A Little (Heated) Plea

Dear AF,

I love you. Don't get me wrong. But I have a favor to ask.

I want heat.

I know you are thinking "We don't control the weather." And usually you would be right, but this time you are wrong. You do, indeed, control the weather.

See, you gave us a list of bases and told us to rank our top six. We ranked them all on the East coast and southern California. You laughed in our faces and stuck us in the middle of nowhere west. We were shocked, but we accepted it.

Then you said that we would know in December when we were to report to the mountainous terrain, and we didn't. Then you said we would know in January, and we didn't. Then you said we would know in February, and we...well, that's not over yet. But we've accepted it.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not asking you to speed up the process or to change your minds and throw us in SoCal (...unless of course you feel so compelled, in which case we would not be sad). I'm just begging for some warmth before we disappear into the coldness.

We need one week. One week between commission and reporting to the base. Just one. Two, if you really feel like you owe us and want to be generous. But just one week and B and I will take off to the south and enjoy the weather (that you would be granting us, of course) in Mexico, or the Bahamas, or St Lucia...anywhere with sun and sand and a coast, really.

B and I hate cold. We hate snow. We hate winter. It's a fact.

So please, grant us some warmth. Just this once.

Like this:


Or this:


Thanks for your help,
Via

P.S. If this is undoable, could I get a monkey instead?

Blizzard Bloghop

Thanks to Household 6 Diva, I have something to do today! Thought it would be a good way to tell you guys a bit about myself, and meet some new bloggy friends!

Anyway.

I'm Via. I'm a 20-something blogger. I'm currently in college, attaining my education degree (hey, they say the average degree takes 5.6 years to actually complete...right?).

On May 15th, I'll be marrying my amazing air force officer, B.


And then we'll be moving way "out west" via Air Force. (And if you know anyone in Wyoming, I'd love to chat it up!).

This is my dog, Chase. He's awesome.


I love Photography. I'm a writer and a crafter.


But more than anything, I love to travel. Kenya, by far, is the best place I've ever been.




I love to advocate for things, especially breast and childhood cancers and groups especially for violence against women.

I started this blog originally to meet other air force/military wives to see what life was like for them (you?). And it's been amazing!

Saturday Fail

I woke up this morning to many inches of snow. It was icing all day yesterday, and I was very aware of the coming snow.

I don't think I told you guys this, but B was the only one chosen from his entire detachment to go to DC for a week for an officers seminar-thingy (technical name, of course). They left this morning.

So I hopped on the Drudge Report and see this message as the front page:

"BIGGEST D.C. SNOW STORM SINCE 1922 AND IT'S STILL COMING DOWN"

Isn't it ironic? Dontcha think? I may or may not have laughed so hard at the irony that I cried. PHA.



Another awesome fail of the day has to do with our registries. I got onto or Macy's registry (or, at least attempted...but they changed their system and I got locked out so I haven't actually gotten on it yet) to add some serving pieces to go with our silverware.

We had a hard time adding our silverware. We'd scan it, it would say it was added, and it wouldn't show up. Two phone calls and two days later, it was added. Couldn't add it online, because it wasn't an option--you could only add the serving set.

So I went to add the serving set today. Found this message about it:

"On Order: Usually ships within 126 business days"

Um. We'll be married before that.

This leaves me very weary about our silverware choices. Chances are good I'll be changing those too. But I laughed really, really hard.

But I didn't cry. Not that hard ;)

Which one?

This week is apparently doppelganger week on facebook. I have heard that I look like a ridiculous amount of people, and I really don't see it...with any of them. So I'm investing your help. Which celebrity do I look like? One of these or someone else?

Me...


I've heard:

Sandra Bullock


Brooke Shields


Anne Hathaway


Anna Popplewell

Tuesday Tribute: Joyful Heart Foundation

I don't have any idea where the idea for "Tuesday Tribute" came from (if someone does...please inform me), but I love the idea. I've done it a couple times before, but still don't know where it came from.

Tuesday Tribute is a day when you make a post for someone or something greater than yourself: basically, it's a way to highlight a problem or organization (or both) and show what you stand for. I've decided to start doing these again, at least once a month.

As a disclaimer, I will tell you that I will never blog about something I don't care about. However, I care about a lot of things, so these ones are the things I care about most.

Today, my Tuesday Tribute is for A Joyful Heart Foundation.



There are other organizations like this with the same purpose, but for today it's just JHF.

This Foundation was started by Mariska Hargitay (I may or may not live and breathe SVU, but I didn't really care about who the actors were until I found this out) a few years after she started working on SVU. JHF is basically a foundation that helps all survivors of any kind of abuse: childhood, sexual, and domestic.

