It Feels Great to Write, Again!

I'm going to start writing again, especially since my "sounding board" is gone again. Jason left for California a week ago and will be gone until February 20ish. A week flew by, but that scares me since he will be deploying again in April. I just wish time wouldn't fly when he is home.

Speaking of time, today is our 7 year anniversary. Man, that flew by really quickly. Seriously, I think I blinked 3 times and all of a sudden we are here. Cliche, yes, but the best 7 years. I couldn't imagine my life any other way. Getting to spend my life with my best friend is a gift. God gave me Jason and I thank God everyday that we get to live this life, together. We were talking about our "30 year" plan a few weeks ago. In ten years, he will be done with the Marine Corps, with a retirement. (I swear, if congress puts an end to the 20 year retirement and puts this bullshit plan in place that they are considering, I will go "crazy military wife" on them.) Anyways, we have so much time. Time to enjoy our kids while we are young, time to have fun once they are out of the house and plenty of time to have lots of fun after we are 58. ha ha. 58 is our retirement goal. Yadda, yadda, it will be fun to hopefully reach that goal! RVing the U.S. at 58, not a bad plan. Of course, it will be in a Land Yacht 5000 (I hope I got that right...I think it's a quote from the movie RV, one of Jason's favorites and he always reminds me he will have a land yacht).

So, as many of you know, North Carolina has not been nice to us. Jason is gone training or at work until all hours of the night more times than he is home. It has been really hard to get used to. When he got back at the end of May, we started planning for the move, moved in August and then in September, he disappeared. It hasn't been easy since we haven't really had a lot of time to be a family since the last deployment, and now we won't have much time before April.

Add to that, this tiny house we rented. It's awful. The only good thing I can say about it, the wood floors are pretty. That's all I got. But, we finally found our "out" and are going to use Jason's deployment orders to get into a new house. I'm going to look at one on Tuesday, although we can't get into one until March. I HAVE to have a larger kitchen. The kitchen here is smaller than my bathroom in California. It's awful.

Alright, enough complaining. Such is life, we have dealt with the punches and now I can find a better rental. I have that to look forward to and I can't wait!

Jason gave me a Kindle for our anniversary and I am in love. I have read 4 books in the past 2 weeks. I love this thing! I looked up covers for my kindle and was baffled by the prices. Especially since the one I fell in love with was this Kate Spade cover.

I'm sorry, but who can afford $69 bucks for a Kindle Cover? I would like to say I can, but I would be lying! So, I decided to make my own. I had some extra fabric hanging around the house so I thought I would use it! I had NO plan as to how I was going to do this. I just started. Through trial and error...I don't think I did that bad of a job. Especially since it cost me NOTHING to make, compared to buying it for $69 bucks. (Yes, I know there are cheaper ones!)

Basically all I did was cut cardboard from a box and then I tried to figure out how to sew it into a cover. My method was not pretty.

I screwed up quite a few times and had to "regroup" my vision, but in the end, I think it turned out just great. It's pretty, it's for me and it serves it's purpose!

Not bad, for no plan!

It's freezing cold and dreary, today. It looks like it should be snowing! I think we scared off all the snow with our move here. The news keeps saying how uncharacteristically warm this winter has been. Yea, go figure...it's because we jinxed the weather hoping for snow when we moved. I have potato soup simmering on the stove and fresh mozzarella slices marinating in the fridge that later I will fry! I have to have some kind of indulgence on our anniversary! Well, aside from football and beer!

Welcome back from the dead blog...so I say to myself. It felt great to write!

Our Home.

I love looking at homes and rooms on Pinterest...but I have realized I really miss our house in California. Every picture I see that I like, I imagine a room in our house...redoing it, adding something...whether it's curtains, furniture, paint, rearranging, knocking out a wall. (I have always wanted to knock out the wall between the living room and dining room, only today, did Jason say he would let me.)

We want to go back to California, so bad. We miss our house, we miss our friends. (That's not to say we don't have great renters and great friends here....we just miss our home.)

We thought we would be fine leaving our new house, after all, we had only been in it for a little over a year...who makes a home out of a house when the whole family doesn't even live in it for the whole time? (Jason only spent 8 months in the house total, before we left.)

But we did. We made a house a home. Our home. We miss it. One day, hopefully sooner than later, we will return home.

I never considered California our home until we left. But it is. I never thought I would claim anywhere but Texas, home...but we made our life in California. We worked so hard to build our family, our life, our home...California is where our hearts are.