If I Found $100 on the Ground...

This has actually happened to John before. Not long after he first came out to Fort Bragg, we were very low on money. I was still in Utah and we both were doing our best to make it. As with any job, it took a while before we got our first paycheck and waiting it out was getting a bit ... thin. xD And John was walking from his barracks to the PX or somewhere and he did find a one hundred dollar bill on the ground. He hadn't had any blankets to sleep with or a pillow and he needed some other things. So he made that money last and last. He was able to buy some ramen and soy sauce and a pillow. A friend let him borrow his spare comforter. And he was ok. That was kind of a miracle for us.
But, if I found $100 on the ground tonight when out shopping or such, after I started breathing again, I would buy a little Christmas tree and some presents for Johnny and the kitties. :) Even if it weren't Christmastime, I'd probably but presents for John. I love to surprise him and make his eyes sparkle and watch him obsess over the new whatever-it-is. Especially if it's electronic. I wish I could get him an ipad or a super luxurious fancy-pants laptop mouse. And, of course, a Wii. (M comes out soon, after all. -- That's the new Metroid game, since pretty much NONE of my gaming friends read my blog. Gr to them. Gr.)
The best thing about giving Johnny presents is how much he appreciates it. When someone's had literally nothing before in life, giving them something freaking rocks! I so understand why Oprah has her Favorite Things episodes. Giving someone something awesome when they do not expect it AT ALL is so fun. (Romance tip from Finding Forrester: "Unexpected gift, unexpected time." Especially if you're dating. You follow this tip and you're golden. ;) )
So, yup. If I found 100 bucks, I'd blow it on Johnny. Hahahaha! xD

Shoes.

Ah, shoesies. =D I do love shoes. I just don't have very many. And not for a lack of trying, mind you. For this I blame my father. Not because of his frugality, but because I genetically inherited his long, narrow feet! If I can't buckle or lace a pair on, they will most likely get left behind, no matter how tight I grip with my toes. I can get them a size too small and short so my toes are squished and it doesn't matter. The width is the problem. So slip-ons of any sort are out. I have just accepted it. And the buckling and lacing varieties are difficult to fit me in their own right. Sadly, this bars me from so many of the adorable shoes out there. But I think I should definitely start trying harder! xD I wish I had a girl here to shop with, but John does his best. He also is always honest about whether the style is "me" or not and he is also aware of our $ so he keeps me realistic. One day I'll win a shopping spree or something. That would be awesome. Here are some shoes I think are "me" (or that I want to force to be "me").


A pair I would shuffle in to keep them on just so I could wear them. I love polka dots and I love this raspberry color. =)


Tweed converse! How awesome is that? And I think I might just be cool enough to pull them off -- with the right pants.



I need some cute pink girly strappy bowy shoes! Shoes that just make you feel so feminine and pretty.



Mary Janes are a must! And with 3 straps, just dare these babies to fall off! I love them.

Some feminine Merrells are just the thing. I love this gray and raspberry mix. Merrells are my sneaker brand - they are narrow enough to really hug my feet. I'll pay any price for that comfort! And, I've gotta say, they make some pretty cute kicks.


I want some shoes gorgeous enough and fancy enough that the word "gala" comes to mind. These would go so beautifully with that idyllic little black dress.


Just because. Every women needs some shoes just because, just for the fun of it. Shoes make women feel feminine and sweet and pretty and special without any trauma about how fat they feel or how good they used to look. Shoes just fit and make you feel beautiful and women need that. I could really use that soon. This medication has destroyed my figure - the gain is now over 40 pounds and shredding me inside. If I hadn't been dieting and exercising and trying so hard... if it happened more gradually... if I felt like I had some kind of control of anything to do with it... Shoes make you forget about that and give you hope that maybe you are still as cute as they are.

Circles

Well, I am going to be slightly unoriginal with my circles. But, I think y'all will like them, just the same. Because kitties seem to be at their cutest when they curl up. Miles loves to lay on Johnny's legs when he's using his laptop and he ALWAYS falls asleep and squiches around in a little circle, sometimes jamming his paw into his face. (I love it!) I didn't catch any paw-jamming, but I did catch some sleepy.


