It's been awhile...

Since July 3rd, so it seems. I actually had to check my blog for my most recent (recent being a relative term) post. I really need to hold myself to better accountability with posting as frequently as I originally intended.

Work has been good lately, good by stressful. I previously mentioned that I would be working in the activities department of my building, and I've been loving it. It's hard work, and the department has alot of room for improvement and restructuring, and I'm excited to be faced with the oppurtunity to help set things on a good course during my remaining time in NJ.

Speaking of my remaining time in NJ, I'll be heading back to MS in 9 weeks! (9 weeks sounds better than 2+ months) and in November my love will be back home with me! Can't wait!!!

I'm looking forward to an excursion to NY this weekend for my good friend Michelle's 25th Birthday. Michelle and I have an interesting friendship to say the least; And by that I mean that we've only ever seen each other twice in person...at her wedding in 2009 and at my wedding in 2010.

That may sound crazy to some, but maybe not to a blog community. Where do I start?

A few years back I was dating this guy, we'll call him B. B and I were long distance and on one of his visits to see me in NJ, we decided to go visit his two friends Dan and David who live in NY (It was actually my birthday!). It was my first time meeting them in person (we played games online together for quite awhile at this point and knew each other very well as those things go..). Dan's fiance, Michelle, wasn't around though because she had headed back to their home in Boston earlier that day.

A few weeks (months?) later, I had a question about something and mentioned it to Dan, who recommended that I speak to Michelle. We got to talking, and soon became really good friends. Later on, I attended their wedding and met Michelle that day in person, which was wonderful. I remember that being a really wonderful time, and Michelle and Dan with their family and friends sure know how to party! (especially David, who convinced me to do upwards of 20 kamikaze shots with him- holy hangover).

Later, Dan and Michelle were able to come to my neck of the woods for my wedding reception to Mikey. I knew that having them there was an absolute must, especially because of how incredibly supportive Michelle was of my relationship with him from the beginning and how she was such a great collaborator when I needed help with my wedding details. (Thanks again Michelle!)

My wedding is the top shot, Michelle's is the bottom

Despite any distance though, Michelle and I speak almost daily and have a hell of alot of things in common. We have alot of the same idiosyncrosies, and she is one of my greatest confidants. I really value her friendship, and hope that through the years we remain as close as we are now.

Anyway, that was the last time we got to hang out. So this time, I'm making the treck to NY and we're going to hang out and spend some good quality time together, and neither one of us will be in a wedding gown :) I am SO excited and have been looking forward to this for months. I'll try and snap some pictures while I'm up there if I'm not too busy having fun!

One thing I will mention is that Michelle has her own from home business, and makes some really unique jewelry, among other things. Please check it out!

http://madebymichelle.etsy.com/

I'll post again soon :)

Also, when I reach ten followers I'll have a giveaway!

Where I've been

My last post about Harley was written from Wilmington, NC. I decided to take a somewhat impromptu vacation to go visit my uncle and aunt for a week or so. I ended up taking my younger brother and sister and while I won't bore you with too many details, it was a blast!

The day before we left, I had an accident with my droid incredible involving a glass of ice water, and thanks to my phone insurance and my mother's letting me steal my sister's upgraded I am now boasting the new white iphone from verizon...I love it, so far. (Hanging with friends anyone? Look me up: brittanynkl)

Going a week without cell phone interference (minus talking to my lovely hubby) was really nice, very relaxing. We hit the beach, went tubing, shopped, sight-saw, and got to spend alot of time with family which was really my favorite part. My uncle and aunt own a government landscaping company and dog training facility, respectively. We did some work down there to help them out because there are always people working around the property, 7 days a week...it's kind of fun in a crazy way!

We also were able to do some sdog safety demonstrations with my aunt and her dogs. She trains and shows dobermans in obedience...I love her dogs, especially taking them to the beach! It was a blast!

Anyway, Monday came and we had to come back to reality. Since we landed monday night, I've been working every day (at work right now!) and will be working until next weekend. I'll be picking up some hours in the activities department at my facility due to a recent personnel change, and I'm pretty excited about it. I had alot of geriatric care experience and training specifically for activites, and it will feel nice to feel like I'm making a difference again. I start that Tuesday.

