I can't wait until November. I can't wait for Jeremy to finally come home. I can't really handle this being alone thing much longer. I miss having him around to help raise Jack. I miss having him around to walk the dog. I miss having him around to fight with. I hope when he come's back, he's the same person, only better. I don't want him to look at me and be like, "Civilian..." I want him to look at me and be glad that he's married to me. I never want a divorce, I never want to be without him. When he gets back, I hope he changes his MOS to something safer than infantry. His mom told me "Oh he's probably going to get out and go right to Iraq..." She's not the smartest person in the world, so I just shrugged it off. It got me wondering though. What happens if he gets deployed? I'm getting ahead of myself, he's not even out of basic yet! I just need November to get here already, so I can stop writing letters and start talking face to face again. I want everything to be okay when he gets back. I'm tired of the arguing, and the tears, and both of our feelings being hurt. I know when he comes back things will different, and hopefully better. I sent him a package of letters and pictures, and a pillowcase soaked in my perfume. I hope it helps him to get along.

So, UFC 101 is on tonight, and as much as I'd love to watch it, it'd be
hard without Jeremy. I don't like BJ Penn, and he's favored to win. I
also feel like Forrest Griffin is a little baby who just needs some
lovin', and he's against all odds with Silva. Silva's in a 9 fight winning
streak and I really don't think he's going to give it up to Griffin.
Griffin is a pretty fast guy, so maybe he'll give Silva a run for his
money.

Friends>Family

I have a brother, and a sister, and mom, and a step-dad. I don't think of them as family. I have a Jack, and a Jeremy, and a Will, and a Kailey. I think of them as my family. My mom and step dad both have facebooks, but neither of them have pictures of me. They update about how proud they are of my sister, for buying a car. I've never been told I make them proud, and I have 2 cars, a husband, a house, a son, and a rather comfortable lifestyle. I didn't graduate from high school, but it wouldn't matter if I had. They wouldn't be proud, because they know it was easy for me. They're proud of my sister, because she wasn't the "gifted" one, and they knew she had to work harder. I took all junior classes as a freshman, and had the ability to graduate as a junior. No one said they were proud though, no one pushed me. It's hard to want to keep going when you have no one behind you. I do anything and everything for my blood relatives, and don't ask anything in return. The second I can't do something for them, though, I am the bad guy. I have great friends though, and they make up for my lack of family. They support me in more ways than one, and I am so grateful for that. This military life is new, and difficult at times. I know I can rely on my friends to get me through it. Since Jeremy left, my cousins Kate and Samantha are the only two family members to have visited me. To ask how my day has been and to lend an ear. My grandma hasn't said one nice thing to me this whole year, and it hurts my feelings, because I used to look up to her. I got her face tattooed on my back as a gift for her 50th anniversary with my grandpa. All she cared about was how much I paid for it. That's the way life goes, I guess?

With friends like these...

So, before Jeremy left, his friends hung around all the time, but now that he's gone, seems like they are too. No one talks to me anymore, and I wouldn't mind if I knew why. My usual friends still talk to me, but all of Jeremy's friends that kept saying, "I'll hang out after he leaves..." "If you ever need anything..." Are now nowhere to be found. It was like they all held a meeting and decided to act like I don't exist anymore. It really hurts because I enjoyed their company when we'd all hang out together. Maybe I'm taking it too personally, but it's hard not to. I'm not prepared for this being alone business, but it's too late, not like I can call and be like, "Hey, Army? Yeah, send my husband home, I'm tired of crying alone at night." I wish it was that simple. I can write him letter after letter, but I can't transcribe every feeling successfully. I'm an excellent writer, but when my emotions over take me, I babble (Can't you tell?). I'm just venting, I'm extremely frustrated and upset. My husband is gone, and I'm sad, not for obvious reasons, not because he's my husband, not because he's Jack's father, but because he's my best friend. He's the one who knows me better than anyone else. Without him around, I feel empty. I hope with time this feeling subsides. I think it's best if I get back to my art. Please let that be enough to help...

