Cabin Fever is going to kill me

Right now, instead of driving to Ohio with Matthew to visit his family for Christmas, I'm laying on a rock hard bed in my mom's guest bedroom listening to my brother play video games in the next room and watching a rerun of Oprah on a 13in television that doesn't have a remote. And it's snowing so I can't go out. Not like I have any money to go out anyway. Trust me, it's a lot more miserable than it sounds. But such is my life...

Hello Readers!

This post is dedicated to my long-time reader from in or around the Middletown, DE area. I'd love to "meet" you. Please email or comment and say Hi!

I'd also like to say Hi, and would love to hear from, another consistent blog reader... someone from the Dept of State in Washington, DC.

If you're a regular (and I know you're out there!) please come out and say Hey!

Recent Pictures

Saturday afternoon hanging out with the best girlfriends in the world...


Sunday afternoon baking Christmas cookies with Mom and sis-in-law...




Richmond, VA


Colonial Williamsburg, VA


Hampton, VA


National Museum of the Marine Corps
Quantico, VA


Mom's Christmas tree and Phoebe

Wish I could live by this...

Life is too short to be anything but happy. So kiss slowly. Love deeply. Forgive quickly. Take chances and never have regrets. Forget the past but remember what it taught you.

Happy holidays

Just when I think things couldn't get much worse, my car was broken into last night. The passenger door window was broken and my GPS and iPod were stolen.

Our plans

We had everything planned. And really, I do mean EVERYTHING. Here's some of it...

-Engaged before the new year.

-Married by civil ceremony in March (so we were legally married before he deployed).

-Real marriage ceremony and reception in September. In Philadelphia, because that is "where we fell in love". Location and date already picked. It was going to be a military wedding (unfortunately he spilled "the secret"). The bridesmaid dresses were going to be red, strapless, floorlength gowns. It was going to be a very, very, very subtle patriotic theme.

-Our dog was going to specifically be a golden retriever named Commodore Barry (which was picked for a reason). In September were were THISCLOSE to adopting a dog. We visited a shelter and fell in love with a puppy but it didn't work out.

- We were hopefully going to have two kids, a boy and a girl, Gunnar and Sklyar, respectively. Middle names were going to be Joseph (after my father's first name and Matthew's middle name), and Elizabeth (after several of my family's middle name and my middle name). We (actually he) bought a baby name book which helped us choose these first names. They both had meaning to us, or maybe more so to him but I totally loved it: he collects WWII rifles and restores them (Gunnar), and he's a pilot (Skylar.) I still love both those names.

-Our next home, in about 3 years, was possibly going to be Charleston, SC. It was perfect since it was one of his original picks before he got Dover, and my family is planning on moving to SC.

-He talked about maybe teaching at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs (where he went to school), so that was potentially where we'd live for an extended amount of time in the future.

We only made it as far as step one... me moving to Dover to live with him. You can see how it's been hard for me to let go. I'm a planner and I'm and even BIGGER dreamer.

In Virginia

I'm in Richmond, VA right now. I decided to take a trip to see the area because I need to move out of CT. I drove down yesterday and it took me six and a half hours, the longest I've ever driven by myself. It was quite boring but thankfully I planned it just right and avoided most of the D.C. rush hour traffic. Last night I met up with a friend of mine's cousin and her fiance who live here and they drove me around the city for a while showing me the different sections, the good ones and the ones to avoid. It seems like there's a really cute downtown section with tons of shopping and cafes, so I'm going to explore that area more today. There's also several hospitals so finding work here will hopefully not be too hard. I'll probably visit one of those today too. I'm leaving on Saturday and Matthew and I discussed me coming to Dover on my way back up, either to just stop by for a while and have dinner or to spend the night. What do you think? Bad idea, I know. He's so over it. I'm not over it. Not by far. So I want to go see him, especially since this is the longest that we've gone without seeing each other and if I don't see him now it'll probably be another month before I get another chance to see him. I wish I didn't want to see him anymore. I shouldn't go because I know it'll just be really hard being there and I'll end up an emotional mess and he does not want to deal with that since he has to prepare for a mission on Monday. I don't blame him. I don't want to deal with it either. Well, I have to get out of this comfy bed now and go look around this city that could potentially be my new home one day.