Its like a roller coaster ride

So a lot had occur ed in the past week to say the least. So much, that i don't even have time to write about it all but it all comes down to this. We, as a family will not be coming home in May anymore. We had a situation(plus one or two) and had to change plans. Its actually been a week of ups and downs that I was starting to get motion sickness from! Instead as our tiny family of 3 we will be going on our very first "official" vacation. We've always considered our vacations to be the 2 weeks we come home, twice a year. Basically there is a lot of stress that comes with these trips as we have to fit in my family and both of chases parents since they are divorced and it just makes things incredibly cramped. We haven't seen most of our friends since October of '07. Some people we haven't seen since long before that, because we just don't have time to fit friends AND family.


To save ourselves the fighting with family (and each other) we will be going to Florida in late June. Chase and I are both excited about this, because as I said we've never had a vacation with just us! We are planning to take Morghan to Magic Kingdom and Seaworld in Orlando. Then in Tampa we will visit the Zoo, as it was ranked in the 'Top 5 Zoo's for Children' in one of my parent magazines. Of course, you can't go to Florida without the beach! There are other things I want to do there, but they just aren't activities we can do with Morghan because she is too young. I've wanted to swim with manatees since I was in elementary school. For year I wanted to be a marine biologist, just so I could take care of them and keep them from extinction. We decided that when we get the chance, just Chase and I will take a weekend trip to the area and do that. (its only 5 hours from here)

As for Texas, my parents couldn't change their vacation so they are going to fly Morghan and I home for 4-5 days. Not sure what all will go on but I look forward to it. I was worried Chase would be angry with the thought but was actually supportive. In the past he's been a little 'jealous' of trips home without him, but i've always said I'm sure his parents would do the same if he talked to them. They could even come out here to visit, though neither of our families have done that since Aug-Sept 2007. Especially now as we probably wont be home anytime in the near future, maybe not even for the rest of 2009.

Chase should be coming back home on the 28th now (3 days sooner), but he isn't 100% sure on this. As soon as he gets back we are going to the beach the following weekend, so that should be fun. As for now I will continue my daily struggle with Morghan to keep the house clean. I swear as soon as I vacuum and dust there are blocks and babies all over the room! My goal is that since Tuesday is my first weekday off in a while I'm going to do some massive spring cleaning/organizing. Perhaps packing up things as a "pre-emptive strike" should the possibility of moving arise (this being the military and all). I went and bought some large plastic containers for winter clothes and all the extra blankets, bedding, etc that's in the closets with NO ROOM! This house is so small, I cant wait until we finally have our own because that house will have HUGE closets!

Half way there... or is it half way to go?

After months of physical therapy my therapist is sending me to and Orthopaedic surgeon for further assessment of my knee. Back in November I fell and injured my knee, the next day I fell again and hurt the same knee. For days I dealt with some pretty moderate swelling and pain. Eventaully I went to see the dr. as squatting down was EXTREMELY painful let alone difficult and I was experiencing popping in my knee along with my knee also going weak while walking. I finally got in to see a physical therapist and we did x-rays which only revealed the there was nothing wrong with the bones. Being that I was still in pain almost a month after the incidents she decided to go through with some exercises thinking perhaps I just had a pretty bad bruise with the possibility of a tear in the meniscus. The meniscus is a rubbery disc that cushions the knee and keeps you steady while balancing your weight evenly across. In early February I did my follow up appointment which really didnt go as well as it could, at no fault other than my own. I had been avoiding certain activities and positions that were uncomfortable and painful. She still had concern for a tear but was also considering plica syndrome briefly. So for the next month I was to do new exercises and do all the things I had been avoiding so that I could let her know things such as does twisting hurt, does it hurt to go up or down the stairs etc.
During the past months I also went through things such as 4 weeks of Phonophoresis and 1 week Ionotphoresis. After all is said and done we did one last test. I stood on my right foot (right knee was injured) and closed my eyes. I was not able to maintain this position for more than 3 seconds. On my left I held it for 30 seconds. As where I was slightly amused at my inability to perform such a simple task, she was not. After more poking around on my knee she told me she feels as though she's exhausted all options in physical therapy and wants me to move on to the next specialist. Based on what is discovered on the MRI we will discuss my options in arthroscopic surgery or even cortisone injections. Although neither of those appeal to me in anyway.


I'm at the half-way point in Chase's deployment. Although last night i was feeling so overwhelmed with everything I my thoughts we more in the "glass half empty" stage. We found out he is not going back to Iraq this year. This puts a dent in my plans to return to school, something I've been wanting to do for a looong time.

