Busy bee.

Well, it's August now. The month of my birthday and wedding anniversary. So I'm pretty excited for all that. But I'll save it for another post.

 My DMO (Distribution Management Office) shipment arrived. I think I mentioned it before(?). But it came a few days early, so I was extremely pleased. So of course I immediately started unpacking everything and trying to find places for it.




<<<That's my 34 packages. They wrapped everything. Even my seabags and bookshelves.

Nothing was broken or damaged!! Yay!! Super happy!

As I was unpacking I came across a little package that was just labeled as "Pin"
I was very confused, so I opened it.

I felt 'something' in my heart, just a bit when I unwrapped it's many folds and it was my corporal chevron.
All that wrapping, and such care for a "Pin". I was a bit touched.

That rank was something I carried for half my time in the service. At one point it meant  a lot to me.
But so much occurred that everything I wanted to do sort of always just fell apart. I don't think I was a bad NCO, and I know I was far from being 'the greatest'. But I actually took pride in the fact I was a Corporal. I wish it would have meant more to the rest of the Corps. They only want to you be an NCO when it's convenient. Otherwise it's preferred you just be a friend, or a good follower.
*Ahem*
Not even going to get into trying to express my thoughts on all of that.
We'll just leave it at the sense of how I might miss certain things about my previous lifestyle, and I did not leave the service without a number of regrets. (Many of which I lose sleep over)
But I've decided not to focus on that anymore, and to just look towards a better future!

So onward!

Our basement is now a complete disaster. Though I bet children would have a ton of fun playing in it.
And this is not even it's final form. I'm pretty sure you can barely see that door in the back now. There is more boxes and paper, and more to come, I'm sure.
I don't want to just throw away everything. The paper is in perfect condition still, and the boxes are pristine. I have no idea what to do with them though! If I had kids they'd be the luckiest ever because they'd be getting some sweet box forts or something. But for now I'm gonna fold them all up and try to save them. Never know when you'll need some huge boxes.


On top of all the unpacking I've been enjoying my time in the kitchen too. So has my husband. Though our bank account reflects the inner pain of how sometimes enjoying good food can be pricey. our grocery bill might be beyond what it needs to be. But we eat all the food, and I think our simple but fun dishes are worth it. Especially when you take into account all I've had is chowhall food mostly.

I even got a bit stereotypical and enjoyed some flavored water that is all the rage on Pinterest nowadays.
Orange Blueberry water. It was super tasty! Though I drink a ridiculous amount of water everyday. So a jarful only lasts a few minutes around me.  I would need a whole case of jars to survive a day. So it was more of a treat than anything I guess.
I reused the berries and orange slices multiple times, they held a lot of flavor. Though I didn't taste much of the blueberries. It was mostly orange.
If I was to make a habit out of enjoying flavored water everyday I'd have to save it for just meals or relaxing time. I did enjoy not drinking just plain water for once, but using fruit at that rate isn't something I should do often. Fruit isn't cheap around here.

 I'm feeling a bit not up to going through all the crazy steps to rotate this picture on google. So we'll all just rotate our faces and see this delicious creation. We were going to have BBQ chicken pizza, but decided that BBQ Chicken Crescent Pizza rolls would be awesome too. We ate all of them. They were way too good.

 The hubs had Gatewatch on Friday, so I didn't see him till Saturday (Gatewatch is exactly what it sounds like. You sit at the front gate and check people's ID's and watch the area. You are only there from open to close, but the shift is 24 hours because then you stay overnight for base security). It's really lame, and probably pointless. But I wanted him to have something to look forward too when coming home, other than just looking forward to coming home. So I decided to try my own hand at some form of crepes.

These aren't overly beautiful or anything. Not sure if they are even technically considered true crepes.

 But they were super delicious!! We've had them twice now, maybe three times. Usually we just spread some creme cheese on them with some fruit, or peanut butter and fruit. They are magical. We definitely over-ate the first time we had them. We're slowly learning control when it comes to delicious meals. (hahaha!)

