Rainy Morning in Texas

Good Morning!

Today I woke up to a loud thunderstorm.  I got to go into work early, but I didn't get to sleep in that much.  My poor Beagle was terrified from the storm, and the only way to calm her down was to put her under the covers with me.  She was shaking like a leaf.

Right now, I'm planning a company picnic for work.  It's the biggest event I have ever been in charge of.  I am nervous about planning such a large scale production for so many people (almost 1,000) but it is exciting to think of the final product.  We have finalized the food order and are about to lock in a great facility to run the event. I really do think I would make a great event planner one day. 

Event planner, photographer, knitter.  That's not too eclectic, is it?  Maybe I'll just be a modern day Martha Stewart. Entertaining, gardening, cooking and baking... living a creative life.

New Post

It's May 2013.... I forgot about this blog.  I was living life.  Life's good. I have a new job now!  (It's still in the same organization, but it's a new job in a new office)  I also have a new dog, I got her at the animal shelter.  I have to say, shelter dogs are the best pets there are.  I have had the opportunity to see her change and become part of our family over the past 9 months.

In the time since I last posted... so much has happened.  I am so much happier with my life, my family is happy, we are hard at work building our little life.  I bought a spinning wheel and learned how to use it.  Now it's one of my favorite hobbies.  Yes, some may think it's rather grandma-ish, but I say it's a cool hobby, it makes me more unique than I already was, and it makes me a character.  Like... "that's Joanna, the knitting, spinning, photography loving dog owner."  Last week, I went rock climbing, and I thought it would be so cool to start it as a hobby, but "knitting, spinning, photography loving rock climber" is just getting a little too eclectic and ... weird.

But maybe I am weird.  And that's cool.

I have started taking photography classes, and I'm about to invest in a new camera lens I've had my eyes on for a few months.  I'm going to get it before I go on my vacation in a few months.  Soon I'm going to get into Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop to start perfecting my photographs. I'm really looking forward to it.  Although I'm unsure about this whole Creative Cloud thing that Adobe is going to do.  $50 per month is a real bargain for the entire Creative Suite, but am I going to be loving this hobby in a year?  The $50 price is only good if you commit for a year.  That's $600 total.  Will I use $600 worth of the Creative Suite?  That is the question.  I would use Lightroom and Photoshop.  I could use Muse and make a website.  The website could have knitting stuff on it... or photography.  I could use Illustrator... who knows.

Also, I'm scheduled for two photo shoots this summer, which is really exciting.  I really enjoy modeling, even petite women make great models!  And these upcoming shoots are themed, which makes them even more fun.

I think it would be interesting to write some posts about my hobbies... what I'm making, for whom I'm making it, my craft room set up, what I'm photographing.

Well, I'm off to live life again.  Who knows when I'll be back? But I'm sure I'll have something exciting to tell you about my adventures.

Hello Again!

Howdy,

I'm back in the USA!  How exciting is that?  It's really great to get to go home after work, to get weekends off, and to take a shower in my bathroom and not have to wear shower shoes!  I also love having my dog, Scout, around to play with.  We also recently adopted a beagle named Lady.  She is a sweetheart and even though she is sick with a bad chest cold she caught at the shelter, she is getting more energy every day.

I love that I get to go home everyday to my beautiful house, and I love all the gorgeous furniture that Curtis and I bought to put in it.  We bought a beautiful leather sofa and loveseat, an entertainment center, these awesome end tables and coffee table that look like trunks, we bought a formal dining room set and a china cabinet, and we bought a gorgeous canopy bed, dresser, chest, and bedside tables.  Now we just have to look for a breakfast room table, until then we eat all our meals in the formal dining room.  We also got a great new TV. Before, we put the little 27" TV in the entertainment unit that was built for a 64" TV and it looked a little silly.  But now we have something that is a little more proportional.

I bought a couple of Blu-Rays when i got the TV, because even though I had a Blu-Ray player (a gift from Dad), I never had any Blu-Rays.  So my first ever Blu-Ray movie was "Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows" and it was so crazy good!  I mean, I thought I could reach out and touch the actors!  I now must buy all my favorites in Blu-Ray.  Also, I need to get a 3D Blu Ray player and 3D Blu Rays to go with the TV and my awesome 3D glasses.  I need to go get the super collector's edition of Gone With the Wind on Blu-Ray... it would be SO GOOD.

