QUOTABLE QUOTES

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela
more famous quotes

Jingle Truck

I love finding cool pictures on my hubs computer from his deployments. I found this beauty from his tour in Afghanistan this past year. Look at this truck, how colorful and all the work that must have went into doing this. My hubs said all the trucks were like this. This was taken on the road to Delaram. I am glad that in all that dust and dirt some beauty showed it face.

Greg not happy about U-Haul policy

Remembering Cpl Porto

Those of you who have been mourning with A Little Pink in a World of Camo on the loss of her hero, here is a video that was sent to me this morning I would like to share. Please think of her and her family and send all your support.

Freedom Friday

To All our Troops, and their families.....


THANK YOU


See how simple that is??

OK, Not so much a Wordless Wednesday

Just got off the phone with the contractor and the realtor in regards to our home sale. As you all know (that have been reading my blog) we received an offer on our home, a great offer by the way and we are now under contract. Friday we had all our inspections and everything went well with the exception of a few minor things that are all easily correctable. Spoke to the contractor and he said that is should be no problem fixing all the stuff before closing and the realtor is waiting for the appraisal to be approved. As you all know in this market a lot of homes are not "worth" what they once were. Our home hopefully will not fall into one of the catagories. So looks like all is moving forward and we should be moved out in a few weeks. Thanks to everyone that had sent us great thoughts on this..we're almost there.

Wordless Wednesday

One of my husbands Marines, remember when you are tucked in comfortable, someone is sucking it up for us.

Quotable

Below is one of my favorite quotes..

"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
-- John Stuart Mill

Freedom Friday

There are never enough words to tell a family your sorry or to thank them for the sacrifice after the loss of their Hero. While we sleep in our comfortable beds, living our comfortable lives, it is provided to us by a group of men and women that are willing to sacrifice to keep us safe. Please take a moment to visit the blog below and give some comfort to a young wife/mother that has just had such a loss.

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WORDLESS WENDESDAY

To the brave men and women fighting in Afghanistan including our allies who wish to protect innocence from evil, "Happy St. Patricks Day" Hurry Home

IT'S OFFICIAL

Ok ... we are under contract. We are going to start getting all the inspections next week and hopefully be closed NLT the 15th of April. We will be moving into a short term lease apartment until we PCS in June but that will be ok since they allow our pets which is really important to us, to keep the family together through all the stress of moving and moving again. Hopefully everything will go smooth, we purchased this home on the internet from West Africa, can't imagine it will be as difficult as that was.
Ok well thanks for all the good vibes from everyone..it helped obviously!
Again THANKS
P.S. we got the 30 days!

For Those That Are Interested

So.....the offer was good..better than we anticipated. But of course with all good things comes a catch. The potential buyer would like us to be in escrow in TWO weeks. UGH..That means we would have to find a place to live, for only 2 1/2 months, with a dog and a cat and a whole house full of furnture in about 14 days. So obviously we countered with "how about you give us 30 days?". So we didn't hear back yet and really we don't want to this to be deal breaker. We are military folks, we can make this happen if we have too. So here I am up at 6 a.m. trying to figure out if the people are going to accept our counter and of course knowing that no matter how bad I stress it, it really won't change a thing. I have to trust that the universe is going to work this all out. Anyhow just wanted to update anyone that might be interested and tell you all thank you for sending all good vibes our way!

Update on Home Sale

So as promised by our realtor the traffic has picked up a bit in terms of potential buyers for our home since the weather has turned to a bit warmer . We have had two buyers this week. The first ones that came this week came back today and our realtor said that they were going to submit an offer to us on Monday. As you can imagine I am quite curious to see the offer. I hope it is a fair offer since we are not about entertaining anything less at this point in the game. We also had some buyers come out on Thursday as well. The realtor said that our house made their top 3 and they were going back to Vermont to think about it and will return in April with their decision. So all and all I say that is good news, two potential buyers and both interested. Keep your fingers crossed for us, hopefully this won't be too painful...lol.

Fredoom Friday

A few days ago my son made a video to honor the Marine Corps. My son is a kid that has his priorities straight. He knows the sacrifices our Countries bravest make everyday. He knows what it takes to keep our country safe, and he knows the good work done around the globe in other countries by these same young men and women. My son lived on 4 Continent's before he was 12 years old. It gave him a very unique perspective about this Country that too many have either never known or lost. We are so proud of our son, for the person he is and for his pride in what really matters. I hope you enjoy his video.

