Back to Civilization

So we haven't really blogged since being back in the states. This is mostly due to the fact that we've been so busy and didn't have internet for a minute there. The internet is still giving issues because I can't seem to get the wireless router to work, but with some patience and calling the help desk for my computer and our router should hopefully fix the problem soon. It's just really annoying and highly aggrevating for me. On a much more cheerful note I got some beautiful packages from Grandma Baader with these lovely clothes in them. One had a bunch of tops and matching earrings while the other had this sweet, pink patio dress and matching earrings. What's funny is that her travel group is going through the Amish country in Indiana where Michael's from and he's very familiar with it. He thought that was "so cool."

Anyway, since we've been back we've done all of our "post deployment" briefings, etc. We went on leave for two weeks, which was wonderful. The first week was spent in CA with Dad and Kris and all four kitties. It was a lovely visit and we got to see a lot of the California trails and foothills during spring time. The wild flowers are incredible that time of year and just paint the mountain sides. We then drove to AZ and visited with one of Mike's closest friends from his time in the Marines. Joe and Sylvia have a beautiful family with a new baby, a one year old, and a nine year old daughter. I took a lot of pictures and Mike had all the kids in the neighborhood playing in the park every afternoon after they all got back from school. I also got to visit with my Uncle Art and two cousins Wes and Jeff and we saw Mike's cousin Darlene (the one giving me the art lessons) and Mike's mom (very briefly) when his mom flew into Phoenix for her connecting flight back up to Alaska.

Before we went on leave we moved into our new house on post. It's a sweet little one story, three bedroom, two bathroom house that suits our needs well. We have pretty minimal furniture in it right now with the only complete room in the house being the kitchen. We have a simple dining room set and piles of books on the the floor. Our first load of household goods came in about a week ago and so we're sorting through it all. We've also got the beginnings of a home gym in our garage. Don't worry, pictures will be posted eventually as we start finishing up rooms on the house. Michael needs to get going on the bookshelves because these books are overtaking our living room. I'm also working on having my furniture in VA delivered over here. Our washer and dryer come in on Monday. So things are coming together.

I've been cooking up a storm. I didn't realize how much fun it is and how much I missed it until I got to really start doing it again. So far I haven't made a bad meal yet. Michael has loved all of them as well. It's always nice to cook for someone who likes what you make. Right now I've got a chicken stock simmering on the stove for some chicken soup tonight. One of Michael's favorite meals is soup and sandwiches. This round of soup will be done with barley and the next round will be done with those rice noodles found in Pho. The house smells really good. I think one of my favorite smells is garlic and onion sauteeing in olive oil. Whenever I get that going Michael always starts exclaiming, "THIS HOUSE SMELLS GOOD!" He'll come out of whatever he's doing just to make that statement. It makes me smile.

I've also started working at the ER now. I got the job all lined up and now I'm in training. The schedule has been pretty intense, but it's lightening up now that the training portion is calming down. It's 12 hour shifts and thankfully I have the day shift from 0700-1900. The schedule is you're on for two days then off two days then on three days then off two days then on two days then off three days, repeat. So you have a three day weekend every other week and work three days every other week. It's not that bad so far. I actually love the job and it's confirmed that I want to stay in the medical field. One of the interesting things about being back in a medical environment is that 1) you lose a lot of what you've learned when you don't do it that frequently and 2) what you've lost comes back very quickly when you're in that environment on a regular basis. It's like a foreign language.

So it was really humbling to realize how much of the knowledge I'd lost after being on a deployment where I didn't really use it on a regular basis, but at the same time all the knowledge is flowing back now that I'm in a hospital. Plus, I get to do all kinds of cool things now like IVs, draw blood, EKGs, irrigate wounds, watch on the fly surgeries and assist with them where I can, see all the different procedures nurses and doctors do, etc. It's amazing I have to say. AND nurses really do all the work. I've met some really hard working nurses that are so cool and they're very inspiring. They just have these calm attitudes and are confident in what they do and just bust their butts taking care of the patients. It's truly amazing to watch. So I'm much happier with my job now and feeling invigorrated to get going with school.

Speaking of school I've signed up for three classes: my 2nd pre-calculus class, nutrition, and an intro to chemistry that's required for the higher level chemistry I'll be needing (organic chemistry, oh my). I'm getting ready to get going on homework once I'm finished writing this. So all in all I'm pretty busy, but I was telling Michael last night that I'm just really and truly happy right now. I'm happy with our life and where it's heading and I'm happy to be accomplishing my goals and to be in a job that I believe in and look forward to everyday. So even though we've got a rather humble existence right now with practically no furniture and piles of stuff everywhere being sorted through and things are rather hectic with my schedule and I feel like there's not enough time in a day sometimes, I'm just plain happy.

