Recently free.

Well, so much for those regular postings. Should have done them every other week so they would have lasted longer. :P

No project this week, just some thoughts. I've had a lot of life changes recently.
I moved back to the United States. Spent some time in California at Camp Pendleton for outprocessing.
Collected my DD214.
Moved to CT, where my husband is.
Helped him finish moving apartments, before he left for two weeks of training.

Did I mentioned I got my DD214?
For the non-military folks out there, that is one of the most important documents a servicemember will ever recieve from the government. You recieve it at the end of your contract, it is your one and only proof that you are no longer in the military, and under what honor you got out under.
So here I am, taking my first steps back into the civilian world.
I'm technically still active duty, until July 20th. Then I'll be in the inactive ready reserve (IRR). So I do nothing military, but I'm still on call.

Four and half years of being in the Marine Corps....It's crazy to think about. And since I've had nothing but free time recently, I've done a lot of reflection.

There are things I am going to miss about the military. Quite a few actually.
There are more things I won't miss though, hence why I didn't stay in the military.
I've done enough complaining and ranting in the past four years that I won't start that up here.
I suppose I'm really just feeling weird.
My first several weeks at bootcamp I felt like the whole thing was a bad dream. None of it felt real. I honestly expected to wake up at any moment. And here I am, reliving that feeling. It's so different from what I've been living the past handful of years that it feels surreal. I haven't accepted that I've entered a new stage of my life.
Probably because it scares me. I joined the military for a hundred different reasons. One of the big ones was that I felt trapped in my current life and it was an escape. It was a life changing learning process.
I don't know if I regret doing it or not. There are a lot of things I lost and missed out on while I was active duty. But the things I've done, and seen, and learned are great themselves.
One of the biggest things I got out of the Marine Corps was learning about myself. I was forced into situations and my actions and reactions taught me things I never knew...about who I am and how I view/do things.
Everyone has a self image in their head, of how they are, and how they want to be viewed.
I did, but it was conflicting, going back and forth. I didn't really know myself.
And now I know myself a little bit better.
There are a lot of things I could have done better and excelled more at.
But honestly, there were a lot of times when I didn't want to. There were times where I knew I could be strong, but I chose to be weak, and there were times where I did my best to be as strong as possible and I crumbled.
There were times when I knew I was being a failure, but I'd rather play it off as "I don't care" attitude then admit my own struggles with things I wish I had a natural affinity for, because I can't bring myself to change who I am fundamentally.
But I stayed true to myself, and my personal feelings and beliefs. I didn't try to become something I'm not. Even though I would pretend.
And whether anyone will ever truly grasp this, but I did care.
I cared about a lot of things more than anyone who ever worked with me will ever know.
I would think the greatest thing I learned, the greatest gift the Marine Corps could have taught me:

I like me.

It took me quite a while to come to this realization, and I went through a lot of struggles dealing with an image of a person I was trying to become. And I realized why I couldn't, because I actually like who I am. (Or at least a majority of myself)
A lot of people have issues accepting who they are, or trying to be something, or someone else. I can't do that.
Honestly, I'll never know what those who I worked for thought of me, or what those who worked for me thought of me. I set some pretty poor examples of leadership sometimes, but I also had times where I felt like I kicked ass at my job.

A SSgt once said at a NCO Call (Non-commisioned officer's get together and have discussions about things). "Some of the worst moments in your military career turn out to be some of your best memories."
While I don't think this is true, there is some truth to the statement. The hardships I went through, I can look back on the fact I still did it, I can talk about it with an attitude of ease. The people who where there, or weren't there but did the same thing share that understanding with me.
It's hard to explain in writing I just realized. But after the shit is done and over with, it's another memory, another experience. For Marines the crap you go through brings you together and tightens your bonds to each other (I think its why they drag us through it sometimes).

My time as active duty is over, now I have to focus on the anxieties of "real" life.
College, finding a job, affording things, having a place to live.
But in the same sense, I know after my time in the Corps, I can probably tackle any challenge.

Happiness Tracker

A while back I bought this case of Mason Jars from the Commissary. And I've hardly used them. It was a deal, and they had so many, and I couldn't resist. Mainly because I will use them. I promise.

Well, in my life I feel like I have a lot of negativity. Being in the Marine Corps can often make you feel that way. And I feel as if every year all I can focus on is the negative things, it becomes more difficult to remember the good times that happened throughout the year, because the bad days stick with me more vividly.

I saw a post on Pinterest (my #1 way of wasting time) about a Happiness Jar. Essentially when something good happens, or something that brightens you, whether it be an event, moment or conversation, you simply write it down and put it in the jar. At the end of the year you now have a whole jar full of all the good things that happened to you.
I saw this as a great opportunity to focus on the positive things that occur around me. So I set aside a jar, wrote down some positive things that already happened this year.
And....decided I wanted to decorate my jar.
I'm by no means any sort of decorating expert, but do have an abundance of random craft materials I've slowly collected throughout my time in the military. So I figured I could for sure find some stuff to glue onto this jar. 

 And I did.
This is fabric I found a while back at Tokai Heart, the cute ribbon is from the Daiso. I ironed the fabric, and hot glued it on. For the seams I just folded them under and ironed them.
The Ribbon is crocheted, but I don't know what else to call it than "Ribbon". I just glued a piece of it around the jar, and then glued a bow together and stuck it on.

I decided this was cute.

But I wanted to do more.

I have seen a lot of posts about putting glitter inside or on the outside of mason jars, and I agree, they look fabulous. However, all these DIY's call for mod podge, or something similar that I do not own, and I wasn't going to make a special trip to see if maybe I could find it somewhere near where I live.

Sooo....I used clear fingernail polish. (I'm not joking)
I just dumped enough to almost cover the bottom of the jar, and then I indiscriminately dumped a bunch of brown glitter, and some gold glitter in it. I sacrificed a sponge that I had so I could mix it and smear it around the bottom of the jar and up the sides below the cloth.
I also smeared some around the top of the jar above the cloth, but not nearly as much.

 So I sat that under a fan and decided to paint the lid. I just wiped down the outside to remove any dust of dirt, and took some brown acrylic paint, mixed it with a random amount of silver and painted the lid.


So I wanted to add some bling onto my jar, instead of keeping it just the simple design.




 This is a necklace I've had for around 5 years, maybe. I don't wear it anymore because it's reached the point in its lifespan where it turns my skin green if I sweat while wearing it (I also think the toddler who slobbered on it multiple times while babysitting didn't help either. XD). 
So I glued the bling portion just under the bow, and the rest of the chain I decided to glue around the lid, and leave the excess hanging down.
THAT WAS SUCH A PAIN!
Hot glue is not meant for everything, and honestly I forgot I had super glue (which I don't think would have worked well either) and rubber cement (not sure how that would have went)
But I managed to finally glue it on in a way that it stays, and it won't fall off every time I open the jar. Definitely a trail and error process.

Lastly, I wanted to add something to the top of the lid. I was at the point where if I saw something I wanted to glue on, I was considering just sticking it on. I mean, it's a happiness jar, it should contribute to my happiness, right? XD
So I have a ton of colored glass pebbles, (I use them to play a really nerdy game called Three Dragon Ante) and I have a TON of them. So I selected some and just arranged them in a way where the lid was mostly covered, and then I glued them on.

My jar is complete!! (For now~ >:D)