Puppies, Old Lady Tendencies, and Putting Myself in Physical Pain

Howdy there. I've got just a couple updates and plans on my life so I figured I'd go ahead and write myself a little post. First and foremost, I have news! When I met my husband he had a pug. He picked Chewy out from a tiny little puppy and had him for nine years before we met. As soon as we met Chewy swapped loyalties and became my dog. That boy loved me to pieces. When we moved to Alaska we had my father in law come get Chewy. He already had issues with his arthritis and we knew he'd be absolutely miserable in the negative forty weather. It was absolutely heartbreaking to me. I gave him loves and broke down. I knew with how old he was already, and how his health was, that there was a large chance that would be the last time I ever saw him. I was right. Last year I got a phone call while I was at work telling me that Chewy had to be put down. It broke my heart into a tiny million little pieces. Not having children myself, my furbabies are my babies, and to get the call that he wasn't here anymore hurt more than words can explain. He is honestly the best dog that I have ever had, such a good boy.

Since we had to leave Chewy, Husband has been talking about wanting another pug. In the three years we've been in Alaska we have not seen a single pug for adoption or for sale. A few days ago there was a posting about pug puppies. Husband is at NTC but he wasn't allowed to go into the box because of his back, so he's had his phone the entire time. I sent him a text telling him about the puppies and sent him a picture. He immediately wanted one and picked out the only fawn one in the litter. I messaged the lady and today I went to meet him. Long story short March 18th we're going to pick up this little AKC registered boy. He's just a week old right now, he's still blind and deaf so we're going to wait on naming him until he starts to develop a personality. But look how stinking cute he is.

Tempest is going to have a hard time adjusting to her little brother. She gets kind of jealous and we're working on manners. She's fully potty trained now and I'm able to trust her alone out of her kennel when I leave for short lengths of time. She has a hard time focusing if other dogs are around, but she knows sit, high five, shake, lay down, stay, and belly. Which is where she'll roll onto her back to get belly rubs. She's getting big and is hilarious. And also, despite what the picture below shows she is absolutely not spoiled. At all. Nope. Not my Tempest.

I've started crocheting. Like the smooth transition there? Nobody said I was good at writing these things. Anywho, I needed something to do so I watched a youtube video and the rest is history. I decided to make a blanket. Then I made it waaaaaay too long. My very first project went from a couch lap blanket to a queen size quilt. Oops. I'm going to give myself carpal tunnel syndrome.

It hurts. Oh well. In other news I've gained a lot of the 50 lbs I lost back. And by a lot, I mean almost 40 of it. Between the three moves, the stress, and my meds it's been a hell of a year for weight gain. I'm absolutely still doing the surgery but I figured until then I'm going to work on trying to lose a little bit myself and toning up some of my loose skin so I don't have quiet as much excess skin to deal with. I came up with a 28 day workout plan for the month of February, and let me tell you. I'm going to die. I'm doing a combination of walking, an arm challenge, and abs/squats challenge. I'll be walking three days on and one day off, and then doing these two challenges. I'm going to hurt so badly. I plan on weighing in on Sundays along with measurements and pictures. In March my husband and I are going to do T25. By we're going to do it I mean he's going to do it and I'm going to try not to die. Basically these next two months are going to suuuuuck. But hopefully I can keep up with them and not break myself along the way. Stay tuned for the first weeks results on the 8th of February, along with some bitching about how I don't know why on Earth I decided to do it. Wish me luck.

Having a Baby is Selfish.

I bet that got your attention. Before I begin on this rant I want to point out that someone found my blog by searching "Jamie Dorian's penis." Sadly they had no luck, but it made me giggle really hard.

Now then, onto my mini rant. I want to say before I get too far into this topic that for once on this blog I'm actually not trying to offend anyone, and I truly hope that I don't.

I have a few guilty pleasures, and one of them is to watch the drama unfold on one of the local "confessions" pages. I'm not one of those girls who says they hate drama, because I don't. I love it. When it's someone else's of course. Obviously I dislike drama in my own life, but someone else's drama that in no way affects me, LOVE IT. But I digress. There was a post made yesterday that the responses to upset me a little bit.

