On Sunday, the final wedding event was the Walima, a sort of brunch reception that takes place after the consummation of the marriage. No, seriously, thatÂ’s what the speaker said at the thing. This event seems to be the groomÂ’s familyÂ’s doing, and it ended up being fairly military. My friend just got out of the Army after being Special Forces, so his Army buddies were in their dress blues, and they performed the saber arch as my friend and his new wife arrived. My friend also wore his blues, and his wife again looked stunning in a bejewelled robin-egg blue dress.

Some of my friendÂ’s cousins and friends got up and spoke a few words, like you would do at a toast during a Western wedding. I made some jokes about high school and what a good friend heÂ’s been over the past 16 years. And then there was Pakistani food and merriment again.

After my little toast, several people came up to me to thank me for my husbandÂ’s service, which is always nice but especially nice to hear from the Muslim community. In fact, during the wedding ceremony on Saturday, when the officiant mentioned that my friend had served his country, it got a round of applause during the sermon. Those things just affirmed my good feelings for everyone I met this weekend.

And my friend asked the wedding photographer to take a photo of two of the guests: his cousin, who wears a traditional turban, dishdasha, and long beard, and his SF buddy in his dress blues. Everyone laughed as the two men symbolically shook hands and then threw their arms around each other for a photo.

So that was the wedding. As I bid my friend and his wife goodbye, I got tears in my eyes. I was overwhelmed by the emotions of the weekend, and I sadly donÂ’t know when IÂ’ll get to see them again. His entire family made me feel so welcome this week, and I hate to say goodbye to them.

But heÂ’s kept in touch over the past 12 years, so IÂ’m sure we can manage in the future.

What an awesome experience this whole event was. I am so glad that I came home for it and that I got an inside glimpse at the local Muslim community and their customs. It really gave me a perspective on some things IÂ’ve only considered in the theoretical before.

(See also the Mehndi and the wedding posts.)

Posted by: Sarah at 05:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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AirForceWife and I have the same camera, and last time we were together we were lamenting how it sucks batteries. I came into town with a set of batteries in the camera and an extra pair. I cycled through all of those during the Mehndi alone.

So on my way out of town on Friday, I stopped at the Walmart to buy batteries. My husband called while I was in the self-checkout, and I stupidly walked out of the store without my bag of purchases. It didn't even sink in until I got to Chicago that the batteries were nowhere to be found.

Next stop was a corner store near my friend's house the day of the wedding. I bought a four-pack and we headed to the ceremony. I had enough battery power left on the ones from the Mehndi to take one photo of the venue.

Right before the ceremony started, I put the new batteries in the camera: nothing. Not even enough juice to turn the camera on. I bet they'd been sitting in that corner store for years.

So here I am at the most beautiful and colorful and camera-worthy wedding I'll ever attend...with no batteries.

Luckily, Muslim weddings have a break in the middle for evening prayer. During this break, I went to the hotel front desk, asking if they have a gift shop. They do, but it was out of batteries. However, the nice manager went off in search of a pair of batteries owned by the hotel. He brought me two AAs and I handed him some dollar bills and raced back to the wedding.

And thank heavens those batteries lasted through the wedding and the Walima.

More on that later. I'm on my way to Walmart. I called them from Chicago to see if they'd found my forgotten bag, and they said that if I bring my receipt, they will give me another pack of batteries. Three cheers for awesome customer service.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:20 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Seems to me out here,
it's all about the sky.
Clouds are pure art,
migrant birds flying by.
   --Allette Brooks

Apparently I'm supposed to be able to dodge flying rocks while driving. What? Phone or no phone, how in the heck was I supposed to do that?

And I was on a bluetooth, people.

But I threw caution to the wind when I noticed what a beautiful day it was. I love the Midwest so much that my heart grows two sizes when I drive here. You can take your mountains and oceans; I'll take my corn and clouds.

So I pulled out my camera and started indiscriminately snapping pictures of the road without looking through the viewfinder or bothering to focus. I took a ton, and a few actually came out great.

I called AWTM and told her I was thinking of her. Apparently she also drives through the Midwest with a camera in hand.

She challenged me to a Plains-Off.

Nebraska...

Illinois...

AWTM, I'll see you your barn pic and raise you a farm plus a big honkin' American flag.

Also, you mentioned cows. I managed to snap some.

Man, I love driving in this state. What a view. Horizon as far as the eye can see.

It's home.

Oh, and a photo of the new crack in my windshield, for good measure.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:55 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Yep, that second one is definitely Illinois!

