7:39 - Just a thought,  I don't want to be a business person I want to be a designer.  I understand that in order to operate my own architecture firm I will have to fill both shoes but first and very foremost I will be a designer.

Struck

13:55 - Sometimes I even find it hard to believe that Martin and I met on the steps of this building.

 

10:02 - 

"I'm terrible on facts. 

But I always have an idea.  

If you have an idea,

You're well ahead ." 

-Diana Vreeland
 

For the next time someone asks me if I've seen a specific movie or asks if I know famous person X.
 

Off for another day at the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition house.  They are "moving that bus!" Sunday (tomorrow) morning so its getting a bit intense at the job site.  The house is 95 percent built which means it is the decorators time to shine, furniture move in begins this afternoon!

Quote here

8:12 - 

I cannot control the process
but I can master my craft
I cannot control the process
but I can keep my chin up
I cannot control the process
but I can trust that everything happens for a reason
I cannot control the process
but I can be thankful for my husband's job
I cannot control the process
but I can drink in the days when I do not have to set an alarm
I cannot control the process
but I can use the income cut as I means of learning frugality
I cannot control the process,
but I can trust that God will...and has...and is. 

From The Bakery 

Off to work the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition art tent with Sandee!

The Family

1:09 - This couple amazes me, humbles me, encourages me and inspires me.  This week Extreme Home Makeover is building them a honeymoon suite in Salado, Texas about 30 minutes away from the Killeen area.  Patrick was shot numerous times here at the Fort Hood shooting on the 4th of November 2009.  The last year has been spent recovering and relearning daily tasks.  His wife-to-be put her education on hold to help him and be with him, now that is love. You can read more about their struggle and growth together on their blog here.  I feel guilty for complaining about how little time Martin has spent at home these past few weeks, or even daring to think that I am not cut out to be a "good" Army wife.  What struggles have I really had when compared to Patrick and Jessica's?  She has to be one of the bravest women ever.

My words are not eloquent but hearing their story and reading their blog has caused a whirl wind of emotions in me.

Find more:
http://heartoftexasbuild.com/the-family.aspx
http://patrickjessica.blogspot.com/

10:42 - Last week, while Martin was in the field, I was so motivated.  I worked on architecture projects, I sewed, I worked out, and stayed up late dreaming of my portfolio while drinking wine.  Now a week later I am depressed and not motivated at all.  A friend came over for dinner last night and she was describing the same thing happening to her.  We've hit the wall and now we're just plain bored and lonely without our husbands at home.  Other than the fact that my weekend was ridiculously dull I am feeling that my life lacks any sort of intensity.  Here's another thought my friend and I had in common;  we want our jobs to be our lives, we want to be challenged, and as she put it "I want to lose sleep because I'm working so hard."  Ditto.  In a small way, watching our husbands work to exhaustion during training has made us miss a time when we too worked until our bones ached (cough...like in architecture school.)

Right now I only have energy to shop but my bank account can't handle that much fun.  Hopefully this is just some sort of adjustment phase and it will pass.  (Otherwise I'm in trouble when this next deployment rolls around...)

In other news:

Wool fabric to be used for a coat also looks quite swell as a bed throw.  Must remember this for when we have a real guest room.  Or whenever I'm in a redecorating mood...wait that's all the time.

Extra wool coat fabric is loved by little sushi roll dog when made into a cozy bed!

Loving my Corinthian column lamp from Etsy.com, an early Christmas gift to Martin who kept mentioning that he needed light to read by.

Today was a great conversation day spent with my friend Bethany, whose husband is getting out of the Army in a few months and moving to Edinburgh, Scotland where he will be attending graduate school.   We conversed about traveling, saving money, children, careers, decorating homes, holding out for quality versus short shortsightedly buying quantity, books, and of course, the Army. 

From todays conversations I have gained a little bit of clarity.  First let me iterate, I stand by whatever decision Martin makes about continuing his career with the Army or "getting out" and becoming a civilian.  But at the present time I feel that my future is suffocated, naturally so, the Army will determine where we move and how much money we make, Megan and Martin won't.  And I have already come to the realization that when I go to graduate school I might have to go on my own, without Martin by my side.  Anywhoo, I'm getting off subject.  The thing I realized is that we have options based on what we value. 

