23

I am officially 23! I've had a wonderful day so far. Started out with my dear sweet husband whispering Happy Birthday in my ear, he thought I was still asleep. What a great way to start off a birthday! I got to have lunch today with some friends which both fun and delicious. Had a grilled pimento cheese sandwich, my absolute fav. Tonight Steven is taking me out to dinner downtown at Bogarts. I get to put on a pretty dress and go someplace nice, I'm so excited! We don't eat out very often so this is definitely a treat. Most of my family has already called and sung happy birthday, it's just been a great day so far!

Veritas et Libertas

We recently got some new Special Forces information. I'm not really clear on the chain, but I THINK Steven talked to a friend at work who has a brother that's in the Special Forces and that's how we came about our new info, or something like that. Either way, this guy who is in SF emailed Steven some information about training and what not. The header at the top of the document states that it comes from the command center at Fort Bragg so I think it's probably the most reliable source we've found yet. We added up all the weeks last night for each individual phase and it came out to being about a year long, which is about 6-12 months shorter than we thought. Like I said, don't know the accuracy, since everything we look at says something different I don't think we're going to know anything for sure until he's actually there. So I guess instead of planning on him being gone for a year and half - two years, we have start thinking that he'll be gone a year - a year and half. To be honest, I like that a lot better! However, this guy did confirm what the recruiter had told me several months ago. That during certain phases (the longest phases) Steven will get to come home nearly every weekend. That will make this way way way easier for me (and him too even though he won't admit it). So I guess you could say we got some good news last night about SF!

My life feels like a Picasso...

I'm not even kidding! You've all seen a Picasso painting at one point or another, where every element is skewed and moved into a different seemingly irrelevant place. Well that's what my life feels like sometimes: a crazy, hectic, out of order Picasso painting. Yet somehow, through all the craziness everything still makes sense and upon closer inspection is even still beautiful. (Picasso is one of my favorite painters... can you tell?)

I went to the doctor last week for my annual migraine check up. My doctor and I decided to switch my medicine up a bit, track the migraines for another couple months and then get back together to talk and about possibly changing my medication further. (Back story... Before graduating college, knowing that I would be without insurance for an unknown amount of time, my mom stockpiled my current migraine medication. It was also about that time that I decided to only take the medication if I was in crazy pain, which for normal people would be unbearable-going to the doctor kind of pain. I hate the medicine so much so that I would rather be in pain than take it, that's how weird it makes me feel. So my medication has lasted me up until this point and I haven't had to buy any on my own insurance plan.) So of course, the pharmacy calls me to say that my insurance company is refusing to pay for the migraine medicine... joy... and it's two hundred dollars for nine pills... two... hundred... dollars... nine pills... umm, you can imagine my freak out. Steven and I both called the insurance company to find out that they have a short list of "preferred medications" that are cheaper and they would rather I take those instead. Both of which I have taken in the past and they do diddly squat. When we told them that those basically weren't an option so they'd have to do better, they told us to have my doctor send in some sort of waiver thingy asking them to pay for this new one instead. Wonderful. The battle is still raging, I'll let you know how it ends, hopefully soon.

My grandparents came to visit this past weekend in celebration of mine and my brother's birthdays! They took us shopping and I ended up with several new clothing items. We had a lot of fun, I always enjoy seeing them!

The NC Art Museum re-opened this past weekend too. Steven and I went down to see the new building Sunday after church. It was so amazing! They've built it in such a way to utilize natural lighting without the light harming the artwork. It was probably the brightest and cheeriest art gallery I've been in, it was really neat to see.

Gardens, Mice, and Birthdays

Well April has been entertaining thus far to say the least! At the beginning of this month my sister-in-law, Liz, who has a thumb greener than any I've seen helped me plant a garden. It's a new endeavor, I've never actually tried to grow anything before. But I really wanted a garden, I wanted to learn how, and I've managed to keep an aloe transplant alive for a year (and it actually tripled in size) so I figured I couldn't be THAT bad at it. Since we live on the second floor my garden is obviously made up of several different pots on the porch. On the ledge I put some color pots and planted some morning glory and moon flower vines along with different herbs: rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley, mint, basil, and cilantro. All of those from seeds! I already have sprouts too! On the floor of the porch I put a bleeding heart plant, a hosta, another flowering plant that has these tiny purple flowers, impatiens, these leafy plants that have pink leaves (not even lying, pink leaves), and geraniums. All of them are doing well so far, I am quite impressed with myself! As soon as my sprouts get a little bigger I'll take pictures of my garden and post them.

We celebrated my Dad's 50th birthday a little over a week ago. The "children" made dinner in celebration. We got steak, potatoes, and asparagus from the Fresh Market and grilled all of that as well as made some rosemary yeast rolls, yum! I don't know if anyone is a fan of the Cosby Show but in one episode when Cliff turns 50 the kids put on a "things that are older than Dad" presentation. My parents think that episode is hysterical so we did our own version but we changed it up a bit and did more of a this is your life kind of presentation. We complied major world events, music/tv and sports trends, etc for the past 50 years. It was really interesting to look at everything that has happened in my Dad's lifetime, the world has changed DRASTICALLY. All in all, it was a really fun evening!

