So yeah...nevermind.

Yesterday I went to the OBGYN.  I haven't had much experience with the OBGYN since my primary goal in life for the past 27 years has been to avoid that office at all costs, and it wasn't a very pleasant visit. 

First, I'm not pregnant and that was not my reason for going to that awful place.  Second, absolutely any thought I had that I may be even slightly ready to have a child in the next hundred years couple of years has been completely wiped from my brain**.

The office itself was fine, as were the nurses and doctors.  Clean rooms, nice enough people.  It was the exam room I had to wait in for a good 20 minutes that did me in.

On every wall there were horrifying posters about the different trimesters of pregnancy, and let me tell you it doesn't look pleasant in the least!  They read like the script to a horror movie.  I have always known to expect stretch marks (which I've always hoped with enough of that cocoa butter stuff my body would just skip), swelling in places I didn't know could swell, and aches up the wazoo.  I did not, however, expect to see things like possible dark spots on my face, a dark line from my belly button down, all kinds of shifting of my poor little organs, and did you all know that the baby actually flips around in there?  I mean, I'm not a jungle gym!

After waiting for the doctor to come in to see me, I was a complete nervous wreck about having a baby and I'm not even pregnant!  Kudos to all you amazing women who have had/are having a baby, you are far more brave than I am!  For now I'll stick to my dog and cats...it'll be a while until I can push those thoughts out and start to think about having human kids again.

** Don't worry Mom B & H, eventually I'll get there.  This has just set me back a bit.  I'm seeing this as a good thing since we'll be jobless/homeless in a few short months.  One thing at a time.

Pretty dress fail!

So I started my 30/30 list last month and I’m already failing! 

#21: Find a reason to wear a pretty dress at least once a month.

It is the 29^th of August, three days until September, and I have yet to wear a pretty dress.  Not only that, but I just realized that I have packed all my dresses and don’t even have a pretty dress to wear if I wanted to!

Since I’m not about to buy one of the ridiculously low quality, age-inappropriate dresses that they stock at our lovely Navy Exchange, it looks like I’m S.O.L.  I have pretty sundresses, but since the point of #21 was to wear more cocktail type, fun, pretty dresses it only partially counts. 



What's fancier than flip flops and cornhole?



I may be playing beer pong, but at least I dressed it up with a necklace!

To make up for this I’ll wear a pretty dress TWICE next month…sound good?  Plus, I’ll be in the States which means I can find a super cute, NEW cocktail dress.  Bonus! 

So…who’s down to go somewhere nice enough for cocktail dresses when we get home because I’ve got some catching up to do?!

Thoughts from the week...

I have not for the life of me been able to keep my thoughts organized.  I’ve started a ton of different blogs about all kinds of things on my mind, but as I get to the middle of one thought I go off on a tangent and soon the entire point of the blog turns to gibberish!  I blame it on us being less than three weeks from go-time with, still, a zillion things to do.  So instead of writing one cohesive blog about a certain topic, here’s what’s been on my mind this week. 

-          Spanish internet is ridiculously awful.  The speed is about a millisecond faster than dial-up, which seeing as that the internet has been around for 20+ years is just sad.  I mean, really, aren’t we a little old for this?  Not to mention I have to keep re-booting the modem because the internet decides to turn off for no apparent reason.  Awesome.

-          I am officially an IPod snob.  I had the pleasure of borrowing a friends car this last week and had to listen to the radio to and from work and it wasn’t pleasant.  Not only do the DJ’s in the morning have horrible banter that would make a deaf person cringe, but since when did sound like Ke$ha qualify as music?  I may not have the best taste in music, and I may not have the same taste as everyone else, but at least I have SOME taste!

-          After reading a blog about same-names I decided to Google Shana Howell.  The first couple Shana’s I found were a research assistant at a military medicine facility in DC and a dental hygienist graduate from Rhodes State College.  Now I’m feeling pretty behind and am thinking I should hurry up and get my degree…or at least lie about it on the internet so Google makes me look good.

-          After spreading the news about our return date to California, I’ve set up a family BBQ, a BBQ night with my girls, a concert with a couple of my favorite people, and a hockey game with the Howell’s.  Everyone is so excited for us to get back and I’m feeling very loved!  The excitement is slowly starting to drone out the panic.

That’s all for now as I feel another rant coming on and don’t want this to turn into yet another erased could-have-been-post.  Happy weekending! 

Rory has landed...

I repeat, Rory has landed!!!  36 hours after dropping her off at the Malaga airport, my awesome dog Rory has completed her journey to California safe and sound.

