Things to Do for Long Distance Couples

Today I got something fabulous in the mail.  One of my friends from college is a military wife, and she had a handbook about how to enrich a long distance marriage.  She thought of my current situation and sent it to me, which I really appreciate.  It was so kind of her.  The book was basically a list of all of these things you could do for your spouse while they're gone or things you could do together long distance.  To the book's credit, there were a few good ideas in there (A FEW).   A lot of them, however, were exceedingly strange.  Like, I want to meet the couples who submitted these ideas.  I was going to list some here with my commentary, but you know what?  I don't even think you need my commentary.  The list really just speaks for itself.  Here are my favorite twenty:

1. Learn how to cross-stich a loving message from you.

2. Carve both of your initials into a piece of wood and send it to him.

3. Send him a pair of electric warming socks with a note saying that since you couldn't be there to warm his feet, you are sending these in your place.

4. Print a message in the personals section of the newspaper.  Call him the morning it runs.

             I'm sorry, I'm sorry - I'm trying to hold my commentary, but I really have to interject on this one.  What are you supposed to put in the personals??  Isn't that where people write to get a date?  Like, what people did before online dating?  How on earth is that supposed to help your marriage?!  I don't get this one at all.  Okay, sorry for interrupting.  Back to the list.

5. Send a poster of his favorite national park.

6. Make an exercise video starring yourself so that he can exercise with you.

7. See who can grow the most tomatoes on an individual tomato plant while he's gone.

             It's at this point that I really lost all hope in the helpfulness of this book...lol.

8. Send him a jar of his favorite jelly or jam preserves.

9. Have a personalized rubber stamp made for him.

10.  Buy him a tabletop water fountain.

11.  Have a street sign made for him with his name on it.

              I'm serious, people.  These are all straight from the book.  I couldn't make these up if I tried.

12. Send him both of your baby pictures framed together.

13. Choose identical pairs of socks and send a pair to him.  Choose a day when you will both wear the socks.

14. Send him a heart shaped kite to fly next time it's windy.

15. Take a virtual tour of the White House together.

16. Call each other on cell phones while swinging on swing sets.

17. Climb a tree and write a letter to him while up in the tree.

18. Write a letter together to the President of the United States or another political leader.

19. Buy two bird feeders, and send one to him.  Tell each other about the birds that visit.

20. Buy a copy of his favorite romance novel (time out - Christine here - WHY would Rex have a "favorite romance novel"??  Does that not sound incredibly weird to anyone else out there??  Okay, sorry.  I interrupted again.) Go through and cross out the names of the two lead characters and replace them with your names.  Gift-wrap the book and send it to him.


So there you have it - my top twenty.  Rex happens to be studying right now so he's signed in to gchat but we aren't really chatting.  I just messaged him and said, "Hey, here's a thought - would you like to go on a virtual tour of the White House together?"  After an extremely long pause, I am happy to report that Rex responded in an entirely appropriate fashion:  "??????"  Ha ha.  Where did people come up with these things??

Another really funny part of this book was that all of the illustrations showed happy couples doing things together like eating breakfast in bed, going fishing, etc.  Pretty much everything that a long distance couple can't do.  Why would they have those as the illustrations?  It's taunting us long-distancers!  Like, "We're going to eat this yummy breakfast and then go fishing together...you just go ahead and have fun growing your tomato plant."  Rude book.

It was a pretty good read anyway.  It made me smile at least, and I hope it made you smile too.  :-)

My Little Buddy

Living alone is difficult.  I'm not sure if it's difficult for me because it is difficult for everyone, or if it's just hard for me because I'm not used to it.  I don't know if I'll ever get used to it, really.  This would be a lot easier if I weren't particularly fond of my husband, but I am.  I miss him every day.

There is one thing that makes my life easier, though, and it's my little buddy.  We're pretty much best friends.  His name is Elvis, and if you can look at this picture and not think, "Awwww!" then there's something wrong with you:

Elvis and I have gotten a lot closer with Rex being gone.  I feel really ridiculous about saying that I feel "close" to a dog, but I do.  I think he likes me too, because he whines whenever I leave the room.  He didn't used to do that.  I brought him to my mom's house last night, and he followed me everywhere.  When I tried to leave him in my mom's room, he sat by the door and waited for me to come back.  When I went to bed, he curled up next to me and cuddled me all night.  See?  He likes me.  He never used to do any of that stuff.

