I want to be like her at 82

I just found this great blog by an 82 yr old woman. I think I love her.

Funny, smart lady

The damage.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_short_but_eventful_life_of

wow

So I saw a new Dr today

One on base who specializes in chronic pain. He's at a loss. He's thinking autoimmune but my ANA test keeps coming back negative.

He's put in a referral for me to see a Rheumatoligist off base. May be a few weeks before I can get an appointment and a translator will have to go with me.

Random things

First days of school went well. 2nd grader is doing well this year so far. Granted it's only the second week, but he's adjusting to the extra work.

Kindergarten started yesterday and my K student is having a blast. She was up before everyone this morning and dressed already. She loves it!

My class is going ok. Learning a new language at my age is tough. All the different pronouns to use for each different situation. Confusing! I'm committed though. I'm going to get together with someone else in class to work on it and I have a couple Italian friends who are willing to help me practice. We'll see how I do.

Keep the people of New Orleans in your thoughts

This storm is downright terrifying. It's going to be way worse than Katrina. The potential for hundreds of lives lost. Please keep this region in your thoughts.

My dragons

Click my eggs. Click them as much as you want. The more clicks, the faster they grow. :D

First day of school in the morning

My oldest will be in second grade. I can't believe it.

Next week middle starts kindergarten. I'll only have the toddler at home. Almost a break.

Whatever will I do with myself?

Oh yeah. Chase the toddler off the table, nurse a million times, chase him out of my pencil draw and laugh. :D

This irritates me

I log onto nbc.com so I can watch video clips of the Olympics. I don't get to watch much on AFN because East Coast primetime is at 2am for me and I'm not getting up in the middle of the night to watch the Olympics. LOL

Anyhow, I try to watch the video clips on nbc.com and you apparently have to have a US ip. Great. Why? I don't understand that.

Netflix does the same thing. I've been a Netflix member for 4 yrs, but now that I'm overseas I can't use the "watch online" feature of their site. I'm just glad they ship to FPO/APO addresses so I can keep getting movies in the mail.

ABC and Fox websites too. I can't watch the new episodes of Grey's or House on their sites. I had to buy a season pass to Grey's through iTunes last season and I never did find a way to watch House. I just bought Season 4 at the Exchange yesterday.

I'm just not understanding their need to block all non US IPs. If they offer free viewing, they offer free viewing. It won't hurt them anymore to offer it world wide.

It's not RA

I went back to the Dr today. It's not RA. All tests were negative. He's not really sure what's going on. He's referring me to another Dr who deals with patients with chronic pain.

I kind of wished it were RA. At least that way I'd have a diagnosis and treatment. Now I have nothing. Just some anti-inflammatories that aren't helping much anymore.

In my obsessive Alan Rickman picture Googling

I found two really funny pictures. I had to share.

I'll take Alan both ways, thank you.



Hans Gruber kills Dumbledore?

Getting out vs Staying in

The more we think about, the more we think maybe letting them boot us out would be the way to go. It would would be an honorable discharge and we'd get around $40,000 in severance pay. We could finally be financially stable with a big chunk in savings.

We've been looking at the Memphis area as far as settling down. We've driven through there a few times and we like it. We could get a very nice house in our budget. My husband could get almost any job in a post office there. I could go to nursing school and maybe eventually work at St Judes (something I've wanted to do since I was a kid).

But staying in the Navy has it's benefits too. More European travel, which is something we just could not do once we get out. Retirement pay and keeping Tricare. Kids would be eligible for college financial assistance through the military too.

Ugh. We're still talking about it.

Paging Dr House!

Oh my. I had the best dream about him last night. I must have savior syndrome because I dreamed we fell in love and our love saved him. ROFL

But it was a very nice dream. ;)

The Blondie

Didn't turn out right. The blondie itself was yummy. But the sauce recipe he had turned out sickeningly sweet. Disgustingly so. Blech. I may get into the blondies later and just eat one plain. LOL

My Husband is Baking Today.

My husband enjoys baking. He's in a baking mood today.

He's already made home made cinnamon rolls with home made cream cheese frosting. Now he's working on a maple walnut blondie similar to the ones at Applebees.

I love and hate his baking moods. Love for the obvious reasons. Hate what it does to my thighs. LOL

He's making dinner tonight too. Good man.

Birth Control is NOT Abortion!

Join me in signing this petition.

I hate the military.

My husband has just about 13 yrs in. 7 of those years were in the Army as a bandsman. The last 6 have been in the Navy as a postal clerk.

Now they're talking about kicking us out because he hasn't advanced as far as he's supposed to. The reason he hasn't advanced is because his job has no advancement available. The PC rate is closing down. They are soon to merge with Supply. So this severely limits advancement possibilities. Plus, when he switched services, he lost two ranks and spent 3 yrs getting those back. Plus, they aren't even supposed to count his prior Army time when they consider whether he has stalled in advancement. Only his Navy time.

He has a year to advance one rank or we're out. But he only has one chance to take the board exam. That's 6 months away, so hopefully he can study his ass off and blow them out of the water.

It just sucks that they are doing this to us. 13 yrs and numerous sacrifices on both our parts and this is how we are rewarded?

I may have started this blog too soon. We're going to have to stop traveling and start saving every penny we can for when we get out of the Navy. Sigh.

What we've done so far.

So we've been in Italy for over a year. We've had a few adventures since we moved here.

We spent a week in the Republic of San Marino last September. The old city, which is in a castle, was truly fantastic. Absolutely beautiful with beautiful views. The Mediterranean was a good 30 miles away but visible from the castle towers. It was a wonderful sight.

We've also spent a day at Pompeii, some little known ruins down by Salerno called Paestum and just last month we spent 4 days in Rome.

I fell in love with Rome. A truly beautiful city. It's just amazing how they have incorporated these ancient ruins and centuries old buildings into their daily lives. Rome is the sort of city I wish I could live in, especially if I were single and child-free.

We saw the Coliseum, the Roman Forum, Palentino Hill, the Catacombs di San Calisto, the National Museum and this little church in Barberini Square that is famous for sculptures made out of the bones of dead monks. I'll see if I can Google a link.

ahh. here it is. http://www3.sympatico.ca/tapholov/pages/bones.html

It was very interesting, if not a bit creepy.

Ugh

I feel like crap. My suspected RA (no official diagnosis yet) is going haywire tonight plus I have some sort of crater on my right tonsil.

I'm obviously calling the Dr in the morning IRT the tonsil. Not much he can do for the RA. I'm already on anti-inflammatories and pain killers.

I just wanted to whine.

On another note, I can't wait for school to start this fall. J will be starting 2nd grade and A will be starting Kindergarten. My babies are growing up!

It's really amazing about A. She has a pretty severe language delay and I never thought she'd be ready for kindergarten. The base school is giving her a LOT of Special Ed support. Speech therapy and one on one time in the classroom. A few other accommodations but nothing major.

Just starting!

Hi! My name is Sunnie. My husband is in the US Navy and we are stationed in Italy. We have 3 kids. J is 7, A is 5 and N is 17 months.

We've lived in Italy for over a year now. I thought I'd start commemorating our adventures here and blog about everyday stuff too.

Fair warning. This blog will most likely make for very boring reading. ;)