Our most recent kitchen en devour was curry.
I cannot express how excited I was when I found multiple Asian markets in our area and they carry a lot of interesting things. We've only been to one so far, and it carried the curry cubes I wanted. I'm sure nothing will compare to actually having curry in Japan. But this stuff was pretty darn good! Though we bought hot and extremely hot, but to me, they taste more like extremely mild. So next time gonna spice it up myself, maybe build up a coco's spicy sweat. :P
It was a very thick sauce though, and we had beef cubes, carrots, onions, and potatoes in it. When making it I felt like I was making stew, and then turned it into curry.

I want Yakiniku and Gyudon with all my heart though. I like to whisper it at night in bed before falling asleep, so maybe my husband will dream of meat and want it as bad as I do too. (He just thinks I'm really weird at the moment)

Housewife.

Well, my end of active service was officially a week ago. I found it a bit ironic that on my last day of active duty I ended up spending how I normally spent days off work; ate breakfast, went for a mile run, lounged and watched anime.

Biggest difference: I did it all with my husband.

Convincing him to run is always my biggest challenge of the day. :P
I enjoy running. I hated doing it for the military. But doing it for me is another matter.

But there hasn't been a huge paradigm shift yet. I'm still Cpl Morris in my mind. I still view things through the eyes of a Marine. I mean after years of being trained to do so, I suppose you don't just turn off Marine thinking in a week. And honestly part of me doesn't want to. If anything I'm still going to continue to better myself. That was the whole point of the military, wasn't it?
Besides I wanted money for college (Everyone pretty much wants that). 

I'm really happy that I get to enjoy a 'normal' married life now. Though not sure how normal any marriage really is. But we're not separated is the point here.

What I find interesting is how difficult it is for us to act like we're going to be living together always from now on. We have a tendency to still treat our time together like it's just a week visit. I'm sure eventually we'll figure out that I'm actually living here now an get into our groove of doing things. But for now I suppose we'll enjoy it.

After he takes his service wide exam (for promotions) we're gonna start working on our learning Japanese. I bought a bunch of stuff while I was in Japan. So I'm looking forward to that a lot. Being able to read and understand Japanese is something I've always wanted to do.

As an admin person at the Coast Guard unit said pointedly to me, "You're still affiliated with the reserves."
-_- And my dislike for her skyrocketed. Mainly because she just rubbed me the wrong way from the start. And her hair was INSANE. It's like she put it up a few weeks ago and hasn't bothered with it since.
And there's that Marine mindset again.

I'm still going to workout, now that I'm a civilian. Even dragging my other half into it with me. He doesn't really have any requirement to other than own personal interest. But I think he feels guilty if I'm doing it and he isn't. So Monday, Wednesday and Fridays he will actually be using his hour allotment for physical training and coming to join me.
(Three days a week he can leave work an hour early and he hasn't been. He stays there and works. What a motivator. I would be out the door in a heartbeat.)

But I'm spending the rest of my day....being a housewife?
I get up with the hubs in the morning (which is anytime between 0630 and 0700, depending on his snooze times), I am trying to get dressed every morning now. I discovered that if I stay in Pajamas that after he leaves for work at 0730 I sit around lounging and normally fall back asleep till 10. Which is a waste of a morning. Regardless of the fact I never fall asleep till around 1 a.m.
Drink some coffee with him, maybe have breakfast, make a list of things for the day to do.
Then attempt to accomplish them all.
I get sidetracked easily, I get bored. I remember more things to do, and do those things first. And so the list grows.
I do some cleaning everyday. I prep dinner, which we decide on either the night before or that morning.
laundry, dishes, VA paperwork and so on.
I'm really a friggin' housewife.

...I'm even wearing an apron right now...
0__o
I was cleaning earlier and I wear one when I clean or do crafts (crafts is next after this post).
But never thought I'd be a housewife.
Never thought I'd be married either, so life is full of plot twists.

I have a whole list of topics I plan on going over in posts. So that's nice. I have a plan for this!
As well as school starting in September. Exciting stuff.

I had planned on discussing more of my relationship in this post, but I sort of covered it in a nice way. I'm not going to pour my soul out of how much I care for my husband. I'm married to him, and we've been together for five years. I think that says it all right there. But this more was about the dynamic of my new lifestyle and how the relationship is now different from how it's been the entire time.
And I can't be more happier.