Colorful Colorado, Part Dos

I'm sitting at the Schofield Barracks library right now being lazy. I should be applying for jobs, but I spent the last hour surfing the web! I wanted to update my blog, though, so here I am! I'll job search when I'm done. I got time. ;) (Oh, I forgot to say on the 19th we had dinner at my mom's!)

August 20-25

That Thursday the in-law's and I went on a hike up near Garden of the Gods, past Glen Eyrie castle. It was beautiful! That was a waterfall and then we stopped at the end where the Punch Bowls are. I had so much fun. I missed hiking. Dad used to bring us all the time, but I haven't really gone much since high school. (Mostly because ROTC consists of it's own type of hiking and I hated it, haha). Anyway, the hike was beautiful. We spent the morning until lunch-time doing that. Afterwards we had to go downtown. Then we had dinner at this brew pub. It was yummy. :)

I can't even remember what we did Friday... Oh, I do now! We went to the zoo! That's when we lost our camera. :( It sucks. Brandon had it and put it down somewhere, and I forgot to check too, and it was gone. Someone probably stole it. We ended up buying the same exact one a couple days afterwards, and that one broke just a couple days ago. Ugh. At least we have a warranty!

Saturday we spent the day at the Pueblo Reservoir. It was fun. We took Brandon's grandfather's jetski and played on the lake. I freaked out because of the waves several times, and couldn't go swimming because I started packing. I'm not ready for water sports yet!

Sunday Brandon brought me up to the top of Pikes Peak. What a view! We could see the mountains to the west and everything else to the east. It was beautiful. We then went to my mom's for dinner that Sunday. That was eventful in its own ways, but I won't elaborate. :) We said goodbye to my family that night.

Monday was a day of just getting stuff done. We packed up our stuff that day. I'm sure we did stuff with Brandon's family but I can't remember! This is payment for not blogging soon enough, huh? Anyway, we had dinner with them that night as a sort of send-off.

Tuesday was our last day in Colorado Springs. We went shooting in the morning at a neighbors house (he has 40 acres) and then had to run some errands. We said goodbye to Brandon's family in the Wal-Mart parking lot. We then went to my dad's house, where we had some pizza with dad, Kat, Jenny, Shannon, the boys, and some of my dad's friends. It was a nice final night to our Colorado journey.

The time went by fast there and it was nice to visit, but it was time for us to move on to our next adventure.

Colorful Colorado, Part Uno

So we were in Colorado for awhile, so I'll split this one up a bit!

August 15-19

So we arrived to Colorado towards dinner time at my dad's house. Jennifer was hosting her 30th birthday party, so everyone was there! My whole family was excited to see me. Jennifer had hired one of her teacher's to be a photographer of us sisters, so we had a little photo session after the cake was cut. That was fun! Brandon spent a lot of the time playing horseshoes with the boys. We swam a bit when we first got there, it was so nice. Overall, a good time with my family.

We were so tired that night after driving a lot and not sleeping much the previous night! We set up our air mattress in my dad's living room and crashed fairly early. I couldn't sleep though, because I was still energized from seeing everyone, and I heard Jenny and Shannon chatting with my dad on the patio. I decided to join them. We had a very nice chat altogether and I was glad I stayed up! I finally got to bed and slept well.

The next morning we woke up and started making breakfast with everyone: Dad, Kat, Jenny, Shannon, Grant and Terry, Kat's brother. It was a good breakfast. I really wanted to swim, so after sitting around for a bit we hopped in the pool and played around a bit. Luckily his pool is heated! I was cold nearly the whole time in Colorado for some reason!

That night there was a surprise party for Brandon’s grandpa. He turned 80 on August 17. So after dad’s we drove down to Colorado Springs for the party and spent the evening with his side of the family. It was a nice party and it was nice to catch up with people. That night we set up shop in Brandon’s parents house, where we stayed for most of our trip.

Monday, I had planned to see Jessica off before she headed to Utah, but she left way early. Instead, I went up to my mom’s house to visit and see my nephews, Blake and Grant. Then Shannon, Jenny, the boys, and I went downtown to this cool park there. It was a nice and easy day! I joined Brandon back home at his parents house by dinnertime.

Tuesday was sort of boring. We basically spent the day out with Brandon’s family driving around doing errands. For 8 hours! But that’s ok, we saw sights we wanted to see.

Wednesday was my haircut day. I was so excited! I spent over nearly 3 hours at the hairdressers getting my hair dyed and cut. It’s so pretty. It’s a shorter cut, but not the shortest I usually get. I dyed it copper-red with some copper-brown in it. It looks really red in the sunlight! The rest of the day… wow, I can’t even remember what we did… how funny is that? Well, I’m sure it was fun anyway!

