Tag: relationships

Blessings for Thanksgiving and Time for a Hiatus

My apologies for skipping a check-in here for the month of October.

I let my favorite month get away from me and neglected to post. Instead, I spent a lot of time attending to my life outside this website. As the election drew near, I devoted my time to crafting the stories I wanted to share in my memoir. This long journey developing my first draft is still in progress; I like to imagine if I had a background in journalism, creative writing, communications, or English, my project would already be done by now. Instead, it has been an almost forgotten friendship that I visit–to stave off its death. My memoir has become an apology to my younger self for what I put her through and an exploration of the relationships that sustained me, harmed me, caused me to look to the future and ask myself what do you want to become and how are you going to get there and who is capable of traveling that journey with you.

This past month has been a pivot point as the individual stories are finally connecting to each other. I am grateful for my slow devotion because it is far too easy to give up and say it’s emotionally damaging to look back on my failures. There are a number of ways people showed up for me at the same time other people were barely putting any effort into the intersection of their lives with mine. When I look back at those difficult moments, I wish I had the courage to trust my first instincts. Things I felt didn’t line up the way the should and instead I gave some people a lot of grace given their past poor judgements and decisions. I opened myself up to needless hurt while they were running around destroying their own lives. Learning to see my 20-21 year old self and her struggles, I see she gave a number of people a blank slate to start their lives over and people punished her for the sins of women who came before her. I could have been a different person in some of the most difficult months of my life if I wasn’t holding space for people who treated me like a throwaway character in their own stories. I survived them, and it’s time I am honest about what it’s like to stop choosing to walk through chaos to heal hurt I never caused when I can choose shelter from storms I didn’t foster, peace of mind surrounded by like-minded spirits, and build a happy existence away from bitter souls.

This Thanksgiving I am leaning more into a life of peace and appreciating my blessings. The transition from 2023 to 2024 has been far from an easy one. Losing three family members was devastating. Finding time to sell one house and buy a new one heightened my personal stress as I also navigated moving from one work position to a temporary assignment to my current role. Developing yet another slew of health symptoms a source of frustration. My ongoing health challenges don’t yet have an official diagnosis and I will end 2024 in that same boat. Months of nerve pain and discomfort brought on by physical exertion is forcing me to slow down in ways I would not choose for myself. I would love to know what’s going on, but my new health care provider is having me go through a gamut of other lesser avenues of care and potential pain management through occupational therapy and physical therapy before seeing if we need to consult rheumatology. Right now, I am still waiting on answers for my last round of bloodwork, but the holidays are coming up and I am determined to enjoy my tradition of crafting something new for my family to enjoy.

Lamb is the on the menu for our entree and I decided I would like to add some American Indian/Indigenous persons touches to our holiday given the complex origins and ongoing celebration of Thanksgiving. I cannot really say why I hadn’t thought of it before. I haven’t unpacked whether I was concerned it would be culturally appropriate or whether I wasn’t sure I would be skilled enough to try out the recipes and/or able to find the ingredients. Rather than criticize myself for coming to this late realization it would be good for me as an American to try my hand at making this type of cuisine, I am hoping it encourages someone else to do the same. We’ll be using the New Mexico Magazine sumac Navajo leg of lamb with onion sauce recipe to craft our holiday entree although ours will use lamb shanks and lamb neck due to my lack of understanding I could ask my local butcher ahead of time to order a leg of lamb or a lamb roast, the other suggested cut within the recipe. In lieu of dinner rolls, we will make Navajo fry bread, a family favorite, although I made the mistake of not picking up powdered milk so I will adjust my plans and find a recipe that uses regular milk that I already have on hand. The milk I have is lactose free and this will be my first time frying with it, so I need to watch it in case it behaves differently like how it browns more quickly when baking with it.

Our main side dish is the enkum recipe below. I found this recipe a few months ago in The Cookbook in Support of the United Nations: For People and Planet I borrowed from a public library. In the past few years, I’ve come across a number of articles on making Thanksgiving dinner less beige (think white dinner rolls, gravy, turkey, stuffing) and boring. I love how this is a nutrient dense potato dish and the vibrant colors will make for a beautiful contrast to the lamb entree. I will still keep some “traditional” beige on the plate with the stuffing although this year I found a stuffing mix made from Hawaiian bread that caught my eye.

