And then there were three

Off and on for the last several months, Robert and I have been talking about expanding our family. And by expanding, I don’t mean my waistline. I’m talking about a four legged, floppy eared, wiggly tailed, bundle of fluff. Robert’s wanted a puppy for as long as I’ve known him but the deployment put those plans on hold. Or so I thought.

In April of this year, I got an email that Robert had found the perfect puppy. What?? You’re not coming home until September! I can’t raise a puppy from now until September by myself! Yep, that’s me- Little Miss Panic Attack.

The good news was that the world’s most perfect puppy hadn’t been born yet so I had time to research food, register for puppy class, puppy proof the house, and generally wrap my head around the idea of being a puppy parent. Isn’t it funny how quickly Little Miss Panic Attack can turn into Little Miss Masterplanner?

With the puppy plans settled, all we had left to decide on was the name. Robert chose the first name- Chet- and I convinced him to let me choose the middle. As a joke, I told him it should be Ercheze so that his full name would sound like Cheddar Cheese. Robert didn’t find that too funny but somehow it stuck and more days than not, our baby is referred to as “Chetter” or “The Cheese”.

Chet came to our home in July and despite a few growing pains and one chewed up cell phone charger, it’s been a fun couple of months.

I'm sure The Cheese will make regular appearances here; after all, he's a member of the family... our family of three.





The Boys of Fall

If you’ve known me for at least two minutes, you know that I love, love, love football. Well, I take that back. If you knew me in high school, you know I performed with the drill team for every football game but that I couldn’t tell a hash mark from a Hail Mary. We went to socialize, not watch the game, and I couldn’t even tell you the final score by the time I got home. But somewhere between high school and now, I actually started learning what was happening on the field and I fell in love with the game. I’m not an expert by any means but I know enough these days not to ask stupid questions when I’m in mixed company. I actually even impress myself sometimes (but not very often!)

I’m a supremely lucky gal because Robert loves football as much as I do. He’s a lot more vocal about it, mind you, but if there’s a game on, we’re pretty happy campers. If I could only get him to pull for my teams… but I know that’s a lost cause; he remarked Sunday that “there’s nothing like loyalty” so I guess we’ll just agree to disagree.

But the one thing we do agree on is that there’s not anything much better than a game on a perfect fall afternoon so we headed out on Saturday to watch the Carolina Tarheels host the Pirates from East Carolina University.

We couldn’t have asked for a better day. The weather was picture perfect- not a cloud in the sky but a moderate 75ish with a slight breeze. The seats were fantastic- 50 yard line, of course! The company was amazing as always; there’s nothing that isn’t fun when Robert’s around.

Carolina won but I guess some things never change; it occurs to me right now that after spending an entire afternoon actually watching the game, I still can’t tell you the final score. J

Sometimes Behind is Right in Front

When I decided to start this blog again, I said I'd put the deployment behind us and was ready to move full steam ahead toward the future. As it turns out, I was, as we like to say at our house, "less than right".

Yesterday, after Robert received a standing ovation from the congregation at church welcoming him home, I looked at the bulletin and noticed it was September 23. September 23? Last September 23, I was dropping him off to get on that plane bound for lands I never want to think about. I remember the foggy drive down to the base, the tearful goodbye, the miserable ride home, and the endless string of sleepless nights that followed. As I sat there, it dawned on me that deployment is not something you put behind you; it's one of those things that you carry with you always. It's not in your central line of vision but it's always there, blurry in the corner of your peripheral view. From time to time, it'll remind you that it's there, sort of like a sore muscle or that bruise you'd almost forgotten... until you touch it.  So I guess the memories associated with deployment and the year we spent apart will raise their little noggins from time to time; it's to be expected I suppose. I just hope that when they lift their little eyes to mine, I'll smile and be reminded to appreciate what I have and to not take any moment for granted. After all, it's soldiers like Robert who are protecting our liberties and our freedoms, those things we so often take for granted, that gave me those memories in the first place. Even though they aren't always pleasant little jaunts down memory lane, to honor him, I will honor them.

I know that the new memories created over the coming days will far outweigh the old memories of the past year. Case in point- we had a FANTASTIC weekend and I'll tell you all about it tomorrow...

In the meantime, I hope your weekend was worthy of a scrapbook page and that your week will be something special, something fantastic, something MORE.

Remember me?

After much consideration and some gentle nudging from Robert, I've decided it's time to blow the dust off this blog and get back to doing what I love with people I love and sharing it all with you.

Where have I been the past 9 months? If you followed the blog the last time around, you know that Robert left in September 2011 for a year long deployment to somewhere most folks can't pronounce. Having been married only a short six weeks, it goes without saying that a marriage built on love but held together by skype and email is a special sort of challenge but one that we accepted and, I think, mastered. To be honest, being apart sorta took the creative wind out of my blogging sails (Either that or all of my creative energies were directed to care packages and daily snail mail) so at the end of the year, I let the blog lapse. It just wasn't fun to do things without Robert and when I did do something fun, I felt guilty that he was stuck somewhere having anything but fun so I didn't really want to publish my good times to the world or to my 16 blog followers, as the case may be.

But September 9, 2012, all of that changed. It's funny what happens when a plane lands on the flight line and you finally see your husband after 352 days of being apart. In the same moment that you're beyond thrilled to hold him, you realize that you've been holding your breath for a solid year. You allow yourself that first breath and all of the fear and worry you couldn't acknowledge while he was away bubbles up from the place where it's been pushed down all year. In the same instant that you're overwhelmed with gratitude that he's home safe, you wonder if you have the stamina to do another year of this should he have to go somewhere else. At the same time that you're feeling all of this heavy stuff, you feel like a huge weight has been lifted. It's a confusing mix of thrilled and terrified; elated and exhausted; anticipation and anxiety but at the same time, it's amazing to know that he's home where he belongs and that things are going to be just fine.

