Absence

I'd like to apologize for my unexpected leave of absence. I had a job offer land in my lap that would have been amazing, to say the least. I spent a lot of time trying to get this position, and in the end, I was not chosen. If I had gotten this job, I would have had to terminate this blog. So perhaps, not getting this job was a good thing (for my few readers). As always, something new is in the horizon at work. Let's just hope I can hop on this opportunity.

 

Don't worry, Picasso was still being awesome the whole time I wasn't blogging.

 

James and I are getting married 1 week from today in Las Vegas! Woot! I'm really excited. I'm sure there will be blogs to document this awesome event. And tons of pictures. It's not everyday you can wrangle up your family and best friends in one central party location and have a super great celebration. Yay! 7 days away!

 

I was still being pretty awesome, too.

 

4th of July with The Clarks

I flew from Boston to Aberdeen Proving Grounds this morning to see one of my best friends and her family. Ashley and I were roommates when I was stationed at Fort Lewis. We got to see each other briefly last summer while I was attempting EFMB at Fort Sam Houston-- where she was then stationed.  But really, it had been over 3 years which is WAY too long since I've seen this girl!

Ashley and her husband David had their first baby 4 months ago. Jayla is a very sweet and adorable little baby. As many of you know, babies and Jackie are awkward together. I have not worked up the nerve to hold her yet, but Jayla and I have an understanding that I will eventually pick her up. And I will try not to hold her like she is dripping, like I did the last baby I held (that didn't turn out well). 

Pretty, pretty drool princess!

After my very exhausting drive from Providence to Logan International Airport at 0300, Ash and I decided being bums would be perfectly acceptable so we just hung around the house all day. I know it's the 4th of July, and it's the most super American holiday but I'd rather bum around and grill some burgers and relax than fight crowds to see 30 minutes of fire works. I am very aware I love America without fireworks.

Besides, I've made a new best friend at the Clark household. This is MJ, their half wiener half some other kind of mystery dog:

MJ loves Aunt Jackie.

MJ (which is short for Michael Jackson-- check out that one white paw) wants to play with me all the time. He brings me his toy chicken and whines until I throw it. Even if he's not close by, he still whines until I throw it. He wants to be in my lap at all cost. I really like this little wiener dog.

I'm so glad I came to visit Ash and David. Happy Independence Day 2013!

Night Time Downtown Providence

James and I stayed in a nice hotel in downtown Providence while we were visiting. We explored our surroundings and found a pretty sweet microbrewery right around the corner. The atmosphere was decent and the beers were tasty. The bar tender was super cool, and thought we were basically amazing since we both are in the Army. He thought we were so amazing, in fact, that our tab at the end of the night was $30. Now, I can tell you, our tab should have been triple that because James and I like to party.

 

We had a really good time hanging out. (So good, that we went twice.) But when it starts to be closing time, something triggers your drunk belly to demand food. So James and I went on a food quest. I think we found the holy grail of drunk food.

The poster on the side that bragged Man VS Food had visited this mobile burger joint just screamed, "Eat here!!!" I did have a Murder Burger, as suggested by the poster. But I opted out on the egg. Eggs don't belong on burgers. We brought our bag of burgers up to our hotel room and proceeded to devour the most delicious burgers I think I have ever had. Or at least, the most delicious burgers Drunk Jackie has ever had.

First Day In Rhode Island

 

Today was my first full day in Providence. James was an excellent tour guide and showed me a bunch of sights and places he grew up.

All the homes are old and unique. Including the house James grew up in. I didn't take pictures of random homes because I thought that might make me a creeper. But believe me, most of the homes are 100+ years old and very ornate and brightly painted. And the hydrangeas in all the yards were absolutely beautiful. I said so every time we passed them, you can ask James. I probably sounded like a broken record.

We went to the Rogers Williams Park Zoo today. It was a small zoo, but it had a few of those penny smashing machines (James knows I love those) so he wanted to make sure I had a few from Providence. Plus I love animals. The elephants were eating with their gross trunks, the camels were chewing their cud, the giraffes were drooling and the bald eagles were hanging out being Americans. What more can you ask from a zoo?

 

 

I love zoos. I make a point of going to the zoo in any city that has one. After the zoo we went across the park to the Natural History Museum. There were some good exhibits dealing with space and Rhode Island history. I found this guy upstairs:

RAWR!

 

We had an incredible dinner at a Greek restaurant to wrap up the night. While eating we had some prime people watching opportunities. We saw this guy multiple times doing many things while extremely high. Most of the time he was sitting in this living room chair on the street, actively smoking pot and handing out fliers.  We also watched a pedestrian come within inches of being smashed by a speeding pickup truck.

 

This did not take away from the delicious meal one bit. I want to eat the chicken I had there every night for the rest of my life. True story. Great day sight seeing in Providence.

Bonfire

We had some folks over to the house tonight. So we decided to build a fire in our little metal fire pit so everyone could be outside. We've had some bad experiences in the past when we party indoors with people spilling drinks all over the carpet and vomiting all over the couch (when do we get grown up friends??)... so, I have a strict rule of keeping guests outdoors if at all possible.

Tonight is a beautiful night. It's in the low seventies in Clarksville. It's cooler than it has been in weeks (unless you count the nights it storms). It's a great night to have friends over.

 

I'm also just a huge fan of having a bonfire. I think I get that from my mother. Through out my entire childhood, she was always a fire builder. I associate warm good nights with bonfires because of her. I will always appreciate that. Thanks, Mommer-- you rock!

I wish I had s'mores to make this night even better. Instead I will settle for my beer and call it good. Happy Summer!

