Game Show

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:30 to make breakfast for Eric.
2. Diamonds or pearls? If i wear jewelry which is rare i think i go for diamonds.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Kung Fu Panda with the Goosens!
4. What is your favorite TV show? GREY’S ANATOMY, THE OFFICE!
5. What do you usually have for breakfast? Muffins, scones, pancakes, oatmeal. um, not all at the same time though.
6. What is your middle name? Colleen
7. What food do you dislike? Eggs, tomatoes, mustard, pickles, onions, mushrooms.
8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Hillsong United
9. What kind of car do you drive? A black toyota camry named Fae.
10. Favorite sandwich? Turkey artichoke from Panera.
11. What characteristic do you despise? People who don't know how to act in public.
12. Favorite item of clothing? My salmon colored tank topish thing.
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Right now? Israel.
14. Are you an organized person? You can answer that yourselves.
15. Where would you retire to? Turkey.
16. What was your most recent memorable birthday? Last year my mom flew out and we had a great birthday party and i got my best friend Lambkins.
17. What are you going to do when you finish this? Go to Turkish class.
18. Furthest place you are sending this? the U.S.
20. When is your birthday? Feb. 26.
21. What is your shoe size? 8.5
23. Pets? I play with Trudy my friend Katie's dog.
24. Any new and exciting news? I moved unless you've missed that. Eric has something to tell me when he gets home from work.
25. What did you want to be when you were little? An Innercity teacher and a councelor.
26. How are you today? Sad day.
27. What is your favorite flower? KERI!!! you have all of mine, Lilacs and then stephanoitis.
28. What are you listening to right now? The air conditioning.
29. What was the last thing you ate? Cheap pizza.
30. What day on the calendar you are looking forward to? Saturday...camping on teh beach.
31. Do you wish on stars? No, but i like finding the big dipper every night. And i like to sing, "somewhere out there" in my head.
32. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? salmon
33. How is the weather right now? According to the t.v. it's 109 but i don't believe it.
34 Last person you spoke to on the phone? Eric in Turkey, Mom, Dad and Holliday out of Turkey.
35. Favorite soft drink? Raspberry Schellps. I don't think i spelled that right.
36. Favorite restaurant? Hm, California Yogurt sounds good right now. Or Red Robin.
37. Hair color? Redish
38. What was your favorite toy as a child? Shera Princess of Power.
39. Summer or Winter? FALL
41. Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate dummy. You know those cookies that have the two rows of chocolate and one row of vanilla, it's a waste of space.
42. Coffee or tea? Coffee.
45. What is under your bed? Winter clothes bins.
46. What did you do last night? Finished Lord of the Rings and went to bed at 9:00
47. What are you afraid of? snakes
48. Salty or sweet? Sweet mostly.
49. How many keys on your key ring? 5?
50. How many years at your current job? Almost three being a housewife.
51. Favorite day of the week? Thursday.
52. Do you make friends easily? If they make friends easily with me.

Death by Boxes

It's true, you just might be able to die from sudden move in syndrome. This happens to people that are completely OCD and need to unpack THIS VERY SECOND. RIGHT NOW. MOVE IT. This means there will be blisters, box cuts (a very large version of the popular paper cut), extreme hunger, the inability to sit on anything because it is covered in very important stuff. So important infact that you could deal without it for three months.

So, my kitchen and dining room are basically done, the livingroom, bedroom and bathroom each need another hour and then they should be done. But because the second bedroom had all the loner furniture in it we have to keep all the boxes that should be going in there out in the hallway.

Yesterday I was told the movers would be here anywhere between 8:00-5:00 so i did what any rational person would do. I paced and looked out the peep hole and ran to the door every time i heard a truck drive by. I didn't slow down and I was not defeated, I kept this up until 3:30 when they finally showed up! They unloaded our crates in 1.5 hours and devoured the plate of brownies my awesome husband made them.

So, i'm still in turbo speed mode. We'll see when i crash.

Photos are of the living room before paint, the living room after paint, Eric eating in the bedroom stuffed with furniture, and the living room stuffed with boxes.

Painting the House Project Take One

Well we, (no baby Katie and I) got the paint and today was "brown day" tomorrow will be blue and then hopefully i'll be done! Here's the fun stripey wall.

A day off

Yesterday Eric, (and the rest of the base) had the day off. So no baby Katie, and her husbando Frank-yes the Cedar Falls peeps-and Eric and I went the approximate hour drive south to the sea side city of Mersin for a trip to the mall.

