Shopping and Painting

Saturday Tim and I got a chance to go out for a bit! First we went to a Japanese restaurant called Masaru to eat some sushi. It was really good and I definitely want to go back there. The plating was so pretty that I need to take pictures next time! After eating we went to Target and Toys R Us to get all of Tristan's birthday presents and most of his xmas presents too. There are a few more things that I want him to get so I may go back out for those or let MumMum get them if she wants since she was asking about it. I know what I want to get for Collie and Tim and then I should be set for xmas presents since I have no clue what to get anybody else :(

I've been feeling better about Karla since my last post, but I am still very sad. The rescue group keeps posting about her every other day since she is the one dog that has been with them the longest. I don't understand that though...how can no one be interested in her?! She is so cute and beautiful. I just hope that she finds a good home soon.

I've been painting a lot lately! I have quite a few of my own projects that I want to get done so I can open my Etsy shop but they keep getting pushed back for my friend's mom who keeps ordering stuff from me. That's great, but she doesn't give me much to go on and she sent back that last set for me to completely redo because she didn't like the colors AFTER she said they looked awesome. She just ordered more stuff for me to work on, and yet again, has not given me much to start with. Colorful bugs. Nothing in particular. Just lots of colorful bugs. UGH!!!! You HAVE to give me more than that! Especially if you didn't like my colors last time! If she doesn't like how they turn out when I'm done with them, then I am just going to have to put my foot down and tell her how it is...nicely and professionally of course. She wants wooden letters this time and those are harder to do than the simple canvases. I will show her each letter as I'm working on it to get her approval, but if she decides that she doesn't like the final product after I've sent it to her, then I just have to tell her that I am not repainting it this time. Don't give me freedom over a project and then complain that it's not what you wanted. I hate to be that way but it might come to that. But I hope not!

Yesterday I finally created a business page on Facebook for my paintings after a friend talked me into it. I only have four Likes so far and I honestly don't think that anyone is really going to care about it. I will give it a little time but I will probably end up taking it down. There's no point in having it up if it doesn't serve it's purpose. I guess we will see...

Avail-a-bullies

This is Karla. She is a gorgeous pitbull at a local rescue organization.

Ever since we lost Blaze over moving to Japan (HUGE regret) we have wanted to get another dog. Recently a friend of mine started watching a rescue group on Facebook and they just happen to be in my area. I got excited and started following them and another local group as well. I looked through dozens of photos of available pitbulls and read all of their stories, but none of them sparked my interest. Then the other day this picture and bio was posted. Immediately I felt "she's the one...that's my dog." I was hopeful that we might be able to foster and and then my family would warm up to the idea of letting me keep her. But the house we are living in right now isn't ours, and there are other animal residents to consider. The house is pretty full already with six humans and four cats. I talked to Tim about it a little bit but told him that I just couldn't ask his parents about it. I didn't really want him to ask either. I already knew the answer.

I have been really upset over this and I don't know why. Depressed and crying. This is ridiculous. I have been living with the fact for the last three years that we won't be able to get another dog for a long time, and understood when we got back to the states that it would still be a few more years before we could even think about it. Why is this one dog, this photo of a dog that I have never met, getting to me so bad?! And I realized that I am hurt over the thought of someone else adopting her. I just want to slap myself and snap out of it! I am completely overreacting and I feel stupid.

Well the local rescues are getting together at the end of October to hold an Awareness Day for pitbulls and I want to go. They need volunteers, which I love doing with animals, so I will go to help out or just meet all the dogs and support them. I will see if my friend here, Jen, wants to go with me too. It will be fun!

Etsy

I can't believe that summer is almost over! I'm sad about it but it means that great things are coming! Tim starting school, Tristan's birthday, FALL, and our wedding!

