we're a pair

So...I'm doing a little thinking this week as I think back on the night that Jerry proposed to me and as we spend our last bit of time together before he deploys. Jerry proposed to me in the wee hours of the morning on November 22, 2006. It caught me completely off guard, but I still remember him starting the proposal part of the conversation by saying, "We're a pair." And, as different as we are as individuals, we really are a pair (in a good way). It's funny how little things can remind me of what makes us a good pair. The other day, one of the soldiers that Jerry works with asked me what Gant was like at home. He was trying to picture Jerry as something other than the serious, barely-smiling person that Jerry is at work. I told him that we make each other smile and laugh. Later, the soldier told Jerry that he had asked me that question and Jerry told him that he's a complete goofball when he's with me. The soldier said that he had never really hung out with Jerry outside of work, so he had never seen that side of him. And Jerry said, "Oh no, I'm not like that with other people. Just my wife!" Later that same day, Jerry and I went to pay our phone/internet bill and the guy was telling us that there was a late fee. Granted, we were paying after the due date, but when we worked with the same company in Schweinfurt, we never had any late fees and we almost always paid after the due date. So I started asking questions and the guy thought I was being an angry bitch. Immediately Jerry came to my defense, telling the guy that I wasn't angry or accusing, but that I was just trying to understand why it was different in the two places, so that in the future I would do the right thing. It was nice that the guy calmed down and removed the late fee, but nicer that I have a husband who really does understand me, at least sometimes. I love that we are able to understand each other and bring something to the other's life that makes it more fun!I think he was right, we are a pair!

november 19th

Today is a pretty significant day for me. It marks the second anniversary of my grandmother's death and the first anniversary of Jerry's return to the army. Both memories still suck the breath out of my chest: being in the break room of Best Buy as my dad told me over the phone that my grandmother had died and being in an empty car in a garage in Charlotte after Jerry had said his final goodbyes to me before leaving for training. As with so many things in life, these difficult times made way for better ones. It was my grandmother's passing and the subsequent separation of Jerry from me that prompted Jerry to propose to me and to promise to be there for me for the rest of our lives. And though the army comes with difficult things like deployment and separation, the greater impact on our lives has been for the better. Being in the army has allowed us to grow as a couple, see new parts of the world, and live in a beautiful home.

This past week also marked a pretty amazing and joyous anniversary. Still going strong, my grandparents celebrated 61 years of marriage on November 15! What an inspiration to us all!

You may have guessed that my new job has been keeping me too busy to update the blog. But you would be wrong. My career at the PX lasted seven and a half hours, one shift. Though I had made several inquiries regarding how much I was to be paid, I still hadn't found out when I was told to come in for my first shift. I arrived for the shift and found that I had been scheduled for a lot of hours, many of which were on the weekends. So I started off being pretty annoyed. During my interview, I had been assured that management would work with me on a schedule that would allow me to spend time with Jerry in these last few weeks before he deploys. As that schedule stood, I would be losing a significant amount of time with him. When I brought it up, they reluctantly removed two of the shifts. I worked the whole shift and found the work to be pretty enjoyable, with lots to keep me busy. The following morning I was finally able to speak to someone in human resources who was able to tell me my pay rate. I discovered that I was making $7.59 per hour!! When I told the person that that was way below the minimum that I had said that I would work for, she told me that I might be able to talk a manager up to $8.00. So I quit, after only one shift. As much as I need something to get me out of the house and add a little structure to my life, I feel like I needed to place some value on time with my husband, if not my work experience and education!! Grrrr! Arrrggghhh!!

The silver lining, if you can call it that, is that my once-again free schedule allowed me to help out Jerry and the legal team that he works with this week. This entire week, all of the soldiers being deployed are required to come through in groups to take care of all of the important pre-deployment stuff, including legal stuff like getting wills and other legal documents drawn up and executed. I've been helping with that and it's been a lot of fun. A lot more like the work I'd like to be doing here. And doing it has given me a few leads on employment opportunities that may be opening up soon. I have not liked getting up at 5:30 every morning! The only time I like to see that time of day is when I'm saying goodnight instead of good morning!! Other than the early hours, it's been good to do something that keeps me busy, is a little challenging and is helping people!

The long days have also been leaving me pretty exhausted! So I'm going to head to bed!

a busy guy...

