1. What is your favorite MilSpouse blog?  This is actually the first one I've read, so I don't know.  I closely follow the blogs of a few of my favorite people, however.
2. What are your favorite perks about your s/o being deployed (we all know there are perks)?  Easy!  Though my favorite things are like double-edged swords.  Here they are, and why they are double-edged.  1, Having the bed to myself.  Jason can be difficult to sleep beside because he snores loudly, steals covers and flops.  All that said, I still miss him when he's not there.  2, Being able to have cereal for dinner if I want it.  The bad part about this is that I don't really get to have my favorite meals if I want them.  I hate cooking for just myself, so I pretty much just don't do it.
3. How long did you date your before getting engaged? Married? Jason and I dated for about 2 months the first time, back in 2006.  We got back together on January 1, 2009.  He proposed on March 31, 2009.  We were engaged for 5 days and got married on April 5, 2009.
4. What do you think your would do if s/he wasn’t in the military?  He'd be a managing engineer at a steel factory like Nucor, most likely.   That's what his college internship was before he joined the Navy, anyway.  
5. If you could talk to the Secretary of the Navy what is one suggestion you would like to bring to their attention in order to improve the lives of military families?  I know this won't be a popular answer, but....  Dear Ray Mabus,  I still take serious issue with you caving to the pressure of liberal groups and allowing women on submarines.  

I recently got a good giggle when someone asked me if my tan came from a tanning salon.  I. Live. On. Guam!  There literally aren't any tanning salons on this little island.  I just thought that was so funny..  I haven't been in a tanning bed in almost two years.  (Thank God!)  His next question was, "Oh, do you just lay out?"  Hahahahahahahaha!  I'm a full time Mommy to a 6 month old!  The precious few hours she spends napping each day are the only time I can get things done in my house.  If I took that time to tan.... Again, it just makes me giggle.

I have recently decided that I take issue with tanning beds, except when used for depression alleviation purposes.  If I lived somewhere that never had sun, I would probably own a tanning bed, or at the very least, one of those huge lamps that you sit under.  I need sunshine!  I couldn't live like my dear friend Celeste does, at the beautiful North Pole where there are weeks at a time of darkness.  No, thank you.  The thing she does for love (live there to be with her man) would be a deal breaker for me.

Now, back to taking issue with tanning beds... Why do we feel the need to be dark in the winter?  I'm guilty, too.  I tanned every fall and winter from the time I was 17 until I moved to Guam.  But why?  Light skin is beautiful!   Light skin is natural in the winter time!  I see my friends who are dark, and I don't get it.. Then I see people that I'm not necessarily friends with who are orange, and I want to laugh at them.  In fact, I do laugh at them, just not to their faces.

I don't get why we're all so vain.  Going to a tanning salon means actually paying for something that you can get for free outside.  Why not just wait until it warms up a little bit?  I know they make you feel better during the winter.. Like I said, I'm guilty, too.  I used to love the feeling of crawling in that warm bed when it was 30 degrees outside.  It was the best nap I could get in the winter!  But still.. why?

For the very first time in my life, I have a runner's tan.  The tan lines are huge on my shoulders and back.  It's not going to be very pretty in a dress, but I don't care.  I'm so proud that I've been spending time outside every day.  I'm showing my little girl the healthy way to have a glow to her skin.  (For the record, we both wear sun screen even though she spends 90% of the run in the shade of her car seat.)

I hereby vow to never pay for a tan ever again.  That is, unless Jason somehow talks me into moving to Bangor, Washington.  At that point I will probably have to purchase a tanning bed just to survive.

You've been warned.  That's probably all this post is going to be... bitching.  You don't have to read it, and you certainly don't have to comment.  In fact, if you have an opinion that differs from mine, please don't express it here.  Talk to me about it on a day when I don't feel like crying every 15 minutes.  Talk to me about it on a day when I don't hate Guam.  That day might come in a month when I'm finally off this rock, but I'm sure it will come.  I'm sure, one day (maybe when I'm mired in the snow in Connecticut) I will look back and miss Guam.  Today is not that day.

