16 and NOT pregnant

So I have this great idea.
I often watch the show 16 and Pregnant...I know what you're thinking, but it's my own personal train wreck; it must be watched, no matter how painful it may be. A lot of people seem to think it glorifies teen pregnancy, leading to more teen pregnancies. What a vicious cycle. I dunno, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. Sure seems that way here in Oregon, but...I'm not here to judge.

But what if they had a show called 16 and NOT pregnant. And followed around four normal teenage girls who didn't have to worry about stretch marks and uterine cramping and middle of the night feedings. Who knows? Maybe other 16 year old girls would be like "Hey Mom! I'm NOT going to get pregnant, and then maybe I'll get to be on this awesome show!" And then angels would cry and Poseidon would rise from the sea once more and grant us all a thousand wishes.

 

 

But probably not.

 

 

 

I'm just saying.

The husband and I went to dinner the other night and there was a teen couple there with their baby. I have NO problem with babies in restaurants; more power to you if you can muster the energy to go out with one of those things. But their entire conversation revolved around the baby, and wipies and spit up. And it made me sad for them. They should have been talking about ...I don't know, Harry Potter? It's been a while, I don't know what's hip anymore.

And we haven't killed each other yet.

The husband and I celebrated our anniversary on July 31st. Our first anniversary. As in, we're both still somehow alive and made it through the first terrible year of merging two lives together and constant compromise.
...anyway. It was a lovely two days spent in Lincoln City.

Rose petals. Rose petals people! This was one romantic room. Oh, and did I mention the jacuzzi tub overlooking the ocean? In which we sipped champagne? I wish I could say that we gazed lovingly into each others eyes as the sunset on the Pacific, but it was cloudy so we didn't get a good sunset and we were watching America's Got Talent. But it was still magical.

We started the day off shopping at the giant outlet mall in LC, trying to kill time as we waited for our room to be ready. Check in time was 4 o'clock, which is a little extreme, but hey. Who am I to judge?

When the room was finally ready we were already tired and took a little nap in this here bed and watched Cake Boss. Only we can take such a romantic setting and turn it into home, haha.

We went down to the ocean to check out the little tide pools in front of our hotel, took a lot of pictures. Walked along the beach, reminisced, worked up an appetite, and eventually sauntered on down to Kyllo's, the restaurant we always go to when we're in LC. We got the best seat we've ever gotten there! Right in front of the giant picture windows overlooking the ocean, it was awesome. We always get put in some corner, or across the room, and quite frankly it's kind of a bummer.

When we got home, the jacuzzi tubbing/america's got talent watching began. And then we both got really tired/drunk from the wine and fell asleep watching Law and Order. It was almost like our anniversary with TV. The three of us have a wonderful relationship.

The next day was awesome though. We went to Pig n' Pancake, the one we went to the morning before he proposed. Then went to the hill we climbed, but it looked like there'd been a landslide and it was even steeper this time around, so we opted not to climb it again.

Instead, we rented a boat on Devil's Lake and had a picnic and lounged around for a couple hours. It was super relaxing. I told Austin at the time 'I'm going to hold onto this memory while I'm at work the next 8 days in a row.' And I am. Holding on. For dear life.

We came home after boating, both kind of tired. We lounged a bit, went to the gym, ate dinner, then went for a ten mile bike ride around Tillamook. We got to see the sun set over one of the cow fields. We had a really good time, and I was proud of myself for actually biking ten miles.

What really happened is we got about three miles from the house, and we turned a corner. It was downhill for a long ways, and Austin goes "Do you just want to turn around now?" And I go "No...I want to keep going." And he goes "I don't want to have to walk back with you in the dark." And I didn't even say anything, I just started riding. And I went all the way around town in a full loop which turned out to be about 10 1/2 miles. He thinks he was encouraging me. I say it was the most discouraging encouragement ever. But whatever, we did it.

So that was our on year anniversary. It was great, and I hope we can last another year without one of us shanking the other.

To the assholes.

I'd like to dedicate this post to all the customers over the years that I have literally wanted to throw myself at.


