I'm starting to feel very nervous about this whole Army thing.
I've been doing my very best not to get my hopes up and get excited, but it's difficult. It's not exactly what I wanted in the first place, but it definitely seems like a good choice. On top of that, J is supportive of it. He would support me in any decision I made, but he has definitely let me know time and time again that he's rather I didn't join the Marines. He continually tells me that I'll hate it and it's not as glorious as I think it is. The more he says it, the more discouraged I get and the less passionate I feel about the Marines...
Of course, J would never tell me that I couldn't join the Marines. We don't tell each other what to do. But he is looking out for my best interest and he doesn't think it's a good decision for me to make...again.
With the Army though, things are completely different. In fact, you could almost say that it was his idea. We were laying in bed one day at the hotel in 29 Palms when an Army Recruiting commercial came on. He looked at me and said "Why don't you do that?" I looked at him confusued.
"Do what...?"
"join the Army!"
And it's not like it hadn't crossed my mind but I just figured they wouldn't want me either.
When I got home from 29 Palms, I went to the recruiting station and I talked to recruiters and they told me that I could serve in the Army Reserve, go to school, do ROTC, and graduated with a Degree and as a Commissioned officerYou get paid as a reservist, you can have another job and your schooling gets paid for...Okay, how is that a bad idea?
The best part is, that J is completely supportive of it and it will make our life together a whole lot easier than if I went active duty Marines or did something beside what I've decided on (that is if it all works out...)
So wish me luck. I will find out in the next couple of days here. When I know...my 10 followers will the the second to know. (gotta tell J first!)
Showing posts with label 29 Palms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 29 Palms. Show all posts
Working...
It feels like I have written anything in a century, so this might be a little bit word vomitty...deal with it :)
So, first of all, I returned form 29 Palms last night around 10:30. It was my first road trip all by myself, I drove about 1200 mile round trip all by my lonesome. Although I had mega anxiety about it, once I was on the road, I really enjoyed the drive alone. I could listen to whatever I wanted, drive the as fast as I felt comfortable with and I didn't have any pressure do drive some certain way. It was kind of liberating and I felt very adult.
The trip itself was quite wonderful. J and I had a great time together and being truly alone for several days for the first time ever was fantastic. We didn't really do much except for swim and enjoy each other's company. I am so glad that I got to go...I didn't take any pictures, but I'm not much of a let's-snap-a-picture-of-this-moment type of person so...oh well.
In other news, I'm back at work today. Part of me is like "Woo, I needed a day of playing on the computer after driving all day yesterday" the rest of me is like "ugh, I have to go to work..."
Lately, though, things have been pretty interesting around here. Working in a call center can be hard, especially for someone like me who had a hard sitting through class in high school and we had to get up every 90 minutes. It doesn't help that I have almost zero human contatct throughout the day. I speak to a computer and not to a person, so I never really have to have any interactions with anyone.
On the bright side, though, there are a lot of interesting characters here. For example, I may have mentioned this girl before, but she kind of looks a little bit like Emmy Rossum and she must have been told that one too many times, becasue she is clearly obsessed with her. Her wallpaper on her computer is Emmy Rossum, and she looks at pictures of her and reads articles about her all day long...What the heck?! She also pulls her pants up into shorts (we're not allowed to wear shorts in the center) once she's in her seat...goodness it's strange, but to each their own I guess.
Also, they've been sending out emails that say stuff like, "Don't put your feet on the desk." or "Please no clipping your fingernails." or "Don't take things that aren't yours" How old are we people? You should not have to be told these things...
The break room can be pretty funny too. If there is one person at each table, people will stand awkwardly against the counter or wall so they don't have to sit with someone else. And if two people are sitting together and chatting, you think to yourself, "How do they know each other? They must have met in training, or maybe they knew each other before..." It's such a mystery because there really aren't other ways to get to know people...
My job really gives me mixed feelings.
