The Olympics!

Is anyone else as excited as I am about the Olympics starting tonight?

I have a long history of love for the Olympic games, starting precisely 20 years ago.  It was then that I cheered on my favorite gymnasts Shannon Miller and Dominique Dawes at the Barcelona games.  I was 8 years old and living in Atlanta then, which had already gotten the bid for the 1996 games.  My mom bought me a little t-shirt with the Olympic rings on it that I wore proudly.  I may even still own that shirt.

And, oh, the 1996 games.  It still amazes me that I just lived in the right place at the right time.  Instead of taking a vacation that summer, we went to the Games!  My 12th birthday was the beginning of that summer, and I asked my mom to decorate my cake with the Olympic rings.  I got her to copy them perfectly, too--every over and under of interlocking was meticulously inspected by me to make sure they were right.  She even made black icing for that one ring, which is a feat in and of itself.  I can now spot phony rings from a mile away.

My mom also found us a way to volunteer our way into those games, due to our Girl Scout connection.  I got to volunteer at tennis, archery, and cycling.  The events we went to with tickets were gymnastics, women's basketball, the gold medal baseball game (RIP, Olympic baseball), and equestrian.  Some of my family from Florida came into town to join in the fun as well.  I remember getting up bright and early one morning and heading downtown to watch the men's marathoners run by, too!

Atlanta's mascot Izzy still remains my favorite!

Then after those Olympics were over, we went to the Paralympics!  Table tennis, volleyball, and have you ever seen someone swim with no legs?  I have, and they were way faster than I am.  I think the best part about the Paralympics was that we got to attend the closing ceremony.  I have very fond memories of the summer of 1996.

A phoenix named Blaze was the mascot of the 1996 Paralympics.
Perfect fit for both Atlanta and the paralympic athletes.

As for now, I had to explain to B how much I love the Olympics.  You would think he might have known that already, but in actuality, he was deployed during the last two Olympics.  That means the Games helped me cope with the crazy Navy lifestyle.  The Beijing ones fell right around the halfway mark of his first deployment, and the 2010 Winter Olympics started the day he left.  I went over to a friend's house to watch the opening ceremonies and was so caught up in the Games for a bit that I forgot to be sad about his leaving until two weeks later.  (Yeah, that is how to kick a deployment's butt!)

In case you were wondering about those funky London mascots . . .

So, what about you?  Are you excited for the Olympics or just indifferent?  My only bummer is that I won't be able to watch the Opening Ceremony tonight, as I was invited for a fun night out with friends (and no baby!) to see my friend perform in a musical.  I guess I'll catch it later, but starting tomorrow, my bum will be glued to the couch soaking in all of the amazing achievements of the best athletes in the world!

the start of our military farewell

Last week I got what will hopefully be the last "military surprise" dumped on me.  In the grand scheme of things, it's really not a big deal at all, but it has changed some plans around.

B put in his official resignation letter with the Navy last week.  We knew this was coming; we planned on this.  However, when he submitted it, he was told that he has to get out in August.  We have been telling everyone November 2012 for the past year or so.  I know it's only a matter of months, but it was still a bit of a surprise.  He even asked to be extended a few more months, and the powers that be weren't having it.

Discharging from the military is simultaneously frightening, liberating, the most natural thing in the world, and apparently the most unnatural thing around this base.  The base we are currently at seems to have two types of people: those who just joined the military (currently in A-school or flight school), and those who are only a few years from retirement (currently teaching/commanding A-school and flight school).  For the record, B works at a command with a ton of civilians, and it's not A-school or flight school.  I've met very few people in that mid-range level, but I love it when I find them.  It usually happens around here that when I tell people, "He's getting out," they respond, "He's retiring?"  At our last base, I watched oodles of men and women separate from the service, and no one batted an eye because they knew how much it sucks to be on a ship.  I guess here they're still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed?

B and I have gone back and forth about him joining the Reserves, and after a talk with an O-6 from the aviation world who discouraged it for submarine officers, I think we both agreed that we will be fine without those headaches.  (In case you're wondering, B has a degree in electrical engineering and can also do nuclear engineering thanks to the Navy.)  When I first brought up the Reserves, B told me I should join it.  I'll keep that in my back pocket if times get rough--I think I'd make a good Reservist!

