Patio Hell

I have been looking around for furniture for the backyard for like forever now! We left everything with our neighbors in Okinawa and now that Spring has arrived it is time to start getting the back yard in order. I had NO FRICKIN idea this would be sooooo flippin difficult!!! Have looked dozens of places, of course things that I see that I like our either outrageously expensive or have no price tag and absolutely nobody in shouting distance to let me know the cost. Seriously thought about just loading stuff into the truck and seeing if someone might bother to get off their, I won’t say potty word even though I thought it, behinds!!! But, I figured my luck they would just call the police and then I would have that headache to deal with…..anyways, finally saw an ad for a set on base and it was under my price range and had pretty much everything I wanted except for the umbrella, no biggie, those are everywhere!! So, I take the truck and head out to base. The set is there, the price is the same, and I like it. I ask the guy who works there if it will all fit in my truck in one trip since I live about 40 minutes away. He looks out at my truck and says yes while I am stacking the chairs to make sure they stack to fit in truck. I ask him some other questions about fitting the set into my truck and all is just dandy! I went ahead and paid for it and told them I would be back as we had a CLB 6 event to go to first. I come back a few hours later and he has me bring my truck around back to put the set in. Lovely, it comes in 2 boxes. I thought our conversation earlier was about fitting the assembled set into the truck! One box is obviously the table and the other box holds everything else! UHG! From the size of the box it is VERY obvious that I will NOT just be assembling it, I will be pretty much building it from scratch!! Seriously? Me, build this?! Oh, soooo triple uhging on this, but it is paid for and was sooo quickly put in my truck by these two guys that I just drove home thinking it just might sit in boxes until Ed gets home or I will call my handy man and see how much he will charge to put it together for me…..I get home and have to leave again and of course only the little boys are with me. There is no way I am going to be able to get this out of the truck by myself, remember, I can never get the tail gate down!!! NOOOOO way I will be able to lift box over and out of big truck. I did get table out without breaking, but there was just no way the other box was coming out by just me…..i decide to pull truck into garage, simple….NOT!! Truck is toooo frickin big!! I do finally get truck in garage with much cursing as it literally has front bumper touching front wall and back bumper just has a sliver between it and the garage door. We leave. Later back at the house I am cursing the truck still because now I have to climb thru the cab or thru the bed to get from one side of the garage to the other, UHG!!! I finally decide I am going to tackle this beast and do it! I get Jorden to lower tail gate and help me get box out to the back yard. It took me two nights, glad I have those big flood lights out there and two afternoons of working for hours straight, but it is all put together, big table, little table, two reclining chairs with foot stools and four regular chairs. There were a billion pieces, my thumb is beyond shredded from all the bolts, but it is done and I have cursed the Chinese far too many times in the last 48 hours to get into heaven now!!!

Mr. Hottie Was Your Dad!

It was a beautiful Saturday and we were on our way to Havelock. I was picking up the Kirwan version of Thing One and Thing Two and meeting Debbie with her gang at the movies on Cherry Point to see Tooth Fairy. We were at the light of Western and Freedom Way waiting to turn left heading towards Lejeune, Emerald Isle, Havelock. Jorden was sitting up front with me and we were laughing at all the trucks in front of us and beside us. They were all young Marines, you could easily tell by the typical Marine stickers on the car and than they were all quite red neck with their other stickers, confederate flags amongst others all on that southern Dixie theme. Anyways, light turns green and we begin to move forward and make the left turn and now we are alongside one of the trucks we had been laughing at. There is this cute young blonde Marine sitting in the passenger seat and he looks over and waves. I laugh and wave back and soon he is blowing kisses and I am just totally cracking up, like I am old enough to be his Mother!!! I’m driving my Commander, it has all the typical stickers that scream “Marine Wife”!! On the back I have the classic His Boots Hers Flops Perfect Pair and ½ My Heart Is In Afghanistan, and of course the dead give away of my decal on my front windshield. I floor it and get waaaay ahead of them and then forget about them while Vicki is still going on and on about how hot he was and that he is her future husband. LOL Before I know it, they have pulled up next to me and he is taking off a necklace and wanting to hand it to me thru the windows. I’m laughing thinking that it has been like FOREVER since I’ve played this game! I tell Vicki to roll down her window and let him give her his necklace. The exchange happens, Vicki is in heaven and she takes a picture of Mr. Hottie as well. We wave good bye and go different ways a little further down the road. I was laughing at how Vicki was just going on and on about this young Marine and I laughed and told her that she just met her Dad at the age I met him and that is how I will always see him, this young, blonde, wild, crazy, HOT MARINE!!!! Vicki was like, really? And I said, yes, like really!! That was your Dad almost 15 years ago.