A lot of people flipped out on her, telling her that she was selfish for not wanting a child, would make a horrible mother and it's a good thing that she didn't have children, they would never let this person around their children, and that she should get sterilized. There were people saying she was rude and a horrible person for the comment she made. Frankly, I laughed when I saw this. It's clear she wouldn't actually hurt a child, the come at my bro was obviously a joke. (Some people didn't see it that way.) And I highly doubt she responds to her pregnant friends by saying "Eww why?"

All of these pissed me off, but the fact that they said she was selfish really grinds my gears. There were a lot of people that had this response. Can anyone explain to me how her choosing not to have a child is a selfish act? Because I don't understand it. I stated as much and got some angry comments, but whatever. I absolutely do not see how choosing not to have a child, whether it be by adoption or their own, could in any way be considered selfish. I think it would be ridiculous to have a child that you didn't want because society tells you that's what's expected. Not bringing another life into this world when it's not something that you want to do is the least unselfish thing you could do in my opinion. I was pondering how these people thought this woman was selfish and I came to the conclusion that it's not, and that having children is selfish.

Now hear me out. The world has roughly seven billion people on it at any given time. That's a whole lotta people on this planet. Out of those seven billion people an estimated seven million of those are children who live in some form of foster care of orphanage. That is seven million children living on this planet that do not have a loving home with a family to take care of them. That's just a little bit less than the population of Hong Kong. All of these children would love nothing more than to have a family to call their own.

When I pointed out that bringing another child into this world while so many children went without homes was selfish, I was asked why someone would want to raise somebody else's child when they can have their own. The way it was phrased bothered me, I felt like they were saying that they couldn't possibly love someone else's child as if they were their own flesh and blood. I know for a fact that that isn't true. My step dad went as far as adopting my little sister when she asked him to. We may not be his flesh and blood, but we are his family and he loves us just as much as he loves his two biological children. The children that are in foster care or orphanages are not there by choice. They're not there because they did anything to deserve it. They're there because their parents died, or their parents were not ready and couldn't handle the stress of being a parent. They're there because they were in an unsafe living environment or their parents were deemed 'unfit' to raise them and they had nobody else to take them in. No child in foster care is there because of something that they did, and they are absolutely deserving of a family to call their own. 

When you look at these facts, yes, it is extremely selfish to have a child of your own. People have children because they want to experience parenthood, they want to experience that unconditional love, they want to see the product (we're leaving out accidental pregnancies from people who aren't in a relationship for arguments sake) of two people that love each other come into their lives. They hope that their child has their eyes, their spouses nose. They want to experience the pregnancy, and labor, holding their child for the first time in the hospital seconds after it's born. They want to see a tiny version of themselves placed in their arms. They want to experience the first time they crawl, walk, talk. The first day of school, their first heartbreak, to see them start a family of their own. They want being the key words. They want to see their flesh and blood, they want to raise a child that they created. They don't want to love somebody else's child, they want to love their own.  These are all extremely selfish wants.

Now, with all of this being said, it is OKAY to be selfish. Wanting to have your own child is selfish, but it is a fantastic thing. I absolutely want to experience all of those things too. I want to feel my child growing inside of me, and be there every step of them growing up. There is nothing wrong with being selfish in the least bit. If you want to have a little mini me, that is your prerogative*. If you can financially and emotionally handle the day to day life of being a parent, and that's something that you want to do, by all means do it. The only thing I have ever known with 100% certainty that I want to accomplish in my lifetime is being a parent. That's it. That's the only thing I've ever truly wanted to do. If I raise my children to be kind, caring, productive members of society I will feel like I succeeded in life. That is my life goal, to be a mother. I both want my own child, and to adopt a child who is older and less likely to be adopted. I want to provide a warm, loving, and nurturing home for both, and that's my choice. I choose to be selfish and bring a piece of me into this world, and I also choose to take in someone else's child as well. I want to see what features my baby would have of mine, and I want to experience what it's like to love a child who isn't. I want to experience the utter joy of hearing my babies heart beat for the first time, and I want to see the smile on a child's face when they realize that they have a home and a family that loves them. I want those memories and I want to experience the joy of my own flesh and blood. And yes, that makes me selfish.

And I'm okay with that.  



*prerogative - I am very bothered by the fact that there is an r after the p. I even googled it. It looks wrong. It absolutely drives me nuts and I hate it. I hate it to the extent that I probably won't even write the word again because it just doesn't seem right.

Lists, Lists, Lists Lists Lists

If you didn't read the title of this blog to the tune of that annoying shots song, you can't be my friend. 