My Business

I am starting a business too but it will be less ambiguous in title. Something like, "Mike's Spot" or" I Drink the Coffee You Buy Me" or "I spend Your Money". Not nearly as artistic, thoughtful or refined but it conveys my purposes and intent. I'll keep you posted. BTW I'm done with the computer now so she can have it back.
Ta, M xo

Crafting Business

I've had a lot of down time recently and it's led me to do what I do best with too much free time...research endlessly. The internet is just one of those things that can really get quite addictive for me. There's so much information out there for free! So I find myself for hours and hours researching various topics with no motivation whatsoever to do anything else slightly productive. I felt terrible about it for a few days, but then realized, "Hey! I'm coming back from a year long deployment where down time was a rare commodity so you know what? I'm going to do whatever I want as long as it's not destructive in any way!" After that the guilt ceased. My research initially started off around homeschooling, which is something that I'm still going to be delving back into but I kind of maxed out on it since a lot of the reading I need to do is in books to review for potential use in curriculums.

I started drawing again, which has been really good for me. It's on pause right now as I'm in the count down of when I go home and got caught up in packing and cleaning and more cleaning and throwing a lot of stuff away. Now that my packing and clearing out the CHU has calmed down I should be able to start it up again. I made sure to keep my sketch book out for my carry on bag. I've also been doing Rosetta Stone French. One of the wonderful things about being in the military is we get the ENTIRE Rosetta Stone series for all languages completely free. When I found that out it kind of blew me away. I've almost completed Level 1 of their French program, which now has 5 levels. I'm thinking of doing German or maybe Japanese or maybe Russian next...we'll see. I'll be taking classes again like crazy when I get back so I might not have as much time for foreign language fun, but then again it's educational so I might still find some time for it. They're broken down into smaller lessons so there's no reason why I can't get through a few of the 5-10 min. lessons every day.

So back to the subject of this post. Lately I've been taken over with this all-consuming research of crafts and a craft business. Drawing again I guess unleashed the art monster in me and I've been drinking it up like a dehydrated man roaming the desert. It's fascinating and completely puzzling at the same time. I find myself wondering through it like a maze getting lost in different avenues and places. I'm really interested in starting something like this. I've found a lot of good websites/blogs that go into a lot of details around starting a craft business. There's so much out there concerning it, and it's one of those things that's easy to start small and expand as you go...depending on what your craft is. In the midst of it I've subscribed to e-newsletters to a quilting magazine and Cloth Paper Scissors. They send out some great info on resources and books about different craft topics. I get so excited reading about this stuff.

The two big road blocks I've come up against are: What would I even call my business?
Number 2 being: What would I start to sell?

I've thought about different names. What kind of mood do I want it to evoke? What kind of message do I want it to send? What sounds unique but easy to remember? I've read a lot of articles around naming your business and they're great information, but all kind of state the same thing and it still leaves me grasping for more. What I've come up with so far is that I'd like it to be two words that are easy to remember, but unique paired together so that I'm not up against millions of others with similar names. Some of the craft businesses I've found that I like their names are: Smart Fish (they sell vegan shoes), Retro Whale (she makes her own prints), this blog called Design Sponge that has all of these amazing DIY and before/after type articles, Dignity Regained (a shop that focuses on fair trade and upcycled products), Spin Thread (she makes these really cool geometric embroidery jewelry, etc. You get the idea.

I don't want words like "craft" "creation" "design" in mine just because they're kind of redundant. I also want the title to not focus on only one craft like "jewelry" "quilts" "clothes" and so forth because I'd like to have the flexibility to make whatever I want and not be tied to one thing because of my title. Although it would be funny if I did something like Rachel's Jewelry and only made prints. Except, that probably would just create a whole bunch of confusion and not be so funny after awhile.

Then there's: What would I make? With a whole world of possible crafts out there I'm overwhelmed and elated at the same time. More things to learn and try out, but what about focusing on one thing? Maybe? Or I could just make a lot of different things and that be my trade mark. Who knows. We shall see. I've just gotten lost on Etsy pages, though. There's an excellent "seller how-to" page they have that has link after link to article after article on owning your own craft business. I also found a great blog called "Crafting an MBA" that's all about starting up a craft business and tips to improve on it.

Well, Michael just got home and wants to be on the computer so I'm going to sign out. Any ideas on a business name would be appreciated! We love you and look forward to being home very soon! TTFN.