It's just nice to have someone to be excited when I get home from work, you know?  Goodness knows my cat isn't.  She would probably prefer we just all leave her alone to plot her world domination.  She just slinks around and glares.  Check out this picture:

See what I mean?  I love her, but she's evil.  I consider Elvis my friend, but Elsie is more...hmmm...my nemesis.

Anyway, back to Elvis.  He and I have become great pals.  The other day we talked about politics in the Middle East (he didn't have much to say, but then again I didn't either).  When the Duchess of Cambridge had her baby, I told Elvis about it because I knew Rex wouldn't care.  Elvis reacted appropriately by dancing around the kitchen on two legs and waving his paws in the air for joy.

That may or may not have something to do with the fact I was holding a treat over his head.

He's a mostly good dog, but he ate my favorite pair of shoes the other day so then we were in a fight.  I locked him in his kennel for the night and didn't play fetch or chase with him.  We usually play every night, so I think I really bummed him out.  Then I felt guilty because, after all, he's just a dog.  He didn't know any better.  It's not like Rex ate my shoes.  So the next day I bought him a new bone to make up for not playing with him.  I think we're good again.  Dogs don't hold grudges. 

My current best friend has four legs and floppy ears, which sounds a little pathetic.  He's a good boy, though, and I'm glad I've got him.  :-)  Only 21 days till I get to visit my real best friend (the two-legged one!) in Las Vegas!  Whoo hoo!!!

Toothbrush

I woke up this morning and realized that right on my bathroom counter sits an essential symbol of my life right now:

One toothbrush.  One sad, lonely toothbrush.  Even the toothpaste looks sad, burying its head in the cup and facing away from me as if to say, "I can't bear to look at your sad life."

Okay, that part is a little melodramatic.  Sorry.  But seriously - every morning when I see my toothbrush standing alone, it makes me sad.  There used to be a toothbrush standing next to it, but that toothbrush is now far away in Las Vegas, Nevada - 2,000 miles away from mine.

The far away toothbrush belongs to Rex, and he's in Nevada until September 29 for classes.  He left on July 5.  That's almost three months that my toothbrush has to be lonely.  I realize it's not as bad as military couples who are apart for an entire year when one of them deploys, but still.  My husband is my best friend and my favorite person in the whole world.  I think I have the right to pout a little bit about him being gone. 

Long distance relationships really stink.  You get the bad parts of being single (no one to hug you when you're sad, no one to tell you that "of course that dress doesn't make you look fat," no one to help with chores, no one to go to the grocery store with, etc.), and you also get the bad parts of being married (checking with someone before you make any major purchases, not being able to go have a girls night and flirt with random people, not being able to get a pug, etc.)  It's like a horrible parody of the Hannah Montana theme song:  "You get the woooooooorst of both worlds!"  It's horrible.  I want my husband to be home. 

It doesn't help that I'm horrible at talking on the phone (I always have been.  I just feel awkward), and until five minutes ago I had no internet so I couldn't Skype or gchat.  The internet tech just left so I finally have internet, but still.  You know skyping isn't like the real thing.  I hate reading about celebrities who say, "We make our relationship work by never going more than ten days without seeing each other.  Anything longer than that would be detrimental to a relationship."  Cool, you.  I would love to see my husband every ten days.  I would love to see my husband every day.  Are you going to lend me your private jet to make that happen??

I e-mailed my cousin because her husband goes away a lot on trainings for the military.  I asked for her best advice on how to do life alone when you're so used to having a partner to do everything with you.  Here's what she said: "All I can say is....it sucks!! Honestly no magic potion....no words of wisdom....just be prepared to cry a lot...eat a lot of comfort food...and watch a lot of tv..."

Thanks, Danielle.  Real encouraging, lol.  I guess I give her credit for being honest, but it certainly didn't make me feel any better!  Hopefully the next 74 days zip by.

In the mean time, I'll be consoling my lonely toothbrush.

