Gripes

If you're not feeling like you're in the mood for gripes today than forego this post:

Gripe #2: Richard Spencer, former Marine Corp pilot. You may be wondering why Sam's upset with Mr. Spencer. Well here's why. Mr. Spencer told ArmyTimes that the current retirement system is "unfair, unaffordable and inflexible." Mr. Spencer led a DoD panel recommending a "corporate-style 401(k)" retirement plan versus the current pension based plan. Please visit the ArmyTimes story here to see how this would effect your soldier, their retirement and your future.

Removing the 50% retirement, which lets face it, isn't that great for us enlisted folk considering it's based off base pay only and averaged off of  rank held the last 3 years of service is unfair Mr. Spencer. The majority of career (at least 20 year) soldiers I know today are planning to stay in based on the retirement benefit. To remove or drastically diminish that option because you couldn't hang in for 20 years is unfair. You, Mr. Spencer had the same options as those who chose to stay in and earn the retirement and chose not to. The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) is available to today's military. Invest in it and press on with your life. Don't take away from those who earned more than you based on their service.

One portion of Mr. Spencer's plan I actually agree with is the options to "increase contributions to give more money to troops who deploy frequently, accept hardship assignments or serve in high-demand jobs."

Gripe #2: People who act superior to others. Guess what you're no better than me and vice versa. Wise up.

Gripe #3: People who act like the Army is beneath them. Get over yourself. It's honorable and involves more sacrifice than most other careers.

Gripe #4: Carbs. I love them. They are my arch nemesis.

Gripe #5: Family. At the end of the day Family is life's greatest blessing-- bottom line. However, sometimes they are a burden. Don't lie, you know it's true. Whether you're pressured to show up very Sunday for a 6 hour Dinner at Gramma's or constantly loaning a long lost cousin money or racing to beat your siblings to the best baby names... sometimes it's just easier to throw your hands up.

Let me reiterate I'm simply frustrated I'd never turn my back on any member of my family.

Gripe #6: Disrespectful people. Check it:



Well, there's my Friday afternoon gripes.

Something bugging you today? Where do you stand on the retirement debate?

Humbled

First off, I no longer feel craptastic (per my last post). It took about a day and lots of water and I finally was feeling like myself.

I wrote on Facebook: "Being a grow up sucks.. Especially when all your grown up business is 6000 miles away!" 

Well it does. In case you guys don't know it's especially hard to handle the random things that come up in life when they aren't around the corner or available to you via mail or the telephone. Stuff happens, things fall into our laps that we have to manage and deal with and sort out... I feel like that's the definition of "being a grown up." 


Here's what happened: I was contacted by the lien holder for our car (in Germany) that they needed our proof of insurance (actually they said since our insurance lapsed they had added their own insurance to our account, which is expensive). In fact our vehicle is covered lest the proof of that lies in Germany -- out of my reach. The lien holder said they tried to contact us via mail... oh but they've been sending mail to our Colorado address (you know, where we no longer reside). The whole thing has been beyond frustrating! So, I got myself a handy dandy phone card and tried to call my German insurance company they don't answer. Anyone in Germany or about to PCS there should know that the Germans are great people... truly they are. BUT they work on their own time. So I've had no luck getting them to answer the phone.

A sweet, sweet friend I made in my short time in Germany responded to my status and said that she'd be back in Baumholder on the 15th and could go by the place for me. At this point I have no other option but to accept her offer. I just feel humbled by it. We haven't been friends that long and she offered to pick me up from the air port when I fly back to Germany. I sent her the key to my apartment because when you're gone for an extended period of time Rear D likes someone to have access to your house and she took it upon herself to go by every so often and open the windows for me and clear anything out of the fridge that wouldn't make it 6 months. So I feel craptastic about accepting her help with anything else!! She's done enough. :( Beyond that I sorta just feel like I've failed in someway because I'm unable (as a product of my choice to stay in the states) to take care of this crapolla on my own.

Pride comes before the fall right?