Posted by: Nicole at August 17, 2008 07:11 PM (sBJ2p)

2 Heh, which Interstate were ya on? Also, you've been galavanting across the country the past few years, but did you notice that it is now August and everything is still a deep green? This is the 2nd year in a row that it has been that way. Prior, Aug would normally bring in the sun blasted brown look to all the vegetation that wasn't a crop. Enjoy your time in the homeland.

Posted by: blueshift at August 17, 2008 07:13 PM (crTpS)

3 No, the rock had nothing to do with the phone, or vice versa. It's still not safe to talk on the phone and drive. Blue tooth or no blue tooth. This is a touchy subject with me, we almost got run off the road AGAIN this weekend, someone on the phone, not paying attention, one lane road to RELee's birthplace (hwy 3, if anyone's looking) He was nattering away - drifted... drifted.. managed to NOT hit us, but I think the phone went thataway. LAW

Posted by: liberal army wife at August 18, 2008 12:44 AM (rcqzY)

4 Oh the shame of it!!! Some of us, and I do mean us, need an intervention for talking while driving. I live in a very small town, in the country so I often talk while on the 12 mile drive into town. My BAD!! Great pictures.

Posted by: Ruth H at August 18, 2008 04:31 AM (4u82p)

5 The Midwest also has a special place in my heart.

Posted by: Kasey at August 18, 2008 08:06 AM (cACJz)

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An observation from my trip: Maybe little girls aren't so bad.

I realized that Guard Wife lives on my route home, so ol' Charlie and I stayed the night with her on the road trip. Our arrival coincided with her daughter's 5th birthday party. I was mentally thinking, "What did I agree to do?", but the party was charming and funny.

And Guard Wife's two daughters never made a bicker or a peep the whole time I was there. No fussing, no whining, no "she's hitting me!" They really upped the bar for me on child behavior. Maybe little girls might be up my alley.

Ha, now I just know Guard Wife will mess up her dynamic by adding a boy to the mix!

Posted by: Sarah at 04:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 I think little boys and little girls are both fine, right up until junior high gets hold of them. There is something EVIL lurking in the walls of every junior high school I've ever encountered, I swear!

Posted by: Lissa at August 13, 2008 06:08 AM (fHdl7)

2 We enjoyed having you both very much! The girls were 'encouraged' before you arrived to behave themselves so that you wouldn't think they were being raised by wolves or something worse. I appreciate your help at the party a lot. Those kind of 'events' make me nervous, big time, and it was nice to have you in my corner! As far as adding a boy to the mix...yeah, it sounds like something I'd go and do.

Posted by: Guard Wife at August 13, 2008 03:42 PM (F5iCn)

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I'm headed out this morning for a trip home. As my dad always says before a road trip, "It's 902 miles to Illinois; we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses." (Hey, that's one of our Dadisms, like we talked about last night with Sherman Baldwin.)

More when I get there. Midwestside til I die, baby!

Posted by: Sarah at 02:26 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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I am having such a hard time getting off the computer. I mean, I just categorically deny that it is already 10:30. It can't be. Where did today go? Oh, right, the car dealership. Where I stood and drank mediocre coffee and then gave them six hundred bucks. Ugh. And the three hours I spent on that long post. I didn't knit a single stitch today. I refuse to go to bed yet, even though I'm exhausted.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:32 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Went back to the eye doctor. I am stuck where I'm at for now; we can't do another Lasik correction until we're certain that this is where my eyes have leveled off, so I have to wait a month and see. Also, I have blocked tear ducts so, to quote the doctor, they should be oozing Wesson oil and instead are blocked with Crisco. Gross. He was doing everything he could to unblock them and make me cry, including digging his fingernail into the base of my eye until I saw stars. It made me giggle on the inside because I felt like Fry on "My Three Suns," when they have to make him cry the emperor out. Good thing the doctor didn't start beating me up or telling me my husband was murdered in a juicer. Heh.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:36 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 It's like the doctor doesn't know you at all. He should have told you that he snuck into your house while you were visiting people last month and set your thermostat at 68 for the whole time. That might have got you crying.