We purposely planned to have our first child while on this shore tour.  The timing worked out right, he's home all but 3 predictable days a month, the pre-natal visits and birth are free, and we were ready.  I'm glad that our plan is panning out, but the fact that we will have a child adds a bit of worry to the date bump-up.  B doesn't want to start a new job until October, so I'm trying to factor in the cost of insurance to our 2012 budget.  If it was just the two of us, we'd probably just go without.  It's not looking very cheap right now, but hopefully we'll get some answers when he goes to his Transition Assistance class on base.

You may have noticed that I rarely post about the military on my blog.  I started this whole thing to pass some time while he was deployed last year, but everything went rather swimmingly so there wasn't too much to vent about.  Plus, we'd already been through it before (with me as a girlfriend), and it was ten times worse.  I purposely never branded this thing as a "milspouse" blog, since I've known that B wouldn't be career military since the moment I met him.  I also realize that I will have spent just as much time out on my own in civilian land (post-college) as I have under the protective cocoon of the Navy.  That's about three years with each.  That fact won't stop me from missing the amazing perks we get around these parts, namely the commissary, free healthcare, and a free gym.

One thing I realized I really won't miss are the military traditions.  I didn't grow up in a military town, I don't have any close family who made a career of it (except my grandfather, but he died before I was born), I didn't know the difference between officer and enlisted until meeting B, and frankly, B just isn't into the traditions, so I guess I'm not either.  He wouldn't even take me to the military ball once we got married (we went to one in Virginia when we were dating, and it was pretty lame so I don't blame him).  I've only seen B dolled up in his dress whites once in our entire 5-year relationship.  I'll still have a soft spot for submarines, especially women on subs, but that will probably be all I take with me.

Oh, and this great picture of him with the Blue Angels from yesterday morning:

B is in khakis and black jacket on the right.

Since this post is semi-appropriate for the upcoming Veterans Day, feel free to see some thoughts and research on the semantics of that word (and whether it applies to B and other active-duty submariners) from a post I did last year.

While I'm ready to tackle the civilian world, I'm still wary about the next place we live possibly being our "forever" home.  But more on that later!

 

a pier-less homecoming

Yesterday morning, I awoke and immediately took to the computer to start tracking flights. He had started his day-long "tour of airports" while I was still out enjoying the Ghent Summer Bar Crawl (and regretting that final shot).  When I awoke, I found that B had landed on time in Munich, then landed his connection in Frankfurt. As I was walking to mass, he was boarding his trans-continental flight to D.C.

I made my preparations after I got back.

It seems so simple, but I was more than excited to have 2 towels hanging in the bathroom!

At the last FRG meeting, I won a "homecoming prep kit" -- I didn't know then that I would be need it so soon:

B and I are not the most festive people in the world, so this "patriotic bunting" is quite out of place for us.

Of course I had to decorate our front door:

Let's take a closer look at that:

I am by no means an artist.  Or even an elementary school teacher.

Around 10pm or so, I headed over to the Norfolk airport to anxiously await his arrival.  Since I wouldn't be getting a flower from him like you get on the pier, I headed to the Dollar Tree (before 6pm; it was Sunday after all!) and got some balloons for him instead.  And I tied them to a bottle of Gatorade to weigh them down, because balloon weights are just a waste of money.

Retired sailors are everywhere in Norfolk, and they're all super-friendly.  The lovely wife took my picture!

 This sign was right next to me.  Yea!

And now for the man of the hour!

4 flights, 28 sleepless hours, over 100 pounds of luggage, no more duty days ever(!), and 2 sissy balloons

Leaving the airport around midnight, and showing him that I'd gotten better at one-arm photography

And before you think everything is just sunshine, rainbows, and a second honeymoon, let's remember there was a reason he was sent home early instead of coming on the boat.  He dumped all 4 bags onto the living room floor when we got in last night, and started wading through it to find a clean uniform he could wear into squadron today (and his LT bars, which he got freakin' 9 months ago but never tacked on).  Then we spent the entire morning at the Personal Property Office, setting up our move and begging our landlord to extend our lease another 10 days.  Quite romantic, indeed.

The room looks slightly better now, but only thanks to the gabillion loads of laundry I've been doing.

We may not have gotten the "romance" of the pier (or him in his Whites!) this time, but I sure am glad to have him home!!

adventures in Indian cooking

My husband B doesn't really like to play favorites.  No favorite singer, no favorite book, not even a favorite hooded sweatshirt.  But one thing I have picked up on is his extreme liking for Chicken Tikka Masala.  He discovered this dish when he was studying abroad in London during college, and his passion for it never left.  When I visited him this May on a port call in Scotland, he preferred Chicken Tikka to Haggis 3-1.  When I mentioned taking the feat of making his beloved dish on my own, my one Indian friend (wow, I've really only ever had one?!) told me to just go buy some at an Indian restaurant and pretend I made it.  She's probably right, but I'm too stubborn and frugal for any of that tomfoolery.  So last night, with him still deployed, I decided to attempt it.