Our nephew Ian has been a pretty busy guy lately. He's been smiling for the camera in his school photo:

He's taken the training wheels off of his bike:

He's been playing soccer. This photo was taken at the last game of the season, a game in which he scored the only goal! Even better than scoring the goal, Ian was awarded the sportsman award, an award given to a player by the coach of the opposite team. He's holding the award in his hand and has his season medal around his neck. We're so proud of him!

He's been making stuff. Here's a chicken he made at school. He thought it would be pretty funny for the chicken to have a band-aid! We agree!

And he's been losing teeth! He just lost his fifth tooth, making him the guy who gets to sing All I Want for Christmas is my two front teeth!

While we're so far away, it's nice to be included in these milestones through the pictures his mom sends us. Thanks Lizzypantz!

home

I'm pretty sure my mom is going to read this blog entry and tell me in our next phone conversation that I need to get a job!! But even a job can't prevent the wheels that are constantly turning in this noggin!

For most of my adult life, I've struggled with the idea of home. Or at least have been very conscious of the concept of home and what that means to me. I specifically remember a time at GW when I was determined to spend my spring break at GW, rather than returning home to my family. At that time in my life, although I so desperately wanted to make my own home in a place separate from my family, there was no denying that home was with my family. And that remained true for years. For me, home always makes itself clear when travelling. On every single trip between Washington DC and Massachusetts, whether by car or plane, I always felt like I was coming home as I approached Massachusetts. And always felt like I was leaving part of myself behind when I left my family and Massachusetts.

I know now that my family will always be home to me. No matter where they physically are, they are home. No matter how much time has past, I can always feel comfortable, happy and loved with not only with my immediate family, but with my extended family. I also know now that having a home for myself doesn't mean denying the permanent home that I share with my family. Some of you reading this may think that this sense of dual-homeness is the result of making a home with my husband and sowing the seeds for my own family. But really I found the first home of my own when I moved to Asheville. For the first time, when I travelled away from Massachusetts, I looked forward to going home. In some ways, I feel like that sense of comfort and belonging that I felt when I moved to Asheville openned me up to the love that I found in my husband.

Germany, too, has felt like home. I can't say that the first place that we lived in Germany ever really felt like home. It felt a little bit more like playing pretend. But here, in our new house, I feel that feeling that made Asheville home to me. Returning from Schweinfurt last week, I felt a little excitement and relief when we turned onto our street. I was home!! Being in the army means that we will be moving a lot, which I think is what has sparked this little home examination of mine. How do I maintain a sense of home as we move from place to place? And I guess I've come to the conclusion that making a home is a little bit like making friends. Friends are the family that we get to choose. Similarly, we can choose to make a home inviting and warm and full of the qualities that so naturally make being with family home. I can choose to make good memories in a home that I share with the love of my life. I can choose to fill it with warm smells, rich colors and laughter. I can choose to veture out into the area and find things/places to love and to inspire me in the place that I live.

This all boils down to a whole bunch of rambling in an effort to say that I do feel like I'm home now. I feel content and blessed. I feel close to my husband in what is really our first home. And that is an amazing feeling!

they say it's your birthday

And if they're talking about Elyssa, they're right! This punk princess turns 13 today!! Happy Birthday Elyssa....we love you!!! (Please note that this is Elyssa in her punk princess halloween costume. This is not what she wears every day!)

a little more revealed

I've never been a person to just drop something if I have a question about it. If I'm not sure of the definition of a word, I'll look it up. If I don't know the answer to a question, I'll research it. I didn't feel completely informed about this whole marriage ban thing, so I dug a little deeper. What I didn't realize was that, in the case of California, although same-sex marriages are now banned, same-sex civil unions are still legal. For many this may be an issue of semantics, but the distinction between the two lies at the center of the issue for me. In my opinion a civil union should be the partnership between any two people in the eyes of the government. And by any, I do mean adult people. So rather than receiving a marriage certificate, I think that couples (gay, straight and transgendered) should all receive a document proving their civil union. And marriage should be the word reserved for the religious ceremony/commitment. In that way, the government recognize couples in a non-discriminatory way, while religious institutions can be discriminate, preserving the freedom of religion. As it stands, a civil union is perceived as an inferior offering from the government to non-heterosexual couples.

