Why They Be Hatin'?

Today, I thought maybe I would take a look at some website where women talk about how they made their military wedding work. I've been thinking a lot about what J and I are going to do and I thought maybe I would try to see if there were other people in my situation.

To see it first-hand you can go to http://military.weddings.com/ and click on the "Military Wedding Board" on the right hand side.

Of course, I found several a million posts on a website by Theknot.com where women just tear into other women about their problems and situations. I cannot believe it. I mean, yeah, I understand that some people can be very naive about the situation and some of them are just straight up stupid, but what gives you (you being these women that are just destroying these women and probably making them cry) the right to say what they should and shouldn't do?

Yes, I know that these women have already gone through the process of getting married to a man in the military and should have some gem of advice that they can give to people like me that are just lost. But I just don't understand why they are doing it the way that they are.  The sad thing is, it's not just one or two women that are doing this. It's most of them!

For example, I read a post by a girl that said that the distance between she and her now husband has really been upsetting for her lately and she was asking the wedding board people how they cope with the longing. Instead of giving her advice on how they cope with it, almost every person that had a response was criticizing her and telling her that she needed to toughen up and learn to deal with it. It makes me so mad to read.

The whole point of her posting that on the site was to get help with dealing with her problem and instead of giving her advice that would help, they just made her feel like shit for having feelings and missing her husband.  I just can't believe it.  It's like they think that everyone is in the exact same situation as they are, so why can't the just do it the way the did? Wow, I am so glad that I have an awesome bunch of blogs to read when I need support or other bloggy spouses to reach out to. If I had to go message boards like that all the time, I would probably just decide that I don't even deserve to get married because I'm too poor/dumb/not cool enough. Whatever.

What gets me, is they are women that are on a Military Weddings website that have been married for who knows how long that spend all the their time tearing down other women who just want help. Don't they have anything better to do?

How rude...

Bumps In The Road

It seems that lately, I've been hitting a whole bunch of bumps in the road, but my attitude has changed a lot. Instead of looking at the bumps and thinking about how crappy it's going to be to have to drive over, picturing the jostled papers, the tiped over bag and the drink I'm going to have to hold as I go over every bump I've been thinking about how to just avoid them altogether. Take a detour, if you will. Can you tell I like metaphors?

Bump #1:
I've been gaining weight like crazy!
It's truly crazy. I have always been a very naturally thin person. I had to gain weight to get into the Marines for hell's sake...And now, I look in the mirror and for the first time in my lifek, I am so unhappy with what I see. I think it's partly from being away from J. Food is a very comforting thing and with him gone, I want some comfort. I've never been much of an eater, but recently, food is one of the things that I think about most.
The fix?  I've decided that I'm not going to eat less, I'm going to eat different. I love to eat a lot of healthy things, it's just a matter of doing it. And not eating out so much...I eat out way too much. This month, I get to do the family grocery shopping and I'm planning on getting a wonderful variety of things that will be a welcome change for me and for my family. I think it will be a double whammy too. It will give me some experience in shopping (you know how I like to learn about saving money!) So that should be nice. I'm also going to have to start working out a whole lot more...I have been very lazy lately. I did a run and some PT yesterday and now I am dying here in my desk...time to work out!

Bump #2:
My 5 year engagement.
Okay, so maybe it's not...and it won't be...hopefully. But It feels like it. I've been looking at some places to get married and was getting so frustrating because no one was willing to work with the fact that I could possibly have to make changes and move dates if things ended up not working out because of permissions and leave etc. They were simply just...unreasonable. It was getting very discouraging. On top of that J is getting...jittery about the upcoming deployment. Which is completely understandable, but it makes me not want to talk to him about anything dealing with our wedding because it stresses him out. And we don't need him stressed...
The fix?
Yesterday, we went to a reception center called The Woods on Ninth and it is just absolutely beautiful. When I walked in, I felt like I had found the place but was instantly a little sick because I knew it wouldn't work out. It would be too difficult without a date and all these litlte complications.
Well, I was totally wrong. The manager lady got all excited and made me feel so much better and told me that we could figure something out and make something work. That it wouldn't be a problem if I had to change things around and that she would do her best to make everything completely refundable. I'm in love...I feel so much more relaxed about it all knowing that I won't have to worry anymore. Hopefully.

Bump #3:
What the crap am I going to do with my life?!
I don't know...
The fix?
I still don't know....

The Trouble With Boys

Right now, I'm in a tough spot.

I really need to try and set a wedding date. Neither of us want to wait until after this year to get married, but for some reason, I can't get J to say a single thing about when he wants to get married. Before, when we didn't even know where he would be stationed, he had all kinds of input, and now, I feel like I'm badgering him if I ask any questions about when he wants to get married. I know that he cares and he wants to talk about it, but it's as if I never catch him at the right time...When he's thinking about it, he doesn't tell me what's going on. It's so frustrating.

The other issue here is not just him, but becasuse I'm marrying the Marine Corps, I have to deal with the possibility that he can't set a date. I want to just try. Maybe send out a save the month even...I just don't want to cut it too close to where our guests are annoyed that they didn't have enough notice. Espeically our out of town guests. And I'm sure that we will have a few of those. It's so troubling.

