Vacation rules?

Tonight, my husband declared that since his work week is over, vacation diet rules are in effect. Of course, he also used this to justify a very off-the-wagon binge on Monique's Hawaiian meatballs and jasmine rice, proving that there is most definitely one thing that would keep me from going completely veggie. Those meatballs would be my dying wish, and Monique, the sweetheart, has taken to making extra to send home from the office when she makes it for meetings. And it's not a complicated recipe, but I couldn't make it like her (just like no one there can make my cookies like me). And I wouldn't want to, because I'd eat them everyday and be the size of a Baltimore row house, which is, ironically, what fat people look like jammed next to one another on the metro.

Actually, I think I'm still within my calorie limit for the day, though I have no real way of knowing. And, quite frankly, I don't care. If a girl has to have one splurge, and she can't get it all the time anyhow, it's not an issue. So while I was standing in the kitchen trying to justify diving into meatballs and rice, Jere declared vacation diet rules. Meaning we eat what we want and worry later. At which point I reminded him that wasn't going to work for me, since I will basically be on vacation for the next whole month. Though I wonder how one could sustain a strict diet in Ireland? Unfortunately, I can't worry about all that, and I'll just have to throw some extra exercise in, because I want my damn yellow sun dress to fit without a fuss by April.
Two full bowls of meatballs and rice later, I passed out and slept for three glorious hours. That's what white rice does to someone who hasn't let it or any other crappy carbs slip by her lips in two solid months. I woke up feeling like hell, which is a good reminder of why I don't eat like that. Maybe I can try making brown rice to go with the rest of them. Certainly not the same, but it's a compromise (Jere will laugh when he reads that, because he knows I wouldn't ruin perfectly good Hawaiian food with brown rice, and will give in to the jasmine rice to keep the integrity of the dish; brown rice would be an insult to Monique).

I'm determined not to become a whale on this cruise. I gained three pounds on the one Karalyn and I took last year, and it was shorter! Fortunately, I've pinpointed the problem: fruity umbrella drinks and 7Up. I must cut back on 7Up! Yeah, like I'm going to give up my favorite part of cruising.

At least I'm packed, or as packed as I can be at this point. And the suitcase is already pretty tight, but Jere has assured me there will be room in his suitcase if I end up needing it. Good man. Tomorrow I'm taking him tie shopping so he doesn't look like my dad. I took inventory of Jere's ties, and yes, they all look like my dad's, which isn't a bad look....for my dad. But it creeps me out. They're almost the same age, they don't have to wear the same ties. *shiver* I know I married someone very much like my father, as they're both extremely smart about the same things, are only two inches different in height, both have a strange sense of humor. But I draw the line at ties.

I printed out all our travel documents today, and I have just one thing to say to the cruise line: stop using all my damn blue ink!

Today's lesson: Falling off the wagon is GOOD for you! As long as you don't do it everyday...

Big sigh...

Jere walked in, orders in hand last night! Yes, ok, maybe I'm a little psycho for getting excited over the paperwork that will effectively send him to Iraq, but after how much he had to go through to get them, I'm thrilled. Everything is set for the next year, and as every Army wife knows, certainty is worth more than jewels (but worth less than chocolate). Not to mention my husband is getting impatient to get on a plane and start the job at hand! So everyone breathe in.....and out. There, you just joined me in a sigh of relief.

Have you ever thought you're too obsessed with food? I already had strange dreams, but add in a diet, and Freud would have a ball. It used to be naked dreams, sex dreams, falling dreams, tornado dreams. Now it's chocolate milk dreams. Yep. I had a a dream about chocolate milk last night, and I woke up so craving it I was tempted to just have some. But I'm staying strong.

Actually, my scale and I are having a battle of the wills. It's betting I won't hold out while it sits there at the same weight it has for two weeks. But I'm smarter than my scale! I know that I'm walking that line between water weight and fat weight, and the key is slow and steady. Not to mention my scale likes to play games with me. Yesterday morning I weighed three pounds more than I did this morning. What my scale doesn't know? It can be replaced by a younger, sexier model that will tell me sweet (and consistent) lies.