This should be the last (for now) on this topic. I just felt it was important to acknowledge that I didn't have as much information as I should have before going off yesterday. Because obviously, there was more for me to prattle on about, given the additional facts :-)

saddened

I know that there are many (maybe even many of you reading this) that disagree with me, but it saddens me to see the marriage bans that were passed in California (presumably...absentee ballots are still being counted), Arizona and Florida during this recent election. It just seems to me that this begins to blur the lines between church and state. For many, it is wrong for gay people to marry because that is what their religions tell them. For that reason, it seems perfectly reasonable for churches to refuse to perform religious marriage ceremonies for people violating the beliefs of that religion. But I just don't understand why the legal relationship should exclude people and why it is necessary to ban people from entering legally committed relationships. As with most things, if your belief systems says that it's wrong, then it makes sense to avoid entering into such a relationship yourself. But it doesn't seem to me like you should have the right to say that it's wrong for someone else. There are so many terrible things that happen in this world, where people are hurt or violated. It seems like attention could be better spent on preventing those things than preventing people from making lifelong commitments of love to each other. In Arkansas, a ban was passed that prevents non-married people from adopting or becoming foster parents. It saddens me to think that children are being deprived of loving parents because the parents don't fit some state ideal. With biological children, anyone can be a parent...there's no screening process. Biological children are often raised by single parents. Biological children can have abusive parents or neglectful parents. Adoptive parents do go through a screening process and adopting a child usually indicates that the parents really want a child, which is more than can be said of some biological parents. Again, I can't wrap my head around the denial of recognizing loving relationships.

So I may have pissed off some of you by my little rant. But hey, we can't all agree on everything, can we?

depression's a bitch...but the dream is alive!

I've been trying my best to hold it together as months have become weeks in the countdown until Jerry leaves. And while I've put on a pretty good game face, the truth is that I've been crumbling. Very rarely does a day go by in which I don't burst into tears, often over stupid things. Or even worse, over nothing. I haven't gotten to the point of neglecting the cleanliness of my house, but I haven't been taking good care of myself. Until this week in Schweinfurt, I hadn't been to the gym in over a month and had only exercised once at home. I've been eating crappy foods and just haven't felt very motivated. I recognize the symptoms and know that I'm traveling down Depression Street. Which is understandable, given the difficult situation of Jerry's nearing deployment. But it's not a way to live and be happy. This is the life we've chosen and this life includes separation and deployment. So I've given myself a deadline to start turning things around. I know that I have to expect that Jerry's deployment will have emotional ramifications. But I also know that I can be doing more to keep myself in a better place. And that's important for both me and Jerry. I don't want him worrying about his depressed wife when he should be concentrating on the job he needs to do. So I'm giving myself until November 15 to make some changes that should make me feel better and more emotionally stable. And what if I don't? Well, then I will turn myself over to the professionals. But I'm hoping I can pull myself together. Going to the gym this week has already helped consdierably. Making some good food choices should also go along way. And having a job of my own is already putting me in better spirits...and I haven't even started yet. Just knowing I have the job is enough to make me feel a little more grounded. My 'deadline' is a few weeks before Jerry leaves, so that hopefully he'll be leaving a wife that seems a little less fragile.

Many of my tears today have been of joy. Hmmm, joy is not the word to describe this emotion. I don't know if there really is a word. It's such an intense feeling that it almost hurts. The results of yesterday's presidential election have changed the face of who can become the leader of our country. The race itself brought us closer to having a female president than I ever thought possible this early in my lifetime. The announcement of Barack Obama as the president elect really drove home for me how solid the image of the president of the United States had been chiseled into my brain: an old white guy. And now that image has changed and it fills me with pride to see that in my lifetime, to have been a part of this historic election. And even putting aside the race issue and how monumental his election is, I find myself so inspired by this man and hopeful for our country. It's a pretty amazing feeling! And I felt proud to be part of this country and part of the election process as I listened to two gracious men concede and accept victory. This pride reminds me how lucky we are to be Americans and how proud I am to have a husband serving this great country.

