It's Been Awhile

I am writing a recap of 2009.  In a nutshell: WOW!  So over the next few days I'm going to post some of the highs and lows of the year.  Is it really possible that the best year of your life is also the worst of your life?  Well that's what happened to me...

Where to begin again?

April 2009

What a great month!  The General returned home from Iraq and we got engaged. 

May 2009

Not a bad month.  We moved into a new and bigger apartment and started planning our wedding.

June & July 2009

This is when things turned bad....we found out at the end of June that our apartment complex was in financial trouble.  What they didn't tell us was that the city had stopped granting new electricity permits until the complex paid it's bills.  So essentially we had moved in at the end of May and had been getting power illegally until the end of June (much to our surprise!!).  So at the end of June they cut the power and we were forced to move.  At the time we weren't sure we wanted to stay in Jackson.  The General hadn't found a job yet.  We thought about moving back up to North MS and even went up there for a couple of weeks and stayed with The General's parents.  In the end we ended up staying and found a nice apartment.  Things were looking up.  At the end of July we were given three wedding/bridal showers.  My mom drove over from Huntsville and we all went up to Memphis and North MS for the festivities. My mother-in-law is the secretary at the church and belongs to a sewing group.  This group of women gave us the most wonderful wedding shower.  I was completely overwhelmed.

August 2009

Work was insane but things were going well with the wedding planning.  In fact, it's a blessing now as we look back that things were in order a couple of weeks before the wedding.  That's when disaster struck!

Just 4 days before the big day I fell in the middle of the night.  The General and I had been packing our bags getting ready to leave on Thursday for the wedding weekend.  We had bags everywhere - bags for the wedding and bags for the honeymoon.  So anyway I woke up around 12:30 AM on Wednesday morning and had to go to the bathroom.  On my way around the bed I tripped over The General's backpack.  That might not have been so bad but I landed on a dog bone and ended up breaking both bones in my leg just above my ankle and tearing all the ligaments in my ankle.  Needless to say it was bad.  The General called 911 and within 5 minutes we had firemen, policemen, and paramedics in the home (guess it was a slow night).  Luckily we live within 1/4 mile from a hospital.  Now I had never broken a bone in my life so I was not equipped for such pain.  And the ER doctor was not very sympathetic to our situation.  He told us that there wouldn't be a wedding - this sent me into hysterics.  Well he told us it was definitely broken and put me in a splint and sent me home with crutches and instructions to call an ortho doctor in the morning.  So we got home and I still had to go to the bathroom.  So I attempt to hobble into the bathroom and I tripped (AGAIN!) but was able to reach out and stop myself from falling too hard (however we would find out 2 weeks later that I had broken my scapula in that fall).

The next day we called an orthopaedic specialist and explained that situation but they couldn't see me that day.  So I called another place (which also happened to be next door to the hospital so it was close to home).  They were going to fit me in that morning.  We go to see the doctor and he does some x-rays and comes into the room and says "well it's broken." (no kidding?!?!?)  Fortunately Dr. D said that the swelling was too bad to even consider surgery so he said we could continue with the wedding and even go on our honeymoon.  We scheduled surgery for the day after Labor Day (2 days after we returned from our honeymoon).

Our Wedding - the show must go on!  Everyone was amazed that we were going through with it.  We borrowed a wheel chair and a walker (I couldn't use the crutches because of the broken scapula).   The General was a good sport about things.  We made some logistical changes to accommodate my wheelchair but for the most part everything went off without a hitch.

Good News

The General has made it home safely from Iraq!!!

I've been so consumed with spending time with him and his family that this is the first time I've been able to even get to a computer. And to top that...the weekend before he came home my apartment flooded. So I've been just a little bit busy. But I'll be back to blogging this week hopefully. I've missed reading updates.

Just Over a Month

This deployment is almost over! The General should be back in my arms in just over a month - I'm crazy with excitement. I know he's so ready to leave Iraq and be home. It's been a really tough time. But it won't be much longer now. In just a short couple of weeks he will be returning to the states to do all the post-deployment stuff somewhere up North. The month of March cannot go quickly enough for all of us!!!

And I start my new job tomorrow. It's been so strange this past week to not be working. I've been trying to find my way around town and get Peyton adjusted to living in an apartment (which is not exactly working out all that well). But now I'm pretty bored. At least I know I'll be super busy with work for the next month and this time will fly.

Looking back on 2008

So in all the madness of moving and packing, I decided to take a quick peek at some of the events of 2008.

1. Taz - I can't believe that my beloved cat has been gone for over a year now. When she passed in February 2008 I thought I would never recover.

2. Salem - my quirky cat has also had an eventful year. She lost her companion Taz and gained an enemy in Peyton.

3. Peyton - never would I have thought that I would be a dog person (I've always loved cats). But 8 months after picking him up for the first time, I'm still as in love as ever.

4. The General - all I can say is "wow" - you coming into my life has been such an amazing blessing and I thank God for you every day

5. Everything else - with everything that has happened, I continue to be amazed at the glory and goodness of God. Without going into too much detail, I left a job early in 2008 to return to a company where things have evolved into an awesome opportunity. I am blessed with a wonderful family, great friends, and so many other things. I'm learning every day how important it is to give everything to God and to wait for Him.

The other man in my life

Not only do I have the most wonderful husband-to-be, I also have a pretty awesome dog. His name is Peyton and he's almost 8 months old. He's a handful!

And here's a pic of both of my men.

My favorite soldier

I never would have thought that I would want to marry into the Army. But here we are - thinking about rings and planning a wedding. Honestly, there have been times in the last couple of years that I thought that I would never marry (military or otherwise). Then the General came back into my life. Then things got complicated. The General was married to a work colleague of mine (they've been divorced now for a couple of years). While they were married, we would occasionally hang out as couples (me with my then boyfriend). It was difficult getting to know much about him because he was deployed right after they got married. Shortly before their divorce, they moved a few hours away. After the divorce, I remained in contact with the girl and occasionally would get an email from The General. Flash forward a couple years....The General is once again deployed to Iraq. I start getting emails from him and we start talking more and more. Then his birthday comes up and I decide to send him a care package (probably the best thing I could have ever done). 

From there we started emailing each other non-stop. It's definitely a non-conventional courtship, but it works for us. Without the luxury of phone calls or in-person visits, we have to rely on emails and letters. It's amazing how personal they can be.  The General was able to come home for leave during the beginning of January for 15 days. Those were the happiest days of my life. We were able to spend some quality time together and I am so grateful. Of course it made it harder to put him on a plane back to Iraq but I know he will be back in the states sometime in the beginning of April. That's when we can make it all official. I'm so excited.

Let the journey begin ...