Let's say Martin retires at 20 years of service, we now are set with a steady income for the rest of our lives and we will have the guarantee of health insurance for the rest of our lives.  We could live simply and spend the rest of our lives traveling the world.  Or we could relocate to New York, get big fancy jobs with big fancy paychecks and retire again (or for me a first time!)

Or, Martin could get out of the Army in 2012, we go to graduate school and get jobs post graduation.  Martin becomes a successful lawyer/businessman/contractor/entrepreneur/military historian and I an architect.  We work hard, save our pennies, invest wisely and then sail the world as we dream of doing. 

Heck, or maybe after getting out of the Army we are sailing the world poor as beans and then apply to graduate school.  How can Harvard NOT accept someone who just sailed the world alone with her husband in a 32 foot sailboat?  All the culture....all the sketching....all the ancient architecture.....seriously!  Then we work hard in school, work hard at careers, and decide what is next.

As Bethany pointed out, it is kind of cool that we are at this stage in our lives where we still can change and do and dream about our futures.  I imagine as you get older, have kids in school, start investing in a 401k with a company, build a house, find a favorite Friday night bar, your life settles down a little bit.

In my opinion we should do what makes us happier and call it a day!

(Also, I have a study partner now!!  Whoop!  When the guys are off at NTC in March we'll be gearing up to kick some GRE butt!)

Influencers

18:30 - Wahooo let's get inspired!

INFLUENCERS FULL VERSION from R+I creative on Vimeo.

18:06 - "If you are very ambitious and willing to not sleep and complete an insane amount of work in little time, go for architecture. If not, interior design will suit you."

And that is (one of the many reasons) why I love architecture.  Intensity.  My life is missing that right now. 

From Cabbage Rose

Remember This In The Future

11:11 - I hated Texas when we first moved here. It was hot and full of chain restaurants. But that was over a year ago and I don't mind Texas so much anymore. The crazy conservative Republicans drive me bonkers at times and it is still HOT here, but its not as hot (or maybe I am just acclimated). And the colors of Texas are so pretty. They aren't the juicy green hues of Maryland but rather dusty, tonal variations of blues, browns, yellows, and greens. Austin is rockin', San Antonio is pretty darn tootin', everywhere we've hike and camped I've fallen in love with and the longhorn cattle are bad***! I want to remember these thoughts when we have to move again, and possibly to a town that I won't immediately like. Fort Hood will always be a lame Army town but my husband, friends, dogs, and job make it home (and bearable!)

Images by Megan Manion

Wedding Dresses

20:33 - I think this is going to be my wedding dress!! I am trying not to make deciding on a dress that big of a deal given that I am only going to be wearing it for a single night and the fact that the wedding is about the celebrating not about the wardrobe. It just seems so me, and I can very easily imagine myself in it. (A plus is that I can also wear a bra! Whoo!) My minds eye shows me Martin hugging my waist and dancing with me in this dress....

Although I want to ask if they can make it without the glittery thing on the chest. I keep seeing the dress without it.

At first I was struck by the one below but found a photo online of another girl wearing this dress in white (an actual photograph, not a posed model shot) and wasn't all that impressed with how it fell on her. The one below looks glamorous but in the real life photo it just looked like your typical wedding dress. And I feel like it would be "crunchy" given that it is made of taffeta.


See? Boring.
Which reminds me that I should bore deeper into the internet to find a photo of my "dream" dress on a normal girl. I hope it doesn't change my mind about it! :)


p.s. Monday morning we are getting stained concrete!!! I am so psyched!! Muddy dog prints for days after it rains be gone! Now to search ebay for an old rug....hehe!

Not So Wonderful Weekend

10:00 - Tragedy struck our Army family this past weekend big time. First on Friday night, which I spoke about already, was the death of a young Corporal, then on Sunday evening Martin received a phone call that his previous First Sergent's wife had just died. There were rumors that claimed it was a possible suicide but she was also very ill and it could have had something to do with her long term struggle. So far there haven't been any updates on its resolution but it came as a larger blow than the news that a young soldier had died. Or possibly it just came when all our defenses were already down. I wondered to our Major's wife if this is how "normal life" was or it if was "Army life?" She thinks "normal life." I am not so sure. Sunday night made me realize that I was losing hope in humanity. Or maybe more correctly I had my eyes opened to the fact that we truly are not promised tomorrow. Not at all, and I personally waste so much time worrying that I am not doing "what I am supposed to be doing" or that I am not doing enough. Instead I should be thankful that I am happy and alive, that my husband is happy and alive, that my friends are alive and thriving, and that I have not lost a close family member. It's amazing that we have all made it this far in the dangerous and chancy game of life.

