Forever Love

Hi Blog,

Remember me? The one who promises herself she will start posting regularly every time she writes… and yet its been over a year since her last entry? The girl who once had all the time in the world and now can’t seem to find five minutes to sit down. The army wife who was living in Fort Benning with her husband, and is now living in California while her husband is in Iraq. The dog mom who used this blog to brag, rant, show off, etc her furry child? Oh yeah.. the dog mom who is not just a dog mom now… but a human mom. Really?

Really. To wrap up the last year, I decided in August that I would be staying in Georgia/Alabama while Drew was deployed for a year. We found an adorable house, signed a 12 month lease, then one week before he deployed… found out I was pregnant. Surprise! He left for Iraq in October, and in November my dad came to rescue me and moved me back to California [again], and I moved in with my parents where I am currently still living. We are all nice and cozy in this house: Dad, Mom, brother Chad, dogs Brody and Dakota, cat Belle, and oh yes… my cute little sidekick, Emersyn Marie, born May 29, 2010.

And suddenly the focus of this blog changes… from canine child to human child. Don’t tell Brody, but as much as I loved writing about him, my heart flutters a whole lot more for this adorable little bundle who currently is sleeping in her bouncer at my feet, swaddled in pink, bouncing away and content as can be.
We call her Emmy, or Em, or M&M, or Spider Monkey due to her long, skinny frame and long arms, fingers and toes. Most say she looks like Drew, but in my defense, she looks just like my baby pictures. She has a full head of long, dark hair, the most perfect little button nose, and if you push that button it triggers a big, gummy grin and a little dimple appears on her right cheek. Her lips are full and delicately shaped, “Supermodel lips” as an admiring stranger said. Her eyes are dark, sure to be brown, and her eyebrows are the root of thousands of expressions, from a demeaning scowl to inquiring gaze to elated smile.

Think you have her pictured?
I’ll help you


I saw a quote online that said, “A surprise is something you didn’t know you wanted until you got it.” I thought it was sweet, but now its truth makes me melt. It will never cease to amaze me how something I was so unprepared for can turn into my whole world. She has only been in my life for seven weeks, and yet I can’t, or rather, don’t want to, recall how it was before her.

To wrap up this uncharacteristically sappy blog entry, the past seven weeks have been the hardest, yet easiest of my life. The longest, yet shortest. I have dived head first into motherhood: a world of the unknown and downright scary, and yet it comes natural. Even though its cliché, everything about this new life is truly a God given miracle. This love for my daughter has brought even greater love for the One who made her. I will be forever thankful, forever in awe, forever in love. Thank you, Lord. Thank you.

"Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world." John 16:21

Oops, Its Been Awhile

Well, a lot has happened since my last personal post about washing the bugs out of my dog’s hair. We do not have any more creepy crawlers in the house. Woo hoo!

Last weekend I flew to Las Vegas for my cousin Shane’s wedding. I am so excited he and his wife, Kayleen, are finally married and she is an official part of the family. We took tons of pictures, and as soon as my cousin posts them on her Facebook I'’ll be sure to put them here.

The wedding was Saturday night, then Sunday morning my dad, brother, and I set off on a 3-day road trip back to Georgia. We made very good time and arrived last night (Tuesday) around 5 pm. We plan on staying here until June 28, then will be renting a U-Haul and towing the majority of my stuff back to California. Drew leaves for NTC on July 1st for the entire month, so I decided to go back home and spend that time with my friends and family.

Anyway, that’s all I can write about today. We are getting ready to go out and see the sights (or lack thereof) in Columbus. I got a brand new laptop yesterday and it has a Blog editing program that I was dying to try out. It works, obviously, and is SO cool!

Hope everyone is doing well. I’ll be sure to catch up on all your blogs asap =)

Katelyn

Outraged against Media Bias

WHY has this not been more widely published??

Two soldiers, just back from basic training, were gunned down Monday morning in front of an Army/Navy recruiting station located at Rodney Parham and Reservoir Rd. in Little Rock.

Lance Luplow had just parked his car across the street when he heard the shots. "At least 6 or 7 good shots, loud bangs, big gun."

When he ran to the scene he found both soldiers on the ground in uniform and bleeding. One of them, Quinton Ezeagwula of Jacksonville, was still conscious and had been shot in the neck.

"The one guy was saying, 'I can't believe this is happening' and he crawled into the store," Luplow says. "And the other guy was sort of out of it. He just had a blank stare, just looking up at the sky. He wasn't moving or anything."

That soldier was 23-year-old William Long of Conway. He died an hour later.

Minutes after the shooting, Little Rock Police arrested Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe. He faces a murder charge and 16 counts of terroristic acts.

Muhammad moved to Little Rock within the past few months. Police say he didn't know the victims. "I think he was targeting military personnel, and these military personnel were in uniform at the military facility and that's how they became targets," says Thomas.