~R.

February; two birthdays and an anniversary

We had our first anniversary on the 22nd.

A funny thing has happened here, I have gotten used to my beloved sporting a high-powered assault rifle everywhere, she is strangely unfinished without it to me, which is disturbing, sort of.

I have learned so much in the last 365 days about this artistic and alluring, beautiful and bibliophilic, complex and caring, dynamic and dear to my heart, elegant and Elect, fragile and finely wrought, graceful and gregarious, humorous and hopeful, intricate and intimate, jovial and joyful, knowing and kind-hearted, long-haired and long-suffering, melodious and musical, naive and not naive, omnivorous and OCD, pulchritudinous and precocious, quilting and quippish, refined and real, stunning and sincere, tensile and tender-hearted, unequivocal and unabashed, virtuous and very earnest, wistful and well-intentioned, xenophobic by marriage and xenophilic by nature, youthful and young at heart, zealous and zephyrus creature that I know and love as Rachel.

We have had a raucous, wild, exotic honey-moon and first year together, set apart. I can't think of any couple that has gotten combat pay and hazardous duty pay, been mortared and shot at and been so serendipidously happy, all in their first year of marriage...can you?

The traditional first year anniversary gift is paper so we decided to get each other John MacArthur's Bible commentaries, all 28 volumes.

I have often thought about how when bad things happen to a person they are either hardened OR sweetened by them. I wondered about how Rachel would fare before we came over here. I am happy to report that she has gone without so much, been reduced to her rawer elements and seen the very worst that people can do to each other and through it all she has come out so much stronger and refined from the exposure, deprivation and hardships. It has been fascinating and sometimes painful for me to watch her transform and grow and deal with the things at hand. I think that it is possible to be both sweetened and hardened by things. Which is surprising to me because in my personal experiences it has usually been one or the other, with far less balance and emotional symmetry.

In other related news, we both celebrated our birthdays this month. Rachel turned 161 and I turned 287, in dog years. That's 23 and 41.

Anyway, it has been a good 370 days and counting, I will keep you posted.

Ebay and the Sewing Machine

The mad search for a sewing machine has finally come to a close. Mike offered back around Christmas that he would buy me the sewing machine I wanted for my birthday. I said I liked that idea so I started looking into potential candidates. I knew I wanted something multi-purpose that could go through many layers of fabric with ease as not only do I quilt, but Mike has expressed interest in being able to work on projects that involve sewing canvas, denim, leather, etc. I'd also like to have these abilities in a sewing machine. The only problem with the 'house' sewing machine is that it tends to be a jack of all trades. Even though it has the capability to sew through rather tough fabric as long as the needle size/tension/thread thickness ratio is correct, it can't do it for very long and has a high chance of breaking down. The big problem with "industrial strength" machines is they're ridiculously expensive and can only do one thing like button holes or sew straight.

There's also the problem of: multi-purpose. I want something that can embroider, quilt, do all the basic sewing functions, as well as be able to sew through anything and not break down. Most multi-purpose machines out there are a combination of embroidery and quilting/sewing and aren't hardy in regards to tougher fabrics. It's expected you're sewing through softer, finer things to embroider and quilt. They're also very expensive and even though I'd like to invest in one in the future, I just wasn't ready to spend that kind of money on a first sewing machine.

This led me to start researching antique sewing machines when I read a review on Yahoo! about sewing machines that can sew for hours every day, similar to the "industrial strenght" but are much less expensive and for home use. There was a review by a guy who restores and refurbishes antique sewing machines who said that the Singer 201 and 15-91 are the best because they can sew through anything for extended periods of time and not break down. This is due to the fact that the motor is gear operated not belt operated and so you just can't hurt it. The only key is unless you know how to restore them; you have to make sure you're buying it from a reliable source. I then read another article on buying sewing machines through ebay and how to tell if someone is reputable or not in regards to the antique sewing machine.

So why the 15-91 instead of the 201? Well, it's all about the bobbin! The way the bobbin fits into the 15-91 is very forgiving and allows for rather beautiful free quilting and strange threads to be fed into the machine. That was the selling point for me. Both can do pretty much the same thing when it comes to sewing through tough fabrics, but the 201 bobbin goes in differently so you can't do as much creative stuff as easily in regards to quilting.