As far as the suicide goes, it makes me ill to think that people are so unhappy that death seems the only choice in life. Even more, I then am angry at them for leaving behind so many people that count on them for making their lives more complete. Child, parents, spouses; suicide is incredibly selfish! Now there is a dad out there that has to raise his children alone. No one asked him to do that. I have read that raising children puts a strain on your marriage. But it doesn't seem fair that this dad now doesn't have that second person to ask advice of. There is no one else but you to help you raise your children. Easy when it comes to who has to pick them up from dance but extremely difficult when larger issues arise. You may argue with your wife/husband on what is the best decision but at least you have someone else with as much invested interest in your kids. Makes me feel for Martin's dad. It is like when you reach that certain age when you realize that your parents are people too, with intricate lives filled with difficulties and dreams. The older I get and the more experiences I am put through the more empathy I have for people and the situations life has dealt to them. Life is pretty black and white when you are younger. You have all these strong opinions about right and wrong, but then as you grow older and you experience more you realize the world is very much grey and not at all black and white. Actually the world should be technicolored, not grey. Grey on a bad day, technicolored when I am feeling optimistic.

I have volunteered to take a Care Team Training course, which is meant to train those willing to help after a death (or serious accident) has occurred in a family. After the second blow of bad news on Sunday night I wasn't so sure I wanted to be that close or informed of those tragedies. Ignorance is bliss and I was afraid that if I heard about death after death it would turn me into a blubbering, hyper paranoid woman who would require her husband to call her upon arrival every time he drove/walked/flew/bused/swam/convoyed anywhere! (In similar regards, I have decided to stop watching scary movies, they too make me paranoid. Paranoid that someone is hiding in my garage, paranoid someone is going to jump in my bedroom window, paranoid that I am going to be hacked into tiny pieces and thrown into the woods. A single woe of mine for having such a vivid imagination!) Anyways, the next morning I changed my mind and decided that I did want to help those families in need and would in fact continue with my Care Team Training. And so tonight I will be baking dozens of cookies for a young soldier's memorial service. As if cookies could actually mean anything in that world of hurt.

Nighttime Madness

12:35 - In other news last night was a pretty interesting evening. It all started normal enough, going to a lieutenant's party and DDing my "drunk as a skunk" posse back home. But around 4:30AM I hear multiple rings on the doorbell. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. Pause. Ring, ring, ring, ring, riiiinnnnng. Pause. Repeat. Warren got to the door first and came in to tell Martin and I that it was one of his soldiers. It ended up being one of Martin's lieutenants trying to get a hold of Martin because he wasn't answering his phone. I had to wake Mart up by telling him that it was SIR time, which did the trick. (SIRs for anyone who doesn't know stands for "Severe Incident Report" and is a bunch of paperwork that has to be filled out when a soldier gets put into jail, gets pulled over for drinking, fights with his wife, or gets killed, among other equally lousy situation.) Turns out one of his soldiers, a corporal, was killed in a car accident while driving at alarming speeds in the boondocks of west Fort Hood in the early morning. Alcohol was involved.

Since Martin didn't have his phone at the house, we suspected that it was left behind at the party so we drove over there to find it and then go onto post to deal with the accident. Turns out everyone in that house sleeps like a zombie and we literally had to sneak into a back window to find Martin's phone. It was a little frightening because in Texas there is something known as the Castle Doctrine. Which goes a something like this (thank you Wikipedia!): "It then goes on to give a person the legal right to use deadly force to defend that place (his/her "castle"), and/or any other innocent persons legally inside it, from violent attack or an intrusion which may lead to violent attack." Basically, we were invading a castle and could have been shot. But no one woke up and we were on our not-so merry way to post.

The thing that sicks out most in my mind is that you can be here one minute and gone the next. No one wakes up and thinks "I'm going to get into a atrocious car accident today and die." And I wonder if you realize you are dead after you are dead. Seems sort of like a fair thing to do. At least be able to reflect on the fact that "Wow I'm dead." Maybe feel a little bit of remorse. My brain is so full of thoughts and ideas all the time that it would seem bizarre to suddenly be switched off. A constant stream of talking on this internal radio when suddenly there is silence. It is just such a sad thing when this happens. So undeserving and rotten.