So not much new has been going on, but I have been painting more and working towards getting my Etsy shop set up! I've been wanting to do this for about a year now. I am so nervous about it but I won't know how it will turn out until I just jump in and try! Here are my two current works in progress:





I wish I had more time every day to work instead of just late at night when I'm too tired to do anything. Hopefully I will get these done soon. I have so many things that I want to paint right now!

Father's Day

Another important day today. For most people. Here it was just another day for the most part. Spent some time by the pool finally and got just tad too much sun. Unfortunately the water is way too cold to swim in and enjoy, but it's still nice to have around and they should be getting a heater put in pretty soon.
I came inside for a minute to get a drink with Tristan and didn't have my glasses on and Collie was not quite sure about me at all! She definitely clung to daddy this time which was really cute. She knew it was me by my voice but just couldn't get past me looking just a bit different I guess. She wouldn't let me hold her and she cried. So we went back out to the pool for a little while longer.
Tim and his dad went out to dinner at Olive Garden. I was a little sad about it because I wanted to cook one of Tim's favorite dinners for him, pork chops with chive sauce, since we never get to eat meat anymore. Was going to make some green beer for him too because he didn't get any on his birthday. I also thought that it would have been nice for them to take Tristan too but of course that didn't happen either.
He said that he will take Tristan to McDonald's tomorrow...

Birthday Bean!

Yesterday was Collie's first birthday! It was a pretty normal day. Tristan did some pretty bad things throughout the day, like eat almost a whole box of granola bars and get into the cake that I made for Collie. He made a big hole in the middle of it but luckily I was able to fix it so you couldn't tell. Nicole and Jason came over for most of the day. Everyone just hung around not doing much. I made avacado burgers, which I forgot AGAIN to take a nice picture of. After dinner we all went to the living room for presents!













She loved the sea horse and the smart wheels the most. Then of course after the presents it was time for CAKE!! We had been talking about how excited we were for this moment for months. She absolutely loves to eat so we knew that she would dig right into the cake like Tristan never did.





And she did! Of course then it was bath and bed time for her. She went to sleep with her new glowing sea horse lullabying her to sleep <3

Red Headed Woodpeckers

There is a small pine tree right on the front side of the house between the two offices. A couple of Red Headed Woodpeckers frequent this particular tree and it is lined up and down with small holes. It is really neat to watch them work away on the tree, as they seem to not even notice.

Yesterday I saw that one had perched on the window sill and was taking a nap with his head tucked under his wing.


Then he moved over to the other office window and I decided to try taking his picture from outside.



I don't know if he was sick, old, deaf, or just REALLY sleeping, but he did not even twitch while Tristan and I stood only about a yard away taking pictures.



Tristan was even yelling at him and pounding on the wood. I think I could have walked right up to him and grabbed him. But seeing as how sensitive birds are to shock, I probably would have killed it x___x



I am absolutely loving all of the fauna and flora here. A few species that you rarely get to see back home in Ohio. But I am still waiting on this bear to show itself!

Blog Book

One of my friends in Japan that went to high school with me, Satomi, just had her blog about life with her little son printed into a book. It looks so cute! Now I wish that I had done that too and currently feel motivated to seriously keep up with my own blog so I can have a cute book. But thinking about it, I usually have nothing worth mentioning when I do finally sit down to write. And I don't have all the nice pictures that most people add to their blogs :(

I know that it's never too late to start something, but that's exactly how I feel right now. I realize now that there are years of stuff that's not written down. It feels kind of dumb to just jump in the middle somewhere.

I guess that I could scrounge around through whatever I can find and throw something together :( Maybe that can be the prequel haha. But starting right now...hmmm...what to say....

Well...