So, first of all, I returned form 29 Palms last night around 10:30. It was my first road trip all by myself, I drove about 1200 mile round trip all by my lonesome. Although I had mega anxiety about it, once I was on the road, I really enjoyed the drive alone. I could listen to whatever I wanted, drive the as fast as I felt comfortable with and I didn't have any pressure do drive some certain way. It was kind of liberating and I felt very adult.
The trip itself was quite wonderful. J and I had a great time together and being truly alone for several days for the first time ever was fantastic. We didn't really do much except for swim and enjoy each other's company. I am so glad that I got to go...I didn't take any pictures, but I'm not much of a let's-snap-a-picture-of-this-moment type of person so...oh well.
In other news, I'm back at work today. Part of me is like "Woo, I needed a day of playing on the computer after driving all day yesterday" the rest of me is like "ugh, I have to go to work..."
Lately, though, things have been pretty interesting around here. Working in a call center can be hard, especially for someone like me who had a hard sitting through class in high school and we had to get up every 90 minutes. It doesn't help that I have almost zero human contatct throughout the day. I speak to a computer and not to a person, so I never really have to have any interactions with anyone.
On the bright side, though, there are a lot of interesting characters here. For example, I may have mentioned this girl before, but she kind of looks a little bit like Emmy Rossum and she must have been told that one too many times, becasue she is clearly obsessed with her. Her wallpaper on her computer is Emmy Rossum, and she looks at pictures of her and reads articles about her all day long...What the heck?! She also pulls her pants up into shorts (we're not allowed to wear shorts in the center) once she's in her seat...goodness it's strange, but to each their own I guess.
Also, they've been sending out emails that say stuff like, "Don't put your feet on the desk." or "Please no clipping your fingernails." or "Don't take things that aren't yours" How old are we people? You should not have to be told these things...
The break room can be pretty funny too. If there is one person at each table, people will stand awkwardly against the counter or wall so they don't have to sit with someone else. And if two people are sitting together and chatting, you think to yourself, "How do they know each other? They must have met in training, or maybe they knew each other before..." It's such a mystery because there really aren't other ways to get to know people...
My job really gives me mixed feelings.
What A Life...
My company is expanding very quickly. So quickly that they finally bought the building I work in and they're doing rennovations. All day I get to hear hammers and drills whirring and pounding. I get to smell heaven knows what burning or melting or something...And there's dirty guys (literally dirty, not saying they're bad guys they just have construction-grime all over them) tracking dirt all over the tile making things slippery! (I'm clumsy...slipped in my high-heels on Wednesday, pretty embarrassing...)
Plus, there's never any salt shakers in the break room anymore...and people are doing strange things like excersising and being overly obssesed with Emmy Rossum...totally weird.
And it gets better! Like I said, we're expanding very fast. We provide phone service for hard of hearing people. It's used mostly by the elderly. That means we have a really large customer base making us very busy. Not only are we busy and have less than 1 minute between calls our cubes are stuffed. We are so full of employees it's insane. I'm lucky to find a seat each time I come in...Holy moly, what a life this is these days.
Bright side?
I'm going to 29 Palms on Tuesday. I'm so excited for that. I pretty much packed my bag this morning and I'm not leaving for another 5 days...I know that I'm going to have a good time, but I'm trying to keep a very open mind about everything. I guess we shall see how it goes.
Plus, there's never any salt shakers in the break room anymore...and people are doing strange things like excersising and being overly obssesed with Emmy Rossum...totally weird.
And it gets better! Like I said, we're expanding very fast. We provide phone service for hard of hearing people. It's used mostly by the elderly. That means we have a really large customer base making us very busy. Not only are we busy and have less than 1 minute between calls our cubes are stuffed. We are so full of employees it's insane. I'm lucky to find a seat each time I come in...Holy moly, what a life this is these days.
Bright side?
I'm going to 29 Palms on Tuesday. I'm so excited for that. I pretty much packed my bag this morning and I'm not leaving for another 5 days...I know that I'm going to have a good time, but I'm trying to keep a very open mind about everything. I guess we shall see how it goes.