There's also a lot that can be wrong. As it's from the 1950s it's more than likely got decaying wires, gunk all in the motor, and a whole other list of problems that can lead to personal injury if you don't check before plugging it in and using it. Plus, some people selling just turn on the machine and see the needle go up and down and assume its "working." Just because the needle goes up and down doesn't mean it can sew right. That $15.00 machine might not be exactly what you were hoping for. So after a search through ebay I found one. I also found a cabinet to go with it as it needs to be mounted in something since it's not just built with a base included, and it's a 30 lb. cast iron beauty.

I've put up the pictures. The stool has different upholstery than the one I'm buying. It's this weird velved material. The stool and cabinet aren't sold together as a set as they're from different vendors so we'll probably have to revarnish them to match, which isn't a problem and I think would be a good project for me to do. The picture I posted of a matching set is the wood color I'd go for. I'd also like to reupholster the stool and maybe put a different fabric. I like red and I like velved, but both together are a little gaudy. Plus, for hygiene purposes I think it'd be best to have new fabric and cushion for me to sit on.

I'm pretty excited. I've also started looking into potential embroidery sewing machines. Some of them are so smart it's like they have a mind of their own. The companies I've been looking at in regards to a machine that can do a lot of bells and whistles are: Bernina (the aurora 440 QE), Husqvarna (the lily 550), and Pfaff (the 2056). Michael really wants it to be able to do letters for monogramming purposes, but other than that he's not too picky. Again, the only problem is these machines are rather expensive so it's an investment. The nice thing is you can get a more "mid range" version of the insanely expensive ones that cost about as much as a car, and it'll do everything you need just not be the top of the line version. The ones I listed are more mid-range. I'd just like to have a better idea of how each machine's programming works. And maybe down the line I'll look into a long arm machine...but we'll see. I need to be a rather serious quilter for something like that to happen. Plus, there are a plenty of places out there that offer long arm studios where you can rent a machine for a few hours and voila! Completed quilt!

I'm still in the midst of a bidding war so to speak. They're not "mine" officially yet. I'm not sure about the cabinet and stool because apparently the Queen Anne style is rather rare and it's hard to find both the stool and cabinet together. It's a major collector's item for people who have the antique Singers. Leave it to me to find the thing that's rare and expensive as a result. The sewing maching is going to be a few days yet. I'll keep you posted if I win, though!

All in all we're doing pretty well. Can't wait to be home. I hope everyone's happy, healthy, and safe. TTFN.

~R.

BSM, Bronze Star Medal

I got a Bronze Star recently. This is my 2nd one, my last one was for a completely different reason, up in Mosul. It is sort of humbling when I think of all the others that have received them before me.
I don't have much else to say right now. I hope we get home soon, we have been mortared several times lately. I hate that helpless, hemmed in feeling.

The Funny Moments of Life

You know how there are just those moments where the only thing that could make it so funny is life? Lately Michael and I have had our fair share of them. This picture is of Michael holding up one of his "Plackers Hi-Performance Flossers." One of our laughing moments. For some reason this was incredibly funny to us. He put up on his facebook how these have made flossing a whole new experience for him and we thought it was a hoot.

I'm still drawing although I took a break from it yesterday. I had to pull guard duty in between the hours of 1 and 3 AM and just didn't get that much sleep as a result. So I slept from about 5 PM to 8 AM today. I've been trying to get a variety of stuff done throughout the day via keeping a list schedule, and the other day I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

This was supposed to be a drawing of folds, but turned into a weird abstract thing. Yesterday after Mike finished blogging he saved his blog in the wrong spot. I've been thinking about making a kind of artist blog for myself and so I started up a new domain name, but just haven't done much with it yet. He saved it to that domain name and then couldn't find his latest entry up here. So he asked me to figure out what went wrong, and when I told him what I think he might've done he said, "You know what, I think you might be right! That's just the sort of thing I'd do on accident because I'm a technology idiot." We started howling as a result. For some reason that was just amazingly funny to us.

This drawing was insanely frustrating. The sole of the foot is very difficult to do.

Michael had his award ceremony the other day. He got a Bronze Star for his end of tour award this year. This is his second one.

This hand drawing is Michael's favorite drawing so far. I'm holding my JSCM, which is my end of tour award. He says it looks the most real because I foreshortened it. We've been laughing today while Michael goofed around with these glow sticks he found in a discarded care package. He does these dances that are hysterical. We also went on a "double date" to the local DFAC for ribs as on Sundays they make these amazing ribs...so good. It actually felt normal to do even if we are in Iraq. So all in all things are good. We're happy and less than 30 days until we go home. We've been getting a lot of time together, which is always nice. Especially when once we get back we're going to have to get into the grind of things again. So we hope everyone's doing well. We love you and hope you're safe and happy. TTFN.

~R.