I need to vent.

I missed a midterm. Midterm week is this week, but my professor decided to give it last week. And I missed it. And it's worth 30% of my grade.

Arron TDY'd early this morning and we got in a huge argument before he left.

I was at work until 8:45 tonight doing training for a government credit card.

I have insomnia.

And I'm about to break down into tears from all of this.

Organizing & Random Photos

Yesterday I spent most of the day cleaning around the house. Today was spent being productive, including laundry, homework, and even a bit of organizing. I'm pretty proud of myself. :)

Yesterday: My plant is stretching for some sunlight. Come on spring!!

Today, Arron took a two hour nap, during which I took a shower, washed my hair, and took a whole bunch of crazy pictures with my new iPhone. :)

 My friend Tessa introduced me to the Pop Photo Booth 

app, and I'm having tons of fun with it.
I particularly like this picture of my eye. :)

Then, today, as I was sitting down with Arron on the couch, I got the urge to organize one of the catch-all baskets in our living room. This particular basket was filled with all sorts of cords, from iPod/iPhone/iPad charging cords to hard drive cords, and everything in between. I was tired of trying to pull one cord out, and a whole tangled mess of them coming out.

So I pulled out a whole bunch of sandwich-size Ziplok bags, my roll of masking tape, a permanent marker, and a big heaping of patience.

I wish I had taken a "before" picture, but here are some afters: 

 As you can see, I labeled each individual cable as well, to help us find 

the right place the cord goes back into when we're finished with it. :)

I seriously used probably 15 Ziplok bags, but it is so much more organized in there. I wish I could find a way to more easily display them so we don't have to rifle through them each time we're looking for something, but this will have to do for now. At least any extra time we spend looking for something is offset by not having to untangle a thousand cords!

So I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for being so productive and organized today. :)

A New Phone :)

In December 2010, when I was home, Pops gave me his old iPhone 3G to have since he had recently upgraded to the new iPhone 4. This "new" (to me) iPhone 3G was worlds ahead of my little track phone I was using here, and I promptly had a friend jailbreak and unlock it for me.

However, since I had never had a jailbroken and unlocked phone, I didn't know that the friend did it wrong. There were glitches--I couldn't run more than one app at a time, and if I tried, the whole thing would have to restart. It was quite annoying but I got used to it.

However, about three weeks ago, I tried to restore the phone since the lock button wasn't working, and I couldn't turn it on or off.

And the phone died.

Like, it would not turn on, or respond, or anything.

Uh oh.

I gave it to a friend from work to try to fix, since she said her husband could probably fix it. Five days later, he had tried just about everything, and still couldn't get it to work. Bummer.

So she let me borrow an old track phone of hers until I could get a new phone and figure out what to do. I promptly sold my broken iPhone on the Aviano Classifieds page for $75 and Arron told me I could order the new iPhone 4S.

WHAAAAT!?!? Suh-weet!

So on Monday it finally came in the mail, and I am in heaven. Siri is hilarious, and very helpful... when she wants to be:

 Siri told me the best way to walk to Rome.

She also helped me with some of my summer curricula for work. 

It's also nice to have a camera always on hand to grab pictures of everyday things that happen...

 Imagining my ice cream is Blue Bell... the way it is in Texas.

My car hit 126K early this morning!

That's all for now, but be on the lookout for more pictures and now even some videos!!

Brittany

TDY Curse and a Failed Pinterest Craft

As some of you may know, Arron has been TDY (temporary duty--aka gone) for two weeks. As any military spouse knows, as soon as the husband leaves, everything goes wrong.

5 hours before I was supposed to drop him off at the airport, I went to take a bath and flooded our entire top floor. I now know that there are cracks in the bottom of the bathtub, and we can't use it until our landlord replaces it. The problem is, I've been calling for a week now and can't ever get in touch with the translator (through housing) since I have no clue who our landlord is. Bah humbug.

The day that he left, I made pasta salad to take to a friend's BBQ. After I made it, I put it in the fridge to cool while I got ready. I opened the fridge to leave and...

Gone is my pasta salad, and even more heartbreaking, my Pyrex bowl.


......


