It's time for Monkey Mail!

After being gone for over two weeks I FINALLY got email from him. I actually got a couple super short ones a couple days after he left but they were about three sentences long and just said that there wasn't much to report. Understandably. But after that there was nothing. Nothing for two weeks!!! I was starting to get really antsy. But the night before thanksgiving, three emails showed up in my inbox, and then two more trickled in this morning. yea! I feel so much better now.

Below are excerpts from those emails.  (The stuff is green are my notes, anything in Brackets is omitted or changed for various reasons)

12NOV11 6:47pm

Hey mrs beautiful!
[...]There is not much going on here. Just a lot of time cleaning and watching... I have spent a lot of time on the gaming LAN trying to get is set-up. There are a couple less computers we can email on than there were last patrol. I keep an eye out for them to be open. I got emails 1-3 today and it definitely felt good. I always imagine your voice and its very relieving.

 Im going to start doing quartermaster UIs (Under-instructions) next week. Im already Dinq (delinquent until qualified) on it technically. But I should be able to catch up anyways. Other than that...... yeah... not much... its a boring steel tube.

 I realized that i forgot my micro SD card in my other laptop - so i have no music. If you have the time and money and wanna hook your Monkey up with a micro-SD card on the next mail drop... :-D Any size is better than none, but as big as you can go; if possible.

 The diet is going well. Im having a really difficult time drinking water - im just not thirsty. I think its just the boat water.. Its nasty.

Anyhoozle love, I hope you had a good day with [my friend "V"], and a good weekend... I love you and miss you so much. Know that I am thinking about you, especially when i curl up in the blanket you made me.

Love you!

---------

15NOV11 3:17am

Hey you! I miss your beautiful face! Every time I go to sleep and put that beanie on I think of how good that last weekend was. I can't wait to come back home to you. Things are boring, as usuall. I'm still dinq QMoW but I'm catching up. I'm doing my UIs in my three hours between watches. This patrol is kind of busy in the end and not a great one for qualifications unfortunately just because of when we are doing certain exams and what-not. Kinda sucks but I think i can get it done. There Isn't really a lot to talk about though - flying under the radar mostly, not picking on A-Gang.... yet. I miss you so much.

[...]

Anyways love, I miss you, think of you all the time.

---------------

17NOV11 7:15pm

Hey beautiful love! I finally got to read an email from you! Its been days.... I keep getting this grouping of 300 emails about sports updates that I didn't ask for and they fill up my box. I got 1-3 and 9 of your emails so I'm missing a few in the middle there, resend them if you can in case they don't make it through the radio clog.

Things are getting a little more hectic or busy whatever you wanna call it. Things like focused after-watch clean-ups and drills and the like.

[...]

Love you baby!

 --------------------

Saturday 19NOV11 6:33pm

Hey there beautiful love! I just got to read number 12. So i have now received 1-3, 9 & 12. (This is really frustrating that most of my emails have gone missing. I hope they get this fixed soon, I don't like having to resend them all) Still not much to talk about today is likely to be hectic, I'm taking a sec while i have it. I won a 1TB external hard drive in the field-day raffle today. I caught a little angst because i have 10TB on board already. [...]

I find myself often wondering what you are doing at the moment I am thinking it. I miss you so much. I want to squeeze you. I miss my little Ducky.

[...]

I'm working on Quartermaster but its coming slowly at best. All the easy things on the card have been signed off so whats left is the experience-earned and heavy-reading check-outs. I think I will be able to get it done, but i have to work on Periscope in tandem which is really difficult to get practice on.

Anyways Ducky! I look forward to reading the emails I'm missing! Hopefully you get all of mine.

Love you so much!

----------------------

23NOV11 12:52am

[...]

Mrs. Ducky, tomorrow is thanksgiving. I wish i could be there with you,[...]  Please spend it with family/friends though, I got the notion that you had plans which i was glad to hear. [...]

I'm holding on to Quartermaster by the skin of my teeth. I am nowhere near ready to stand it and I'm almost done with my card. My computer distracts me a lot. Not the computer itself but someone always wants something off of it. [...]

anyways mrs Ducky! Please have a WONDERFUL thanks-giving. I will be giving thanks for my wonderful wife, whom I adore and love to pieces. I give thanks for that every day though. I never feel like its enough. I wish i could send you flowers right now. Not just because I am not with you for thanksgiving but because i just want to send my beautiful wife some flowers.

I love you, need to sleep.
*hugs and kisses*

So, there you go. I really hope they get his mail situation figured out. I make a point to write him at least once a day. So it's really frustrating that they just get lost and he doesn't hear from me. But I will keep on writing.

Just checking in.

I'm just checking in, because it's been a while since I've posted anything.

