knocking on death's door

Well this has been a loooooong week. All day monday I was in the hospital with a severe headache that I finally succumbed to after 2 weeks. I got an IV and some morphine, which was the best part, cause I finally got some relief. After that I got a CT Scan, which came back clear (no bleeds!) and a lumbar puncture, which was the worst part of the day. I actually had two medical students doing the procedure under the supervision of two doctors and a nurse and Kyle. Kyle actually had to leave the room for some water, because he thought he was going to pass out. I think it's safe to say that when we do decide to have kids, that I will be on my own during labor! The lumbar puncture came back clear, so no bleeds! I was sent home with hydro-codeine and anti-inflammatory. The next few days actually got worse. I couldn't even stand up I was in so much pain. I attempted to go to work on Thursday, but ended up pulling over and Kyle had to come get me.

I went to the doctor again yesterday and she said that I had a lot of swelling and redness in my nose and fluid in my ears. So she has me on some steroids for the inflammation and antibiotics for any infections. She wants to start simple to see if that is the problem and wants to check back up on me in a week. I've done a full day on the new meds, and I am already feeling better. The dark circles under my eyes are starting to fade and I do not look so pale. I was literally looking like I was knocking on death's door, and I certainly felt that way. The "edge" of the headache has subsided and I actually have some energy. I have been awake since 4 a.m. and I am not 100% sure what that is all about, but I have been resting a lot lately. My mom almost flew out here, and to be honest I almost let her! No one can take care of me as good as her, Kyle is a very, very close second. I am pretty pathetic when I am sick, and I think he gets annoyed! :) Thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!

Kyle is still doing well in school! His average in class is about a 99.6%, which is still amazing! I am very proud of him! He just started the hardest division and he is feeling a bit nervous about it, he thinks he might fail, but I know and anyone who knows him, knows that failure isn't an option for him! Just so he feels better, everyone say your prayers and keep your fingers crossed!

My mom had a bit of a scare a few weeks ago. She had a few scary moles on her and a breast cancer scare. Turns out everything is FINE! The moles were not benign and had to be removed, but it turns out the lump in her breast is benign! YAY! I am sure she is not happy with me for posting this but I DONT CARE!! I am so happy that she is going to be ok, I could cry! I was very afraid for awhile and wasn't willing to prepare for the worst. Besides my husband, my mom is the person I admire the most in the world, and I would have missed her terribly! Thank God everything is going to be ok! Prayers do get answered!

The uuuugly fish we were cacthing, a remora. They attach themselves to the underbelly of sharks and feed on their leftovers. ugh! yuck!

Florida Heaven!

We are finally settled in the house! We have all of our stuff put away and there was only a little damage to our furniture! Its so nice to sleep in our own king size bed!

Kyle is the only person in his class with a 100 average. Even though I think this makes all of his classmates made, and makes his instructors a little harder on him, he loves it! His graduation date is Jan 20th and reservations at Casa de Kinard are fillin' up fast! :)

I am working again, and so far my new store is good. A LOT busier than my last one, so I am still getting used to having so much more volume! I am selling Scentsy too, so let me know if you need anything! My favorite scent so far is CamuCamu!

We got an awesome opportunity to go out boating with our friends Jay and Jenn. Jay was Kyle's roommate in Alabama, and Jenn is his wife. They invited us to go out to Crab Island with them. Crab Island is just off Destin, a popular resort town just across the bay, and it is a little sand bar that is about waist deep and it has a little hamburger stand and an ice cream stand. People go out there in their boats and just drink beer and eat hot dogs and hamburgers and hang out! Then we decided to go a little deeper in the water to see if the guys could catch some fish. They caught a few Remoras (see pic), which is a suckerfish, who attach themselves to big mammals. They are uuuuugly fish! They are not good for eating, so we threw them back. I got a little toasty warm on the boat, so I decided to jump into the water, and everyone freaked out and wanted me out of the open water, because apparently there are things that can bite you out there....scary! We say some dolphins out in the water, but turns out, dolphins are hard to get pictures of, so you can't see them in the pretty water!I had a few too many Mojito's with Jennifer and wasn't feeling too hot the next day, so that wasn't helping my picture taking abilities!

I've decided that I am going to go for a master's degree in Emergency and Disaster Management, all I need to do now is finish my last few classes for my bachelors and on to the masters it is! I am pretty excited!

We have a spare room and a couch for whoever wants to visit! I think my mom and family are going to come for Thanksgiving, so I am so excited to see them, but the weather is always nice here!! hint, hint!

Whoop Whoop!

THANK YOU JESUS we finally are in our house! We got the keys yesterday, and now all we need is some furniture....so far things in the house are good, we have the kitties back, but they are not too sure what to think. 

All of our furniture comes tomorrow and I can finally go and buy some ketchup, mayo, and mustard!! The internet guy was just here and now we have super fast internet, which I am sooooo excited for!! Dish Network also coms tomorrow, now all we gotta do is get a washer and dryer and unpack! 

