Archive for November, 2009

Grateful Friday

November 28, 2009

1. Getting to spend Thanksgiving with Bryan, because last year being apart sucked.

2. Spending Thanksgiving day with my mom and brother and getting to see another brother too.

3. Seeing old friends and the liitle ones (well, not so little anymore:) I love.

4. No more sniffles.

5. GPS and google maps on the iPhone.

Thursday Thirteen

November 26, 2009

In honor of Thanksgiving today, thirteen things I am thankful for.

1. Bryan, my best friend. I’m not sure he truly know what he means to me and that is a shame on my part.

2. Jacey, the light of my life and the miracle we never thought would be. There isn’t a day that goes by that she can’t bring a smile to my face.

3. My family. They are who helped shape me to be the woman I am today and I am pretty proud of that woman.

4. The Air Force. Yes, it is a pain in my backside some days, but it has given us a really good and secure life.

5. My job. It was a blessing in disguise and has been an immensely important part of my life for the last 3 years.

6. Our church family, they are awesome.

Okay, I am going to sway off the serious here. Being serious ALL the time is just not ME.

7. My truck, proof that Bryan has kept me the spoiled brat that I always have been (not to mention, it is safe, secure and reliable:).

8. My laptop, my little connection to friends past, present and future.

9. My USAA debit card. Come on, how can you not be thankful for those things?! SO much easier than having to have cash or write checks.

10. Godiva truffles…I am drooling just sitting here thinking about them!

11. The heater and budget billing from Gulf Power. Otherwise, I would be a popsicle right now.

12. Oscar (for those not in the know, my lap band). He has helped me shed weight and gain the confidence (even if he is a grouch sometimes:).

Okay, back to serious.

13. God, enough said.

Lacey

and we are off..

November 25, 2009

No, I didn’t really write this at 0530 in the morning. Technology is awesome, isn’t it?!

By the time you read this, J and I will be on the road to San Antonio. The long LONG road…LOL! We’ll be back Sunday night, so everyone have a blessed Thanksgiving!!

Lacey

retraining.

November 23, 2009

Well, I guess since Bryan is already in Texas and well immersed into his first class, I ought to get this post written. It has only been sitting here in draft form since November 9th. I am such a slacker here lately.

September 28th is the day that changed (or will change, however you want to look at it) our Air Force lives forever. It is the day that we found out that my oncologist was deploying and then separating from the AF when she got back. Why does this matter you ask? Well, Bryan has wanted to retrain for years now and there was always something holding us back. Most recently, it was my medical team. I have a fantastic medical team here and we really didn’t want to jeopardize that. But, with her being my favorite and most important doctor, it was almost as if it was God’s way of saying go for it. Bryan hates being on the maintenance side of things with all the BS that goes on and I hate it because it trickles into our home life constantly. I know, there are no guarantees it will be any better on the ops side, but I really don’t see how it could possibly be any worse.

So, for the next few days we scoured the retraining availability list and job descriptions. We managed to narrow it down to 3 that sounded like the best fit (uav sensor operator, imagery analysis and space something or other) and on October 5th, he submitted his retraining eligibility packet. That came back the next day saying that he was eligible for all three, so now we had to pick one to apply for. UAV sensor operator is one of Bryan’s dream jobs and it is brand new to the AF so he would be getting in pretty much at ground level (the AFSC was just added in January 2009 and the first tech school class just began in August 2009). The next 2 weeks were spent getting all the required medical forms and such that were needed. On October 21st, we submitted the package and on October 26th he was approved and already had class dates! Umm..hello…LOL! When he submitted, it said they had 21 duty days to respond and everyone knows the AF motto is “hurry up and wait”. Not so, this time. Bryan was thrilled, me…I was in total *shock*.

So, now we begin the true journey. Bryan’s first class started at Lackland AFB on November 20th, he’ll be home for Christmas and then his 2nd and 3rd classes are back to back at Randolph AFB starting on January 14th. He’ll finish training in the latter half of March and then we’ll PCS for his 5 level training. The two choices are Holloman AFB, NM and Creech AFB, NV but our only option because of our Q coding (we are coded because of my leukemia) is Creech, so that we can get services at Nellis AFB/Las Vegas.

