Month: June 2013

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Happy Birthday, Mom <3

Last night was a bad night. She never gives full details, but I’m pretty sure her mental competency trial was yesterday, and she told me she read the letters we wrote to the judge and district attorney that explain her condition. Needless to say, she wasn’t happy, and the pain, anger, and fear in her voice was palpable when she called repeatedly in the middle of the night.

I know I’m not doing anything wrong, but it’s her reality that drives ours… and my heart breaks every time she reminds me what I’ve done to her.

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Taking a Little Brain Break…

…to plan a EuroTrip with Chuck for 2014! I have been talking for ages about doing this, but of course, things happen and it’s hard to commit for all kinds of reasons. But it’s true what they say – there’s never a “good” time to drop that much money on something, so eventually you just have to go for it. It only gets harder to find the time to have an adventure, and we’ve been working really hard on saving money this year (weddings aside). Of course, ideally I’ll be gainfully employed in a real city in 2014 too! That would give me some confidence to move forward with it.

Anyway, my original thought was to go in the Fall. I’ve heard the Fall is best for travel, from cost to weather patterns – plus that’s our wedding anniversary! But Chuck graduates from his school billet in March, so I feel like that may be a good time to go instead. If we wait till October, we will both (hopefully) have started new jobs somewhere, and may not have the flexibility to take time off, and Lord knows what his schedule will be like to begin with.

Now I just need to decide where to go!! I’ve been to the UK twice, but I feel like it’s a must for someone who’s never been to Europe before (like Chuck, who requested we go wherever the castle is where Harry Potter went to school.) Plus I have long-lost friends there, so it would be fun to reunite with them. Then I was thinking of hitting the basics – France and Italy – but I get so distracted by the other countries too! Greece, Germany, Switzerland, Spain…and don’t get me started on other continents 🙂

Let’s hope we get more than one opportunity to go on a fun trip like that. I was hoping the military would take us there, but it’s not looking like that will happen. It’s always been one of the big things I want to do with my life – travel and see the world. It’s just so gosh darn expensive these days!

But like I always used to tell my dad when he’d give me money talks – I’ve never regretted a penny spent on a trip, foreign or domestic 🙂

Anyway – advice on how to go about planning a EuroTrip (flights, places to stay, and other essentials) would be great!

2 children beheaded by militants, Afghan authorities say

Taliban militants beheaded two children in southern Afghanistan, a provincial governor’s office said.

Sometimes this war gets so politicized that even I forget why our men and women put themselves in harm’s way: to stop tyrannical entities like the Taliban, which has no respect for the most innocent forms of life, from preying on the innocent and manipulating a culture.

“How does this affect us?” one might ask. When you start manipulating cultures, extremism becomes rampant – and that puts us all at risk.

2 children beheaded by militants, Afghan authorities say

the Dream I’m Working On

“I may still not know what I want to be when I grow up, but I do know that someday I want to live in a house filled with my books and travel souvenirs. And the walls that aren’t covered in bookshelves will be covered with photos of my family and friends. When I leave the house I will be going to a job I love, and I’ll return to a person I love. So, that’s the dream I’m working on.”