Well, actually the whole process of attempting it started a few days back when I was driving all over town to find the ingredients for it.  I guess this was a good reason to finally buy coriander.  I found most of the components at my regular grocery (plain yogurt, anyone?), but the Garam Masala spice mix eluded me.  I was already out in town, so I dialed up Goog-411 (yes I live in the dark ages and am quite content without an iPhone and its accompanying invoice) and found a place called Taj Bazar on the Boulevard (what isn't on the Boulevard in this area??).  Score!  I even found some naan, so we could get the full experience here.

 My carbo-holic self could eat this stuff all day!

I decided to use a recipe featured on The Pioneer Woman's cooking blog.  I love the pictures of each step -- so great for an amateur chef like me.  I obviously did not need 6 servings, so luckily for me, this recipe was also posted at the PW's recipe-sharing community Tasty Kitchen.  And Tasty Kitchen has a nifty converter feature, so you don't even have to do any math!

Or so I thought, anyway.  The water for the rice isn’t listed on the ingredients so I had to do the math for that, along with the Garam Masala spice and some other items.  Check out my hasty fractions to figure out the water for 4 servings of rice:

 I took AP Calc for this?

Also, I would like to say that this recipe's difficulty was grossly underestimated -- it was by no means "easy"!  I haven’t been cooking for very long, and this is probably one of the most ambitious recipes I’ve tried.  Since you have 3 things going on – broiler, rice, and stovetop, I really wouldn’t call it easy.  I will say that this was my first time ever using B's rice cooker, and I'm completely SOLD.  Throwing all the ingredients in this puppy and flipping a switch?  Now that's easy!  The rest of it . . . well, notsomuch.

In the past year or so, I've discovered that I have a pretty nasty intolerance to garlic (it makes me nauseous), so I had to skip that step.  That was probably a giant mistake, due to the moisture that garlic can add.  Maybe I should've just added more butter or something in its absence.  But again, amateur chef over here.  Basically what happened was that my pan was too dry when I put in the spice mix and it kicked back at me and my sinuses, sending me into a wicked coughing fit and smoking up my little apartment.  I had invited a friend over to be part of my cooking adventure, and she was on the phone discussing wedding plans with her future mother-in-law during all this culinary commotion.  I was pretty concerned my smoke alarm would go off, but I was able to curb it by immediately grabbing the tomatoes and throwing them in (thank God I’d already opened the can, time was of the essence here!). Next time I make it, I’ll do tomatoes first, then spice and let it simmer.  Garlic problem = solved.  (I hope.)


My finished product didn’t come out in that nice orange color from the picture – it was more like a sludgy toilet brown. It might’ve had to do with how dark my Garam Masala was to begin with?  It’s sort of a deep red/brown.

 You don't even know how happy my apartment is that this does not contain curry.

Overall, it tasted decent, but a bit too spicy for my friend and I, so we chopped up a fresh tomato and threw it in and that helped a bit.  And thanks to the fabulous naan, we ate this with our fingers like real Indians!  Well, for about three minutes anyway, then we switched to forks.

I will be making this again, but with a few tweaks.  Hopefully next time I’ll get it right and not burn the place down in the process.  B and I had discussed having this for his "first night back" homecoming meal, but I think I'll be breaking it to him gently that he's getting tortellini instead.

he's singing this song for you

This past week, I got to do something amazing.  And not only did I get to do this amazing thing once, I got to do it AGAIN the next day.  Yes, I had the chance see and to hear the angelic voice of Michael Bublé in concert not once, but TWICE.

NOTE: This post may have some "spoilers" - so if you have tickets to his show and want to be surprised, check back later to read my review!