Fifty Shades of Stupid
First of all, I'm going to 29 Palms next week! I'm really excited and it will definitely be fun (and probably a little bit intense...) The 4th of July is the one year anniversary of our first date, so that will be cute. Hopefully It will be an awesome 5 entire days with my Marine.
Second of all, I finally gave in and started reading Fifty Shades of Grey and I hate it! I decided the other night to figure out why everyone is talking about this book and I really don't understand. I mean yeah, it is very...explicit and those parts are very well written, but as for the rest of it, I'm so annoyed with it.
Dialogue is my favorite part of books. I love how I can basically see a conversation happening between two people before my eyes and I think that this is just so unrealistic...Sure, it's a book and the story doesn't have to be realistic, but at least make the characters sound like real people.
And besides all that, it's pretty lame...maybe the other two book will be better but I am so unimpressed with this and I really do not understand how so many people love it. Sorry if you think it's an amazing work of literature, but I can barely stomach it and I'm 240 pages in...
Boo to bad books...
Second of all, I finally gave in and started reading Fifty Shades of Grey and I hate it! I decided the other night to figure out why everyone is talking about this book and I really don't understand. I mean yeah, it is very...explicit and those parts are very well written, but as for the rest of it, I'm so annoyed with it.
Dialogue is my favorite part of books. I love how I can basically see a conversation happening between two people before my eyes and I think that this is just so unrealistic...Sure, it's a book and the story doesn't have to be realistic, but at least make the characters sound like real people.
And besides all that, it's pretty lame...maybe the other two book will be better but I am so unimpressed with this and I really do not understand how so many people love it. Sorry if you think it's an amazing work of literature, but I can barely stomach it and I'm 240 pages in...
Boo to bad books...
Return To 29!
Well, I'm back from the desert again. This time the trip was a little bit different. First of all, I actually got some pictures. I'm going to warn you now, I'm taking this lovely little medication that I do believe is making me gain weight. I've gained ten lbs. in about...a month. And I'm lucky enough to carry it right in my belly, so I look nice and 4 months pregnant. I assure you, I'm not.
So, we jumped in the car around 06:00 and I took the first shift of driving (my first "long distance" drive!) and I drove us all the way to Cedar City. A whopping 3 and 1/2 hours from our house...Then I passed the keys on over to big sis and I let her drive the rest of the 6+ hours to our destination. It wasn't a bad drive, we made sure that we were prepared for it. I made us tuna fish and we brought plenty of good stuff to drink and snack on. Last trip, we just at McDonalds and stuff and felt real sick the whole time.
We pulled reached Las Vegas aroun 1:30 (we made really good time with my sister driving) and don't worry, we got a picture of the big tortoise on the freeway for you! I suck at taking pictures with my phone. So when I was tasked with taking this photo in the moving vehicle, I was very nervous, but never fear, I got the job done.The nice thing about reaching Las Vegas, is it means that you're almost there. Once you hit Primm (The little town with the huge outlet mall and Whiskey Petes off I-15) you jump off the freeway and start into the Mojave Desert. That, my friends, is kinda scary if I'm being completely honest. Luckily though, it's the home stretch!
So we finally arrived and got all cleaned up and ready to go when we received the call that it was time to go pick up the Js (same name remember?). So we started our drive to the base and I got all excited when we finally drove through the gates. Even though I had seen him the weekend before the last it still felt like the first time in a century. Because there isn't much to do in 29 Palms and the pool was closed :( we had to think of other adventures. There was a gate ajar in the back of the parking lot, so we ventured through it and climbed a mountain and spotted rabbits and coyotes. Not a big deal. The thing about the mountains in this god forsaken place, is they don't really look like mountains...I live in Utah in the Salt Lake Valley which means there's gigantic mountains all around me that are green and covered with snow from November to June so hiking up this mountain made me feel like I was on a different planet. But we got some kinda cutish pictures? See? 4+ months pregnant...not cool.
