the life of a military wife.

what i'd sometimes like to say

seeing your husband leave and knowing you won't be able to hold him in your arms for six months.

you have to go on with your life as if everything is "normal" when it's anything but. you go to work to have customers scream at you, because their air conditioner isn't working and you can't send a technician out until tomorrow. you want to scream back at them and tell them that if that's the worse they have to deal with, then they are doing just fine. but you don't.

you come home to an empty house (because lets face it, it's not a HOME without him) and you still keep care of said house, even if it feels unimportant and pointless. you cut the grass and diligently take care of the cars. you go on.

you count down the days until he returns and send packages and love notes to him as often as you can.

you are a military wife.

going to the chapel and we're gonna get married

the day i married my knight in shimmering armor was a beautiful, sunny and unseasonably warm day. it took place at the little wedding chapel in elkton, md.

the little wedding chapel is full of history and you can feel the past as soon as you enter. billie holiday and willie mays were married here (not to each other) and it seems like everyone i talk to was either married there or knew someone who had been.

a view of the alter

frank, the officiant, had all the appearances of a gruff old man. but as the old adage goes, don't judge a book by it's cover, he was one of the sweetest men i've ever met. you can tell he actually believes in marriage and the simplicities of love.

i didn't know until the other day, but the chapel is for sale. sadly it will probably not carry on as a chapel as the area has not retained much of its history.

who knows. love is strong. if there are any rich romantics out there, this ones for you...

front of the chapel (source)

love grows best in a little house

when i bought my house two years ago my great aunt helen paid me a visit. she wasn't sure, but thought my great aunt rene (her sister) had rented my house in the late 50's/early 60's. i brushed it off assuming it could be any house on this street, because they are cookie cutter homes after all.


fast forward two years. my grammy was going through albums to take to our upcoming reunion, i love old family photos and had to check them out. As I was flipping through albums one picture in particular caught my eye.


"is that my house?" i pondered.


as i looked more closely, i in fact realized that the windows are the same, the lattice on the porch is the same, the chimney is the same and the final similarity was the house number: 114. it was my house!


almost 50 years ago my great aunt and her husband lived in the house i now own unbeknownst to me. the moment i toured the house, i felt something. i belonged here. now i know why...


my beautiful aunt rene and her husband bill and my house in 1962:

my house in 2009:

makes me love my little house that much more.

be responsible and always spay or neuter your pets

it's been a while, which i figured would happen.

i just wanted to chat about a few things that have went down in the past month or so, that showed me there are still good people in the world.

my mom and aunt live on a farm together. the farm their parents bought in the 40's and the farm my mom and aunts grew up. the farm in which i want to grow old. on this farm, people like to abandon their cats. this has happened for as long as i can remember. in addition to people tossing their cats like yesterday's trash; mom, aunt betty and myself have this unexplainable urge to take in any cat who looks like they need a home.

case in point: i was taking one of our kitties to the vet for a check-up. on the way to the vet's office i notice on the side of the road, in front of some evil do-er's home there was a sign that read "free kittens" and a kennel. i took the kitty to the vet and on the way back stopped at the kennel to investigate. lo and behold, three little guys with no food or water on the side of the road on a particularly hot day. i knew it was my "duty" to take these babies home and so i did. needless to say mom and betty were not very happy that there would be three more mouths to feed, but they are weak like me. we've had lucy, jude and penny (who has a bobtail) for five years.

i bought my own place a year ago (just a temporary move, until i can build my dream house on the farm) and brought two kitties from the farm with me. sadly, bella went to the rainbow bridge in july, but we knew there are plenty of other kitties who needed our love. we adopted a kitty from the spca and one from our vet. as you can see, i'm very content with surrounding myself with cats.

anyway, i'm getting away from where i wanted this post to go. mom and aunt betty are bus drivers. you are probably not aware, but bus drivers don't make a great deal of money. mom and betty end up spending half of their paycheck to feed and take care of the cats we adopted or who found us. the other day mom found a new kitten outside who they assume someone dropped. she called me upset that someone could do this and that they really can't afford any more. while she was on the phone with me she was opening mail. she came across one, which had no return address. she opened it and their was a letter stating they knew what we do for stray cats and they really appreciate it, etc. included in the letter was a $50 gift card to walmart, which will buy quite a bit of food for our cats.

gives me chills thinking about it now... it was pretty much a sign that they are doing the right thing. a good thing.

whoever anonymous is, we thank you from the bottom of our heart.

the second story i have is regarding a charity walk i'm participating in, for the delaware humane association. i setup a website and quite a few of my friends and family joined the walk with me. the amazing thing is all the people who donated, especially with the economy the way it is currently. i'm really lucky and blessed to have all these awesome people in my life. the team ended up raising $805. can you believe that?

well that ended up being a legendary post!

i just wanted to say it again: "THANK YOU!"

hello, kitty

after we had to put our dear cat bella to sleep, i said i didn't want to have any more kitties. i had two and that's enough potential heartbreak.

of course the husband thought differently and talked me in to considering adopting another baby. we went to the local spca and there were quite a few ADORABLE babies, but none who stole my heart. we went to petco and saw a pretty little girl, but found out we wouldn't be able to adopt her that day. we decided to take an application, fill it out and come back the next day. we also decided to stop in our vet's office as she sometimes had kittens she fostered.

our vet's assistant took us to the back to show us the kittens they had. we saw two black kitties who were absolutely precious and took to us immediately. i just didn't take to them. i was ready to say "oh well" when she brought out this pretty dilute calico.  it was love at first sight. they had been calling her ponyo, which is an awesome name, but not for us. we thought of some names and finally decided on sookie.

we took her home and alice of course was fine with her. much to our surprise edward only took a few hours before she was cuddling on the couch with sookie. we are so happy we found her and like to think she is happy she found us.

so that's the story behind the adoption of our sookie butt...

i do, i do, i do... love grape soda

i don't know why i'm going to start a blog. my life is pretty much boring. maybe it will be a place for me to vent. maybe i'll be able to entertain people with said boring life. i dunno, it was something i wanted to do. i guess i could write about food i've enjoyed. i know i like reading about what other people say about food. or maybe i could talk about a movie i saw. i always have opinions about movies. i have a short attention span though, so let us see how long this blog thing lasts. as we said in high school, "ta ta for now" (well we actually abbreviated it, but who gives?!)