All this pride and hope reminds me that all things are possible. Which translates to my personal challenges as well. Today is a day of hope and promise.

on vacation...sort of

Well, Scooter took it upon himself to tell you about our little vacation. I noticed that Scooter didn't decide to share his gastronomical adventures with you. When we moved out of Schweinfurt, Scooter was a little disappointed because there wasn't trash in his back yard. Which meant less of a chance for him sneaking a tasty morsel from the ground, as he was able to do on our walks around the old housing area in Schweinfurt. Well, someone decided to make Scooter's day and dropped something into our back yard that was irresistable to a certain pug. It was so tasty that he didn't mind injesting a whole bunch of mulchy wood chips. Which have been making their way through him for the last several days! I think I saw the last of it on our walk this morning. But the first day we were at the hotel, we left him in the room for a little bit and returned to find it decorated in spots of puggy woody vomit! It was a little gross. And I felt a lot bad for him. He seems to be doing much better now and I plan to investigate that spot in our back yard as soon as we return.

So here I am on vacation. Initially, we thought Jerry was going to have to come for the week and he'd be staying in barracks. Which would have meant a week apart. And that would have been less than desirable given the fact that there will be a whole year spent apart in just a matter of weeks. When plans changed to allow for him to stay at a hotel and Scooter and I to accompany him, we were all pretty happy. But so far, it's a lot of hard work for Jerry and a lot of lonely for me. Jerry works long days and comes home exhausted. Last night he was asleep around 9:00. And I don't even get my night-time snuggling. The double bed is really two twin beds together, not uncommon in German hotels. Sometimes the beds come together pretty smoothly, but in this room there's a section of wood running through the middle of the bed....not good for getting all snuggly.

So what have I been doing with all this time? Interestingly, I've gone to the gym. Interesting because I haven't made it to the gym once since the move, despite all of the free time I've had. It felt really good, though I definitely felt pretty sore afterwards! I plan on going again at least a few more times this week and am looking forward to getting it back into my routine in general. I've also been walking Scooter a lot. Something that I haven't been doing much of since we gained a fenced in back yard! That's also felt good and I think I need to make time to do that even though we have the yard. Army Wives has also been occupying my time. I've watched several episodes in the last few days and just finished the first season. This was my mom's bright idea. I think that she may be crazy. I'm not sure why she thought a show about the trials of army life would be a good thing for someone to see whose husband is just about to deploy. The impending deployment already has me on an emotional roller coaster and this television show really tapped into that emotion and opened up the floodgates! At least there was no one here to witness the meltdown!

Last week, I ended up having two interviews at the PX. I was offered a job this morning. I'm pretty excited about it because I really have been needing something that not only will take up some time, but something that is mine. I'll be working in customer service, which I think is a great fit for me. While it's not my dream job, I think that I'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it. And it will put me in a position to meet more people and interact with people more regularly, both important things when Jerry deploys.

If Jerry gets off of work at a reasonable hour tonight, we're hoping to have dinner with our Schweinfurt friends at one of our favorite dining establishments, the place with the giant Schnitzel!

all tuckered out...and it's not even noon!

This week, Daddy Giant and Ma and I are all staying at a hotel! Yesterday we traveled to Schweinfurt, where we'll be staying for the week. Daddy Giant has work to do there and Ma and I are just going along for fun. As an experienced world traveler, I find myself a little bored by car travel:

So bored, in fact, that I had to shake things up a little bit by experimenting with some traveling positions outside of my bed:

I feel kinda bad for all you humans who can't bring your bed wherever you go. Here's my bed at the hotel (I have my own little corner):

When Ma and Daddy Giant go out, I get comfortable in a different place. They don't know about this, but as soon as I hear the door close, I hop out of my bed and right onto theirs! Sooooo comfy!

This morning we had to get up early to take Daddy Giant to work. Ma and Daddy Giant had breakfast at the hotel and I'm pretty sure I smelled bacon on them when they returned to the room. But did they bring me any?! No. They did take me in the car to drop daddy off. Short rides are much less boring. Then Ma took me on a long walk at the place we used to live. It was fun to pee and poo on familiar spots that I haven't seen for awhile. After our long walk, Ma went to the gym. I stayed in the car and took a nap. Then Ma had a few errands to run. I stayed in the car then too. I figured she could handle them on her own. Plus, I needed to sleep a little more.

Finally, we came back to the hotel and just as I was getting ready to crawl into my bed and take a nap, Ma took me back outside for a walk downtown. Even though we used to live in Schweinfurt, I had never been downtown. It's pretty cool! Here I am walking down the sidewalk:

There are some good things to smell here:

Here I am in front of a fountain:

Here I am in front of an old building with cool stairs:

And I think you know what I'm doing here:

Now I'm back at the hotel and as soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to take a nap!