Two years ago

I was driving to GA to visit family and I got a call that no wife wants to get. Nicholas had crashed. He was ok but it is still one of the scariest moments of my life. I’m thankful that he was the one that called me because I think I would have had a panic attack if it was a call from the FRG and I couldn’t hear his voice to really know he was alive. His aircraft had a complete engine failure and he crashed in the middle of a valley in Afghanistan. I still get chills thinking about it.

It’s actually hard to believe that it’s only been 2 years because it really feels like it’s been so much longer. And to put our life in perspective for that time frame, in the last 2 years Nicholas has been deployed for 9 months of it (6 months after the crash and then the 3 months of this deployment) and he also spent 5 months TDY out of state. So in the last 2 years he has actually been home with me, in our house, for 10 months. Dang, that’s actually the first time I’ve actually added that up and it sucks.

Nicholas had brought up the idea of getting out of the Army before the crash and we had been tossing it around, weighing the pros and cons. After the crash he was done. He told me the crash sealed the deal and he was done and getting out. I fully supported him and still do. When people ask me why he’s getting out I tell them “3 deployments in 6 years, and that doesn’t even count TDY time, would you stay in?”. One year from now we will be walking away from the Army and starting our new life and I can’t wait.

Great day of shopping

On Monday I was tired of staying home and decided to head to Gallatin to hit Joann’s Fabrics to look for foam to make the seat cushions for the dining room chairs. While I was down there I wanted to go check out the Home Goods store because I’ve seen the commercials lately and I was curious! After I bought the foam I saw there was a TJ Max in the same parking lot so I stopped in there and fell in love with a couple of lamps. Now, normally I don’t buy lamps or have lamps in the house but I’m not kidding these talked to me. They were so cute! There was also another lamp I really loved and it was so funky looking I kept going back to it but since I couldn’t think of anywhere to put it I walked away. Sigh. The 2 green lamps did come home with me though. I had to buy both of them because they were a set and I couldn’t just get one. Look how fun they are!!

A close up of the base.

I love how unusual they look! I think I’m going to put one of them by the sofa and the other in the guest bedroom.

Next I went over to Home Goods and could have spent N’s entire paycheck in there!! Great stuff at great prices!! I loved all the furniture and they had an awesome lamp section there!!! I didn’t buy any of them but I did look for a while. As I was walking around I found a little clearance section stuck over in a corner, that’s where I found the super cute lawn chairs!! I’m in a huge blue and green kick right now and these chairs are awesome!! I looked at the price tag and they were on sale for $15!! Normally they would have been $60 each and I got 4 for the price of one!!! Love it! I think I’m going to throw some pads on the legs and use them as my dining room chairs until I get my real chairs finished.  Haven’t completely decided on that though.

Closer

And can I say that having an SUV with fold down back seats ROCKS!!! I was able to fit everything with no issue and some room to spare. I love my car!!!

Oh and a new picture of the chairs I’m working on. I added the foot rest yesterday and I’m re-sanding all of them. I had started to stain one and it looked terrible. The stain was so blotchy I couldn’t believe it. I hate the coating they put on wood that takes forever to sand off. It’s driving me crazy right now. I sanded for 2 hours yesterday and got 3 chairs done. I guess that means I have at least another 3 hours of sanding to do today to finish the last 3. I hope I have enough sand paper, I feel like I need to buy stock in the brand of sandpaper I use because I go through so much of it! I’ve decided what fabric I’m going to use to cover the seats and I have the foam. I still need to attach the supports on the inside of the frame. Like I said before, I might have them done by the time N comes home for R&R.

Happy Father’s Day!

The love for ice cream runs deep in this family so I got Daddy a gift card to Kroger and wrote “For Ice Cream” on it because he LOVES the Cherry Cordial ice cream from there. My great grandmother loved her vanilla or butter pecan ice cream. I remember being up at the lake house with the family and she would be ready to go so Aunt Iona would make her a big bowl of ice cream and it would keep her quiet. N already give me ice cream to keep my quiet. Bless his heart, he has a long life ahead of him. Maybe we should look into buying stock into an ice cream company? lol Daddy said he was laughing so hard at his Kroger card he could barely read his card. :) We got Derek an Omaha Steaks gift card. I hope he enjoys his as much as Daddy will enjoy his ice cream. I bought N a card from the girls but it’s still sitting on the table (Babe, you’ll get it with your next box!).  At least I’m 2 for 3 on getting the cards there on time.

Dining Room Chairs

Are driving me CRAZY!!! I had no problem building the first 3 chairs before our anniversary back in April but the last 3 chair gave me tons of issues (a lot of that was my fault because I’d get so focused on one thing I wouldn’t notice something else). I finally got them to the point I was ready to stain and started on the first chair and the stain looks terrible! It’s SUPER blotchy. GAH! Now I need to sand all of them again. It’s so hard to get into the corners with the sander and that’s where it looks the worst. So frustrating. I keep putting off working on them because it’s been so hot that  if I start sanding I’m almost instantly covered in a sweat/dust paste. Yuck. I have a fan in the garage but I wish I had some kind of air conditioner in there! When a project gets this frustrating I really wish N was here to help me with it. I know we would have been done by now with both of us working. Deployments suck.

