a few weeks ago.  Short background history, earlier this year Ren jumped off the couch and hurt her back hind leg.  Her limping got progressively worse and she lost all muscle tone in her leg.  The vet finally determined that when she landed on it wrong she actually cut off the blood supply to her hip and the top of her femur was dying.  So on Halloween she went in for surgery, a Femoral Head Osteotomy.  This is where they basically cut off the top of the femur so that it is not rubbing bone on bone and then over time the scar tissue forms a fake joint.  Since she only weighs 9 lbs this is a better option than a hip replacement.
So after the staples came out she still was not bearing any weight on the leg which had lead to her starting physical therapy.  Today is day 2.  She started right before Thanksgiving.  She has an entire day of physical therapy while I'm at work and when I pick her up they go over all this stuff to do with her and then I bring her back in a few weeks for a recheck.  Her physical therapist is absolutely wonderful!  She is so helpful and nice.  For Ren, in order to get her to put weight on her back leg, we put a lil book bag on her that is weighted and that forces her to use all 4 legs to keep balance.  This has worked so well!!!  Her therapist I don't think had much optimism for it working since she refused to let the leg be touched or touch the floor at all!  She is now walking on the leg and standing on it while standing still.  She still pulls it up when she's running but at least 75% of the time when she's walking now she'll use it.  I'm excited to see what her therapist has to say when I pick her up this afternoon.  I think she will be quite surprised!  She still has a lot of work to do to be able to use her leg to the best of it's new ability but I'm becoming more optimistic about it!
Oh the things we do for our animals...  I absolutely hate dropping her off for PT, she starts shaking and it's just so sad and pathetic, I literally have to speedwalk out of there without looking back to hold back tears, she's just so sad looking.  She grabs ahold of my hair with her paws and then looks back over the vet techs shoulder like one of those shelter commercial sad videos.  Thankfully it's only 5 minutes down the street from where I work but I have to constrain myself from calling to check up on her throughout the day.  Yes I'm that bad, but she's my lil baby and I worry about her nonstop.  Here's a pic of our kids and our Christmas tree....

  

I mean, really, look at those cute faces, how could your heart not just melt with those looks.

TGIF

Is it just me or did this week seem to drag on and on and on?!  I'm so glad it's Friday and only a couple more hours of work, I'm busy can't ya tell, and I'm outta here!  Tomorrow is the office Christmas Party and me and the hubs are looking forward to free food and drinks.
So I am wrapping up the Taking Charge of your Fertility book.  It is that oh so lovely time of the month for me so according to the book I should start charting on Monday.  I've read the whole part in the book about charting and using the Fertility Awareness Method as birth control part so I think I'm going to go ahead and give it a try.  Since I just came off the pill though I will need to chart for a few months to make sure that my cycles are regular prior to not using a backup method.  At this point in time I'm still pretty scared at the thought of not using a backup method while charting but I guess I need to see how the whole charting process goes and see if I can easily tell when I'm ovulating.  I can say though that every woman should read this book.  It really makes you more aware of your body and your cycles and I'm like oh yeah that anxiety I get every month right before my period, very typical symptom of PMS.  And here I was just thinking I was a lil crazy or crazier than usual.  Makes sense then why the pill had a tendency to make it a lot worse.  And really, who would have thought that cervical fluid could be so damn interesting?!  I didn't.  Sure it definitely sounds gross but after reading the book, I'm like wow, that's really cool.  Cervical fluid, cool, oh yes.  So basically ladies, our bodies are amazing!
I still need to get a picture of our Christmas tree and post it and I guess while I'm doing that I'll get a picture of our puppies in front of the tree to use as our Christmas card.  Of course getting all 3 of them to sit and look cute at the same time, probably would be like trying to get 3 toddlers to sit and look happy at the same time.  I may end up going to the store and purchasing generic cards... So what is everybody else doing this weekend to prepare for Christmas???  

UPS

How many of you love your UPS man?  I do!  Our dogs even know the sound of his truck when he comes around the corner and start barking.  I love our UPS man because he delivers all the goodies I order online (I do  a large bit of our shopping, besides actual groceries, online).  In a way UPS guy is like Santa, except I had to pay for all the things he delivers, that's the only down side.  I love tracking my packages and I love love love when stores use the UPS notifier, then I get an email directly from UPS when my packaged has shipped.  Yesterday I received such an email stating that my Mary Janes have shipped and should be here later this week, yay!  Just in time for our office Christmas Party Saturday night :)