Posted by: airforcewife at August 01, 2008 04:42 AM (mIbWn)

2 Bwahahahahaha!!! Or told me he set my yarn on fire.

Posted by: Sarah at August 01, 2008 04:51 AM (TWet1)

3 OMGoodness - I am so sorry to hear that your eyes (officially) weren't so thrilled with the first round of Lasik... I hope they either get magically better, or level off and happily accept the next correction! You're *still* in our thoughts & prayers! :-)

Posted by: kannie at August 01, 2008 06:51 AM (f+LJo)

4 My suggestion - He should've told you he ripped out 10 or 20 rows of that wedding afghan. :-p

Posted by: loquita at August 01, 2008 07:27 AM (kZVsz)

5 Loqi -- HA! You guys are coming up with good ones!

Posted by: Sarah at August 01, 2008 07:35 AM (TWet1)

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For weeks, people have been asking what happens next fertility-wise. Well, I'm still technically pregnant from the last baby. My levels plummeted and then plateaued; the nurse said she's never seen anyone's levels stay the same from one week to the next. And we all know there's no way I could be pregnant again, so I have no idea what's happening or how to make it stop. I can't make any appointments with the fertility clinic until the levels get back to zero. So I'm stuck in teeny-tiny-bit-pregnant limbo for now.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:06 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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It seemed like such a nothing choice, putting that Ray of Light CD in the player. I haven't listened to it in nearly ten years.

It wasn't a nothing choice. I am unable to do anything now but sit immobilized with my thoughts.

This CD takes me back to France. And not in a good way. That year of my life, I wish I could erase it. It is such a deep wound. I spent eight years loving France and waiting to get there, and then I hated it once I was there. After a horrible month of bad experiences with my host family, worse experiences with teachers, and being chased by a pervert until I had to climb under a car to hide from him, I turned numb to France, pretending I wasn't there. I got into a hurtful and bad romantic relationship with another exchange student instead. The year culminated with my near-death. And anything that reminds me of that year makes me sick.

*****

That's how I started a post yesterday. I never finished it because, coincidentally, a friend from that year in France called me while I was writing it.

The post sat as it was; the bad feelings lingered to today.

I remember thinking it was cute that The Girl wrote a post just to remind herself of a day when she was feeling fine. This is my post to document a day when I'm not doing well.

Yeah, it's 0100 and I'm still awake.

It was that France stuff hanging over me today. Thinking about how crappy the year was, what bad choices I made with my life, and how awful I feel in the pit of my stomach whenever I think about it.

But mostly today it was the eyes. I feel like they're getting worse instead of better. I'm back to hating my body. I'm back to feeling the unfairness of having a body that won't accept a baby and eyes that won't accept Lasik. I am discouraged.

And I'm reading a book for a SpouseBUZZ review. I read the entire second half of the book tonight, two hours of feverish reading. It took me right back to the last deployment. It included names that I'll never forget: Kenny, Iwan, Khan, Falkenburg, Sims. (And just now, in looking up how to spell "Falkenburg," I couldn't avoid three names that brought the tears: Prewitt, Rosales, and Becker.)

So here I am, at 0100, not having such a good day.

And I just thought I ought to document it.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:20 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Oh, and I think it's cute that all of you are saying, "But you didn't call meeee." I said non-internet friends, sillies. Also, AWTM, you are PCSing like tomorrow, and, Guard Wife, you are taking the freaking bar exam this week, so I'm not gonna call either of you and waste your time with stories of how my eyes are too blurry to watch an episode of The Dead Zone.

But I did watch Friday's episode of The Soup, and I was laughing so hard I was pounding the coffee table with my fist. I wonder if there's laughing gas in the eye drops I'm taking...

Oh yeah, and my face is still sticky. My hair keeps sticking to my cheeks and forehead, which is not pleasant. I even considered putting Goo Gone on it, but the bottle said to avoid prolonged exposure with your skin.

Vision-wise, I see about the same as I did yesterday.

Posted by: Sarah at 08:40 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Random idea for the face stickies - try an exfoliating face scrub with little pieces of stuff in it? I love this stuff: http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=161978&catid=79350&brand=8217&trx=PLST-0-BRAND&trxp1=79350&trxp2=161978&trxp3=1&trxp4=0&btrx=BUY-PLST-0-BRAND&cmbProdBrandFilter=8217

Posted by: loquita at July 27, 2008 08:50 AM (X0NT2)

2 Did you try mineral oil or baby oil? That works on a lot of sticky stuff. Good luck!

Posted by: HChambers at July 27, 2008 10:59 AM (++roz)

3 OMG, I was TOTALLY thinking of "Goo Gone" when you first explained this sticky mess, but decided if you used it, sticky face would be the LEAST of your problems. I'm taking the bar exam this week!? Crap. I KNEW there was something I was forgetting. Thanks for reminding me. Heh.