Mostly since my vacation, this whole week I've been missing Mike like no other. It's a catch 22, I thought originally that I missed him the most when I had rough patches in my life, but then I realized that I miss him just as much when wonderful things happen and he can't be there to share them with me. I guess I just miss him so much I can't decide.

On a side note, he pointed out that we'll be at our halfway through deployment mark in about 2 weeks, and I cannot believe it! I hope that the second half passes as quickly as the first did. If that holds true, than I'll have my seabee home in my arms before the holidays, and there's nothing that I want more in the world than that.

Mike's birthday is coming up at the end of this month, and my old man will be 24. I think I'm more excited for his birthday than he is though, but that's okay. I already got him a few little presents and my mom got him a present the other day (I didn't tell her to...she just came home with one!) and I have a few more things up my sleeve...I just hope that he likes everything!

I think that's it for now, just wanted to post an update in an attempt to get back into the swing of things. I'll be posting something for Independence day tomorrow so keep tuned :)

Blog Giveaway

My friend Chantal (a fellow military wife) is having a neat giveaway on her blog, ending on June 30th...so check it out!

Ablogadaywhileyoureaway.blogspot.com

Harley

Last week was hell for me.

I really feel like that line in itself should sufficiently show how I feel, but I guess it wouldn't hurt to elaborate.

Last week I was at a really low point in my life, and extremely stressed out. I cried everyday for a week and a half, and feel like I might cry right now thinking about this. A series of events ultimately lead to my having to find a new home for my puppy Harley. Harley is the sweetest, smartest dog that I have ever met or had and it hurts alot still thinking that realistically I will never see her again.

Last week I was severely stressed out about a few things, the largest of which was trying to find a suitable home for Harley on very short notice to save her from the pound.

Originally my friends Dana and Jake, a recently married couple living in Washington State told me that they would take her, if I could get her out there to them. It was a very generous offer, and after much consideration and discussion with my aunt, who has alot of professional and personal experience with dogs, I decided that transporting her cross-country was not an option that I was comfortable with for the sake of her health and well being.

My mother saw my distress and posted on facebook about our situation, and her wonderful friend Stephanie helped to put me in contact with a few people who seemed genuinely interested, but ultimately all of whom did not pan out for one reason or the next.

Finally, as I was preparing to take her to NC and check her into a well renowned humane society that checks homes of potential pet parents and is no-kill, fate stepped in.

We went to petsmart to get her nails cleaned up and I asked the technician is she knew anybody that was interested in a puppy, and she did. The manager of the pet salon and I started to communicate, we set up a play date, and I decided that these were indeed the perfect owners for her.

The couples' names are Jake and Sarah, who live not too far from my mom. They have a 15 month old dog named Sooki who is also a female lab-pit mix, and they are very passionate about animals, and had been looking for a second dog. They take their dog camping, hiking, running, and their other dog is meticulously maintained.

They loved Harley, and she seemed to love them and fit into their home effortlessly, and I think that as heartbroken as I am for the time being, this ultimately was what is best for her. I don't think that even I could have given her the type of life that she deserves.

I guess what hurts me the most is that there's really no way to explain it to Harley. I know that she's happy, and Sarah and I have agreed to stay in contact, but I guess I might feel better if I could have sat her down and had a talk with her like I could have with a kid, instead of dropping her off and walking out of her life without ever saying goodbye.

I think I'm writing this all down because for the past week I've been trying so damn hard to not think about it, and hold it in, and that's not doing me very much good. Right now I'm tearing up a little bit (alot actually) and am going to write out exactly how I feel for myself to get it out, so that I can finally start to heal.

Dear Harley,

I love you. More than anything in the world I wish that I could just grab you up in my arms like when you were a baby and hug you and tell you that and have you understand. I know that scientifically speaking, you'll forget about me. I know that dogs don't have emotions like humans do, and that I'm making this harder than it needs to be for myself. I know that I'm being selfish.

When Mike left for deployment, you were the only one that I had. There were so many mornings when I didn't even want to get out of bed because I didn't see any point to it. I felt so damn bad about life and myself, and if it wasn't for loving you and caring for you, I don't know how I would have dealt with any of it. You were the only reason that I even got dressed some days. When I decided that going to NJ was the best thing for deployment, I never thought that I would have to give you up. I'm so sorry.

