BAM

There I was feeling like a poot when out of nowhere...BAM...a blessing happened.

(last night...)

Lee and I found out his training schedule. Excited to finally plan our 1st weekend trip to see one another and confirm his appearance at the wedding of our pals Mal & James, we started looking for a flight for him since I've already booked mine.

BAM. No luck finding a flight late enough for him to get there the night of the rehearsal dinner.

BAM. No luck finding a flight late enough for him to get there that night at all.

(earlier today...)

We settled for searching for an early Saturday morning flight.
BAM. Everything we found was just too much for one night. Costs were already climbing elsewhere and we needed to think about budgeting for other Lee & Erin trips during his training.

Insert grumpy turd face and a bit of hopeless on me.

Then BAM a coworker walks in and sees something that I was completely over looking for less than 1/2 the cost that I had found AND....drum roll please...BAM...gives me, yes gives me, a $200 travel voucher!

Thank you, Lord.

erin stuffed in a stocking

By the way, I made a GREAT stocking stuffer for Lee and he really LOVED it. Made me feel all mushy inside watching his reaction;) Anyhow-I created a desktop photo calendar for Lee filled with memories past and present with inside jokes between us. It's perfect because he can look at me all during his training and then deployment. He can easily countdown the days to see Coop and me again! Here's a sneak peek at some of my favorites, sorry for the image quality:

(starting with the Front Cover)

for pete's sake

For the love of Pete! Falling asleep at night takes me forever to do. Even before Lee left, the days leading up to the big departure, my sleep pattern started to suck. AND today, my 1st day back to work after an 11 day absence, I woke up before my alarm went off at 6am. I would much rather hit snooze 12 times than wake up alert. Ha! I tried taking a hot bath before bed last night and that didn't help. Tonight I plan to take Cooper for a long walk when I get home so maybe that will help more.
I'm wearing my new coat I got for Christmas from mom and dad to work today:

I've got a long black cardigan over my gingham buttonup shirt since I have heard the heater isn't working on my side of the office building. Thank goodness for my little space heater hiding under my desk!

And who the heck is Pete?

why hello there, 2012

NYE was low key for us. We went to dinner with Nick, Kristie and their little guy Kaden the night before. We knew we wanted to stay in and focus on US on NYE. I only had one meltdown way late on NYE so I did alright. I think I got all my tears out NYE bc NYD I was calm as a cucumber. Anyway NYE was a great day. We went to a new place in town that I love for lunch:

It was such a nice day (seriously, 65 degrees ) so we sat on the back patio and watched Cooper talk to his friends through the gate. That is...until...Lee got poo'd on by a squirrel! Soooo funny. I laughed incredibly hard. Lee's surprise face was classic. I'll never forget it or the face he gave me when I told him I needed a picture for evidence:

We recently discovered The Big Bang Theory so we were ecstatic to learn that there was a marathon NYE. We did take a break to warm up a can of blackeye peas. We both hate those darn things so instead of wasting time trying to disguise them in a recipe of some sort we each stuck a utensil in the bowl and ate a spoonful. We had a good time laughing at each other trying to choke them down and decided to make it a tradition every year to eat our annual peas just like that. I'll be shipping Lee his peas next year!

Knowing Lee had a long drive the next couple of days, we ditched champagne and toasted to sparkling juice at midnight instead (actually really really good):

Lee made it to his destination tonight. A bit dramatic that he had to leave on NYD. New year=new adventures. And the adventures are HUGE for us this year. Mercy. BUT-It's really great that I'm able to talk to him as much as I am. As far as phone privileges go, the training is like a normal 8-5 with the exception of the nights spent training in the field. Ha! There is probably no other comparison to a normal 8-5 job.
I miss him like crazy but I'm doing really well despite the obvious. As soon as he left, I started cleaning our closet hardcore and all my rat holes our drawers throughout the entire house as I tend to misplace stuff. Then I moved my cleaning to the bathrooms, took the trash to the curb, paid the bills, cleaned the sheets on the beds, and made some soup for dinner.
I've found that if I focus all my anxious energy elsewhere then I fill mucho better. Otherwise, I catch myself staring into space or comparing memories to every country song on the radio. Like last night when I was getting ready for bed. I only needed to fold over one side of our king size bed. Lee took his favorite pillow so it's just mine on there now. Makes me choke a tear back just thinking about it. This is what a Military wife's bed looks like:

Happy New Year! I go back to work tomorrow after an 11 day vacay. Wish me luck bc I'm not eating anymore peas.