Tomorrow Is Another Day...

Quivering Pile of Literary Mush

You know how it is when you have SO much to say, and it's all just waiting to come pouring out in one long stream of words that totally run together and no one can even understand?  But somewhere between your brain and your mouth everything gets all blocked up and jammed at the exit from your brain and you end up just kind of standing with your jaw hanging open and your eyes practically tearing up from the pain of not being able to form a coherent thought?  Like when the 3 Stooges all try to run through a door at once and end up squirming and gasping but all lodged firmly between the door jam and each other?

That's exactly how I feel about this damn trip and all of the pictures that I've been promising for days now.  I sit down with my computer in my lap and TiVo in full action, catching me up on all of the shows I've missed, but as soon as I try to pick the first picture or find the right introduction  I completely and totally freeze up.  I worry that I won't be able to make the past few weeks sound as incredible as they deserve to sound, that my pictures won't be able to convey the happiness I felt, that the post will grow to such massive proportions that y'all will get about halfway through it and then throw up your hands in despair at the complete and utter boredom that's washing over you in tidal waves.

(Side note:  That last line reminds me of an old episode of The Muppet Show with, I think, John Denver as the special guest.  He and Miss Piggy were reading some kind of cue cards and the running gag was that everytime they'd get to the end of one of John Denver's cards he would be saying something that was supposed to be a compliment to Miss Piggy but the way it was written on the card it came out as an insult.  Like, "I'm so happy to be here with you, I could throw up..." (pause for cue card change) "...my hands in delight!" and by the end of the skit Miss Piggy had gone off into a fit of screaming fury.  Or something like that... anyway, it was funny, and I love The Muppets, and that's about all I have to say about that.)

So, yeah, I promise that the pictures are coming this weekend, before they become about as relevant as a new Britney Spears album, and I apologize for all of the stupid posts I've been writing as filler.  Just count yourself lucky that I didn't write the one about how I may have lost my camera memory card, but somehow the key to my parents house that has been missing--for, oh, 5 months now?--suddenly showed up at the very top of my suitcase when I opened it the other night.  Mom, Dad, I think somewhere, at this very moment, the blue people are laughing very hard.

Well That Didn't Take Long

Just a few weeks ago--perhaps a month tops--I watched a delightful little documentary entitled, Supersize Me.  You may have heard of it?  I'd heard about it for ages and friends were constantly relating stories of how awful McDonald's food was for your body, and how, "You should really hear the story about the chicken nuggets."  So, of course it was added to the Netflix list and the day finally came when it arrived in my mailbox.

I was riveted by the show and even had to pause in the middle so that I could go work out, I was so disgusted by what I was seeing and hearing.  My favorite story to tell is on the additional scenes of the DVD.  Morgan Spurlock does an experiment comparing the natural breakdown of various McDonald's sandwiches and french fries with a cheeseburger and fries from a restaurant near his office that makes all of their food from scratch.  The unnamed restaurant food has all broken down into moldy piles of goop after about a week while the McDonald's sandwiches take anywhere from a few weeks to a little over a month to goopify.  The famous McDonald's french fries on the other hand... never changed in appearance AT ALL.  Eventually, after a few months, the robo-fries were thrown out on accident so we were left to wonder exactly how long they would have maintained their pristine appearance.  Totally squicked me out, wondering exactly how much work my poor body had been doing all of these years trying to digest and find any source of nutrients from these processed, completely unnatural foods.

I felt as though I'd undergone some kind of life changing epiphany.  When I drove past any fast food restaurants I'd curl my lips in self-congratulatory disgust and think proudly of the tuna sandwich on wheat bread or whole wheat pasta I had just ingested.  The smell of grease made me sick to my stomach and I reveled in the culinary joys of homemade hamburgers and healthy salads.  I was a new woman!

Yesterday I had to bring one of my troops to the hospital and I sat in the waiting room for four hours while she went through tests and procedures.  I had only had a Lean Cuisine meal for an early lunch and by 3 o'clock I was already daydreaming about what I would eat for dinner later.  By 4 o'clock I was ravenous, probably mostly out of boredom, but still, try telling that to my stomach!  Suddenly a smell wafted temptingly past my famished nose.  I turned to see what could possibly smell so absolutely, fantastically, illegally delicious as my mouth began to water and my stomach grumbled audibly.  As I watched the nurses dividing the food from the big brown bag of happiness it was all I could do to keep from casting myself at their feet and begging, pleading for just a morsel from their paper plates.