The problem is that all my planned posts require pictures which are on my computer at home. And, by the time I get home I'm too tired to make the post. Here's what's on tap though:

1. Halfway box and Care packages

2. Anti Bullying and suicide prevention

3. Restarting the Boohoo/Hooya link up

4. Hopefully soon, some Monkey Mail

I'll be in Seattle this weekend with Friends for thanksgiving, just steps away from the Seattle Salsa Congress! But, alas it's waaay too expensive for me this year since I'm trying to save for my Mac Book so I can work remote next year. 

I've been getting back into salsa recently. Which is making me miss ballet and ballroom, a lot! I have Groupons for some different dance studios to use. I should start that soon. I find myself standing in front of the mirror practicing ballet lines while I brush my teeth in the mornings. It's time to get back into it. I love the muay thai and jiu jitsu, but I'm a dancer, and I miss it.

Ok, I need to get back to work. Just wanted to check in. Hope you all have a great holiday weekend!

Help a Special Education class - Postcard Project

I am passing along this request from a friend who posted on facebook. I know that I have many lovely readers from all over the world and am hoping you will help! I think this is a very cool and fun project.

Below is a request from the special education teacher at Caldwell Highschool in Caldwell, ID.

"I am a special education teacher at our local high school. I am going to start teaching a segment in geography and I am wondering if anyone would be kind enough to mail my classroom a postcard from the area in which you live. We are making a global map that will be attached to the cards mailed to my classroom. The class and I will discuss the information given on the postcard and the postcard picture Then it will be attached to the area on the map from which it came! I would love to receive as many postcards (from all over the world) as possible as my students enjoy receiving mail. Thank you in advance!"

Please address any post cards you send to the following address:

Caldwell High School
Room 137, Mrs. Castle
3401 S Indiana Ave.
Caldwell, ID 83605

 

Please comment below if you plan on sending a postcard!

Thank you all.

And, here we go.

ok, as promised, a real update. It's long. I usually don't write this much but there is much to talk about.

Monkey is officially off on his next grand undersea adventure. *sigh* Which is why I haven't been blogging much. All I've had to talk about revolved around him getting ready to leave. I was a busy busy bee running around getting him ready, while secretly putting together his halfway box (hopefully next post), HoneyGrams - which are an awesome fundraiser our FRG puts together to arrange for hand written notes to be delivered on specified dates (he's on a sub, they don't get mail), and his boat blanket. 

The last two weekends I spent helping him sort 3 months worth of vitamins and supplements into individual baggies. And then packing up his barracks since he's being forced out of Geo-bach. He has a place for his stuff but not a place to live when he gets back. The place he was going to live fell through at the last minute. He has another friend and his wife who are interested so hopefully that get's panned out during the underway.

We thought that the weekend before last (the one spent moving him until 3:30 in the morning) was his last weekend, but then things got pushed out. Which turned out to be an excellent thing! If he had left when he was supposed to and my last weekend with him was spent just packing and moving, I would not be doing as well as I am now. Because, save for a small meltdown in the Wal-mart parking lot, we had an excellent last weekend. I was able to get in some really good quality Monkey time and get a real goodbye instead of the 45 second one I got the weekend before because he was running late to get to duty turnover. (I was not happy about that). 

Right now I am feeling a lot better than anticipated. I had hoped to make it at least through the weekend before the icky feeling set in. But, I actually thought it would take... eehhhh... two days. But, I'm feeling pretty ok right now. I mean, I definitely miss him like crazy, but I'm handling it MUCH better than last time. I think I'm getting used to this. Also, I started taking more supplements for my mood and focus, and I think that is really helping, too. 

I made a rule for all of my friends this time. I call it the "no pity" rule. Note, that there is a different between pity and compassion. They are most definitely allowed to care, and recognize that I may be sad some days and will need some support. But, they must follow these two simple rules. NO pouty faces in attempted empathy. NO responses such as "that sucks", "I'm sorry", or "I could never do that". I do not need to be reminded that deployments suck. What I need is; support and distraction. In general I'm just really tired of the pouty face reaction to "My husband just left." or similar/related statements. it's just so unhelpful and often presumptuous of my feeling at the time. Instead, I just ask that they say things like, "You are strong, you can do this.", "Let's go out"(and mean it). "How are you feeling?"(Listen to and care about my answer)  I have a couple of friends who are doing a very good job with this and it's also helping a lot. 

I know that the first weekend is always the toughest for me. It's always when I'll have the first completely unplanned day and I end up sleeping in way too late, I never get dressed, and don't leave the house. Then about 6pm I start to feel really lame that I just sat around and moped all day. So, my friend volunteered a girls weekend. She's been going through some of her own personal drama so we can both use the distraction.

