The death of me!

Hey y'all,

Since about February, I have been striving to exercise about 4-5 days a week in order to have more energy and tone up if at all possible. I started slow with no set ground rules. I walked anywhere from 1.5 to 3 miles either around the lake or in an office park near my house...fine, no problem. I lived in coastal Virginia with an elevation of ZERO! Not a hill in sight.

However, now that I live in Alabama, it is a whole different story! I can barely make a mile because of all of the hills! I can hardly go up because my legs are burning so bad and then I have to stop at the top to catch my breath. As a nice addition, it is about 90 degrees with 80% humidity at 7 o'clock in the morning!

I am so happy to be in Alabama, but the hills are gonna kill me!!!

Remembering...

Like most Americans, I am thinking about Sept.11, 2001 and what happened on that day. I was a student nurse at clinical on the Ortho unit. I was helping my patient get a bath when the first plane crashed. I was so nervous about my patient and then suddenly so frightened I remember going completely numb.

Then a page for me was called overhead. When I picked up the phone it was my husband. He said, "Did you see what happened? We are activating. I won't be home tonight and I probably won't be home for a long time."

I was frozen. I am normally very level headed in a crisis and I just couldn't move. I just turned and went back to my patient. The television was on and I heard about the second plane. I was completely spaced out. The wife of my patient told me I look pale and helped me to sit down. My instructor and my friend Patty knew my husband was in the Navy and they came to find me. My teacher told Patty to drive me home.

When I got home there were all of these messages from my friends and family wondering about Robert and offering support. I just lay down on the kitchen floor and cried like a baby.

I didn't hear from Robert for 3 days. They never did deploy that day, but they were at the ready in defense of our country.

I am lucky. Robert has spent the lion's share of 20 years on sea duty or shore commands with attached billets. He has been gone for much longer than he was ever home. But he DID come home, and that is what I am grateful for and remembering today.

The DMV

In the spirit of being a

good citizen, by husband and I scoured the DMV website and prepared

all of our documents in order to get our car tags and driver's license.

We got up early and went to the license window first. Everything was going

well for me right up until the end. She asked me to see my marriage

certificate. What? She told me that since i had a previous license in Alabama

(20yrs ago) under my maiden name that I would need proof of marriage.

OMG!!! I had my Virginia license, social security card, military ID and passport

and I still had to turn around and go home to get the license.

Meanwhile, my husband gets in line for the tags with titles, insurance and ID

and they told him he can only get a tag for the car that is physically at the DMV

because they have to verify the VIN. Well at the time, none of our cars were

there because I was going to get the marriage license!

I know they are following the rules, but I cannot believe this! So we will have

to take our other cars (my husband has a beater truck for recreation in addition

to our "real" cars) back to the DMV on another day...after I have gotten rid of

this migraine and can get my courage back up. DMV FAIL :O(

It's my birthday!

Hello friends! Today is my 39th birthday! For REAL!!

My husband took me to my favorite place for lunch, he bought me flowers and I have a delicious cake waiting to be devoured!

We have been in Auburn for about a week now and it is going better than I could have imagined. I am so glad we took a leap and ended up in a great place :O)

This may be the best birthday ever!!