This move has been crazy.  It's no one's fault and I have no one to blame, except maybe Big Navy (like, the government, not the base) for using our command as guinea pigs.  It's one thing after another, and I'm so sick of it.  I'm also sick of the feeling that I shouldn't have a negative opinion about it.  Sorry, I've got one.  I won't go into specifics in such a public way, but if I don't get this out somewhere, I'm going to explode.  Just writing this vague little paragraph makes me feel better.  I no longer feel the need to throw all three of my telephones into Sumay Bay.

It's the little things that get me here.  For instance, I get so angry just about every single time I step foot into the commissary.  It's always something.  What isn't fair is that if I consistently had problems at a grocery store in the States, I would just NOT go to that grocery store.  Well, here I don't have a choice.  The thing that gets me most often is the stupid self-check out machines.  Why don't they ever work properly?  I've used self-check out machines in probably 15 grocery stores and Wal Marts all over the country, and never had a problem before.  UGH.  Today my bitch is seemingly incompetent employees.  Now what happened doesn't even seem relevant.  So I'm not going to write about it.. Again, my vague paragraph has made me feel better.

Lastly, I'm annoyed at myself because I can't get past this weight plateau.  I get to a certain number, and I only go up from there.  I've gotten to this number 3 times now in the past 2 months, and it seems like once I hit it I can't go further.  I eat less, exercise more, and nothing.  Maybe it's a mental thing?  I don't know.. I find myself getting discouraged when I haven't lost anything the next day.  I've also noticed that I am a defiant eater.  "Oh.  I didn't lose anything yesterday and I did so well.. So today I'm going to eat what I want, since it obviously doesn't make a difference."  That's probably something I need to work through.. I should also probably not weigh myself every single day.  That might help.. Blah.  I don't know.  I don't want to get obsessive, but I see it coming.

Ok, just so this won't be a huge bitch fest with nothing positive.. Jason will home again soon and I am so very excited to see him.  We only have a few weeks total left of under water time before Jason will be on dry land with  me for the next 4ish years.  I am so ready to wake up next to him every morning and go to sleep beside him every night.  I'm ready to find a church, and get into a family routine instead of a single mom routine.  I can't wait to really get started on our life as a family!

Alright.. bitch over.  Now I can finish my day with a big weight lifted off my shoulders.  Sometimes you just have to get it out, you know?

I just ordered a pizza and I'm wearing one of my favorite t-shirts.  I sat down on the couch and grabbed my plastic tumbler full of cold water, and thought, "Man.. these are some of my favorite things ever!"  Move over, Julie Andrews, because here's my list.  For no reason other than I want to think about things that make me happy.

Pizza, but not just any pizza.  I love gourmet pizzas, but my favorite is this:  pepperoni, mushrooms, green peppers and pineapple.  Is that an odd combination?  I didn't know I liked pineapple on pizza until I spent a few months pregnant.  At that point I realized that I like fruit in pretty much any dish, with any topping.

T-shirts.  I love me some t-shirts.  I have two that I wear over and over and over because they're just so stinking soft.  One is light blue and says "Ain't Oxford Grand" with the North Face symbol on the back.

The other one is the very first Ole Miss t-shirt that I bought in Oxford.  It's the famous "OLE MISS We're not snobs... We're just better than you."  t-shirt.  There are so many reasons that I love this shirt.  Number one, it's the first one I ever bought.  I got it my Freshman year and I was so proud.  Two, I was once wearing it in the Atlanta airport when a guy chased me down just so that he could see the back of it.  He laughed so hard.  Turns out, he went to State.  Number 3 is a little bizarre.  Jason accidentally took it home with him the first time we were dating.  I had no idea what had happened to my favorite t-shirt.  After we started dating again, Jason failed to mention that he still had it.  I found it when I was unpacking his clothing boxes in Guam.  I was so excited!  Not only was my very favorite t-shirt returned to me, but Jason had kept it all along.. even when he hated my guts :)  And number 4, it got me chased down when we were in HI..  by an elderly gentleman, who, you guessed it.. went to State.  Turns out, it's a great conversation starter.