First, let me tell you it was a MUCH more emotional event than I had imagined.  Although I knew it was going to be difficult to drop her off, I never expected to feel so incredibly sad!  Rory is our kid, and it is very difficult to have a kid that you cannot communicate with in ANY way.  I couldn’t tell her what to expect, that everything would be fine, that her grandparents would be there to pick her up and take care of her, and worse that we weren’t just abandoning her.  Putting her in the crate and walking away was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  Needless to say I got into the car and completely broke down and cried.  All I could think was how scared she must be, and that she was having to do this alone without understanding why she was being put through this.

My parents, after filling out a bunch of forms and showing their ID’s to hundreds of people (okay, not hundreds…but probably close to it.  It’s nice to know that they won’t let just ANYONE pick up your kids though!) were able to pick her up and immediately called and sent a picture so I could see for myself that she was okay.  Yes, I called them twice that morning before to make sure they were up and ready and that they had everything they needed for her arrival, and then again to see if her flight had landed and where was she (this was during their paperwork-filling-out time which I’m sure my Dad SUPER appreciated), but I think overall I did okay with the not over-panicking!  I was a total wreck, but I did my best not to let it overwhelm me and poor Mr. got to deal with the parts that did!

Rory did great on the flights and the people at Lufthansa Air LOVED her, so yay for having a great kid!  I think she’s pretty fabulous, but it’s nice to know that others do too!  Now to wait patiently until we get to see her again next month…patiently…ha!  We’ll be Skype-ing with Rory this weekend when she finishes her final leg of the journey to Arizona with Mom & Dad H.!

On the road...Rory is VERY artsy if you can't tell...

Rory and Mr.

Rory and Mama (aka Me)

Family Shot...way to blink Rory...

Hard times call for Hard Rock!

Tomorrow morning Mr. and I leave for Malaga. Normally this would be VERY exciting because we won't be in Rota for the day, but this time I am incredibly sad about it. We are taking Rory (our amazing dog, at least when she's not peeing on something) to be shipped off to California.


Due to the military only allowing us to ship two pets home with us, we have paid (A LOT) for Rory to be shipped a few weeks before our move. (This irritates me enough to be another blog post all together...they'll ship a family of eight to Rota WITH pets, but they definitely can't ship three pets for a couple that has decided to *gasp* not have children during their time in Rota…TOTALLY makes monetary sense…)


Anyway, Rory will be flying on her own from Malaga to Frankfurt, Germany, then off to Los Angeles where my awesome Dad has volunteered to pick her up and get her back to Escondido.  She’ll stay with Mom & Dad B. for the week until Mom & Dad H. pick her up for her last leg of the journey to Arizona where she will be staying until we figure out what we’re doing when we’re jobless/homeless.  Yes, we have amazing family and the best support system EVER!  I’m forever grateful.    


I’m very nervous for her flight…she’ll be all alone and I’m afraid she’ll think we’ve ditched her.  It will be over a month until we see her again, A MONTH!  We’ve got her crate all set up and she doesn’t appear to dislike it too much, so that’s a plus.  I’ve shipped a care package out to Mom & Dad B. which should have arrived already with some toys, bones, and treats that she loves so that she’ll feel right at home.  I’ve done everything I can to make this the smoothest move possible for her.  Still, so sad.  I feel like a mom dropping her kid off at kindergarten for the first day of school, except I won’t come to pick up my kid for a month!  (Dramatic, I know, but Rory IS my kid!)


 I guess it’s more like camp…yeah, like a mom dropping her kid of at camp for the first time.


On the bright side, after dropping Rory off we’ll be hitting up the Hard Rock in Marbella for lunch.  And Tuesday morning (our Tuesday night) we’ll get the call telling us Dad B. has Rory and she’s safe and sound in California…one less thing to stress about during our move!

Rory, all ready for her big journey!

Who's with me?

So I realized that in a couple of weeks Mr. and I have a four day weekend.  (Labor Day…still not 100% sure what this holiday is about but I’m pretty much down for anything that gets me out of a day at work!)  Usually this would be a very exciting time; four day weekends don’t come very often, especially in the military, which means that when they DO come around we’re usually going somewhere to take advantage of it!  But with our move 11 days after that, our monetary funds are a bit tied up in more practical things such as food, moving expenses, purchasing a car so we can actually go places when we get Stateside, savings so when we’re jobless/homeless we can still get by, etc…  BORING!  A year ago we would have been scanning Vueling and Ryan Air for the cheapest flights around Europe and going wherever the 40 euro fare would take us…not this year.  And that made me very, very sad.