I have one thing that I absolutely love from my childhood and that’s Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce. I don’t care that it’s not healthy for me with all the added sugar and the fact it’s low fiber. I love it far too much to care that it’s lacking in nutritional value. While I will occasionally indulge in mine or someone else’s homemade cranberry sauce, if we are going for the stuff in the can, it better be Ocean Spray jellied cranberry sauce. The generic stuff won’t do–it’s not worth saving the $0.30 or $0.40 a can for this stuff.

And for one of the first years in awhile, I don’t have a dessert planned. Originally, I considered making a homemade ice cream with the frozen leftover crumbled chocolate chip pumpkin cookies a girlfriend made for us back in September, but I want a less busy holiday. We have some German Benton’s Spekulatius Cookies we picked up from Aldi’s recently or we could enjoy the Mexican assorted cookies we have in the pantry. There’s always a local family farm we could visit for fudge or pie if we want to venture out in the next few days, too.

Before I leave you all for this month, I do want to say I plan to have a bit of a hiatus to concentrate on my memoir. Whether I stick to said hiatus is another story. I love the fact I am finally past the 300 page mark for my memoir and I want to help see my first draft through completion before the end of 2024. This work has helped me to see the burdens I carried from my service and the blessing of people who want the best for me while I haven’t always worked towards that goal for myself. I’ve gotten to see myself in moments of deep pain and setting big dreams for the future. Next year will be the 20-year mark returning home from my first tour in Iraq and I think a bit fitting of a time to ideally see the draft come together as a finished project I want to market for publication. I cannot juggle that endeavor all that well if I have my regular 40-hour a week job and weeks of planning what to post on this blog. If I do check in, I think it might be a paragraph or two wishing you all well and I hope that’s enough.

I want to deliver this memoir to those who seek to understand our nation’s military better and what service members go through. I want this memoir to show young adults military service is always changing and to help people who have never served to see another facet of the Iraq war. This book is not meant for everyone, like any good story. It is an appreciation letter to a number of people who have worked to make my goal of serving come to fruition, to those who supported me through the unknowns of that first tour, for those who tolerated my anti-social behavior on tour number two, and the ones who met me along the finish line to ending my four year enlistment in the Marine Corps. I do want to see a second book come to light, too, to honor a number of passionate persons who helped get me diagnosed with PTSD and get the treatment I deserved, but it won’t come together as it needs to without book 1 happening first.

Wishing you and yours a lot of blessings this holiday season.

~Cheryl

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Decluttering the Past to Make Space for Future Adventures

My family and I recently completed a relaxing staycation in Phoenix and I loved that the rental home had several back copies of Real Simple magazine (along with several others publications like Dwell and Good Housekeeping). It is rare for me to buy magazines now because they are often so chock full of advertisements instead of useful content. This reality is why I will often pop onto the businesses’ websites instead to jump straight to the content I want to find. I selectively picked up this February 2020 copy, knowing that I had some decluttering I wanted to do in our current home.

This past year my heart has eagerly focused on wanting to move. I want to move up in my career. I want to move in the physical sense of exercising more, something that took a backseat due to health issues. I want to travel more and I accept staycations and out-of-state travel as options. We recently receiving our updated passports, too, so I expect we can start saving up for traveling out of country for an adventure next year or the year afterwards. My love for going to new places has been hampered by financial restrictions and also limited PTO (like most Americans). There are days my heart is jealous of persons living in European nations who can frequently hop on public transportation and move more easily from one nation to the next. Instead of sinking into that jealousy, I decided to do something proactive with my time.

My decluttering process also helps immensely with anxiety. Our home is just under 2,000 square feet and there are many days it feels like too much space to maintain. My body does not crave the micro apartments of New York City or Paris, but I would like something that feels more like a family home instead of a landing spot. My dad’s mom used to have a beautiful home on a lake in South Dakota. Some friends in Kentucky have a river that traverses part of their property. My dad’s home is located in a quiet neighborhood bordered by a little wooded area and there is a brewery hangout spot a short drive or a walk down the road in good weather. My younger sister lives in a home built in the 1960’s that has a layout I like a whole lot more than my complete open concept downstairs and her property is a short walk from a casual beach spot and a few restaurants. Their kids can stop in to get ice cream after playing in the water. I love that. We are getting some amenities like that where I live, but my mind still focuses on the house.