To every single Don that has ever ordered food, and felt the need to spell his name for me. As though the name D-O-N incites some intrinsic need for an immediate spelling by it's owner. Thank you, Don, for reassuring me that, though I am going to college (as an ENGLISH major, no less), you do in fact see me as a complete slack jawed idiot who could never hope to spell such a challenging and glorious name as Don.

Welcome to the Don club, where you will go prematurely bald, and you will SPELL damn it!

To the grown adults, who, I assume have been to restaurants before, but still apparently have no idea how to read a menu. Where are our sandwiches? Why, they're on the menu. The one page menu. Front page only. Right in the middle. Really, you can't miss them. How much does everything cost? Once again...right on the menu. Oh, don't worry, everybody asks that; they must all be just as experienced with dining out as you are. Do we have french fries? Well, you've been reading our one page menu for ten minutes now, and as far as I can tell, they're still not on there. No, we don't have french fries. 



To all the customers who think they are the only people in the restaurant, nay -- the only people in the world. Yes, of course I have time for you to ask me about every single dish on the menu in great detail. Can I go into the freezer and look up the ingredients for the bread on the box it came in? Sure. You want me to call the morning cook and find out if that one salad is dairy free instead of you just ordering from the other seven or eight choices? Of course!



To the customers who either a) think it's hilarious to send me on six or seven trips back to the kitchen for various objects or b) are actually that oblivious that they don't realize they've sent me back six or seven times. Can you get an extra fork? No problem, I'll be right back with that. Here ya go -- oh, you want oyster crackers for your soup...alright, sure thing, I'll attend to all of my other customers after I sprint back to the kitchen for your damn crackers. Enjoy your -- some ketchup for your screaming child's hotdog? Of course. Can I get you anything else while I'm back there? No. Okay. Be right back. And inevitably, dear customer, I come back with the ketchup and you need a knife to cut the hotdog. No, no, don't worry about the throng of customers waiting for me to take their orders, you are the only person in the world that matters.



To all the tourist customers during the summer that know they will never see us again, so don't bother to leave any trace of a tip. Anywhere. It's fine, I love working in 90 degree temperatures for 8 hours straight with no breaks and nothing to eat to the point that I'm shaking as I'm bringing you your food that smells oh so divine but will get nowhere near the back of my throat. Seriously. You are the sunshine of my life, and just seeing your smiling face makes up for making minimum wage and the start of a serious shoulder problem.

Maybe if we smile as we slink away she won't notice there's no tip...

Whew...I feel a lot better now. There are a lot more of you, dear, kind, considerate patrons of our eating establishment that I wish I had the time to write letters to, but I think I got to the best of you. And the rest may some day have a small girl hurled at them from across the counter. But until then you'll be greeted with a smile as I explain the same things 275 times in one day.


*Let it be understood that I work at a deli. It is in no way, shape, or form a full service restaurant. If it were, customers would be required to leave some sort of a tip; however, it is not, so most of them don't. Regardless of this fact, I still get roped into full service more often than not. I take the orders, I cook the food, I take the food out to the customer, I bus the customer's dishes, I wash the dishes. Granted, on busy days I have help and we all take turns doing all of these things, but at a tourist destination in the middle of summer it's lucky that more shanks aren't being forged in the make-shift backroom where we wolf down lunches in-between rushes.

Going camping!

Geez, I really need to be better about updating this thing!
I feel like an old person...not acquainted with all this new fangled nonsense!

Just kidding, I'm just lazy.

But anyway, life is trucking along, as it always tends to do. Things are actually going really great. First of all, things are all lined up for school. I'm going to have just enough saved by the end of the summer to supplement my student loans, and I'm all signed up for classes! Thank. God. The wonderful administrative staff at my university like to drag their feet/are too incredibly saddled with thousands of students per staff member, that I have to constantly be the squeaky wheel to get any grease. So I've been squeaking my little head off to get things done, and BAM! I have a full schedule. And I'll hopefully be all done by summer of 2013.

Hopefully...Austin is most likely being shipped off to A school around that time. So I'm hoping I won't have to face a long distance relationship...again. I shouldn't complain though. At least my husband isn't getting deployed like many other military wives' husbands. I'm lucky he's in the coast guard and he gets to come home and cuddle with me.