I know what you’re thinking…poor little traveler doesn’t get to go on yet ANOTHER vacation.  I know, my complaints seem petty and horribly self-centered, because they are!  I can be petty and self-centered, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that sometimes, especially when I realize it and admit it. 

The whole thing got me thinking, we’ll be back in the “real world”*** soon.  It’s hard to take vacations, especially long ones to fun places, in the “real world”.  I know this because prior to moving to Spain, I went to Europe ONCE, and it was only because I was lucky enough to have a great friend do a study abroad program in Scotland.  Other than that my big, fancy vacations were San Francisco for the weekend.  (Don’t get me wrong, I love SF and will probably go back another 100+ times in my life, but it’s not exactly Italy.)  Despite the “real world” about to move in on my lovely three year hiatus, I want to travel!  Scratch that, I NEED to travel.  I have never felt as at home as I do when I’m in a foreign country.  I know that sounds ridiculous, but it’s true.  I am at my absolute happiest when I’m in good company (Mr. usually, but I’d love if friends and family would join us too) seeing things for the first time and experiencing another culture, eating amazing new dishes I would never have had tasted if I stayed in one place, and doing things I never thought I would do.

And ALL this got me thinking that if I want to continue to travel I need to plan it!  I know we won’t be making our monthly trips like we do now, but if we plan it and start setting money aside now (or as soon as we get jobs of course!) then we will still travel!  I think I got my 30/30 list all wrong by putting specific places I want to go on it because I’m feeling a bit limited in my choices now (especially since Mr. threw out Rio de Janeiro for our next big trip and that was NOT on my list) but I’m thinking with a lot of planning (and some eating of popcorn and Top Ramen for dinner) we’ll be able to make this all happen!  So although I’m bummed about our upcoming four day weekend I’m going to make the most of it (lazy beach days and maybe an “Italy” night so we can finally drink that last bottle of wine we brought back from Tuscany!).  And I’m going to start brainstorming and dreaming up our next trip…who’s with me?      

***I call it the “real world” because, let’s face it, I’ve been living a very unreal life the past three years.  My rent and utilities are paid for (I don’t ever even see a bill!), I don’t have a car payment, I work part-time at a job I enjoy, I spend three and four day weekends travelling wherever my heart desires.  In the “real world” I’ll have to start working full time, car payments will be making a come-back, and rent and utilities…well let’s just hope we can find a job let alone an affordable place to live with electricity!  The quotes around “real world” are because I refuse to believe that is what MY “real world” will be…I want my world NOW to be my real world and I’m going to do my best to find a happy medium. 

Wasting water...and time...

A few weeks ago our dishwasher decided to take a vacation.  This wouldn’t be a problem except that Mr. and I have NOT taken a vacation from using dishes.  We find that throwing our food on the table and eating it with our hands is not pleasant, and really not as efficient as using plates, bowls, and utensils.  (Our dog Rory, however, LOVES this scenario!)

Since we will be vacating our *cough* lovely abode shortly (one month EXACTLY from today, not that I’m counting) we decided against waiting around our house all day in hopes that the Spanish workers show up and actually fix our dishwasher.  This means that we are stuck hand washing dishes for the remainder of our time in Rota.  HAND WASHING!  I know, boo-hoo right?  There are starving kids in India who would give their left hand for food, let alone a reason to use a dishwasher, and I’m complaining about my month of Amish-ness.  It’s just that I really, REALLY hate hand washing dishes. 

Reason #1:   I feel that my hand washing dishes probably accounts for 70% of the water that is wasted on our planet.  I even took the time to look it up here.  Only 1% of the Earth’s water is usable by humans…if I’m using 70% of that I’m REALLY throwing the human race off-kilter! 

Reason #2: The dishes never seem to get clean.  No matter how much soap/water I use and no matter how hand-reddening-hot I make the water, the dishes still seem dirty to me.  Perfectionist?...maybe…

Reason #3:  It takes WAY too much time.  Generally I wouldn’t fret about this because I’m SO patient (ha…ha…ha…) but with just 31 days left until we make our big move from Spain to California I’m thinking time is of great importance in order to get the still loooooooong list of things I need to get done, done.

So, in the midst of my water-wasting, cleaning and re-cleaning, hour-glass-running-out-of-sand dilemma I take the time to tell the blogging world all about it.  Because I’m THAT dedicated to blogging…and because I haven’t posted anything for 9 days and am feeling a little guilty!  I’ll get better at this, I swear!