Now getting to the mall poses no problem at all-granted you have a tomato paste car that directs you how to get there. We kind of went about 10 minutes farther out from the mall than we were supposed to, so on our turn around we decided to roll down the window, (insert arm crank motion, or push button) to see if the driver beside us could understand our Turkish. His white car was plastered with all sorts of cans of tomato paste goodness, and a number we could call if ever we were hungry and driving along and needed to contact the Turkish authority on tomato paste. He told us where to turn, and happily we ran the red light, crossed lanes of green light traffic and went on our merry way. A couple minutes later we see tomato paste car beside us again motioning for us to follow him! So we had a chauffeur the entire way back to the mall. If i ever need tomato paste in the future I would call this guy-except I didn't write down the number that was on his car. SHOOT!

I'm pretty happy with that last sentence since I was trying to beat Keri in the longest run on sentence contest.

Things to do at the mall in Mersin:

1. Walk into the glass doors that you think are the automatic opening ones. We didn't actually partake of this ridiculously fun game, but K and F told us about a Turkish guy who did it when they were there last and busted his nose on the glass.
2. Go into home stores that are like Pottery Barn except 95 degrees inside.

3. Get super grossed out by the doner (spinning 50 pounds of meat on a stick) and loose appetite.

4. Discuss the finer foot traffic patterns of turks, who don't care which side of the lane they walk on and are quick to "make like Moses" and "part your red sea of walking together".

5. Berate yourself for not knowing there was a Turkish basketball 2 on 2 contest going on outside. (Frank played basketball for the Air Force and is most likely 3 feet taller than any contender). And Eric can hold his own out there too. So if they would have, and they really did wish they would have, brought their bball shoes, there would have been TOTAL DOMINATION.

6. Definitely purchase a glow in the dark t-shirt which has a cow being abducted by a space ship. Eric loves it.

7. Go to the best dessert restaurant in the entire world.

Cakes: http://www.ozsut.com.tr/opasta.html

http://www.ozsut.com.tr/kpasta.html

Ganache, eclaires, etc: http://www.ozsut.com.tr/apasta.html

Puddings etc: http://www.ozsut.com.tr/sutlu.html

Sundaes: they even put those fun little sparkly guys in them: http://www.ozsut.com.tr/dondurma.html

Cheesecakes etc: http://www.ozsut.com.tr/turta.html

After all of those I'm sure you're full, me too!

"There were a lot of spiders in Minnesotta"-as told to me by my mother

My family just got back from our annual trip to the cabin in Minnesota. A wonderful retreat and a week filled with complete relaxation, fishing, swimming, hiking, good food, and family time. My sister will be quick to point out that I have missed it for what, four years now? Anyways, mom sent me an interesting email from Minn. that got my attention. It read: I have an interesting story to tell you when we get home.

So once they got back to Iowa City, we cranked up the Skype and this is what I heard.

"Well this year there were lots of spiders in Minnesota. One night when I was doing dishes I kept feeling something tickling my feet and I was getting ready to brush it off with my other foot when I decided to look down to see what it was."

At this point she pauses because she knows and is tickled beyond belief that she is about to tell me something extraordinary and I have a pretty good inkling what is going on here but she is so excited to tell me. So she continues.

"Guess what it was Laura."
"No. I'm not playing this game". I already knew what it was and i was no longer interested in story time with mommy, i wanted to go nigh nigh.
"Laura, what was it?"
"Not telling Mom."

"Laura it was a little snake licking my feet." Ok folks, shows over. If you know much about me at all you might recall that I am deathly afraid of snakes. I DO NOT tolerate anything about them. Their pictures scare me, when they come on t.v. i run into the other room, and even if I see the word i have trouble touching the page the word is on.

Again, she goes on. The shock value had worn off and I was now ready to try to listen again with squirmy worms in my stomach the whole time.

"Well I kind of yelped and started jumping and running over to the other side of the room, yelping all the while." The other people in the living room started to figure out what was going on, and there was much scrambling up and running to the door. My brave Dad took note as to where it went, between the stove and the counter. So the troopers did what any natural humans would. They turned on the stove in hopes that he crawled (snakes are always male) into it and we can now bake him. If you're beginning to wonder if we have a fascination with killing pests without actually touching them you're correct. I killed a leech with a canoe paddle one year up there. Also see my earlier blog about the 'roaches.

So they couldn't find the snake but they did notice a big hole under the sink that went into the ground where there some minor construction going on the week before my family arrived.

Back up a few days, the family is around the fire pit and Holliday has yet to come outside to join them. She stomps up to them and she says, "Um, SOMEbody put a rubber snake by my shoes and it's kind of freaking me out so now i don't want to go get them". We all know what that was now.

So the next day? after the dish washing/stove incident. Holliday and my nephew Joel are at the house alone and they see one in the bathroom. So Holliday and Joel go down to the dock to yell there heads off to Dad whose across the lake in the boat fishing. Dad comes in with a stick and a net and with barely any blood on the floor scoops up the snake and proceeds to drive with the kids across the lake to dump him (again, male) into the lake.
I am not interested in going to Minnesota next year.

