/rant on

Do you know what I hate the VERY most about deployments? When you feel you've just had enough for the day and need to let it all out! Unfortunately your husband is thousands of miles away on a completely different time schedule, but luckily, it's late at night and you know he's at work near a phone, so you jot off a quick email that says "Important-Please read" so you know he'll look at it and beg him to see if there's any way you can call him and talk to him AWAY from the other 3 guys in his office. You feel relieved because he writes you back immediately and says "call me at this number, I'm headed there now". So you call (which you have to do through the base operator), and you begin at the beginning of your day with the first thing that minorly irritated you and by the time you work up to the end of your day where you're just so frustrated you want to cry and you're holding back the tears (ok, not really holding them back anymore), the base operator gets on the line and says, "Break, Break, please limit your call." So you try to wrap it up quickly (while still trying NOT to sob like an idiot) and then the operator hangs up your line before you can even tell your husband you love him.

It SUCKS!

In the military, when your spouse is deployed, you are allowed two 15 minute phone calls a week (WHICH you have to share with your kids of course). These are called "Hearts Apart Morale Calls". They're free because you use a phone line between the bases. Now, DH and I talk nearly every morning (for me) during the week (and the kids talk to him on the weekends or when they have days off of school) on the computer, so I have only used this call twice. Once when the connection on the computer was just terrible, and once when I had another really bad day. But sometimes, you just need to call and vent to the person who understands you better than any other person in the entire world and that moment you NEED to vent doesn't always fall in the 45 minutes we set aside to talk in the mornings. I've NEVER had an operator hang up on me in all the deployments! And I know that many times, if it's slow, they'll let you talk and not break in, but apparently tonight, they were so bored, timing a call was vitally important to their staying awake or something and even though it was obvious I was upset when he broke into the call (He had to say BREAK BREAK BREAK a few times before I realized someone else was on the line because I was in full on whine mode), he had to go and hang up on us! I'm so mad. I think they should put all the calls you don't make into a bank and then if it's not busy, you can juse use those extra minutes up!

/rant off

(Thanks for letting me vent about that) (cross posted on the message board)

Yeah I'm bored, but lookie what I got!

I received this in the mail today! I can't wait to stitch it! The bottom fabric on the pillow is a bit different than shown in this pic, but I'll take a picture when it's all done! I bought 4 more of them too! Two are for me and one is a Christmas gift for my mom and one a Christmas gift for my dad and his family! I can't wait to get them as well and get started!

Twi-hard

Have I mentioned it? I'm a Twi-hard. I love all things Twilight. My obsession love for this series began last fall. The books had been recommended to me before by a friend of mine who is a librarian who knew the types of books I liked. I had heard of them, of course, but had heard they were teeny bopper books, so I just kind of let the recommendation go in one ear and out the other. Then I saw the trailer for the movie. Yeah, I'm a sucker for chick flicks! Who isn't? (By the way, The Proposal is one of my favorites right now!!) But I'm a big reader and I know how the books are typically ALWAYS better than the movies, right? So the day that Twilight was released in theaters, I went to the bookstore to buy the book. I began reading it at 2pm that afternoon and was done by midnight that night. Thanks to DH cooking and rounding up the kids, I neglected my familywas ensconced in Forks, WA the rest of the evening!) The next day, I dragged my entire family to see the movie (including my two almost teenaged boys who moaned and groaned because all the girls at school loved the books/movies too)! On the way home from the theater, I bought books 3 and 4 (I'd picked up 1 and 2 the first day).

Saturday I read New Moon beginning right when I got home from the theater until sometime the next day. That one was a tougher read to me because of the heartbreak involved! Let me remind you that I'm a big reader and I've loved reading since I was little. In New Moon, there's a part that just shocked me so much more than any other book I've read. For those of you that read it, it was pages 85-92. Reading what led up to that moment and then those pages.... I turned to my husband and dropped the book to my lap and exclaimed, "Oh my God!" Of course he wanted to know what was going on and since he hadn't read it, didn't really get the shock value. It was truly amazing! (I'm tired and I can't come up with an eloquent way of putting the emotions I felt during this book!)

Eclipse and Breaking Dawn followed that week and I had the series done in about 5 days. I have to admit I'm glad I didn't read it until after Breaking Dawn came out. I would have died waiting for it to be released! I have since read this series multiple times and I never get tired of it. That's really something for me, because usually I will read something again, but it will be at least a year before I'll pick it up again. This book, I could immediately pick up and start back over and STILL be just as enthralled as the very first time.

The movies make them even more special and it's like you can still live in this universe for a little bit longer! I saw this shirt the other day that said, "Yes I'm a Mom, Yes I read Twilight, Of Course I love Edward (don't tell my husband)!" Ha! I might have to get it!

Anyway, I've just finished up Twilight and New Moon again for the umpteenth time since November 2008 (Really when rereading New Moon previously I would read the beginning and skip a lot of the middle and go to the end because it just kills me! So technically this is only the 2nd time I've fully reread New Moon). I'm pausing on Eclipse to read Evermore by Alyson Noel. I know they've filmed Eclipse but it will be next June before it comes out so I've got awhile. I'll probably finish Eclipse and Breaking Dawn again before the year is out and start over again before Eclipse comes out next year!

Ok, so this is my explanation for the New Moon Widget in the sidebar! *grin* I love Twilight and I admit it!