On the way home I made a quick stop for dinner.  I have never in all of my life tasted anything as divine as those two McDonald's cheeseburgers, french fries and chocolate shake.

And to my credit, I did not Supersize.

Adventures in Housing Continued

First of all, I'm so excited and proud of myself I could just about burst into tears!  You probably didn't even notice, but if you let your eyes travel on over to the sidebar on the rght there, where I greedily list the glorious items I'm currently lusting after, you may very well see pictures.  Pictures that will LINK YOU to the actual site of the item itself!  Not just the boring old text links of old, but actual real live pictures!  And I figured out how to make those pictures sit there in that side bar and be little links!!  I taught myself something!  And sure it mostly just required lots of copying and pasting, but I DID the copying and pasting myself and, in the words of our favorite Reality Show Hero, MADE IT WORK!!

So, don't you think that at least earns me that adorable little key chain?

Anyway, that was the main bit of excitement yesterday.  That and the fact that I didn't turn in my award package until about 15 minutes ago, though I really thought it turned out kind of decently.  Which of course means that it will be returned to me completely decimated, with a strict instruction to Rewrite at Once!  Why is that?  The stuff that I turn in that I think isn't half bad is always obliterated, and the stuff that I churn out in a matter of seconds is treated like rare paper gold.

But most exciting is that the house-buying process is now underway.  Soon I will be among the throng of Americans who are proud to call themselves "housepoor" and live in constant fear of foreclosure!  I can't even begin to tell you how thrilled that makes me. 

We put in our offer, it was counteroffered and we accepted and now once Colby is pre-approved for a loan (because he's my sugar-daddy for the time being) we'll be the owners of the skeleton of a house!  So, since I can't actually show you pretty pictures of "our house" I'll show you pictures of the model house in which we did the walk through.  And you can just pretend that I have this fabulous taste in furnishing and paint colors and be impressed by the nicely sized backyard.  I won't tell you that I plan on taking a load of paint chips into the model home and copying just about every color they slapped on those walls and that our yard is a bit more on the "minimalist" side than these photos would lead you to believe.  Damn, I guess I spilled the beans.  Anyway... proceed...

 
On the left is the exterior of the house, and just to confuse you, on the right is the color that the exterior will be, but it's actually a different model than the one we made our offer on.  In case you can't really make it out, or are color blind, it's a delightfully creamy yellow with white trim and a teal door and shutters.  Also, please note how close together the houses are--we plan on playing telephone with soupcans and string just as soon as we meet our next door neighbors.  I think they'll love us, don't you!

The view of the house from the GRAND FOYER (it's about 6 sq feet right there)  We opted against paying an additional FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS for the open railed stairway, instead choosing to spend our money on more critical items such as bamboo flooring and tile countertops, so just imagine all of those little slats closed up to make a half wall.  We are firm believers in facing our fears of claustrophobia head-on.  We also will probably rarely see the house from this vantage point, so who gives a crap.

Can I tell you how much I love this kitchen?  Here, let me tell you--I LOVE this kitchen!  That pantry back there?  Harry Potter would look at that pantry and say that was a fine piece of real estate!  Ours will look remarkably similar to this one, but rather than stainless steel we'll have black appliances.  Why have all of those beautiful, warm colors and then muck it up with stainless steel?  I am not understanding.

A pretty shitty picture of the dining area, as well as me, apparently doing my impression of a Jane Austen character.  I could have tried to figure out how to lighten this up, but I didn't, so instead we'll just call this "moody".  I'm sitting in the living room area, of which there are no good pictures, but just imagine a room with couches and a fireplace and you'll pretty much get the jist of it.  The windows to the right there are sliding glass doors out to our own personal Garden of Eden.  If the Garden of Eden were the size of a dog run with patchy grass and no apple trees.

I think God would have found this to be the perfect size for Eden if he'd been the one doing all of the mowing.  (It does go on for perhaps another 15 feet or so behind our illustrious photographer.)

Right, so, now we're going upstairs and it seems that we are VERY happy about that!  To give you some perspective, that's the railing you saw when we "came in" the front door which is to the left, out of sight of the picture, and the kitchen, dining room, and living room are basically all one big room to the right of the wall.  Behind me are the doors to the garage and the Jackson Pollack-esque downstairs bathroom.  You can't tell from here, but those walls look like they were painted with a toothbrush by a seizing orangutang.