Some of you might know that I've been having a problem with blocked tear ducts as of late. Well I went to the eye doctor last week for my yearly exam and mentioned this problem. So she put that blasted bright light in my eye and started pushing on my eyes and taking pictures. Come to find out I have developed a chronic problem with blocked glands in my eyelids. She compared it to acne, how you have oils on your face and if those build up then eventually they block a pore or two and when they do you end up with a big giant pimple on your face. Well apparently, by no fault of my own, I have "oils" that build up under and in my eyelids and when they build up enough I end up with a blocked gland/tear duct (which is QUITE painful). So now I have to start taking fish oil which apparently can help disperse those "oils" and prevent them from blocking the glands in my eyelids... wonderful. At least it wasn't a serious problem.

Yesterday morning I woke up as usual and started my morning routine. Which of course, includes coffee time while watching the news (and by news I mean Good Morning America). You probably remember my mentioning a while back that on our first anniversary we had mouse come visit our apartment. Well, we hadn't seen another one since but we've kept the trap set with peanut butter in the laundry room anyway... just in case... cause I'm paranoid. Anyway, while I was enjoying my coffee I heard this loud noise and at first just assumed that something had fallen somewhere in the kitchen and I would take care of it later. When I finished my cup and got up I noticed that nothing was array in the kitchen anywhere, I couldn't find the culprit of the noise. And then I went to throw my empty yogurt cup away... and was startled to see a mouse caught by the neck in the trap next to the trash can. Lucky, lucky me Steven had the day off so I woke him up and made him take care of it. And by "take care of it" I mean take it out of the trap, dispose of it, clean the trap, and then reset it in case the little sucker had a friend all while I was in the other room. His "job" for the day then became to call maintenance and make sure they found the hole that these two mice found their way through. I don't know if it was "the" hole, but they did find one and plugged it up. I'm not convinced though, so the trap will remain set with peanut butter in the laundry room... fueling my paranoia... just in case.

This weekend is packed with excitement so I'll have more to update on later!

Picture Perfect

It's a picture post day!

Steven and John accepting Eastgate Shell's award from the Employer Services of the Guard and Reserve

Steven and me with the Chief and Commanding General of the US Army Reserve. He's a very nice man!

The Volker's Easter Sunday 2010

Our beautiful and lovely niece, Hollis, on her first Easter egg hunt. Really I think she just wanted to eat the goldfish!

I had the opportunity to take some graduation portraits of my gorgeous sister Kristin! These are some of my favs.

Well apparently I have been a slacker at updating the blog lately! There's a lot of updates, so this might get a little long but hang in there!

First of all, I had my wisdom teeth out last week. Thankfully God only graced me with two on the top and they had enough space to grow in, so they weren't impacted! Even still, the experience was HORRIBLE. To start with, when starting the IV (I was put to sleep) they couldn't find my vein for some reason. Sidebar: I don't have difficult veins to find, no one has ever ever never ever never had a problem "finding" my veins. They are big and blue and you can see them through my skin, it ain't hard people! Okay back to my story, they tried my right arm - didn't work. Then they tried my right hand and hurt me so bad that I bruised, that would be about the time that I started screaming. Finally they got it to go in my left arm! Craziness, just craziness! Then, as if this day wasn't already bad enough, I WOKE UP IN THE MIDDLE OF IT!! I mean, really?! Are you kidding me?! I've been put to sleep for procedures twice before this and I NEVER woke up during those. I was mortified, petrified, angry, hysterical, you name it. I remember hearing them crack my teeth into pieces and me trying to scream. Then I think I went back to sleep cause the next thing I remember, Steven was coming back to get me and I was hysterically yelling at anyone within earshot. Not a pleasant day. Oh, and on top of all that my jaw hasn't been able to open wider than the width of my thumb all week. Lovely. I'm going back today for my follow-up appointment ... it should be an interesting visit.

I recently added a new freelance client! So now I'm doing projects for a hand therapist whose running her own continuing education business. Done one project so far and there are several more on the list. I'm really excited about this new opportunity! Hopefully it opens the door to adding another client in the near future. In the past week, I have talked on the phone with someone very interested in wedding invitations, had an inquiry from another lady about invitations, and I just got an order this morning for graduation announcements! Praying that this trend continues!

Steven and I had the opportunity to attend a military banquet a few weeks ago. Steven nominated John, his boss at Shell, for an award that is given out by the ESGR (I don't know the exact translation for the acronym, I apologize). The gist of it is this: employees who are also members of the Guard and Reserve nominate their employers for this award if their employers have gone above and beyond in supporting the fact that they have an employee also in the military. Hundreds of businesses get nominated across the state, so Steven didn't think they would pick his nomination but they did! Eastgate Shell was one of I think 50 companies in the state of North Carolina to receive the award this year. So Steven and I as well as John and his wife traveled to Greensboro for a weekend. They had a beautiful and delishous banquet, even had a Army brass quintet playing! There was also quite a few officers in attendance, more than we expected. The main speaker for the evening was the Commander of the ENTIRE Army Reserve. So of course, Steven just HAD to go and say hello. He was extremely nice and even let us take a picture with him! I'll post pictures later, they happen to be on the home computer. We had a wonderful time!

Okay, I think I've hit all the major points. Hopefully it won't take me another month and a half to update again!