my turn!

ok, so this time tomorrow i will be somewhere over the ocean in a very antsy way. i fly out of KCI at 9:53am tomorrow and end up in venice roughly 9:30 local time (2:30am) there. it is finally here! i am mostly ready to go - clothes are packed. i have not been as methodical and overly-0rganized about this adventure as i usually am if someone else is traveling with me. consequently, i am slightly anxious and plan to spend my evening furiously going up and down the stairs moving things around and making lists and cleaning. i checked the weather today for Pordenone, Italy -the town closest to Cameron's house. should be high 80's/low 90's the whole time.
anticipated highlights:
the beach - not even sure which beach, or where; but i think it will be the stretch of land on the north east coast of italy close to where it connects with the rest of europe. even if my beach experience totally sucks, just saying that will be totally cool anyway. besides, it can't suck! dad told me people there like to wear their birthday suits to the beach, so no matter how self conscious i feel in my tankini, i'm fairly certain i'll be looking juuust fine.
camping in Austria next weekend - sing with me: "the hills are alive with the sound of music!". yes elizabeth, i have already been practicing "the pose". unfortunately, i do not own a pinafore and so the picture will probably be taken in jeans and a tank top. we will camp at "faaker see". dad has been there, it is a glassy lake in a valley surrounded my mountains. yes please.
arnoldstein - the hometown of arnold schwartzenager. need i say more?
pasta - hello?
gelato - shya!

ok, i promise to have well over $1700 worth of fun - that way at least i am reimbursed for the plane ticket. HORAY!!!

killing time

so yes, saturdays are my lazy days anyway, but today was especially so because i woke up at 10ish, then wandered around the house for a bit listening to the rain outside, then did a pilates video. i didnt get much out of it because Beanie was determined to prance all over me and every time i would sit up, she would park behind me with a toy, making it quite an ordeal to have to lay down again during the exercises. so then i did some house cleaning for a couple of hours and right about the time i was going to clean MYSELF, the power went out. yes, this was 3pm. quite pathetic. so i got ahold of my parents because i was worried that perhaps i would have to venture to the spider-infested basement and hack my way through cobwebs to reset a breaker - something i not only didnt want to do, but dont know how. but mom convinced me to call the emergency maintenance line instead. low and behold, there was a post-wide power outage and there wasnt anything to be done about it. so i celebrated by taking a nap. sleeping from 5-6:30pm is not very productive, just so you know. so alas, although i will go to sleep soon regardless, i am not especially tired.
life right now is going alright i guess. weekends are pretty boring and especially lonely. although my house has never been so clean! i keep a running list of chores and get through a few of them a week. today i cleaned the window sills, wiped down the baseboards, and emptied my food shelf and wiped it down, then put the food back on it. yes, i am that bored. so if you ever come over during the next 8 months, be sure to check out my baseboards and window sills.
my God i miss my husband so much. i keep thinking over and over about what it will be like to pick him up from the airport in 3 months. i already have my outfit picked out. i can picture myself getting to the airport an hour early and then just sitting there shaking like a leaf with excitement and nervousness. what will it be like to spend 7 months alone and then have to share the bed again? what will it be like to get to call him on the phone? how will it feel to touch him? hug him? what will it be like to finally be with him, then have to go to wichita and share him with everyone else?

just about 2 weeks left!

my goodness, it's just starting to sink in that this time next month i will have been to italy and back. it's crazy! i am so thankful for the opportunity to do this. i was just researching venice and now i'm even more excited to explore! plus, cameron lives so far north, that we can easily hit austria, and i think switzerland in a couple of hours. woa! so all i really have to do is get through the next couple of weeks at work and i'm home free! too bad these will be the worst 2 weeks of the year and i am filling in for the secretary... yuck. oh well. it will pass.
physical fitness update: week 2 began today of my "waking up and exercising before work" thing. today was especially interesting since i was up late and had to be at work at 7 instead of 7:30 - but i did it! 4:15am i was awake. that's a miracle in itself! but alas, i did not do intense cardio on saturday or sunday and i felt tired, draggy, and foggy all day long. so i understand now that this is something that i just NEED to do. yoga class is going fantasctically too. today i went to my 3rd class and it is getting harder but feels so wonderful! i'm looking forward to the changes in my bo-day from all this fantastic exercise it is getting. and since i'm fairly certain that my workout buddy from work will only be exercising with me for yoga class, i plan to start going tot he gym tuesdays and thursdays after work and do weights. its too hot outside to do cardio then, so i do it in the morning, then weights twice a week at the gym! woo hoo! size 10 pants, i'm coming home!
*for elizabeth's amusement* i totally bought a pair of white linen pants from ann taylor the other weekend, dry clean only. HA HA!!