The last couple of months, I've been crazy about eggs. Fried egg sandwiches, omelettes, and now egg salad on toasted double fiber whole wheat bread. Yum! In fact, when Jere went down to grab milk this morning at the hotel's breakfast, I got giddy when he brought me back three hard boiled eggs. I'm a girl that gets way too excited about food.

I stayed up all night again, just unable to sleep. It's not worry or stress or anything like that. It's just a serious lack of tired. I scrapbooked and watched infomercials. Night is the only time I have to entertain myself without movies or my computer. Granted, I have a laptop, but since I'm overwhelmed with creative imagination at night, I don't bother turning it on. A couple days ago, I decorated a cake at two in the morning. Last night, it was packing for our cruise (though not putting things in the suitcase, Jere won't let me take out the luggage because he thinks it traumatizes the cat). Tonight, I'm sure it will be baking cookies. I'm not in the mood to make icing.

I suppose it's time to get back to putzing around the hotel room. Maid's been here. That means the mess left is strictly mine to deal with. Joy.

Today's lesson: Even though your willpower might be great during your waking hours, it doesn't mean your subconscious isn't going to screw with your head during sleep. So subconsciously, I must really want some damn chocolate milk.

God bless my mother in law

I can bet you my last two husbands never thought I'd say those words.

Yesterday, two beautiful pairs of khaki pants showed up in our mail. When we went to visit my mother in law a couple of weekends ago, I made mention of Jere's terrible dress pants situation (meaning he put them on, and I could grab two handfuls of fabric in front and drag him around with them, they were just so baggy!). Now, I will bet you if I bought pants for my husband, he wouldn't wear them. I have bought him exactly one pair of shorts, which he does wear, but I don't think you can go wrong buying him cammo cargo shorts. Dress pants would be a different story. But since his mother sent them, he will wear them. Which makes me want to do a happy dance!

The evening was a little odd yesterday. I napped for the first time in awhile, which led to me staying up until this morning. I tried to decorate a cake, but I was having so much trouble with crumbs and moisture that it didn't exactly look impressive. But I learned how to make daisies, so mission accomplished. I scrapped until I was ready for bed, and now poor Miss Ginger is trying to recover from my messed up schedule by laying smack in the middle of the bed, passed out cold.

You know it's time to stop buying shoes when you order them, and forget about it. Then again, it's nice to get fun surprises in the mail! Jere came in with a package from shoes.com for me last night, and I had no clue what I'd ordered. And how can you forget about red Kenneth Cole peep toe pumps?! They're so cute that I wore them around the apartment in my jammies last night.

Minus the still throbbing bump on my head, today is going much better than yesterday. The maid didn't wake me up. My paperwork for my Ireland trip showed up. And I finally managed to book a vacation with our time share. You want a pain in the ass, buy a time share with Sheraton. This was my third call to them, and I've learned they make it as difficult as possible to use your yearly points. Granted, with Jere deploying, this year has been a pain to plan, but my goodness, give me a break! No, we can't go there because it's not the right week. No, we can't book that because we're not within the 90 day window for travel less than a week. No, you don't have enough options points to go there during that time period, but would you like to upgrade to a bigger yearly plan? Of course I don't want to upgrade, because somehow I don't believe that will make this process any easier! If you want to sell bigger time shares, don't be jerky to the people with little ones. Because we won't recommend your ass, and will write nasty scathing blogs about you. So there.

Actually, I'm happy with what we were able to book. We were talking yesterday about going away before his deployment, and how much we wanted to go back to Myrtle Beach, and since the actual time share we own is there, it was easier (not easy, just easier) to go. We just want to hang out, play tennis, go mini golfing, and take in the cheesiness that is the Grand Strand. I occasionally forget why we bought the time share in Myrtle Beach, but we love it there.

Today's lesson: Charles Dickens said, "It is easy to forgive a place once it is left behind." But what about a place you love? I find it goes the other way, and you often begin to forget what made it so wonderful.

Can I go back to this morning and start over?

This just isn't turning out to be a good day. I'm beginning to believe the forces of nature are out to get me.

