ammogirl

So, the lovely Miss D tagged me yet again, and this time is engaging in some bullying tactics, what with the “just do it” and all that. I’m frightened at what might happen if I don’t complete this ‘meme’, which, don’t ask me – nobody seems to know exactly what that means. It does sound fancy though, no? Moving along:

MEME

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Hmm… ten years ago I was stationed at Eielson AFB, which is about 30 minutes away from Fairbanks, Alaska. I was 24, and Taylor had recently been born. Lindsey was just under two years old, so while I don’t remember exactly what I was doing at that time I am fairly certain it included changing diapers and making bottles. A LOT of them.  Oh, and I can confidently say that there was snow, and it was cold, and probably dark for a large part of the day – for the record, I really hated living in Alaska. Or, more specifically, the INTERIOR of Alaska. I wouldn’t mind the southern-ish region – Elemendorf is a base we are highly interested in going to after Italy. It’s located nearby Anchorage, and it always seemed so much nicer down there. However, Fairbanks DOES have it’s own Coldstone’s now…hmmm…nah.

5 years ago
I was living in Layton, Utah, stationed at Hill AFB. It was just me and the girlies, because John was still up in Alaska, and I was totally depressed that I had to be away from him. He had just proposed to me, on Valentines Day, so I was starting to plan the wedding, and that was fun, as was the actual wedding, but all in all 5 years ago I was living the worst year ever. Leaving John behind was very hard, and I was working at a job I did not like, and I had no air conditioning in my car, and if you didn’t know, UTAH IS HOT; the temps got to 100+ around May and NEVER dropped below 95 the rest of the summer. Plus, as we all know, 9/11, right? And that job I was working at but didn’t like? We were VERY INVOLVED in the coordination of what was going on immediately after the attacks, and the subsequent invasion of the Stans – and it sounds so cheesy, but that’s all I can tell you, or else…yes…I’d have to kill you. With my mad ninja skilz. Anyway, this job had me working many hours a day, many days a week – and being a single parent at the time, that was not convenient. I NEVER saw my poor girls. Fortunately, I had a good friend, Wendy, who would pick them up from day care, do their homework with them, get them cleaned, fed, and around their bedtime I would pick them up, drive home, and put them and me to bed. God, it’s depressing just to think about it. I got two half days off a week – mine were Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. Again, Wendy (who I…never talk to… god, I SUCK at staying in touch with people!) watched the girls on Saturday mornings, and I took them to work with me on Sundays. That’s the year that, as soon as they started letting people out – I turned in my paperwork, because I had had enough. Yet, here I am, and all I can say about that is me = dumb.
     Anyway, that was also the year of the Mormons, and I don’t want to say much because I don’t want to offend anyone that IS Mormon, but y’all, I always thought it was creepy that all those Mormon families were exactly the same: brown haired/brown eyed Mom and Dad, and thier eight thousand BLONDE haired/BLUE eyed kids. How does that happen? There CANNOT be that many recessive genes in the state of Utah.

1 year ago
Um, gosh, what WAS I doing one year ago? I don’t think I had gotten my orders to be stationed here in Korea yet…hmm. I think I will be safe in saying I was immensely enjoying our routine of working Monday through Friday, attending the weekly Williams/Sady Families’ Friday Night Out, which started at either Red Robin or El Torito, and ended at Coldstone’s Creamery, and doing random fun things on the weekends. Sighh… I would give anything to be doing that right now. Angel, this meme is doing nothing but making me sad!!! *sniff*

Five snacks you enjoy:
Ice Cream
Cheetos
Cashews
Movie Popcorn
Chips and Salsa (but only John’s salsa – it is the best EVER)

Five songs (you think) you know by heart:
Crush – Dave Matthews Band
Nth Degree – Morningwood
Wrong Way – Sublime
Hazy Shade of Winter – The Bangles version
Lola – The Kinks

Five things you would do with a LOT of money:
Buy an Infiniti G35. What? I don’t know the names of any fancier cars, and I really want one of these.
Buy John a fishing boat, a ski boat, and jet skis
Can you say “Lindsey and Taylor, LET’S GO SHOPPING!!!”
Investment properties, investment properties, investment properties
Open my own Coldstone’s – free ice cream for family and friends!

Five things you would never wear:
Short shorts
Ruffles
Tennis Shoe Boots
Embroidered blouses (Kathy, remember the one you took to Vegas? Hee!)
Gold jewelry

Five things you never should have worn:
Paisley
Leggings
Frosty blue and pink eye shadow – at the same time
My hair in the color blonde (ugh, bad, BAD Treena)
Neon – ditto, Angel

Five things I enjoy doing:
Hanging out on the lake with my fam and friends
Reading
Going to see good movies in the theatre
Working out
Reading celebrity gossip blogs

Five bad habits:
I am extremely nosy
I have a bad problem with interrupting people
I procrastinate horribly at times
Worrying too much
Talking without thinking

And there you have it! I like doing these because they don’t require a whole lot of effort, yet they take up a lot of space. It’s Friday, y’all, I hope you have a great weekend!!!