Anyway, the marriage is treating me well. It seems lately I've been loving him more and more; it's possible that it's because our one year anniversary is at the end of this month, but I'm not sure that's quite it. Things have just been really, really good. I came home from work yesterday and Austin had cleaned the whole house, including the refrigerator, and the bathroom. And he had done all my laundry, AND hung it up. I was so impressed. He's been doing it a lot lately too. I've been working a lot more, so on a lot of his days off he has nothing to do really, and he just cleans. It's awesome. And I never ever feel taken for granted anymore. I'm just really happy; things have been going really well and we're celebrating our anniversary on August 1st because he's going to be in Washington on our actual anniversary. We're going to Lincoln City, where it all started.

Oh, and I made him an awesome scrap book of our first year together on Shutterfly.com. I got it in the mail the other day and it turned out SO great. I wanted to do something with paper, because the first anniversary is the paper anniversary. He said he's been working on something...I'm interested to know what it is.

Alright, well, I am off to finish the laundry. Work tomorrow... We're going camping this weekend. His family is having a huge reunion down near Bend. I'm pretty excited to get away from here for a few days. Away from work. I'm excited to see his family too.

Until next time!

Back from vacation.

I haven't updated in a long time!

We just got back from Nevada a few days ago. We went to visit because Austin's brother graduated high school, and they go on this huge camping/riding trip. Other than the food poisoning, it was a pretty good trip. I went to Lake Tahoe, got my hair cut (10 inches!!), went to this AWESOME gay bar in Reno and had a total freaking blast, got delicious sushi with all the people I wanted to see while I was there, and sang "Man, I feel like a woman" at a karaoke bar.

There was also time spent with family...it was nice to see my mom, but she's definitely got her own routine. A routine she's not a huge fan of breaking. So two days is about the limit with us before we start wanting to rip each other's eye balls out. Sara came and stayed with mom while I was there too, and that was ... It was good to see her, but all she wants to do any time we meet up is complain about how terrible her life is. Which is mentally draining. She doesn't want to hear about my life in any capacity, she only wants me to listen to her. So...it's a tad one sided, and it's frustrating.

Mostly, it was a great break from work. Before I left it was getting pretty bad...like, one more person spells their three letter name for me, bad. I swear to god...something about the name DON makes people want to spell it out. Because I apparently look like a half-wit. I was literally planning in my head how to go about quitting; what i'd say, what i'd do.

Being back isn't so bad though; I expected it to be a lot worse. It'll probably get pretty bad again, I'm sure...but maybe I have a month or so where I'll be alright. I hope I have a month or so, or some unsuspecting slack-jawed tourist is going to DIE.

...wait, is she serious?

some days.

Some days, being married is fabulous.

Other days, not so much.

I won't go into detail, but I feel the need to get some stuff off my chest. I'll keep it short. Namely, I feel taken for granted. What wife doesn't feel this way from time to time? I just feel like nothing I do is appreciated, and I'm literally supposed to spend my days waiting on a phone call of the when and where and what he wants. It's frustrating. And hurtful.

I called him out on it today. I told him that he was being straight up rude, and that I felt like I got slapped in the face.


Sigh. Some days aren't so sunny.

In a perfect world...

I know that New Years is generally the time to make resolutions, but I feel like I'm always making little resolutions for myself and rarely keeping them. Today I've been really down on myself.
In a perfect world...

I would be able to run 30 minutes without stopping.
I would be able to paint something beautiful in whatever medium I wanted with little trouble.
I would have a better paying, less stressful job.
I would get to spend more time with my husband.
I would eat only fruits, vegetables and lean protein.


