being frugal is kind of fun!

Have you seen that show 'Extreme Couponing'? Yea, I'm not that crazy. I do love good deals though! So I have compiled a list of a few awesome things for you all. Come be frugal with me! :)

In honor of Memorial Day, here are some common military friendly places and what they offer. Keep in mind, all places listed come with the side note of 'at participating locations' (look for the sticker in the entrance, or ask!) and only with a military ID shown at check out:

Aeropostale - 20% discount

Express - 10% discount

KOHL'S - 15% discount

Nike - 10% discount

Applebee's - 10% discount

Dairy Queen - 10% discount

IHOP - 20% discount

JCPenney Portrait Studios - receive a free sitting, 8x10 print, and 50% off your entire purchase

Who likes freebies? I DO!! Here is a few legit ones:

~Free Scion military care package (we signed up for one, and for 2 different packages! i've also sent these to buddies overseas. shipping is also free): http://www.scion.com/militarycarepackage/

~Free Welcome Home sign (you only pay shipping! type in promo code 'TROOPS'): http://www.buildasign.com/Troops

~11 free books a year from Military Onesource! : Sign up (free), go to Home tab, Tools, Library Resources, and under 'Playaway and Paperback books' click on either nonfiction or fiction. Click your titles and they will be added to your cart. Check out and you will receive them in approximately 7-14 days, all free! They change titles every once in a while, so don't order all at once. Remember, you can only get 11 free books in a years time span. If you order all 11 today, you can not order again until May 29 of next year! http://www.militaryonesource.com/home

That's all for today folks! I'll post these every once in a while when I find good ones.

Love, Me.

**updated, Military Onesource now offers 11 free books a year! Thank you for the correction Jessica**

dear teenage me.

I was just looking through some old photos and remembering back to my middle and high school years. If I could go back in time, I'd have A LOT to say to myself. So, I'll do it now.

Dear Teenage Me, 

I just wanted to tell you that he isn't worth a moment of your time. You might feel like you need him, but things get better, I promise. Please don't go to that party. That is where you will first be introduced to drugs, and will become addicted to one of them for a few years. Teenage me, drinking isn't as cool as it looks. And that guy is going to take away your innocence. Everyone will tell you he is a wonderful person. Don't believe them. You are going to hate the art teacher, and still hold a grudge years later. You are beautiful, and shouldn't change yourself for anyone. It is a good idea to talk to that boy against you-know-who's wishes. He's going to turn out to be your best friend of 8 years (and counting). Don't start self-injuring. It's going to hurt more people than you can imagine. Years later, those scars will make you have to explain yourself over and over again. Never take your friends for granted. You'll lose one of them to suicide, and you will never go a day without wishing you could have seen the signs. Those girls who will spread those awful lies are actually doing you a favor. They are going to prove which people will have your back and know the truth. Try to not get caught up in that wrong crowd. Don't drop out of school. A GED is not looked at the same as a diploma. And me, making that move is going to be the best thing you ever do. Just one thing about that though, you are going to get your heart broken, more than once, from the same person. Whatever happens, you're going to turn out to be a great person, no matter what anyone says. I know. :)

Love, 

22 year old me.

constant reminder.

Friday night I got a new tattoo. First one in over 2 years. And of course, like getting any tattoo, everyone wants to know the meaning behind it. So here goes my explanation. All of mine are planned thoroughly, and each one has a meaning. Since I got pregnant with Conner, I knew that I wanted to get one to represent my family. I also wanted one to represent my faith. So for two years now, I have thought it out. Then a few months ago, it popped into my head: a celtic knot. Not only would this knot represent my family and my faith, it would also represent my nationality. I chose the celtic love knot. It has a heart and the trinity symbol. But after 01APRIL2011, there was one more thing that I needed to represent: my miscarriage. How I chose to represent this was through a word. Once again sticking to my nationality, I chose the word 'misneach' which translates to 'courage'. Why courage? Simple. Because when I felt my weakest, I knew that I had to pull it from deep inside of me and carry on. Plus, one of my favorite prayers is the Serenity Prayer. The shortened version is:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change;

the courage to change the things I can;

and the wisdom to know the difference.

I knew that if I could muster up that courage, I could be happy. I could see it for what it is, and I could move on knowing my angel is safe watching over us and one day we would be reunited. One of my favorite songs right now is 'Courage' by Orianthi (ft. Lacey from Flyleaf). The words are what got me through that whole ordeal. So now, every time I am feeling down, I just look at my wrist and I know it will all be alright.

