I feel in to a burning ring of fire...

And it hurt like a bitch.

The past two days have been the biggest cluster fuck in the history of cluster fuckdom. Yesterday wasn't too bad... sure Auto pissed in the car, and Diesel tried to eat the house... but those are fixable. My dog isn't. If he breaks, he's broken.

I took Diesel to the vet today, so they could catch up on what's been going on with his lump. They gave me medicine to give him this time. If the lump doesn't go away within the next two weeks he's going in for surgery to get it removed, and it's being sent to a pathologist. Then a few weeks later, after I visit family in Florida, he'll be getting his bawlz cut off.

I got some unsettling news this morning, before I took Diesel into the vet, so that didn't exactly help my day start off swimmingly, either. I can't really talk about that, though. Tomorrow I'm going to go grocery shopping, and then get my hair cut. It's settled. I have way too much going on right now for me to give a damn about styling my hair everyday. I need something easy. Less hair = less time spent on straightening/styling it. More time to get shit done.

So much has happened in the past two days. I hate that Mark is 1. out of the loop with it all, and 2. is unreachable. Yay for going underway... meaning I won't have contact with him for another couple weeks... I really hope that he is able to call or email before Diesel's surgery, at least... I would say the opposite, but it'll probably take awhile for the results to get back from the pathologist anyway, so either way before or after surgery he's still going to worry about the results. Hell, he doesn't even know that Auto's appointment went flawlessly, and that he is the "healthy" one of the two. I really hope that at least right now, he has forgotten or isn't worried about how Auto had a lump (that has went away, yay!) or that Diesels has gotten more noticeable. I know that he's down about missing me and the dogs, and I know that he's down about being on that same boat again, this time for even longer so they say... I just really hope that that's all that is on his plate right now. I'm perfectly happy with bearing these burdons... I wish I could just hide them from him, but I'm pretty sure the amount that will be coming out of our checking account might make him ask a couple questions... especially since it will say that it's coming from our vet. I really hope he doesn't worry about Diesel. I know he'll be okay... I hope.

There's gotta be something more...

...and by that I mean something more to go wrong today. You know that DirecTV commercial, where the guy starts the commercial off with "I am Epic Win." Yea, well I'm the opposite, today. This morning I took Auto to the vet. Everything was fine. He has been throwing up in the mornings before he eats, but they told me just feed him later at night, and it's normal for how early I feed him at night. He also had a lump on his jaw line, but they said it was just a mole... I don't know about that one, but I'll just keep checking on it. Diesel's lump on his head seems to have gotten a bit bigger, so I made an appt for that for tomorrow... hopefully it wont be as big a fail.

So, why am I Epid Fail? Well first, after tripping over myself with Auto and a huge bag of Blue Buffalo to getting out of PetSmart and into the car, I forgot to let Auto drain his snake. So, naturally, about 1 minute before we pull into the drive way, Auto pisses all over the front seat of the car. FML. Welp, at least I don't have to clean it up... We don't have the stuff to get it out, so I'm just going to take it somewhere to get cleaned on Friday, windows down for the next few days... and of course it's raining the next few days too. Wet seats will smell better than piss, though... I'm sure of it.

But that's not all folks. I walk inside, and go to let Diesel out of my room. My brother is sick, so I put him in my room, instead of him my brother's temp. room where his kennel is. BAD IDEA. I did it this morning and he was fine, but I guess that's just because he was still sleepy. Well I walk through the door and step in something wet. Nope, not piss. Drool. Cascading down the door trim, starting at the huge chunk missing, that I'm assuming could only be resting in piece down Diesel's throat. No positives to this story, I'm afraid. I'm going to have to replace the damn trim before Mark gets home.

At least I don't fail this hard when Mark is home... otherwise I'd probably be in the dog house lol.

Don't you wanna stay here a little while...

So, today was the day. He's gone. Hopefully I can through this post without loosing my cool.

Mark's family was here the past two days, so that's why I've been AWOL on here lately, as well as Mark has been off work since Wednesday... so I've been a bit busy, bigger fish to fry than writing a blog, obviously. Of course, Mark waiting until yesterday to get all his gear ready, buy all his little here's and there's, pretty much everything to tie him over (minus care packages that I can send him) for the next 10 months.

