welcome, friend

:o) this is mainly for erin, but since i only have now THREE people who read my blog, the information is just as well for mom and lizabeth too. :o) in answer to your questions: charles reports early march. we will be in wichita together for about 10 days, marking the longest we've been home at the same time since before we were married. we're both very much looking forward to it, except for the inevitable "goodbye" that will come at the end. we hate that part, but it must be done. sometimes being a military wife really sucks, but when i think about how much more it will suck for him to be gone than for me to be here, i can't complain too much. plus, it helps a lot that he is so "mission-oriented". he doesn't make a big deal out of it because it truely is his job, no matter where he's told to do it, he has to go. so how can i get all fussy about it, it's just what he has to do just the same as i have to support him in it?

the "new" haircut i think is the one from my blog picture, but i have a much better one now. i do have some christmas pictures with it. from an objective point, it might not be too bad. but me, i just see my fat face. thoughts?

ok, now after all the monkeying around with the picture, i forgot what other questions there were. sorry.

however, i have lost 5 pounds in 2 days! i am currently home from work recovering from the worst case of food poisoning i've ever had in my LIFE! i'm now going to attempt to keep down some rice. never had rice sounded so good until i couldnt keep down so much as a sip of water for a whole day. and so with opptimism, i forge ahead!

new work duties

well, i think today i got hit with a bit of a bomb: behold my stress level and my work level going up by a many points! so - i've been really pretty busy at work lately: i do my own job of keeping up with the bills and accounting, while helping claudia with the secretary stuff. super duper. i have my moments of troubleshooting genius on occasion, so my newer co-workers, the 2 housing counselors with large amounts of people coming in have decided that i can be their bitch too, so i help them out as well. i sign leases, i help plan the student run, i teach them how to do their jobs, and latley i spend many hours troubleshooting issues with Time Warner for the 30 or so accounts that i also manage while helping to coordinate the delivery of furniture from Nebraska Furniture Mart. i was balancing all of that quite well until news of the upcoming deployment and hopefully a move gave me more to think about. how much will it suck to be here alone? can i hold down the fort at home by myself? how the hell am i going to decide what to pack and what not to pack? can i pay bills and save enough money for the inevitable period of unemployment in washington? so many questions... well ok, so today, as i was pondering which days i will use my 80 vacation hours on while charles is on leave before he goes over there, we were all called into a meeting. my boss, the greatest boss in the world, has turned in her 2 weeks notice. this i knew. naturally the whole office was abuzz with theories of who would replace her. low and behold, it's by good ol' buddy: denise. denise the marketing director with questionable morals who is the teacher's pet. ok, that's all fine and well. she is an extremely competent marketing director, and her position as "TEMPORARY" replacement might not be too bad, but how will she handle being marketing director AND assistant community manager, you ask? me. i was held after the meeting to find out that i will become the "assistant marketing director" while she fills in until another person can be found.
i find myself torn. on one hand, it will be nice to have plenty of work to keep me occupied. on the other: WHAT?! i'm WHAT!? and if there was a 3rd, more calm and serene hand to be had, it would hold a very flashy resume which bears MANY titles aquired over the last several months, to which "assitant marketing director" may now be added.
it's been a long time since i had so many balls to juggle, and that's fine. i just wish one of them didnt mean giving up my husband for a year and juggling the rest of them by myself.

f.y.i.

beanie weenie has gas and is still sleeping on my lap and i don't appreciate it.

Christmas stuff and things

WOW! what a great Christmas i had! it would have been better if charles hadnt been working, but all things considered, it was pretty damn awesome. i know it's not all about the presents, but let me just say, i got some REALLY cool presents. for instance:

this is my Beanie Weenie!!!!!

I also got a bad ass mixer, thus completing my mission to have the "ultimate kitchen"; and i got a Bose ipod dock, also bad ass. those are the 3 big things - but i thought it might be kinda lame to take a picture of a mixer and an ipod dock. however that does NOT lessen their coolness.

presents are all well and good, but the absolute BEST part of christmas was spending it with my family! what an excellent respite - to spend so much time with them, especially my elusive world-traveling brother!!!!!!! we were all in haysville for a couple of days before spending a few more here at my house. we ate nice dinners and went shopping and i even got to make Christmas dinner (a couple of days late, but the sentiments were the same) for mom, dad, cameron, and of course charles! all 5 of us at the same table!!!! what a special time!

another special time: that friday before new years, we had dinner reservations at the Peppercorn Duck. (mom has those pictures, so i'll post them later so everyone can see how hot we were) but before dinner, i insisted that we go sledding down the HILL OF DEATH on post. it didnt take a whole lot of convincing to get everyone on board, so as soon as i got off work, we donned our greatest cold-weather apparel and out we went! many swear words and much bruising of butts later, here we were:

You'd never know that the 3 of us have a combined age of 76 years old, the way were were flying down that hill. mom and dad went too, a highlight of which being the time mom and i went down on the 2 person sled in front of a bunch of little kids with mom shouting " SHIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!" all the way down the hill. i love my family!