This is a sort of loft area that's at the top of the stairs.  I'm apparently going to have to give Colby a lesson in photo taking since these are all kind of terrible, but unbeknownst to you there's another whole side of this room hidden out of sight!!  It's basically a big 3 sided 4th bedroom that they just didn't close off.  I like it very much.  I'm not going to bore you all to tears by showing you 3 more pictures of bedrooms and the laundry room, but I seriously, seriously love this bathtub in the next picture, so that you shall see.

I love how much light there is and how big it is and that NO ONE ELSE will have ever sat their big, dirty butt in it before me!  Heaven!  So, the sink is to the right, the glassed in shower is to the left, and the obscenely huge walk-in closet is beyond the shower.  It's a glorious bathroom.  Oh, and there's a toilet in there somewhere too.  I forget where...

And now... drumroll please... as I present to you: Our House In It's Current State!!!

It's a face only a mother could love.

So, anyway, that's the update on the house, and the second installment of trip pictures should be coming tomorrow.  Thanks for pretending to be interested, and I do hope you'll come by for a visit some day!  It should be about ready for guests in... oh, I don't know, a million years or so?  Anyway, I'm sure you'll be the first to know!

Foot Stomp. NO! Pout.

I think the world seriously wants me to go on vacation and stay on vacation.  Oh my God, is it ever MISERABLE trying to get back to work and life.  I just found out that I'm being put in for Company Grade Officer of the Quarter for my squadron.  Which is flattering, and also maybe even exciting until you considering the following points:

1)  I'm going to be in the Air Force for about 5 more months, so I really care not whether I get CGO of the Quarter or not.  A year ago the recognition may have been nice, but now, meh, whatever.

2)  I have to write my own package.  Today.  In the next 5 hours.  And I refuse to skip lunch to do this damn thing.

3)  There's no way my package is going to be competitive at the next level, so really I've already been chosen for my squadron so why waste my time working on a stupid package that no one will even read at the group?

4)  Also, the prize for this thrilling award?  A plaque.  An ugly plaque.  That I don't even want.  That will just get shoved to the back of a closet or buried under papers on my desk.  I mean really, could we take the money spent on the plaque and just get a Target giftcard or something?

Anyway, as per usual, I realize how very little my opinion counts, and also realize what a selfish weasel I'm acting like, and so I will scrounge together the various and sundry projects I've been working on and attempt to make them sound at least as important as risking my life by deploying to the desert as a Security Forces officer or saving the Air Force billions of dollars as a Contracting guy.  Hey, that promotion party I put together was CRITICAL to the mission success of this unit!!  What would the Air Force be without CAKE, I ask you?  What would be the POINT of it all!!

I also have a nail in my tire, which is super fun.  When my friend came to pick my car up from base to drive it to the airport for me on Sunday the front right tire was completely flat.  Welcome home!!  I took it to the hobby shop on base yesterday where I was told that I could get it patched for about 10 bucks, which is definitely in my budget.  But I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to get someone to actually do the patching bit for me.  When I pulled up, all of the garage doors were firmly closed, there was no one in sight, and so I sat parked in front of the building, staring blankly around the area, for about 3 minutes before driving away in confusion.  I'll be going elsewhere today.  To a place where hopefully there will be more detailed instructions as to how to get your tire repaired than a small brown and white placard stating helpfully, "Please honk before entering and leaving".  Um, yeah, thanks guys.

And in case you didn't notice, there are no pictures today.  That is because my camera was annoying the hell out of me last night, and in my annoyance I took out my barely used ONE GIG memory card and started getting pictures off of my old 256 whoziwhatzit one and in my concentration on being deeply offended and irritated by modern technology, paid not the slightest bit of attention to where I placed the ONE GIG memory card.  Did I mention that it's the ONE GIG card that I have mislaid?  The one that I JUST BOUGHT.  The one that I can put over a thousand pictures on and have barely even devirginized with 20 stupid pictures of my stupid face?  So... yeah... that sucks.  And the particularly irritating bit is that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it has to be within arms reach of the place that I was rooted to on the sofa ALL NIGHT, and yet it is nowhere to be found.  That sneaky, hiding bastard.