Tristan is downstairs watching tv, Little Bear to be exact. Collie is taking her first nap of the day. Tim has also gone back to bed because he had to get up early to take the car into town to be checked out. The sensors have been going out a lot lately and there is no open recall on our individual car so we can't just have them reprogrammed for free :(
I had decided this morning to make pancakes for Tristan because we are out of granola bars, his favorite. I have always used Aunt Jemima mix but Tim had bought me Bisquick. It was SO frustrating getting the mix just right since I over measured the powder. I kept burning the pancakes because the batter was so thick and not bubbling so I wasn't flipping them over in time. Then of course Tristan is all over the kitchen talking and bothering me, Collie is circling my ankles, and I haven't had any coffee yet. All first thing in the morning. Ugh!
Michelle has been on vacation for a few days in the Dominican Republic and is coming home tonight, so I have been doing some extra cleaning around the house. Cleaning has actually become relaxing to me for some reason.
Collie will be waking up very soon and I wish I had taken a shower instead of writing this. I will just have to take a quick one after she wakes up. Then I can get the vacuuming done also. Collie loves the vacuum! Tristan always tells me not to vacuum her up haha :3

Mother's Day

Tim got up before I did to help his dad with another gun show over the weekend. So after waiting for Michelle to wake up, I made cinnamon rolls for us. Then, after what had been killing me since that Friday, I gave her the present that I had custom made for her: a hand stamped necklace with Tristan and Colleen's names on it. I have been meaning to get one for myself for a while now, but this gave me an excuse to actually buy one now haha. She seemed to really like it but then went right back to what she was doing on her computer, and keeping to herself around the house for the rest of the day as usual.
I was planning on making Pesto for dinner and sent Tim a message asking if he could bring home some bread for garlic toast. He said no because Michelle was making for me this awesome fish dinner that I love. I knew nothing of this so after a while of no Michelle in sight, I tracked her down and asked her about the fish. She confirmed, and I carried on with my lonely day.
Later she was getting ready to start dinner, and I went upstairs to call my mom. I heard Tim come home as the kids were really starting to drive me crazy, as is the routine whenever I decided to actually talk on the phone.
I had just about had it, when Tim came in to get a change of clothes for his shower. I just about bit his head off when he walked out and left me with a crying baby at my feet who wanted to leave with him. Then he came back in, picked up Collie, told me to fucking calm down, and to get dressed to go out to dinner. Uuuummmmm.....what?
So I end my very unsuccessful conversation with my mom and go downstairs to see what's going on. We're all going out? But MumMum is cooking...??
Turns out that only Tim and I are going out to dinner....AND there are a dozen roses on the table with a card. Tim and I had had a few rocky words that morning about a problem we were having, so I was truly surprised by this. The card was absolutely perfect...to the point where I wondered if he had actually had it custom made haha. (He had got it that day!)



Elaborating on our issue, family vs. WoW, was a bit upsetting and almost scary, but we cleared up some unknowns and always come back around by the end of it. He actually thought that I wanted to have kids to replace him and fill the hole left by all the time he plays on the game! Wow...no pun intended haha. I have no idea where he got that crazy idea. I have kids AND a husband so I have a FAMILY. So we just need to get back on track with family time. I definitely don't want him to quit the game and I pride myself on being a wife that is NOT controlling. It's his hobby and he loves it. Just a little toooo much.
Oh, and to top it all off, he forgot to call his mom haha! Now she is mad at him about it. The woman who doesn't believe in celebrating birthdays expects recognition on a made up holiday.

Spring

Totally forgot about this blog. I hate that! I wish I could just keep up with it like I want to. But then again, no one reads it. Caught up on a few of the blogs that I follow so I'm motivated to write something, but don't really know what :( It would be nice if I had interesting or funny things to say.

Not a whole lot has changed around here. I still hang out with the kids mostly and obsess over the computer every chance I get. Michelle, my mother in law (Tim's stepmom...his real mom is dead to me) works everyday, and Tim and his dad sit in their offices all day and do their own things. I definitely feel the pressure now to cook every night, which is fine I guess since MumMum (Michelle) is the one with a real job and supporting the rest of the household for the most part. And as far as eating goes, I'm happy to say that Tim and I have pretty much become vegetarians. I rarely eat meat anymore and I don't even crave it. I'm not trying to get meat out of my diet for any reason other than the fact that Tim's parents have become vegetarians, and I must feed them. I do miss all of my meaty recipes that I used to cook but it's not bothering me. We will eat them again eventually. We have also pretty much cut fast food out of our diet as well, which I love. But why haven't I lost any weight from any of this??