Worth It

I haven't posted in almost a month.  I know, it's despicable.  The reason is because I've been moving 2000+ miles across the country, so hopefully you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

I hate moving.  I HATE it.  I have to pack up everything I own, carry it out to a trailer, carry it out of the trailer again once I get to my new place, then unpack it and see how many things broke.  Oh, and then I inevitably have to spend a bunch of money to replace the stuff that I couldn't bring with me and/or the things that didn't make it.  Then I have to figure out a way to decorate my new place and make it look nice on a budget because everyone looks at me as the hostess girl who should have a nice house.  :-/

Today, however, it was worth it.  It was worth the hours I spent wrapping and boxing literally thousands of items.  It was worth the headache of unpacking them again.  It was even worth the bath salts that spilled all over my copies of The Elsie Files and ruined some of them.  It was worth the money I spent to make our new house feel like a home.  Do you want to know why?

Because I am home.  I didn't really realize it until today.  I've been a little (okay, a lot) sad to leave Las Vegas and the friends and job I love there.  I have been dreading the blizzards and ice that will arrive here in a few short months.  Today, though, I realized that I don't really belong anywhere else.

Rex's aunt had the family over for a Sunday night dessert party.  This is the kind of thing his family does all the time, but I've been missing out because I've been gone.  All of the aunts and uncles and cousins came over to eat ice cream and treats (my cookie-brownies were a hit!), and then we played a family game of softball.

The family has a make-shift softball field in their back yard, and they even renovated a tree house to be a score board.  We picked teams and started playing.  It was like one of those two-page spread ads in Good Housekeeping where the family is all laughing and enjoying a nice summer evening. You don't think those people actually exist in the world, but they do.  They're my in-laws. People were making jokes like "move in - this one's going nowhere!" (that was for me, lol) or "How can she run in that June Cleaver dress?"  (That was for Aunt Sarah, whose dress was very June Cleaver.  I loved it).  My brother-in-law was on the other team and ran by second (where I was fielding), gave me a hug and said "Love ya, sis!" before he kept running.  Everyone was joking and laughing and having a great time.  I suddenly came to the realization that this was worth coming back for.  I'm not going to miss any more of these family events.  Family isn't about flying into town for a wedding or funeral and then flying back out to our everyday lives.  It's about being there for each other's everyday lives.  It's being able to play a goofy softball game on a Sunday night.  It's having people to call when you're trying a new recipe and you want someone to try it.  It's telling your little cousin that "Sure, you can come sleepover at my house and do nails!"  It's asking your brother-in-law what kind of birthday cake he wants, since you're finally here to make one for him.  It's being able to shop with your sister when she needs a new outfit to look nice for a date.  I'm not going to miss that stuff anymore, because I'm here, and it was worth every headache it took to get here.  It feels good to be back.

Rich for a Day

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be fabulously wealthy?  I know I have. Well, I got a little taste of it this week, and I want to tell you about it.

Rex and I planned an extravagant overnight date to celebrate our third wedding anniversary.  It was a combination of an anniversary celebration as well as a final "hurrah" before we move to Michigan next week. (I don't know whether to write "boo" or "yay" after that statement).  Since we live in Las Vegas, we decided to have a fun night out on the strip.  We reserved a suite at Mandalay Bay Hotel, and we got ready to have a fun night out.  Because we reserved the suite for a Wednesday night, it was only $112.  The same suite on the weekend is well over three times that expensive.  Vegas is a very "weekend" city, so weekdays are super affordable.

We got to the hotel, and I was blown away.  For my friends in the Kalamazoo area - you know the Radisson Hotel?  Well, this hotel made the Radisson look like a Motel 6.  I couldn't believe the extravagance.  There is no way that people should have spent that much money on building a hotel.  I bet the chandeliers alone were $50,000 or more each.  We went to ride the elevator up to our hotel, and a security guard checked our room keys and showed us to the right elevator.  They have multiple elevators to go to different floors - cool!  When we got in the elevator, there was a television screen showing video clips for us to watch on our ascent to our floor (we were on floor 30).  We finally got to our floor, and we went into our room.

The room was jaw-droppingly gorgeous.  I wish I would have thought to take pictures, but I didn't.  The entire side wall was floor to ceiling windows with a beautiful view of the strip.  An entire wall of glass - how awesome.  There was a dining room (which we had no use for...but it was still cool), a bedroom, a living area, and the most ultimately cool bathroom that you ever saw in your life.  It had a huge jacuzzi next to a window that overlooked another part of the room, and across from the jacuzzi was a flat screen TV.

Wait, you don't look completely shocked.  Perhaps you didn't read that slowly enough.  I will repeat: ACROSS FROM THE JACUZZI WAS A FLAT SCREEN TV.  IN THE BATHROOM.  Whaaaaaaaaaat?!?!?  I couldn't believe it.  I tried telling Rex that watching Duck Dynasty from the five star hotel jacuzzi was a bit contradictory, but he didn't care.  That's what he wanted to watch.  Ha ha.