Posted by: Guard Wife at July 27, 2008 04:09 PM (ccp31)

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You know what you can do with only 20/30 vision? Housework. Bleh.
Scrubbing, sweeping, mopping...so far I've found that none of those take perfect vision.
Just my luck.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I have to wear metal eye protectors to sleep in. I told my husband they make me look like Spiderman. Just in case he didn't truly believe me...

Incidentally, I took eight of these pictures of myself lying in bed, hoping that one of them would be decent. So today when I was picking out which one to put on the blog, I felt like I was back in the eye doctor's office: Which is better, #1 or #2?

Also, notice that they have to be taped to my face. I cannot for the life of me get the sticky residue off; I've tried soap, exfoliator, and even rubbing alcohol. I am certain that by the end of the week, I will have two tape lines of pimples in an X on my face. Lovely.

So, yesterday was not so great. My friend and I decided that we did this all backwards: we hung out this week and culminated with the surgery, but we should've started with the surgery and then hung out, since I can't do anything but sit. Because my vision is blurry, I can't watch TV and I really ought to limit my computer time (so hard for me). Did I mention that I can't watch TV? Yesterday I sat alone listening to a book on tape. Lame.

Today my vision seems a little better, which is reassuring. But just in the hour I've been on the computer, I swear it's gotten worse, so I'm going to get offline now. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself all day. One thing I can do is gab on the phone, so I think I might catch up with old friends. Like non-internet friends. Yeah, I still have a couple of 'em.

UPDATE:

I just called six people and none of them answered. Lame.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:57 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Sarah, I had Lasik myself a few years ago. I know it is frustrating right now, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that it works out well for you. Take care

Posted by: jck at July 26, 2008 07:58 AM (d6k/G)

2 Ahh, Lasik porn for the hubby;D

Posted by: Ruth H at July 26, 2008 08:00 AM (zlUde)

3 Sarah....Try some skin so soft, from Avon, to take off the tape residue....

Posted by: Debey at July 26, 2008 09:24 AM (NP11N)

4 you did not call me... There is always a lot of racket on my end of the phone... I could have taken you on a virtual phone zoo tour! this is a Tabir, they look like a big anteater...

Posted by: awtm at July 26, 2008 05:10 PM (5A+rY)

5 Hang in there girl. It's not instant gratification; but, delayed gratification is sometimes better. It took me a few days to really be sure I had done the right thing. It gets better.

Posted by: Pamela at July 26, 2008 08:21 PM (s34Jo)

6 Um. I checked my phone. I don't see that I've missed any calls from you. On the good side, though, I think that means *I'm* not lame. I'd forgotten those sexy, protective goggles. Mine had a strap, though, so I didn't have to tape them to my face. You absolutely MUST knit a ski mask with those in the eyeballs & fashion your Halloween costume around the mask.

Posted by: Guard Wife at July 27, 2008 07:59 AM (ccp31)

7 Yay! Interesting.

Posted by: jiimionad at August 14, 2008 06:15 AM (RPWsr)

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I woke up this morning a tad underwhelmed. I didn't feel safe driving myself to my appointment, so my friend took me. The doctor said he likes his patients to be at least 20/25 by the next day, and I'm 20/30. Now, that's WAY better than what I can see without my glasses, but I still feel like I'm in a little bit of a fog. Some of that could go away in time, and I freaking hope so because I certainly won't be happy that I spent thousands of dollars to still need glasses. I go back in a week to see if there's progress. But the pessimist in me thinks that this might just be one more nail in my loss-of-faith coffin.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:57 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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So, the lasik, eh?

I went in and waited and waited; naturally they were behind schedule. There were two other ladies in the waiting room who had done the surgery a few years ago and who were in for a touch-up. They said that, even with having to have a touch-up, they would do it again in a heartbeat. They also said that there's no pain whatsoever.

Hmmm, I am not sure I agree with that.

I went in and they numbed my eye and drew marks on it with a marker. That's because of astigmatism; apparently when you sit up straight, your eyeball is in a different shape than when you lie down, so they have to mark you sitting up before they recline you. Then they took me in and cut the flaps in my cornea. Painful isn't really the right word, but it was uncomfortable as all get out. They put this suction cup thing on your eye and create a vacuum seal and then start cutting. It was blindingly awful. It was so hard to keep my eyes open, and the even had me in this Clockwork Orange contraption so I couldn't shut my eyes. Still, I would've given anything to close them. It was like my brain shut off and the only thought I had was get-it-off get-it-off get-it-off. They did my left eye first, prounounced it a success, and did the right eye. But no pronouncement after that one.