Ok, break time. ☺

Raging Road-Trip

Since I type a lot, I need to break down my segments even further. This one will probably be shorter, since it covers only two days, and not much happened!

August 14-15

We couldn't hit the road early because we had to get our flight itinerary from the travel office, who messed it up previously. So we drove the opposite direction to Fort Benning and waited at the office. Finally they got everything sorted out and we could get out on the road! It was after 8am by now. We started to follow our trusty GPS when Brandon's mom called, asking if we could stop by a store where she saw some good chicken feeders that she wanted to get (when she visited us). So we said sure.

After stopping at the store, we finally go on the road. It was 9:15-9:30. Ok, that was fine, we were making ok time. We left Georgia fairly quickly and got into Alabama, which looked a lot like Georgia! Drove up to Birmingham, where we stopped for some lunch at Subway and switched drivers to me. I drove through Alabama and Mississippi, our next state, into Tennessee (very shortly to get through Memphis) and right in Arkansas! We switched again shortly after crossing the state border. It was nearing dinner time by then.

We stopped somewhere in Arkansas, I think, to grab some fast food. Then we continued on to Oklahoma. We weren't sure if we wanted to stop in Tulsa or to continue on. Once we reached Tulsa, though, we saw that we had enough energy to continue, so we did! We went straight to Wichita, Kansas, and arrived at 11:30 Central Time... so like 12:30 Eastern, making us very extremely tired.

It's ok though, we rested that night, got up kind of early, and hit the road through Kansas! It was a long drive through Kansas, and we switched towards the end so I could drive the rest of the way. We hit Colorado, which looked a lot like Kansas until you hit the Front Ranger. It was nice to be home! That night we were going to my dad's for my older sister's party, so our trip ended there, in Longmont.

No incidents or accidents, except for Brandon running over an armadillo in Oklahoma... but that's a whole other story!

Goodbye Georgia

Ok, so since I haven't blogged in what feels like an eternity, I'm going to recap my past few weeks into 4 or 5 separate "segments" so as to make it easier on me. I'm starting with leaving Georgia, then our road-trip to Colorado, then Las Vegas and L.A., and ending it with our arrival in Hawaii! So welcome to the first part :)

August 10-13

It was a hectic week before we were planning on leaving. Monday, Brandon spent the morning trying to complete some more paperwork before we headed up to Atlanta to drop off his car. We drove separately, so I could drive him back. They inspected his car and got it checked in and we said goodbye to Burnie! It was a fairly easy day, except for the hour and a half there and the hour and a half back! Then we had the Brooks' over for dinner, since they had just arrived in Georgia.

Tuesday we got ready for some movers to come get our unaccompanied baggage. This is stuff, up to 900 lbs, that we can send before the rest of our things to get there early. Essentials mostly - linens, towels, kitchen things, etc. They came around lunchtime and packed everything fairly quickly, and hauled it off. Easy day!

Wednesday was when the movers were scheduled to come and pack the rest of our apartment. They came mid-morning and got going. It didn't take them that long at all to pack all our things up (they had 3 people). They were supposed to come pick up everything the next day, but the driver asked if we didn't mind them packing everything up in the crates that day. We said sure, why not! It would make our lives easier. They were there for a long time, until dinnertime almost, but our stuff got crated up and was ready to go. Our place was empty now. :( We spent that night with the Brooks' on their futon, thank goodness for them!

Thursday we cleaned our apartment before the carpet and apartment inspection. Brandon had to run to Benning to complete more paperwork, since we were leaving the next day. Everything went fairly well, except they booked us the wrong flight. We didn't get flight information until Friday before we left.

Anyway, Thursday night was at the Brooks house again. We were excited, nervous, happy, and everything in between, for our trip to Colorado!

Lessons from Epictetus

22. Appropriate acts are in general measured by the relations they are concerned with. “He is your father.” This means you are called on to take care of him, give way to him in all things, bear with him if he reviles or strikes you.
“But he is a bad father.”
Well, have you any natural claim to a good father? No, only to a father.
“My brother wrongs me.”
Be careful then to maintain the relation you hold to him, and do not consider what he does, but what you must do if your purpose is to keep in accord with nature. For no one shall harm you, without your consent; you will only be harmed, when you think you are harmed. You will only discover what is proper to expect from neighbor, citizen, or magistrate, if you get into the habit of looking at the relations implied by each. (Epictetus "The Handbook")

Epictetus teaches a big lesson about family here in this passage from The Handbook. He teaches that according to nature, you are only guaranteed to have a father or mother. It is not guaranteed that you will have a good father or mother, or even a bad one. Just that you have been given a father or mother, naturally. This means that no matter how they are, they are your father or mother, and so you must treat them as such.