I love plastic tumblers.  I will choose a plastic cup over a glass any day of the week.  I mean, seriously.. Unless I'm entertaining, I just don't see the sense in using a big heavy glass.  I sort of think they're obnoxious.  Jason will go for them every time, and it annoys me to no end.  (Now that I think about it, that's a really stupid thing to be annoyed at..  Poor Jason, dealing with my little quirks.)  Maybe I associate glasses with extra dish-washing since Mammaw never let us put them in the dishwasher.  Blah.. Give me plastic!  Even better if it's one of the awesomely insulated tumblers that come with lids.. I love those things!

I also love beverages in plastic cups, oddly enough.  I hate cans.  I hate bottles.  I want my beverage in ice, in a plastic cup.  Preferably with a straw, unless the beverage is tea.  Tea should only be drank with a straw if one is drinking from a McAllister's or Newk's cup.  My GOD, I'm neurotic!  My favorite beverage is cold water.  It always has been.. Even as a kid I'd go for water before a soda, tea, juice, or (shivers) milk.  Milk is disgusting, FYI.

Make up.  I have a make up problem, and I always have.  I remember this little problem starting sometime in junior high.  It only compounded when Mom started working for Lancome, and it got so much worse when she ran a Chanel counter.  I have, literally, hundreds of eye shadow colors.  Hundreds.  Ok, maybe more like dozens, but probably close to 100.  The quirky thing here is that I rarely wear make up.  We have to be going on a date, or I have to be meeting a group for lunch to wear it.  I'm too lazy to worry with applying it and later washing it off.

I have listed for you some completely random things that make my day better.  I could go on with this list for hours.  I'm purposefully leaving out how much I love my amazing husband, my beautiful daughter, and our life together.  I think I write about them too much :)

A member of my WhatToExpect October 2010 message board lost her October baby to SIDS a few days ago.   She took the baby to daycare in the morning, then got the call in the afternoon.  The worker put the baby down for a nap, then went to check on her and she wasn't breathing.  Paramedics tried to revive her for an hour, and they thought they had her back, but they didn't.  This poor mother.  I don't know her personally, but my heart aches for her as much as if she were a friend of mine.

 Everything has changed.  Sleeping in doesn't happen anymore, and that's ok.  We go to bed early to make up for it.  Honestly, I haven't seen anything later than 11:00 pm in over a month, since KB started going to bed earlier.  We haven't been on a date since September.  I don't mind.  Instead of going to dinner and a movie, we get KB ready for bed together.  Jason does bath time while I get her bottle ready.  Then once she's down, we eat dinner and watch a movie or tv together.  Our lives have changed, but so much for the better.  I wouldn't change a thing.

First of all, this isn't an Emily is trying to lose weight blog, though it certainly could be.  This also isn't a philosophical blog.  Yet.  This is a straight forward, matter of fact, truth blog.

Preparing for our move to Hawaii has brought a lot to my mind.  I was in the shower just now when I realized how much crap we have.  Our master bathroom could be used as a metaphor for our cluttered lives.  In the shower, there are 2 cans of shaving cream (both mine), 3 razors (2 mine, 1 Jason's), 4 loofahs (2 for each of us), 4 bottles of shower gel (2 each), 4 bottles of shampoo (3 are mine..) and 3 bottles of conditioner (all mine). Why, why, WHY do I have multiples of everything?  Why don't I throw anything away?  And even more curiously, why does Jason, a man, have multiple bottles of shower gel??

It doesn't end there.  Just stroll over to my vanity and you will find 2 tubes of deodorant, 2 bottles of eye makeup remover and 2 little tubs of moisturizer.  Just so you know, the 2 containers of makeup remover and moisturizer are exact duplicates.  And furthermore, all 4 have been opened.. I'm not just saving one for when the other one runs out.  Under my vanity is just as bad.  2 cans of mousse, 2 cans of hairspray.. (I NEVER do my hair.  I have this terrible habit of thinking that I'm going to look extra hot on a night out if I buy hair products.  Nope.  I look the same.)  There are 3 bottles of lotion on my vanity, and 3 under it.  And, to top it all off, there are 6 contact lens cases.

Alright, so what is wrong with me?  Do I see something in the store and think that I just absolutely can't live without it, even though I have the exact same thing at home?  Do I think that this product must be better than it's predecessor, even though they have the same ingredients?  I'm really annoyed with myself over this, and I didn't even get into the terrible make up habit.  Hello, 3 tubes of unopened mascara.