And in a day or two, when all of that emotion settles back down and life begins to return to "normal", you realize that things are more than just fine; they're fantastic! The past is in the past, today is a gift, and tomorrow holds the promise of something wonderful. There are lots of adventures on our calendar to be shared and I hope that you'll hop on, buckle up, and enjoy the ride on our crazy roller coaster life.

Thanks for stopping by the blog. I hope to see you again soon! In the meantime, as always, make today something special, something memorable, something MORE.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

One year ago, I had a simple little life. It wasn’t necessarily boring; it just wasn’t as fulfilled as I knew it could be. I was stuck, as they say back home, right square in the middle of a rut; I needed a push to get me out of it. I took an encourager’s advice and started this blog as a way to create some accountability for trying new things and seeing what I could learn along the way.

So, one year later, did it work? Let’s see…

I plunged into a swimming pool of freezing cold water and learned that there is such a thing as “too cold to eat ice cream”.

I rappelled down a 32 story building and decided to leave the tall buildings to Spiderman from now on.

I participated in a Zumba marathon and took a few dance classes; I learned, again, that I dance like a frog in a blender.

I went to my first major league baseball game and after 13 long innings, remembered why I like football better.

I ziplined through a forest and decided that was as close to skydiving as I want to get.

I parasailed the Florida Keys and learned that anything done with my best friend makes for a great adventure.

I went behind the scenes with the band and almost made it to the tour bus. I was reminded that being a friend is more fun than being a fan.

I met a few MMA superstars and realized that you really can’t judge a book by its cover.

By all accounts, I had a lot of fun adventures in 2011 but as it turns out, the one thing to make my life all it was meant to be wasn’t a thing after all. It was, and is, and always will be, a person.

In March, I had my very last first date and found out that there are men out there who will talk to you even though there’s a game on the big screen.

In May, he asked me to love him forever and I finally understood what they mean when they say 'when you know, you know'.

In August, we had a perfect-for-us wedding by the lake and I was reminded that if you get to spend Happily Ever After with your best friend, nothing else matters.

And in September, I stood semi-bravely by as the man of my dreams got on a plane for unmentionable places. I’m still learning what I’m learning from this…

My 2011 was beyond my wildest imagination and more than anything I could have dreamed. I do believe it was my Best. Year. Yet. As you look back over your 2011, I hope you find amazing adventures outside of your comfort zone and special memories somewhere outside of your box. I hope that your 2011 was something new, something different, Something More.

Cheesy Chaos

Hi! Remember me? Apparently, I’ve been gone so long that I could write my name in the dust that’s been collecting on this blog. I partially blame it on Pinterest J

In the past few weeks, I’ve spent all my extra time making a dry erase calendar for our kitchen and Christmas gifts for friends and family. There’s no doubt in my mind that Pinterest is a phenomenal thing. And until recently, I thought the only danger in the site would be that it would take up too much of my already limited time. I was wrong.

Last week, I learned on Pinterest that if you turn a standard pop-up toaster on its side and insert a cheese sandwich, in no time flat, you’ll have “grilled cheese perfection”.

Since my toaster slots weren’t wide enough for a sandwich, I opted for a piece of cheese toast instead. I put my bread topped with cheese in, hit the button, and waited in delicious anticipation.

And that’s when it happened.

Out of nowhere, that bread sized disk of hot, sticky, gooey, cheesy goodness shot out of that toaster. I don’t mean it just slid half way out of the toaster slot. I mean it catapulted across the kitchen, scaring me half to death in the process as it flew by me. In slow motion, I saw the flying mass of hot mess flip over in mid-air and land cheese side down on my favorite rug. And let me just say, there were no mama-pleasing words uttered as I burned my fingers trying to get volcanic cheese sauce out of the rug.

And sadly, it did not end there.

I was dumb enough (or tired enough; in my defense, I had worked a lot of hours that week) to think that perhaps turning down the toast setting and sliding the toaster all the way back on the counter would give me the grilled cheese perfection result I’d been promised.

Let me assure you, it did not.

And it was in that moment, on my hands and knees picking bits of a second piece of imbedded cheese toast out of the rug, that I realized that the next time I want a grilled cheese, I’m calling my dad. He makes the best ones on the planet and there are some things you just can’t replicate no matter how hard you try.

One Clever Cookie

Last night was the Thanksgiving service and dessert fellowship at church. As I baked a batch of pumpkin spice cookies, the standard covered dish question ran through my head:

“What can I put these cookies on? I’d love to use a paper plate so I can just throw it away when it’s empty but a paper plate is soooooo boring. I’m a lot of things but boring is not one of them. There has to be a better way!”

Enter Pinterest, the web-based bulletin board that gives you ideas on everything from crafts to clothes and from home decorating to home cooking… AND it includes links to originating websites so you can get the step by step on how to do it. You simply “pin” the great ideas on your board and come back to them when you need them or when you have time. Pinterest is budget-friendly and includes about a zillion ideas that are low-cost replicas of high-end treasures. I’ve already tried a few Pinterest projects and have no doubt that there are more in my future. (Sorry, Robert, it looks like craft night just became a regular household event!)

So, I’m standing in our kitchen, running out of time and staring almost hopelessly at my cookie sheet of tasty morsels. I flip through the card catalog of ideas that I store in the far reaches of my noggin… and it hits me! An image I pinned a few weeks ago…

And so with a paper plate, a hole punch, and some ribbon… I went from this:

To THIS:

And that, my friends, is one Clever Cookie!

(And thanks Pinterest for showing crafters that low budget and high style are completely compatible!)