Pvt. Long, 23, was from Conway. He joined the military in January and finished basic training in February.

Pvt. Ezeagwula, 18, is from Jacksonville. He is still in the hospital, but is expected to recover.

Answer:

Media Gatekeepers Decide what's News
By RICHARD BENEDETTO
Which is more newsworthy — the murder of an abortion doctor in Wichita, Kan., by an alleged anti-abortion activist or the murder of an Army recruiter and the wounding of another in Little Rock, Ark., by an alleged Muslim convert who is said to hate the U.S. military?

Most people not involved in news-placement decisions would probably say they were equally newsworthy. But those in the news media actually making those decisions had a different view.

According to the way the two stories were played last week in the American mainstream news media, the shooting of the abortion doctor was far more newsworthy than the shooting of the two young soldiers, even though the two incidents occurred within one day of each other and seemed to follow a similar pattern: Both men were killed by men allegedly acting out their political, religious and moral disagreements with their victims.

Here’s how the media played the two stories:
• Murder of abortion doctor on Sunday — front-page news in most major newspapers and a lead story on network TV news shows on Sunday and Monday
• Murder of one Army recruiter and wounding of another on Monday — buried inside the same papers and newscasts on Tuesday

Meanwhile, follow-up stories and columns on the abortion doctor still got bigger play in at least four major newspapers — The Washington Post, USA Today, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal — than the shooting of the soldiers got on its first day.

The Wall Street Journal had at least one story or column on each of the first four days following the abortion doctor’s shooting. It made no mention in its print edition and only two on its website of the Army recruiter’s murder in the first four days after it occurred.

One angry Washington Post reader wrote in a letter to the editor published on Saturday, “The doctor received front-page coverage June 1 and 2 and several opinion pieces, but the soldiers received five paragraphs in the June 2 Nation Digest (on Page A16).”

These obvious, big differences in media play of the two incidents raise questions about not only news judgment but also, and more important, media bias. Abortion rights have long been a signature issue for the liberal left. A strong military has largely been a bedrock issue of the conservative right.

One might conclude that news editors, the gatekeepers who choose how to play stories, are more attuned or more sympathetic to the views of the liberal left than the conservative right and make news placements accordingly.

Moreover, many news stories, editorials, columns and TV talk shows last week were devoted to trying to place blame for the abortion killing on Christian extremists and conservative commentators who condemned late-term abortions performed by the murdered doctor. There was little similar media finger-pointing at militant Muslims for the shooting of the Army recruiters.

Even President Barack Obama apparently was more appalled by the killing of the abortion doctor than the Army shootings. Within hours of the doctor’s murder, he issued an official statement: “I am shocked and outraged by the murder of Dr. George Tiller as he attended church services this morning.”

It took the commander in chief two days to issue a statement on the shooting of the soldiers. But rather than express “shock and outrage,” Obama was “deeply saddened.” And instead of sending the statement as an official news release to all media, as he did with the abortion doctor statement, it appears to have been released only to The Associated Press.

Perhaps the delay and softer language were intended to avoid appearing critical of Muslims on the eve of his June 4 speech in Cairo seeking a new start with the Muslim world.

Tom Rosenstiel, director of the nonpartisan Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, which tracks news-story placement, said he was surprised by the media’s downplay of the shooting of the Army recruiters.

“The shooting of the Army recruiters is related to a larger threat to national security and the war on terror, while the intensity of the abortion issue has been fading,” he said.

Tell that to the gatekeepers.

Up until someone posted the latter article on the debate board, I had not heard about the soldier shootings. I have a total of four television channels which I barely watch and have heard more than a fair share about the abortion doctor. Not to mention the flashing headlines every time I logon to the internet. Nothing about the soldiers.

This is ridiculous. I am outraged by it, and can't believe the amount of disrespect towards our military that has been formed on our own homeland. Where is the pride, and the support? It amazes me how [a certain group of people] can direct the views and knowledge of the rest of the country, by controlling the media and overshadowing everything they don't agree with.

Two soldiers fresh out of basic can't even be safe on their own home front. They never even had a chance to deploy, to fight, to do what they signed up for. THAT, my friends, is news worthy. THAT is something the whole country should be up in arms about. But no, we will brush it off our shoulders and move on, and focus solely on the abortion doctor that was obviously contributing something much more important to our society. Bite me.

Gonna Wash Those Bugs Right Outta Your Hair!

They're here. Drew's grandparents just pulled into Columbus, and are going to be at our house any minute, so I'm sitting here on the couch psyching myself out by thinking that the house isn't clean enough, or that I don't have anything to cook for tonight, or that my wimpy dog is going to bark the whole time they are here. Blog.. I must blog to ease my mind.