Over the weekend I went shopping with the SIL and we got all of our Christmas decorations for the tree and for outside.  I'll have to post a pic of the tree later, it turned out fabulous!  Who would have thought that going shopping the first weekend of December though would resemble Black Friday shopping!  There were so many people out, it was ridiculous!  We ended up at about 5 different stores just looking for decent bulbs for the tree at an affordable price.  Finally, Wally World and Kmart were offering just what we were looking for.  This is our first Christmas in our house and the first time we've put a tree up and thanks to Grandma, we have a fabulous tree.  Since hubs was still out hunting at that point, me and my SIL decided to put up the Christmas Lights outside since it was going to be the last decent day for awhile.  Oh how I wish I'd brought my camera out with us.  The neighbors were driving by laughing at us, no joke.  We ended up crawling out an upstairs window and sitting/hanging off the roof to put some of them up and then where the bushes were I couldn't fit the ladder, so I was hanging off a barstool sticking out of the bushes while my SIL was holding on to me.  I'm sure we were quite a sight.  But they all went up and worked and look so nice!  The hubs was very impressed with our skills, especially since he knows both of us are afraid of heights.  We did need a glass, or 2 or 3, of wine when we were done.  Hubs has been informed that he will be in charge of taking them down because we refuse to climb back up on the roof.  Hubs is now back from hunting, yay, he was the only one of the group to get a deer, poor lil deer.  Now we need to go get a deep freezer so we have somewhere to put all the meat....

VaJayJay

Oh yeah, I'm going there today.  How many of us really know a lot about what goes on in our bodies, specifically our lady parts?  I thought I knew quite a bit, I work in a medical setting so I definitely should know, right, nope definitely not!  So, I recently had to go off my birth control pill because it was causing nasty side effects, anxiety, mood swings, just feeling really icky.  I called up my doctor, she stated that birth control cannot cause those side effects.  Really, that's interesting since those are the side effects listed for the pill, I even double checked on drugs.com.  If your doctor does not know the side effects of the medication they are prescribing, they should not be prescribing it.  I am definitely seeking a new doctor at this point.  I've gone through many BC pills and have had similar reactions to all of them, although with this one they were definitely the worse, the side effects honestly scared me with how severe they were.  So I decided that maybe it was time to look into other forms of birth control and went off the pill completely and scheduled an appointment with a gyno.  I was super excited for my appointment, thought I would  find out some awesome form of birth control that doesn't stuff hormones into your body or cause nasty side effects, was I disappointed, oh yeah.  What the hell, all these advances in medicine and there's nothing out that there's effective without a bunch of side effects.  Who rules the Drug industry, men definitely.  If they had to endure this shit, there'd be new stuff out there ASAP!  Could you imagine men PMSing, haha the world would grind to a halt, of course I think some men PMS just like us, or at least they act like it.

So whats a girl to do??  Condoms, come on those aren't as fun.  Spermicide and sponges and diaphragms?  Lube is gooey and nasty I can't imagine having to squirt some spermicide up there.  IUDs?  Not the best choice if you've never had children and some of those have hormones as well and the ones who don't typically cause heavier periods, no thanks.  Implanon and the shot, hormones.  We already know my body does not handle hormones well, just ask my hubs.  So I got on a chat support board for the USMC that I'm apart of and go to the wives' and girlfriends' section and post my dilemma.  Their answer, much as the same ones as above, except someone mentions this....

A natural birth control method, no not the Rhythm method, completely different from that.  So I figured, what the hell, I'll read it and see what it's all about.  At this point we gotta use condoms anyways.  So I ordered my own copy and I just received it last night.  I started reading it, hubs is still hunting and seriously, cleaning the house, so not fun.  So far I'd have to say that I'm really liking it.  It's very funny too, it mentions what would happen if an IUD type product was made for guys, very funny to imagine and they even included a picture.  I'm only through the introduction and the first part of the next chapter but I am very intrigued by this process.  I really thought that it would be a book all about getting pregnant, but it's not.  It is definitely all about understanding your body and your cycle and how to tell when you are ovulating, etc.  Even if I decide that the Natural Method won't work for us, I will at least have a better understanding of my body and what goes on down there, cause let's face it ladies, it's not like anybody else is going to give you a mini seminar on it.  I will keep you updated as I read along and my thoughts on it and if I decide we should try it.  After reading the introduction though, I never want to use any hormone related product again or an IUD (not that those were looking too appealing anyways).  Has anybody else read Taking Charge of Your Fertility and successfully used the natural birth control method?  I've heard of several people who have intentionally gotten pregnant using their charting method, but that's kind of the exact opposite of what we want in this stage of our lives.

Oh and since I have stopped the pill my moods and mental state are back to normal, well normal for me, I'm an emotional person to start with.  No more hormones for this chick!