He also goes on to say retain your relation with him (or her) and don't think of if they are bad or good in your own standards, but instead accept that they are your parent according to nature.

This part is important in all aspects of life, family or not: For no one shall harm you, without your consent; you will only be harmed, when you think you are harmed. The only way you can be harmed, emotionally or mentally, is if you allow yourself to be harmed. Raging and being angry are actions that you allow yourself. Nature shouldn't make you upset because it has given you a bad father or mother. You are allowing yourself to dwell on the fact that you have a bad father or mother, and not accepting what nature has accorded you. The only person who can hurt you is yourself.

We have such short lives, so little time together, that to dwell and fester on the simplest things can just be a waste of time. So allow yourself to not become consumed by rage only caused by yourself and begin to enjoy your life for what nature has given you.

Friday Weigh In

June 5: 133.8
June 12: 131.6
June 22: 134.4
June 26: 133.2
July 3: 132.4
July 10: 134.0
July 17: 135.0
July 24: 134.4

August 7: 134.0

I think I have to accept the fact that I will be around this weight for awhile, unless I change a lot of things. But with my hypoglycemia, it makes it so difficult to not eat! I read articles about keeping snacking at a minimum. Yeah, I guess I should snack on better stuff... but what I snack on isn't THAT terrible. I eat granola bars, grapes, apple sauce, almonds, cheese and crackers, cheese sticks... I dunno what to do! I can't NOT eat. I can go maybe 3 hours at the most without some sort of food too. I've been drinking lots of water, but I don't know if that does anything either.

Anyway, I don't know how much working out I'll be doing in the next few weeks. We'll be moving next Friday, hopefully in Colorado by Saturday, and then staying there for a bit. Afterwards, we're going to Las Vegas, and then Los Angeles, before flying to Hawaii. I think we'll just be moving so much, and eating so much free food (haha) that I won't have time to watch the weight! Maybe if when I get to Hawaii I don't have a job right away, I can spend my time working out. Yeah. :)

My Weekend

Ok, I didn't do my weigh-in. We can safely say that I weigh about the same as I always have! Haha. I've had a crazy weekend so far... very busy. Lemme tell you. :)

Wednesday: So I'll start with Wednesday. I had work this day from 12 to 6, training for my new job. Brandon was at Ranger School. I was debating bringing my phone to the floor, just in case Brandon calls. But I told myself, and my little sister, "there's like a .1% chance he calls!" Soooo... I go on my break at 3:10 and I have 4 phone calls, one as recent as 3:02. I freaked out! He had been dropped from the course for failing land nav and I had to pick him up. His last call said he was getting a cab and he didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do either! So I tell my boss I have an emergency (this is pretty much an emergency!) and drive home. I paced the apartment for an hour and a half until he came home. Well that was a relief. So now that he was home, that meant that we were moving, ASAP. That's another freak-out on its own. That night we went to dinner with friends.

Thursday: I had a doctor's appointment to be put onto Brandon's orders. Afterwards, I went to Macy's to quit my job. I felt horrible! I had just started there and now I was gone. Oh well, though, that's the life I live now. The rest of the day was fairly relaxing, except for all the planning we're starting now.

Friday: Friday I had an oil change to refute what Wal-Mart said (that they couldn't change my oil because it was leaking). Nope, no leak, perfectly fine. Stupid Wal-Mart! After I went home to hang out, and then that afternoon I volunteered at the museum. It was my last day doing that. I decided to stop then because of all the moving stuff and stress. That night we had a little barbecue with some of Brandon's friends from work. That was fun!

Saturday: We went up to Atlanta on Saturday, originally going to a gun shop one of Brandon's friends wanted to see. Afterwards, we went to DSW for me to exchange shoes I had bought awhile ago. We had lunch there. Then we wanted to go to the Aquarium, but ended up not because the line was massive. That was sad. :( But across the street was the Museum of Patriotism! We went there and got in for way cheap because we're military. It was a pretty good museum. Then we left for the baseball field - we were meeting friends there to watch the Braves vs Dodgers game. That was a great game! After, we were so tired, we went home.

Sunday: Not much today. Errands, cleaning, grocery shopping, and going to the store with the same friend as above to look for a gun safe. Didn't find one we liked, though. I invited the friend over for dinner with us. He stayed for spaghetti and played Wii with us. We also all decided to go to Savannah this upcoming weekend to go to another gun show and spend the weekend there. How fun will that be!

Anyway, I've been super busy. Today, working out and running more errands. Then I need to read some of this moving material to get it all straightened in my head. Have a good day!