Puppy Dog Tail

Due to my husbands flight school schedule I was dubbed his puppies trainer. So far this little, ok not so little, 5 month old can sit and stay both verbally and with hand signals. Lay down is a work in progress but I am crossing my fingers that by the end of next week she will have it down.

Now for the hard part...teaching her not to dig in the back yard. She started this bad habit about a month ago and has increased her digging substantially. I have looked up advice on the internet, asked the vet and fellow puppy owners, and even tried yelling at those cute little puppy eyes. Today, my husband luckily has the day off and tried a tactic of his own, water. She is afraid of the garden hose. It is extremely funny to watch her try and get away from it, but that's besides the point. So when she started digging he went outside, turned on the hose, and sprayed her. It seemed to be working but then she started again. I guess this will be a good test for a new technique to get her to learn how not to dig.

A Healthy Lifestyle

So I have come to the decision that it's time for me to be living a more heathy lifestyle. How did I come to this conclusion? It's simple...I just don't feel healthy.

Yes, my health issues — a big surgery and my pneumonia deciding to welcome itself back — has made me a little lazy and not wanting to really care, but now that I am turning a corner on both of those things, it's time to get me going again. Not to mention my hubby is a little over a month away from a PT test so he is kicking it into high gear.

These are my first baby steps I am taking to get myself back to where I can look in the mirror and say "I look and feel good."

1. Cut Out The Crap: This includes my two addictions, Dr Pepper and ice cream.
2. Yoga It Up: I just recently asked, and then received, yoga gear and DVDs for my birthday. This should help, not only my body, but my mind.
3. Get My Creative Juices Flowing: Part of me not feeling healthy is also part mental. I realized I need to start working my mind out to and to do this I am going to start spending at least 30 min a day going out and taking photos, work on design projects or write.
4. Puppy Love: I have a two year old mini husky and my husband has a (just turned) 5 month old lab/coon hound mix. I am going to spend some time each day having alone time with my pup, and then spend some training time with the newer pup. This should not only get me some cardio workouts in every week, but also help the house run a little less crazy (fingers crossed).
5. Menu Matters: In my last semester in college I needed a filler class so I picked a nutrition class. Well, it's time to put that class to use and start eating healthy and right. This not only means me, but my husband as well. We are going to start eating five small meals a day, lower our fat/sugar intakes and eat the correct portion for each meal. This might be hard at the beginning but I will be worth it.
6. Organization Is Key: With all of this baby steps I want to implement into my life I need to get organized. I need to dust off my planner and start getting myself into a routine. This shouldn't be to hard do, I mean before I was lazy I was one of the most organized people in my little world. This will also help with meal planning and my new work out schedule.

I know this looks like a lot of work for just starting to get myself back to feeling healthy but in reality it's not. It's a lifestyle change, not "I want to lose 20 pounds in one month" kind of stuff. This will be better in the long run while making us lose weight, keep it off, and make us more mentally sound.

Wish me luck!

It's Not Him, It's You Too

About a week or so ago I was talking to a fellow new Army wife and she told me a story that made me laugh a little but also made me realize that everything you do as an officers wife reflects on your officer.

This is how the story went (to the best of my memory), and like me, my friend does not live directly on post:

I was driving on post to go to the gym and run some other errands and soon after I was done I heard police sirens. It turns out I was getting pulled over for speeding, going 7, or maybe 10ish, over the 30 miles per hour speed limit. When the female office got came to my car and asked for my traditional ticket information she then looked at me and asked if I was an officers wife. I told her yes and that is when a switch flipped and she started going off on me. 

She started yelling, well it seemed like yelling, at me for the fact that I am an officers wife and that not only do I get in trouble they have to report my ticket to my husbands commanding officer, getting him in trouble as well. She then went on to remind me about Army wife etiquette and that what I did as his wife sometimes reflected more on him then what he does the majority of the time.

At this point I am balling and so worried about this getting back to his commander. The officer gave me one more verbal slap on the wrist and I headed home, not speeding of course. As soon as I got home I called my husband and left a message on his phone, he was in the middle of flight line at the time, and told him about the incident. A few hours later he called me back and told me as son as he had time he went to his commander and told her about the situation and that she would be hearing it from the department soon. He said the commander smiled a little and just said something along the lines of "she must be new to this life," and told him to remind me once again that she is being watched at all times too.

I was so relieved that he did not get in trouble and happy but a little upset that, she to, found it a little amusing. In the end I am never or even getting close to speeding or maybe even doing anything on post.

After she told me this story I couldn't help but smile to and reflect back to what my husbands college ROTC commander and his wife told me. "You alone, as a military spouse, can make or break your husbands career."

It is 100% true, every step, every connection, every everything I do connects me back to him. I am so happy that I was warned about this before I married the military, especially after hearing that story and knowing I was not the one that had to learn that lesson the hard way.