everything's just wonderful

Weekends have become extremely productive for me. is

Caitlin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 01:09:41 +0000

All the laundry in my house is washed, dried, folded, and put away. Even the bedding. The dishes are all done. Floors swept and vacuumed. Bathroom is clean. Bills are paid and filed. Homework is done. Dogs are fed and walked. Clothes are laid out for tomorrow. I’m baking some banana bread. What now?

I guess I can google videos on how to most effectively fold a fitted sheet. Don’t be jealous of my life.

Grilled cheese & Jesus

Caitlin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 15:19:59 +0000

I have been lurking on several facebook pages so I can have some sympathizers and learn about the process. There is an AF WingMoms page that has so much info. Today, everyone started posting things like “Happy Grilled Cheese & Jesus ….WOOOHOOOOOOO WOT6….AKA “the BEAST” GO GETTEM PREDATORS!!! 321/149.” Uh. Okay. So I started creeping their page and learned so much. Sunday is called Grilled Cheese & Jesus because they serve grilled cheese for Sunday lunch. WOT is week of training (suspected this one already…). In Week 6, the trainees head to BEAST which is something like “Basic Expeditionary Airmen Skills Training” I believe–essentially it is a fake deployment. Every Training Squadron has a mascot and 321 TRS’ is the Predator. Then the parent or SO will write the TRS and the Flight for their trainee so they can connect with others who have loved ones in the same flight.

Happy grilled cheese & Jesus to everyone. I might just have a grilled cheese for lunch today. Solidarity and all. ;)

Lucky break

Caitlin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 23:05:09 +0000

So Cliff finally called me last night. This is the call where the AB can only read off of a postcard which is then mailed to your contact. Essentially, they are only allowed to say that they have arrived at BMT and that they are fine. Then they read us their mailing address, and WTF Air Force, why would you make all of these AB say Truemper Street over a fuzzy connection? No one knows what that is. Anyways, then they tell us to contact them through our local Red Cross in case of emergency. After that, I asked if he could say anything else and he just kind of chuckled and said “I love you.” So that was the end of the card. I, of course, was like “I love you, I love you, I love you” and he just had to say goodbye. I was proud of myself for not crying even a little bit. I could feel it brewing, but most of the time we were talking, I spent trying to figure out what the heck Truemper Street was and how it was spelled.

So I wrote one more letter today and stuffed it into the same envelope as the letter I had waiting to mail. I checked on facebook today and found the AF BMT page as well as a group for his squadron. So I have been on there creeping the photos and seeing what is going on during other flights’ BMT since there isn’t anything up for his flight yet. :/ I have a feeling I will be creeping that page frequently. I’m glad that I have some experience working for the DAF because that simplified a lot of things; I am not as confused about the process or the lingo as I would be had I never been in a flight or a squadron myself. There is a lot shown on the BMT detail video that I know Cliff is going to have a blast doing, including the pugil stick fighting and M-16 disassembly and reassembly. It makes me feel a little bit better about that terrible 0 Week Lunch video I saw on youtube. :(

My neighbor was mowing his back yard today and I went out to talk to him for a few minutes when I noticed that they had built a composting area. They’re going to try and start a garden this spring! Such a good idea–I was afraid that we wouldn’t be allowed to till the ground in this yard, and the idea of a raised bed had never occurred to me. So I think I am going to try and accomplish one of my biggest all-time goals: to eat food grown in my own garden. It’s on, nature.

After that, I left to run some errands and swing by the post office to mail Cliff’s letter. While I was at WalMart, I decided that I definitely had to go through self checkout since in my basket were the following items: four frozen lunches for next week, a notebook, and a box of envelopes. Nothing screams “pathetic!” quite like that combo.

Now I’m off to dinner with Nicole–we are having some Billy Sims Barbecue. I can’t get enough of their pulled pork. So heavenly! I’m in a much better mood today than I was yesterday or the day before, thank goodness for that. Here’s to hoping I stay on the upswing over the weekend.

This is mostly me whining.

Caitlin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:58:34 +0000

I hate being apart from Cliff. Today was worse than yesterday. He called to tell me he made it and he was safe; I could hear the TIs yelling in the background, and it really made me realize what he’s about to go through for 8 1/2 weeks. Feeling sorry for myself aside, Cliff is the one who is really facing the challenge. It’s hard for me to reconcile feeling bad for myself because I’m lonely and I miss my husband with feeling bad for him because he’s embarking on this really difficult thing. He will get through it and I will, too, but it just sucks. I wish March 16th was tomorrow.

