Prolific Blogger Award....

so recently i've received 2 awards, and NOW i am here to give thanks and pass them along. =)

i'm sincerely flattered for them and appreciate the heck out of them!

so thank you Pat and Ms. Anthropy!!

First things first.... I'd received my 2nd award from Pat this weekend, and was beginning to think he was my only fan. ha! (which would still be flattering, becuase he's a phenomenal writer for sure) no, i'm not one to base my "success" on my awards.... i just like to hope that someone can and will be inspired by some of the stories i share and MAYBE they'll think or treat their loved ones a tad bit differently (and more lovingly and appreciative).... and if that happens, then this blog is far more successful than receiving any awards, HOWEVER, i accept (and with GREAT appreciation) the "Prolific Blogger Award" (most of you already know who Pat is, as most of you came over from his anyway. ha! but thanks for being here! i'm happy you are!)

These things require lots of work (and work requires time) and i have a migraine, and my eyes are burning.... i'm going to excuse myself from the computer for a while (but with GREAT APPRECIATION still!!!!) and i WILL get on here and put in the work to pass this lovely award along.... please hang tight and hope this migraine goes away.

Thank you again, Pat, for being my biggest fan (i think?) You have given me 66% of my awards. =) thank you tons!

big girls don't cry.

i had to share this with you guys.....

hopefully it will make you laugh (or smile) as much as it cracked me up.

this is my daughter....

and this is what i get for teaching her how to use photobooth on our computer a while back.

=)

make sure your volume is turned up enough to hear it and then press play. =)

Thank you new folks!

Thank you to all my new followers!!! I've had quite a few new ones since Pat mentioned me in his blog. Thank you for that. didn't expect it, but it's flattering none the less.

sorry i've been unable to catch up with every single one of you, but i'm trying!! =) would love to check out all your blogs as well. thanks again for joining!!!

it's a peevin' (good) friday....

i can complain today... because today is friday, which means my husband will be off, and that's a good thing, and well when i complain, i will complain with a smile on my face because he will be home, and if i keep in mind that he'll be home, then i won't really be mad while i complain.

make sense?

but these things bug me anyway:

- people who cut you off so close that you swore they may have just clipped your car.... in fact when you park your car at home, you even check your bumper just in case....

- people who cut you off and then turn their blinker on (allowing it to flash once) just so they can say that they made the attempt. (ladies and gentlemen, this would be my husband, who then responds with "at least i made an attempt.")

- when lewie doesn't sleep through the night.

- when i FINALLY fall back asleep and then taylor walks in to my room and says in the most annoying voice you've ever heard.... "moooooom?"

- when my cereal gets soggy before i finish the bowl.

- when i tell Asia to go potty in the bushes and she acts like she's going to the dirt, but then stops on the sidewalk to poop.

- when i tell lewie to say mama and he smiles at me and gets his mouth ready to say mama, but then says "DADA!"

- when i dust the furniture and then sit down to enjoy freshly dusted furniture and it's already dusty.... wait, how did that just happen?!

- when someone asks "what can i do to help?" and then you tell them, and then they say "oh, i can't do that." or they just ignore you. then why did you ask what you could do in the first place?

- when i always have to decide where or what to eat for dinner.... can't anyone else just make this decision? doesn't like the entire world know how indecisive i am?

- other people's expectations of me.... that REALLY bugs me.... that if i don't do what they want me to do or the way they want me to do it, they get mad.... i mean, we're all guilty of this. but i just don't like when people do this to ME....

okay, so that's all for now.

on a much brighter note, it's friday. that means i have the weekend with my husband and kiddos and the days are expected to be beautiful!

jason said we could foster pups (big smiles).... but we can't keep any (and i'm okay with that).... oh and jason asked for a date night this weekend. =) that makes me REALLY happy. i love date nights with him. =)

what peeves you guys? BUT if you tell me what peeves you, you've also gotta tell me what you're looking forward to. ;)

a boy named ashley.

forgive me PLEASE, as I had every intention of mentioning what sparked this blog!!! I was reading A Mainland Streel's lovely blog entry, when I was reminded of a picture of myself I'd just found a few days before.... While leaving a comment for her, I felt the stir of emotions arise, and I knew I needed to go straight to the blog for this post....