We bought in our current area for the local schools. After the pandemic hit and our daughter started schooling online, buying in this area was a decision I started to regret. It hasn’t entirely been a bad decision. I have a great relationship with my neighbor; I feel we are more like sisters than neighbors. A handful of restaurants that have gone in are great and the one that isn’t can easily be avoided. I cook better than their cooks do. The area is also very safe so we can go for walks, runs, and bike areas with very little concern for our safety. I still had to come to gripes with this box and the walls we live within. Our vacation rental provided a means to reassess the space we currently occupy. It can be years before I move out of state to somewhere like Kentucky, Indiana, or North Carolina (all still high on the list), but I can take the risk of selling sometime down the road and picking a new property that could be a better longtime investment due to growth in other communities.

I decided to play with my look at use a lot of different colors and patterns like Great British Bake Off baker, Kim-Joy. My daughter loved the look.

This closet in the vacation rental provided a lot of inspiration that it can be easy to build storage to house more than what we need to retain for practicality purposes and sentimental concerns. I should have measured the closet because it does have room for seasonal and in-season storage needs. I like that it is setup in the master suite so you don’t have to go find things in other household closets for these items. The residence was about 2,800 square feet, so I had the chance to live in a larger home to see what works or does not work at the footprint. I was most happy that each bedroom and the gathering areas has seating arrangements perfect for reading and that reality can be replicated in any home, regardless of its size.

Tackling what to downsize this time was a bit easier because I’ve been on this journey for years. Before we sold our first home in 2020, we had already donated hundreds of books, ill-fitting clothes and shoes, and tackled some excess papers. I still found we came into the new house with too much stuff! My obsession with journaling has gotten away from me over the years and with a clear mind, it was good to see most of those weren’t serving my needs. I tossed a middle school journal where I lamented my mother having a better relationship with my other siblings. I ripped apart a high school journal where I confronted, again, a boyfriend who was unfaithful for our entire relationship. (He has grown into a better man and apologized. He is still married to the woman he cheated on me with, so there’s no repairing the friendship though. She and I aren’t going to be friends. The apology is enough.) A travel journal about my high school trip to Cape Verde was hardly anything more than discussing being an outsider among my American school peers. The best reminders of the trip are showcased in some loving photos I still keep to this day. 2024 was a repeat of paperwork reduction.

Paperwork and photos are my kryptonite.

I try not be overwhelmed and saddened by events I experienced, some things I put myself through, and people that I’ve lost.

Here’s what I parted ways with in 2024:

  • Old Marine Corps cartoons I drew (keeping only two and a realistic pen drawing of Marines sleeping in MOPP)
  • High School report cards and official transcripts (3.75 GPA doesn’t matter when you have two grad degrees)
  • Marine Corps training certificates from Technical Escort school (I am not in the CBRN community anymore)
  • Photo duplicates and bad quality photos
  • Condolence cards after my mother’s death (I did keep one because my teacher wrote a lot of heartfelt messages)
  • Old cards from my Grandmother with basic greetings (I did keep meaningful letters she wrote)
  • Letters from one of my high school best friends (We are no longer friends and stopped talking about 2006)
  • Old VA decision letters (after carefully shredding them because they contain PII)
  • Board games we don’t play or don’t play often enough
  • Books donated to the public library (Mine included There’s No Such Thing as An Easy Job, How to Pronounce Knife, Stiff, etc.)

I am trying to find a balance between Marie Kondo’s “Does is spark joy?” and the reality that some of my possessions are practical even if they don’t always bring me joy. I don’t follow a modern minimalism approach as I feel some of those houses come off real cold, but too much stuff makes me feel like I have too much to maintain and I lose track of what I already possess.

Staying in that rental where possessions can be spread out and breath a bit more was more helpful than I expected. I could see my hobbies haven’t changed all that much since my early 20’s. I grew to love cooking after separating from the Marine Corps. A family and friends centric kitchen and dining area will always be important to me. My mom worked hard to get me to love reading and that grounding activity still matters to me. Sure, I don’t need a library that rivals the one in “Beauty and the Beast.” Right now, I have a few on display and because a move is financially possible this year, some other favorites are tucked away, including Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody, DIY MFA, and Lauren Graham’s Talking As Fast as I Can: Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between). I am actually eager for Kelly Bishop’s The Third Gilmore Girl to be released later this year to add it to my collection.