So now I'm obsessed with using things up so that I don't have to pack them.  I'm starting with the bottles of shampoo that have the least in them and using them first.  Different strategy with the body wash - I'm using the huge bottle in hopes of only having to pack the small bottle.  I'm randomly choosing scented lotions when I get out of the shower instead of my traditional Vaseline brand stuff.

Oh, and I'm going to stop buying crap.  Seriously.. This is a problem.

I am so hurt.  I was so excited to get back to Guam, and since I've been here, I've been told things that were said about me when I was gone.  Not only are these things absolutely ludicrous, but they are so insulting.  At first I laughed because the first rumor I heard was so stupid.  I couldn't believe someone could even come up with it, much less repeat it.  But the rumors I've heard more recently just hurt me.  They are also absolutely ridiculous, but to think that people who I thought were my friends would say these things breaks my heart.

I told myself that I was going to let it roll off my back, and not even give a response.  But the more I think about it, the more upset I get. So I AM responding.

First rumor: Katie Beth came early because I drank NyQuil throughout my pregnancy.

How it's false: I had Katie Beth 7 weeks early due to HELLP syndrome.  You can look it up.  It is similar to pre-eclampsia, only much worse.  My liver was shutting down and my blood pressure was sky high.  Even if I did drink NyQuil all the time, which I did not, it wouldn't have caused either of the two main symptoms of HELLP syndrome.

Rumor: Katie Beth came early because I was still working out hardcore, I was mowing my yard, and I wasn't eating enough because I didn't want to gain weight.

How it's false: Working out - Umm.. Yeah.. I still went jogging while I was in Hawaii, which wasn't even very far into my second trimester.  Once I got to Guam, it was simply too hot.  The only "hardcore" exercising I did was Jason and I would go for walks after dinner.  That isn't very hardcore.  I did mow my yard.  It isn't much work, ladies.  I would do it in the morning before the heat became unbearable.  I never, ever once pushed myself too hard.  In fact, my Dr. was extremely pleased with me for continuing to exercise because I got diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes.  Exercise is the one thing they tell you to do, as well as controll your diet.  Speaking of diet...

Not eating - Are. You. Kidding. Me???  Clearly the person who started this rumor was never around me. I ate like a horse. I ate all day every day.  I am so incredibly sorry that I didn't gain the weight most people gain during their pregnancies.  Oh wait.. No, that's not true either. My Dr. advised for me to gain no more than 15 lbs the entire pregnancy, because I was overweight to begin with.  I was perfectly on track to do that when I left Guam.  Five days before Katie Beth was born, I had gained 10 lbs.  The day she was born, I had gained 19.  I gained 9 lbs in 5 days because of water retention.  Another symptom of HELLP syndrome.

Rumor: I forced myself into labor because I was told that Jason wouldn't get Paternity Leave since I was in Mississippi.  So, naturally, I forced myself to go into labor early so that he would get emergency leave.

How it's false: Again, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??  I was fully prepared to have Katie Beth without Jason's presence.  It hurt me so much, but I knew that going home to Mississippi was what I needed to do. (And, by the way, thank God I did!!)  I had every Power Of Attorney a girl could need to have a baby without her husband present.  But beyond that, and beyond the fact that I didn't go into labor AT ALL, much less on purpose, what kind of woman would sacrifice the health of her unborn baby just to get her way?  Is that truly what some of you think of me?

Most of you will never know how many nights I spent crying myself to sleep because I couldn't take care of my baby.  She was in an incubator 20 miles away when she should have been in my arms.  To think that any woman would do that on purpose is not only hurtful, it's shameful.  Yes, I was incredibly sad that Jason wasn't home.  But that was totally eclipsed by the fact that my baby was in the care of nurses, and all because my body wasn't well enough to keep her healthy in the womb.

I didn't advertise those feelings because I was trying to stay positive.  That Katie Beth was so wonderfully healthy was a miracle, and I chose to focus on that instead of all the "what ifs".

I don't care to know who started these rumors.  Clearly this woman or these women are not my friends.  If anyone who heard these rumors was my friend, she would have squashed it immediately.  But you know who you are, and shame on you.  I hope you understand how truly hurt I am that these things would be said, when they could not be further from the truth.