Then they walk me across the hall and put me under another machine. I hear lots of commotion from the doctor and nurses and get the vibe that something is wrong. Panic attack. I am trying not to freak out or cry for what feels like an eternity before some nurse pats me on the arm and assures me that there's nothing wrong with my eyes, just the machine. Turns out the machine was having trouble uploading my info, so someone had to go back downstairs and save my flie to a thumb drive and come back with it. But I seriously thought something had gone horribly wrong. It was entirely unnerving, lying there for interminable minutes thinking that I had just lost my right eye.

Then, by the time they came back with the thumb drive, I had been lying there with my eyes closed for several minutes. So when they turned on the machine and the light flooded my eye, I thought I was going to pass out it was so bright. Nothing like being in complete darkness for five minutes and then having a flashlight shined in your eye from six inches away.

The wild thing about this next part is that it's done on camera and broadcast into the waiting room, so my friend and her son watched them pull back the flap in my cornea, pulse the laser into it, and then replace the flap. She took pictures with her cell phone, heh. And then we were done.

I shut my eyes, got guided out of the office, into the car, into my house, and into bed. My friend then had to figure out how to tape the protective eyewear to my head before I went to sleep. I woke up three hours later and took the goggles off.

I can see...decently. I guess I was expecting this life-altering transformation already, but as of right now I see better than I did naturally but not nearly as good as I did with my glasses. They say the process can take up to 48 hours to really work, so I'm hoping I have better vision in the morning.

Oh, and I would never say the process was easy or painless, but whatever discomfort I experienced -- I spent a lot of the time with my toes curled and my fists clenched, wishing I could be anywhere but with a blinding light in my eyeball -- it will be worth one hour of discomfort if I can see. My eyes are still extremely itchy this evening, maddeningly so. I would give anything to rub them, but that's the biggest no-no. I hope the worst of that goes away by tomorrow.

Wish me luck that I wake up in the morning with better vision.

UPDATE:

As posted above...

If you're really squeamish, this might freak you out. But there's a youtube of a Lasik surgery, and it's exactly what they did to me. I must say, sitting in the waiting room watching these creeped me out at first, but after I'd watched three people go ahead of me, it wasn't that hard to watch. But still...not for those who get grossed out by eyeballs.

Posted by: Sarah at 07:26 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 It's making my eyes itch just reading about it. Hope everything is much clearer in the morning!

Posted by: Anwyn at July 24, 2008 07:54 PM (dzxw9)

2 Good luck, Sarah. You seem like a really nice and sensible person, so I'd wish you well anyway, but I think you deserve good things after some of your experiences in recent months.

Posted by: hiraethin at July 24, 2008 09:01 PM (hnFlP)

3 Well doesn't that sound like my own personal idea of hell. I have horrible vision myself but I've never been tempted to have lasik... I seriously don't think that I could get through the procedure without a complete freak out. Glad you made it through. And I wish you a speedy recovery!

Posted by: dutchgirl at July 25, 2008 04:16 AM (3a5Uy)

4 Just reading that makes me kinda want to puke. *shivers* I hope you get your perfect eyesight!!

Posted by: Kasey at July 25, 2008 04:35 AM (cACJz)

5 I read with one eye closed, sadly I don't see very well with just one eye, but I wish you happy eyeballs and clear vision soon. Here's hoping for perfect sight...

Posted by: Susan at July 25, 2008 05:12 AM (4aKG6)

6 It's official. I will wear contact lenses for the rest of my life. Makes my eyes water just thinking about it. A teeny part of my brain always thought "maybe" even though most of my brain is completely freaked out by Lasik. Your post is the first honest account of the procedure I've heard. Everyone else always just says, "oh, it's not bad..." with no details. And after reading it I'm happy happy happy with my contacts! Wishing you clear vision, and to never have to go in for a touch-up!

Posted by: TK at July 25, 2008 06:02 AM (A/2+g)

7 OK, I dont know if you've convinved me based on the description..I felt uncomfortable for you...A friend of mine, did tell me that it took some time to see crisp. But she said she does... Keep us posted!!! and I hope the itching goes away.

Posted by: keri at July 25, 2008 06:13 AM (HXpRG)

8 Eek! This whole post gave me the heebee-jeebees!!! Yikes! No thank you.

Posted by: T at July 25, 2008 06:39 AM (KV0YP)

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Charlie and I will be gone for a few days; we're going on a sleepover to my friend's house. Her husband is out of town this week, so we're going to knit and bake. And then she'll nurse my eyes back to sight. So I may not be around for a few days, but hopefully when I return I'll be 20/20.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:44 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 Have fun and good luck!