CIAO!

Guess what! Today is the one year anniversary of my eye surgery! That particular surgery, by the way, was one of the best decisions I ever made. Because, look. My eyes were worse than bad. My vision at my very last eye exam, which took place hours before the surgery, was 20/1000 in my left, and 20/800 in my right. Most of you have seen me at some point without my contacts or glasses, but in case you haven’t, trust me, without them, I was pretty much worthless. You know that opaque plastic that some shower doors are made of? That’s the best way I can describe what it was like, for me, when I looked at something without contacts. Now, though, my vision is a glorious 20/25 in both eyes. When I’m tired it gets a little worse, or if it’s windy, but seriously, after 26 years of the opaque shower door vision, I can deal with slightly blurry, trust me. The surgery though, holy cow. Now, if you are interested in getting some sort of eye correction surgery, please, don’t let this put you off, I swear to god, it’s worth it. SERIOUSLY. Just…you were warned, okay?

So, like any other surgery, first you have to have a few pre-op appointments, to make sure you are a good candidate. This involves getting high tech topography maps of your eyes, and extremely close up pictures, and it’s all very cool. You will be given information on the three types of eye correction surgery available now (PRK, LASIK, or Custom Wavefront). The technicians will also go over every (or, ALMOST every, as I found out later) step of the type of surgery you choose. For the record, I got the Custom Wavefront, which was really the only option, in my opinion. It was only slightly more expensive than the LASIK, with my military discount, but the risk of side effects decreases to almost nothing. Plus, something about the thickness of my retinas… I don’t know. The day of the surgery, I arrived at the eye center at my appointed time, (10am) and proceeded to wait. And… wait. Oh, and immediately upon arrival, they had dilated my eyes, without the numbing drops, so I had to sit there while my eyes were being bathed in pools of fire, and then, one hour later, since they weren’t ready for me, I had to do it again. I got my eyes dilated twice, people, and it was horrible – I seriously considered just leaving. But not really, since my eyes at that point were just molten goo floating in the sockets. Oh, eww. Anyway, I sat and waited, for… I’m not sure how long, really, because I couldn’t see, and they kept me in a darkened room anyway, because of the dilation. But at one point, someone came by, and I was given a fanny pack full of medicated eye drops, artificial tears, goggles, and instructions. Then, they put me in a DIFFERENT darkened room, and gave me a valium. “A valium!” I thought. “I wonder why I need a valium!” and that was my last coherent thought, as I drifted in and out of reality; apparently valium works very well on me. At last, I was shaken by a tech, and sleepily led to the operating room, without a care in the world, la la, it’s just a painless ol’ laser to the eye, slight discomfort (or so I was told)…THEN. The following is an EXTREMELY ACCURATE description of the surgery, which from start to finish lasted approximately 6 minutes. I know this because they call out the time like they are doing wind sprints or something: “Okay…GO! Come on Mike, faster! FASTER! Dammit, you’ll NEVER BEAT TOM, YOU LOSER!” Um, continuing: I was brought into the BRIGHTEST COLDEST room ever- it was like Antarctica, but on the sun – and laid down on a metal table. My head was strapped down to keep it completely still, and THIS was jammed under my eyelids, and numbing drops were dripped in, and A SUCTION was placed ON MY EYEBALL, and proceeded to pull THAT EYE OUT OF MY HEAD, so it would be firmly held in place for a blade to slice a flap into my cornea. (if you were wondering, THIS is the part they did not tell me about. AND, it was also at this point that I thought, thanks for the VALIUM, you should’ve given me TEN MORE, FUCKERS) This was me: “AHHHHHHHH!” This was the surgeon: “Hold still, please…HEY – what’s my time?” After the flap was cut, the laser was fired up, and a few “clickclickclickclickclicks” and one robotic female voice counting down: “10…9…8…” later, a clear bandage contact was placed on my eye, and the whole thing started again on the left side. And like I said, approximately 6 minutes from the time I entered the room, I was led right back out, and given instructions to keep my head back and my eyes shut until I was told. I might have fallen asleep at that point, but I don’t really remember, because of the shock of the eye suction. THE SUCTION, people. A vacuum to the eye is something I hope you never, EVER in your life have to encounter, unless, you are considering eye surgery which in that case: ummm, I…promise it’s…not so bad… FORGET IT. It is the most horrifying feeling in the world but worth it! REALLY!