Basically, I entered a contest to win good seats online sponsored by Nordstrom, and to up my chances I entered for both Norfolk and Richmond.  Well, holy smokes, I won the Richmond tickets!  My friend Charlene and I had already bought "cheap seats" (Row Z, of course) tickets to the Norfolk one, which pretty much sold out two days after they went on sale.  Here are both of my tickets, and note the $0.00 above that FLR2 on the top one:

I will forever KICK MYSELF for not bringing my camera to the Richmond night.  We were in the 11th row!  Amazingly close.  I'm pretty sure that the last time I was that close at a concert, I was getting pushed around in a mosh pit by my fellow high school sophomores.  When we got to our floor seats, there was a middle-aged couple sitting next to us, and the man asked my friend Monica and I if we were gonna hoot and holler and scream when MB came on stage.  "No," I replied, "but I just might throw my panties."  His wife got quite a kick out of one of my best-timed one-liners ever.  (Note:  I did NOT actually throw my panties, but I probably could have.)

The concert started out with this FABULOUS opening act called Naturally 7.  I've seen a lot of a capella music performances in my day, but this blew them all out of the water.  They mimicked instruments flawlessly (even an electric guitar), and they pretended like they were playing them, even going so far as giving the vocal percussionist his own drum stool.  My favorite was their "bassist" - his name is Hops, and he is super skinny with a ridiculously deep voice.  He's on the far right in this shot:

As for Mr. Bublé's set . . . whew.  Well first, let me go back in time and tell you about when I started listening to this boy sing.  I was in my last semester of college, the year was 2006, and I was taking a class called Voice for the Non-Major.  It was a great class for "recreational" singers like myself.  And in that class, the professor would often play a song or two by a famous or sorta-famous singer, and then he'd have us discuss what makes that singer good and what sets them apart.  One day, he played some MB, I believe it was his cover of "Moondance" (which ended up being me and B's first dance at our wedding, btw), and what I really recall from the discussion is the fact that you can hear his PASSION through his voice.  I know that all my past choir teachers had emphasized emotion, but I never realized just how well it could be done until that day.

And that passion that I heard through the speakers of the class stereo came through ten-fold at a concert with him there live.  I guess if you were to classify him, he's a jazz singer, and he had all those fun jazz moves and a great band.  He slid down his sloped stage, he twirled his microphone, and he gave witty commentary in an accent that I can only describe as "Old Hollywood."

  And his stage looked pretty cool, too.

 One thing I really like about MB and his concerts (or "parties" as he tells the audience to think of them) is the multi-generational appeal.  Gals my age were there with their mothers, ladies could take their husbands, and at the Richmond show, a 20-something guy two rows in front of us even proposed to his girlfriend during an adorable love song called "Everything."  You just don't get that at a Hannah Montana concert, folks.

I wonder if my husband would look that good in a suit with a skinny tie?

 As any of his fans can tell you, MB just seems like that boy-next-door kind of likable guy.  I loved the excitement he has for his band.  He goes through and introduces each member to us, saying insanely funny things about each guy that are hopefully untrue for the most part.  And for being such good sports, MB gives us a chance to just hear what they can do.  Here he is enjoying a solo from his trumpeter:

A real crowd-pleasing part of the evening is when he comes out into the audience, accompanied by our new friends Naturally 7 (they back him on one of the tracks on his Crazy Love album).  He involves the entire audience in the singing of his biggest hit "Home" - a song with which I have had quite the interesting relationship.  That song got a lot of radio play during that spring of 2006 time that I first heard of MB.  During that class discussion, I remember one of my classmates explaining that he also sings the song "Home" (which I had already heard but hadn't cared for much).  I still didn't like it--it wasn't in his jazz style, it was too sappy for me, I couldn't dance to it, and I really didn't relate. 

Fast forward two years to Summer of 2008, and there I am in my car, crying to this song, thinking about my Navy boyfriend who had been deployed for three months with many more to go.  I ended up including it on my "Deployment 2008" mix CD, and have appreciated the song so much since.  I'm sure the Norfolk concert was chock-full of current and former Navy spouses, and I hope Michael and his band know just how much that song has probably meant to every single one of us.  It was definitely a more emotional experience in Norfolk than Richmond.

 Me and Charlene, both wives of deployed submariners!

For those of you who think MB will be singing you to sleep every night as your future husband, I have some bad news.  He's actually engaged to this Argentinian bombshell.  Oh well, maybe Hops is single for ya.

Each night, Michael Bublé sang his pipes off for two glorious hours, and we're all left wondering how he can even squeak a word out the next day.  And how could listening to his silky-smooth, clear, and passionate voice be anything less than awe-inspiring?  I think my personal highlight is how he ended the night - his un-miked voice, nothing else, filling the entire arena.  It'll give ya chills, folks.  So nice I loved it twice!