First off, let me tell you I had a blast with my mom this weekend. It was nice to approach DC as a tourist again. However, it was freezing. We went on the twilight tour and just about shivered to death. Worth every penny and every second of the biting cold, because the views of Washington lit up at night were breathtaking. We also timed Arlington Cemetary just right and got to see the changing of the guard. If I hadn't seen all of Washington, I sure have now. Of course, my mom wanted to see one of the most important tourist attractions in the area: Ikea. My mom spent $20. I spent $350. Whoops. But for that I furnished two whole bathrooms and got pretty far in designing my bedroom, kitchen, and living room. Big weight off my shoulders, there.

I woke up to find yesterday's happiness and sunshine long gone. The weather had gone back to its general gloom, and there was more rain. I should have known today would suck when I looked out the window.

The drive to the airport was fine. No traffic. No getting lost in the Pentagon parking. I dropped my mom off and headed on my way, only to narrowly miss getting smushed by a pickup truck. My Washingtonian friends, explain this to me: is the turn signal a foreign entity to you? My husband sure doesn't use his, and this truck decided to cross two lanes of crowded, fast-moving traffic without signalling. I had no clue he was going to not only change lanes, but cross over behind a bus and forget to check for the silver Saturn in his blind spot. I slammed on the brakes and the tires squealed and I slid everywhere, missing the truck by less than an inch. Idiot.

TomTom, my GPS, was idiot #2 today. Or maybe I was the idiot for listening to him. I punched in the coordinates for home, and forgot TomTom has no clue how to deal with the mixing bowl of expressways next to my exit. Instead of just heading along my regular route (which I know pretty well), I followed TomTom. And ended up at Ft. Belvoir. What puzzles me is that he gets the exits right going north, but not south.

And idiot #3 was definitely me. I always end up bumping my head on things when I do laundry, as the dryers are stacked on top of each other, so I always walk through ahead of time and close the dryer doors on top so I don't hurt myself. I thought I had idiot-proofed the process, but evidently not. I went down to get my laundry post-dry, and found one of my dryers hadn't worked, so I went to switch into one that did. And smacked my head so hard on the coin insert slot that I saw stars and opened up a fairly good gash at my hairline.

I want very badly to crawl back into bed and forget about the rest of the day, but it's covered with Jere's clean laundry. And I still have to go downstairs and do one more round with the dryer. And pick up Jere from the metro. But I swear, we're getting takeout.

Today's lesson: There really is something to that foreshadowing concept. Gray skies, looming clouds...next time I see them, I'm not getting out of my jammies.

Now where is my mom going to sleep?

My mom will be here tomorrow (yay!), but I'm worried about the state of this hotel room. We have clutter shoved in every corner, including the area that needs to be clear so we can pull out the couch. I don't exactly have a place I can store it LOL. Oh well. I just hope she doesn't succumb to the claustrophobia monster like I did.

It snowed yesterday, lots of snow. I drove to the metro to pick up Jere, and then over to the commissary, only to find the Virginians were driving like assholes again. The road wasn't even cold enough to freeze, but it caused a back up on the three miles of highway we needed. Just outside of base we had a car cross the shoulder and pull out in front of us. I was just daring his sorry ass to head back to Belvoir so I could chase him down and rip him a new one.

I got lots of treats yesterday! First off, since Jere and I went straight from the metro to the commissary, I got to drag my very important husband around in uniform. *smiles with silver oak leaves twinkling in her eyes* Which means, for once, that no one tried to run me over while shopping on base. I hate when that happens. In fact, everyone was nice and chatty last night because we were all there before the after work rush, and it was quiet and there were no crowds in the frozen food aisle.

Jere took me to the PX, finally, something I think he's been scared to do. I hadn't been to the PX at Belvoir, and what a nice place! Bigger than the one at Myer, and a whole actual petites section! I bought three more dresses (I don't understand my obsession with dresses lately, but I'd better find someplace to wear them). And two pairs of shoes. And a new computer game, which means Jere slept on the couch last night so I could stay up and play.

My weight loss is stalled at the moment. Though I don't know how I can even say that after losing eight pounds. I think I'm just getting impatient. Not to mention I'm constantly on the scale, tracking every ounce. Maybe it's time for Jere to hide it from me. Make sure I can't get on it for at least a month. Then I can be surprised either way LOL. I almost feel like I should go back to the gym, but I honestly don't want to. I have too much going on the next two months to keep up with a regular workout schedule. As long as I'm careful about what I eat, I should continue to lose weight, especially with the things I have planned on my trips. Kayaking, snorkeling, hiking through the jungle, trekking through frozen Ireland. Yep. I'll be plenty busy and plenty active.