Take all my vicious words
And turn them into something good
Take all my preconceptions
And let the truth be understood

Take all my prized possessions
Leave only what I need
Take all my pieces of doubt
And let me be what's underneath

Courage is when you're afraid
But you keep on moving anyway
Courage is when you're in pain
But you keep on living anyway

We all have excuses why
Living in fear something in us dies
Like a bird with broken wings
It's not how high he flies but the song he sings

Courage is when you're afraid
But you keep on moving anyway
Courage is when you're in pain
But you keep on living anyway

It's not how many times you've been knocked down
It's how many times you get back up
Courage is when you've lost your way
But you find your strength anyway

Courage is when you're afraid
Courage is when it all seems gray
Courage is when you make a change
And you keep on living anyway

You keep on moving anyway
You keep on giving anyway
You keep on loving anyway

Love, Me.

angel baby bubble memorial

On Mother's Day, I wrote a letter to Baby Myrda and said at the end that I wanted to do something special, to let him/her know that we think about him/her every day. Shortly after I posted my blog, it popped into my head: a bubble memorial. I have done balloon releases before, but bubbles are better for the environment. I also decided, I wanted as many people as possible to get this little peace of mind. The statistics are hard to hear, but I think more people need to be aware. So I am starting this blog this morning, and will finish it up tonight with a homemade video of pictures from the bubble memorial here at Fort Bliss as well as pictures sent in from across the country of people blowing bubbles to their angels.

First and foremost, statistics. Nearly 4.4 million pregnancies are confirmed in the U.S. every year. Out of those, approximately 900,000 to 1 million will result in loss. If we break that number down, 500,000+ end in miscarriages (before 20 weeks gestation). 1 in 4 women will have a miscarriage. Some will miscarry without even knowing they were pregnant. About 26,000 end in stillbirth (after 20 weeks gestation). Approximately 19,000 end in infant death during the first month, and about 39,000 during the first year. Approximately 19% of the adult population has experienced the death of a child (miscarriage - adult-aged children). Miscarriages are VERY common. Some women will experience 1-3 miscarriages before ever carrying a pregnancy to term.

During your time of loss, you can expect to feel broken, alone, scared. This is normal. Please know, you are not alone. There are millions of people in your shoes. Not only did I create this event to bring a feeling of peace to myself, I did it to  bring people together. To give them a sense of relief. To SHOW them they are not alone. If that is the only thing that they walk away from this event feeling, then mission accomplished. 

I will update with the video as soon as it is made. 

Love, Me.

bittersweet mother's day.

A holiday all about motherhood. Woo! This morning we went to the PX and I got a free tote with some coupons in it: 6 free wings from BWW, $1 off any smoothie at Junga Juice, and $5 off coupon for Smashburger. It's a cute little tote. Then we went to Wal*Mart to get a few things and Conner had to go see the fish. He knows exactly where they are, so anytime we need anything toward that area we hear nothing but 'fishy!' until we go see them. It's adorable. Came home and made peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies and had a 'picnic' on the front porch. Was a little windy, but still fun. 

But while I went about today's activities, I couldn't help but be a little sad thinking of our angel baby. So this morning, before I started all of this stuff, I posted a status on Facebook wishing everyone a happy mother's day. Those with children, expecting, and those with angels. I forgot to add in fur babies. Holiday's like this a bittersweet for those of us who have lost a child, whether it be miscarriage, stillbirth, or any death of a child. We long to celebrate it with them. Wondering how it would be if they were here. In my case, I'd just be celebrating with a fetus, but hey.. not the point. Those in this category get to celebrate another day: Angelversary's. I say celebrate because I find it more devastating if we mourn it. Instead, we celebrate the short time we had with them, regardless of if baby was in our bellies or in our arms. 

I still realize the irony of losing a baby on April 1. Next year, while everyone is pranking people with the popular 'I'm pregnant! April Fools' joke, I'll be celebrating Baby Myrda's 1st Angelversary. Today I sat down and wrote a letter. I figured I'd share it here. 

Dear Baby,
Today is Mother's Day. While I am having a good time celebrating it with Conner, I feel a little sad that I don't get to celebrate it with you. I hope that you know how much we love you. We may not have known about you until we were saying goodbye, but that unconditional love with always be there. I'll always wonder what sex you would have been, who you would have resembled, why you had to go so soon. And one day, I will get answers to those questions. I know you are watching over us. A friend posted a poem the other day. My favorite part was where it said to look up in the night sky, the brightest star is you. Conner still rubs my belly and says 'baby'. He did that before I found out about you, too. I wonder if he knew. I want to do something special, baby. Something to let you know we're still thinking of you. I still have to figure it out, but when it happens, you will know. We love you. Always will.

Love, Mommy.

So, as stated in my letter to baby, I will figure out something. But I want to do something that more than just me can be involved in. I want to bring that peace to other mommy's of angels, too. I've got my thinking cap on. I hope all of you had a wonderful day. I know I did.

Love, Me.

grow old along with me..