And even though he dropped an F-bomb (or two), he's still a class act to me.

nine months

 As of today, July the 3rd, B and I have been married 9 months.  Enough time to make and pop out a baby, and if I were like my friend the Dadmeister, that baby would've been born yesterday.  But alas, we are not parents yet, we are not expecting to be parents yet, and we are not even on the same continent to perform the prerequisite activities it takes to become parents yet.  I kinda doubt B even realizes that today is nine months, nor does he probably care.  The only date he has ever wanted to celebrate of our entire relationship is our wedding date.  I tried to make up an anniversary date when we were dating (it was in February), but he never really was into it even though it would've given him a good excuse to skip Valentine's Day (which he's not much into either).  So the next 'relationship length of time' celebration will be October 3rd.  And it better be awesome.
 


p.s. No, I've never seen that movie. But I do like me some Hugh Grant.

sky bar

This past Saturday night was a celebration.  A wardroom wives' (and future wives') get-together to celebrate a certain passage of time.  After eating dinner at Catch 31 and drinking wine on the beach under the watchful eye of the King Neptune, our fearless leaders had schmoozed and flirted their way into getting us access to the ever-exclusive Sky Bar.  For the most part, this place is members-only, but it's also open to Hilton guests, since it's on their 21st floor.  But I think that hotel is one of the most expensive on the boardwalk, so no one I know has ever stayed there.  It's a rooftop bar, which sounds cool in theory, but at 10pm, you can't see the ocean below anyway.  It was dark, there were lit-up pools serving as a barrier to the side railing, and there were something akin to beds (check the picture I stole from their Facebook page).  And a couch thing we sat on and quickly realized the pretty white fabric was really just a large towel slip-cover.  Rough hotel towel fabric.  Not even the plushy terry-cloth kind.  You wouldn't even be able to watch a sunset up there, considering that we're staring east into the Atlantic.

Now what type of people would pay $200 a year to frequent a bar with only two types of wine (including a disgustingly strong red), ridiculously slow waitresses dressed like they were about to take the court at Wimbledon, and pools that no one even put their feet in?  If you guessed slightly creepy old men, you are correct.  The wonky character brigade was actually the most entertaining aspect of this ostentatious place.  There was one guy--who is definitely a regular--walking around in a white boat captain's hat with various patches on it.  Kind of odd bar attire.  Then there was another guy who kept walking by our little towel-bench and counting us - pointing as he did like he was making sure all the kids are back on the bus after the class trip to the zoo.  He did this no less than three times throughout the night.  To take our focus off the creepsters, we decided to find which female patron had the shortest dress.  We found some close competition, but we decided upon a winner.  I don't think this girl could've bent over or even sat down in that thing.  And unfortunately (or probably fortunately?), I didn't have a camera.

Well, I'm  pretty sure that is my last foray into pretentious bars for a while.  The experience reminded me how glad I am that I don't have to play that single person's game any longer.  All image, no substance.  Actually, I never really had to play that game with B, so thank God for that.  But if you wanna play that game (or want a front row seat to watch it) and are of the double-X chromosome persuasion, I hear it's free for ladies on certain Thursday nights.  As for me, I'll stick to my neighborhood watering holes.

wham bam family gram

One of the most common question us submariners' wives (and fiancées and girlfriends) get asked is how we communicate with our men.  It usually goes something like this: "Can he call you from the boat?"  "Will he get letters in the mail?"  "Does he have internet?"  "What about email?"

These questions have various answers depending on what his sub is doing.  Which is generally a mystery even to us wives, but we do know when they're on mission or off or in port or not.  At best, he's in port and has access to all those modern forms of communications (snail mail sent to the boat's address gets delivered in a port).  At second best, he can send an email.  Sometimes it makes it through the ocean, sometimes not.  It's definitely not quick, and there have been quite a few emails that either he or I sent that were "lost at sea."  And then there's the worst form of communication, something I compare to blowing bubbles toward a brick wall and hoping a few of them make it to the other side: the FAMILY GRAM.

Back in the day before email, Family Grams were the only way a wife could tell her husband what was happening.  She filled out a form with no more than 50 words and either dropped it off or mailed it to someone.  Then her message was combined with other wives' messages into a larger notice that was then sent to the boat.  As for now, in this 'laptop for every child' era, we email our 50-word, all capital letters family gram message to a certain email address.  I sometimes refer to it as a "screaming tweet," but luckily it is a bit longer.  Yes, it probably gets read and screened.  This is a one-way communication--the boys can't send anything while on certain missions--so it's kind of like waving to your actor-friend on stage who can't quite acknowledge you (lest he breaks character) but hopefully hears you.  And yes, sometimes the boys never even receive them.  Sigh.