On a completely different note, Pinterest has gotten me so addicted to crafts and thinking I can make anything.

The Pinterest gods decided to bring my ego down a notch.

I saw the cutest headband and decided that it didn't look too terribly hard to make:

So I grabbed an old t-shirt, my sewing stuff, scissors, and began...

After an hour of braiding, re-braiding, and trying to make it look as cool as the author intended for it to look, I had this:

So I promptly threw it in the trash and went on my merry way. Thanks, Pinterest, for reminding me that I'm not crafty at ALL. 

However, I have a good idea for what I'm going to try to make for Valentine's Day for Arron, so I'll take pictures and let everyone know how it works out. Ha!

February 3

Today is Friday, February 3, 2012. Momma was born on this day in 1958.

 Her 22nd birthday.

Since her birthday was at the beginning of February, that also coincided with crawfish season in Texas. One of her favorite things to do was to host a crawfish boil at the house and invite all of our friends over...

 Mother's Day 2009. I know it's not her birthday, 

but you can tell she's lovin' the crawfish.

 I would put this birthday around 2007 or 2008, so she was either

turning 50 or 51. We went to Pappasito's with her side of the family. 

 We bought her a balloon flower. :)

 Jacki, Paul, Momma and me.

Momma and her sisters and one brother.

Last year, I felt the need to take a day off work on her birthday, since it was the first one since she had passed away. This year I'm stronger, and able to think of her without bursting into tears. One of my kids at work the other day asked me, "Do you miss your Mommy?" It broke my heart, but I told her "Yes, I do." 

Here's to you, Momma. I'm thinking of you today, and I hope I make you proud.

 Cheers to the most beautiful woman I will ever know.

 ♥

Quick General Life Update

I don't know how long it's been since I've written a general update on life, so here goes. Arron left almost a week ago for a TDY and will be back somewhat soon. It's been nice to have the house to myself, but I've already gotten used to him being home so I keep expecting him to come down the stairs or through the front door. I have yet to do my first TDY cleaning, which all of us wives know that the house stays much cleaner while they're gone.

Classes have started back up and it now looks like I will be graduating in August after the summer session. I'm in three classes now, plus another two for the second spring semester and two over the summer. I'm excited to get finished and get on with my life!

Work has been good, just mostly the same stuff, but adding new programs in to play. The kids are excited and love it. I'm excited because we're getting new furniture and that means out with the old, nasty-looking stuff. :)

Valentine's Day is coming up... and I have just about no idea what I'm getting Arron. So sweetheart, if you're reading this, do a better job at hinting at what you want! Or else I get to pick, mwahaha!

I think that's all for now... allora. Ciao!

Paris--Day 4 (Last one!)

We woke up on January 1, 2012 and decided to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. We woke up and got to the Tower around 9:30 in the morning, figuring that the morning crowd would be less intense than the afternoon/evening crowd. I would have loved to see the panoramic view at night, or even gone up during the day when it wasn't so overcast, but all's well anyway. :)

We waited about 20 or 30 minutes in line before going up in the elevator. We stopped on the second floor first before going all the way to the top.

 Seine River. 

 You can see where we stood for New Year's Eve here--behind the third lawn, right in front of the roundabout. 

 The Lourve. 

 Notre Dame.

 Arc de Triomphe. 

 Look how high it is compared to the rest of the buildings!

 Pont de l'Alma--the tunnel where Princess Diana died.

 Can you find the Statue of Liberty?

 After taking lots of pictures on the second floor, we then went all the way to the top. It was really, really windy up there, so we didn't spend as much time as we would have liked.

The Arc de Triomphe and the (not-so-crazy at this time of day) roundabout.

 Notre Dame, again.

 The Lourve. You can even see the pyramid. :)

 Pont de l'Alma.

 The Trocadero. Probably my favorite picture from up high. This is where we 

took the picture of us in front of the Tower on New Year's Eve. :)

All around the top of the Tower it listed cities and how far away they are.
Washington DC - 6, 175 km

New York, NY - 5,849 km.

Going to the top of the Tower was such an experience and it was really an awesome way to spend our last day in Paris. :)

Ciao ciao!