I’m ready to start on a new project that I can paint instead of stain! I want to build a storage bed to put in the extra bedroom so I can take the huge metal shelf out of there and put that in the garage. Most of my focus for this next year is having the house completely staged and ready to sale when N gets back from the deployment. I want the extra room to look awesome and a huge metal shelf kind of takes away from the size of the room! Plus having a bed with built in storage will be great no matter where we move, you can always use extra storage space! I’m looking forward to starting that soon. Still need to get these chairs done.

Anyone know a good place to buy foam cushioning? I really need to get some for the chair seats. I do have the fabric picked out so that’s the last step. Maybe by the time the boy comes home for R&R I’ll have them done. Or maybe not. I guess we’ll see.

New Pictures!

I told the boy that he needed to get on the ball and send me some more pictures of his smiling mug and he sent them to me today! I think he looks great! He hasn’t lost tons a weight this time around.

About to head out on a test flight with A. I still love to see him in that flight helmet. When he asked A to take a pic with him she actually asked him “are you sure? Your wife will be ok with it?” He laughed and said “obviously you’ve never met my wife or seen us together, yes I’m sure.” I think it’s sad that she’s had so many issues with troop members and wives in the past that she would actually have to ask that. :(

 

The bus stop

Where he spends all his time working.

A weird connection

The boy and I have always had a bizarre connection to each other. Even when we were dating we had it. Normally we don’t think about it too much but twice this week it’s come up and it still blows my mind a little bit.

First, a couple weeks ago N asked me to send him something to put on his flight vest to remind him of me. A little charm or something. I had no idea what to send for a while until I remembered the charm bracelet that he gave me when we were dating. I have a jewelry box that I keep all the stuff that has sentimental value but I don’t wear anymore and that bracelet had the perfect charm, a slice of pizza. Pizza has always been a huge part of our life, many a Friday night has been spent with pizza and a movie, we LOVE pizza. The silver charm was a little tarnished and worn but I knew it was perfect so I packed it up with a letter and sent it off. On Tuesday N got the package and said “I love the charm, I was JUST thinking about that bracelet a few days ago and wondered if you still had it! So crazy!”

Second, tonight the boy got off work a little early because there wasn’t much going on and he said he was going to play some Zelda video games, it was time for some old school. As soon as I read that I thought “ohh I should tell him about the new Mario game, no that’s be mean” as I was thinking that he typed “I want you to know that when I get home I will be divorcing you and devoting my life to the new Mario game” I cracked up and told him to GET OUT OF MY HEAD.

It’s a little freaky how often this happens to us. I think it’s pretty awesome.

Yesterday I woke up to the delightful sound of a dog about to puke. You know the sound, it makes you move at an unnatural speed to try and get them outside. I was too late. Oh well. It was 7 am and I’ve gotten in the habit of sleeping too late in the last couple of weeks because of going to bed late so I decided to go ahead and stay up. I made some breakfast and did my normal morning routine of checking emails and my favorite websites while I had the Today show on in the back ground. That’s when I heard the words that no wife wants to hear “Helicopter crash in Afghanistan…..” and I froze and frantically started  trying to remember if N was flying or not and if he would even be at work at that time and then I heard “4 killed” and it still took a few seconds for that to sink in that it wasn’t him. It’s amazing how fast your mind can start moving when you hear those words. I’ve heard the expression “my blood ran cold” a number of times and never really understood it until that happened and it literally felt like my body was frozen. In all the times I’ve heard about crashes, even when N called me to tell me that HE had crashed I’ve never been that scared. I think it’s because normally when I heard about one it’s later in the day and I can say “if it was him I’d know by now” and when he called me I was thinking “ok, I’m talking to him, obviously he’s ok”. And I think another part of it was the knowledge that when an old friend’s husband was killed in a crash she was notified at a few minutes after 7 in the morning. I truly think that a lot of my panic was related to the time of day. I think I’m going to stick with sleeping later and watching Will and Grace when I get up at 10am. No more news of any kind for me in the morning. When I talked to N about it later he said he could understand how hearing that could make me ping a little.

As relieved as I was to hear the number 4 it still worried me because we have so many friends out there that fly different air crafts. I was thankful that 2 of my friends have their husbands home on R&R because that means it wasn’t them but I’m always wondering, who is it? Will we know them? Will we know their family? I found out that the aircraft belonged to a different branch of service so there was no chance that we knew the people but they still have families that are heart broken right now. Their lives will never be the same. This is one thing I HATE about this lifestyle. In every Kiowa crash in the last 5 years N or I have known at least 1 of the pilots personally. Whether they were previous IP’s that N flew with at Rucker or passing  acquaintances from other troops they were one more person that we lost. After a crash last year N looked at me and said “I’m too young to know this many dead people”. It’s hard. I didn’t write anything on Memorial Day because I had too much to say. It would have been a big jumbled up mess and I just let it pass while thinking of the people that are gone.