Weight Watchers (not that I use them, but someone posted this on a board the other day) says you can't begin to see results until you lose at least 10% of your body weight. That's just over 15 pounds for me, and I'm starting to agree. And get disheartened. My 8 pounds just isn't cutting it. I hate that. I know I'm doing a good job. Jere says he can see a difference, but I think he's full of it LOL.

Today I'm finally watching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. No, I haven't seen it before. And seeing Washington, how it used to, and through the eyes of Jimmy Stewart and Frank Capra, it makes me want to go explore it again. And sad to move. Of course, this movie is also about corruption of politics, the Senate, and the press. But I haven't gotten that far yet. I think I'll just watch the beginning over and over and over.

Today's lesson: Sometimes it's inspiring to see the now crazy city of Washington through different eyes. It takes a tourist to even momentarily restore awe to those of us who live here.

A surprisingly good weekend

How do I even begin to describe a weekend that went surprisingly well? Ok, so maybe the whole weekend didn't go well, because Saturday just plain wasn't pretty.

I've finally lost it. While trying to make icing roses and bake a cake for my mother-in-law, the walls finally closed in on me. It took just over two weeks. I had no counter space, was knocking stuff around everywhere, and had a screaming attack of claustrophobia in the kitchen. My poor husband, while not being the target of my rage, got to listen to more curse words than I think he even hears out in the field.

I was actually grateful to leave the house on Sunday and head to my mother-in-law's. Even t hough we have a great history of being nice to each other's faces, she said some rather cruel things about me to Jere and his sister back when we first got married. Part of me wasn't quite ready to let that go, but dammit, my defenses were down. Every single one of my friends knows that I'm not a lovely, forgiving person. Not because they've incurred my wrath, but because they've heard me bitch about other people. I will take a grudge to the grave.

But with Jere's deployment coming up, I think my mother-in-law and I very calmly decided a truce was in order. We need each other. We all spent hours talking, and I told her about why I don't want to go back to Michigan and why I chose to move to Staunton. Not to mention she knew that just being in a house for a weekend where I wasn't cramped and crowded in was a relief. And she was a Navy wife, and is an Army mom. She knows what kind of crazy goes on at the Pentagon when it comes to officers and staffing, and up until now has dealt with Jere's finances and packing for past deployments.

So I had a wonderful time. She didn't say anything about my crazy diet, though cracked up when I gave in and ate all the nuts out of Jere's ice cream. I'm still as conversationally awkward as ever, but I think she's beginning to understand that. On top of it all, it was nice to just sit back, relax, and watch the birds out the sliding glass window. Because here all I can see is the telephone pole.

Yesterday, we went and looked at the new apartment building. I love it. I can't wait to live there with the pretty view of the mountains! I liked the two girls who work in the office. And I love how much room there is! I'm ready to move now, but my little ticker says I have 69 more days here. Bummer.

Coming home yesterday made me grumpy. I hadn't slept very well, and walking into the tiny hotel room made me sad. So Jere took me shopping, told me that I could go buy really expensive shoes at DSW. I spent an hour there, and found nothing that I really wanted. Sadness. So I wandered to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and became even more sad because I wanted to buy things for the new place and had nowhere to store it. Jere did find me the DVD I wanted at Circuit City, but seeing I was getting depressed, he took me to Macy's. Where once again, I found absolutely nothing. Their petite jeans were either way too big or way too small. And their selection of cute dresses, well, sucked. So another trip to Penney's, where I bought a cute pink dress. Still didn't cheer me up, so we came home, I ate healthy dinner, and slept. I feel better today, but I still feel like I can't escape this room's itty bitty-ness.

However, I will hardly be home to notice the cramped space. Jere and I leave for our cruise in 11 days. Karalyn and I will be in Mexico the first week of April. And in between I'm going to Ireland for a week. I'll be plenty busy. And my travel agency loves me. :-) I was going to go to Ireland while Jere was away, but I found such a great deal I decided to go now and leave the tiny place.
And now I'm off to find airfare and cute shoes online.

Today's lesson: Some people really can change. What's most surprising is realizing that you've changed.