Paring down photos is still an ongoing journey. I haven’t completely pared down my Marine Corps collection, but last year we finally tossed our Marine Corps recruit training yearbooks. They weren’t doing anything fabulous in our lives (and I’m hardly photographed plus mine look awful). I also destroyed the bulk of our excess Marine Corps camouflage uniforms last year too by rendering them unserviceable before they went into the trash. Our daughter is starting to be more interested in our Marine Corps careers, so I selectively set aside some photos not in albums. I figured this way she can easily find them when she wants to look at them and if not this weekend, maybe next weekend I will write down where I was at in them.

Me in 2003 (left) left photo and on the far right (right photo) at Marine Corps Combat Training (East Coast)
Me (center) with two sailors I met while attending Command and Control Personal Computers (C2PC) at Naval Base Coronado in 2004. My coworker, Balsam, is on the far left (seated). We worked together stateside and on my first tour in Iraq, although on different shifts.
These are two of my favorite photos from Al Asad Air Base, Iraq (July 2006)

Clearing out some physical space in my life and more mental clarity is what my April needed. As a short snippet, I was reading through old journal entries sent to my family members and their letters to me. Revisiting these sentiments was a real strong clue that the Marine Corps needed to revamp how it treats service members in need of medical care and I should have trusted my instincts more. Decluttering can be calming although it does often bring trauma up to the surface.

Right now, we are in the process of adding a new fur baby to the family. My husband’s service dog will retire sometime this year and this new bundle of fluff will have a lot of hands-on training with the family to step into his role. In anticipating her arrival, I cleared out all the old veterinary invoices for our dog, Gregor, and the ones for our guy, Radar, who passed in 2022. Removing the vet bills was one of the hardest things to tackle this year. Our time with Gregor is limited based on his age and Radar’s death resulted from a swift decline in his health. I don’t have the heart right now to part ways with the journal entry I wrote for Radar just before his passing or the obituary I wrote after he passed.

My journey is a reminder it’s ok to keep even some sad memories. And it’s more important to talk about those experiences. We’re not meant to pent up all our pain. But when the right time comes, we can release it.

Shred useless papers. Burn or toss the photos that need to go. Write and edit your reflections.

Talk about it with your friends, family, and strangers (depending on your comfort level).

Declutter and regain your power to breath life into your dreams.

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A Year of Health, Happiness, and Feeling Like ‘Home’ Is Less of an Abstract Concept

Thanksgiving 2023 is TOMORROW. Families or friends will gather to give thanks for all that they have. As someone who has struggled with being told to express gratitude, this holiday is one of the hardest for me. I AM grateful for all that I have; I just know for all the work I’ve put into certain endeavors my expectation for the final results has not always aligned with what came to fruition. Some years that progress is easier to greet. The more that I’ve seen social media explode into a world of influencers (with a lot less education might I add) flaunting monthly income figures easily topping $20,000 or more, the more disheartened I am that I committed to earning four college degrees and my take home seems paltry. My post-graduate career path has felt like I am on a crumbled asphalt road leading at points to a dirt path to a dying town no one wants to see survive. It’s like if you’re unwilling to hawk every product known to man to make a buck there is no (or little) space for you in this employment minefield. This situation has recently led to me popping onto social media for fixed amounts of time and to start culling my list of accounts I follow. I’m tired of everyone gushing over every car brand, type of wheat flour, fashion trend, or makeup product and their #ad posts reminds me that as much as I’ve cut back on retail therapy in my in-person life, there is always someone itching to sell a product online their own pockets. 2023 is a year I’ve worked to re-establish peace in my life.

This situation has not been easy to tackle. We are still witnessing the Hamas-Israel war continue to unfold; if things continue as they are, the Russia-Ukraine war will also hit another anniversary in February; this year, it took some time to watch my health turn around; and we’re all around the globe continuing to see unrealistic housing prices and grocery costs make it harder to get by. Reclaiming some semblance of control with what is and what is possible takes an honest look at the circumstances of the past, present, and desired future. As a war veteran, I am not near the landscape of either of these wars, so I am, like so many, an important witness instead of an active participant in the fighting. I have a responsibility to build my education about what is happening and to encourage the resolution of these wars. My heart has an unlimited capacity to care for the non-combatants whose lives have been turned upside down by these events. When I see their strife, I know that my chronic health struggles of this year pale in comparison. Not that it means I should not attend to my medical needs, but I can keep my complaints in check. I still live in a world where I can regularly access fresh safe drinking water, enough food to support my needs, and medical care to help reduce the severity of my symptoms and encourage the prevention of longterm health problems. This year, with the world being what it is, I have tried to enjoy the natural beauty around us more.