This fear won’t end when Nicholas leaves the military next year. We have too many friends that have become family to us that we’ll still worry about. For years to come the news of a crash will freeze us in our tracks until we know the names. It’s something we’ll always live with.

Having a moment today

Some days you just don’t want to participate. At all. Today was kinda one of those days for me. I worked on the chairs for a few hours yesterday until the back pieces got on my last nerve  and I was about 2 seconds from throwing it across the garage, that’s when I decided it was time to go sit in my kiddie pool with my book and chill out. Yes, I have a plastic kiddie pool on my deck. N called me a redneck and I think he’s concerned that I’m loosing my mind. I figure it’s my deck and if either of the 2 neighbors that can see into my yard are bothered by it they don’t have to look this way.

Most people love Friday because it’s the start of the weekend. I hate Friday, because it’s the start of the weekend. I hate weekends. Weekends are always the hardest when N is gone. Weekends are our time, that’s when we hang out and work on stuff and HE does the yard work and I tell him it looks good and we are together. The week doesn’t bother me as much, he works all day, sometimes he works late so he’s only home maybe 2 or 3 hours before it’s bed time but weekends, that’s our time. I miss our time. I try to plan stuff to get me out of the house on the weekends so I’m not home alone. Tomorrow I’m going to a local water park with some friends. That will keep me busy. I think it’s even worse when my friends here have stuff going on with their other friends so I don’t have the option of making plans with anyone. Last weekend sucked because everyone I know here was out of town including my neighbor so I was just here all weekend hanging out with the dogs.

I’m just ready for this to be over. Time is flying by but the weekends usually seem to stand still. I’m glad it’s already June but I’d rather it be our R&R month immediately followed by homecoming month and we can just skip those other pesky months in between. It’s nice to dream. 

Coconut Lime Turkey Burgers

 

Everyday I get emails from Allrecipes.com and a couple months ago I received on for Crunchy Coconut Lime Burgers. It sounded odd, the oddly intriguing. So I’ve been meaning to make it since last September and last night was finally the night.

Here is the recipe straight from the website.

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded dried coconut
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tablespoon cream of coconut
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup mayonnaise
• 2 teaspoons cream of coconut
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 cup unsweetened shredded dried coconut
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 hamburger buns, split

Directions

1. Combine the beef, 1/2 cup coconut, cilantro, egg, lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, 1 tablespoon cream of coconut, soy sauce, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt in a bowl until well mixed. Form into 4 patties, and set aside.
2. Stir together the mayonnaise with 2 teaspoons of cream of coconut and 1 tablespoon of cilantro; set aside. Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in 1 cup of coconut and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cook and stir until the coconut has turned golden brown. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate and set aside.
3. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium-high heat, and lightly oil grate.
4. Cook the burgers on the preheated grill to your desired degree of doneness, about 4 minutes per side for medium-well. Spread both cut sides of the hamburger buns with the cilantro mayonnaise. Place the cooked burgers on the bottom buns, sprinkle with the toasted coconut, and serve.

 

I made a few changes like using Turkey instead of beef because I thought it would taste better that way. Also I didn’t use Cilantro because it’s not something I eat a lot of and I don’t like Mayo so I didn’t make the special mayo for the bread and last I didn’t make the crunchy topping because I figured it was pointless to make that just for myself.

The burgers were fantastic though! I figured they would either be really awesome or really horrible so I had a 50/50 chance. They would be great a a tropical themed party as little sliders on hawaiian rolls, I bought some of the hawaiian snacker rolls to use for this and the sweetness was perfect. The burgers didn’t taste like anything I’ve ever eaten before but I will for sure make them again.

On the grill

And on my plate with the salad I made. It’s spinach with sliced strawberries and grapes with raspberry vinaigrette  dressing.

And because I told N I needed to take a picture of the flower bed for him here it is!

What I should be doing….

Is working on my chairs in the garage. However instead I’m sitting on the sofa avoiding the heat. I was hoping after such a frigid winter we might have a cooler summer but that’s not working out so well because the high today is 92* with 1000% humidity. Yay.

So to further avoid going out in the heat I’ll add some new pictures!

Now that we have the gate up the dogs are always running back and forth all the time and when Sharon is at work Sam and Hailey all but live over here. Sam has claimed N’s recliner. I have a feeling there might be a fight when the boy makes it home and Sam, Ki, and N all want to claim the chair. The other night I decided to sit in it and read and I had Pooh, Ki, and Sam all sitting with me. Hailey can’t jump so she has her own special spot on the floor between the rocking chair and recliner. Maybe one day she’ll figure out the jumping then and she can join us on the furniture.

The gate has been fantastic, Sharon and I eat dinner together a lot so it’s nice to just walk back and forth across the yards and it’s really nice having someone to eat with!

Well I guess I’ve put it off as long as I can, better head to the garage so I can get something done.