So, yeah.  Pictures tomorrow maybe?  Today I'm going to go concentrate on not beating my head against the wall and rending my garments in despair.  That should kill some time anyway.

Airplanes Are Giant Festering Pools of Germiness

And I have, quite possibly, the worst immune system known to man.

I'm home again and having spent the past 2 weeks living my life as a lady of leisure, I can say without hesitation that I am not one of these people who would be just so booooored and miiiiiiserable if they didn't work.  No indeed, I am perfectly content living my life with an early morning being a nine o'clock wake-up call, my urgent appointment of the day being a 4 o'clock meeting with Oprah, and frequent shopping trips and lunch dates to get me out of the house. 

However, I am not a woman of endless means, and I treasure my twice a month direct deposits from the Air Force that I will be receiving exactly eleven more times.  Not that I'm counting or anything. 

(But it just so happens that I can tell you off the top of my head that if I continue with my current rate of spenditure, I will be the most fashionably dressed homeless lady you ever did see.) 

(Which is why this weekend, while shopping at the uber-awesome Fashion Square in Arizona I passed up this bag and these shoes.  And the shoes were on SALE!)

A Mathematical Equation:

  + =

(And also--how bizarro is it that when I googled "heaven" to get that last image, the first picture that appeared was a woman's bikini clad vajay-jay?  Sigh.  What a world.)

Anyway, as per usual a photo post will be coming shortly, and will more than likely document my trip in much greater detail than you probably would ever care to hear.  With any luck I'll be able to get that up tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on how much time at work I'm looking to waste.  Just joking!!  I never post from work!  Or read blogs!  (Note to self: find way to work blogging into resume as that is where most of my work experience lies.)

Now, for serious, I do have quite a bit of catching up on "real life" to do, so I bid you a fond adieu for now, and it's back to the email inbox for me, lest Outlook collapse beneath the weight of 2 weeks worth of Weather Warnings and Your Mailbox Has Exceeded Its Size Limit messages.

The Great House Hunting Adventure

I'm here!  In Washington!  Where the high today will be 66 freaking degrees.  FARENHEIT! 

All I've ever heard about the Seattle area is how damp and rainy it is every damn day.  And I'm sure it is, but literally every day so far has been sunny, breezy, and in the 70s with beautiful blue skies and stunning views of Mt Rainier--or "the mountain" as I've been told to call it if I want to fit in with the locals.  Sure, probably the day I step foot in the state as a resident the skies will open up and I'll never have a good hair day again, but whatever Welcome-Wagon sent out this weather really knew what it was doing, because I am HOOKED.  I love this place with a passion and feel little frissons of horror when I think about going back to Arkansas.

In an attempt to prepare ourselves for my arrival here in a few months, we've gone ahead and started the house hunting process.  We started out wandering aimlessly around suburbs of Seattle murmuring about how apartments were so expensive and maybe we should think about a little townhouse instead.  From there we've stumbled into residential properties, real estate agents, and bumbling questions about escrow and pantries.  I distinctly remember the horrified conversations that Colby and I would have about the price that his roommate was paying for his house in Florida.  "250,000 dollars!!  That's outrageous!  What poor financial planning!  What a waste of money!!"  And now our eyes light up in hunger when we see a listing for a $270,000 1400 square foot house on a .05 acre plot with fencing that goes ALL THE WAY TO THE GROUND!!

We've actually already managed to find a place that we both love, that fits all of our house criteria (pantry?  check!  small backyard so that I won't have to worry about upkeep too much?  check!  ceilings that Colby can walk under and not crack his head open?  CHECK!) and is only slightly outside of the initial price range that we'd agreed on.  It's in a new development, so I'm drooling over the fact that I'll be able to choose paint colors, flooring, and countertops, and Colby really likes the windows.  He's not a difficult man to please.  We're going to continue looking on Friday just so we can see what else is out there, but what can I say, I dreamed about that house last night, and my stomach started doing little flips when we walked in the door.

It's funny though.  Everytime I start to feel like maybe I'm actually a grownup, something like this will come along and knock me back into reality.  As we trailed the realtor from house to house, grasping each other's hands, and looking around in awe, we both felt like little kids playing pretend.  Like any moment we were going to start shrinking down into little 3 foot versions of ourselves that flopped out of our shoes and trailed excess clothing from our bodies.  I find it so hard to believe that in just a few weeks we could be HOME OWNERS dealing with the headaches of mortgage, property tax, insurance, equity, and maintenance.

