How families work

I have recently been watching a lot of reality tv on Netflix. Teen Mom, Jon & Kate Plus 8, and today I started watching Table for 12. Here are some of my thoughts.

Teen Mom. I love this show and I hate this show. Catelynn chose adoption for her daughter and watching her struggle and then thrive and grow up is really crazy. My heart just breaks for these girls. I can see how Farrah has matured some but is still a teenager and you can see that with how she and her mother talk. (Sometimes I'm ashamed to say I still talk to my mom like a teenager. Lord bless her!)  Amber is lost. It seems she lacks  in communication skills and turns to violence. I wish that she would stay in therapy to learn life skills. Maci doesn't seem to go after what she wants. I think she could have worked things out with the father of her child but she doesn't express herself. It seems the ones that thrive the best have a good support system. Catelynn didn't have the backing of her family for her decision to use adoption but she was smart and used the support groups and does have Tyler (baby's father). They seem to be wise beyond their years.

Jon & Kate Plus 8. They had twin girls first and then they had sextuplets. I have only seen the first season and a couple of episodes into the 2nd. I don't think I will continue to watch it because I know that they end up divorced. You can see from season one that Jon and Kate just don't talk supportive to each other. I fear that since I am on Clomid we might have multiples. It is a risk of taking this medication. I am a lot like Kate. I like things to be a certain way. I like organization and knowing what is going on. When things don't go my way, lets just say it doesn't go well for James. I can be quite a snot. I know this is something I need to work on and it would be best before we have kids. I want to be a loving and supportive wife. I want James to know that I respect him. The best way he will know that is if I SHOW him. I looked up respect and I like the verb form of the word the best.
 –verb (used with object)

9.

to hold in esteem or honor: I cannot respect a cheat.

10.

to show regard or consideration for: to respect someone's rights.

11.

to refrain from intruding upon or interfering with: to respect a person's privacy.

To hold in esteem. That may sound over the top, but is it? I don't think so. My husband works hard and provides for me. I have a nice house, the bills are paid, we get to go out to concerts and movies. (I do work so I help out with some of those fun things.) What do I do for him in return? Most days I complain about making dinner and trying to figure out what he wants to eat. I'm also very tired after work. I really have no idea how people do it. I remember my mom always seemed to have an endless supply of energy. She may say she is exhausted but she rarely turns down new projects for the church or helping cook meals for a friend or a church member. She would never sit still. Her hands are always busy. How do you do it Mom?!?!! 

I want to be like her. I want to have a clean house and cook nice for my husband and still be active in my friends lives. I don't want to check out. Most days I feel I do just that. "Oh, I'm off work now and I was up since 3, so I'm going to take a nap now. I deserve it." Maybe I do need a nap, but I should limit it to 15-30 mins, not 2 hours. When I wake up I'm grumpy and still tired and don't want to cook or do anything else but watch tv with James. Maybe we need to start turning that tv off. I don't think he would like that too much. 

If you are a praying person I would like you to pray for me. I want to be an energetic women of God. Pray that I will be hungry for Him again. I feel like my desire has left me. I feel the weeks just keep passing me by, as if I am in slow motion watching everyone else blaze right on by like they are on fast forward. 

James is such a good man. I don't know when that happened. He seems to not get angry as much and is so great with kids. He is outgoing and funny. He can make anyone laugh. He used to be offensive sarcastic funny, (sometimes still is) but now he is really just funny. He knows how to be silly. I love that. He seems to have more patience even with me. Oh he still gets angry don't get me wrong, (especially behind slow drivers) but not like he used to when we were new. I love him so much. We got married when we were 19. We were just kids. I think he has grown up. Lately I feel I am the angry one who gets easily annoyed. I don't want to be like this. He deserves so much more. 

Table for 12. So far I have only seen two episodes. I really like this family. They have twins, twins, and then sextuplets. They seem like a team. I love that. I want to be supportive like that. I want my kids to pitch in an be respectful like that. My parents tried to raise us that way. It worked somewhat. 

So really I am just in awe of they different dynamics of families and watching how they work. 

Sorry that this is on a white background. I copied and pasted the definition and couldn't figure out how to change it back after that part. :( I'm not computer savvy .