We also ventured into the town of Joshua Tree and went to a Flea Market (we saw a tortoise!) and a thrift store. And you know how I love thrift stores! The cool thing about this one, was it seemed to be in an old bank. So there was a vault in the back with clothes in it. It was kinda awesome...
But that pretty much concludes my trip to see my Marine. We had a wonderful time together and I miss him already. The worst part? I haven't a clue when I'm going to see him again...
29 Stumps
I don't have pictures becasue I suck.
I now understand why they call it 29 Stumps.
After getting off I-15 just after Primm and driving for 2 hours through the desert, we reached 29 Palms. As we began to get closer my sister starts to freak out. She's driving and saying things like, "Katie, you did see pictures of our hotel online, right? I mean this place isn't a crack hotel is it?" Or there was this one before we were even close to our destination: "I bet that we're just going to suddenly just go into a new dimension and we'll finally be in this dumb place."
And once we could actually see the "city" she started saying how she is pretty sure that we were in hell. Literally we just crossed dimensions into hell. She was freaking out and saying, "Is there going to be somewhere to eat? What if there's no food?!"
Of course food was her first concern.
Well, we got checked into our room and then headed to base to pick up my boy. When I saw him, I think I almost fainted. I was so happy. I gave him a big hug and a kiss and I just looked at him for a second completely in love all over again and it was fantastic.
He went to get his stuff and grabbed his friend (The friend was to keep my sister busy while we had time alone ;)) and we headed off base and back to our room.
I wish that I could tell you all about how much fun this trip was, but honestly, there is NOTHING to do in 29 Palms, we swam in the hotel next to ours' pool and hung out in our air conditioned hotel room. We ate some food in the various popular restraunt around the area (Denny's, MickyDs, Mexican restaurant with a name that escapes me, BK), but honestly, I had a great time. When you're apart for so long, you just get used to missing the person you're away from, it's as if you just start to not feel the missing any more because it's a normal feeling. But when I saw him, it all came back at once how much I had missed him.
And lucky me, because my sister actually kinda hit it off withe J's friends (their names are the same actually...it got really confusing!) We're going back!
I get to return to my Marine again next week. And I already got work off and everything! I'm so excited. Even more so this time because I know what to expect and we'll be better prepared for the little amount of time that we get to spend together.
In other news, J told me yesterday that it's looking like their until won't be deploying until after the new year. That makes me very happy. I told him that I like that timeline much better than deploying this year. That means he might be home for Christmas! And we could possibly find time to get married when it's not on pre-depolyment leave : P I do not want to do that. I think it'd be a good idea because it's going to set us up financially for our future becasue until he comes back from deployment I will be living at home and getting his BAH for where I live. But I'll also have my own job and won't have much for living expenses so we can just save all that money and have quite a lot saved when he comes home and it's time for us to think about getting us a place to live and get all settled down, but I don't want to send my brand new husband off to war after being married for a week. Not cool. But, I guess I just need to get used to the reality of our situtation.
On the bright side, if his unit gets disbannded after this deployment, I might NEVER have to live in 29 Stumps!
I now understand why they call it 29 Stumps.
After getting off I-15 just after Primm and driving for 2 hours through the desert, we reached 29 Palms. As we began to get closer my sister starts to freak out. She's driving and saying things like, "Katie, you did see pictures of our hotel online, right? I mean this place isn't a crack hotel is it?" Or there was this one before we were even close to our destination: "I bet that we're just going to suddenly just go into a new dimension and we'll finally be in this dumb place."
And once we could actually see the "city" she started saying how she is pretty sure that we were in hell. Literally we just crossed dimensions into hell. She was freaking out and saying, "Is there going to be somewhere to eat? What if there's no food?!"
Of course food was her first concern.
Well, we got checked into our room and then headed to base to pick up my boy. When I saw him, I think I almost fainted. I was so happy. I gave him a big hug and a kiss and I just looked at him for a second completely in love all over again and it was fantastic.