I am excited now, although these separations suck. I’ll be completely honest, I do not deal well with TDYs/deployments but, what can you do?! It is all a part of being a military family. I am not excited about the uniform change though…LOL! I love ABU’s and hate flight suits. Darn pajamas :). But, Bryan will look good in wings, he deserves them.

Change is all around!

In case you haven’t seen this on TV, this is what Bry will be doing. At the end of the commercial, he would be the guy in the chair on the right.

YouTube Preview Image

Lacey

Call the Nestle Crunch Hotline at 1-800-295-0051. When you are asked if you want to continue in English or Spanish, just wait quietly for about 10 seconds. Keep going and press 4, and it gets even better…. Keep trying if it’s busy.

Yes, I have done it personally and yes, I did get this from facebook :).

Lacey

Grateful Friday

November 20, 2009

1. Bryan made it to San Antonio safely and this retraining process is *officially* on its way.

2. Only 2 more days of work and then 5 days off.

3. New clothes (sssshhh, don’t tell Bryan:).

4. New hard drive is in, Windows 7 Pro is running beautifully, home wireless network is fixed and my primary applications are installed so I can at least function.

5. Life, stressful as it may be at times.

Lacey

Tuesday Tidbits

November 17, 2009
  • Today was a not so great day. Started off great, but let’s just say boiled eggs are no longer my friend. Headed to work, my boiled egg breakfast in hand. Started working and eating my egg which resulted in me not paying attention to my bite sizes or how well I was chewing. Stuck, big time. Severe pain was practically immediate and none of my normal methods for relieving the pain worked. Finally after trying to battle the pain and work for an hour, I gave up and came home. Experienced my second vomiting episode since being banded 15 months ago, this time, foam and all. Yuck. Managed to doze on the floor for about 30 minutes when the pain subsided a bit and then was rudely woken up by the severe pain returning. The pain finally subsided enough (mind you it was still pretty rough) for us to head up to the hospital for immunizations where I paced the floors until we got called back. Thankfully, 4.5 hours after the pain started, the food finally made its way through right before I had to get my shot. Maybe this was God’s way of giving me a wake up call, I dunno. I keep saying I need to get back on track and keep putting it off. I have no choice but to do liquids for a few days now, due to the irritation so I am going to do the 5 day pouch test while I am at it. Get this carb monster killed and get these last stinking 18 pounds off.
  • Today, Jacey and I both got our H1N1 vaccines and Jacey got her 2nd seasonal flu shot in her series. Now she just has to go back in 30 days for the 2nd H1N1 and she’ll be done for a year. I really had mixed feelings about the whole H1N1 vaccine. My oncologist recommended it but Bryan and I still weren’t 100% sure. We finally decided that for us the risk was greater to get the actual swine flu than to get the vaccine. Bryan leaves tomorrow, so if J or I got sick, we would be SOL and me being immunocompromised, who knows how it would affect me. Bryan is not eligible right now, but at least J and I will be protected. Bryan never gets anything (illness) anyway, he just always bring it home to me. Lucky me.
  • My hard drive comes in tomorrow and this one is still chugging along…YAY! If I disappear for a few days though, you know why.
  • We had our Relay For Life Team Captain Party last night and it went really well. Bryan resigned his online chair position (because of retraining) but it was picked up by another sub-committee member, so we still have a full committee roster. We don’t have another meeting until January and while I love relay, I am looking forward to the break. I just really have a lot on my plate right now and it is one less thing to stress about.
  • And, like I mentioned earlier, Bryan leaves TDY for his first class tomorrow. I hate watching him pack, even though this first TDY will be cake. He’ll be gone a week, we’ll see him for 4 days at Thanksgiving and then he will be home a week and a half later. Now the TDY in January, will suck. He’ll be gone 2 months since the 2 classes are back to back. Oh well, right?! I made it through 2 months last year and at least he is not deployed. I am thankful for that every day!
Lacey