Thinking of Mom

I have been sitting here today, chatting with some great "virtual" friends. I call them virtual because we have never met. We talk on Facebook, Twitter and through our blogs. My husband deployed last April and came home as scheduled in Nov. Everyone knows those months in-between the leaving and getting home are incredibly stressful, emotionally draining. Even when things go as planned it is hard and when bumps in the road happen along the way it becomes even more stressful. Right before my hubs left this last time I decided to check in on my defunct Twitter account I never used, never really understood and decided to give it a chance. I can't even remember how it happened but I decided to search for the term, military wife. Well there were tons! So long story short, I met a lot of great folks in the first few weeks before hubs even left, and some of them literally kept me sane through the following 7 months. There is something comfortable about chatting with someone that "needs" nothing from me, who I can talk to with no fear of being asked a favor, "can you watch the kids?" , "can you pick me up to go to the commissary?" and all the other things friends ask when sometimes all you need is a, "how are you doing today?".
So this isn't really about that, this is about how I was thinking of my mother today. My mother who watched my dad go off on a ship for somewhere in Asia (as she would find out later it was Vietnam), not sure where but needed to go anyhow to be with his "buddies". I thought of my mom, knowing nothing and living in Philadelphia since she had 2 small children and wanted to live close to home while my dad was gone and her being utterly alone. How hard that would have been. No one to talk to, no one to share similar experiences with. How when I got up in the morning I had at my fingertips a whole network of people that were available to listen to me and to tell me when it was OK to feel bad and when to get over myself. She didn't have that.
I feel lucky for the people I have met, that know me somehow better than a lot of my "real" friends. I wish my mom would have had that.

NEW WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

OPINIONS

Opinions are great, everyone has one and most love to give them out. Twitter is awesome for getting and giving opinions. What I learned on Twitter is that you quickly find out who you will continue to allow in your twitterverse and who you just have to click that convenient "block" button.
Now I admit most of my friends on Twitter are military folk in one capacity or other. A wife, a mother, a brat, and even some active duty folks. Most people think I hang around with a lot of "like minded" people and the even more annoying comment is we are all just "drones" that think alike, walk alike, talk alike...well we are all exactly the same. Nothing could be further from the truth.
My friends on Twitter all have very unique opinions and most are not afraid at all to "tweet" them. Sometimes we don't agree and that is fine. What makes me stay friends with these people is the simple matter of "respect". We can disagree and we can talk about why we disagree but we also "respect" the fact that we disagree about somethings and leave it at that.
What I try to do is remember perspective. Everyone has their own, your perspective is yours but mine is still different. We all view the world from our own experiences, and see it through our own unique lenses.
Sometimes we get so transfixed on our own point of view that we refuse to see another. And seeing someone elses point of view doesn't mean you change your own, it means you are respecting that person enough to try to see things through their "lenses".
Recently a topic some of us disagreed on really made me think about this. I will not talk about what we disagreed on because quite honestly I am over it and I think I am pretty sure we all are sticking to our guns on our different opinions. Sometimes you just have to let things go when there is no where left to go on a subject. I would never tell these friends they were "wrong" about their opinions, because they aren't. How can that be? Doesn't that mean if they aren't wrong than I must be? No..it means from their experiences and perspective what they think is exactly right and from my experience and perspective I am exactly right..and somewhere in the middle of all this .... that is our common ground..based on mutual respect for one another and our view point. At least that is how I see it.
But to get to the point of my rambling....I really like that me and my friends can so steadfastly disagree on something and find a way to respect one another and move on...these friends understand something fundamental about one another..that no matter how much something may divide us...we are bound by something stronger than our individual opinions.

Freedom Friday

WORDLESS WENDESDAY

Random Thoughts

Well this has been a pretty eventful week....NOT. I just haven't been too motivated as of late and last night my hubs went to my blog and said, "What? No new blog?" Apparently he enjoys reading my blog..tee hee hee. Well this past weekend we went to a little get away planned by all the 1stSgt's to see the SgtMaj off to his new duty station. It was nice and we had a really good time, sometimes you really forget how funny a group of Marines can be. I enjoyed sitting around with the wives hearing some of the "funnier" things that happened during their last deployment.
So besides that not too much going on. The house selling seems to be going S_L_O_W. Our realtor called and said due to the weather the traffic has been slow, and I agree with her so maybe once the weather warms up things will pick up.
I think we are all a bit in denial about the move or just too tired to think about it. We have been looking at some short term lease apartments in 29 Palms and I have to say we found a really nice, yet expensive one we will consider. The website said that the waiting list is 3-6 months. One thing that has me a bit nuts is how they are now grouping Jr. Enlisted in with Sr. Enlisted, and not for the reasons one may think. I think it is unfair based strictly on the housing allowance difference. How an E-4 can live in a house that an E-8 also lives in is not fair because our BAH is higher, but like I tell my son, life is not always fair. Regardless, when my hubs was an E-4 the last thing he would have wanted is to live near and E-8. Talk about never having any "down - time."
I sure will miss our house, wish we could pick it up and just sit it down at our new duty station.