Snowflake Swap

Paris recaps are coming, I swear! I'm just getting around to the 700+ pictures Mr. took...   At the beginning of this month one of my friends, Jane, posted about a Snowflake Swap that she and a few others were hosting. I was expecting the holidays to be rough for me(spoiler alert-- I was right), and thought that giving more would help. Plus, I ran two winter gift exchanges, so it was nice to be able to just enjoy it, instead of worrying about everything. I happened to be paired up with the lovely Brittany of Aviation of Love, who is stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas. Both of us have been at Ft. Bragg, and both of us have immediate feelings of inadequacy when it comes to gift giving. ;) I can say though, that her gift was super thoughtful. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it all wrapped up, so here are the pieces: I got magazines- Food and Wine (now severely dog eared for all the recipes I want to try) and Self...which I had been wanting to buy but haven't.     

  A really cool Essie nail polish...it's chrome! I can't wait to paint my nails for NYE.  

  An awesome Ft. Bliss t-shirt...which made me wish I had sent her something German. (See above comment about inadequacy)  

Really excited because my preworkout  matches!

  And then she was thoughtful enough to include treats for both girls... Which have promptly been devoured! Thanks so much to Brittany, and to the "JAM Awesomesauce" ladies for putting this together! 

OCONUS Jealousy

 By the time y'all are reading this, the Mr. and I are on our way to Paris for my birthday! I just wanted to share some thoughts about living overseas for the weekend.   If you live overseas for any amount of time, two things will happen.  1. People will make you feel like you're not doing "enough" traveling at any given point. Maybe this is just a me thing, but we hear (often) about how everyone has all these plans for every. single. four day. See, if you were in the states,  your plans for a four day would probably be to relax, maybe see or do something in your town or just nearby, but that's about it.  Here, people go NUTS. The Mister is taking a four day for my birthday, and we're going to Paris. We're not traveling for Christmas or New Year's. When we say that...we get the wide, unblinking stare of disbelief. How DARE you have time off and not use it to see more of this country!
Look, we love it here, and we love travel. We just also have some debts to take care of, work to do, Pets that need us, and Doc appointments. We can't take off every month-and that's okay. We're still seeing as much as we can.
2. Related to number 1, your friends and family romanticize your time here. People say things like "I have no tips for you, not all of us can go to Paris for a weekend!". Or, "Gosh, I'm so jealous it must just be awesome to be there and get to Travel all the time".  Yes, it's awesome to be here. Yes, we feel very blessed to have these opportunities...however...
I get to go on a 4 day birthday trip to Paris, because I gave up having holidays with my family.  I get to experience this wonderful culture, because I am willing to deal with the 6/7/8 hour time difference from people I love. 
Not everything here is rosy, and it's not wonderful all the time (But it is pretty close!). Just remember that being in Germany isn't all beer, schnitzel, and traveling throughout Europe. It's also missing home, missing family, and a language/culture barrier that is insurmountable at times.

On my birthday Eve..

Tomorrow is a pretty awesome day.... I'm turning 26!
There's a lot of things I could say about it. I could say that I'm not where I thought I would be, that things are hard, that even though things are hard-they are also great, that I'm SO excited about Paris and traveling by train, give a recap of the major events from this year, and on and on.. and none of these things would be wrong... but they aren't what I want to write about.
Today, I'm writing about what I am going to work on for year 26...And intersperse some photos from 25 throughout.

My best girlfriends got in my house and decorated it for my birthday last year :)

Love.
I want to look back at 26 and see that this was the year that I let it become my guiding principle, that I let that be how I approach people and situations.  

The girl who made it SO hard to move from Fayetteville!

  To take this to a religious side of things-Jesus gave us two commandments- To love our God and our Neighbor.  This year, I'm going to focus on those two things, and let the rest fall where it may.   

The best meal of my life, while celebrating 25 (belatedly) in Vegas!

  This means trying to let judgement go. This means letting things that hurt or annoy me roll off my back.

Seeing these two tie the knot is definitely a highlight of the year. And I still cry. Cause I'm a little pathetic.

Like I could leave my favorite munchkin out of this...

Most importantly, it means Grace. And not just for other people-It means for myself...maybe even most of all!    

Waiting for our plane to Germany!

Like most people, I am my own worst critic. This year, I'm going to learn to extend grace to myself, and love myself-flaws and all. Who am I to say that I'm not smart enough? Maybe I'm just the right kind of smart to accomplish what I need to. Who am I to say that I'm not pretty? My 'haters' will be quick enough to tell me that-do they really need my help?! This also means less hiding when someone breaks out a camera-I'm resolving to take more pictures with me in them this year!

I hate the shadows in this...but this was our 2nd Market!

So, here's to a year of Love and Grace...  

 

Selfie...no makeup. I can say a lot of things about this picture-but it's me. This is me on a daily basis-mascara and hair messy. Feeling heavier than I'd like, but loving that I'm still healthy and alive and able to enjoy all that I have.

A TTC Update

I realized the other day that I hadn't posted a TTC update for awhile, so here goes. 
The Mr. and I were on a break for a few months. I wanted to make sure (as much as I could, anyways) that I would be able to make it to my friend Staci's wedding, and hopefully to Alpha Chi convention.  We have since started "actively" trying again, which means taking temperatures, OPK's, etc. 
I was due for a well woman exam, so I spoke with my PCM(Primary Care Manager) here about how we have been trying for awhile. She said that since we were so close to a year of trying, and it's hard to get in with the doctor here, that she'd go ahead and write me a referral to a doctor here for a female infertility workup.
We've seen him once so far, and I just had some blood work done today. He's thinking that it's a hormonal issue, which should be reflected in today's testing.  I've had an ultrasound (Me and Wandy...we're not friends) and he's taken all our history and information. We go back to see him again in just over a week to get our results, and the Mister goes in for testing the following day. From there, we just work with everyone to hopefully formulate a plan and get pregnant!
Because I have TriCare, it is unfortunately not the easiest process. After this next appointment, my German doctor will write up a report. This gets returned to TriCare/my PCM who then decide what their course of action is. They could decide to handle it themselves, send us a Military Treatment facility, or just hand us back off to our German Doc. We are hoping that the plan will be to allow us to continue seeing the German doctor. His office is convenient to our apartment, and he is just a really kind, reassuring man.  If you know me, you know I tend to be a worry wart and jump to the worst possible conclusions at all times. The fact that this guy calms me down is pretty big. ;)
So, we're starting the process. We're not sure infertility is even something we're dealing with just yet. Right now is the information gathering phase.. hopefully things get to working soon!

It's all so quiet...

It's been awhile, hasn't it?

It's not that there's nothing to blog about, or that I haven't thought about blogging...

It's moreso that I keep promising blogging to myself as some sort of prize. Like, finish your Anatomy and you can blog.

Well, by the time I finish my Anatomy I don't want to do much of anything. At all.

Good news-By tomorrow afternoon that won't be a problem anymore! I am officially in finals week, and I can not wait for it to be over (already!).

Better news- By the end of this week the Mr. and I will be in Paris and I will give exactly 0 cares about school and all the other little stuff piling up. 

Now...to just get to the end of this week!