Dear Mom

I’m writing to you today to tell you that I forgive you.  I’m sorry that you’re so sick.  I pray everyday that you will get a job and that you will start to take your medicine everyday.  I know that it’s hard because it makes you feel “not normal”.

I do love you, but because of your illness, it makes it hard to have conversations with you.  I had to set boundaries with you because I don’t want to have political or military discussions with you and it’s hard, but at least we can have a relationship.  You and I fundamentally disagree about those issues.  I was bothered when you called me to wish me a happy anniversary–considering my anniversary is in December, not March.  You called because it was the 5th year anniversary of the Iraqi war.

I know that you feel like I have abandoned you, but I haven’t.  I’m still here and I’m still your daughter.  Rob and I have talked about having you move in with us.  We were thinking that when we get back to the states, we would buy a house and there would be a separate entrance for you–kind of like your own apartment.  You could even take Windy with you.  I’m sure that she and Gizmo would get along just fine.  I’ve never breached the subject with you, but I think it would be better for you.  It would be easier for you and then you wouldn’t have to rape your 401k just to survive.

I don’t know what God has in store for you, but I do want you to know that I’m here for you and that I do love you.  I am praying for you and I want you to know that.  Please take care of yourself.

Love,

Amber

Dear Dad F

I’m writing to you today because I wanted to let you know that I love you!  You’re a great father and grandfather.  I also wanted to let you know that you raised two very intelligent and well-rounded children.  They are your legacy!

You raised your children by your example.  You didn’t say, “Do as I say, not as I do.”  No, your children learned to be good people because of the example that you showed them.  You taught them that family and God are the most important things in life.  You taught them a good work ethic because you yourself have strong work ethics and you modeled this to your family.  You praised them when they earned praise and you punished them when they had done wrong.

You raised a strong son who has many of your qualities and I am happy for that.  We often have hypothetical children conversations and Rob tells me that he wants to be like you.  I believe that is the highest compliment that you could ever pay someone, but it speaks miles for the deep respect that he has for you.  I’m so happy that I married into your family!

Thank you for being a second father to me and taking me into your family unconditionally.  Thank you for your acceptance of me.

I know that I don’t tell you enough, but I do love you and I respect you immensely.

Love,

Amber

Dear Rob

I’m writing this to you today to tell you how much I love you and I wanted to thank you for being such a wonderful husband.  You are so incredibly supportive and for that I am both thankful and lucky.  When I was looking for a mate, I only wanted four things:  someone taller than me, someone older than me, someone who has a college education and someone who is gainfully employed.  If I had just gone with those qualities I would not have found you.  I’m glad that you’re so much more than all of those qualities!

I am also so very glad that we have so much in common, but at the same time, we are each other’s strength.  Where I am weak, you are strong and visa versa!  You are such a wonderful compliment to my personality!

Another thing that I was hoping for in a man was that he had a good family.  I’m so glad that you have wonderful supportive parents, too.  I love your family–I know you know; I’ve told you a million times!  It really does make life easier when everyone just gets along and there’s no bickering!  Your family is so easy to get along with and I love it!

We are well on our way to another phase in your military career and I’m excited.  It brings new and exciting challenges, but it also creates some anxiety and frustration.  I’m looking forward to our new move and our new house.  We’re almost there.  I know that you’re stressed with your job and I will try to make it as painless as possible so you don’t have to worry about the homefront–just worry about your Soldiers.  I’ll take care of you–because you take great care of me.

I just wanted to let you know that I love you!

Love,

Amber

Guilty Pleasures

I have a new guilty pleasure.  It’s called “Dirt” and it’s a new TV show on FX.  It’s pretty shameful, has bad language, sex, drugs and other illicit stuff…it’s not a show for everyone, but it is Fox’s answer to Showtime’s Entourage.  I haven’t seen Entourage, but the DVD series is cheaper than Dirt.

