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20 December, 2011

Pardon me...

But where did 2011 go?!?

 Part of me feels like I blinked and it was over, and the rest of me feels like it was a lifetime ago. It's hard to believe last Christmas I was just getting going with the wedding plans and now this year we've been married for 7 months and celebrating our "first married Christmas".

It's hard to believe that last year Stephen was still in tech school in TX and was only home for 2 weeks for Christmas. This year he graduated tech school, worked 6 months at his reserve base doing seasoning training, and is now working with a recruiter to start as an Active Duty Airman after the first of the year.

Last year I was finishing up finals, setting up an internship, and putting the finishing touches on my last semester's schedule. This year I graduated and have been looking for a full time job.

Last year Stephen came home just 3 days before Christmas and this year we've been together for the last 9 months. It's amazing what a difference a year makes!

I can only imagine what this next year will bring us! We don't even know now where we'll be in a year. It's kind of been a whirl wind in less than a week. But after talking with a recruiter Stephen learned that it is possible for him to go into the Active Duty Air Force. He had a meeting this morning that lasted a couple hours and has spent the rest of the day running around getting everything together. He has another meeting Thursday morning to turn everything in. The recruiter wants to have him up to MEPS by the first week of January. After all that comes back he can have his position lined up in a matter of days.

Right now the open positions include a crew chief position, a recruiting position, and an EOD position. If it's available he will have to take the crew chief job because that's what he's already trained to do. He's kind of hoping that it's not and he can take the recruiting job because he feels like he would enjoy that job more.

Either way we'll most likely be experiencing our first PCS very early in 2012. I couldn't be more excited! We've both lived here our entire lives and a change would be nice. Stephen doesn't like to talk much about it yet because he said he doesn't want to get his hopes up... but I can't help it. I'm a talker. I'm a planner. Mostly, I'm a day dreamer and I keep thinking of the possibilities of where we could end up... it will be an adventure no doubt, but we're so excited for this new chapter!

If all does go as planned and we PCS my plans are to get a part time job and look for a good school to study radiography or ultrasound. Can't really decide anything until we know more, but I will definitely keep everyone up to date as we learn more!

Prayers are appreciated for us over the next few weeks as everything gets straightened out. Prayers that everything goes as planned and as smoothly as these things can go.

Hope everyone is enjoying this time leading up to Christmas and isn't letting the stress get you down! Remember the reason for the season!

16 December, 2011

Let's be real.. and maybe even a little Grinchy

Ok, as most of my posts in the last few months start out, I haven't posted recently. This time it's not for lack of writing material, but the opposite. Just too much going on. I really hadn't wanted to say anything, but then I thought to myself:

A) I'm bottling up all of this stress and emotion and I will probably feel better to get it out

and

B) Blogs are supposed to be real. It's not just for sugar coating and only posting the happy. That's not good writing. If I'm going to share, I'm going to share the good, the bad, AND the ugly.

So, I'm going to break all of my Mom's cardinal rules and I'm going to discuss money.

*GASPPPP* I was raised in the south. We don't discuss things like that down here. Don't ask me why, I don't know. It's just how we are. Dont' get me wrong, everyone gossips and makes assumptions about people behind their backs, but nobody openly discusses when they're having troubles. Just a fact of life.

Really this whole blog thing kind of freaks my Mom out I think(Love you, Mama!) She does read it, but she doesn't understand sharing your whole life on the internet for other people to read. To an extent I agree, but I love blogging, so I'm just going to continue to do it until something changes my mind otherwise.

So here is the scoop in the Volheim household. We're both still floundering for "careers". Stephen enlisted as a reservist, so in October his year and 4 months of continuous orders finally ran up, and he's had to look for "what to do now". My Dad was busy with his company for a good while, so thank the Good Lord that kept him busy up until a few weeks ago, but with the holidays everything has slowed down. Let's face it a couple weeks before Christmas is not the best time to turn into a one income household!

In case you're new to my blog, I'm a college graduate looking for a PR job and working as a waitress in a struggling sports bar. The money is best described as inconsistent. Don't get me wrong, I make ends meet and have some left. Especially considering we're still technically in football season. But I don't make enough to cover for both of us.

We were smart and had a pretty healthy savings socked away while Stephen was on orders which is keeping me from turning into a complete nutcase. But I just can't help but feel so stressed out. We're both praying constantly. I trust the Lord with all my heart that he has a plan here. That He never closes one door without opening a window, but I am just not a very patient person. Waiting to see what he unfolds for us is making me crazy!

Thank God that Stephen actually already has a few very promising options to sort out hopefully during the next week. I love to day dream about "what if" things work out just like we hope they will, and he doesn't ever want to "jinx" anything or "get his hopes up". (We can be opposites!) So we've been irritating each other with how we deal with our stress this week. We can always laugh together at the end, but boy it just has not been easy and we're both on short fuses. But I know that these struggles are only making us stronger and bring us closer to each other and to God.