I have very many memories of so much of my life, that often many of my stories are from my past, (or are my venting sessions of the present), either way, they're all true.... all real life experiences as this one was too....

i believe, with all of my heart and soul, that our childhood (or life) experiences shape us into the person we become.... but not JUUUST our life's experiences, but what we choose to learn (yeah that's right, i put it in yellow!) from our life's experiences.... THAT combined, makes us the people we are today....

i don't know when it started.... me being ugly and all, probably pretty much when i was born.... well maybe at like 9 or 10 months, when my head started taking over my body. and then it just got worse with age. my first pair of glasses came at 5 years of age. (as i've mentioned before, i still own EVERY single pair of glasses i've ever owned....)

middle school was when it just got bad.... ugly.... hairy.... REALLY ugly.... i started this "love for my dad" thing, starting right around 5th grade.... planned to go move to tennessee to live with him.... planned how i was going to decorate my room (everything was going to be dogs, dog wall paper, dog bedding, dog statues.... dog EVERYTHING).... one time when he came out to visit us, we went to the swap meet, and bought me a "stussy" hat (remember stussy?) .... i even took up his LOVE for hats.... so after my daily (or every other day) showers, I'd brush my hair (more like slick it) back and pull it through the back of the hat and into a tight little bun.... my hair would eventually dry underneath my hat.... so when i'd remove my hat at my day's end, my hair remained in place (and slicked back).... i started growing (adult) teeth out of my gums before i'd lost my baby teeth.... and finally in 6th grade, i was old enough to have my teeth looked at by an orthodontist.... finally i was going to be able to get braces.... well no one told me that i was going to be put in front of a white wall and have my face mutilated with these clear plastic shoe horns (well that's what they looked like anyway, but really they were just there to pull my cheeks apart) i could have done that and made a really silly face while doing so (of course, my face was already pretty scary and funny looking, so no one would have probably noticed that i was actually trying to make an ugly face, which then wouldn't have made it that funny)....

so anyway.... as i was saying...

the whole "move to tennessee from california to go live with my dad in a dog filled bedroom" idea didn't work out, and i totally changed my mind when my mom broke down crying in her peach terry cloth robe with a towel on her head one morning.... (which is an entirely different story in itself)....

i didn't think she'd care if i left.

i didn't think she'd miss me, but SHE CRIED....

she was totally going to miss me....

i felt HORRIBLY (horrible and wonderful)... horrible for making her feel so bad, and wonderful that she really cared if i left or not.... i never forgot that morning.... we went into this conversation about eric clapton and that song "tears in heaven" and how it was written about his little boy who fell to his death from their building. (ugh! i can't even imagine!)

anyway.... i stayed in california (and ugly) for quite some more time....

the orthodontist took pictures and even the ones without the clear shoehorns in my mouth, still look like i was beaten with the dang ugly stick.

see: "a boy named ashley" below.

THIS was the freakin picture they put on my orthodontist folder, so EVERY time i'd go for an appointment for like the next 3 years, i'd get my folder from the front desk. you walk it to the back of the building and put it in this CLEAR bin in the back of all the other charts.... yeah, well by the time mine came up to the front of the CLEAR bin, this is the picture that everyone saw.... the person would grab the folder and look around for this "boy".... and i'd stand up and they'd always kinda double take (well that was after i slowly started the sex change process to become female) okay, so no, i really WAS a girl, i just looked like a boy... and THIS is the picture that made me STOP wearing hats, and actually go shopping for a skirt rather than my "no fear" boy's shorts....

i do have a rather funny story to tell you about before i made the "back to girl" transition. i used to wear boy's "no fear" shorts. true story. i had this t shirt that my mom got me from san francisco.... it had like 3 fish on it or something like that.... i had my stussy hat on and rollerblades.... my older sister and i were rollerblading over to her good friend Chris's house and we were hanging out on the front porch just chatting and enjoying the beautiful summer weather.... His mom comes home and parks in the driveway, gets out of her car and says from her car "I didn't know you had a sister" (she said that to Melissa, my older sister).... she gets her purse and grocery bags out of the car and starts walking towards the front porch.... the CLOSER she gets, she looks at me and says "oh! i'm sorry!!! i thought you were a girl!!!!"