Today is my 2 year wedding anniversary. I figured I would write about the good times and hardships that come along with the vows that we took. We were together for 2 1/2 years before we got married, so we certainly knew we wanted to be. We had actually planned a big wedding, I had bought my wedding dress, all of the bridesmaid dresses, all of the reception decorations, and put the down payments on a place for the wedding and reception. Then we ended up cancelling it, and losing over $1,000. We cancelled because at the time we felt that there were people who were not happy for us, and we didn't want what should be one of the best days of our lives to be miserable. The wedding was put on hold.

When we finally did decide to go get married, we decided that we were just going to go to a courthouse. In Illinois you do not need witnesses. It was just me, him, and the judge. A whole 5 minute saying of vows, signing the wedding certificate, and walking out. The thing is, we didn't plan this at all. We went to get the marriage license then called the courthouse and said 'whatever day you have available, put us down'. I didn't even realize it was Cinco de Mayo until after we walked out of the courthouse and saw a huge banner in downtown Ottawa, haha. We didn't tell anyone until after we had done it. That way, we wouldn't feel like we were going to be talked out of it. I'm glad we got married, but I do wish we'd have had a small ceremony with family and close friends. One day, we will. And it will be the most beautiful ceremony. Everyone assumed that we got married because I was pregnant. Not the case. We had been planning a wedding for a year, and were originally supposed to have a ceremony on April 22, 2009. Instead, that was cancelled and we were married in the courthouse on May 05, 2009. Some people thought me getting pregnant was an accident. Also not true. We had tried for so many months to get pregnant. It took us 7 months. He was absolutely planned.

Our first year of marriage went by soo fast. Chris signed a contract with the US Army on July 2, 2009. A lot of people also speculated about that, saying I forced him to. Nope, he actually tried enlisting in the Army National Guard while we lived in Alabama, but was temporarily disqualified due to them finding a hernia. He had surgery, then once he was healed and he had a few months to think about it, he decided he wanted to go active duty and signed a contract for that. The rest of my pregnancy flew by, and we welcome Conner into the world just a week before Chris left for OSUT. I was suddenly tossed into a single parent situation. It was difficult the first few weeks, but I adjusted. I had to. This was going to be what our new lifestyle would be like. He found out he had a second hernia and had to have surgery while in the BCT portion of OSUT. He came home about a week earlier than everyone else for Christmas Exodus. After two months of not seeing him, it was weird! He was so scared of Conner. It was like the day of his birth all over again, except Conner was a few pounds heavier haha. He left again at the beginning of January. At first he wanted to quit, and come home to be with us. But we talked about it, and we knew he truly didn't want to quit. He was afraid Conner and I would resent him for not being there. We could never resent someone who is training to fight for our country! He graduated in February of 2010 and we roadtripped to go see the graduation. Then we made out first PCS to Fort Bliss, TX in March 2010.

Now, our marriage is by no means perfect. We argue over stupid things. We argue about serious things. But at the end of the day, we're on the same page. The second year was definitely harder to get used to, since we were now at a duty station and he had been gone for almost 5 months of our first year married. Friends came and went. Field exercises, CQ shifts, all that good stuff. We moved from our original apartment to this house on post. There were times that I didn't think I was strong enough to continue to be a married woman in a single parents shoes. It's a rough lifestyle. But after seeing the Chaplain a few times, I know that it's worth it. We did decide together that it was okay for him to join the Army, however he made the decision of what MOS and how long on his own. I didn't even know that until he came home from MEPS. Regardless though, we are in this together. And I couldn't be any more proud.

We are making some big decisions for our lives, for our family. We want to give our son the best life he could have, and that includes having two happy parents. When times get hard, we know it could always be worse. We've seen that. In the military, the mission always comes first. That is just something we have to come to terms with. However, in this house, WE come first. We're learning how to make that happen. And if it means we lose 'friends' along the way to making ourselves happy, then so be it. John Lennon couldn't have said it any better: 'Grow old along with me, the best has yet to be.'

Love, Me.

this is far from over.

Last night my Facebook news feed blew up from the announcement that Osama bin Laden had been killed and was in US hands. While that is great news, and the victims of 9/11 now have a small amount of justice, everything is about to get worse. We just pissed his followers off. So while everyone is jumping on the patriotic bandwagon, I will be praying extra hard for our brothers and sisters in arms that are about to see extreme combat. Coming soon: retaliation. 

Why do I seem so sure of this? Yesterday a notice went out over Fort Bliss and I'm sure other installations as well about heightened security measures. No more easy access to post. Random I.D. checks. All for our safety. Hours later, this big announcement. 

So yes, big victory for the US, but it's far from over. Every ending is just another beginning. God bless our military and keep them safe from what is to come.

Love, Me.