As for Zoe-bear, she has developed a fascination with water. She loves to play in the sink. (And knock the soap over, and upset Miles's water bowl regularly, and leave a little trail of wet paw prints across the sheets and snuggle Mama's face with wet fur. Hahaha!) She has especially enjoyed taking naps in the sink, so when I found her lounging there today I thought it would be perfect to have both kitty circled for my post.

A lot going on...

I meant to post yesterday and talk about my worst date, but Thanksgiving was wow. Since I've been scaling down my medication I've been experiencing withdrawals (It's fantastic!) so I didn't even get started until around 4 pm. But I made my pumpkin dessert - it's basically pumpkin pie, but square, with a crust with oats in the dough, and a brown sugary nutty topping. Then I worked on the dressing and the yams. I completely forgot about the mashed potatoes and corn (doh!). We had decided to bread some turkey cutlets for our Thanksgiving. So I pounded them out (no meat mallet - I use my fists, baby!), seasoned them, floured, egged, breaded, and placed them in a couple of tablespoons of oil. When it came time to turn them, the pan was getting a little dry and my evoo was out. So, instead of opening my new bottle, I put a little veg oil in and turned the cutlets over. Of course, they were sizzling and sputtering. As I pulled them off the heat, the geometry and physics were all just right and a minuscule drop of hot oil spat up from the pan and DIRECTLY INTO MY OPEN EYE. We hurriedly flooded my eye with cold water and I made the gravy. It's been sore and irritated and we're keeping an eye on it (pun intended! hyuckhyuck) and putting drops in regularly. At least now I have another one-up-ya pain story for conversation. (The only way I can be thankful for the experience. Cause, I gotta tell you: OW.) It was a yummy potatoless meal. Johnny set the table and we had a candlelit Thanksgiving and it turned out to be a wonderful night. And the leftovers will have potatoes today, mark my words. ;)
So, yesterday's post:

~The worst date ever.~
My worst date was my first date, which happened to be prom. A tall, pale, red-haired boy in my creative writing class had gotten to know my friend, Dianna, and I a little bit. One day at lunch he asked her to go into the hall with him and he asked her to prom. Her parents had a rule she had to be 16 to date so she declined. Then he asked me into the hall and asked me. Sloppy seconds is always SO flattering. I was already 16 and hadn't been asked out before, so I didn't know the tactful art of telling a boy that I'm not interested. (I got good at it during college. The art of hurting a little now to avoid hurting a lot later has been mastered.) So, I said I'd go and he gave me the stupid teddy bear he'd already offered Dianna and I began dreading. At my high school, having a "day date" was trendy, so we were going to have one. He picked me up in the morning, I can't even remember what time, to go skating at a nearby rink that had been steadily going out of style but gets a lot of business around dance-time. There was one other couple that had been dating for quite some time in our group. Oh, and his mom decided to be his chauffeur and camerawoman. -.- We got to the rink a solid hour early. His mother had already driven away to go to the salon, so we killed time at a nearby gas station reading greeting cards and smelling candles. When they opened the doors at the rink we rented our skates and started skating in circles. Much later, we had some pizza at the little lunch counter the rink had. We skated more and when we sat at the side, the guy kept trying to hold my hand or put his arm around my waist. Did I mention it was also his first date ever? Finally, his mother picked us up and I went home and put bandages on my blisters, as we had been at that blasted rink for 6 HOURS. The longest of my life. My mom had made a beautiful prom dress for me, and my sister, Melinda, helped me with my hair and make-up. His mom pulled up and he came to the door with a corsage bracelet for me. We walked to the car with his mother filming us the whole way. Then the guy from the other couple held the camera while my date gave his mother a corsage, as well. At least it was a magic moment for her... We had dinner at a nice place with his mother a couple of tables away. I was too nervous to eat much. In the car on our way to the dance, I also witnessed my date dabbing some concealer on his facial blemishes, which highly disturbed me... At the dance itself, my date had a lot of punch - which had been spiked with something that I guess made frequent bathroom trips necessary. Several times I was left in the middle of the dance floor alone as my date bolted toward the bathroom. We spent most of the night sitting at one of the tables not talking though we made attempts at conversation. At last his mom drove us away from the dance and I didn't even hug him at the door. I hurried inside so he wouldn't see me crying. And we pretty much never talked again...
I got better at dating and went to Homecoming at 3 different schools the next year and had a lot of fun, just by the by. And soon there was John. => The first date was just the worst date ever. :S