DeeOhGee the TacoBell Cat

I've always had this weird. gift, if you will, that I can tell when there's a cat within a mile of my locale. On our normal 4 am trip to Taco Bell, I spot a kitten clawing the bottom of a tree, and point it out to Jeremy. He tells me, if we go through the drive-thru and it still there, we'll see. We go through and sure enough the kitten is gone. I spotted it in a drainage ditch several yards from our car. Jeremy says, "If you can catch it, you can keep it." Big mistake. I got out of the car, and the kitten started to come towards me, hissing, in Halloween cat stance. I coaxed it further out using tacos, lol. The cat got scared and ran back in the tunnel. Jeremy, unaware of my cat capturing skills, said, "Guess not!" I went back over to the ditch, came back joyfully and put the cat in his lap. "WHAT THE HELL, SERIOUSLY!?" he replied. "I could have done that right from the start, I just didn't want to scare it." We brought the mystery cat home in a baby blanket, and didn't see all of it, for almost 3 days. We thought, like Vespir, it didn't have a tail, until we saw blood... Something had stripped the end of it's tail completely. It took a few weeks for the kitten to come out of hiding and warm up to the family. We named her DeeOhGee, like D.O.G. She wags her tail, fetches paper and growls at the front door when someone knocks. I'm glad I have her. :)

Vespir Lynd, the target cat.

Jeremy worked at Target as a uniformed guard or in Target speak, TPS. For a while the store smelled like cat urine, and random bags of food were found torn open. Upon further investigation, Jeremy spotted a cat in the back storage room, waltz over to the cat food, and rip the bag open. Once the bag was open, 4 or 5 more kittens came out of the shadows. Rewinding back, Jeremy was able to see that the cat had come in through the open garden center doors, weeks ago, and had given birth to her kittens in the back room. Animal control was called, and a humane trap was set. Friday, of Labor Day weekend, the trap wielded a kitten. Jeremy called animal control only to find out that they would be closed until Monday. With a heart as big as his, he couldn't just leave the kitten in the cage. Despite my best efforts, he brought her home. This matted, snarling beast with no tail. We named her Vespir Lynd, after Ian Flemming's leading lady in Casino Royale. Almost a year later, she is the best cat I've come across. She sleeps next to us in bed, and lets our son smack her around without hurting him. My little Target cat is now a part of the family.

We can diffuse bombs and walk marathons

I love my husband, and I miss him very much. He's been gone, one day shy, of two weeks. I keep telling myself, I'm further now, than I was two weeks ago. I'm trying to remain positive, but there are times when I find it's proving difficult. I'm overwhelmed by taking care of our son, and our new puppy (who isn't house broken), our cats, the bills, and the house. I just have to breathe and think about the future. I think all of this will get easier once I can mail him letters. I keep getting them from him, and I've been responding every day, faithfully, but I don't have his address yet. I know the old stand by of tattooing another persons name on your body, and the chances of you two going your separate ways are increased. I think that's stupid. It's like Murphy's law, I guess. Aren't there exceptions? I think so, and I'd like to be one of them. I'm going to start a chest piece within the next few weeks. It's going to be mainly script, and a few other surprises thrown in. I want it to say "Always and Forever". That's how long I plan on being with Jeremy, for always and forever. He's been such a major influence in my life, and impacted me so greatly. I wish I had taken the opportunity to tell him these things before he left. He's a good man, and like any man, makes mistakes. That's all they were though, simple mistakes and accidents. When he gets back, both of us are going to have to work on our "forgive and forget" skills. I, especially have a hard time letting go. I bottle, and bottle, and bottle, and then I implode. I fight countless battles inside myself, and rip myself to shreds. "You're your own worst critic." Couldn't apply more to any one person. I think I'm going to start working on my paintings again, it seemed to help keep me busy. I enjoy creating, and building, and tinkering and destroying. I want to do another tri-canvas piece, but Jeremy isn't here to help. It might help for me to do it on my own though. I think I'm going to try and start my scrapbook business back up. Sarah Leroux and I never got far when we first started, but maybe now we can. So, if anyone wants a custom scrapbook, let me know!