So, this weekend we have scheduled: Saturday night - salsa dancing and a sleepover, Sunday - PJ breakfast then pedicures. Friday night I will be cleaning my poor neglected home. I've been meaning to do it for weeks but then ended up driving up to Bangor because he wasn't able to come down. Saturday during the day I need to go to Ross or some place inexpensive and find something to wear salsa dancing. 

Other than that I'm getting back to "gym-rat" status again. That's 2-3 hours a night, 4 days a week at the gym. I'll be working on my jiu jitsu, muay thai, and maybe adding Saturdays and getting back to Capoeira. And, I get to start my guitar lessons soon, too. There is one other thing that I will be doing as well, but that's for another post. This one is getting long enough.

See, I said this would be a real update! Here's hoping that this good mood lasts as long as possible. I know that  I will eventually, at some point, break down. I think it would be unhealthy if I didn't. But, I'm gonna stay happy as long as happy'll have me. And when I do break down, I've got my friends well educated on how to pick me back up again. I think I'm set. Deployment, I'm so ready for you!!! Uh, mostly. I think. I hope. Fingers crossed, anyway. :)

15% off at Shabby Apple

Ok, I swear I have more insightful things to post than another "click here to get" deal. (I really do, lots to talk about that I haven't been able to post about yet) But, I love love love Shabby Apple and I'm sure you do too. What? You haven't seen this adorably vintage-inspired line of clothing? Well go now, here's 15% off AND free shipping though this link!
http://www.push44.com/kxvc35ip

Win free Photoshop for life.

AppSumo is running a sweepstakes right now to give away free Photoshop and upgrades for life to 10 people. Pretty sweet deal! I know that a lot of you lovely bloggers love you some Photoshop, so I thought I'd pass it along. Good luck!

Click here to enter:  http://appsumo.com/~XGFC

Also, I get an extra entry if you enter, so if anything do it for me? The worst that can happen is that you win, right?!

Monkey's boat blanket.

So probably almost a year ago I saw a couple ladies make a quilt or boat blanket for their hubbies. Since then I've been saying "One of these days I'm going to make you a quilt." Every underway, "I should make you a quilt..." and nothing ever comes of it. Well, this time is the perfect time, if was ever to actually do it. So I started what was come to be known as "Project overly-ambitious".

What started out as a loving, fun craft project turned into an all consuming project for three weeks! I almost didn't get it finished in time. Thank you Mom for all your help! I couldn't have finished it without you! Also, while I was making this I had all my other stealthy-wife things to get together for him. (That's another post)

I had big plans for this blanket. One of which was to make a fleece-lined foot pocket. However, once I got the pocket made, I realized that i would have to quilt it to keep the lining from stretching out and sagging. And after 30 minutes of frustrated self bargaining, i eventually had to give up on the idea realizing that I just didn't have the time to do it right. So, the foot pocket was sadly, left off.

The features that did make it on though, include: a pocket from one of his old utilities shirts being used as a quilt square, ties/ribbons at the foot of the blanket so it can be bundled up all nice and neat for traveling and tidy stowing, a hand sewn heart on the back of the blanket so that "my heart is always next to his", also several patches and name tape and fish. 

In the end some things didn't go according to plan, but I took my time and wanted it to be good quality over anything else. I know it's going to get tossed around a bit on the boat and I wanted it to hold up. But, just in case, I'm sending him with an emergency repair kit so he could patch it up until he got home. I'm realistic, i know that it could very well get damaged during the underway. Though, of course I hope it doesn't.

As much as I enjoyed making this, it fought me the whole way, between the craft store cutting my fabric crooked, to my machine not being able to handle quilting the final blanket, to it just taking 4 times longer to do anything than I thought! I put in somewhere around 50 hours on this project. But it was worth it. I am very proud of it. And, it's super cozy!

Everything except the NWU fabric. I had to order it because he said I could have a pair of this pants (though he didn't know why) and then changed his mind. Did you know you could get the real deal online by the yard? I actually cut out most of this fabric while I was talking on the web cam with him. He just couldn't see what my hands were doing!

That's 140 squares of fabric. I had an evening to kill at a hotel room, so I ironed all my squares.

And then laid them out to find a "random" pattern that I liked.Do you know how hard it is to be completely random, on purpose?

I used one of the pockets from his utility shirts as a quilt square. So he has a functioning pocket on his blanket! Handy for his ipod or phone alarm, etc.

First Squares go together.

First two strips go together. yes, I use A LOT of pins! I just wanted it to be straight. I'm also a super slow sewer because I don't trust that the machine will go straight.

We had to come up with a color coded pin and numbering system because I had no choice but to work on it later in the evening, and we started messing up the order of the squares and strips because we (my mom and I) were so tired!

