The Real Meaning of Today

Please take a moment today out of your busy schedule of picnics and bar-b-que's and going to amusment parks to remember what today's holiday actually means.

It's not a 3-day weekend so we can all go to the beach or the mountains. It's not an extra day off of work to get all those extra chores done around the house.

Today is set aside to honor and remember those men and women who sacrificed so much so that each of us can do with today what we want.

Today, take a moment and think about the men who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, our US Forces lost 6,603 men that day. Remember the Marines of the First World War who fought in Belleau Woods. They struck terror in the hearts of their enemy, who called them Teufelshunde, meaning Devil Dogs.
Take a moment and remember all the American servicemembers who have fought in your name all over the globe, in steamy jungles and arid deserts, so that you can walk freely and speak your mind without fear.

And take a moment to remember all the men and women that are so far from home today. There are no picnics or bar-b-que's for them today.

They sleep alone, in uncomfortable surroundings, if they get to sleep at all.

I, for one, will never forget.

Change of Plans

I had a post planned for today, in fact I had it almost completely written, when I went searching for an old picture I wanted to use. I have three or four of those plastic storage tubs under my bed filled with old pictures, memorabilia, and letters.

Here I am, two hours later, inspired to write a completely different post. I just spent a good portion of this evening looking at all the letters that Dave wrote to me during our dating years.

As I have written previously, a good portion of our dating years were spent living at least four hours apart. We wrote two or three letters a week, off and on, for close to two years.

I found two letters that Dave wrote to me right after my Senior Prom in 1987, which was our first date. The raw honesty and emotion of those two letters brought me to tears. I sat in the middle of my bedroom floor and cried.

I can not believe what an amazingly lucky person I am to have found my soul-mate at 18 years old. The words that he wrote, the hopes and the dreams that he expressed in those letters...they have all been realized.

He talked of the future and of being together and growing together and growing older together. He wrote about his desire to protect me and to keep me safe and to give me everything that I ever wanted. Reading his words I can feel the hopes that he had and I could also feel the fear that he had that it would never come true.

Dearest David, I don't tell you often enough so I'm doing it here today. You have given me everything that you ever promised me and so much more. You have given me a life that I cherish, a marriage that I am proud of, and the realization of every hope my 18 year old heart could ever desire. I adore the boy that you were and I love the man that you have become.





ps...please forgive me for shattering your big, tough, Devil Dog image...you big softie!

Layouts for Salem

Salem informed me this week that I was slacking on making layouts for his album. Yes, my cat has his own scrapbook album.

So I figured I had better get on the ball and rectify the situation before he became less careful about where he coughs up those hairballs.

I love the picture in the first layout. Salem knows exactly what it means when we pull out the suitcases and makes his displeasure evident every time he sees us wheeling them out of the closet. This would be his version of a sit in.

I had this old recliner in my apartment when I was living at the hotel and any time anyone would sit down in it to watch TV, Salem would jump up on the arm of the chair and stare at you until you scooted over and made room for me.

That was all well and good for Dave and I, but it tended to freak out any guests that might be visiting.

I Was In Baby Hell

I'm child free by choice. Babies are not my thing, at all. They smell, they drool, they're expensive...the list goes on.

So I'm in line at the bank today. The very long line. The very long line that hasn't moved in 10 minutes.

There was a young woman in line in front of me with a baby around 9 or 10 months old. She was bouncing it around and talking to it really loud.

"OOOH look at how cute you are, you're drooling all over Mommy!"

:::she looks around to see who is paying attention to her:::

"OOPS you dropped your toy!"

The guy in front of her bends down and picks it up for her and she starts talking to him about her baby and how old it is and all sorts of stuff he isn't interested in. Finally he turns his back on her. It still takes her another minute to stop talking to him.

So she goes back to talking loudly to the baby.

Yes lady, we all get it. You have a baby. While I am sure that you love your baby very much and it's very special to you, here's a news flash: the rest of the world doesn't give a damn about the hairless, drool machine.

Then another young mother got in line behind me. Not to be outdone, she starts up. It was like an episode of Who Can Get More People To Look At Her Baby.

I was seriously in hell!

Here's my Top 10 List of Reasons Why I Will Never Have a Child:

1. They are expensive. Diapers, clothes, food, school shoes...the list goes on and on. When Dave retires from the Marine Corp, we are retiring for good. We couldn't have done that if we were raising kids.
2. A car seat would not fit in the Mustang, the Vette, or on the Harley.
3. No way in hell am I getting pregnant. I don't understand why people think pregnant women are beautiful. Glowing? I think they look bloated and obscene. Why would I voluntarily go through something that entails hemorrhoids, vomiting, and stretch marks?
4. I am the Center of the Universe. If you have a baby, you have to put their needs before your own and I'm not down with that.
5. When you have kids, you can't just drop everything and drive to Vegas at 10pm at night because you feel like it. Or run off to the beach. Or even go to the movies without finding a babysitter.
6. When you have kids, you can't lay around your living room naked and have sex on the couch, or the kitchen floor, or in the garage, or....well you get the picture.
7. The cat would hate it.
8. I like sleeping too much. I hear that becomes an issue when you have a baby.
9. I don't do bodily functions. I could never be a nurse or a vet. I don't do vomit, poop, pee, or snot. GROSS!
   
