From USMC to US Army?

Oh hey there blog I've been neglecting, want to hear about my day? I'd love to tell you. It was pretty awesome...

Let's review.

October 16, 2011 

I decided to run my bike off a cliff and ended up with this lovely injury. It ended up causing me to get discharged form the Marine Corps Delayed Entry Program and crushed my dreams of becoming a Marine.

Fast forward almost an entire year later...

July 7, 2011

I went to visit J in 29 Palms for the 4th of July. He and I are laying there watching TV and an Army commercial comes on. "Babe, why don't you join the Army...?"

When I got home, I hooked up with the local recruiting station and I slapped this on their desk.

Tuesday, I had a consult for my injury scheduled, but the doctor decided to take a holiday...So Today, I took another early morning trip to the MEPS, peed in a cup (again...) danced around in my underwear (again...) went to the doctor (late because of a broken X-Ray machine), came back to MEPS, slapped my papers on the Doc's desk and cried in front of the entire medical staff when they said, "Welp, you're qualified."

So there I am. Swearing into the US Army

Standing at an impeccable parade-rest. (That's my recruiter on my left)

And being really excited for that day to be over...

 I went out for an icecream with my mommy. 

WI may not have done this whole military thing exactly the way that I planned, (and I'm still a little bit sad that I'm not back in the Marine Corps DEP...) but here I am, enlisted again when I never thought it would be possible again.  Hopefully, this will end up to be the best choice for my life right now and for my future. I am so excited to have a whole new set of adventures and learn how a completely different branch works. I report to my unit next week and I start my road to becoming a Soldier...What the hell right?

On The Bright Side

Holy crap a lot of stuff is going on right now. And all good stuff for the most part! That doesn't happen very often so I'm going to shout it from the roof tops  my blog and enjoy it while it lasts.

First of all, yesterday was the anniversary of the day that J asked me to be his girl friend. I was so excited to talk to him all day and he didn't end up having time to talk to me until the very end of the day. When I finally got to talk to him I nearly exploded with enthusiam...I was pretty excited. I told him happy anniversary and he finally unblocked (he blocked me on Facebook because he thought it'd be so funny or something...uh, not funny...) me from FB as my gift. How thoughtful right? Overall, a good anniversary and I got another gift that I'll be posting about later. I don't have a picture to go with it for now.

Also, I am on the 'Top 20' list at work! That means that I have one of the top 20 test scores in 4 call centers! All you get it a lame candy bar, but it's still really exciting. On top of that, I have the highest score on my team! Hopefully I keep it up. It would be nice to be one of those consistently high-scoring CAs...It's nice to know that you're good at your job and be recognized for it!

Next, I have finally begun to tear my room apart. I'm starting with all of the paper clutter and working my way up. Since I put my sewing machine in my room (probaly a really bad idea...) I haven't gotten much done because I'm just teaching myself how to sew cool stuff. That wouldn't be a problem if I didn't already have so much to do.  It might be weird, but crossing stuff off of a To-Do list is one of my favorite feelings. It makes me feel so accomplished!

This next thing might be a little bit shocking... I'm going from the DEP in the United States Marine Corp...

And I'm trying to get into the Army Reserve. What the heck right?!

I'm actually really excited about it. With the Army Reserve, I have a lot of opertunites that I definitely would have had to pass up if I had continued to pursue going active duty Marines. So I'm currently working with a recruiter getting my package built up and I'm submitting all of my medical documents for review at the end of the month...I'm tyring really hard not to get my hopes up becasuse it's not unlikely with this type of injury that I will get denied, but I'm hoping for the best and trying to prepare myself for some disappointment.

If I do get in in these next few weeks though, I will start drilling with my unit, go to Basic Training in a few months, after that AIT and I'll be a freakin Soldier...after that, I can start school and ROTC and work on becoming an officer in the United States Army...What up?

Hopefully, there is even more good stuff to come but we all know what happens when Katie here starts to make plans and get excited about things...So, join me in hoping for the best, and preparing for the worst.

I shoulda been a farmer...or at least a fence builder

So, my garden is complete. I have been working my butt off out there for days under the hot sun and it is now planted and I'm so excited to watch it grow...(hopefully!) 