We started our year in California, having ended 2022 in a short vacation there. Our stay in Rancho Palos Verdes gave us a respite place to land after a difficult year where we lost our dog, Radar, to an unexplained illness. He struggled from the moment we brought him home with chronic skin infections and towards the end of his life all the veterinary care we could afford did not result in diagnosing a treatable condition. Starting and ending our day by the ocean helped me to appreciate the fact the world is vast and will always be larger than our existence as human beings. Every day, the ocean starts a cycle anew and is transformed by the heat of the sun, cloud cover, the wind, and the moment of animals. She is never the same, and I think I’ve had to learn to accept that about myself, too, instead of mourning the ways my career has not gone.

While I take a moment to breathe about where my career has not gone, I am fortunate that friends remind me of what has been. One of my Marine friends from my time with 1st Marine Division sent me this photo of our shop located at Camp Pendleton 33 Area. When I joined, it was the NBC platoon shop until our career path was re-fashioned as “Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Defense.” Sandwiched alongside Combat Camera, I lived in a world that I was never quite sure I belonged in, but I was smart enough to squeak by and join. That imposter syndrome people talk about, I get it. There was so much educational material thrown at us during our MOS school that I no longer remember. Once I stopped using this information my brain was absolutely ready to dump it. I guess that’s why I never feel it necessary to tell people about what I did in the Marine Corps for my MOS. The work I did in Iraq for 1st Marine Division was outside the MOS and has remained a more honest reflection of my skills. I have a lot of administrative skill as it relates to records and seeing how different pieces of puzzles fit together. Could I run a gas chamber today, if permitted? Probably. I wouldn’t enjoy leading service members now through the steps of donning and clearing their masks and having them go through certain exercises in the gas chamber any more than I did in the service. But put me back into the command aspect of operations and I’ve found myself a home. It’s a different way of seeing people, society, the elements of risks and safety and I kind of shine there.

In trying to find where I belong, I also have to confront what is not meant for me. (Isn’t that one of the hardest things to accept?!). Earlier this year, we started to explore moving to a different part of the Phoenix Valley. Our current home has appreciated in value quite well due to the pandemic housing uptick and the modifications we’ve made to it since occupying the house. We educated ourselves about listing offerings through Zillow and ones curated from a custom listing search with our realtor. A 1950’s home was high on our interest list but we were never able to visit it since the family handling the estate didn’t respond in time to our request for a showing. We saw large properties (think 13,000 square feet…which is good for us here), but both of those older homes were less appealing on the inside due to lack of proper came from the homeowners. Nothing dire, but there would be some serious elbow grease involved and a questioning as to when things like the roof, water heater, and HVAC might be in need of replacing. One of my favorites, although it had a quirky layout, was a home in Tempe, Arizona. This is the front door to that place. It is more a patio home. We could have lived with the quirky layout, but it had an incredibly low fence, about 4-5 ft high. The lack of privacy and risk our dog (or future dog) would get out made it a no go.

This is where that journey of what’s not meant for you can lead into something that might be a better fit. We settled into the fact we weren’t uprooting our existing lifestyle (although we prepared and packed a bunch of boxes that are still packed up) and busied ourselves this summer with work until we could take our fall vacation. Going to Louisville, KY this year with a brief stay in Nashville, TN opened us up to a possibility we didn’t know existed. Our Marine Corps friend, who we were visiting to see him and his family, told us the state of Indiana offers a tuition and fee exemption for children of service-connected veterans. We’d have to live in Indiana for at least 5 years before our daughter is eligible, but it’s still worth exploring. Over the past few weeks, my husband and I have started to look at career and home prospects in the Indiana area. Knowing that it wouldn’t be good to just look at this one opportunity, we’ve both applied to different federal jobs: some are remote, one is in Kentucky, another is in Chicago, and we have covered our bases in the Virginia/Washington D.C. area. If we want more pay but aren’t in a position to settle in Indiana, we won’t have a tuition exemption for our daughter in the other locales. My preference would be for us to both move into higher paying remote jobs and find our next home in Indiana, allowing us to tick as many boxes of “financial life hacking” as possible. Plus it never hurts to live closer to people you love and trust. Our vacation visiting these friends was one of my happiest memories this year. I felt at home in Louisville and that doesn’t really happen when I visit somewhere new.