Oh where oh where have my leg muscles gone?

So today no-baby Katie and I hit the gym. Hopefully this will be a daily activity in which my training for the 10K and then the 1/2 Marathon in September will be decided. Back in Yuba City before Eric was home I had gotten up to 6 miles a day which would have put me in great condition for the 10K but now I'm back to the 3-4 mile deals. I am not complaining, don't get me wrong, I feel great after I do it, but I'd really like to be able to accomplish something that is WAY out of my comfort zone. So 1/2 Marathon it is.

I did 4.25 miles today and I checked my time at the 5 K point, I did pretty well for that, coming in at about 28.00. So one of my goals, to finish it in under 30 minutes was accomplished which means I'm running under a 10 minute mile-another one of my goals. Now for good runners-this is like YAWN material. They have already turned over and fallen asleep-while I'm chattering away on this side of the bed.

SO-GINA, KERI, ROXANNE. Get back on the horse.

Ask Not!

WAIT WAIT WAIT i have to tell you all about my Key Spouse Training on Thursday night. Ok, imagine a bunch of ladies (30) who are all in one room together with name tags and crackers and cheese. Who 98% of can think of nothing better to do with their lives then be in charge of the communication out to the spouses and welcoming newcomers on base and helping during deployments. Ok-sounds pretty good so far right? Now imagine that these women have moved every three years of their lives and are getting a little on the quirky side. A LOT on the quirky side. Now imagine that like in most meeting that are held by women-and men Eric tells me. They follow this rule, "Ask not what you think pertainith to the topic, but how the topic pertainith to you." So someone opens up the can of question worms.
Things like:

1. So, what hours is the Marriage and Family Counseling Center open on weekends?
2. Can I get your personal cell phone number?
2.5 Well can i have your home phone number?
3. At my last base (don't ever start a sentence this way if you are in the military!) we had little welcoming packets for each of the new spouses. Can we get something like that here, like with coupons, and a letter, and a map of the bus route and a Popsicle? This lady went on for so long I had to time her. 15 minutes of trying to tell the Airman and Family Readiness Center exactly what it was like at her last base and getting them to see that they needed to provide something like that for this base. I couldn't take it anymore! I had to interrupt.
I said, "All right Girl you go for that, you GET on that. I nominate YOU for that position." Kim-my friend at the AFRAC just grinned at me. She knows I hate things like this, so she seconded the nomination. And there was a THIRD from the audience.
Later on while Eric and I were gardening, she introduced her self as our...NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR. Whoops.
The best part of the night is that I was sitting next to wonderful Katie from........CEDAR FALLS IOWA, she went to UNI and was an Art major and i adore her. We had so much fun whispering back and forth the whole time and groaning when they kept making the questions go on and on. Her Husband is a Lt. just like Eric and they are going to be volunteering at the coffee shop Eric and I are volunteering at. They are Christians and actively go to church. She even knows my ex-boyfriend from Cedar Falls and my good friend Nicki Corbin. Crazy world. So now that I have two Katie's in my life there will be baby Katie and non-baby Katie.

Bloggon It!

Sorry I haven't written in a couple days. Cleaning/Organizing that house took a ton of my energy and I hit a wall with feeling like making dinner and cleaning my own house-or just doing much of anything. So we ate at Burger King Friday night and Eric made Lasagna on Saturday-a romantic dinner out on the porch.

Saturday was more language lessons in which I thought my teacher was asking me where his jeans were? I answered that they were in the classroom. To which he shook his head and turned around-probably so that I couldn't see his smile and asked me what i thought he said. Turns out he had said, what is there in my pocket? NOT A CLASSROOM I can tell you that right now! Language stuff is going much better and I actually do really well with the grammer end of it so this week was not bad at all.

We have finished the demolition of the front yard which took 20 hours total. Now we have to plant grass and get a couple plants for the very front edge and we are DONE! The side yard is looking better now that it's getting some watering and grass fertilizer. The last three days have been pretty nice weather wise and there are still clouds today, (normally they're gone by 8:00am).

Sunday was more church and going out for lunch with friends afterwards to watch the Olympics. Did I tell you all that a girl from our college group is Diving in the Olympics. Nancilea Underwood Foster! She is doing the 3 meter and syncro diving i think.

Today i'm meeting non-baby Katie to go for a walk and hang out in a house that has actual furniture in it. Happy trails to you! Whereever you may be.