Needless to say, I've been a bit of a grinch this holiday season. It's not exactly the way I had pictured "our first married Christmas". At first I was super excited! We had Christmas card pictures taken. We went through the motions of putting up all of our Christmas decorations, but I have yet to post any pictures here or on Facebook which is very unlike me! (I will try my hardest to make myself post pics this week!!) I put off Christmas shopping as much as possible. Partly for budgeting reasons and partly for lack of any Christmas spirit. I usually LOVE shopping for other people. I go on the hunt for THE perfect gift for every single person. This year it took longer than normal to find that drive. I can at least say that I did accomplish my shopping list this morning and I'm feeling pretty good about it, so that's making me feel a little better. But overall I'm just not feeling it this year. (The 75-80 degree weather we've been happening isn't helping either!)

We went to two very awesome Christmas services last weekend, that helped to make me feel more in the spirit, but it's just hard to hang on to.

I'll share my other sad, embarassing, pathetic story for the week:

I had been stressing over Christmas cards since the day after we took our pictures. It's our first married Christmas. My AMAZING friend took some incredible fun family pictures for us. I just wanted to find THE perfect card to send. After a lot of looking at several different websites I finally settled on a design I liked best with one of our pictures from WalMart.(I wish I could show you the ones I had picked vs. the ones he made, but I'm not sure if the links will work)

LOVED them. I forgot to order them one morning before work so I called Stephen and asked him to just log in to my account and order 25 of the cards I had designed for 1-hour pick up so I could just grab them on my way home. He text me a little while later and said he had done it and they would be ready. I didn't think anything of it. I stopped at the store, picked them up, checked out, and was on my way out to the car. I opened the big envelope up eager to see the cards I had worked so hard choosing.

I opened the envelope. Those weren't the cards I had picked. I text hubs and said, "These aren't the cards I had made." He text me back and said, "Ya I know, I couldn't find them on the website so I just tried to pick one and make them pretty."

Y'all... I seriously burst into tears. Not little tears either, I sobbed in my car right there in the walmart parking lot. I hated the cards. I just wanted the ones I had picked. I couldn't even look at them(they're still sitting in their bag, in the envelope, because I can't bare to look at them!). I tried to cover it up so not to make Stephen feel bad because he had tried. But SERIOUSLY, why hadn't he just called me?!? Sadly to say, I sobbed the entire way home. I feel a bit ridiculous, but it's still bothering me! I can't bring myself to send them. I know they're not that expensive since they're WalMart cards, but we are on a pretty tight budget this year so I can't justify ordering more. So I've resigned to the fact that we will just be skipping Christmas cards this year. (Sorry to all of our friends and family who normally get one!)

I know it's silly, and I can laugh at myself, but I just feel like that's the way this Christmas is going. I have it planned one way in my head and life has another idea. It's not life changing but I had just wanted so badly for our "first married Christmas" cards to be perfect and instead just ended up not sending any.

Be brutally honest ladies, am I being ridiculous? Do you have holiday melt downs? Am I the only being a Grinch this year?!

Anyway... thinks for sticking through my rambling mess... Happy Friday y'all!

03 December, 2011

These are my confessions...

I confess:
  • That I haven't blogged much lately, partly because I haven't done much worth blogging about and partly because reading about all you mama's out there is giving me killer baby fever!
  • That I will be reading blogs to catch up for the next few hours while my Hubs studies for his CDC test.
  • That I have been job hunting like a fiend for the last few weeks without much success.
  • The lack of success in job hunting could be due to me being so picky.
  • I still don't know "what I want to be when I grow up". One day I think I love PR and want to do that, the next I think I wanna go to ultrasound school.
  • Sometimes I want Stephen to go AD in the Air Force so we can move around
  • Sometimes I want us both to find good, permanent jobs here so we can buy a house, settle down, and have babies.
  • Some days I think I want to have a baby very soon, some days I think I'd like to wait a few years to do some other stuff just as a couple first..
  • I LOVE CHRISTMAS!! But this year it's really stressing me out..
  • I'm working out/eating good lately, but intensely craving Fro Yo while watching football with the hubs tonight!
  • I HATE working out/eating good.. but it feels so good when I stick to it!
  • That I have no idea what I'm doing these days but I am enjoying each day and all the people I share them with!
Yes, I know. Randomness. But that pretty much sums up my life these days. I feel like we're kind of in limbo these days as  we both try and figure out "what's next" in our professional lives. Much less fun than it sounds! I have some really awesome cooking posts to share tomorrow or Monday, but tonight I thought I'd finally post our Christmas card photo shoot. I'm having a hard time deciding which one to use, so any input is appreciated!













OH! Side note: My very handsome Senior Airman was nominated for Airman of the quarter in his squadron. I'm one very proud wife! :)

Happy Saturday y'all!