However, I will say that during the previous mission during my husband's current deployment, he may not have received all my family grams, but he did indeed  receive the most important ones.  Yes my friends, that is how he FOUND OUT HIS ORDERS!  Which is effing ridiculous, in my opinion.  But verbal orders are supposed to come from the CO - who in this case wasn't receiving anything not mission-specific.  And it was smack-dab in the middle of this rather lengthy mission that verbal orders were starting to be handed out.  So I took it upon myself to call the detailer multiple times, leaving a message including every form of communication to find me . . . and that resulted in . . . absolutely ZILCH.  No call, no email, no carrier pigeon, nada.  Why yes, I am still bitter, since you asked.

So then, enter our CO's wife, who is not only a rockstar of epic proportions, but also a saint.  And she has a contact at squadron.  Praise the Lord for connections.  She filled me in on staying in Norfolk, and I sent my "What, Norfolk again?!  I was hoping for Hawaii!" family gram to the husband.  Which he apparently received.  And then a week and a half later, my angelic CO's wife called me back and told me we'd been changed to Pensacola.  Pensacola!  I could live with that!  Back to north Florida, nice white beaches, possible Southern accents, even a new time zone.  I believe the call about this came on April 19.  April 20th, 2010, just happened to be the day the giant BP Oil Spill in the Gulf started.  I didn't mention that in my family gram about our orders change--gotta stay positive for the boys, right?  And yes, he received this one as well.  The Family Gram Fairy was on my side.

One positive I will give to family grams is that it makes life easier.  Any Navy spouse can tell you about how she obsesses over checking her email when her sweetheart is at sea.  Every time we log on, we get our hopes up, and then usually get let down.  But when we know it's not coming, we don't worry about it.  I don't forget about my husband; I just know that all is well.  And I think a lot of sub gals like to pretend that our proverbial "Navy Wife" badge is perhaps slightly bigger because of our lack of communication with the boys.  In each military community, there's a sense of pride--especially for the "who has it roughest" title.  And when the boat is gone, the wives have to defend their title with the other wives.

To that I'll say I thank God every day he's not in the Army.  I'll take my family grams over a year-long deployment to the sandbox any day.  I don't need a badge that big.

all blogs need a first post

Hello world.  Since it's my first post, I suppose I should introduce myself to the blogosphere-at-large.

I'm Cat.  My initials are C.W.  There's a low-rated broadcast television station with the same initials.  My sister-in-law had the initials before me.  I got mine on October 3, 2009, the day I married my husband.

I am a military wife.  A submarine officer's wife, if you want specifics (and I generally want specifics).  So yes, I'm a milspouse.  But what does that actually mean?  I don't stand 3-section duty, eat midrats in the wardroom, sleep 6 hours at a time in a coffin bed, sit in at captain's mast, or refer to cleaning time as "field day."  I never had to cut my hair against my will, I've never had a job I couldn't quit willingly and without repercussion, I've never used blousing straps or shirt stays, and I don't have shiny gold dolphins pinned to my chest.  That's his life, not mine.  And he's deployed right now, so his life won't factor in here until later--when he (we?) starts shore tour.  Can't wait.

We have no pets, we have no babies, and we're not even starting some grand adventure like my friends in California and Italy.  The aforementioned shore tour is in Pensacola.  There are no subs in Pensacola.  There's not even a port in Pensacola.  We've been in Norfolk almost 3 years - subs and ports and shipyards everywhere I look.  I lived in Jacksonville prior to moving to Virginia, so I'm no stranger to north Florida.  I'm originally from Lawrenceville, GA, and attended the University of Georgia in Athens.

This blog is more than the story of our life.  It's my musings on just about everything.  It's my current thoughts, my future ideas, my view of past events.  It will contain things I think people should know, and links at every possible turn.  It will also contain my unapologetic opinion.  My blog, my opinion.  If you don't like it, stop reading.  I'm a knowledge junkie, a grammar nazi, a devout and zealous Catholic, a slight tomboy, a cubicle-life escapee, a former AmeriCorps member, a Soprano 2, a beach lover, a semi-picky eater, and a slightly clueless yet eager domestic goddess.  And I'm sure all of those things (and more!) will make great blog posts in due time.