According to the site:

"The vision of the Joyful Heart Foundation is a community that:
1. is empowered with knowledge, courage and compassion to help survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse heal mind, body and spirit;
2. values and dedicates resources to individuals and families that have been impacted by these issues; and
3. seeks to ignite and foster an open dialogue about how to collaboratively end the cycle of violence and abuse."

They have a multitude of programs to "heal," "educate," and "empower," including week long retreats, local and urban retreats, and community events. And the site itself offers many online and phone resources for survivors.

In the US, every 2 minutes a woman is sexually assaulted, every 15 seconds a woman is battered, and everyday 4 children are killed as a result of child abuse. About 17.9% of women have or will survive a rape or attempted rape in their lifetime, that's 1 in 6 women. It's a great cause, and it's really important to people who have lived through things like this--many times it's easier to fly halfway across the world for a week retreat with total strangers than discuss things with those closest to you.

Check it out and pass it on. You can even buy things at their shop to help support--boxes of chocolates, necklaces, lotion, a really fuzzy blanket.

I love when celebrities have heart!

Snow Here. Gone. Here.

This weekend it was in the high 50's. The snow was gone. I (and Brady, sporting them here for me) needed these all weekend in the never-ending rain..



But today it was in the low 30's. Flurried a tiny bit this morning. And then we had a 10 minute whiteout at 6 this evening.

Guess what?



It's back!

Wiggity Whack.

(Now Part of Talk to Me Tuesday at TipJunkie)

I started my new teaching placement today. It's awesome. I love it already. Even though I haven't met my teacher, because he was absent today, the teacher I observed was awesome. I'm not much for these placements, to be honest...I feel like one+student teaching is sufficient, and that three+student teaching is way overkill, but so far I'm not anti this placement. Even though I get up at 5 to get there at 730. Because it's in another state, and a good 45min+ away. But hey...that's what caffeine is for.

I was kind of looking at my schedule for these next coming months, and...well, it's "fun"...ahem. Other than working, and weekend lake exposure starting the end of May-September, this is basically what my coming up schedule looks like:

March 6-14: Spring Break
March 7: Bridal Shower (my family)
March 14: Bridal Shower (B's family)
Last Week in March: Wyoming (tentative)
First Week in May: Exams.
May 15th: Wedding.
June 5th: Maine for Jay's graduation (...still tentative, as well)
June 6th-11th: New England Traveling, NYC, and others.
June 12th: Back home for B's Commissioning.
July: Start summer classes

And...I don't know how it happened...but it's looking like there's an attempt to go to Haiti sometime in the summer. I've somehow ended up working with a dean in my department at Devil U who had originally planned a trip to Haiti for March. I had spoken to her about it (wayy before the earthquake), and informed her there was no way I could afford to go, even though I would have loved too. This has not changed, and the trip was formally canceled, but she's talking to me about setting one up for the summer. I still can't afford to go, but should she decide to do this I'll be taking huge part in planning it. Should a ridiculous amount of fundraising be done, I'll attend--assuming it will fit into my insanity that is summer.

I actually don't mind being busy, in all honesty, but I'm assuming around the end of March/Early April I'll be ready to be done with the busy ;)

Whose Wedding?

Just a quick update on all things wedding! We took a decent month+ break from the planning for holidays and such--it's hard to do anything over holidays, let alone while working full-time and taking classes! But now we're back to it!

We registered on Monday! Left the house at 1030, got back at 7. Came home with 3 registries (mostly) done, and a couch. Not too shabby! We did most of our stuff at Bed Bath and Beyond, then Target, and lastly Macy's--although it's mostly big-ticket stuff at Macy's (mostly because B's aunt works for them and she requested we register there, and she can be a very terrifying woman). How did you guys do your pre-registration plans?

I basically did this while planning at Starbucks one night:


This would be our spare room and our living room. No, we don't know what our place will look like yet, but I just decided we'd have square rooms. ...I feel pretty safe with that decision. But this helped me at least a bit with decoration registrations! As far as furniture goes, now that we bought a sofa...we don't have much more we need. We have a daybed w/trundle for the spare room, but we still need a desk and a dresser for B that room :). For our master bedroom, we are taking my furniture...as long as when we go to move my bed we can actually get it out of the house. Living room...we still need a TV stand, TV, an ottoman or table (prefer the ottoman, because we found one that matches and it has storage...which is awesome), a couple end tables, and probably a recliner (versus a loveseat, since we don't know how much room we'll have). But the big stuff we basically have, so that's good.

What? You want to know our color schemes? Okay!

Kitchen:
source

Living Room:
source

Bathroom:
source

Spare Room:
source

Because the spare room has two beds, the second bed is just a brown comforter. But it's on clearance, so we hope someone buys it! Didn't see much point in getting another whole bed set for it when we didn't need have the stuff in it, and the sheets are crap anyway.

Other than that...