Be prepared, this post contains a lot of lists. 

Welp, my husband has officially left and arrived at NTC for the next month or so, so I have very limited social contact with people in real life right now. I've read three books since he left two days ago. I am rocking this. My plan for while he's gone can be broken down into this to do list.

1) I plan on reading at least 10-15 more books. I love reading, and it takes up a good chunk of time.

2) I'm going to deep clean our apartment. It needs it. And when I say deep clean I mean down on my hands and knees scrubbing the floor, washing the walls type deep clean.

3) I'm going to organize our apartment, including but not limited to buying storage containers to stack all of his Army shit in so I don't have to see it laying around my house anymore.

4) I plan on rearranging my apartment. Our living room is pretty small so it's really hard for me to find a set up that I actually like with the furniture that we have in it, but I'm going to try. I'm also going to rearrange his man cave/Army room and our bedroom.

5) I'm going to try to find a new couch/love seat for our living room. Like I said it's small and awkward shaped so we're basically stuck with a love seat if we want to be able to see the TV from the couch. I'd like to find something that's not as uncomfortable as ours is, for cheap. Tax time is coming up so I know people will be selling their old couches because they bought new couches. I'm also going to look for a cheap desk for his computer. Right now he has his computer on a nightstand, and it is annoying.

6) I'm going to file taxes as soon as I'm allowed to submit them. Last year I filed them on the day I was allowed to submit and no joke got the return three days later. With said return I'm going to make payments on a lot of our debts. I mainly plan on finishing paying off the credit card I put my bed on, and making a large chunk on his star card. While we were separated he put over TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS on it because he sucks at money. *sigh* With what's left over I think I'm going to squirrel some away into my personal checking account so he doesn't have access to it and it can be saved. Because, well, he sucks at money.

7) I'm going to work on some sticker designs for my mom and brother. My mom has a sticker cutter now but I'm better at the program than she is, so I'm the lucky one that gets to make them for her. It's okay, she sends me cute things she's made on occasion.

8) I'm going to do my best to come up with an idea to redesign my blog. I have none yet, but they'll come.

Some of the awesome things my mom makes with her sticker machine. 

I believe I promised lists so I have three more for you. I know right? Hey, at least you're getting a post.

I have a few things coming up this year that I'm really excited about.

February- Husband comes back, tax returns, and 50 Shades.
-- Look, I'm not even going to apologize. I hated the writing but I absolutely guilty pleasured the book, and I'm beyond excited to go. I'm dragging the husband with me. It's going to be epic. Just you wait and see.

March- My birthday!
-- I turn 25, which makes me feel old. My car insurance goes down though, and that is a SUPER plus in my mind. I know 25 isn't old in reality, but it still boggles my mind that this upcoming may I will have been out of high school for EIGHT years. What. The. Crap.

May- My trip to California! I am beyond excited for this to happen. The list of what I'm looking forward to specifically will be below this list.

June- This is the point where the surgeon will talk to me again. I'll be setting up everything that I need in order to move forward with the process of my surgery.

July/August- If everything goes according to plan at some point during this time period I will be getting my surgery.

I mean seriously, do you see this face? I can't wait to get to see her every day for a month again!

Now the next list. What specifically I'm excited about in regards to my trip to California.

1) I'm going to be back in California.

2) I'm going to get to spend time with my family, which I am beyond grateful for. I miss them so much. I'm most excited about hanging out with my little sister and meeting my new nephew for the first time. Guys, he's a ginger.

3) I get to be there for a whole month. A WHOLE MONTH.

4) I'm going to have lunch with a few of my California friends. I'm going to drive down to my hometown one of the days the kids are in school to meet up with my friend Kelly who is pretty much the sweetest person in the world. I'm going to go hang out with my friend Leah, who was my husbands 1SGT in Basic's wife. (They're still married, I'm not sure how to tense that sentence so whatever, moving on.) And I'm going to meet my friend Monica in person for the first time. We've known each other about 4 years now and I'm finally going to get to meet her and her daughter Ivy, who I've watched grow from a tiiiiiiiiiny little miracle in the NICU born super premature to an adorable little heart breaker over the past year.

5) I'm going to pull my brother out of school one day because he's *sick* and we're going to play hooky and go see a movie, just me and him. I love my little brother, he's weird but he's kick ass.