Ball Photo

 

I got my Ball picture in my work email today. I chose to have it digitally sent to me so I could have whatever prints I wanted made up rather than conform to a "package".

 

It's not the best picture. But my dress looks beautiful, and James looks handsome and its all we have.

 

Don't worry, Mom, I already had a 5x7 made for you.

My Ball

Yesterday was my Battalion Military Ball. It was themed Masquerade. Even though I was part of the Ball committee, there were just some things we could not get vetoed and the theme was one of them. Oh well, lets not dwell on that. I was in charge of making all 25 of the center pieces. Aren't they just neat?

 

They probably aren't neat, but I made them, so I'm calling them neat.

 

The Ball was held in Nashville at the Renaissance Hotel. It was a really upscale venue. James and I got a room in the hotel, too, so we could go out downtown after the event. James cleaned up really nice. I was really proud to have such a handsome date. Also, he wore his jump boots with his uniform since he's in 101st and looked way cooler than all the CSH dudes in their low quarters.

 

What a handsome Soldier!

 

I'm sure I cleaned up well but I didn't take a picture of myself. We took a professional picture (like a prom picture) that showcased my dress, but I don't have those pictures yet. I will post them as soon as I do. One thing I can say, I was complimented many times on my dress. And the curls in my hair turned out super fancy.

 

You can kinda see how fancy my hair is.

 

The Ball was fine. It wasn't something to jump up and down about and get really excited over. But it was neat, and nice to see people out in their finest. Not too bad for my first Ball. But I would have liked to have seen more tradition and less unorthodox mumbo-jumbo. For instance, next time, I pray there will not be a "surprise" Harlem Shake. Although the theme was Masquerade, I did not wear a mask. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. But, I'll go to another Ball for sure. I like to support the unit any way I can, even when it's not exactly my scene.

Curlers

Tomorrow is my Battalion's Military Ball. This will be the first Military Ball I have ever attended, even though I have 8 years time in service. Last year I attempted to go to my Ball, but James decided to have last minute extensive oral surgery the day before. (I was so happy.) Needless to say, I had to give those tickets away. This year, there will be no unexpected surgeries and I will get to go... or there will be a homicide on my hands.

Although I want to support my organization, mostly I want an excuse up get all prettied up. And I want to show off how handsome James will look in his dress uniform to all the people I work with. With those 2 desires, comes quite the expense. The tickets, the hotel room, the dress, the shoes, the makeup... all an expense. So I decided to cut 1 expense and do my own hair.

 

Sweet rollers!

I figure curly = fancy. That math sounds about right. Well, after I leave these curlers in my hair over night I will have crazy curly (fancy) hair.

I used to put my hair in rollers like this all the time for school when I was in 7th and 8th grade. Middle school was a weird time for me. I noticed a few big differences between putting my hair in rollers then and now:

1) My hair is incredibly longer.

2) My arms do not fatigue as quickly. Thank you Army.

3) Now I can drink beer while I do this lengthy task.

Here's to hoping everything turns out well when I unroll all 49 of these suckers tomorrow morning!

Justin & Karie's Wedding

James and I went to Louisville this weekend for a mutual friend's wedding. I did the typical Army backwards planning to ensure we arrived to the church 45 minutes early. However, I totally forgot that Louisville is in the Eastern time zone, thus making us 15 minutes late for the ceremony. Luckily, the wedding started late (I think quite a few people made the same mistake I did).

 

The ceremony was held in a beautiful tiny church in the middle of a very old cemetery. It had really neat stained glass windows. It was a unique and very sweet ceremony; exactly what I expected from Justin and Karie. I'm really glad we made it in time.

 

 

The reception was in a very swanky country club. I did not expect that from Justin and Karie. Let me give you a little background on the couple: Justin is a Soldier by day and a tattoo artist by night, so almost every guest there was heavily tattooed. Justin is also straight edge. You wouldn't think it, but straight edge folks are more rowdy than people who drink. Karie is not straight edge, however, so they also had their drinking friends there. Just a healthy mix of rowdy and drunk at the ritzy country club.

 

James and I proved to be the drinking friends. James made a sweet Coors Light beer castle.

 

 

 

After the wedding reception, they had an after party at a hole in the wall bar. Literally, there was a hole in the wall next to the booth I was sitting at which kept producing one of the largest cockroaches I have ever seen in my life. It's like it could smell my fear so it kept making an appearance. It would come out of the wall just enough so I could see it waving it's antennas at me menacingly-- taunting me. Then I'd get Justin or James to try to stab it and it would recede back into the wall. I sat at the cockroach booth frozen with fear just long enough for another booth to open, then I hauled ass.

 

Not that I wanted to incorporate a cockroach story with my friend's beautiful wedding. But I have a deep fear of roaches, and every incident I have with one is worth reporting.

 

 

New Tattoo

I'm getting married in 2 months to a very wonderful dude. I wanted to make something right that has always bothered him since we first started dating: my bad tattoo.

Which bad tattoo, you ask? The worst tattoo. The tattoo of my ex husband's name on my right hip. James has expressed his dislike for it once or twice but he was never pushy about me getting it fixed. But it's clearly time for this tattoo to be gone, especially since we are about to get married.

 

Name with the new outline placed over it.

 

I had it covered this evening with a black bird. If you didn't know the name had been there, you wouldn't know this tattoo is a cover up. I absolutely love it. I won't lie though, this tattoo hurt. The older I get, the less I like to be tattooed.

Covered and completely 100% more awesome!

 

Now I feel like I have a clean slate to begin my new marriage. All remnants of the previous marriage are washed away-- or at least, covered up. Yay, wedding in 2 months!