He went to get his stuff and grabbed his friend (The friend was to keep my sister busy while we had time alone ;)) and we headed off base and back to our room.
I wish that I could tell you all about how much fun this trip was, but honestly, there is NOTHING to do in 29 Palms, we swam in the hotel next to ours' pool and hung out in our air conditioned hotel room. We ate some food in the various popular restraunt around the area (Denny's, MickyDs, Mexican restaurant with a name that escapes me, BK), but honestly, I had a great time. When you're apart for so long, you just get used to missing the person you're away from, it's as if you just start to not feel the missing any more because it's a normal feeling. But when I saw him, it all came back at once how much I had missed him.
And lucky me, because my sister actually kinda hit it off withe J's friends (their names are the same actually...it got really confusing!) We're going back!
I get to return to my Marine again next week. And I already got work off and everything! I'm so excited. Even more so this time because I know what to expect and we'll be better prepared for the little amount of time that we get to spend together.
In other news, J told me yesterday that it's looking like their until won't be deploying until after the new year. That makes me very happy. I told him that I like that timeline much better than deploying this year. That means he might be home for Christmas! And we could possibly find time to get married when it's not on pre-depolyment leave : P I do not want to do that. I think it'd be a good idea because it's going to set us up financially for our future becasue until he comes back from deployment I will be living at home and getting his BAH for where I live. But I'll also have my own job and won't have much for living expenses so we can just save all that money and have quite a lot saved when he comes home and it's time for us to think about getting us a place to live and get all settled down, but I don't want to send my brand new husband off to war after being married for a week. Not cool. But, I guess I just need to get used to the reality of our situtation.
On the bright side, if his unit gets disbannded after this deployment, I might NEVER have to live in 29 Stumps!
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!
Ugh
Last night and today are the first days since J left for MCT that I have cried over missing him. Of course I miss him. And I've cried over many thing, but these past couple of days have been extra difficult.
I've been trying to plan a trip to go see him, but although I'm an adult and I have my own job and my own bills and responsibilities, I'm not "allowed" to go down to see J by myself. Not only that, I drive a 76 Ford Maverick. Not exactly and ideal travelling car. So I have to rely on someone else to take me down to see him because I'm not old enough to rent a car and I haven't ever driven a long distance by myself.
I was hoping to go down with his sister so that we could do some engagement pictures. I haven't known J very long, so we have about a total of...5 maybe 6 pictures together and most of them are too silly or not all that cute. Basically not appropriate to use for wedding invitations or anything like that. But she can't. So now, we won't have any pictures of us together for a guest book, or to decorate at our wedding or for our invitations...And then when I asked his mom if she could go when I was planning, she couldn't either.
And even if they could go, it wouldn't be the same...I just want to spend time with him by myself and it just isn't a possibility. Being young sucks. So bad. I am feeling being away from him more than every becuase I just can't get help to go and see him...I hate it so much.
But it's what I signed up for. Right?
I've been trying to plan a trip to go see him, but although I'm an adult and I have my own job and my own bills and responsibilities, I'm not "allowed" to go down to see J by myself. Not only that, I drive a 76 Ford Maverick. Not exactly and ideal travelling car. So I have to rely on someone else to take me down to see him because I'm not old enough to rent a car and I haven't ever driven a long distance by myself.
I was hoping to go down with his sister so that we could do some engagement pictures. I haven't known J very long, so we have about a total of...5 maybe 6 pictures together and most of them are too silly or not all that cute. Basically not appropriate to use for wedding invitations or anything like that. But she can't. So now, we won't have any pictures of us together for a guest book, or to decorate at our wedding or for our invitations...And then when I asked his mom if she could go when I was planning, she couldn't either.
And even if they could go, it wouldn't be the same...I just want to spend time with him by myself and it just isn't a possibility. Being young sucks. So bad. I am feeling being away from him more than every becuase I just can't get help to go and see him...I hate it so much.
But it's what I signed up for. Right?
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!
"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!