This is, however, not a perfect world. These are things that I'm aspiring towards right now. The whole running thing -- Michaela, from work, and I have been working out together for the past week and a half. I have officially run on the treadmill 5 times now. It's really easy for me to lose motivation when I'm not automatically good at something...a characteristic of my crazy, high strung, type A personality. (Which seems to directly contradict my couch potato ways, haha.)
Anyway, I've run 5 times now. Each time is difficult...not so much running out of breath, as my legs just getting tight and sore and feeling like they're going to fall off. That's normal, I know. They say the first two weeks is the hardest. I get that; and going with Michaela is a HUGE help. Even on days when I don't want to go, she holds me accountable and I go to the gym and end up glad that I did. But right now, I can only run for 6 minutes before I need to walk for two or three minutes, then run like 4 or 5 minutes again. It makes me feel really out of shape haha. But at the same time, I feel good that I'm even trying. At least I'm going and I'm pushing myself. I know I could push myself harder though, and I'm going to.

The running thing kind of goes hand in hand with the eating right thing. Since I moved here I've gained about ten pounds...mainly because I totally became sedentary and Austin and I eat out a LOT. So, for the past few weeks I've really been trying to eat a little bit better. We still go out (not as often); but the last time we went out I had fish, rice pilaf and broccoli. As opposed to my usual cheese burger. And I'm eating more fruits and veggies instead of my usual loads of carbs and cheese.

Yeah, I'll admit, I feel like I've gotten a little chubby, and I really would like to lose some of that extra weight I see, but it's honestly mainly about just being in shape. I would really like to be in better shape. And I know that if I run regularly and eat more fruits and veggies and less fried food and carbs, I will be a lot healthier. And hopefully Austin will jump on the bandwagon with me. He has terrible eating habits. Trying to get him to eat veggies is like pulling teeth.

As for the painting -- I started painting when I moved here. I've always liked to draw, and I've always wanted to try painting but never really had the extra money for art supplies (they can be pricey!) or the motivation. I've got a serious fear of failure. I'm trying really hard to get over that. So, when I moved here I got a cheap set of brushes, some acrylic paint and a couple canvases. And I really really liked it. I'm not great at it, but I really like it. Acrylic is pretty easy to work with.

So now that I've painted with acrylic for 8 months, I decided I really wanted to try oil painting. Austin's mom got me a giftcard for $50 for Michael's for my birthday, so it seemed like a good opportunity to buy some nicer brushes, some acrylic paint and a "How to" book about oil painting. I'm glad I already bought the supplies, because reading the book, it looks a lot harder than I thought. You have to thin the paint; you have to know how much of your oil medium to add; there are so many techniques. It seems really daunting, but to be honest I just have all the supplies laying out on the table, and I haven't even attempted anything yet. I plan on trying it tomorrow. I'm nervous, but I'm excited to at least try. I'll never know unless I try.

There isn't really anything I can do about spending more time with Hubby. He's been having to work a lot lately because they're really short staffed at the station. Too many break-ins, not enough fully qualified boat crew members...means lots of overnights and communication watches. And if I end up getting the dispatch job I applied for (which I really don't see happening, but I hope it does because I'll be making a LOT more money) that will mean even less time together, because I'll be working fulltime, and I'll be working a lot of graveyard shifts.

Oh well. This is better than long distance. I'm trying to see all the silver linings. At least Austin isn't on a cutter. He gets to come home every two to three days. We see each other, we get to go on little day trips to Portland/Salem/Hillsboro, spend quality time together. And as far as the job goes, I would really like to get it, but if I don't that just means that I need to finish school, and I'll sign up for classes in the fall.

WHEW. This was a long post. I guess I had a lot to get out. Anyway, I shall be back, and I shall update! Hopefully with all good things.

My focus right now is getting our lives on the right track.

I feel like we're doing a pretty good job. I don't know, it's kind of a confusing thing. Not so much cut and dried. Really...just relative. I feel like we're doing well; my name is officially changed on all of our accounts and all my cards. We applied for a credit card together and got a $9,000 limit, so woo. And we turned both of our accounts into joint accounts. Ooh! And next month we're paying off our car. His mom is loaning us the money so we can pay her back interest free. We're going to save about $900. So that's good.