The only reason that I could let you go was because I knew that you would have a much better life with Sarah and Jake than I could ever provide for you. I took care of you the best that I could, and you taught me so much about responsibility and love. I'm going to think about you alot in the coming years, and miss you often. The only comfort I have is that I could give you a wonderful life that you deserve and even though it's not with me, I hope that you have the best life in the world. That's all I could want for you to thank you for pulling me out of the darkness when I felt like I had nobody else. I hope that's enough.

And no matter what, please never, ever forget how much I love you and always will.

Royal Icing- An addition

Hey guys, sorry about the delay on posting some pictures of my royal icing experimental flowers. My phone where the pictures were stored had an unfortunate encounter with a glass of ice water..haha. Below are the best of each flower that we made, minus the rose bud...which isn't impressive because I can't do it!

First and foremost, this is my rose....took a few tries, but I enjoy the final product
This is the 'primrose' I'm not entirely sure what they look like in real life lol

This is the apple blossom, I like the ruffled edges even though they were unintentional!

That's it for this post, as I'm going to be a bit busy today and tomorrow sorting out some things for an upcoming vacation and other things going on in my life. I'll post a longer blog of what I've been doing tomorrow. Have a great day all :)

Confessions of Royal Icing

When Mike deployed, I made the decision to set some goals for myself to pass the time. One such goal included to improve my cake decorating skills.

Last night I had one of my cake decorating classes. It was class 2 of the course, "Flowers & Cake Design" and we dealt with royal icing. For those that don't know anything about it, it's a sugar based icing that crusts and eventually completely hardens over time. Because it crusts so quickly, it's ideal for making flowers with specific details, and lifting them onto cakes immediately or at a later date. Sounds easy enough, right? Right?

Hardly! The flower designs that she taught us were indeed, simple enough but everyone did a good deal of struggling with some of them. I was sorely disappointed to learn that making a rose is alot harder than I had anticipated, and as much as it pains me to say this....I suck at it! Luckily, by the end of class I had nailed the other flowers, and even made one passable rose.

I'll add some photos later when my phone stops acting up! Have a good day everyone!

First Post

(Warning- the following is a bit non-sensical, and probably not grammatically correct, either..in other words, hang in there for some rambling at it's finest)

So after a few days of fussing with the design of this blog, I figured that I should actually ya know, post something. I originally intended this just to be a blog about my everyday life, sort of as a journal to myself..a creative playground if you will.

But then I thought that it would be a great idea to have an extra line of communication to my husband who's currently serving in Japan (As I'm sure anybody reading this would know).

So there we go, communication & fun...

So...

How on earth do I get started?

I figure that like for anything in my life, having structure is a better bet than having none. I have a few fun ideas about what to do here, like maybe some small giveaways, cool things I find online or elsewhere in the community, book reviews, features on other blogs/news articles, and general updates on a few small deployment-related goals that I have in mind.

I'll guess I'll start at the beginning with some introductions for those followers who don't know me IRL.

My name is Brittany. I'm 23 years old, and a navy wife. More specifically, I'm a HoneyBee. A HoneyBee is a cute nickname for the wife of a Seabee.

Now you might be asking, what in the hell is a Seabee? Good question. Seabee or "CB" stands for Construction Battalion. My husband of a little over 6 months, Mike, is a Seabee. These in their simplest definition are the boots-on-the-ground, hard working construction battalion that the Navy can proudly boast. They were a divison of the Navy founded in 1942 to assist in contruction efforts during WWII. They do alot of humanitarian work around the world, and while their numbers quietly diminish over the years since WWII, their hard work and dedication surely does not. (Mikey- tell me if I need to add more to this!)

To learn more about Seabees and their pride check out: www.seabeee.navy.mil

We're currently stationed in the Atlantic Seabee port in Gulfport, MS. Mike is deployed though, and I'm spending some time with family while waiting out deployment (is it over yet?!?!).

Besides that, I guess there's not a whole ton to put on here today, but boy does it feel good to get started! Keep tuned, next time I promise to post something of interest!