Meeting with the deacon to do the test survey Thursday.
Meeting with ceremony music woman Thursday.

Next up:
Choose songs.
Book photobooth. Edit: done.
Redo cake contract and pay for it.
Choose invitation wording and design.
Choose ceremony music.
Set reserved seating arrangement.

Tidbits.

This is just kind of a quick recap of what's been going on around here. In small increments. There is a wedding planning update post coming soon..ish...so be ready!

-I got my car back. It now starts (read: my cousin attached the wires to the starter he forgot to attach the first time). It also decided that it's going to shift again. I feel in less danger of melting the engine...again.

-My uncle had a heart attack a couple weekends ago. It was massive, and he was home and recovering, but now he's back in the ICU with blood clots, aneurysm, and other complications and I can't even begin to recite. Surgeries have been planned and canceled, and no one really knows what's going down at this point.

-My great aunt is flying in from OK tomorrow. My mom and I are very happy about this, because my grandma is not having a good time dealing with my Uncle's situation, but she's in a great mood when her sister is here, and that helps me and my mom out tremendously.

-We bought a sofa yesterday. It was cheap. It is cheap. But it's pretty for now, and will work for a few years. And it's freaking comfortable.



-B and I went to dinner at a gorgeous and delicious restaurant downtown last Thursday. A great Italian joint. I love it. And it has the best view of the city. It was lovely.


-My computer and I have been fighting this week. I don't know what's going on with it, but it's been slow and freezing and...not nice. So if I disappear from your comment sections for awhile, don't take it personal!

-Also found out I'm going to be teaching an hour away from my home this semester. My 17mpg vehicle will be sucking me dry in the money department. I'm so excited! (note sarcasm).

-Made a plan to go check out our new city at the end of March. Have no idea if I'll actually be able to go. There is one week in which I absolutely CANNOT miss at my placement, or I will fail--problem is that we don't know what week that is yet. But I'm betting it's that week.

-Sometime over the last week my bedroom turned into a creative mind's disaster workshop. I had a window project, painting project, and photo project all going at the same time. I made myself less crazy and put all but the photo project away somewhere yesterday. Sadly, that means I won't see the other ones again for some months...BUT the chaos is gone, and focus is back! :)

Hole in Haiti

I'm stuck in a blogging hole. No, not a rut. A hole. One big enough to get stuck in...apparently.

There are a million things I could blog about. There are some things I want to blog about. But I cannot bring myself to devote much time to any of them.

I'm really caught up in this Haitian earthquake business. I've been watching the coverage every night. I attempted to apply for disaster relief aid, and found out they are only excepting people with at least 10 years of disaster relief experience.

Did you hear about the students from the University in Florida? 14 students and 2 staff, I believe, went to Haiti on Monday to disperse aid before the earthquake hit. All the students parents were told that their children were safe and were to meet them at an airport. When they got there, 4 sets of parents failed to see their children--there was an error, and those four college kids still haven't been found. What a rollercoaster. I can't even imagine that.

And it's the same way for hundreds of thousands of Haitian's. It's been over 5 days since the quake struck. There are barely any communication lines. There's no food, no water, and the people who are still stuck alive under the rubble are nearing the end--they won't be able to survive much longer. Bodies are in piles, being burned, or being buried in mass graves. This is the tsunami all over again--thousands of people have no idea if their loved ones are dead, or if they just can't get in contact with them, and they may never know. Even some Katrina survivors are facing that issues. And aid can't get there. There is some, but with the roads blocked and the airport inaccessible and how desperate hungry people are getting for the basic essentials...it's a nightmare. And it's only going to get worse before it gets better.

The country already barely had the essentials. Now it doesn't even have that.

The biggest way to help that I have seen so far is through the Red Cross. There are other organizations that are absolutely great to donate too, but we've been cautioned against scams. Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF...organizations you know will always be safe.

And now donating is easier than ever. If you have a major carrier (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, etc.), your company is probably taking part in a texting service with the Red Cross. If you text the word "HAITI" to 90999, your will donate $10 to the RedCross. This $10 is added to your next phone bill, and your provider does not profit at all. I did in it all of 1 minute today. It's the only way I know of that I can personally help. Or, if your provider is not doing it, then you can always go to RedCross.org and donate online.

I don't know the current numbers of how much has been raised this way. I know in all of 2009 they raised $3Million. I also know that as of 11am on Friday morning, in 2 and a half days, they raised $9Million.

This is not something that's going to be fixed tomorrow. Or next week. Or next month. Or next year. This is an ongoing fight. New Orleans is still not back up to where it was before, and that was five years ago...and we're a very well-off country compared to Haiti.

We won't hear as much about it next month. And as the year goes on, there will be less and less news information coming to us. But we have to remember that, just because we don't hear about, doesn't mean it's not there. They need help. Thankfully, they're getting it!