Posted by: Ann M. at July 22, 2008 03:16 PM (HFUBt)

2 Yay! Have a great time. I hope you have great results with LASIK. I wore glasses since 3rd grade, too.

Posted by: Butterfly Wife at July 23, 2008 03:18 AM (qzk/s)

3 I thought about you all day! Hope you're seeing clearly!!!

Posted by: Allison at July 24, 2008 04:44 PM (jUCsS)

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I've never grown anything edible before, so I am fascinated by my new little garden. I go out and look at it constantly, mostly to marvel but also to be on the lookout for hornworms!

So I was tickled pink to come home from DC and find that my little buds and marble-sized peppers had turned into this:

Four on one little plant! How is it standing under all that weight? And the little pepper that I took a photo of a month ago?

He's red! He's still only the size of a golfball though. But this farmer thing is addictive.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:39 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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The Girl and I have a running motivational speech, wherein we admonish each other not to live in an alternate reality. Hers is that if her husband hadn't deployed and gotten stop-moved, she would be back in the US now instead of still languishing in Germany. Mine is that I would already have a baby instead of still being in not-able-to-be-pregnant hell. We have to constantly remind each other that, even though we don't like it, we have to live in the reality that is.

But this is hard for me today, because my husband just found out his next deployment schedule. He still has six months left on this one, and he already knows tentative dates for the next one. And I can't help but be overwhelmingly disappointed that this baby we were pregnant with a month ago would've worked out so perfectly. Baby would've been born right after the husband got back, and he would've been here for the birth and then maximized his time at home before he left again. Now that we already know when he's leaving again, it's like another sock in the gut that I wish this baby had worked out.

I am still planning on getting fertility testing done, and perhaps heading into Mordor this fall. But if things go perfectly well, and I get pregnant on my own in a doctor's office right away, the baby will be born right as my husband is deploying again. That is not a reality I care to live in. In fact, that was the exact reason that we started trying to have a baby when we did, so we could avoid such a crappy situation. But there it is. Perfect Baby is no longer with us, and now we get Undesirably Timed Baby. That is, if Baby even works out for us at all.

I promise you, The Girl, that I am trying really hard not to dwell on that alternate reality, where my husband actually gets to enjoy the birth and early life of his child. And I swear, I was doing really well and was practically over the fact that I am not pregnant anymore. I was moving on, but this is something that makes me wistful for the alternate reality I almost had.

However, I take some vicarious comfort in this: no matter how we slice it, you will be back living in the US before any sort of baby enters our home! And that is something to definitely look forward to.

Posted by: Sarah at 01:49 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Dear AirForceGuy,

You know how you were ashamed that my Tibetan terrier kicked your pit bull's butt? I have a piece of news you'll be interested in. Remember how Charlie kept scratching his ears the whole week? We went to the vet yesterday: he has a yeast infection in his ears.

Trust me, our dogs are equally emasculated.

Poor Charlie, that's just not cool at all.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:11 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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One of the bad things about having a deployed husband and no job is that I don't have to do anything. Time is just one big fluid thing, and the distinction between separate days becomes arbitrary.

I have always been an insomniac, but having a husband with a set schedule helps keep me on a system. Now that he's gone, there's no reason to go get in bed. I end up promising myself 'just one more episode' or 'just one more chapter.' My bedtime creeps ever so later: 1AM, 2AM. Same with when I get out of bed; if there's no job to go to, and I stayed up until 2AM, why not sleep until 9:00? It's a bad cycle.

But last night, I found myself exhausted. I felt like I was drugged, I was so tired. Maybe it was the midnight drive home from DC catching up to me, I don't know. But I shut the lights out last night at 8:45, before it was even dark outside. And I woke up this morning at 7:45. That's a heck of a slumber.

Oh, and trust me, I am enjoying it while it lasts. There's my silver lining to not having kids yet; I can sleep for 11 hours if I need to.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:14 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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My time at Heather's house was so nice; we just sat and crocheted together for three days. I joked to her husband that we were going to get bedsores! It was so relaxing and nice to just talk. And her husband used to be Civil Affairs, so we compared notes.

I'm here at AirForceHouse now. There was an "incident" tonight: Charlie was wrestling with their dog and their dog's foot got caught and it ripped his toenail completely out by the root. Ouch! AirForceGuy is mortified that our Tibetan terrier managed to take down his pit bull. Heh.

More later.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:48 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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