Other than that, just saving money for the wedding, trying to get those details hammered out. And I'm still waiting to hear back from PSU; I emailed them and they responded to tell me that my application still hasn't been reviewed and it would most likely be several more weeks. I'm probably still looking at taking out a student loan, but I qualify for a subsidized loan, so in the long run it won't be so bad; it'll help build our credit and we won't have to make payments on it until after I graduate. I really look forward to just getting that degree. That's my goal leaving Oregon; to leave with a degree. And at our next station I'll try to get a teaching job; if I can't do that I'll just get whatever job to start paying down the loan. But at least I'll be qualified!

Emotionally we're doing really well. Our marriage is almost an eight month old! I can't believe we've been married for almost 8 months. Our one year anniversary is in ...two weeks. Gosh. Well, we're still really happy. Maybe we're still in the honeymoon phase; most likely, because I still seem to think the sun shines out his butt. Even when he's gross, or mean haha. Well, he's never really mean, but...ya know. I wonder when that phase will wear off.

I've been feeling really ...sick lately; to my stomach. And we were worried, because I just started a new birth control and I missed a day at one point. And we used backup protection for a week after that, but we were still worried. So I took a pregnancy test, and thankfully, I'm not pregnant. My sister is though! Surprise! I took the test, it came out negative, and she called me to tell me that SHE was pregnant! They're not really in a position for another baby right now, but she's excited anyway. So I'm excited for her.

Still looking for another job. The deli has gotten really busy lately, so I've been getting more hours (thank god, my last pay check was like ...a dollar. not really, but close enough). But I'm still looking for something more full time, or something that is more fulfilling. I dunno... maybe I just need to pursue a hobby. I want more to fill my time. I should work out more. I should start painting again. I was a lot more productive before we had cable and internet haha...we got that a couple months ago and I've really gone downhill. We should cancel it and save $50 a month -- or put it towards the car! Yeah...we should do that.

Anywho! I'll update when things happen.

We made pizza for valentine's day.

I came home from work and there were Stargazer lilies waiting for me and making the house smell delicious! They're my favorite.

Then we made our own pizza for dinner.
I made a heart shaped pizza.

It was a good day. :)

Feeling the need to blog.

Sometimes the downfall of planning everything so far ahead, is that life seems to inch slowly by while you wait for the follow through.
I cling to the small events to keep me afloat.

The wedding is still 17 months away. Which is good, because we need all the time we can get to save money. But it's also...just too far away. I mean, the fact that we're already married doesn't help. I guess...it'll be better once he tells his parents (in two weeks), because then we can just tell everyone. I'm tired of lying to everyone. I mean it's not like a huge hole in my heart or anything, it's just sort of an uncomfortable feeling.

More people know now. I told Elise, Megan, Carrie and Jess. And Jen and my family and Aaron already know. I'm nervous about telling my Grandma's. I'm nervous about Austin telling his parents. Really nervous. I don't know what to expect. It makes me a little crazy I guess, thinking about it...which is why I'm rambling about it now.

It is what it is. Take a deep breath. Accept it. Let it go.

I feel like the wedding is pretty much planned...nothing is concrete yet. It's still a year and a half away, and I'm the only one doing any of the planning...and I just want to make sure that Austin isn't going to suddenly be going to some training or something on the day of our wedding. Planning around the military isn't exactly easy...so I guess I'm afraid to put the $1000 deposit down on the place because I don't want to lose $1000 if we have to reschedule.

I'm going to plan a trip in June to go see the ceremony and reception venues. I'm excited to see them. And I'm hoping to plan a wedding dress appointment and have the girls try on dresses too. It's a lot to fit into five days...I can't really miss much work in the summer.

School starts in September. I'm still waiting to get my acceptance letter and hear from the scholarship department. I'll probably have to take out a student loan...but I'm actually okay with that. A $10,000 loan will not be that bad in the grand scheme of things. Just two more years to go! If all goes according to plan, I'll be done with school in June of 2013.

I feel like blogging, I guess, because Austin hasn't been around much. He had a two week training from January 24th to February 5th. And then he was sick the two days he had off, and had work yesterday and today. Both overnights, so he didn't get to come home. And then tomorrow and the day after we're going to Albany to see his dad and grandparents. Then he goes to work for another three days.