My garden has been a figment of my imagination for quite some time now. At work the other day, I drew plans for about 79 different gardens I knew I would never have (however, I did discover that I have quite a knack for drawing 3D plans.) Ieally, I would have made three different raised beds and it would have been so adorable and it was going to yield beautiful fruits and vegetables that I would be very proud of. Currently, my garden is nothing that I planned, but I couldn't be happier.

I made cute little signs out of random wood and some old nails I knew no one would ever use and strung together a bunch of wire fence pieces that I found. I love that I can just take what I have and make it work. (case and point, hoe/machete...)

Today I drove two fence posts with a driver that weighs 20 lbs. Let me tell you, if you have some pent up anger or some type of issue in your life and you need a physical outlet, driving a fence post will make you feel real good.

I planted the herbs in the adorable washtubs. Don't they look pretty?

And of course, it's necessary to make a sign that says "Herbs" just in case you forget...

Here is my lovely finished product. Looks pretty good to me! Now lets say a little prayer that it doesn't get eaten by snails... 

591 Miles

You see this little map here? Tomorrow morning, I am embarking on this journey!  After all my complaining and being sad about wanting to see J, I get to go and see him!  We are both so excited we can hardly stand it. After four months of waiting and not knowing what even the next week would mean for us, we finally get to stand face to face. I have not been a very good blogger for the past few days due to the fact that I've been so busy trying to get shift trades at work, and that's where I typically do all my blogging. So for that I apologize, but I just thought I would share with you my exciting news. 

When I return, I will provide a long picture-filled post about how much fun we had together. I promise. The only down-side of this whole situation, is the fact that we basically only get to have one full day together. It's definitely not enough time, but certainly one full day together is far better than no days together at all. 

Hopefully we will have a safe trip and a good time!  

Good News

I've got some good news for you today. On Wednesday while sitting at my desk at work, I was cranking out a post about how annoying it is not knowing where J is going to be sationed and be completely in the dark as to if we're going to have to have a quickie-wedding in vegas, or a throw together one in his back yard before he flew off to Japan. Well, I guess I spoke to soon. Right before my lunch, I checked my phone and there was a text from J and a missed call. The text said,
"Hey, babe. Whens your break? we needa talk."

Of course, my heart started beating really fast and I'm so certain that he has bad news. Orders to Okinawa(We had our only controversey since we've been together over the "What if I go to Japan?" deal so that was not going to be extremely welcome news) was the first thing that popped into my head.  So I'm sitting here at my desk relaying this call (I'm a relay operator for the deaf and hard-of-hearing) just begging the person to hang up the phone so I can call J back before he has to get back to class.  I was shaking my leg and tapping my fingers on the desk as this call drags on 4 minutes longer than necessary.

The minute they ended the call I asked for my lunch break and heard back promptly and I flew out of my chair out off the call floor. I dialed the phone so fast it wasn't even funny.  To say I was nervous doesn't even come close to describing how I was feeling.

So J answers on the third or fourth ring or so and says, "What's up?"  And I roll my eyes thinking, uh...I think you know what's up. Just tell me what we need to talk about!!!  But to him I said, "Oh nothin' just walking out for lunch."
Then he throws this one at me. "Guess what?" JUST TELL ME ALREADY.
"What?"
"Just guess." He loves to play the guessing game. I do too, but not this time!
"You got your orders."
silence.
"yes. And guess where I'm going?"  I DON'T WANT TO PLAY THE GUESSING GAME!
"Where are you going?"
"Babe! Just guess!"
"No! Tell me where you're going!"
At this point, I was FREAKING out. I just wanted to know so bad. I felt like my whole life was riding on these orders.
He kinda giggles (Yeah, he giggles. I think it's cute.) and says, "I'm staying in 29 Palms."


I almost cheered aloud. But before I could celebrate, I had to ask him if he was happy about it. He said that he couldn't be happier. That he's the closest to home that he can possibly get and he can't wait to get married now because now we can just do it whenever we want.


AH! I'm so happy. I'm already hunting for a place for us to live off-base and I just have a feeling that even though it's gonna be in the desert in the middle of nowhere, at least we'll be together.
So ther you have it. Our future is almost unclouded and I think that I can kind of see just how this is going to work out. We can finally set a date for our wedding soon and I can actually start planning...
Good mood kinda week.


Oo, also, I had an interview yesterday for a promotion and I have another today...Hopefully I get one of them!