But as I stood in the kitchens of those houses and imagined where our furniture would go, began forming opinions about what I liked and didn't like, and looked out of the back door at the yard that my puppies could play in, it all felt so very right.  Now if we can just make it through the merging of our furniture I think we'll be golden.  That is, as long as Colby doesn't mind using the guest room closet for all of his clothes.

Why You Should Think Before You Speak

I really try to be a compassionate, caring friend.  I think it's incredibly important that my friends know that I'm always here for them when they need a shoulder to cry on or just need someone to listen, whether they're going through good times or bad.  I'm just super awesome like that.  Of course, I also realize that I need to make up for the times when I call them sobbing incoherently over some drama or another that has taken place at 2 o'clock in the morning--the time when all of the best dramas occur.

With that being said, it is always extremely important to self-edit and to think through what you're about to say from all angles, lest something you say be taken completely out of context.  Which you know it always is, and doesn't really help with the mature, caring image you are trying to project--and actually live up to.  Like say, for example, you tell a friend who is going through something of a rough patch at the moment:

"You know, it's totally okay if you want to dump on me.  I do it all the time and it really helps me feel better--I really don't mind!"

Anyway, at that point, said friend apparently \had his only laugh of the day, at my expense. 

But hey, like I said, I'm always there for my friends.

Postcards From the Sofa

Well, I suppose one way to get yourself a four-day weekend is to eat a leftover slice of pizza from Domino's on the night of your third day at home and spend the rest of the night violently ill in the loo.  I don't recommend it, actually.  I also don't think I'll be ordering from Domino's again anytime soon.

Anyway, it was a good weekend in which shopping, eating, and sleeping took place, and absolutely nothing with any productivity value was accomplished.  Which leaves me with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to pack for a two week trip with a weather variation of approximately 50-90 degrees, clean my apartment, do laundry, and take care of various other girly necessities.  I don't foresee leaving the borders of my couch or the bathroom (Two separate places--I don't actually have a couch in the bathroom, what do you think this is?  Bloomingdales?) anytime soon, so I'm down to Wednesday and Thursday.  Nothing quite like waiting until the last possible minute is there?  No worries, I'll just be up packing until 2 in the morning on Thursday.  As per usual.

So, in lieu of creativity, today I will bestow upon you some not very well thought out, scattered opinions on The Bell Jar (quick summary in that there link) which I am shamelessly stealing from an email I wrote only minutes ago and barely brushing over with my editorial wand.  A few of my friends and I have recently started up a long distance book club in which discussions take place over email and there is a sad lack of hors d'ouevres, however, I am hoping that it will help me branch out from my recent addiction to reading nothing but Sophie Kinsella, Marian Keyes, and Maeve Binchy.  All lovely books that I worship and adore in their own right, and even aspire to, but not what I like to call "brain food", if you know what I mean.  Every now and then a girl needs to read something that makes her think--and so I present to you the innerworkings of my brain in reference to Sylvia Plath's only novel, The Bell Jar:

Let me begin by saying--if you are a woman, and you have not yet read this book, hie thee to a Barnes and Noble tout suite and remedy the situation.  I have never read another book that felt more as though the author was sitting inside my brain and plucking out thoughts, experiences, and fears and translating them to the written word. 

There were two themes specifically that really stood out to me and hit home--two things that made me wish I had read this when I was quite a bit younger.  Esther's struggle with balancing her desire for a writing career and her desire for a relationship and how those seemingly "mismatched" wants spiraled her into a depression.

I think in this day and age there is just as much pressure on a woman to want a career over a relationship/family as there was in Esther's generation to want a family over a career.  I felt as though I could really identify with her struggles and her feelings of suffocation--just from the opposite end of the spectrum.  We live in a day and age when the first thing question out of everyone's mouth upon introduction is "what do you do".  Our identities seem to be so wrapped up in our jobs, just as Esther felt that her identity was supposed to be tied to being a wife and mother someday.  I think that there must be some way for people to find a middle ground--to understand that by giving women the right to choose that you're giving them the right to choose differently. I found it so interesting to see the internal struggle in the character that I felt was mirrored in the negative in my own self.  And to see how failing in having those desires that society presses on you can turn you against yourself--make you question your own dreams and spiral you downward into a feeling of hopelessness.