I have also started sewing again finally. Not a lot, but I'm working on it. Although I am not happy with how this first project is turning out. I wish some of my work turned out as cute as they are on paper!

It is finally spring here and it's starting to get really beautiful around here! Daffodil season, my absolute favorite, has come and gone...the whole two weeks that it is. Bear season however is just starting. We've already had a black bear get into a lot of our trash and haul it up the steep hill that the house sits at the base of. Cleaning that up was NOT fun. Apparently the bears here, and Black Bears in general, are pretty docile. While I am afraid, I really want to see one!

Easter was a couple of weeks ago and it was nice to finally have fun with it with Tristan. He got his first basket and first egg hunt. Then we all, with Nicole and Jason, had a big awesome dinner. Tim's parents even made turkey and ham, which they gave in and ate as well.
Mother's Day is on Sunday and I got Michelle and present and I am SO freaking excited to give it to her! I kinda feel bad for not getting my own mother anything, but this particular item would have been put away and forgotten. I thought of a few other things, but anything I would give her would see the same fate...tucked away somewhere and forgotten. Not because it's completely unappreciated, but because my mom's existence consists solely of laying in bed watching tv or sleeping, and drinking. In fact, I am willing to bet that she will be wasted this weekend and I won't even get to talk to her. *sigh*

Lastly I believe, would be that Collie bean is walking! Not only is she walking at ten months old, but she started walking about two months ago. She has eight teeth now with a ninth moving around somewhere.

I think that brings me up to date on everything. I'm starving and it's time to get started on dinner.

Home

Totally not feeling this update, but I need to get it out of the way....

Well here we are, finally back in the United States. We flew in to PA last week on Tuesday the 15th. Tim got his orders and we had six days to leave the island, two of those days were the weekend so Tim really only had four days to out process. It was absolute insanity trying to get everything done in time. But thankfully we managed to still be there when the movers came to pack up all of our stuff! They came the day before we flew out so it was very stressfull. Every airport gave us trouble along the way also and they charged us a ton of money for the cats too. The kids did do better than expected on the planes though.
So we've just been hanging out at Tim's dad's house...bored. It's so cold! We're definitely not used to this kind of weather. I can't wait for spring. It will be so pretty to see the other seasons here since the house is way out in the country. Anyways, my computer had died a few weeks ago and Tim ordered me a new one a few days ago. It arrived yesterday so he's been spending all of his time trying to get it set up right. It hasn't been going very well since we wanted to put my old hard drive in it. He's spent a lot of money this week so I'm not too happy about that. He bought a Droid phone yesterday. I need to get a phone but don't know what I want yet. Everything is smart phones now and I just don't care for them at all. Right before we left Oki I managed to talk Tim into doing our taxes and it came in just in time. So I'm SO glad that we have the money now and I don't want Tim blowing through it. He's got one last paycheck coming at the end of the month which is awesome. We just have to make the money last as long as we can.
I should be going out this weekend to a craft store because I've been so bored and wondering if I should try making some things to keep busy. I wish that I had brought all of my supplies with me. I hate to buy all new stuff so maybe I'll just get a few simple things. Once I've made a few things I'll put them up on Etsy and see how it goes. I definitely don't want to get overwhelmed if it goes well. There's so many things that I want to make though that I'm not sure where to start.
Okay, well now I've completely lost my train of thought, so hopefully I'll update again soon...