I had to wear the bandage contacts for ten days or so, and sleep with goggles on for two weeks, and keep water away from my eyes for… I can’t remember, John, was it 3 months? Something like that, anyway. But seriously, the minute I sat up from that table I could see, and to this day I still look at something in the distance and think “I can SEE that”…and unless your eyes are as bad as mine were, you cannot know how happy that makes me. I can’t wait for the day the girls are old enough to have it done; unfortunately, they seem to be taking after me with the bad eye genes, because their dad, as far as I know, still has the 20/20 going on.  Dear girls, you got the short end of the stick.  Love, Mom.

So, anyhow, to properly celebrate this special occasion, I am thinking: ice cream! Yay! Happy Anniversary, eyes!

CIAO!

Awww man! I talked to a counselor yesterday to map out a degree plan, and let me just say that I have to take approximately 700 classes to get my bachelors. I am feeling very disheartened! On the bright side, I am taking 3 of those classes right now, so only 697 to go. At this rate I will have my bachelors in approximately 70 years, give or take 65 years or so. Also, I exposed my true nerd self when we were discussing high school grades and such at work, and I said, with probably a bit more pride than I should have, “I went to state in high school for (dramatic pause inserted for blog purposes only)…ACCOUNTING!” My co workers had this reaction: <absolutely no reaction whatsoever> and then someone said: “Did you say you went to state for… Accounting?” And: “YOU are a NERD." Yesss, yesss…I realized my mistake right away, and was very slightly embarrassed, but not really, because, I KNOW YOU ARE SECRETLY IMPRESSED. But for the record, I didn’t do fabulous or anything, I ended up 14th in the state. And, if you were wondering, or, even if you weren’t, it was the Linn-Benton Skills contest, which was a big deal back in the day (coughcough1986coughcough) but when I tried to Google it just now I came up with nothing, so my 14^th place win is meaningless *sniff*. I guess I should take the banner that says “Oregon Accounting Superstar” off my wall. Just kidding. That wasn’t even funny.  But I..uhhh…I’m leaving it in anyway, because it looks good.

Now, let us briefly revisit the hot water issue. Apparently they got the gas problems worked out because around 9:15 last night I checked and nearly burned my hand with the boiling goodness! I was ecstatic about this because a) the grease in my hair had reached phenomenal levels and b) hot water means: I got to workout which means: I got to use my iPod on my run this morning! Yay! I was so excited, and while walking to the gym whenever I passed somebody I would think, “yeah, I got an iPod, that’s right”. The one thing I was worried about was the ear…things…because a couple of years ago John bought me a little MP3 player and I could never run with it because it’s ear things wouldn’t stay IN my ears, so I would start running, but have to jam them back in every 100 yards or so, and that is so annoying, when you are trying to just RUN, for gods sake. Plus, they hurt. I don’t know why, I’m sure it’s because my ears are malformed or something. But my iPod ear things…they were heaven! I forgot I had them in! They were comfortable, and they didn’t budge one bit. It was spectacular, this iPod of mine, and I am so glad I finally broke down and bought one, and yes, I promise you I will (maybe) stop posting about my iPod now.

Lindsey and Taylor got their 3^rd quarter report cards back, and I am proud to tell you that they got straight A’s, AGAIN. Those smartie pants, jeez. Maybe THEY can take some of my college classes for me! What! At least math! IT WOULD WORK. But seriously, y’all, they definitely are some super cool girls, that’s for sure. They both had projects go to State, as well; Taylor in Science, Lindsey in History. The only bad thing though, about the straight A’s, is the fact that John and I made a monetary deal with them in regards to which grade they bring home, and, let’s just say, I won’t be buying another iPod any time soon. They are definitely worth every penny though, for realz.

Now, I would like to address some of my comments from yesterday:
Jen – I’m sure there IS hot water at the gym, but you forget I have to walk there, and it takes ten minutes, and I would have to carry all my bathroom related items AND my uniform and boots there, and then have to deal with my dirty clothes and a wet towel. The inconvenience was just too much, and I strongly believe you have forgotten how lazy I am. Now, send me brownies, Jen-NY!  Mindy – I don’t get up at 4:30am because I want to, but because I have a serious obsession with food related items. Meaning I really love to eat, and I tend to laugh in the face of the words "portion control". Or, in other words, ahhhh…I’m a pig. Also: you are so not the fat girl, so hush, NIECE, before I GROUND YOU. Lisa M. – I don’t think I will attempt to put pictures on my iPod EVER. And John – you are right. Umm….now that you mention it…how DO I get the songs off?

CIAO!