Brody is doing much better. Since we have been in Georgia, I have religiously applied Frontline Plus and given him Hartguard heartworm preventative at the beginning of each month, due to the overwhelming amount of creepy crawlers that can make his (and my) life miserable. I can't believe how bad fleas and ticks are around here. In California, a monthly dose of Frontline will do the job and you'll never see a flea or tick. Here, the Frontline kills "98%" of fleas and ticks -- nevermind the fact that the other 2% is an unbelievabe amount. Its almost impossible to keep animals completely pest-free.
Anyway, after my last post I notice a couple fleas on Brody and realized he must be having allergic reactions to the bites. Bulldogs are known to have skin allergies, and a single bite could send their immune system over the edge. And, of course, Brody is not the exception. Thursday night Brody and I went on a mission -- to exterminate all the fleas in existence on him and anywhere near him. He woke me up by scratching himself at 2:30 am, and I was so bothered by it that I could not go back to sleep. Then, to top it all off, his stomach started growling because he hadn't eaten much the day before. I got out of bed and cooked him a bland diet meal (chicken and rice, fabulous for an upset stomach), which he loved. I know he likes being sick because he always gets his special meal, sometimes I think he fakes it. After he ate and his stomach finally stopped growling, I put him in the bath tub and scrubbed him head to toe in Dawn Dishoap, which is the home remedy for fleas.
As I was sitting on the edge of the tub rinsing him off, I remembered a song my mom used to sing to me EVERY time she would bathe my brother and I when we were babies. "I'm gonna wash that man right outta your hair, gonna wash that man right outta your hair." Why there would be a man in my hair, I have no idea. You know those things your parents did as you were growing up that you swore you would NEVER do? That always tends to bite me in the butt, because every day I remind myself more of my mom. Within minutes of Brody's bath, I was singing "I'm gonna wash those bugs right outta your hair, gonna wash those bugs right outta your hair." My version is much more realistic, and better.
Anyway, after Brody's bath I found some flea & tick killer for carpet/upholstery, and we completely fumigated the whole house. Now, all the fleas are in the vacuum or down the drain, and Brody has a fresh application of Frontline. Take that bugs.

Hubby just called me and advised that he and the grandparents are enroute to the house. He met them at the RV Park to help park and hook everything up. I need to log off and mentally prepare my special needs dog so he can handle their visit.
I'm sure anyone who reads my blog thinks I have the worst dog in the whole wide world. Drew woud agree with you. I think he's the child only a Momma would love. Don't tell him though.

This has officially been the most scatterbrained blog on the face of the internet.
Tootles.

My Canine Child

My dog is driving me craaaaazy. I think he is developing major skin allergies, and is CONSTANTLY itching and biting at himself. The sound of it is like nails on a chalkboard to me. I feel horrible for him, and I can't get him into the vet until our next paycheck. It is absolutely horrible knowing exactly what he needs (shot of Depo-Medrol & GentaVed Spray) and not being able to provide it for him. I yell at him to stop itching, and he looks at me like, "Mom, my whole body itches!!" and it makes me want to cry. He has a big sore on his ear from where he scratched himself to hard, and is starting to get bald spots aroud his hind end. Lord knows that Brody has been a saving grace for me since we've been here. He has literally kept me sane through the long days and sometimes weeks without Drew. But, sometimes I question my decision to get him in the first place. Is it really fair to keep him when I can't afford to care for him properly? If he were a human child I would probably have CPS all over me right now. Drew tells me I go to extremes when analyzing the situation, but in all reality, my thought process is accurate. When I worked as a veterinary technician, I used to HATE owners like me who didn't bring their animals in until they had chewed themselves raw. Granted, I do know how to care for him better than your average owner, but still...

Well this is just a quick blog to rant about something that is literally making me go insane. I need to go fill up Brody's Kong ball so he can chew on that instead of himself. Great, now my dog is going to be bald AND fat when all is said and done.

*sigh*

Criminal Justice and Air Assault

As of today, I am officially a student of Kaplan University. I have access to my online classroom and school e-mail, and have been touring the "campus" all day to familiarize myself with it. I have to say, it is quite amazing. There is absolutely everything you could expect from a regular classroom. I can speak with my fellow classmates about assignments through discussion boards and chats, and I can chat directly with my professors. Every week, there is a class seminar that I must log in to and it has interactive white boards, polls, question, etc from the professor. Thank God for technology, or school would be a no go for me.

Last night I had to do a timed Academic Readiness Assessment. My Admissions Advisor called me today and told me that I killed the test and received a 26 (he had told me to try to get at least an 18) and I don't have to do an introductory classes. I'm going straight in to my Criminal Justice classes, instead of Math, Science, and Reading. Woo hoo!