When One Door Closes, Another Opens

Tim went back to work on the 5th. He picked up Collie's passport finally...nice of them to email him at work instead of just calling us at home! Then he talked to his first shirt about his discharge paperwork. He didn't have it yet because he didn't want to go pick it up from the legal office while Tim was on leave. But he said that he needed to talk about something else instead that was really important. They have been authorized to offer Tim a job in the shop as a DoD civilian! Apparently some arguing was done with the base commander about how crucial it is to keep Tim around. The commander won't let Tim stay in the AF but is giving him a chance to stay in the shop. So now they have to set up a job position for him to see if it's even possible to keep Tim here. We weren't sure at first if we even wanted to take it because we have finally accepted the harsh reality that we have to start our lives over and we are really ready to go home. But after sleeping on it and talking to some people, we realized that this is happening for a reason and we should go for it. If it works out then we stay and hopefully be more prepared to leave the island when it is time to go again. If it doesn't work out then we just continue on home now as planned. Part of me is sad though because I was really looking forward to getting the kids home to see everybody. But like I said, this is happening for a reason and we should try to stay. Nobody knows any details yet since the job hasn't actually been created yet and I don't think it has been done in his shop before. Hopefully we will find out more sometime this week and it won't end up being a huge hassle for us. And since Tim still has to be discharged from the military either way, he thinks that they will probably serve him when he goes back to work tomorrow. When that happens he has to be escorted to all of his out-processing locations...so he gets it done quickly and doesn't try to kill anyone or himself...like he couldn't just do that outside of work if he really wanted...whatever.
So now we just sit and play another waiting game to find out about the possible new job...

Hello 2011

Since I just posted yesterday I really don't have much new to write about today. Just felt like posting a little something.
I spent my New Year's Eve watching the first disc of the second season of The United States of Tara. I should be watching the second disc right now but Tristan had a late nap and is still up. He should fall asleep pretty soon though. Hopefully by the time I'm done writing this entry he will be passed out and I can go back downstairs. Tim just played his game all last night, and the kids went to bed early. If there were any fireworks being set off outside the base then I missed them. Usually we can see them from the house.
Both kids were feeling much better today and I woke up thinking that I was coming down with it. Slightly runny nose and sore throat. It hasn't gotten any worse today so hopefully it will stay back. I actually took a nap today so that was nice.
Collie decided to start her new year with a new tooth! I didn't notice it at all yesterday so a lot came through last night. It's her fifth tooth and the fourth one just came in a few days ago on our anniversary. So two new teeth pretty much at the same time would definitely explain her temperature yesterday. Five teeth at six months old is crazy! Tristan was just getting his first tooth at this age, and he was way ahead of the other babies his age. She is so close to sitting up on her own now too. She can do it for a few seconds before falling over. I think that she will take to walking very quickly as well. She can do it if she's holding on to my hands with me walking behind her, just supporting her and not guiding. Tristan started walking on his own at ten months so we'll see what Collie does. She is still trying to keep her knees up under when when slithering around the house on the floor, but as soon as she's able to stand it's gonna be all over. I was really looking forward to all the little baby stuff again but she is just growing too fast! Pretty soon she will be beating up Tristan haha.
Tomorrow I have to go to the commissary and hopefully get a couple errands done off base. I need to go to the yen store and schedule an appointment for my tattoo. Monday I'm calling the travel agency on base to get a seat for the Battle of Okinawa tour IF they have any left. If not I am going to be very upset because I have been trying to get on this thing for a couple of months now. I also have to call the hospital for Collie's six month check up and four month shots....yes I have been slacking quite a bit. Tuesday is Tim's last day of leave, although he said he could extend it for two more days since he just got them for this month but we'll see. Then after he goes back to work we will find out the lastest on his discharge. No one has called and he hasn't been served so I'm extremely curious to know what's up. Hopefully we won't get jumped with a ton of last second shit that someone was too lazy to contact us about, like being told that the movers are coming the next day haha. We wouldn't even let them in the house if something like that happened.
Well I guess I ended up having a lot more to say than I thought! And Tristan is still awake, whispering to himself. I will have to just leave and see what happens. I'm starving!