I like Dirt because it’s got Courtney Cox in it.  This show is so completely addicting.  It’s actually on iTunes and you can download the shows there, but I think I’ll just wait for the DVDs to come out next season.  It’s about Lucy (Cox) who is the Editor in Chief at Dirt, a magazine that publishes celebrity gossip.  Don Konkey is a schizophrenic photojournalist who still uses film camera.  Sometimes he takes his medication, sometimes he doesn’t.  Sometimes, we can’t tell what is real and what is not, in his world–it’s fascinating–sometimes I wonder if that’s how my mom sees the world, but she never talked to the voices in her head (at least I don’t think so!)  We get a small glimpse into Lucy’s world and it’s full of hurt and pain.

I don’t recommend this show for everyone.  It it definitely a rated R show.  Personally, it would call it M+17.  It’s a show that I probably wouldn’t have liked as a kid anyway.  I was extremely sheltered.

This is how sheltered I was as a kid.  I didn’t know that there were movies not produced by Disney until after I went to college.  I was not allowed to watch such films.  Saturday Night Live was out of the question and my parents had a strict 8pm bedtime.  Additionally, my mother wanted me to turn off a TV movie about Rock Hudson when I was 15, but I disobeyed her and watched it anyway.

I was watching it while Rob was home a few weeks back, but he wasn’t interested in it.  He thought it was just a little too weird for his tastes.  That’s okay.  This is one thing that I get all to myself!

Casey and Gizmo are going stir crazy and I think that Casey misses Rob a little bit.  We only have about 9 days to go!  I’m looking forward to seeing him.

Well, that’s all for now.  Talk to you soon!!  Thanks for reading!

Bowling

Well, today, I didn’t bowl as well as I had hoped.  I know it didn’t do anything to my average, but I gave some people a few laughs.

 Imagine, I’ve got earphones on and I’m listening to Elvis.  Now, imagine that I’m am cleaning house, listening to Elvis.  It was a riot!  I was dancing and singing and everyone looking at me like I’m crazy (mainly because I’m the only one who can hear the music and I’m neither a great singer or dancer) and I’m shaking my booty all over the lanes.  It was a hilarious.  I was even laughing at myself at points throughout the evening.

I went and played the slots.  I had $106 on my card.  I played on a different machine and I lost it all 😦  I had it.  I had quadrupled my money.  It wasn’t like I was greedy or anything, but I really just didn’t feel like going home!  So, I spent it all.  Do you realize how much yarn I could have bought or the newest Sims2 game that I could have gotten or a new Wii game?

Oh well.  Easy come, easy go.

Well, it’s almost 1 am and I should think about hitting the sack.  I’m a little bored with Rob gone, but I’m an independent woman, I’m alright!

Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

30 Day Blogging Challenge

I’m a member of NaBloPoMo and it used to be just for the month of November.  There is a National Writing Month in November and they were kind of jumping in on that bandwagon.  Well, I received an email yesterday saying that they are going to expand the program and have new themes for April.  I’m going to take the challenge.  Starting April 1!  Check back often, as I will updating frequently.

You can check out the challenge at http://nablopomo.ning.com/

Well, talk to you later!  Have a great day!

One of those days

I don’t know what my problem is.  Today, I’m in a bit of a funk.  Maybe it’s because Rob is leaving to go on a mission in a couple of days.  Maybe it’s because I had I had a dream last night about someone here.  I asked her if she had a problem with me and she said, “Yes.”  Actually, I don’t know if it WAS a dream or if it was real, but I’m pretty sure it was just a dream.

Maybe it’s because we’re moving again.  I honestly don’t know.  I’m sure I will be fine tomorrow.  Or just maybe I’m just a little tired or maybe it’s because I haven’t drank coffee in a couple of days.

Anyway, I’m doing alright.  It’s just one of those days…

The Animals

Yesterday, Gizmo was so nice to Casey.  He came up to Casey and gave him a big hug.  It was the sweetest thing.  I had never seen Gizzy do that to Casey before.