OHHHHH MYYYYYY GOOOODNESS!!!! say WHAT?! if i've EVER wanted to flash someone in my life, it was at that moment.... (of course 2 mosquito bites wouldn't have been very convincing that i was indeed a girl....) she probably would have just looked at me and thought... "well that was strange.... why did that boy just flash me his hairless chest?" so needless to say, i didn't flash her, but instead just swallowed the huge lump that instantaneously formed in my throat and said "but i AM a girl...."

and i got up onto my rollerblades, and very hockey-playerishly, rollerbladed down the driveway, jumped off the curb and circled around in the street a few times.... (which, again, probably wasn't very convincing that i was INDEED a girl....)

she mumbled something about not having her glasses on.... and i really never forgot that horrible moment, but in fact laugh about it today.... which is good. i LEARNED from that experience that i wasn't a VICTIM, but that i didn't want to be mistaken for a boy for the rest of my life.... that it was a possibility that at some point in my life i might actually WANT a boyfriend....

this was right around the time that i'd first seen jason.... (my now, handsome husband).... i liked him a whole boatload, and he somehow didn't even know i existed.... perhaps THIS is why his mom told me to wait until i was in high school and that we'd probably date then?? whatever it was.... i'm DANG lucky that i have such a studly husband.... i hope and pray that taylor NEVER goes through " a boy named Ashley" phase....

flight line and teardrops. (originally written on august 14th, 2008)

flight line and teardrops....
rain in the summer.

cars, like ants, we drove on base.
seemingly knew to flock to the same area....
"the food" (for ants), i suppose....
is where we all parked....

herds of families walked in together....
children, children.
so many children.
so many wives.
and hearts.
and welcome home signs....
the ushers at the entrance passing out tiny american flags.
and red, white and blue pom poms....
all for us to cheer our marines in....
to welcome them home....

i kept my shades over my eyes....

we shuffled in and sat in the large room....
a large television overhead and seats everywhere....
vending machines.
tables covered in playdoh for the kids....
and a snack room....
with snacks and drinks covering the tables for anyone who cared to munch.
not i.
i sat uneasy.

i looked around this large room....
everyone here for the same reason as i.
to welcome someone home.
what about the ones who weren't here today?
what about the ones who SHOULD have been here today,
but weren't.....
what about them?
where were they?
what were THEY doing?
it hurt....

this is REALITY....
Man, this is our reality.
this is real life....
and just another normal day in the life of the military....

another group of our men and women coming home....
after being gone for MONTHS!!!!

this blonde woman in a knee length black dress talks over the speaker....
"your marines are about 30 minutes away. i will get on here and let you know when they are about 15 minutes away, and at that time, you will be allowed to head out to the flight line and wait for your marine."

....

.... no more than about 7 minutes passed, and she was back.
that blonde in the black dress....

"your marines are about 10 minutes away now. you may head outside to the flight line and wait for their arrival.... CON-GRAT-U-LA-TIONS!!!! You did it!!!!"

man!....
man oh man oh man oh man.....
this is INSAAAAANE!

we all walk out to the flight line.
there are red tents for those who would like to avoid the sun.

and there.
there was the marine corps band.
they are quite a musical group.
i mean, really.
all it took was one song.
no, wait.
just the beginning of one song, to bring tears to my eyes....
the played to the left,
as everyone gathered at the flight line....
what an INTENSE feeling....
on the ground....
a bunch of men and women walking around....
you felt like you were a part of top gun.
the rumbling of the ground....
the vibrations in your chest,
as the planes and jets roared their engines and flew outta there....
what an AMAZING view....
a fantastic one....