James on the News

James was on our local Fox channels news last night! He is the instructor in the white helmet.

http://www.fox10tv.com/dpp/news/local_news/pensacola/Navy-bomb-assemblers-train-locally?ref=scroller

Hooray for the Weekend!

I am off tomorrow so I get a three day weekend! :)

I plan on going to yoga in the morning and then attempting to remove the spray paint from the house. I bought Goof Off and Krud Kutter graffiti remover so we will see which one works without doing any damage to the siding.

Update on baby making. ;) haha. I just completed my second round of Clomid. All I can say is HOLY HOT FLASHES! I had about 20 yesterday. They don't last long thank goodness, but enough to make my upper lip and forehead break out in a sweat. My first round I didn't take my temperature so I am doing that this round. So far it hasn't raised enough to say that I'm ovulating yet, but I still have a couple of weeks. I'm excited that it's gonna happen. I take my next pregnancy test on Aug 5th. If not pregnant I have one more round and then I am referred out of family practice and to OB. 

My parents and nephew are coming into town the first week in August. We are really excited. My mom is bringing me down my mom's old sewing machine and teaching me how to work it. I always get stuck when I first start, on how to work the bobbin and how to change the thread out. I want to learn some simple projects and hopefully get to were I can make some sun dresses. My friend Brooke recently made me some curtains and is all excited about sewing. She has sewed so many curtains, shower curtains, pillow cases and even a bed runner for her own house. She definitely does things full speed ahead! :) So the plan is to have a day were my mom can teach me some things but also show Brooke some things too. I know that I will be calling Brooke over to help if I get stuck somewhere.

We also plan on tubing down a current river and also go deep sea fishing on a charter boat. I think I might convince them to go to a movie on base since Wednesday 12 and 12:30 movies are FREE! I love FREE! and I love movies. :)

I am super excited about hanging out with Neal. He is such a good kid and I'm not just saying that cause he is my nephew. Honest!

I think that is most of our big plans for August. In September we plan on taking a weekend trip to Atlanta and meeting Faie and PG for a Braves game. We also have the make-up of the Jason Aldean concert because it was rained out. We still went and had the time of our lives though! We got completely SOAKED on the way back to the car so we figured we were already wet so we just stayed and had a good time with our friends right there in the parking lot. Singing and dancing in the rain, swimming and muddin in our cars. I'm excited to go again! :) Also James will be turning 26 on the 24th!

That's pretty much what is going on here for the rest of the summer. I can't believe how fast this year is going by!

Crazy Hounds

These are our hounds and you can see why we love them so much! They are just too cute even when they are loud. <3

Freestyle writing entry

I am sitting on my couch right now looking at my green wall. We are allowed to paint on base housing but have to paint it back so we only went with one wall. My mom just called. They are coming for a visit at the end of the month. I went to ITT (information, tours &tickets) yesterday to see about tubing down blackwater river and about fishing charter boats. I love vacation and days off. If I could I would never work another day in my life. I am so lazy. This is not a good thing. I feel like if I were to die today my tombstone would read "Lazy girl who really loved her sleep." I guess that is a bit morbid to think about. I am a morbid thinker. I think about death more than I talk about it cause talking about all the what if so and so were to die makes people uncomfortable. What if we all lived our lives based on what would be written in our obituaries and only had one sentence written on your Tombstone? What would you want to leave people thinking about? Sometimes I really care about what people think. Other times I trick myself with thinking, "Who is this punk?" but I think at the end of the day I still want that punk to like me. I love my husband. He knows me better than anyone I think. What I like most is I can truly be myself. I'm not sure thats a good thing. I am not as nice and people seem to think I am. He knows that. I like that he knows that and still loves me anyway. Haha, he just called and asked if I wanted to walk the dogs...ok, back from walking the dogs. He is watering the yard now. We did a lot of yard work this past week. We were able to get 4 large bushes and 5 grassy plants for free from our friends who just bought a house. (Thank you Brooke and Charlie! We had fun, or at least I did, haha!) Their house was a bit over landscaped and mine had nothing at all. They helped us and we helped them. We also painted our shutters. We bought some red paint from Wal-mart and the guy had no idea what he was doing. It looked almost orange. I painted one set and decided that I hated it. We ended up spray painting them cause the paint looked better and it was the faster lazier way to get things done in the heat of Florida. I tried to see if we could take them down before we painted them but they were breaking off and I did not want to have to buy replacement shutters. My mom said they were cheap but 4 sets from online would have been about $160. If this was OUR house then I know that would seem cheap, but some other military family will move in after we move out so....I'm not buying the shutters. So now you prolly guessed it...we have spray paint on our house. James thinks it will come off with a little bit of sandpaper. I hope it does, I'll try that on Friday. That is my next day off. It is too hot and I am too tired to try when I get off from work. I was able to switch my day off this week from Thursday to Friday. That is good cause we are going to a Jason Aldean concert on Thursday night and I am not going to want to wake up at 3am the next day. I need to start listening to more of his music so I can sing along to all the songs. I know a lot of them but I need a refresher. Concerts are way more fun when you can sing along. I think we will listen to him as we fall asleep tonight. Then tomorrow I will steal James' iPod and start listening in my car. ;) Ok well James is wanting me to make him a grilled cheese so I'm going to go do that. Have a great week.