6) MY BESTBIAN IS FLYING OUT FROM IOWA TO COME VISIT! Okay, so here's the deal. A few years ago her parents were on an Alaskan cruise and part of their tour came through Fairbanks. I got a call asking us to come meet up with them so we could hang out. Little B was not there, she was still in Iowa. So basically her parents came to visit me on vacation, and it was awesome. She told me that she thought it was absolute bullshit that her parents came to visit me in another state (they weren't actually there for me but that's besides the point) when I have an entire side of the family hat she's never met. Which I totally get, I have been adopted into her family no ifs, ands, or buts about it. They all love me, because I'm awesome. Anywho, she said the next time I went out to California she wanted to come out too to meet my family. I ran it by my mom and she said that she could come out towards the end of my visit, and now Little B is looking for a ticket to book a flight. Silly girl asked if she'd need a hotel, like I'd let her stay in one. Psh. I am STOKED for her to meet my family. I love this girl unconditionally and can't wait for her to meet my mom and Sam. And the rest of them too, but mostly those two.

7) The food. Legit, all of the above reasons are amazing, and I am literally counting down the days until my plane leaves (113 if you were curious) but I am over the moon about the food I'll get to eat. You see, I was raised on Mexican food. Alaska does not have Mexican food. I paid $15 for a carne asada burrito up here that was tiny and the enchilada sauce tasted straight out of a can. I love me some Mexican food.

Look at this sexy bitch.

Once I have my surgery there's going to be a lot of things that I can't eat anymore, and a lot of things that are highly suggested that I stay away from, a lot of Mexican food being on that list. So I'm going to eat a lot of it. But that had got me thinking. I'm going to be starting the process shortly after I return to have my stomach altered for life. A lot of the foods I like now I won't be able to handle, so I have been slowly building a "Food Bucket List". I'm going to go all out like the fatty I am. Just you see. My list includes but is not limited too:

1) a bean and cheese chimichanga from Jilbertos in my home town (this is essentially just a deep fried bean and cheese burrito with sour cream and gauc on top of it)
2) a Kendall's club from Kendall's in my hometown (I don't know what it is about Kendall's, but nobody else makes clubs quite like theirs)
3) carne asada fries, from anywhere the sells them
4) Olive Garden
5) Arby's
6) Chipotle
7) TGIF
8) Two restaurants in my mom's town that I can't remember the names of but I know where they are
9) my mom's beef and noodles
10) my mom's meatloaf and cheesy potatoes
11) anything else I decide I want.

Yeah. I am going to fat the fuck out. My aunt had the bypass a few years ago and my mom assured me that she did the same thing. She also had gotten it right before Easter so 90% of the pictures that were taken were of the food, which I find hilarious.

Anywhoozles, as I say basically every post, I suck at endings. So here's the funniest meme in response to a "WTF?" type post I've ever seen. I laugh every time I see it, and am waiting patiently for an opportunity to use them.

HAHAHAHAHAHA I DIE.

Oh Look, A Resolution Post. So Cliche.

Well, here we are in 2015. It's been a ridiculously long year with a lot of extreme highs and lows, an emotional roller coaster for the ages yo. There were times I didn't think I'd survive, but here I am. Alive and mostly well. This upcoming month is going to be ridiculously boring for me, the husband leaves for NTC soon and with him leaving the only personal interaction I get on a daily basis will be gone for 30+ days. I'm going to have to make it a priority to leave the house at some point. I think I'll go play Bingo for a night or two. I never win, but one can hope to win $1,000 right? Wouldn't that be an awesome way to start out the new year?

With it being the new year and all I'm supposed to be making resolutions, because that's what you do right? You put off until the new year what you said you'd do last year, and the year before, and the year before that. It's tradition, and we don't fuck with tradition in these here parts.

My resolutions are relatively simple ones.

1) I have not completely quit smoking yet, and I would like to be completely done with it. While the husband is gone I plan on taking that final step into smoke free land. I figure with the husband not being here I'll be much less likely to be a bitch to him. Especially considering he'll be "in the box" for eighteen days and I won't even be able to talk to him. This is going to suck, but at least I don't have to worry about jail time for killing my husband, and that is always a nice thing to not have to worry about. I am also resolving to not start smoking again after my surgery.