There were actually times when I had to put the book down and leave it for some time, because certain ways that Esther was thinking, or feelings that she was describing would hit so close to home.  The question was asked:  Do people in that state realize that they're thinking ways that they shouldn't, that their mental state is somehow "off".  I can only speak to depression, and I imagine that all mental diseases are different, but I feel like there's definitely a realization that something is very, very wrong with you, but you don't know how to make it better.  Or, beyond that, you don't see how it possibly could ever be better, so why even bother.  I think for Esther, and by extension I imagine Sylvia Plath, both knew that there was something terribly wrong--it's not possible to have those dark thoughts and not realize that you're wading into dangerous waters.  Esther was able to find the help that she needed to buoy herself back up, but it's like she said in the novel, the bell jar that she felt had suffocated her for so long had lifted, but there's always the fear that it will drop back down again.  I think today we're lucky enough to have much healthier ways to deal with this disease, and a much better understanding of it, but at the same time once you've been there, then there's always the shadow of the bell jar hanging over your head and you're never really quite sure when it will close over you again.  And the fear of not knowing if next time you'll be able to escape it again.

Random Snippets From My Tired, Tired Brain

I'm utterly wiped out.  The promotion ceremony went off today without a hitch.  Well, I lie--the wife showed up about 15 minutes late, but that hitch had nothing to do with me and I think I covered it pretty well.  Personally I think people were just happy to be out of the office and mingling for a little while, so the delay was probably pretty welcome.  I got lots of compliments and thank yous, and my boss gave me flowers.  Flowers spell success to me.  Regardless, I'm so glad that it's over and I can move onto our next event which will take place next week and require A LOT less effort on my part.

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Did you know that if you don't update your email address with the domain provider you're registered under that they will then send all of your "OH MY GOD RENEW YOUR DOMAIN NAME, LIKE, NOW!!!" emails to your old  email, and they will never reach you at your new address?  And that they will then cancel your account?  And that you will try to go to your site to read comments and get a page not found message instead?  And you're like, what the hell?  Where's my webpage?  I mean, you know you have a tendency to be flighty, but seriously, how do you LOSE YOUR WEBSITE???

Yeah, I didn't know either.  Oops!

So, I renewed it for another two years.  I think this is quickly becoming one of the most committed relationships of my life.

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There's a commercial for Sunmaid raisins where the little maiden of sun is animated and talks about how fab her raisins are.  That girl creeps me out beyond all belief.

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I'm so furious with the Air Force right now... well, with our specific MAJCOM (FYI: There are a bunch of MAJCOMS in the Air Force that deal with different aspects of our mission--training, mobility, materiel, etc)  Anyway, there are two MAJCOMS at my base, one of them has tomorrow off for the Labor Day weekend and one of them doesn't.  Guess which one I belong to.  This is a huge morale damper for our troops as half of the base will be off living the good life tomorrow, and we'll be at work as usual until 5 o'clock.  Totally infuriating.  Oh well, at least I'll have Monday off.

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I have another idea for a book, and I still haven't even been able to finish my first one.  That one is about halfway done, but I'm stuck in limbo because I still don't have Microsoft Office on my new hard drive.  I tried to sit down and write on paper, but it's too frustrating.  I just can't write as quickly as I can type and I lose my thoughts while I'm still stuck on a previous paragraph.  Writing in a notebook used to be the only way I could write, but now I guess I've been propelled into the technical age.

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I took one more step today in feeling as though I'm actually going through with this whole military separation thing.  I went to the front office of my apartment and explained my situation and they said just to be sure to give them 60 days notice before the day that I'll actually be moving out and they would prorate out the month of March.  I've also been doing some research in my widespread lieutenant mafia and it seems that if I can get my home of record changed to Colby's address, the Air Force will pay for my move.  Now the trick is figuring out how to get that changed...

(And shoutout to the lieutenant mafia too... you know who you are in this case!)

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In just over a week I'll be heading up to Washington to spend 2 weeks with Colby.  We've got tickets to see Wicked at the Paramount, a 3 day trip to Manzanita, Oregon, an Air Force ball to attend, a dinner train, and a trip down to Phoenix planned--not to mention the downtime and relaxation that I'm bound and determined to fit into the vacation.  To say that I'm excited is nowhere near an apt description of the emotion I feel when I think about noon next Friday.  Oh--and rollerskating.  We're definitely going rollerskating.