Marine Corps Museum

 I went to the Marine Corps Museum with my sister and friend.  It is in Quantico and took me about an hour to get to from my aunts house. It was our last day in the DC area and it was a great way to wrap up the trip! 


Here are some of my favorite pictures from the museum:

 Had to take a picture of the fox hole because Kale has living in one of these for a couple weeks while in Afghanistan!

 The exhibits were so cool! They had some great details and it was just overall amazing.

 I couldnt help it- I giggled a lot when I saw this.  They were talking about when they do gear inspections and they have the guys lay everything out on their racks.  Apparently they used to/still do in some units call it "junk on the bunk".  Its been far too long since Ive gotten some since this made me giggle like a little school girl!

 In the WWII part, they had a big section dedicated to the Marines and Navy who lost their lives.  They had walls of these symbols representing those who passed.

I loved the painting for the walls, very realistic! 


Overall it was a great time, if you are in the Quantico area I would recommend going! It was a blast!

A sea of yellow!

Yellow ribbons that is!

I almost forgot! About 3 weeks ago a group of friends and I made 250 ribbons for the barracks...

You know what that means.... homecoming is getting closer! 

Woohoo!!!!

Changing my garden plan

Before I left for my trip to Erie, I had bought a bunch of planters to use as my container vegetable garden. As my seedlings started growing in their greenhouse, I realized that they will most likely not grow well with how shallow the planters I got were.  So, before I left for our trip- I gave the seedlings, still in the greenhouse, a good watering and hope they survive the 2 weeks that I will be gone and started to think about how I will rework the garden so it'll actually be successful...


I figured it out, I'm flipping those seedlings UPSIDE DOWN! Thats right, Im going to have a primarily upside down garden! I think the topsy turvy things are pretty ugly but the idea is genius. 

I have 5 milk jugs that Im going to use, as well as some buckets that I plan to get from dunkin donuts, all for free! Well, technically the milk cost money but the jugs would have just been thrown away and I got them from friends and family so FREE! I think the milk jug is pretty ugly so Im going to spray paint it white (already have the spray paint from a previous project) and paint some cool designs with acrylic paint that I also already have!


I want to do:
-2 grape tomato plants
-1 roma tomato plants
-3 bell pepper plants
- 1 cucumber plant
- 1 jalapeno plant
- 2 zucchini plants

Once those are planted upside down, Ill grow the herbs on top including:
- mint
- cilantro
- basil
- Italian parsley


Also on top of the upside down plants will be some other vegetables:
-radish plants
-carrot plants


I'm going to cut the milk jugs that I have so far once I get back from my DC trip so that'll save me just that much time once I get to NC.  This is what I'm going to do the first full day back in NC, in addition to clean like a mad woman!

I'm going to be MIA

Yesterday afternoon, I got hit with some AWESOME stomach virus....I should be driving the 12 hours to Erie today but I cant seem to be more then 50 feet away from a bathroom so no traveling for me.  


I did just eat 3 cheese and potato perogies about an hour ago and have yet to run to throw it up so hopefully that means that its winding down.  If I can eat an early dinner and am fine, I'm going to start my drive this evening.  Ill drive half way and get a hotel then finish my drive Thursday morning.  


I have a hair appointment at 4pm in Erie tomorrow as well as plans for Friday afternoon so I am willing to drive while still feeling a little under the weather...


Anyway, I don't know how often I will get on the computer in the next two weeks- not only will I be in Erie, but my sister and I are headed for DC for a week as well! 


Toodles!

I found "the dress".

I got the dress! I am so glad!! Its comfortable, long enough I wont give everyone a little peep show but shows enough skin that I wont die of heat since it'll be May, in North Carolina! 


I got it at Old Navy at a great price and all I need now is to get a cute pair of wedges and a killer earring/necklace set! The wedge Im wearing in the picture is exactly what I want to wear except I can only find the one...the right one is MIA!

Ignore my nastiness....please! Im also glowing pale...I need to start getting my tan on.

The other two dresses that were in the running were blue and that was the only color I didn't want to wear because I wore blue to the two previous ones...


What a weight off my shoulders!

Since complaining wont get us anywhere...

My facebook news feed is being blown up by statuses and articles about the government shut-down that is looming in our near future...although it seems that many statuses are about it, in actuality, it only seems to be my military friends- it doesn't seem to phase any of my civilian friends. Anyway...


It seems that we will most likely not be getting paid what we normally get- if anything, as much as I would like to bitch and moan about it, that's not gonna right now. What will help is making yourself as prepared as you can for Friday when the money runs out. 


Every branch has SOME type of relief society that offers INTEREST-FREE loans in case of emergency. News flash: this is an emergency! So before you go without food or chose not to pay your bills...contact them! They are there to help and NO it wont look bad on your service member's record!


Also, there are a lot of military families- all the companies that you deal with whether it be your mortgage, water company, electric, credit card companies, they've dealt with military families.  If this shut down happens and you have bills that are due on the 15th, then give them a call...they might have put in a policy in the wake of this shut down to allow members to submit a late or partial payment but will waive the late fee...its worth checking! 


Remember, everyone is focusing on how we wont get our March 15th pay check but they if still cant decide on a budget, we can skip the April 1st one too...save as much of your paychecks as you can! 


I always assumed we would get paid, but I'm so glad we chose to save up a lot of money in case of emergency anyway because we can go a few months without it effecting us but I know not everyone is that financially stable so just know there are options out there for you! 


You arent alone! Fingers crossed they fix the budget quick so we can get our money that we deserve and can put this whole ordeal behind us!


There is nothing we can do about this, our politicians clearly don't have their heads on straight so lets bunker down and ride this stupidly ridiculous experience out!

Thanks for the reminder...

I went a little crazy with signing up for newsletters relating to my pregnancy- the first couple weeks I loved reading the multiple emails about what was happening with the baby, and symptoms I would be experimenting, and all that jazz. I loved checking my email!


After I miscarried, I was still on vacation and then went to a family reunion, that following week I logged onto my email- dozens of pregnancy emails staring me in the face.  I quickly deleted them and pushed them out of my memory, until of course- they came back a few days later with the next week's email of information.


I then un-subscribed to every since one in hopes to not have the constant reminder of the miscarriage. I was still getting some, but not all of them.  When I would come across one, I would again un-subscribe to it. It didn't really make me upset like the emails used too and after fighting with the emails for a few months to unsubscribe, I finally gave up. One constantly still emails me once a week, even after unsubscribing a dozen times so now I just delete it before opening it.  No harm, no foul...


That was, until today.  It caught my eye for some reason, maybe having the title be "You're full term! Baby can come now" made it stand out way more then the normal "Your week XX report". I would be full term...I would be about to pop "any day now"...I would be stressing about all the little details that I still have to finish.
I would, I would, I would but you know what? I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.


The middle of my would-be pregnancy didn't seem to affect me too much, but the closer it gets to my would-be due date, the more upset I find myself getting. I dont know what to do to help it but it just sucks. 


I hate seeing emails telling me that I'm full term when I am the complete opposite of "ready to pop". I dread opening my email because I know a few times a week I will see something like "4 more weeks!", or "Signs of labor" emails...


Now that homecoming is getting closer (yay), I think I'm just overall more emotional. I'm so anxious and excited for him to come and I'm getting more upset about the miscarriage at the same time...


I keep reminding myself that in 2 short months, I can very well be pregnant...but in that same thought I remember that in 1 short month, we should have a new born...


Ugh, its gonna be one of those weeks...