4th of July

so i will have to post some pictures up later of my work event that i planned and executed for the 4th fo july. we did 3 events: watermelon eating contest, sunflower seed spitting contest, and water balloon toss. the watermelon eating is just toooooo halarious. i was looking forward to it all year after working at the event last year. but alas, my camera is downstairs and i am tired and dont want to go get it and monkey around with picture downloading.
so after working the event, i had been invited over to my friend Valerie's house. she and her husband are both in the Army and have considerably more friends than i do, so they had a get together for sevreal couples. luckily, they are all military also, so they understand my situation and arent weird about it. but the "affectionate couple" atmosphere was kinda tough. but that's life. it was fun to be around people and to get to know those people better and meet some new people. everyone is very nice and friendly.
tomorrow - well, today actually, josh and valerie will come over. i have bribed them with dinner in exchange for josh's manly ability to change a flat tire on charles' car. i can fix the front door on my own and keep the house clean and even deal with spiders - but i cannot change a car tire. not going to happen.

question: how did an act of treason by a group of men who had a dream of a better country back in 18blablabla turn into a holiday celebrated by blowing things up? i dont understand the connection. been pondering that today...

catching up Pt 3: wedding & dogs

so mom came up this weekend so that we could go together to the wedding of my friend Angela. i was angela's RCIA sponsor a few years ago and she asked me to read the readings at her wedding. it was a beautiful and simple ceremony and it gave me a very much needed feeling of peace to be surrounded by so much love and Lord. and the readings were very beautiful too, so i enjoyed reading them for Angela and Cliff. i snuck a picture with her at the reception before leaving. i look like a guiness book of world records freakishly tall woman standing next to her... or that i'm about to eat her... one of the two. you decide:

(in my defense, she's MAYBE 5 feet tall, and i was wearing heels) so anyway, since the dogs had been in their crates a good chunk of the day while mom and i went to the wedding, we decided to run them around a bit before stashing them back in their crates for the traditional shopping and eating extravaganza that takes place whenever we're together. i happened to remember that there is a new dog park on post and so we loaded up the 3 crazies and took them out there to run around. they had a great time and it was halarious to watch beanie and angel run around and chase each other. the grass was kinda tall so beanie did her squirrel jumping through the grass business, much to my enjoyment. i couldnt get any good running pictures because they move too fast.
here's the most adorable dog in the world, beanie:

Beanie and Angel, checking in:

Betsy was the first to crap out:

catching up Pt 2: earth

this is a picture i took of the clouds over my neighbor's house a week or so ago. i had been outside with the dog and then the clouds started looking very strange and ominous so i ran for the camera. about 2 minutes after i got inside, the hail started. it looked like this:





clearly, i was freaking out quite a bit. this was another occasion when i desperately was wishing i owned a working radio or could get a tv channel to check the weather. my computer is far from reliable, plus, i dont particularly like to have it on during bad storms. but there was BIG hail! thankfully, it only lasted a few minutes. but it was a very tense few minutes for beanie and i (well, really just me, she didnt know what was going on... but i snuggled with her and pretended as though SHE were the one scared and not me).
and this is how i spent my sunday evening: I MADE A GARDEN!! horay me!
it's clearly not very big, but looks much better than the patch of weeds looked before hand. and i think my $12 box of plastic bricks look lovely. i had potted plants in the back yard but there is a huge tree behind my shed and it drops little dingleberries everywhere and attracts lots of bugs and spiders (eeek!). so i hate to sit back there and cannot enjoy my serenty. so i swept off the porch and picked up all the newspapers strung all over it and then started playing in the dirt. my strawberry plant in the round pot is doing very well, even though i've only gotten one tiny berry off of it alls ummer. and a coworker gave me a bunch of chicks and hens, the green things, last weekend so i'm hoping they are still alive after sittng on the porch all week. and then i bought a pretty pink flower because i felt like it. the long pot has a new attempt at morning glories, this time WITHOUT the holes on the bottom plugged up. for a few weeks now the most sucessful plantlife i've had is algae on my morning glory pot. but no more! i think this will be fabulous. i need lawn art or something cheesy like that.

catching up Pt 1: on fashion

I AM a sexy bitch!!! i also have a serious hereditary illness having something to do with spending too much money on clothes and shoes..

so in the name of some hard core 'retail therapy', i have spent the last 2 or 3 weeks storming through every store i can find buying clothes and many other misc. things in an attempt to drown my sorrows or squash my stress or something like that.

an interesting discovery was made at old navy: Members Only jackets are cool? i'm serious, amidt all the hordes of sweaters that "could maybe be just a sweater, or is it a dress?" and the ruffley tank tops with glitter, i saw a rack of members only jackets... you know, the kind that was made fun of on the vh1 'remember the 80s" stuff? yea. now. at old navy. sure!

but i DID find some wonderful things all the same. i had my first experience at a bananna republic. my preconceptions were correct, it is VERY expensive. however, much to my enjoyment, just about everything cool in the store was at least 50% off, thus making it much closer to my price range. Behold: my new skirt!

and the swanky shoes (which i already had, but were especially sassy with this outfit):

speaking of shoes. guess what? Payless doesnt suck anymore!!! and in celebration of the fact that they actually had an abondence of awesome shoes, i bought 5 pairs!! yes, i AM insane. but i am also really great at justifying purchases. i dont have pictures of my 5 new pairs of shoes, but that's ok. just the fact htat i have them should be enough. i am very silly.

so yes, you cant see the shoes that go with this very well, but they're totally cool! elizabeth, these are the 40 foot high teal summery ones. i bought a linen suit at old navy a couple weeks ago and then on one of my recent adventures i found this fun top in my size and this nice cardigan both on clearance! i do love old navy. :o)