Day 22

Stiiiiiiiiilllll in a hotel. Day 22. I am probably going to freak out at any moment now. The carpet was replaced yesterday and I was told that it just needs to be cleaned. Hopefully we can be in on Monday. 

Kyle has gotten 100% on everyone of his tests. Even though this month has been expensive and stressful, I know that he really loves this material, which makes all the hassle worth it all. 

The Creepy Lizard Sighting Count is now at 8. yuck! 

Other than that, there isn't much to report on. I am in hiding so that perhaps I can save myself the cost of any more speeding tickets. Kyle said to me the other night as I was crying because of my lead foot "you know you could've gotten a new Coach purse for what you paid in speeding tickets?" He is 100% right, but I wanted to smack him for saying such blasphemous things! :)

All of our "household" goods are in Florida, in a storage warehouse. They are delivering it on Wednesday, so hopefully we have somewhere to put it!! 

Speedy Gonzalas!

Ok, well I had a not so great day yesterday. Well it started with trying to navigate my way to my first day at work, and I got a speeding ticket. First one in 5 years. I went to work and that actually turned out fine. Just a tiny two hour shift, then it was off the the biggest factory outlet mall I have ever seen with Jaime and Jenn. We had a good time. Jaime is having her first baby boy, so we got to look at purses and baby clothes all day! Fun stuff! We shopped and shopped and shopped. 

On the way home, I got pulled over AGAIN and got ANOTHER speeding ticket. I managed to make it back to the hotel before I actually broke down and started crying. Just seems like this chapter in my life has been going wrong in almost every possible way!

I woke up this morning deciding to "make my own miracle" like my mom tells me to do and I called the maintenance office to see what more they have to do to the house. They are doing something with the carpet and then they have to clean it. It would be a miracle if we got in there on friday, which I don't think we will, but hopefully we will be able to get out of here on Monday! 

What a busy few days. Yesterday was a little rough. I had my old manager from Starbucks called and told me that Starbucks was "moving towards my seperation". Apparently my original transfer failed. My old manager, my new manager and myself were all UNAWARE of this. When my new manager tried to enter me into her system, she couldn't find me, so she called Starbucks corporate and and they also couldn't find me. Basically I got lost in the system. According to Starbucks "laws" a employee cannot be AWOL like that for more than 3 days without approved leave or on vacation. So Starbucks corporate was ready to give me the boot. Both my old manager and my new manager stepped up though and got everything cleared up and I am going back to work on Monday.

Kyle and I help Jenn and Jay move into their house today. We're pooped! It was good to see them get settled! It made me jealous!! Hopefully we will be in our house soon! I keep praying and praying!! 

Kyle's truck still isn't ready. Hopefully by the end of next week. At least he has a rental car though so I don't have to share! 

All of my Starbucks buddies from my old store in Boise got laid off yesterday. My heart goes out to them and I wish them all nothing but the best. I love you all and I miss you and I promise that just because this door closed, doesn't mean another will open. 

Poor kitties...

Sad day yesterday. Pidgy, our little rambunctious cat, decided to sit in the window of our hotel room, and she was seen and we had to get rid of our kitties until we move (they are not allowed in the hotel). So Kyle and I were going to board them, but then I got all sad cause they would have been in a cage for 2 more weeks, so we called Jaime and Justin and they graciously let us use their spare room for a little bit. We were over at Jaime and Justin's for a few ours and Kyle was playing with their two little girls, and I couldn't get him to leave! It was kinda cute! 

On our way home we decided to stop by our will-be house to see if they had even started on the repairs....and they have! There was fresh paint, and the sand had been raked. (yes i said sand. Grass doesnt grow here, because well grass doesn't grow in sand) So I am hoping and praying that they will let us in there soon! 

Kyle and I drove out to Destin yesterday and I was noticing the whiteness of the sand. It looked like snow on the ground. Then I looked out into the ocean and saw this BEAUTIFUL turquoise waters in the middle of the bay and realized that there is this huge sand bar on the middle of the bay and all the boats park out there and its a huge paaaaarrrtay! How fun! There is a blow up water slide and tons of people around! 

Marine Forecast

Just to make you all jealous, here is the forecast for the Gulf Waters today:

GULF WATER TEMP

SURFACE:  81

BOTTOM:  73

BAY TEMP  78

15 days and counting...

Day 15 in a hotel. I have officially lost my mind and it has been expensive. Sad thing is, we have about 7 more days here, and we have to pay for it without being reimbursed! rar. 

 I actually have something to do this weekend, I am going to help Jenn and Jay move into their house! I am actually looking forward to hauling boxes! Jenn has a margarita machine and I told her to keep it easily accessible, and I will just drink and move, drink and move. 