10. I forget to feed the cat. No way should I be given a baby. I'm not that responsible.
    

Band Geeks

Earlier this week I had two high school teachers sitting at my bar, wasting an afternoon. Why they weren't in school, I'm not sure, but they were funny as hell and I had a fun afternoon listening to them telling stories.

One of them was a band instructor. He got to telling all these hilarious band jokes that I suppose are only funny to ex-band geeks like me.

How many trumpet players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
None, that's what they have tuba players for.

What did the drummer get on his IQ test?
Drool

What do you call people that hang out with musicians all the time?
Drummers.

How do you get two flutist to play in unison?
Shoot one of them

I just got to thinking about my days in marching band on the flag line. I couldn't remember all the jokes they told me, so while trying to Google them, I found this funny Marching Band Purity Test and Color Guard Purity Test.

Umm....I'm embarrassed to tell you how high I scored on them.

One Third

Today we are one third of the way through this deployment. It's moving along, not fast enough to suit me, but it's moving along.

Come on October, hurry up and get here!

Happy Mother's Day!

To one cool Mom who was always there for me!

Happy Mother's Day!

Big & Rich Concert

Back in early April, I went to see Big & Rich in concert with a girlfriend from work. Cowboy Troy and Two Foot Fred performed with them. It was a great concert and Jennifer and I had a blast.

As you can tell from the pictures, by the time we waited in line to get Cowboy Troy's autograph, we were feeling no pain. WAY too much vodka and cranberry juice!


I've also had some requests as to where people can see more of my layouts. I post in the gallery at The Red Lily

Please excuse the quality of the scan, my scanner sucks!

Spoiled

It's so funny how technology spoils us.

When Dave was deployed to Desert Storm in 1991, he was gone for 3 months. In that time, I received one phone call and a few letters. This was way before email.

Now today, 15 years later, I freak out when email goes down and I don't hear from him for 48 hours. I imagined all sorts of bad things.

Maybe I was better off the other way, not knowing?

This Post Brought To You By The Letter W

So Sonia over at The Queen's Court has this game going on and I was assigned the letter W. I have to come up with ten words that are somewhat relative to me that start with that letter. If you want to play, post and I'll assign you a letter.

So here goes:

1. Wendy - Pretty easy, my name IRL.
2. Wendylicious - My name in the cyber world. Before a few years ago, any time I needed a screen name on line I would use Wendy7376. But then I became extremely active on the now defunct message board called unscrappable and someone else joined after me with the name of just "Wendy". Being the egomaniacal person that I am, I couldn't be a second rate knock off, so I ran a contest for my friends there to come up with a new name for me. Brandy, I believe, came up with Wendylicious and that's been my cyber name ever since. It's so very ME. Also, I harbor a great contempt for women who use screen names like "Momof2Boys" or "BobsWife". HELLO! Do you not have an identity outside that? Your role as wife or mother, while important, does not define who you are! Blick!
   
3. Works - my maiden name. Yes, my maiden name was Wendy Works. How badly does that suck? Sometimes I tell my husband I married him for the nice normal name he gave me.
4. Wife - it won't be too many more years before I will have been married more years than I haven't been. Sometimes it's hard to believe that we've been married so long, it doesn't seem like that long ago when we were dating. But I can't imagine not being married; it's such an integral part of who I am.
5. Weight - Something I've struggled with since my mid-20's. I have a genetic propensity to obesity, which I refuse to give in to. It's constant vigilance.
6. Wacky - I don't think anyone that knows me will disagree that I'm a bit off kilter.
7. Water - Don't like it. I didn't learn to swim until I was older and even now it's just a modified doggie paddle. I can't open my eyes under water and I'm terrified of being held down under water. My worst death ever would be drowning.
8. Whiney - I get whiney when I'm tired or sick, and I hate it. I admire strength and dislike weak or whiney people. So when I get whiney, I dislike it in myself.
9. Watchful - I'm a careful person, my favorite sayings are "better safe than sorry" or "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is". As a female, I'm vigilant about my personal safety.
10. Wonderful - I am a unique and amazing person. I know that because I have a large circle of friends both on line and IRL that would go to the ends of the earth for me and I love them dearly. I have two strong and remarkable parents who raised me to be such and a set of in-laws that love me like one of their own. I am also blessed to be in love with and married to the most marvelous man ever who loves me for who I am, warts and all. How could I be anything less than wonderful if all these people that I admire so much love me?

So that's my list. Dave please notice that I did not use your suggestions of wonderful breasts or waffle-butt.

Some day I'll have to blog about the waffle-butt story, but that is another post all in itself.