Gotta put my pride aside sometimes and accept that I cannot do everything and that everyone needs help now and again.

yuck

I feel craptastic today. Yesterday evening I attempted to go to Aspen with a friend of mine for a long weekend. It was a huge, GIANT sized failure. As we approached 8400 Feet (Woodland Park, Co) I started feeling really awful: lightheaded, nauseous, tired-- overall crappy! So we stop in Woodland Park about 40 mins into our trip and get something to eat and feed the kiddos... this is where everything went bad!
First of all, if you ever find yourself hungry in Woodland Park Colorado avoid the Wendy's like the plague. I was no impressed. They "forgot" the cheese on my "cheeseburger". C'mon seriously. Anyway, I ordered a sprite with my "cheese-less-cheeseburger" hoping that would settle my tum-tum. Nope. I proceeded to vomit in their less than spot-less latrine. Talk about making an already unpleasant experience worse. Bleh- no thanks. So I tell my friend I really don't think it's smart for me to continue. I tell her to continue you to Aspen and I'll call my mommy for a ride. I've always known that my Mommy would come get me anyplace I needed, under any circumstances. She's cool like that.

After I got home I had a piece of bread (gotta get something in my stomach right?) and pound water (gotta re-hydrate, right?). Then I proceeded to fall asleep at 830 pm. I slept for about 11 hours and got up a lil after 7 this AM. I'm still not 100% maybe about 75-80%.
I wish my hubby was here. I'm the worlds-worst sick person. I just want someone to pat my forehead with a cold damp towel and bring me Gatorade with a straw (you know so I don't have to actually sit up to drink it). Oh, 800 mg of Motrin... because that fixes everything... right? No? Well I guess it couldn't hurt. May help with the headache (woo hoo found a justification for Vitamin M).

Twilight Loot

Here I was minding my own business at my homie's house... when we were bored witless with SoapNet programing (The OC, 90921, One Tree Hill) so we flip through the channels to see what we can find and what else just so happens to be on Cable... Twilight marathon. We caught the last 40-ish minutes of Twilight and we've now started on New Moon (maybe we'll make it through Eclipse... time will tell). I was just running out of peeps to talk to on the interwebs when I googled "twilight onsies" (for a friend's babe... obviously). Which of course lead me to tons of Twilight loot via CafePress (duh). There is some REALLLLY hilarious options out there people.

Need gear for your iphone right?

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Comic T's: Got ee'

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For preggers and babes:

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My personal fav:

Sparkle you Fool, Sparkle!
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Runner up:

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Round up

I've been spending a good part of my allowance (haha) on movies. I've seen 8 of the 13 movies I blogged about here. It's been a good summer for movies people! Since everyone I know has kids and some of the movies I've wanted to see where not kid friendly I've had to go to a few all by my lonesome. Some people consider solo movie outings depressing. I don't mind. I'm not one to go sit and have dinner in a restaurant by my self... can't bring myself to do that. Well anyway, this past weekend I broke down and saw the final Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part II (like everyone else-- it knocked The Dark Knight off the pedestal for highest grossing opening weekend with a whopping $168.5 million)! It was sad for me though. I only got into the whole Harry Potter franchise because my husband enjoyed it. I grew to like it. I had trouble following it at first because of the accents and weird names... I got the hang of it eventually. Yesterday, I bit the bullet and saw the movie without my hubby. It was great, answered a lot of questions and was very well done. Sad that Hogwarts was destroyed though... I was really hoping to see that rectified. Such is life.

A friend on Facebook posted this quote over the weekend:

"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." 

- Stephen King

We all know I love my some Twilight but there's really no denying the truthfulness of Mr. King's statement.

Summer has been good for movies. Anything you're still waiting to see? Next up for me: Friends with Benefits with my mans Justin!! :)

Military Wife Complaints

zSo, do you guys know the military spouse that complains about EVERYTHING: TriCare, MyCAA, employment opportunities, housing, MP, neighbors, uniforms, deployments, Military OneSource.... the list can go on and on and on; it's never ending. I don't know about you guys but I have found far to many martyrs in our ranks. (I'm sure this will be another of my unpopular opinions, so be it). I'm kind of over it. I get it's tough. I get some have it tougher than others. Honestly, I don't want to hear "woe is me" all the time. I am a firm believer is none of us our victims of our choices; we chose to be where we are, therefore you should embrace it. All of it. The good with the bad. Furthermore, I don't feel TriCare is the devil. I was raised a military brat; with doctors on base, in uniform passing out 800 milligrams of Motrin (aka Vitamin M) like it's candy. However, there are downfalls to all insurance companies ::cough cough:: premiums ::cough cough::

I have just come to the conclusion that some people will never be satisfied. Some people will always concentrate on the negative verses the positive. Some people will bitch and whine regardless of all their blessings.