In all my absentminded-ness I completely forgot that Morghan's school would be closed for Good Friday and the Monday following Easter, thus forgot to ask off of work. I was able to work out Mondays schedule but unfortunately Friday I will have to miss.

Also with all this recession news we finally learned that we have 120 days to increase revenue and decrease labor costs or we will be shutting our doors. This is a hard hit because we have been trying so hard to have our voices heard and until the department head actually joined our meetings absolutely NOTHING was being accomplished. I've had the girls writing down all their ideas whenever something comes to mind that way we can address everything at our next meeting. There are a lot of ideas out there that my supervisor, and hers and his need to be open to. Now had Chase been scheduled to go overseas this would not be an issue for me to as concerned about as I would be leaving anyway around that time to move home and start school. However, at the risk of losing my job being rather high I will now begin the process of locating a new job on base. Hopefully, this will yield a positive outcome.

We still haven't made the judgement call, as to whether or not we will be coming home for a visit late May. We desperately want to, we just aren't sure we will be able to. We feel pressured by family to come home(especially from his parents), but no one seems to fully understand the financial obligation it causes.

In the meantime, I'm setting myself up to get sick. I've been running myself so hard with nothing to support my body. I get an average 5 hours of interrupted sleep a night, and my nutrition has been seriously lacking. Although I'm able to provide Morghan with all she needs I just find myself uninterested in food. Breakfast has become rare, lunch most commonly cosists of a soup or sald and dinner maybe 3 times a week. One would think with being on the eliptical twice a day I'd wear myself down enough to sleep through the night. Chase is upset with me for this, but I can't blame him. I just need to figure out how to get rid of all this stress.

Long time no see...

So its been a while since I've posted anything on here. Mostly I've just been trying to keep myself busy. Since Chase left, I haven't had a decent night sleep YET! Most nights I'm up till 12am-1am and I'm not sure how I manage that. When Chase is here I'm usually so exhausted I fall asleep on the couch at 730 or I'm in bed by 10pm. Morghan is handling him being away pretty well. She gets to talk to him almost every night before she goes to bed, it will be interesting to see her reaction when he returns home in May. Gosh that sounds so far away... :(

::MORGHAN::

She is rather creative these days, constantly making up the words to songs. Mostly she makes up words to the song "Fare Jacques". One minute its about cleaning the kitchen and 10 minutes later its about a snowman and Santa clause. She absolutely loves to sing and I wish I could sing along, unfortunately I haven't got a clue what songs she sings and that in turn frustrates her. She gets angry when I don't sing the right words. Perhaps one day I should take her in early and hang out and listen to the songs they sing at school.

She's becoming rather stubborn lately. She's always been her mother's child but lately is crazy. I used to be able to "threaten" her with time out, etc and she would stop being bad. Not any more. Now I get to 3 and she's just staring at me, so some things have had to change. I don't like punishing her but she needs to learn not to be rude and misbehave. Its my fault for spoiling her I suppose, but hopefully its not too late!!

Her new favorite phrases/words:

"Mommy, you know what?"
"uhm, because..."
"oh my! That is craaaazy!"

::STRESS::

I'm still struggling with the hospital over a bill. Basically when Morghan was born (2 1/2 years ago) they billed my insurance under my SSN instead of Chase's so the claim was denied. I just found out about it in October of last year when I received a FINAL NOTICE although I had never received an initial notice. The hospital re-sent the claim to insurance under Chase's SSN. Now I had called and spoke to someone twice and wrote a letter to the hospital trying to get an idea on the status. NO ONE KNEW ANYTHING! After we filed our taxes last month I learned that, surprise, it again has been denied since it had been over 12 months. The way I learned is that my state taxes had been seized by the gov't to pay the hospital bill. THIS PISSED ME OFF TO NO END! I now have spoke to a lawyer to get my money back as I am not to be held responsible because the hospital staff doesn't know how to their job. I also have to have them fix any/all damage to my credit score/report they have caused.

Chase is supposedly going back to Iraq this summer, the only issue is trying to figure out when exactly he would ship out. Being in Yuma right now he hardly has time to talk to anyone in his shop back here in SC. I'm not really upset about Iraq, I definitely prefer it over 12 months in Korea though! It does however cause a ripple in our plans for the future so we are considering options. There are so many things to consider and not a lot of time to plan, especially if he leaves in July! Hopefully I can get word of something soon so I can figure out what to do next!