2) Get my surgery. This one is scary and exciting. It's terrifying to think about how drastically I'll change both physically and mentally. It's going to be draining, and I look forward to it. Following my surgery I resolve to start working out. Excess skin is something that the majority of people that have this surgery have to deal with. There's no getting around it with the damage already done and the speed in which you lose the weight. However, it seems like the more that people work out during the loss the less lose skin they have to deal with. I'm not above getting a tummy tuck when the time comes if that's needed, but I'd rather not have to pay for it if it can be avoided, which means gym time baby. The more I've looked into the surgery and talked to people who have had it done, the more I think that this is going to be one of the best things I've ever done for myself. I mean look at the difference in these pictures. I'm excited to see what my skinny face looks like, because I have no idea.

3) One of the side effects of the surgery can be hair loss. Your body isn't getting the nutrition that it's used to and your hair commits suicide due to the lack of potatoes or something. I'm totally bullshitting the reasoning, but your hair can start to fall out. If I still had my luxorious long hair I wouldn't be worried, but my hair has already started to thin a lot as is due to the millions of gallons of hair dye I've doused it in over the years. I've been dying my hair since I was ten, and it's finally caught up with me. I've resolved to not dye my hair for the next year, and attempt to let it heal a bit before the surgery fucks it up again.

4) After surgery I'd like to lose at least 50 lbs by the time NYE 2016 rolls around. If I get the surgery in August that's five months for 50 lbs, in my mind totally doable.

5) Once I get the surgery I want to take pictures once weekly along with doing weigh ins and measuring. I think this will help hold me accountable for doing the work needed with the surgery. It will also let other people who are considering getting it done see in real time the changes that my body goes through. I'm nervous about it, but I also plan on taking bare stomach pictures, because loose skin is one of the things I've been worried about and I think it will be healthy for me to not have that as some hidden scary thing. I googled it a lot and wasn't able to find very many people willing to show it, so that's something I'd like to do.

There you have them, my four resolutions. I think I'll kick their butt. This year is going to have a lot of big changes and I'm ready for them. I really hate that I have to wait until June to start my classes, but that happens and it gives me more time to prepare. It also lets me have one last good go at eating me some Mexican food that's real. Why? Because I AM OFFICIALLY GOING TO CALIFORNIA IN MAY!

Not that I'm super excited about that or anything. My parents are going on vacation, and my little sister has a lot of special needs so my mother wants someone there 24/7 who knows how to take care of her and can drive to the hospital if needed, so they bought me a plane ticket and I'm headed out there. My mom being the super awesome mom that she is knew I'd want to spend time with her when she returned, so I'm going to stay out there for a whole month. I love California and I'm so excited to go home for a bit. I also plan on hitting up Ross for a few "these are cute and will fit me in a few months" clothes. Maybe a pair of "goal size" pants. I don't know, but clothes are expensive, I'll hopefully be dropping down quite a few sizes, and Ross is cheap.

We had another marriage counseling session and I'm not sure that it's going to work out with our counselor. She talks about herself the majority of the session and goes off on weird tangents all the time. I don't feel like we're able to talk about our issues, let alone resolve them with her. We told her one of the things we struggle with is money, and she went onto a tirade that went from WWII and women going into the workforce, to some case where she had to suspend visitations from a father with his daughter because the grandma was leading the child to say that he sexually abused her, to how expensive everything was and how she couldn't imagine having to shoulder everything by herself because of insurance costs. Mind you, LAST session we had she told us she made six figures a year, so if she can't afford to support her and her husband on that, they must be eating literal golden crisps for breakfast. Ugh. I just don't feel that click of being compatible, and at this point the only thing she does in unite husband and I in our annoyance for her.

Other than that my life is just as boring as ever. I'm reading again. I've started my goodreads goal for the year and have pledged to read 100 books again. I finished my goal last year in November, and decided to go for it again. I basically just read and watch TV because my life is thrilling. We had a cat, and we rehomed her. She was going after the dog something fierce and wasn't happy not being the only animal. We found someone that fell in love with her immediately and I'm really happy with the pairing. Tempest is almost potty trained now, she's really good at being super obnoxious when she needs to go out and hasn't had an accident in the house in a few days. It's been harder potty training her during the winter, but it finally seems to be going well. She's gotten big, and has absolutely no fucks to give about anything other than what she wants.

Oh you're trying to sleep? That sucks for you.