I got my office organized last weekend and now it is the number one spot in the house for reading the mail or the newspaper, or people watching.  Curtis was so sweet as to give me the front study (the actual office in the house) for my office/sewing/knitting room.  (He really just wants a back bedroom to be his super secret man cave) I am setting it up with my computer and sewing machine at the desk, and the two armchairs at the window make my knitting area.  There is a little more room in the corner and I intend to buy a dress form for sewing.  My goal is to make it a beautiful space conducive to creating and also to possibly having a crafting business (which is a lot easier thanks to the great credit card reader I bought that comes with a cash register app for my iPad).  Speaking of iDevices, I am so ready to get an iMac... I love my MacBook Pro and I know the iMac will just be wonderful in my office and make some of my favorite activities so easy (hello, video games and photo editing!)  I am trying to hold off until Apple maybe releases some new cool updated products in the fall???  That would be great.  Especially if I could get an iPhone 5 in the fall.

Well, now I am watching the end of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and I thought it was great!  My favorite part was the Queen's corgis!  I love corgis.  My brother's favorite part was Rowan Atkinson.  He was really funny, but he is no corgi!

So long for now!

Happy 2012

Hello everyone!  I haven't posted in almost 3 months, that is horrible!  Well, I now live in Kuwait.  I am not in Iraq anymore, so things are a lot safer.  There is no "excitement" anymore yay!  I got paid a little less due to not being in a really dangerous place, but then in December I got promoted!  So now I am a 1st Lieutenant.  Add that to my anniversary raise and the Jan. 1 raise and I'm a happy camper.

Speaking of money, my husband and I have made it our goal this year to get out of debt completely!  We managed to get it to under $12,000 (down from $52,000) by the end of 2011 and we will have it all paid off by the time we go on our R&R trip to Hawaii this spring.

Today is a frigidly cold day in Kuwait.  You would think that with the fact that it gets as hot as 140 degrees F in the summer, that it certainly can't get very cold in the winter.  Well, you would be wrong.  It is 45 degrees F out here today and the wind is terrible.  At least 8-10 mph.  Today will be a long time spent at work (yes, Saturdays are not free days when you're deployed... and Sundays off are rare for officers.)

I am very excited and happy to be able to say that this is the year that I go home!  And we will really go home too, to the house that we bought together.  Also, if you weren't aware, now that I am in Kuwait, I live on the same camp as my husband, so we see each other every day, but we don't live together.  It's frustrating but I have to admit it is much better than being totally separated.

Off to do more exciting things, talk to you later!

Fall is Here

Hello everyone!  I'm still here, safe and doing well in Iraq.  Hope everyone back home is healthy and happy.  It has started raining here, which is a huge inconvenience.  The sand turns to mud very quickly.  On the bright side, I just ran my first range the other day, and it went fairly well.  Also, my dear husband convoyed across Iraq AGAIN just to see me for our anniversary.  Isn't that sweet?  I think I got a winner when I married him.  Tomorrow morning is going to be early for me.  Hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful fall weather!

Can't wait to see you all again soon.

Waiting.

This past week I finished my Spur Ride.  If you don't know what it is, Google it or something.  Anyways, I proved myself to this battalion, so I get the privilege of wearing spurs for the rest of my time in the Army.  I'm pretty sore but otherwise I'm okay.

I have been out here in this sandy desert for 79 days.  I'm pretty tired of it.  It's so... hot, sandy, dirty, annoying, lonely out here.  My husband called me yesterday and true to him, we only talked for 12 minutes.  I wish he would just talk to me for an hour like we do at home.  Just talk about nothing.  Anything.  I miss him so much.

I finally got iTunes 10.4 yesterday and got the ability to download my past purchases from "THE CLOUD" ... it's a pretty cool feature, I mean I paid for the songs, I should be able to have them right?  Looks like since 2006 or 2007, I have bought 400 songs from iTunes.  Sounds like a lot but I'm sure there are many out there who have much more.  Also a lot of them were free from iTunes or Starbucks or something.

I can't wait to have another Starbucks and Shipley's donuts.  Nommm.  Send my husband out on a Sunday morning to get them for us to eat at home.  Sounds amazing.

Awesome Post

I have an awesome, wonderful thing to post.  I do not know the details.  So if you don't know me, I'm in the Army, and I'm in Iraq right now.  My husband is in the Army, and he's in Iraq right now too, but we aren't together.  I just saw a Facebook post from his squadron, and it said "Starting on x date, our mailing address is changing to ..." and then lo and behold, there was typed out MY ADDRESS.  Or, my base's address at least.  So I guess if his mail is coming here, then he should be too!

What an awesome day, I think I'm going to go do an awesome dance and then take an awesome nap.

Freaking awesome!!!!!