On top of all this, there's the distance. Being away from him is so hard. I think I said this another time but we have been apart now for around 100 days. And we have been together for less than half of our relationship and it's starting to take a toll on me.  It's not that I don't trust him, becuase I do. I 100% know that he loves me and would never cheat on me. But it's hard to not be able to talk through the rough spots in person...It's makes all those normal fights that coupls have about 10 times harder than they have to be.

I know that this is only the beginning, and it's what I signed up for, but goodenss gracious, why does it have to suck so bad?

A DI Kind of Day

Today, I took a trip to a couple of different Deseret Industries stores. Known to we Utahns as the DI. For those of you who don't know, the DI is basically a secondhand store that is run by the LDS (Mormon) Church. It is a non-profit store that takes any and all donations. They have tons of clothes, appliances, furniture, house wares and basically anything under the sun that you could thingk of. They have it.

I went with intentions to find things to decorate at my wedding with. It might sounds strange to shop at the secondhand store for something like this, but I think it's smart!  I found myself exactly what I was looking for. I didn't really intend to buy 22 Mason jars...but I did. Each jar was only $.50.  I couldn't help myself.  I gave myself some rules before I left to shop. (1) I wasn't allowed to spend more than $30.00 and (2)  If I couldn't fit it all in the box, I couldn't have it. Lucky for me, I'm really good at packing stuff into a box : D. I ended up with jars of different sizes that will look great filled with stuff and painted and all cute...I'm so excited about it!

Also, I found these wicker basket deals that you put your paper plates on so that they don't dump your food off of them. I got 10 of them for $5.00. I'd call that a good find!  I'm planning on putting the jars on the wicker plates with hot-glue after decorating the jars with different things inside and out and putting something cute on the plate. Then I'll have these adorable little hand made center pieces that won't cost me more the $30.00 to make!

I feel very accomplished with my outting and I also feel like this DIY wedding is going to be possible. I'm so excited to start making and buying more things that are going to make our wedding special.  Oh, thrifting, how I love you!

Wedding Planning

I believe that I have a blogging problem...
In my other blog (Doing what you shouldn't is half the fun) I pretty much keep things about life lessons and thing I learn about myself and the world around me, where as here, I feel like I can talk about my life in a more...specific manner. There, I keep things vague and just explain what I learned from some type of experience. So I just made a really short story long. Basically, what I'm saying is, I'm blogging for the second time today just because I want to talk more about my life.  Weird huh?

Now that we have orders and we know that J isn't going to be a million miles away, I actually feel comfortable beginning the planning of my wedding. We want to shoot for sooner rather than later, of course, but we can only do what we have the time and money for.  I've been to my share of expos. And I have a dress that just needs to be altered. And I definitely have ideas of what I want to do, but I want to do it...inexpensively (When I say that, I mean cheap, but I don't wanna sound like a redneck...)

So tomorrow, I'm going to go thrifting. I don't know if I just made that up, or if people actually say that, but I want to try and get some inspiration for things we can do to make our wedding special, but inexpensive.  My basic idea is that if we kind if do things little by little and spread out our spending, it won't feel like we're spending a lot (AND if I discover that I'm a pro thrifter, then we really won't be spending a lot).

Neither of us are made of  money, and seems how we don't want to wait forever to get married, we have no choice but to make it pretty DIY. But, I've got a crafty family and a lot of fantastic ideas due to the ever fantastical Pinterest.  I think that is going to be fun! I'll definitely post again tomorrow about how I found awesome stuff. I'll post pictures. Don't you worry.

If you happen to be reading this and you're a military spouse (or going to be one), or just happen to know stuff about weddings, and you have information that  might help make my life easier in the planning process feel free to share!

A Proposal

In an effort to catch the blogworld up on why life as an almost-militar-wife, I believe I will be posting two updates today. Yay for double blog nights!

Below is an excerpt from my proposal. I had to work that night until 7:00 pm. I was...pissed to say the least. It was Christmas and J was only going to be home for 19 days. Besides that, it was our first Christmas together. It was definitely one I wanted to spend with him.

I had spent the few days before Christmas being minorly grumpy.  Why, you ask? Well, J and just gotten done with boot camp and was spending his money like crazy...So I decided, hey, he is definitely not going to propose because there is no way on earth he had the money to buy you a ring. I had come to terms with the fact that he would leave me again and I would be ringless (I wasn't too mad about it seems how we'd  actually one been together for less than half of our nearly 6 month relationship).  But still, a girl hopes.


So finally, it get's to be 6:50 pm...and I just logged out, quit taking calls and clocked outta there a little too early. I couldn't have cared less though. My man was waiting for me.
After all the presents had been opened, one remained. I opened it up and discovered......a box of shot gun shells. Terribly confused, J reached across me and pulled a little ornament out of the tissue paper I had tossed aside and shocked me with this!

I hope that my uncle in the back ground isn't too annoying...You know how family Christmas parties can be. Listen carefully and you hear him say, "Who is this guy?" at the end of the video. HA! leave it to good old Uncle Mark to ruin the proposal video...