My feelings towards the Army today are a bit misguided. First, I am very happy that the military easily provides $6000 to spouses who wish to go to school for career advancement. It is a brand new program, and I am extremely impressed with it. I applied last week and have already been approved and my files sent over to the school for tuition.

Although I am being taken care of, I have to complain about the way Drew is being treated. During my blogging absence, Drew had been approved for Air Assault School, which he was completely stoked about. He spent the last two weeks preparing for it, spending money we did not have to complete the packing list and frantically trying to get everything just perfect so nothing could go wrong. When he went in for the physical, he found out that his medical records had not been transferred from Sand Hill (where he went for basic training) to 3rd ID (his current unit). Without a physical and a complete medical packet, he would not be able to go to Air Assault, so he spent about two days attempting to locate them. Heaven forbid the army attempts to correct their wrong, right? Anyway, the records were found, his physical was complete, and school was on again.

Drew was constantly hearing about how physically demanding Air Assault School is, and spent last weekend resting, sleeping, and making sure his packing list was ready to go. Yesterday was just an orientation and sign-in day, much to his relief, so he did what was required then went golfing with a friend to get his mind off it. 

Today, he woke up at the butt crack of dawn and left for Day 2. At noon, he called me, and his first words were, "I didn't even get a chance." When he had shown up, there were 350 guys and only 215 spots available. Drew passed the first 2 stages, then was waiting in line to do the 3rd, when they announced all the spots had been filled. 

So now he is back to square one.

I absolutely hate to see him bummed out and upset. I'm going to have to make him something extra special for dinner tonight. Hmm...

Well I'm off to do a million errands today. Logging off.

Katelyn

To My Fellow Bloggers...

OK, so I've been inspired. My blogging is back in action, and [hopefully] I will no longer neglect it. I think I've figure out the problem, though. Up until now my only followers have been family from back at home, and my blog was orientated towards letting them know what is happening here in Georgia. Its pretty disheartening, though, and hard to follow through with a blog that consistently receives no comments from fellow bloggers. So, after this, I am off to find Blogger friends to associate with. Don't get me wrong -- I love my family reading this and following along with me, but sometimes ya just need some blogging friends. Wow, I'm officially a nerd, yeah?

Last time I actually blogged (instead of just posting a horse racing article, which I'm sure has bored everyone except me), I mentioned that I had started a Fort Benning Army Wives meetup group. Well, two weeks later, I have 61 members and have had three official meetups, all of which have gone well. Last Friday, five of us met at Olive Garden for lunch and had an awesome time. The girls that showed up were exactly the kind of girls I have been wanting to meet. Fun, interesting, outgoing, and all with common interests. One of them mentioned that she found my blog a few weeks previously and was excited to find a fellow Benning wife. I had no idea you could do a search via blogger for people with common interests. Anyway, I think this is a wonderful way to advertise the meetup group and will do my best to get the word out about it. I think its something every wife needs to be a part of.

I was supposed to start the women's boot camp again today, but other financial obligations have forced me to not enroll. I'm very disappointed, but am determined to hold myself accountable (who knew it was possible?) to get back in shape. After I finished camp last time, I was down to a nine minute mile and running every day, but that state of mind disappeared during my trip back to California, where I ate anything and everything. No more of that. I will finish the carton of Ben & Jerry's that is currently in the fridge and then NO MORE. 

ha.

The most exciting news lately has been my decision to enroll in college!! I will be starting classes at Kaplan Online University on June 10th, to get my Bachelor of Science degree in Criminal Justice, with specialization in Crime Scene Investigation and Forensics. I am absolutely ecstatic about my decision and persistence thus far to follow through with the enrollment and Financial Aid process. Up until a week ago, I was still undecided about what I wanted to do with my life and future career. I've put a lot of thought and prayer into the decision, and have come to the conclusion that I have the most talent and interest in law enforcement. It was between that and Veterinary Science, but I realize I don't have the persistence, time, and/or money to start and complete at LEAST 8 years of veterinary school. 

Drew is so proud of me for starting school, and has been so supportive of everything. Everything has been going perfectly for us, and I am so lucky to have him and have the opportunity to do whatever I want with my life.

Drew's grandparents are currently enroute to Georgia, and should be here by this weekend. They are driving their RV from California and stopping to visit relatives in Texas, then continuing cross country. Once they stop and visit us here, they will head down to Florida for another week or so then start back to wonderful Cali. Someday when Drew gets out of the army we will have to go on one of their RV adventures with them.

On that note, I am frantically cleaning the apartment to make it spotless for their arrival. I want to impress them with my wifely abilities, but am nervous due to the fact that I can't keep the house clean for the life of me. Ugh.

The dryer just buzzed, which means its time for me to sign off and go fold towels. I'm so very excited.

Until next time... (which will be tomorrow, I swear!!)

Katelyn