but where was OUR jet....
the one that held OUR marines?
the crowd of people searched the skies....
and off to the left.
up in the clouds.
there was a tiny white light....
the front of their plane coming in....
and the light got bigger....
and closer....
and lower.....

and the sound of the jet got louder.
and louder.
and closer.
and this HUUUGE oversized jet
FINALLY
touched down....
speeding past us....
and off to the right....

about 5 minutes later, it comes taxiing back.
and rests to the right....
the stairs are pushed against the plane....
and within a few moments,
the door slides up....
this jet is a BEAST!!!!
it's HUUUUGE!

at this point Taylor is crying uncontrollably!!!!
holy cow.
my right arm is shaking from holding her weight for so long.
I want to put her down, but she can't see if i do...
she's clenching me sooo tightly....
her nerves, probably so much greater than mine....
and mine were stomach turning on a 135 pounder.
i can only imagine what hers were like on a little 55 pounder....
but i tell you this....
when her tears fell....
so did mine....
and when her heart ached....
so did mine....
(it's amazing how that works when you become a parent.....
never before have i been so directly affected by someone else...
but HER.... HER heart is directly attached to mine, i tell you....)

minutes pass, and here they come....
OUR MARINES....
piling off the plane!
i couldn't see Jason, but I knew he was there...
I saw marine after marine....
and so started the tears.....
those men and women,
touching U.S. ground again....
Welcome Home troops....
Welcome Home....

and they hand in their weapon....
and sign in for their rooms.
get their room key....
and wait for their bags.....
their bags that are brought in on this HUGE truck....
green bags just PILED on this truck.
to us.... that's what it looks like.... a bunch of green bags....
but to our troops, these bags are their lives for these past months....
their lives were stuffed into these "green bags."

and like clockwork, all these men, lined up....
shoulder to shoulder.... starting from the back of the truck.
and handed these bags down this file of strong men....
none of them seeming to become tired....
sweat dripping off of every single one of them,
but not one of them slowing down....
the bags made it down the file to the very last man, where he would drop the bag
in no particular order or sequence....
and finally about 15 minutes later all of these hundreds of bags
made up rows and rows of our soldiers lives....

i stood in the middle of all the passing marines,
looking down at their boots....
there was still sand in them....
there was still sand from iraq in their boots....
our troops are home,
but just hours before, stood on war grounds....
it made me overcome with such a wide range of emotions....
a part of me overjoyed they were home safely...
another part of me soooooo disturbed that they were even there to begin with....

one of the marines loud voice, yells over the crowds "LISTEN UP MARINES!!!! DOES ANYONE NEED TRANSPORTATION TO THE BARRACKS?"

I quickly looked up....
and around....
if someone needed transportation to the barracks,
that meant they probably didn't have anyone waiting for them when they arrived.
I looked around....

His voice asked again, "DOES ANYONE NEED TRANSPORTATION TO THE BARRACKS?"

He paused.
once more, "TRANSPORTATION TO THE BARRACKS? ANYONE?"

No one seemed to need transportation at that time....
I exhaled....
to me that meant everyone had somebody....

He smiled....
as did i....

about 5 minutes later, I heard a young man say to another, "where can I get a ride to the barracks?"

I quickly turned around and there was a tall sandy blonde haired gentleman with round glasses on, standing alone holding his pack on his back, and that "green bag" over his shoulder and a black briefcase looking bag in his other hand....

I turned and said, "Thank you for what you've done. I am glad you're home safely.... Welcome Home!!!!"