The next full, uninterrupted day we'll have together (so far, who knows what will happen between then and now) is Valentines Day. Ha, no pressure or anything. I told him that the only thing I want for Valentines Day is his company. That's all. I don't need him to buy me anything or do anything for me. I just want to make dinner and watch a movie together. With my luck, his dad will still be in town and he'll want to spend the day with him.

And the worst part is, when it comes down to it, I know that Austin wouldn't even think twice. He'd do it. Nevermind the fact that he's spending his birthday with his parents.

I would never say this to him but...I feel like they hog all the holidays. Each and every holiday. And it's frustrating for me. I'm lucky his Mom and I have different birthdays. Or I'd be screwed. And very lonely on my birthday.
I mean...I know that this is a fairly new relationship. We've only been together for a year. And he's still young. His parents still see him as their little boy. I guess I just thought that marriage would change some things. Like, maybe he'd spend his birthday with me, maybe he'd spend Christmas with me.

I'd never say that to him though. His birthday isn't about me, it's about him and what he wants to do. So I didn't even mention that I felt slighted; I want him to do what makes him happy. And honestly, I know that if I mentioned it at all, it's such a touchy subject that he would immediately get defensive and accuse me of trying to come between him and his family....just like last time. Yay...

Maybe we can work it out on our own. I guess we just need a little time. This is the first year. The first go-around with the holidays. Who knows? Maybe it'll get better. I hope. If it doesn't I guess we can consider counseling, but I highly doubt he'd ever willingly submit to that. He can be so stubborn and closed off.

When we had our conversation about telling his parents it took me the better part of an hour to get him to soften up enough to even listen to me. He was acting really really cold towards me. And I got pretty hysterical and he finally kind of let me in. It wasn't pretty. Or mature. By any means. It got the job done I guess...

I feel like we have this pattern. Where something will build up, or we'll have a conflict, and he'll be stubborn or oblivious to the problem, and I'll get mad, and he'll continue to argue, and I'll get over the top mad, and he'll back down and apologize, even if he doesn't mean it just because he wants everything to be okay.


Ahhh. I'm done blogging.

He's telling his parents.

I was tired of it. Of always having to hide that I was married...having to lie to friends and family. Being treated like a girlfriend who would be replaced by a new girlfriend by his family. Simply tired of it. And when hubby's parents invited him to Hawaii...and he was going to go without a second thought, I was just done.

I don't expect his parents to treat me like his wife when they have no idea, but HE knows, and he should know better than to leave his wife for a week at random. That's just rude. "hey babe, I'm gonna go to hawaii and have an awesome time for a week. have fun...at work nstuff bye!"

So anyway, this has all really built up obviously, and we had a long talk about it, I fought tears, he fought tears, we fought the urge to kill each other, I gripped the hand made shank tightly in my hand, at times contemplating using it...but we finally came to an agreement. It's not fair to me to keep things a secret from his family. So, he's telling them next month when he goes down there for his birthday.

We're both really nervous about how they will react...they're probably going to be pretty mad that he hid it for so long. I'm nervous that they will hate me forever; always hold it against me, blame me. I'm not quite sure. I hope that they can get past it.

He's in South Carolina for two weeks for training...I'm using this time to search out things in my community that I would be interested in. I'm trying to find an art class to sign up for, thinking about trying out for a play, going to a pottery class and doing more yoga. Oh, and I did our taxes today! Wooo. I thought it would be really difficult, because I worked in two different states last year, and we got married. But it actually wasn't that difficult at all, yayyy. And we got $1500 back. Not a ton, but it'll do. It's all going in savings. Well, we will use whatever Austin needs to replace the clutch in the Mustang, but everything else is definitely going into savings. We need to start building up that account for the wedding.

Oh, we're paying for our own wedding. I told him, if it's money you're worried about; if you're worried your parents won't pay for the wedding if they know we're already married, then I don't want them to pay for it at all. We should just pay our own way. I figured out the budget for the wedding, and with travel expenses for the two of us, we're looking at about $10,000. So...we won't be able to afford a real honey moon, but at least we'll get a wedding. On our terms. Which really matters to me.