His Aunt, Uncle, and cousin said their goodbyes yesterday, after dinner. After everybody left Mark went and repacked all his things, to add the other things he had gotten that day to the mix, while I played Pokemon like a boss on his new DS. Apparently everybody is nerding out this boat ride, and playing pokemon (L shaped hand, meet forehead.) After he got done packing, my brother busted out his beard trimmer, and I went to town trying to give Mark a fade. He forgot to go to the barber shop, and with Marine Corp tradition, your first deployment you get shaved. This is Mark's second, so I really wanted to at least try and let him keep his hair so he isn't looked at and automatically put into the "boot" category by everybody else. He didn't care, but I just wanted him to have his hair. Well I did a pretty good job for a first timer, but obviously you can only do too much with a bear trimmer lol... I ended up just shaving it all off.

After that we "went to bed." No, those quotations are not of a sexy nature. We just laid together. He was only going to get 4 hours of sleep at that point anyway, so it was too hard to actually fall asleep. Of course there were some tears, nothing too bad, but it was bound to happen our last night of laying together.

Eventually we did fall asleep for a bit, but we were woken up soon enough by his alarm. Everything was fine and dandy with leaving. We took some pictures, and then our roommate and his wife left. Thats when it went down hill.

It's actually happening; he's really leaving. I'm going to be "alone" for 10 months. Without him.

We cried. Hard. Together. Then we gathered ourselves up, only to loose it again. Finally, it was time for goodbye. Que more heart crushing tears. I can still remember his face as he walked across the living room and just fell into me on the chair. It broke my heart to see him break. I don't think I will ever forget the look in his eyes. It was the worst feeling ever, knowing that there was nothing I could do to stop him from hurting. I was hurting myself, but all I wanted to do was keep it together for him. I'm pretty sure my entire neighborhood knows he's gone now, though. Our good bye on the front porch... in the rain. He drove to base. As soon as he left the drive way I walked inside and just let out all my pain. It was so hard not to loose it that much with him there. After he left I just had to scream & kick & cry. "Oh, God." I couldn't stop yelling "Oh, God."

aaaaaand.... I've lost it. I'm going to take a shower soon and really let it out, then go to bed... even though I technically only woke up like 6 hour ago. I got a call around 9:30pm. He said his phone was dying, and he was going to unpack and then call me back, but I'm thinking since he hasn't called back by now he fell asleep after unpacking. He's got a lot of people to call anyway, and I know he said he was going to call his mom, so maybe he still will call. I don't know, either way I'll be okay. I'll probably get my last stable phone call tomorrow, and after that the communication is really going to go down hill. Then we're back to emails and port calls (even thought his time they wont be hitting nearly as many ports from the sounds of it.)

As my friend Jaclyn said... time to kick Deployment number two's ass "Like a boss."

The best things in life are free...

Starting with my family :) Yes, I just did get super corny on you guys.

My weekend went fast, as I expected. Mark's best friend and his girlfriend were in town so we pretty much barely slept. Honestly I don't even remember doing much. No I wasn't black out drunk the whole time, it just really want that fast. Plus I'm still living on like 5 hours of sleep a night... I'm used to like 10 hours of sleep lol I'm lazy, remember. Well Mark went back to work today from the weekend, and my brother got here this morning at about 1100. I ran him through the basics of the house; where things are located, how Auto needs to be on a leash, not to smoke in the house but dont leave cig. butts outside or Mark will lose his mind, and that if the dogs hump each other or lick one another's junk it's absolutely normal. You know, the normal things. He went to bed, and I pretty much bummed out all day, watched SATC2, and then started on dinner... which was pretty dern ballin if I do say so myself.

When Mark did come home he told me the full proof dates that he'll be leaving... lets just say it's too soon. I am not looking forward to him leaving, but I can already tell that it will be a lot easier with Justin here. My brother is a hoot to just sit and listen to while he plays video games. It'll be hard for me not to smile with him around (everybody now, awwww, a brother & sister that DON'T hate each other!)

Now Mark & my brother, Justin, are playing video games. I'm sure Mark will regret not being in bed 2 hours ago, in the morning :) Me, on the other hand... I can sleep all day!

You ain't nothing but a hound dog...