Happy 235th Birthday America!

Happy 4th of July everybody!

I hope everyone has had a safe and fun weekend so far and will keep that going tonight. We had a blast last night at a friends house and will have more fun today at another friends house. I love having friends. (Who doesn't right?!) Being a military spouse it isn't always easy to pick up and make new friends. Little did I know how small the military was and that we would have some of the same friends at every duty station we have been at. It is nice to see those familiar faces and have those shared experiences.

Last year for the forth we were back home in Missouri. We had just been house hunting in Florida for two weeks and then went home for two weeks before James had to report for duty. We had so much fun setting off our own fireworks. My mom of course made fantastic food and dessert. James had so much fun being the big kid with my nephew and setting all the fireworks off. I will never forget the look on Emma's face after he set off a lady bug firework. It spun around so quickly and flew up into the air with a screeching scream she turned around and ran to her mom with a horrified look on her face. It was so funny. And no I'm not a horrible person for finding humor in my nieces terror. Everybody thought is was hilarious. Plus she was only about to turn three and was and is still adorable.

So that was last year. James and I have been back in America for over a year. What is really crazy is that we have been together in the same bed EVERY night for over a year. Even when he has duty he has never had an overnight watch. When we were in Virginia every eight days he would have to sleep on the boat. It has been kind of weird adjusting to being together so much.

James is an instructor at A school down here. He get's these guys right after boot camp and teaches them everything about being an AO (Aviation Ordnance.) James is an AO. He worked on the flight deck when we was on the aircraft carrier. AOs pretty much build and maintain the ordnance (bombs) until it is time to hand it over to the guys who load it onto the planes and then the planes distribute it to unknown terrorists around the world. Haha, Happy Birthday America! Right!?

James really loves being an instructor. He gets these kids for just a short amount of time and makes a real connection with them. He becomes friends with most of them after they graduate on facebook. He gets emails if they have questions about anything once they get to the fleet. Seeing all of his little AOs out there in the fleet really makes him miss being out there. As much as he loves being an instructor he is still a sailor and I posted before that sailors are meant to be out there sailing . It is in his blood now. It's in mine too.

We are both already anxious about where our next adventure will be. We still have a full two years left here and we are already ready for some new action. I am already looking at other base websites to see what is out there. Crazy. I used to think I would be horrible at being a military wife. Now I don't think I will do so well when it comes time for him to retire. Not having to move. I LOVE moving. I also am a crazy wife who likes when my husband has a duty day. WHAT?!! Yup, I said it. I like having a day off to myself where I don't have to cook for the both of us and I get to watch whatever I want on tv or I get to go to bed really early and not feel bad about having spent little time with my husband that day. My friends say that will change when I have kids. I'm sure it will. I LOVE my husband please don't misunderstand. I love having time to myself though too. So does he. Usually after a duty day I cook my best meal and make him feel good about coming home. I do miss him when he has duty or when he is deployed. I  just feel refreshed after having time to myself.

We are still learning how to be together after six years of marriage. I don't think we will stop learning how to be together. I hear couples who have been together over half of their lives who have the same discussions that James and I do. I find that comforting. I like knowing that there will always be some give and take and adjustments to get used to. Otherwise things feel mundane. I like excitement and passion and I like days off too. :)

Feelin Pretty

I just got my make-up done at the Estee Lauder counter at the Nex. They were giving away some FREE samples! I feel pretty so I had James take my picture. :)