This sense of “home” is something I know is unique to all of us. I recognize some people are grateful they live in large cities with a plethora of amenities while others crave rural roads and lots of open space. Arizona as “home” has been something I’ve questioned a lot over the years. We had a real rocky start our first few years, but there are things that I also enjoy tremendously outside of living near some good friends (and family a few hours away). Seeing plants bloom in the desert is almost a spiritual experience. The area comes alive with color for a brief moment of time and the fragrant scent of some plants, especially after it has rained, has a calming effect. We don’t get a lot of rain, so it’s something I always look forward to here and I love when the sky darkens as monsoon rains are almost ready to cascade down on us. I also enjoy the smell of jet fuel when we visit ASU’s Polytechnic campus. Not the best thing to breathe in, but it is a reminder of passing diesel fueling stations at Al Asad Air Base and it’s a weird comfort thing for me. Will it feel weird one day to say goodbye to this place? Sure, but starting over somewhere new can be exhilarating. There are possibilities like owning more land, seeing more fall foliage, enjoying a smattering of new restaurants and cuisines not as easily found where we live now, and making the eastern half of the United States (and Canada) more feasible to visit.

Taking the time like this to write down about my year makes it easier to see that a lot has gone well, even if not all is right with the world. Tomorrow, we will keep our festivities simple. We ordered Hawaiian food from Highway Inn through Goldbelly. For dessert, I am making cookie dough dip from Blackberry Babe and we’re pairing it with Goya brand chocolate Maria cookies. A holiday cocktail is on the menu as well and for this year, I’ve chosen Liquor’s Expense of Honesty, which will require modifications based on the type of alcohol we have on hand. There is no way I’m visiting Total Wine the day before Thanksgiving!!! If our dog lets us, we’ll sleep in. The day with start with a leisurely walk and a morning coffee (black, no sugar or cream). We are not hosting anyone or going out anywhere. In this year where we’ve traveled more, there is no disappointment on my end to enjoy a quiet holiday at home. I will revel in fact we have a roof over our head, enough food, our health and happiness needs met, and a future that is ours to carve out differently than we previously imagined it would take shape.

Wishing you and yours the very best until we touch base again.

~Cheryl

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Vacationing Like an Adult: Financial Transparency in a World Full of Influencers

Vacations are dreamy.

You get to leave behind waking up early, commuting, crowded communal fridges with questionable smells, and the exhaustion of irritated clients who seem to get more nasty in their behavior and word choices every day.

Vacations are the kind of magic grown ups get. We traded in beliefs that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy exist for a world of rooms that seemingly clean themselves (thank you to all the tireless janitorial and maid staff). Our child selves who once craved to be a new profession every day revel in our adult escape from our true professions. Maybe we are underpaid, under appreciated, or overworked. Or all three. Any way, we get to abandon that worker identity for a set period of time. After all, how many people ask you on vacation What do you do? None, right?! It’s a bit magical to move about in your private albeit borrowed space enjoying your extra sleep, the views and food, and literally being waited on. The pampering is worth the cost.

So why do so many influencers stay quiet about the funds it takes to get to some of the places they visit? Maybe it’s their way to avoid dimming the magic of the trips they go on but shedding some of that mystery has a real purpose. You can inspire people to save up for their dreams by showing them some of these amazing venues are less out of reach than they might imagine.

Today I will provide the behind-the-scenes look at our recent California vacation. We stayed at Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, a place we’ve never visited before. Although we were in California to participate in the WB Studio Tour and check out Wizarding World at Universal Studios, we choose to stay here for the ocean views and the food choices. An added bonus is the entire resort campus is non-smoking. People could not smoke tobacco products or vape either. My personal belief is a lot of public accommodations need to adopt an entirely smoke free environment.

My only struggle with the resort was the amount of staff members eager to greet my husband’s service dog. The resort is exceptionally dog-friendly and staff often missed the fact Gregor should be left alone even though he was wearing his gear identifying him as a service animal (not a requirement, by the way). Here is a peek at their resort policies on dogs and the resort fees I’ll share about later.