...okay maybe they hound dogs at all... But today I had a long freakin day. It started with a photo shoot of my boo butts. Feel free to check it out. That link is to the first of the line. When Diesel gets the size of a rat, you know that those are from when we first got him, not from today lol.

Mark is now day crew! And is NOT leaving in under a week. Now it's back to the old "end of the month" date. Which means I woke up at quarter til 5 this morning. Hopefully I can do that again tomorrow. I'm pretty darn tired, and thats weird for me, considering we usually dont got to bed for another 8 hours lol. My body is in wtf mode, and I've been starving allll day. I did keep busy, though. So that's probably why I kept getting hungry. The dogs massacred the patio, so I decided to sweep that off, and I'm sure I'm going to feel that in the morning. I had to DIG with my broom to get the dirt out of the cracks. It was baaad. I didnt even get around to vacuuming & moping. But I did get most of the laundry done (besides one load) and I cleaned the master bedroom, so at least I had a productive day!

In a way I love how fast this week is going, since that means my brother will be here soooo soon, but I also want to punch a baby for how fast it's going, since that means these last couple weeks with Mark are going to fly by. Gotta stay positive, though. The sooner he's gone the sooner they'll be back, and the sooner we'll be happier whether it be in California with friends or Florida with family :)

Suck my kiss.

It's time for an "I haven't been to bed yet, and stupid shit is annoying me" rant. Something that's bugged me since I was a childcare provider and realized morons did this.

Mothers, heck maybe even Fathers (just not that I've seen) :

Yes, I know that your precious baby is so amazing, and you are completely enamored by them. They are the light of your life, apple of your eye, and all that good stuff. But when you are asked how old they are, do not EVER say x weeks or x months unless the answer is somewhere between 1-3 weeks, or 1-11 months old. If you want to include the months, more power do you. But, I swear to you, nothing makes me want to cut you more than you telling me that your child is a) 34 weeks old, or b) 28 months old.

Your child is fucking not. Your child is a) 8 1/2 months old, or b) 2 year, hell you can even spring for 2 years and 4 months old.

For the love of all things babylicious, knock that shit off. It's annoying, and only makes you sound like a friggin mouth breather.

Yes. I went there.

and yes, I am on my period.

So you can take that cookie, and stick it...

in my mouth :D

Guess who's having cookies for lunch? This girl! And yes, I said lunch. Since Mark works night crew (and is late show on top of that) we don't wake up until about 3pm. So when you look at my day, I'm 8 hours behind. My Breakfast is at 3pm, my lunch is at 8pm, and my dinner is at about midnight-1am. Sometimes I'll start it at 2am so I've got the off chance that Mark will be home to eat a warm dinner... if I even cook dinner that day! I've probably only cooked dinner 5 times in the past month. Oh the joys of not having to cook for anybody, and just stuffing your face with microwavables and lunch meat sandwiches for dinner :) But, we've got a full house coming our way in this next couple weeks.

As I said before, my brother will be here this weekend sometime, but come to find out, our roommate's buddies will be coming as well. And then after they leave, about a week later a couple people from his wife's side of the family will be here to help her move all their things back to New York (DH and our roommate are deploying together, and his wife will be going home, like most military wives without children do.) So I'm going... COOKIES ARE DONE YAAAAAAAAAAY.... to have to start actually cooking again. My poor soul. Okay off to nom on chocolate chippity goodness while I wait for Bad Girls Club :)

These boots were made for walkin'.

And that's just what they'd do if my damn husband would buy them for me! I am in LOVE with those damn boots. They're PERFECT for wearing with any of my jeans, or with any of the dresses that my husband also wont let me buy >:/ They're from Pacsun Hopefully Mark sucks it up and lets me get there soon, because if they're still selling them in the store, I'm sure they wont be for much longer. They're out of stock on 7.5 online too, so if any of you bitches know where I can get this online elsewhere, for under $30, in 7.5, spill yo' shit & I'll rock your world ;D

On another note, I tried out Sally Hansen's Salon Effects in "Laced Up" and I have got to say it was SUPER easy, looks great, and I LOVED not having to sit around for an hour without touching anything for fear of smudging. They're a bit pricey, compared to doing it yourself with regular ole nail polish, but I will definitely be trying out the other patterns. It's still cheaper than paying somebody else to do it for you, and they don't chip nearly as easily as other nail polishes! Highly recommended!

Another one bites the dust...