Good To Remind Myself Of

9:06 -

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Jack Kerouac

From The Inside Cover of Fahrenheit 451

9:27 -

"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way." - Juan Ramon Jimenez

I think I was given ruled paper and did not even realize it. No one, not my old professors, or friends, nor the strangers I pass on the street will care if I do not become an architect. The person who will care the most though, is me. Isn't that what is most important? Why am I so determined and anxious over this imaginary time line that I supposed to be fulfilling? I am going to do what I say I'm going to do, and it is not dependent on how and when or even where. If my end professional goal is to operate my own architecture firm who gives a poo where I go to get my Master's degree! Clients only care whether I can build them the home of their dreams.

So booyah Army! You may make my life extremely unnecessarily complicated but I am still going to get what I want!!

My Life In A Flow Chart

12:53 -

Shot Plans

4:38 - Well my idea to apply to grad school at SCAD for fall 2011 can be shot to hell because Martin informed me last night that Ranger Regiment (our only hope for getting out of Texas within the next year) could wait until 2012 (2012!!!!!!) to pull his packet. Basically Martin "applies" to be in Ranger Regiment and then needs to get "selected." He needs to have been in Company Command for a year and he'll hit a year next April. We expected to be out of Texas by next summer. So with Ranger Regiment able to take its sweet time in choosing him he'll probably get sucked into another Iraq (at least not Afghanistan but that could change too) deployment in July/August of next summer and be gone for an entire freaking year again. The strange thing is I'm not upset about the deployment, I'd be stupid and ignorant to think he wasn't going to deploy again but the thing that makes me want to cry and vomit simultaneously is the thought of being here for another 2 years. TWO MORE YEARS in this deadbeat horrid town. And an entire year of going to bed at 9:30 because I have nothing better to do. An entire year of being scared that someone is going to jump our backyard fence and break in (funnily I am not scared at all when Martin is sleeping next to me.) Two more years of putting my life on hold and wondering when the Army will stop screwing my life up.

The only good to maybe come of the whole thing is that if Martin does get sucked into another deployment he's pretty sure he'll get out of the Army. Then we'll go to grad school together, somewhere bad ass. Of course his feelings towards the Army changes with the wind and all our friends (and even acquaintances) tell me he'll be a General and in the Army for life, blah blah blah (makes me proud of him but left feeling a little desperate about my own life.)

So yeah, as the soldiers say "FTA."


* Another lesson in life that I have thanks to the Army is that I am the only one responsible for my life. I have to shut up, quit whining and stop blaming the Army for all my woes. As Lauren said "Take charge!!" It may not go as planned but I'm sure as heck not going to let anything stop me from living my life!

Tonight

20:07 - Locally made sweet wine, homemade garlic bread, strawberries with leftover chocolate pudding, Coco Before Chanel, and my puppies all add up to a relaxing night. The only thing missing is Martin. Who is in the field AGAIN! At least he decided to tell me about it in the morning and not at midnight when I am trying to stay awake until he got home :)

And....I applied to be the Sneak Peek Research Intern with Design*Sponge tonight. Then at HEB I found a heads up penny so it must be so!

Daydream Of The Day

8:43 - The latest daydream: We own and operate a guest house. At the purchase of the building it was old and run down, in dire need of help, so we spend our time and hands in renovating it. I travel around the world (which, because our guest house is outside the United States, is not hard to do) finding special little touches to decorate with. Rugs, furniture, lamps, dishes, all little lovelies. We live in a room upstairs, with a small kitchen area, bathroom and sitting room. I am an architect and work on small commissions as they come my way and I chose to design them. Martin writes, sails, and gives lectures at universities around the world.

Hearts Not In It

10:48 - Want to know what I am very quickly getting tired of doing? Finding a job that is "just okay" when all the while I would like to be working towards becoming an architect. Not just convincing myself that the jobs I hold now will help me down the line tangentially. Though, I do enjoy my job now and am thankful for the two wonderful women I work with. And I know that my current job will very much indeed help me down the line.

*After a heart to heart with both my husband and friend Katie I have realized that there is more to life than getting the perfect architecture job. What a waste to sit here and wish my life away. I have turned a new page and am now living my life in its present reality as if it is just not the right time for me to have a desk job at an architecture firm.