Today, we took Casey for a walk.  He did something new.  I had taken him off the leash and Rob found a flat basketball and started to play with it.  Casey wanted to join in the game and nosed the ball back over to Rob.  🙂  Then, we decided to walk over to the other side of the park and let him run.  Casey grabbed the detached leash in his mouth and was acting like we had him hooked up.  He walked very nicely with us.  Rob found a pine-cone and tossed it to Casey.  They played for a few minutes, but Casey grew tired of the game quickly.  He had decided to run at full speed for like 20 minutes. He was doing pretty well, staying in our sight and not going too far.  He fell over and started having one of his episodes.  Typically, we’re not supposed to mess with him too much while he’s having one of his episodes, but we thought he’d be more comfortable at home, so I picked him up and we walked home.  The episode lasted for a while, longer than usual.  He was disoriented and shaky for a while, which is not typical.

Rob’s worried that Casey’s condition could lead to something much more serious, but from what I’ve read about it, it really doesn’t affect anything else.  Yes, this condition does require more frequent vet visits, but other than that, he’s a perfectly healthy dog.  His ticker is strong, from what the vet was saying the last time we took him in because he had swollen anal glands after staying in a kennel for a long weekend and that is the most common problem with Casey’s breed.  Casey’s sleeping now.  Poor little guy.

We’re thinking about getting a German Shepard puppy in few months, so that Casey will have a buddy to play with.  He needs a companion!

Tomorrow, I’m doing a breakfast fundraiser at the motor-pool and I’m baking muffins right now.  Tomorrow morning, I have to get up early and make breakfast burritos.  Yumm!

So, I guess I better go for now!  TTFN and thanks for reading!

Busy Week Pt 2

Well, as I explained earlier this week, it was busy.  Much busier than I had originally anticipated!  I ended up going to the Retirement Ceremony with Rob on Thursday afternoon.  We were home long enough for Rob to grab a sandwich before we headed out to the Town Hall Meeting.  People are FREAKING out about the move to Kaiserslautern.  I don’t know what’s so scary about it, other than the fact that there’s a lot of people moving and some people who would rather live on base are not going to be able to do so.

I had league bowling tonight.  I bowled fairly decently.  I was well above my average in all but two games.  I bowled six, so I’m quite happy about this.  I don’t remember my scores tonight.  😦  My average has been going up every week, and as the average goes up, the handicap goes down.  Tonight I was listening to Elvis all night on my iPhone and I know that it was actually helping me.  When I listen to Elvis, it reminds me of my dad when I was a teenager.  He used to walk around the house singing some song or the other.  My dad sounds a lot like Elvis.

Rob is researching our next trip.  We received a $500 voucher because of the very badly handled flight from Germany to Ohio.  We are extremely grateful.  We’re hoping that we can use the vouchers from here in Germany because *obviously* we don’t live in the states.  We’re still waiting to see if the airline will allow us to use the voucher here.  There are so many places that we want to visit while we are still here.  We’ve made a ton of trips that are off the beaten path.  We’re currently looking at a trip to Moscow or Dublin.  I would really love to go to Russia, but not when it’s cold.  I would also love to go to Egypt and South Africa, but I don’t think that we’re going to have the opportunity to go to those countries.  Rob isn’t really interested in a trip to Egypt, so he thinks we should do separate vacations, but I don’t want to go on vacation by myself.  That doesn’t sound very fun to me.  I don’t know any ladies here that are interested in going to either of those locations.  It’s not the type of vacation that most Americans wish to go on.  Maybe I can get Mom and Dad F. to accompany on those trips.  They are big travelers!  I donno!

 Anyway, it’s almost 11.  I should probably go for now, even though I’m hopped up on coffee from the bowling alley.  Ummm, can you say “Motor-oil”?  LOL!!

Well, have a great day and thanks for reading!