As the costs of many things rise in Arizona, we also realized planning for this trip meant planning for California prices. The allure of AirBnB’s has dimmed in our eyes based on the amount of extra cleaning fees being tacked on for stays even though you clean up before you leave, so staying in California meant planning for the aforementioned resort fees, parking costs we might incur, and pre-made meals that add up for a family of three. Of the on-site restaurant options, we grabbed drinks and a light breakfast at Sea Beans; our casual dinner was at Catalina Kitchen followed by a breakfast buffet there; but Bashi was the all-around favorite for us. We went here for New Year’s Eve and now I kind of wish we had done our second dinner there, too.

Bashi won out both for the amount of dairy free dishes (more on that in a minute) and the portion size. The wok fried garlic noodles ($18) I enjoyed was substantial enough to be my dinner, a small side for my husband, and our breakfast the next morning paired with the bit of leftover Peking duck from his dinner ($75). In all fairness, I forgot what our daughter ordered for dinner, but we all left satisfied with our meals, the two Americanos and one Ramune strawberry soda, plus the leftovers and the to go orders of mochi and a slice of vegan meyer lemon cheesecake. This one meal, $210 with tip, represents the bulk of what we spent on dining at the resort. Our resort savings on food is all courtesy of being Amex members; travel is something we want to enjoy more so it made sense for us to explore rewards options, but this blog post is not sponsored by any of the businesses mentioned today. We set aside our own funds over a few months to make this New Year’s Eve trip possible. For others looking to replicate the experience, their timeframe to save may be shorter or longer.

My personal failing over choosing Catalina Kitchen is centered on not looking at the menu earlier. Nearly everything had butter or some sort of cheese. I do bring lactase enzyme tablets with me in case there are dishes that might have accidentally been prepared wrong when I ask for a dairy alternative. The medication is not always helpful so the safer thing to do is hunt for other menu items. At Catalina Kitchen, I requested the sautéed spinach be prepared with olive oil over butter and I paired my $9 side dish with $22 tuna tartare. I also requested the avocado be removed because that fruit started to make me sick back in 2014. If you want to look at how poorly I prepared for the weekend, check out their menu. It’s a dairy heaven for some and nightmare for someone like me trying to avoid it.

I will take a moment to mention we’ve cut back on ordering alcohol when we dine out. Looking over the lobby bar’s menu, if I had decided to buy something, I probably would have picked the Holiday Fashion ($16), made with Bulleit rye, the Fireside ($20) made with Woodford Reserve bourbon, or the Shunka Shuto ‘Four Seasons’ whiskey flight ($40). Notice a theme? Or two. Or three. I love trying out holiday and season inspired drinks. Even more, I love trying out bourbon and whiskey drinks. Better yet, is saving money for something that matters more. As drink prices creep up to the same as entree prices, we choose to pair back on social drinks. The small bottle of wine in our room was enough to celebrate our NYE holiday weekend. The bottle of Sonoma-Cutrer Russian River Valley 2019 pinot noir paired well with our evening of partially watching Robert Pattinson in “The Batman”. We fell asleep before ten and I was awakened by revelers outside screaming Happy New Year’s at midnight.

Now that I’ve gushed a bit about food and drink options, here’s what really brings people to this resort.

The pandemic made us hold off on travel for so long, it is only natural to want to make up for the lost time. Doing so with an eye on the budget did not dampen the experience at all. Granted, California was more rainy than what we hoped for when we planned the trip. We watched the wind take over the area, witnessed streets littered with palm fronds, and waited out pockets of rain to enjoy what I share with you today.

WB STUDIO TOUR

My love for the show “Gilmore Girls” is why I wanted to do the WB Studio Tour over the holidays. This show was my go-to entertainment during my separation from the Marine Corps and has remained one of my favorite shows to this day. Walking through the set was more fun than popping into the Friends Central Perk set up; I loved “Friends” growing up (still do), but the show does not have the same energy the way “Gilmore Girls” steals my heart. Sookie is my favorite main character; I love how she always creates something fabulous (with the exception of when she was pregnant and did not know it yet!). Her love for other people really shines in her cooking; I love seeing how what she makes for individuals in her life represents them so well. If there was someone who taught me that cooking is a craft, it is her.

There wasn’t a way to pop into Luke’s Diner, so we got 3 orders of tator tots ($19.84) from Al’s Pancake World and sought refuge in the church from the wind and possibility of more rain.

(These photos are a small collection of my overall experience. Ones like my family photo in front of Luke’s Diner will remain private to respect my husband’s and daughter’s privacy.)