All the squares were sewn together. From here I added a border, then cut the back, basted the batting in place and sewed the front and back together. It was finally becoming a blanket! One of the patches was a hat patch. Tried my hand at sewing on the patches. Just to make sure they stayed on, even though they had an iron on backing. It did fine on all of them except the round one. (Which, I don't think i have any pictures of)

Finally all together. I think it's gorgeous. The batting I chose was really nice and it made it drape really nicely. It feels wonderful to cuddle with. Of course I tested it for a night. ;)

  

 

My sewing machine decided in the 11th hour that it was tired and refused to quilt more than 6 inches without breaking the thread and/or jamming. So, I had to give up and do the hand tieing method. They were trimmed much shorter than this and didn't look too bad when it was all done. They were actually barely noticeable. Here you can see the basting pins still in place, and the gold ribbons for tying the blanket.

I hand sewed a fleece heart to the backside of the blanket near the top left. So that no matter how far away he goes, my heart is always next to his.

And lastly, inside the pocket i tucked a little ducky and another heart, so he always has his Ducky Love with him. (Cause he calls me Ducky, or sometimes Ducky Love.)

The quilt all bundled up. So pretty.

Monkey seemed to be impressed. He said I did a really good job. We slept under it that night. I hope it keeps him nice and warm while I'm not there to hold him. And I hope it makes him feel loved when I'm not there to tell him.

I don't even know what to title this.

Man, where to start. It's been a hectic few weeks and a crazy last few days.

I've been running around in every free second that I had getting everything I needed for all my super-stealthy-wife-surprises that I've been working on. I cannot reveal them yet because I haven't given them to him. But, I have taken pictures and there (probably) will be sharing.

Two are done. The other is almost done, but has been giving me grief from the very beginning. It has taken me four times longer than I anticipated. I'm about 40+ hours into it. And if I could finish it the way I wanted to it would be another few hours on top of that. Unfortunately, my entry-level equipment can't handle this project. So, I have to finish it using a less than desirable (for my OCD) method. Already I've had to fore go a really cool feature because I didn't anticipate the characteristics of my sub-straight. (Am I being vague enough here?) So, because time is an issue and I'm going for quality over quantity, I had to leave it off. I might be able to add it on later, but it's not quite the same.

AND on top of all that personal rah rah, I've had a crazy crazy crazy last couple of days at work. One of our project managers up and left with no notice and it seems a bunch of account info and files went with him right before some big client deadlines. So, we're all in the midst of sorting that out. Also, it happened to be the last week that we had our freelance production artist in-house, and our creative director was out of the office at an event, so all of the crazy landed in my lap. 

Things have finally calmed down today. I have tonight to finish my stealthy-wife present. Deep breaths. 

More updates about other things are scheduled for later. I'll be back on here more coming up.

TaTa!

Early Christmas Present

Last night we were at a guitar store picking up some cables for Monkey's mixer and I spotted this pretty purple guitar. I have always thought that guitars are just beautiful and have purchased more than one just because I liked it even though I barely play. I used to take lessons in grade school but I never practiced so that didn't last very long. I've been meaning to get back into it but have never made time for it.

But, I was REALLY in love with this guitar. Monkey asked me if I wanted him to get it for me, but I told him I couldn't ask him to buy something like that for me. I couldn't justify getting another guitar unless I was taking lessons again. I think he could tell how much I was in love with it, so after a few minutes, he told me to go pick out a stand and some picks. He bought me the guitar and lessons for the whole time he's gone. :) I love this man.

My first order of business is to learn some Colbie Caillat. One of his favorite singers. I'm starting with "Bubbly". I'll have a few months to get pretty good and show him what I've learned when he gets home. Wish me luck!

Navy Birthday Ball

On Thursday I FINALLY got to go to a Navy Ball with Monkey. He's been in for three years and we missed all of them for one reason or another.

It wasn't as fancy as I'd imagined it would be. But, considering it was on base and on a Thursday, I suppose perhaps this wasn't one of the big ones? Sub ball is in the spring and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to go to that one. I'm told it's a bit more of a party, since it's all Submariners. And, I'm already all set so there will be no stress. (Well, LESS stress anyway) Since, I already have my dress for that one.

Anyway, we had tons of fun and even got to dance a little. We got in some cha-chas, a swing, a bolero, and a teeny bit of foxtrot. We would have stayed all night, but eventually the DJ turned the ball into a nightclub and there wasn't any "danceable" music. We got a few compliments, which is always fun. Sometimes people get annoyed that we're taking up a little more floor space than everyone else, so we try and keep it small. But, people seemed to like it this time. :) Plus, Monkey looked SO adorable dancing in his dress blues. Unfortunately, the only pictures i have of that are of him dancing with someone else's wife. He was teaching her to hustle. Next time though, i will make someone take pictures of us dancing.

Well, let's proceed with the pictures, shall we...