After we checked in to the hotel and looked around our room, it was time to go out for dinner.  A parent in my classroom had given me a gift card to "brio," a fancy Italian restaurant downtown.  We figured this would be a good time to use it.  I had never been there, but I heard it was fancy so Rex and I got dressed up.  It's a good thing we did, because this was the fanciest restaurant I had ever been to in my life.  We walked in and Rex said, "Umm...I don't think I belong here.  They're going to sense that I'm not sophisticated enough and kick me out."  He looked sophisticated, though (he left his cowboy hat at home - THANK GOODNESS), so we got a table.  We tried to read the menu, but I didn't understand anything on it.  It was all fancy Italian sounding words that I didn't know.  Where were normal items like "spaghetti"?  I went out on a limb and ordered "campanelle diavolo."  Do you have any clue what that is?  I didn't either.  It was described as spicy, so I figured it might be good.  Ummm...it was.  It was an absolute explosion of flavor with every bite.  It ended up being a trumpet shaped pasta in a spicy tomato cream sauce with smoked chicken and green onions.  Mmmmmm...  it makes me hungry just remembering it.  Rex got some sort of seafood thing, so I didn't try it.  He said it was good though.  

You know how waiters come around while you're eating and refill your water?  Our waiter did that, but he also did other stuff too.  For example, Rex ate some bread and accidentally dropped some crumbs on the table, so our waiter came and said, "Let me get those crumbs out of your way, sir."  He then proceeded to use a special crumb-removing brush to wipe the crumbs from the table.  My eyes just about popped out of my head.  He wiped the crumbs off of our table with a special brush?  Did he mistake us for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge or something?!  I've never had anyone do that!  And he kept calling us "sir" and "ma'am," even though Rex was right - we are sooooo not sophisticated enough for that.  We're more "Howdy y'all" kind of people, but let me tell you - brio is not a "Howdy y'all" kind of place.  It was fun to experience a candle-lit romantic fancy schmanz gourmet dinner, but I don't think we're going to make it our go-to date spot or anything.  Even with the gift card, it ended up being pretty expensive.  

Back at the hotel, we had fun night in our luxury accommodations.  The next morning, I was kind of sad to be checking out.  We'd had so much fun acting like we belonged in a five-star world.  As we got in line to check out, I was disappointed to see that there was a line.  I don't like waiting in lines (who does?), but I figured it wouldn't take too long because the line was moving pretty quickly.  As soon as I got into line, a man in a tuxedo came up to me and held out a silver tray with Mandalay Bay water bottles on it.  He said, "So sorry for the wait; can I interest you in a water bottle?"  Yes, please!  The wait was only about five minutes, but I got offered three water bottles during that time.  Fancy!  Where are those guys when I'm at Cedar Point?

After check-out, Rex and I spent the day at the pool.  "Mandalay Bay Beach" is 11 acres of sandy "beach" with tons of pools.  Rex and I particularly liked the wave pool and the lazy river.  What kind of crazy hotel has that as their hotel pool??  Vegas hotels, apparently.

All in all, it was a really fun "staycation" to celebrate our anniversary as well as our last few days of being Vegas locals.  I'm really going to miss living here, but I'm sure new adventures await in Michigan.

Hooray for Me!

I know it's not polite to ask a lady about her weight, but is it polite for a lady to tell you about it anyway?

Well, I don't care if it's polite or not, because I'm telling you about it and that's that.

This March, I stepped on our scale and almost cried.  I weighed 145 lbs.  Now, let me preface this by saying that I KNOW 145 is not "fat," and it still falls within normal BMI range for someone of my height (5'8"). Technically I was still healthy.  The discouraging part about the situation was that I had never weighed this much in my life.  My clothes were starting to be too small, and I bulged out of them.  I hated trying to squeeze myself into my favorite outfits.  My self-esteem was plummeting.

Compounding this issue was that my sister Cara is going to be a supermodel someday (you watch - she totally is).  She is a junior in high school and looks FABULOUS.  How would you like to have this girl as your sister?  (she's the one in blue).  I hate being compared to her because I don't look like that, and in March I weighed significantly more than her.  I felt like a fatty.