Yes, folks. My fat ass exploded out of my pants for the second time in my life. My last pantastrophe happened a few years ago, but the wounds were still fresh! Luckily I caught myself before Mark's buddy saw my entire ass crack hangin out... This is why you should never buy a lifted truck, men. Because your "not fat, but not a stick" girlfriend/fiancee/wife is going to try and get her big ass up there and "rrrrrrrrrrrrpppp" done son. Now you have to wait another five minutes to leave because your dumb truck made her have to find a new pair of pants to wear out! Heaven forbid this happens in the parking lot, or somebody else's driveway rather than your own.

In other news... My brother will be here this weekend! And we've gotten news that Mark might not be leaving until the end of the month... so that gives us at least another week together, if all goes well.

Well that's about it, I've been pretty boring lately... which is why I haven't updated this in like two days. Hopefully something interesting will happen here soon. Eh, lets face it. I'm lame.

Girls just wanna have fun.

I've decided to convert to the dark side.... err light side rather. I'm going from dark brown to blonde!! Tonight I did my second lightening (box blonde) and now I'm going to get a bunch of highlights and call it a day! Obviously the top is the recent, and the bottom is the oldy. I think it looks pretty dern nice like. I think that I'll end up going a little lighter than I planned on going (I was going for a Jennifer Aniston Style) since I'm pretty fond of the lighter colors on me. So far, I like. Hopefully Mark agrees!

BTW, I totally browsed how much furniture is going to cost me for what I want the house to be... holy cwap, hopefully I can find a good paying job without a college degree lol!

This is my temporary home.

I'm super bored, and the house is as clean as it's gunna get. My back hurts, so I'm skipping on the mopping, and it's too late to start cleaning our bedspread (which I, of course, forgot to do today!) so me = done son. There's still a funky smell coming from our guest bathroom, but I have personally cleaned that shit so I have no friggin clue where the hell that stink is coming from. It's not a "OMG somebody shit themselves" stink, just a strange smell, so I'm not too worried about it. I'm guessing it's the linoleum holding in odor... which I am making my personal goal (along with a bazillion other things) to get rid of while Mark is gone. The entire house is hardwood and tile... the previous owners (who literally just remodeled the entire house) couldn't have put some REAL damn tile in the bathrooms!? C'mon!

But anywho, I've already seen all these Family Guy & American Dad episodes (thank you night-crew, for stealing my husband) so I've been brainstorming. About what you ask? Well Ima gunna tell ya, because I know how much you care and everythang (;

Main Goal this deployment:

Make this house look awesome. I'm going to get rid of our oversized recliner (...which I broke like four months after my mother got it for Mark. M'bad dawg!) and replace it with two cute, smaller chairs. Our living room is way to big for our oversized furniture. The beloved corduroy couch stays, but I gotta find two super cute smaller chairs of the perrfect shade to go with it. The couch is a dark blue, and the walls I plan on coloring a blue-grey (more on the blue side.) I'll also be adding a sweet ass oversized ottoman to replace our coffee table, which is currently residing in our guest bedroom because nobody uses it and it's a pain in the ass to keep clean (thank you Auto & Diesel!) And say good by to our oh so fabulous 20 dollar walmart side tables that are way to small to put anything other than a dang lamp, X-box controller, and candle on. I would replace our TV stand, too... but since Mark just haaaad to get a 60 inch, the only option to replace the one we have now is to sell a kidney. I'm rather fond of my kidneys, thank you. Then, of course, some picture frames for the wall... that will be empty because my horrible husband never takes pictures! But I'm going to get somebody to take homecoming pictures, so those will definitely fill the walls! I am not going to settle for one cell phone camera picture this homecoming!

Next, we move on to the bedroom. Which is also super small. I will be replacing our also super fancy 20 dollar walmart hip height bookshelf with a 3 drawer dresser/chest, hopefully one that matches our 6 drawer (long) dresser. My thrift store side table (just one...) will be replaced as well. I'm going to find two cute, smaller, end tables and spray paint those babies a faaabulously bold color to make our bedspread... so probably a medium-bright green. Then, I will either make my perfect headboard, or find it. Probably make it, since it's a lot cheaper to just buy a piece of plywood, some awesome fabric, and foam than to pay a bazillion times the cost of all that for one some self proclaimed genius made himself. And of course, add some art/shelves to the walls.

