99 things I ought to have done...

So there's a pretty good chance that anyone reading this who also reads other blogs will have read it somewhere else. However, in order to quell that itch within me for writing, I have chosen to add this...silly maybe...introspective, definitely...

99 Things I Ought to Have Done


Instructions:

Copy the list, bold the ones you've done (with explanations if needed), share with friends.

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped

12. Visited Paris (twice, and hoping to move there in two years!)

13. Watched a thunder and lightning storm
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch (does teaching oneself Photoshop count?)

15. Adopted a child (no, but I am adopted!)
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France (twice)
20. Slept on an overnight train (no, but would LOVE to do this...)
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching --no, but dophin watching, yes...
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma--can't. we're tainted since we lived overseas..
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London (quite overrated. better at the Tower of London)
77. Broken a bone
78. Been a passenger on a motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year’s Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating (
88. had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life--Devyn's. Twice.
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Got a tattoo
94. Had a baby (twice even!)
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee (does a sweat bee count? otherwise, no...)

Apparently, the girl got schooled. Or not.

Today I had the vast pleasure of getting to hear about how our government should stop helping countries in the midst of enormous disasters (Haiti, yall) and should concentrate on what's important: ourselves. Well, shoot. That makes all the sense in the world! After all, we're meant to live in a self-righteous shell, making ourselves MORE comfortable and thumbing our nose to the world and it's people. Thank you for that formidable education. Can't believe I missed the boat on that one!

Um, hello. I'm a Navy wife. I've been one for ten years and before that I was a Navy girlfriend for two years. THEN I was told that I should get my facts straight about what goes on in our military, because our men and women are being denied their basic freedoms and it's likely that I don't know what goes on because I haven't had to deal with a deployment. Now THAT, yall, made me laugh out loud! For the record, and in case anyone is checking, here's our track record:

1 Mediterranean deployment (6 months in length)
4 Middle Eastern deployments (three at least 2 months, 1 lasting nine months)
1 deployment due to arrive later this year lasting at least 5 months
Countless weeks here and there, countless days spent apart not due to a deployment

So I've got experience. I've got a TON more than I would like to say I have. I know there are those folks who feel that we should not be helping our neighbors, and while there are instances and occasions that I feel the same way, let me just say this:

Our God commands us to help the "least of these". We, in the military, are in no way, shape, form, or condition, the least of these. At all. Does the job just reek sometimes? YES. Does the separation we experience cause us to feel physical heart ache and pain? YES. Am I thankful to live in a country where freedom of speech are rights that have been ensured not by our government, but by our men and women who have fought since 1774 to keep it that way? You bet. Am I concerned that our deployment scheduled for later this year could start MUCH sooner with an unplanned deployment to Haiti? Oh...mercy, yes. Here's the thing, though. I have always told D & A that their Daddy fights for the children of the world who can't fight for themselves or who don't have a Daddy who can. If Hubs is called to Haiti, I will stand with pride and wishes of Godspeed on the pier, maybe not seeing him for who knows how long.

So, that said, maybe that's why I make a decent military spouse--it's the Southern in me. In the South, we help each other without regard as to what it will cost us. We're always the first on the doorstep with a casserole when someone has passed or someone's been born. I understand the need for the military to GO to these places that are struggling and heaving with despair. My parents gave to others--and still do--and that's instilled in me. Whether it's Collards from the garden for our neighbors for no reason or sending my sweet husband to a place where he is so vitally needed, I give. And sometimes I get tired of it, but I do it because it's my job. I'm God's child and a Navy wife.

Movin' on up...

So, yes, I realize that it's been a while. Ok, a LONG while...I said in one of my previous posts that there were some changes a-comin to the home of the Fab Four+Cat and sooo, without further ado...

1. Carrie (me) is going to school. Again. Got the Associates, got the Bachelor's...shoot why not have a complete mid-thirties life-shift and decide to do what I've always wanted to do? Why the heck not? Because it's CRAZY, that's why. CRAZY yes, but WOW...I started a year ago just taking one class and I am now in my second semester of Anatomy and Physiology...in order to...one day...before I die...become a Nurse in Trauma, Emergency Medicine or Obstetrics. More on that later...

2. Mike (the hubs) and I have decided to take the very BIG leap of trying to go for another overseas tour. This time in...wait for it...Berlin or Paris. AHHH!!!! Again, more craziness! There's a TON to be done with that, but all in God's timing. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen and we will go where we're sent, but man...three years in Paris? Who would pass that up? Not I, not I...

3. Said Husband will be deploying for six or seven months this September and this will mark the first Christmas we have ever spent apart--VERY rare in this Navy world of ours. So prepping for that, and still carrying on soccergymnasticskidsschoolmyschoolchurchlifefamily and SUCH is a big, well...interesting to say the least...

Sooo, as if that's not enough, I suppose that's all for now...of course, there will be more much sooner than later!