Monday I am off on a roadtrip to Alabama to get Kyle's truck. We have had some major issues with the whole truck fiasco! For those of you who don't know, we had Kyle's truck shipped to him in Alabama, the driver forgot to lower the top rack of the shipping truck, and hit an overpass with Kyle's truck. They delivered it in Alabama, to a body shop, and I must say the owner of the body shop has been the sweetest, nicest man I have ever dealt with, I just want to give him a big hug! Anyways, there was extensive damage to the truck, that has taken about 3 weeks to fix. The company who shipped it, Coast to Coast Auto Shipping has been AWFUL to us! I do not recommend them to ANYONE. They wont ship Kyle's truck to us here in Florida, so I am going to go get it! Its not like I have anything else to do, so I am going to go buy a book on CD and hit the open road, again. Sugar Free RedBull, book on CD and driving the beast....3 things I just can't live without. 

Creepy Crawler Sightings: 3. I was standing outside the lobby of our hotel, on the phone with Kyle, and I look down and there is a lizard, just chillin' in the hot sun. Depending on how well you know me, you know that I don't particularly care for amphibians or anything that slithers, or has more than 4 legs. So you can imagine the sight of me trying to put a safe 10 ft distance between me and the lizard at a running pace. The "light rain showers" in Florida is the like the heaviest rain you've ever seen in Idaho, or even California for that matter. After it rains, all the frogs make their way to the side walk. uuuugh!!

My new Starbucks store is 26 miles away from where we live. It's funny, the further away you move from the West coast, the more sparse Starbucks stores become, which might be why none of them are closing over in these parts. I am not sure that the drive will be worth the means, but we will see. At this point I am not willing to give it up, because I am so bored! 

Kyle got another 100% on his test!! He came home, we ate some questionable Chinese food that my stomach is still unimpressed and reminding me of it, I made Kyle treat me to ice cream from the lobby, and then we watched Dexter.

Kyle was asleep by 9:30p.m. and I am in the lobby of the hotel, the only place where there is internet willing sleep to come, but I am totally caught up...humph...

On another note, it totally amazes me how much deodorant I use, and yet I STIL stink. I shower and 4 hours later, there it is again, the dreadful unladylike smell of body odor. I am half expecting the skin of my underarms to melt off from a combination of constant deodorant use and scrubbing in the shower. Is this too much info? 

Ketchup, Mustard, and Mayo

Rar...didn't get a good start to monday! I went to the housing office to beg my "housing counselor" for mercy and let me move into something bigger than 150sq. feet. It didn't work. She actually told me it would be about 2 more weeks! aaaaah! I told her that we were rapidly approaching the 10 maximum that the army will pay for our hotel, and all I got was an unsympathetic look and "there are 15 people ahead of you m'am" So I guess I better hunker down, hold on and pray for daylight.... 

I managed a mission with the cats today so that the housekeeper would clean our very dirty room (they haven't cleaned it all week due to our illegal cat situation). Gotta smuggle them out to the car disguised as a bundle of dirty laundry, drive around base long enough for housekeeping to clean, and just short of me going crazy because everyone is just pissed that we are on the car and they are making as much noise as possible, then smuggle them back in disguised as clean, unfolded laundry. 

I am so bored I could cry. Having a load of laundry to do is literally the highlight of my day. I go and walk around the commissary and the BX (on base walmart-type store) and dream of the day when I can stock my on base house with things like ketchup, mustard and mayo. I would like my readers to remind me of this one day when I am bitching about being too busy, or hating work or when I am attempting to remove the mustard from my silk duvet cover, because Kyle can't seem to eat on the bed without spilling (he thinks its charming, I on the other hand do not) 

Kyle and Pidge on the longest road trip of my life! 2700 miles which took 34 hours!

Still living in a hotel.

We are currently waiting to be placed in our on base house. The way that they do this is they don't make any changes to the houses (i.e. painting, replacing carpet, etc) until someone requests to be moved into that particular house. This process can take up to 30 days. Oy! In the meantime we are living in a very small hotel room, where our cats are illegal. Kyle likes to have downtime on the weekends, understandably, and by the time Sat and Sun come around, I am going stir crazy and want to go out and do something. I don't start work until July 1st, but I may have to go back early! In the meantime, I am trying to explore my new home a little bit and deal with some business. I have been feeling a little under the weather, but I am doing better. The scenery really is stunning, and I am hoping to get our camera soon so that I can post pictures and make you all jealous! 

Kyle started his school on Thursday and got a 100 on his first test on Friday! I am very proud of him, and knowing that he loves what he is doing makes all this hassle worth every minute! This school is 35 weeks, and after that, we will be assigned a permanent duty station and we will move again. Kyle said that I can fly and he will drive...I cannot decide if I should be insulted or just run with it!

Yes, I've started blogging...

Although I swore I wouldn't ever do it, I am blogging. I figured that it may be a good way to let everyone know what we are up to and maybe an outlet for me...so here we are. I hope that I don't bore you!!