I just wanted to hug him....
but you don't know what to do.....
you don't know how they are feeling emotionally.
you know?
i found this same exact feeling when I worked in the hospital....
when i'd meet a cancer patient for the very first time....
what do you say to them, you know?
how do you act towards them?
how are THEY feeling?
do you say you are sorry?
what if they aren't sorry?
what if you offend them by saying you're sorry?
i didn't want to make it any more awkward than it already was....
and so i just touched his arm and said, "welcome home," again.....

all the while,
my shades never left my nose...
because if they did....
these brave brave troops would see how incredibly weak i really was....
tears unable to stop pouring from my eyes as i walked this flight line....
To see Taylor in Jason's arms was incredible.
It really was.....

but my heart didn't stop there.....
there were so many others as well....
so many reunions....
husbands.
wives.
children.
parents.
newborns.
aunts.
uncles.
grandparents.
godparents....
boyfriends.
girlfriends.
brothers.
sisters.
friends.
fellow troops.
it goes on.
and on.
and on.
and i was just here.....

just another ant....
on another normal day.
in the life of the military.....
wishing i could do more.
say more.
give more.

and yet, all i could do,
was walk this FLIGHT LINE....
with my American Flag.
Pom poms.
AND TEARDROPS.....

Welcoming Home our brave men and women....

the kings on a budget

okay, so "the Kings on a budget" looks something like this.

saturday: make a boatload of lasagna, so there is DEFINITELY enough for leftovers.... at least for 2 more meals....

sunday: eat leftover lasagna. plan the meals for the rest of the week, or at least until friday which is payday again.

monday: only enough leftover lasagna for jason and i (poor taylor is rather grateful, as she doesn't like picking the onions out of the lasagna for 3 nights.... 2 was the limit) so i whip her up a dang quesadilla (and snag a piece because i'm starving) and then cut up the rest so that she doesn't even know a piece is missing.... i snack on 3 thin mints, thinking that i totally just got away with it, when jason comes in the kitchen (from his shower) and says "eatin' thin mints while cookin huh?" he must've smelled the chocolate mint on my breath.... (i'd like to think it smelled at least somewhat minty).

tuesday: i run out of bodywash, so decide to use shampoo instead. wonder if shampoo washes your body as well as it washes your hair.... re-wash with jason's bodywash, and hope he doesn't wonder why i smell like a man when he gets home.... realize that lewie doesn't have enough formula to make it through the day, so i'm going to have to go to the store (costco) anyway, which makes me nervous, because Costco is never just a "trip to the store." it's always like "at least a hundred dollar trip to the store...... IF you're lucky." and you usually walk out spending like two hundred and fifty, and then you feel like you can't leave the house for the next 3 weeks because you totally just spent too much.... you go for formula and end up leaving with said formula, and a baby monitor.... and a huge rug to put in the 3rd bedroom so that you can move the baby in there and actually get some sleep tonight..... and some french bread pizza, because the sample on the aisle's end was far too good to pass up, and like a gallon of vegetable oil, cuz you were gonna make brownies and it called for 1/4 cup of vegetable oil, and well, getting a gallon at costco was like such a better deal than buying it at the grocery store (even if you don't use vegetable oil for like another year, it was totally worth it)....

anyway.... i am currently in the process of using my imagination and "walking" through costco, and i'm imagining passing all the aisles that i don't NEED stuff from.... and imagining all the aisles that i DO need stuff from. i'm ONLY going to get what we NEED and LEAVE.... wish me luck on that one.

then tonight, we are using our 10 dollar pizza hut gift card to order something super cheap at pizza hut, (even if it is the 2 pastas for 10 dollars on tuesday deal), because then that buys us another meal without having to go grocery shopping for....

wednesday: we are having dinner at moms. corned beef and cabbage.... which i'm not a HUGE fan of, but everyone says she makes it well, and it'll be our st. patty's day celebration, because you all know how irish our japanese family is.... (okay so not really, but you get the point).... it's another meal we don't have to shop for, and well, quite frankly, we have a pretty cool family that we like hanging out with a few (6 times) a week (okay, so not really six, but it feels like it. i see them a lot, and i'm not complaining, well unless.... nevermind. i'll just leave it at that).....

and then thursday..... well then thursday there are no plans yet.... except for the fact that i will have to cook again. and after looking in the fridge, freezer and cupboards, i am going to make baked chicken, corn and mashed potatoes, because we have all the stuff needed for that.... and well that's just another meal that we don't have to go grocery shopping for....

and then friday... well friday is payday and time to go grocery shopping again.... we will have food for the week and i will no longer smell like a man.... =)