I knew I had to do something about my weight, not only for my confidence levels but for the fact that I couldn't afford new clothes to fit my larger self.  I started working out a couple times a week.  I never really "dieted" per se, but I just started looking at portion sizes of food and following them.  Did you know that a box of pasta is supposed to have eight servings in it?  Well, I used to eat an entire box of pasta in one sitting. Also, a slice of pizza is one serving, which means that splitting a large pizza between my husband and I was probably not very healthy.  Suffice it to say, I can eat a lot of food.  A LOT.  It just doesn't mean I should.  I started cutting my portions to smaller sizes and working out more.  I began weighing myself frequently, shooting for a weight under 130.  I had good weeks and bad weeks, but I wasn't losing as much weight as I wanted.  I was getting discouraged.  I decided that since I was working to live a healthy lifestyle and was at a technically healthy weight anyway, I should probably stop weighing myself obsessively.  Yesterday my husband and I went to the pool, though, and I noticed that my swimsuit bottoms felt really loose.  Strange...  I came home and weighed myself, and GUESS WHAT?!  Here's what the scale said:

Hooray for me!!  I lost fifteen pounds in a little over two months!  Now I'm sexy!  Ha ha...  Maybe not really, but I look better than I did.  I feel healthier, too.  This morning I took the ultimate test:  I tried on a size 2 pair of capris that I haven't been able to wiggle into for a long time.  Not only could I wiggle into them, but they fit well.  :-D  My old clothes fit well, and my "fat clothes" are too big.  Life is good.  I think I might celebrate by going out and buying a new swimsuit, since my old one is too stretched out for my new and improved self.  Either that or I'm going to eat a whole box of pasta (just kidding!).

The Monkey and the Tampon

The weirdest stuff happens to me.

Case in point:  today a monkey tried to steal a tampon out of my purse.  I challenge you to find one other person who has had that happen to them.

Rex and I were spending a fun Sunday afternoon at the zoo.  There is a really cool zoo about 45 minutes from Las Vegas that was started by two veterinarians who wanted to show off their exotic pets collection.  It grew into an awesome zoo where visitors are allowed to play with almost all of the animals.  Today I held a baby kangaroo, had a toucan perch on my shoulder, let a tarantula crawl up my arm, and had a lemur jump onto me, just to name a few things that happened. 

The funniest, however, was the monkey.

There was a little Capuchin monkey who was out playing with the visitors, so I dutifully waited in line for my turn to play with him.  When it was my turn, the little guy came and sat in my lap.  He looked up at me with his cute baby monkey eyes, and I think I fell in love.  I must have a monkey someday.  Anyway,  he crawled up to my shoulder and looked down at my purse - lots of fun stuff in there!  He jumped down to rifle through my things.  I didn't really mind, but I kept an eye on him because I wasn't sure what was in there and didn't want him to pull out anything embarrassing in front of all of the zoo people. 

Good thing I was watching, because it turns out that a tampon has a shiny wrapper to grab a monkey's attention, and it happens to be the perfect size to fit in a little monkey hand.  He grabbed my tampon and was about to pull it out to show the zoo people his prize, but I grabbed it out of his hand while it was still in my purse and shoved it down to the bottom under some other stuff as if to say "choose something else, monkey!"  

Apparently the monkey thought that meant, "Let's play hide the tampon!" since he started digging through my stuff to find it again (which he did).  I grabbed it again and put it back in my purse again, but I was getting a little desperate.  I needed to find a diversion.  I grabbed the first thing I saw, a pack of Ice Breakers breath mints, and shook them like a rattle.  Babies like rattles, so I figured monkeys probably did too.

I was right.  The monkey abandoned the tampon and grabbed the mints out of my hand.  If it had been a baby, the baby would have contentedly shook the mint box and maybe gnawed on it a little.  I wasn't dealing with a baby, though, remember?  Do you know what a monkey does with a box of mints?  He opens it and dumps all of the mints on his head.  Then he runs around picking them up and eating them.

The people standing around started cracking up, and I looked guiltily at the zookeeper.  I wasn't sure whether or not monkeys are allowed to eat mints. I guess they are, because the zookeeper didn't freak out or anything.  He even ran up to her and put one in her mouth as if to say, "Here!  Try this!"  It was really funny.  

All's well that ends well.  I wasn't too horribly embarrassed, and the next guest will thank me because the monkey has really fresh breath now.