My favorite complaint is how the military moves our active spouse around all the time making it impossible for the milspouse to maintain a career. As valid as this may be... I say "So what?" I was raised by a working-milspouse-mother and an active duty service member. I know many other career oriented, working military spouses. It's do-able. However, you do have to choose a practical (to the lifestyle) career. I always hear "But then you throw kids in the mix.." following the "I can't find or maintain a career" argument. I kind of feel like these constantly complaining milspouses won't be satisfied until they are provided salaries as there active counterparts are. It bugs me.

I feel as an Army wife I support my husband, I maintain the household, pay the bills, I miss and I worry for my husband while he's deployed. I fight for my marriage when he's home and we battle through reintegration. HOWEVER, I will never sacrifice or serve the way my husband does. He earns the paycheck- I do not. There is a huge leap from the soldier to the spouse.

Again this is my opinion based off complaints of milspouses that I know.

This is my life because I chose it knowingly. I complain to. This is not holier than thou vice woe is me. I get that nothing is perfect. My point is simply that this life verses any other is no better or worse. All lifestyles have problems and ups and downs, positives versus negatives. This is life.

Count your blessings. That is all.

Social media is cool right? Everyone does shares photos, experiences and other random shiz on Facebook. People tweet (not always me- I know; I suck at it). And there's probably a handful of other sites and social media options I don't even know about. But now there's this Google+. I mean really. I checked it out. It is Facebook, with a different name. How many different sites do we need to invest in: upload all my coolest photos, find our old, long, lost homies on and attempt to reconnect with??

Keeping up with the new hotness is exhausting. I'm over it. I feel like I'll stick with Facebook because I'm too lazy to invest with the next thing.

Will you try Google+? Did I miss some outstanding aspect to this Google+ that you all should enlighten me with? Thanks.

I hate it when....

I hate it when... I really want ice cream but already took my bra off for the night.

I hate it when... someone has something I want (and can't have).

I hate it when... people are offended by my snarkiness (it's really all in good fun).

I hate it when... I can't think of anything to blog about for weeks on end.

I hate it when... someone else proves me wrong (but, in all sincerity being humbled every once in a while it good for the soul peeps).

I hate it when... I'm helping out a friend on best rest and see naked people in the shower (insert snark: wait, people usually take their showers naked? no... can't be right)-- no I didn't walk in on my friend in the shower. The window over her sink faces their neighbors window which happens to be directly over their shower (Dear Builder.... don't put windows in the shower). Did I forget to mention this happened two days in a row.

I hate it when... I forget that the chat on Facebook sucks ass. It's forever dropping in and out, telling me the person I'm conversing with is offline when in fact they aren't. Facebook=liars

I hate it when... you miss a friendship and the other person doesn't... sucks. Big time.

I hate it when... time goes by REALLY slow. I miss my husband and wish I could skip right to September. HELLOOOO R&R.

I hate it when... scumbags who mooch off the government bitch, whine and complain- or generally commentate on the Federal budget crisis.

I hate it when... I bang up my tire/wheel base... ramming my car into the curb. (my bad)

What do you hate today??

Justin Bieber...

... is Everywhere. Obviuosly I've heard "Baby". I don't live under a rock. However, I also don't worship the kid for fun- I mean seriously, I'm not 13. The Hubs and I were on a bus in Germany headed to Idar Oberstein and there was this kid in the back of the bus with his headphones on and blaring some music. After a few stops and some peeps got off the bus I could heard what the music was. None other than Justin Bieber. I was shocked.

... can actually dance. Have you seen him Dougie? Entertainment. You should really look it up.

... has catchy songs. I hate to admit it but it's true. You can't deny the catchiness of Baby.

Christmas

Yes it's July and I this girl is already blogging about Christmas! In fact, I was already Facebooking about Christmas on June 29th! I am usually pretty stoked about Christmas under normal circumstances, but Christmas 2011 isn't going to be normal. It's going to be extraordinary! Kevin and I will be spending this Christmas at the foot of the Bavarian Alps at Edelweiss Lodge and Resort!!!

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I really don't think there is a more fitting place to spend Christmas. (although it literally just occurred to me that this will make 2 Christmases in a row spend in a hotel... hmmm) 
When Kevin and I spent the night there a few months back first thing I thought when we walked in, is that this would be the best place to spend Christmas. Well, as you can imagine they are pretty popular around that time of year. We asked the desk and they said they have a lottery for rooms; you had to request a room starting May 1st and wait to hear... So that's what I did and we found out two days ago we got chosen! In fact we got two rooms! We're excited at the possibility of having my in-laws there with us! Nothing better than a Bavarian Christmas spent with family!

I'm not sure I've blogged with more exclamation marks in all my life. Or said "excited" or "stoked" more. haaa