Operation bring baby home

Well, the last couple days have been spent cleaning someone else's house. This is not THAT unusual but the degree to which it needed cleaning and the detail of the cleaning is a little daunting. 6 hours yesterday and 5 hours today and i think I'll need 2 more days until the project is complete.
My friend's house that I'm cleaning left for Izmir two weeks ago to stork nest (wait until her baby was born) i wrestled the house keys away from her husband before he left to go be with her. They are VERY laid back and the ONLY thing ready for baby was the crib. All the outfits, socks, bibs, pacifiers, etc were still in gift bags and the "baby's room" had two mattresses up against the wall, and an assortment of large interesting things-the only way you could tell it was for baby was the crib which Brian set up the day before he left.
So, I've been figuring out how to fold socks the size my fingernail, despising the person who made her the diaper cake (all those rubber banded diapers have to be unrubber banded) etc.
The only way to clean the house is to organize it as well. Every surface has a million things piled on it but i have made it through the worst and now I'm on to the desk, kitchen and finishing the baby's room. The master bedroom, bathroom, closets, living and dining room are actually done surprisingly.
So I'm not sure if they thought they'd have time to do all of this, or what, but it would be hard to change that child's diaper when every surface is covered-so I'm bringing them back to ground zero and they can decide what to do after that.

Green thumb, and well, fingers too!

Today and some other days I've been the master gardener. This involves me learning what gardening tools are absolutely essential and what tools i can get by without. It also humbles me to know that the "kneeling pad" i smirked at in the gardening aisle would be really nice right about now. Other things I've learned this week:
(First picture is a shot of the "before").

1. Rose bushes have roots that are really deep and they are S shaped so digging them requires a husband.

2. Those pretty purple flowers make ugly nasty roots.

3. Spiders are ruthless. I keep drowning them and covering up their holes but within minutes they have a new tunnel.

4. The neighbors are very curious as to what I'm doing.

5. Planting grass requires absolutely no knowledge of what one is doing. Simply water the ground, spread seed around which stains your hands green, and maybe a little more watering.

6. When your husband leaves the hose on for 3 hours your yard will fill up and 15 birds will come take a bath in your yard.

7. Watching your husband learn how to move a sprinkler without getting sprayed for the first time requires out loud laughter and running to get the camera.

8. I really wish i would have gotten those cute gardening shoes before we left the states.

I found the mosquito I killed last night

I was sitting here typing in the dark (only 2 of our rooms have overhead lights, and our stuff STILL hasn't come). I could hear the buzzing and almost knew exactly where it was just through my super spidey senses. I smacked my hands together and the buzzing stops which usually means the mosquito realizes it's breathing too loud for this game and then it goes and quietly stings you on the back of the knee. But just now i was looking at my flash cards and noticed on one flash card there was a...mosquito. Dead in it's tracks.

I didn't mean to be so silent. Friday i had the greatest idea for a blog heading and cool stuff that I absolutely cannot remember. It was a very busy weekend I guess.

Friday I was called in to have lunch with the Colonel and the First Sarg. for an interview about the Key Spouse thing. I guess they normally don't have officer's wives take on this role because some enlisted wives feel like they can't talk to me without it going to their supervisor. Anyways, i passed and i have training on Thursday night. Eric played in another softball tournament this weekend so Friday night there were two games to go to and then we stayed up watching Lions for Lambs-great movie.

Saturday we decided to take the car into Adana for our Turkish language lesson. The lesson went well and we had 20 minutes to spare before another softball game. Then another softball game. Then the CE picnic. Then another softball game. WHEW.

Sunday was church, softballx3 and a dinner at the fire station (all Turkish guys). It was really fun and of course the food was amazing. Whew.

Last night we went to Josiah's birthday party. He had a dunk tank and a bouncy boxing ring with the huge boxing gloves. Eric was the first adult to sit on the dunk tank and had NO intentions of doing it when he came so down he went in normal clothes-all the other dad's followed suit. Nothing more for now. Sorry it's so "listy" today. maybe tomorrow I'll be more creative.

Basically I'm a Handyman

But the problem is I think Eric wanted to put the lawn mower together. I just couldn't help myself, those glistening parts, and those wing nuts and e-things and screwdrivers. I caved and i put it together in 15 minutes flat. I should get a new job i think.

Also i went to the commissary (grocery store) today. Let's pause and figure out WHY the Air Force and other armed services think they need to go around changing names to things. The Post Office is the "Official Documents" center are you kidding me? Anyways, when I've been calling home on Skype Holliday has been eating Lucky Charms which she shouldn't be since we never got sugar cereal that often. So i bought some. Then i was really sad to look over at my husband who was eating some and exclaiming, "Wow i haven't had these in forever". I secretly wanted the whole box to myself because it came with a prize IN the box-no mail in necessary. Now I'm going to have to share the toy with Eric since he ate some. This is the worst.