My Superstitions

When I was a kid I used to watch that cartoon with Donald Duck where he avoids going under the ladder and doesn't like the number 13 and runs away from the black cat. He breaks a mirror and will get seven years bad luck. There are so many - don't put your hat on the bed, put a horse shoe above the door, rub a rabbit's foot (I had one when I was little and now I'm like... ew! a dead thing's foot dyed red and key-chained? You kidding me?), pick up pennies, don't step on a crack... Hahaha. I also loved Bernard in The Rescuers skipping the thirteenth step. Somewhere along the line, though, I forgot about a lot of it. I would have a lucky pencil for tests, though, and I wore a kind of lucky necklace that said "imagine" and a moonstone ring (from when I read The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins - not any Twilight stuff, ew) every day for a long time. Now, I basically feel like if you believe in something, that's what gives it power. Whether it be good or bad. And I figure why not believe something's lucky? Can't hurt anything. I'm not going to believe I'm cursed or in bad stuff, though. Haha. Along the same lines of the people who have a positive outlook on life seem to have a good life. Looking at Nigella Lawson's life, she lost her mother, sister, and husband to cancer. But, she's so positive and keeps going. She remarried and loves her kids and makes yumminess on tv and tells the world she'd rather have a larger size pant and enjoy food and life than spend life skimping on it and worrying about her waistline. She has every excuse to give up and be sad forever, but she doesn't do it. She believes in love and happiness and they are real for her. I want to be that way, believing in life and sporting my good luck charms. =D

The worst phone call ever.

The worst phone call ever for me would be the one I'm always waiting for. Before John was a soldier, he was a driver and it was a very dangerous job, considering how many souls are taken by traffic accidents every year. And now my Johnny will be deployed next year. It's not like he's infantry on the front lines or anything, but it still is a little scary that he will be so far away for so long. The worst phone call would be the one telling me that something has happened to him. Or that emotionally-distanced knock at the door. I hope I would know - that I would feel something. But, who knows? I just hope that I can be strong if it ever happens. One of my college roommates lost her husband almost two years ago, the day after Christmas. It was very sudden. It's horrifying how easily and how quickly it can happen. I can't even imagine the hollow feeling of continuing to get up day after day. Complete anguish. Seeing one toothbrush by the sink, the fridge magnets arranged as before, leftovers in the fridge... Just the pain of each time John has to leave for a while - last Christmas I was without him with the kidney infection - creates such a void. You work around it and pretend it isn't there, but it's an unending ache. It never gets easier, it never goes away. My dear roommate... I don't know how she has been so strong. It should never happen to someone so young with so much possibility. It makes me wish I could heal peoples' pain. So, if that worst phone call ever comes and changes everything forever, I hope I can be like her. Her strength and beauty has been inspiring to me.

It scares me, but I like it.

I enjoy creepy! Not gory so much, not scary so much. Creepy. =) Like how you don't see the shark much in Jaws. Or walking through a haunted forest and hearing noises. Ghost stories. Tales of legendary beasts lurking somewhere in an area with dozens of people that swear they have seen it, but no evidence has been found yet. NOT leprechauns, just to clarify. That's not creepy at all. Leave the rich little person alone. I so wanted Paranormal Activity to be creepier than it was. The dinosaur footprints the demon supposedly left ruined it for me. (Especially when John laughed out loud in the theater and everyone glowered at us...) Vampire stuff, zombie stuff, creature features... not that great for me. Blood and guts and all that are just kinda there and not that scary. (Maybe I'd have been fine taking anatomy in college. Hm..) A voice calling your name when you are alone in a desert area - like the djinn. Djinns are creepy. =D Hearing flapping in a forest supposedly inhabited by the Jersey Devil. The sound of footsteps behind you and turning around to find nothing there. I love that! Shadows moving around blocking out the moonlight streaming in the windows when you are positive you are alone. Something in a mirror that isn't there when you turn around. Seeing a person slowly crossing a street in the light of a streetlamp, then looking again and seeing no one anywhere. The unexplainable creepy is what I love the most. Eeeheehee!