Oh, you know, just living the dream

Caitlin — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:22:01 +0000

So it has been a very, very long time since I last blogged. I am busier than I have ever been before! I got a promotion at work and took on a few more complex contracts, so that has kept me very busy while at work. Then I have to finish my homework, well, at home, and that really cuts into the free time I have. Throw on top of that taking care of my house and family, and trying to have a social life, and you can see how blogging fell to last on my list of priorities.

I have now finished a year of my Master’s degree with a 4.0. I’m in my second-to-last term and I will begin my final term in March. These classes seem to be going well, and hopefully I will be able to graduate with a 4.0. That is one of my biggest goals, and I am working very hard to meet it!

This week has been a hell of a week–that is probably why I am blogging right now. I’m looking for a little bit of a break from writing papers. I have two book reviews due tomorrow. That means within two weeks, when I got the assignment, I had to read two books of my choosing and write two 10-page papers over them.

Last week, my dad and my sister & the kids came for a visit. We usually have a late Christmas in January. This was just ridiculous timing for more reason than one. I managed to read the book before they arrived on Thursday, then I wrote the paper mostly on Sunday and turned it in while my dad napped on the couch. Cliff was at a friend’s house having a guy day. They brought in extra televisions and PS3s and they played Battlefield 3 for many hours. My dad left on Tuesday morning and then I started reading my second book. It was actually a very quick read and very interesting: 13 Days by RFK.

Work was absolutely crazy this past week. My boss had a very bad cold the week prior–he ended up at the doctor. Then, this past weekend, his wife called us to let us know that he was in the ER with kidney stones. So he was out for most of this week. We had a bit of a crisis with the gym floor that was laid at the Fitness Center on base and we had to try and wrangle it without our boss. Before we knew it, the group commander was involved and we were having to do numerous walk-throughs and site visits, meetings and discussions regarding the state of the gym floor. On top of that, I’m knee-deep in a source selection, and I’m trying to keep up with issues on a suspended contract as well as putting together another solicitation and my regular administration duties. If I answer one more phone call putting out another fire next week, I may just pull out my hair.

So anyhow, leading up to the real reason why I’ve been so busy, CJ leaves for basic training on Monday. We have been saying goodbyes to everyone and his dog, and in the case of certain family members, saying multiple goodbyes, because one is obviously not enough. We have also been taking care of lots of paperwork: power of attorney, legal copies, etc. I think that the secretary at Legal knows my number by heart now and she will probably screen my calls from now on.

Today we drove to Wichita Falls to buy CJ some new jeans and the supplies that they require you to bring like notebooks and toiletries. We used up all of the gift cards that CJ has been collecting for Red Lobster for lunch; CJ gleefully ate his way through a lobster tail, crab legs, salmon, fried shrimp, and all of the Cheddar Bay biscuits his heart desired. Now we are sitting in bed, me ~~working on my paper~~ blogging and CJ playing video games.

Tomorrow, my second paper is due and we will start packing CJ’s bag for basic training. I’m going to make him one last lasagna before he leaves for eight and a half weeks. In March, I will be able to visit him for a few days after his basic graduation. Beautiful San Antonio! I will try not to get shot. On the upside, I’m staying in a beautiful hotel (swim-up tiki bar, yo) and I get to go to Sea World for free. I’m also going to see the Alamo and maybe do some shopping on the River Walk. And you know, see my husband after 8 1/2 weeks of only writing letters. I’m looking on the bright side: hopefully all of this will be a return to the romantic days of letter writing. I will keep them and treasure them forever.

While CJ is gone, I plan to take a trip by myself. I wanted to go to Boston originally, but I think I will reserve my first trip to the East Coast for a time when my husband can go with me. Hopefully I will be able to make it to Seattle in February. I would really like to take a train to Vancouver during that visit. Then I will finally get to go to Canada!

After basic training is over, I get to see CJ for a few days, then he will fly to his tech school. He will be at tech school for a total of six months. 2012 is going to be a very long, very memorable year. I have a feeling that I will learn how to be far more independent than I ever have been before. Yesterday I went to get an oil change and a tire patched on my own for the first time (no, really). Before I go and start feeling proud of myself, I also plugged in a heap of night lights in my house. Raise your hand if you’re an adult and still jump into bed when your bedroom is dark.

So yes. That is the reason that I have been so absent. My year has been getting busier by the minute. I can’t wait until May when school is over, and my husband will only be an hour and a half away from me. I will miss him terribly, but this is going to be a whole new adventure for me. I can’t wait.