On to the guest bedroom! I'm going to try and get rid of my old bed (from my teenage years) and get a futon. Then I'll find a nice computer desk. The guest bedroom is perfect for a nursury, but 1. I ain't got no babies, and 2. I ain't getting no babies for at least another two years! So it'll do as an office :) Put some nice art in there (along with the framed poem Mark's aunt got us for christmas that her friend wrote) and a new coat of paint. Presto, lovely office.

Our second bedroom (our roommates, now. My brother's when he gets here) is good for now. I might put a nice dresser in there if I can find one at a good price, but other than that, some stuff to hang on the wall and it'll be good to go!

So hopefully, this house will look pretty dern good when Mark gets home! He's going to hire an landscaper to send our yard back to how it looked before Auto & Diesel destroyed it, so I might as well make the inside look awesome... and hopefully myself as well ;)

Cannot wait to tackle this place and, a year and a half later, make it feel like Home.

It's Getting Better All The Time.

It's probably the fact that my brother will be here while Mark is gone, but I cannot help but feel like I can actually do this! For the next 11 months I can really focus on me and I can't help but be excited for that. I was going to just order a diet food system, like Nutrisystem®, but since my brother will be here I think I'll just buy a few health food cook books and go crazy. That will be better in the long run anyway, I think. Then once Mark comes home I'll be used to cooking that way! My poor tubs of butter aren't even gunna see it coming :(

I also plan on joining a gym! Before moving to Jacksonville, NC I worked at a gym for about 3 years.... and never used it -_- Lets hope this time I actually follow through because even when I had a free membership to a fantastic gym I only used it for the dang steam rooms! I'm horrible, I know. When Mark was deployed last time, while I was still working there, I tried to work as much as possible, and that really helped, so I plan on getting at least a part time job (because lets face it, I do NOT want a full time job with two dogs, and wanting to spend at least an hour or two at the gym on top of not being used to working again!) Here's to hoping that my willpower isn't as weak as... it is o.O

Okay I'm getting super distracted, so sorry if that last half made no sense... I'll probably be back later when I'm not zoning out every other sentence... Bai!

Just be patient, I'm a work in progress.

Well here we go again. Little old me, starting a blog. Everybody knows I'll probably get distracted, never to come back again after a week and a half... but I'll try to remember you, poor little blog.

Right now, I'm working on making it all pretty-like, so ignore the mess that it is now. This is just until I can find somebody who actually knows what the heck they're doin ;)

I guess I can start by telling you a little about myself, eh?

The names Ashley. Hi! I'm 21 years old, and have been married for 1 year, 2 weeks, and 3 whole days! Yes, yes I did reference my calendar to get the exact numbers. Don't you judge me. My husband's name is Mark. Don't mind how super fly he is... believe it or not he is flawed. We've known each other since high school, and reunited via maaahhhspaayce awhile back. We started dating February of 2008, so just over 3 years ago. He proposed just a month shy of our first anniversary, and we got married a year later, after his first deployment.

Speaking of deployments... I'm on my way to another. Just a week ago we thought we had four months. Silly us for counting our eggs before they hatched, because just yesterday my husband's oh so lovely command decides to spring on us that we have less than two weeks to get our shit together, and then he's gone for eleven months. Yep, I know... somebody put me in a short term coma, please and thank you.

So, I get to stay back here, holding up the fort with our two dogs, Auto & Diesel. At first I was a bit panicked, but luckily my amazing brother, Justin, agreed to move in while Mark is gone! Now I cannot wait for this deployment to start (not that I really have to wait, with the timeline they gave us!) so it can end already, and we can move in california! Very excited for that move. I love change, especially a change from this boring hole of a town. I don't know many people here, since in the year I've lived here we've went through one bump after the other in terms of me being able to get a job. First we moved, then we sold my car, then we got a truck, then the truck broke down, and the bugger still isn't up!!

As horrible as I'm expecting this deployment to be, I'm looking forward to the adventure. Yes, I've been through one... but that one was only 7 months. And we were already in a long distance relationship. I'm bracing myself for the fact that I've seen him every day for the past 1 and 2 months, and in a couple short weeks I'll have to go 11 months without having him here with me.

This should be an interesting 16 years.