And yes, I have a favorite boyfriend. Rory’s boyfriend, Logan, will remain my favorite. For all his flaws, I think if the show had gone on to show how he matured after some early adult personal failures, others would love him as much as I do. I am still hoping he’s Rory’s baby daddy.

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

Our trip to Universal Studios was more expensive than the WB Studio Tour and being a person terrified of roller coasters, it was not the best use of my money. Seeing Wizarding World was neat though and my lunch at the Jurassic Cafe was as great second choice (my first choice was the harvest stew in a bread bowl). The citrus glazed chicken ($17.99) was served with a cranberry chimichurri, papaya slaw (clearly mine was missing!), and rice and beans. I do wish more places were required to list ingredients in full, so it’s easier to find out what has allergens. I took a lactase enzyme in case there was dairy in my meal; you can never be too careful!

To walk around this area, it is best to explain you are wandering around one of the prettiest shopping centers. I would have loved for it to have more of the feel we experienced at WB so the Warner Brothers Studio Tour London The Making of Harry Potter is something I think we should save up to do one of these years.

NOTE: I ordered the frozen butter beer non-dairy. With the cold California weather, I should have looked into heading into the Three Broomsticks to order the hot version. Whether you order it frozen, hot, or original, the drink is $8 before tax.

Below is the rundown of our categories. I will say I tried to over budget ahead of the trip. I assumed gas would be $5 a gallon, but it varied from about $3.39 or so up to around $4.29. We saved a little on resort fees, but I cannot recall if the credits we had for that are also part of our travel rewards. I should get better about budgeting for parking; I said this last year, too, after our 2021 trip to San Francisco. There was a $15 charge for parking at WB Studio and I feel that should be rolled into the ticket. Our decision to valet the car at Universal Studios costs $50 plus the $5 tip. We still stayed under budget for the whole trip which is what really matters.

BUDGETEDACTUAL
ROOM$1868.64$1868.64
RESORT FEES$150.00$135.00
NYE DINNER, RESORT DINNER,
BUFFET BREAKFAST		$565.00 ***$314.00
ROAD FOOD/PARK SELECTIONScombined with previous$155.69
WB STUDIO TOUR$207.00$207.00
UNIVERSAL STUDIOS TOUR$402.00$402.00
TRANSPORTATION$175.00$163.68
PARKING (ended up with 1 reg, 1 valet)$0.00$70.00
TIPS (out of personal cash; room/luggage)$0.00$9.00
SOUVENIR BUDGET *Our daughter bought other souvenirs with her money.$95.00$91.40
TOTALS$3,462.64$3,416.41

I bundled up for New Year’s, but the jacket was a perfect outfit addition.

Wishing you all a great start to 2023.

~Cheryl

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Happy Birthday, Marines.

I sent this piece in awhile ago to Good Housekeeping and since I have not heard back about it, I wanted to share it as a little birthday message to my fellow Marines. I love my second birthday something fierce, and I know many Marines that feel the same way. This message is in honor of those I’ve befriended over my journey as a United States Marine and the friends I’ve met as a Marine veteran. All I ask is if you drink today, please don’t drink and drive. The same goes for tomorrow, and all the days that follow.

Love,

Cheryl

The birthday weekends. The birthday week. The birthday month. When does it stop?

I’ve never wrapped my mind around the prolonged adult birthday. The over-the-top festivities for one adult person seem a little crazy. From birthday sashes to birthday crew embroidered or screen-printed shirts, I just don’t get it. The fact that there are currently over 2.5 million posts under #birthdaymonth for Instagram terrifies me a little. If American weddings are getting out of hand for costs, how are the prolonged birthdays impacting everyone’s wallets and personal time? Maybe it is because I grew up in a house with a lot of siblings. In fact, I have a twin and my oldest sister’s birthday is six days before ours—my parents could never afford to gives us lavish birthday events, but they still celebrated us as unique individuals, often with simple birthday events at home complete with pizza, cake and ice cream, and presents. There would be paper decorations, themed party plates, and cheap party favors to hold over neighbor kids since you know, it wasn’t their birthday. My oldest sister often received clothes and makeup whereas I, the polar opposite who also looked oddly more like her than my own twin, received gifts most introverted people love: journals, books, and art supplies. Who knows what age I was when I figured out I did not like to “people” and maybe that’s why I’ve never adored the idea of a flashy birthday that no one wants to end.

And then I was entitled to a second birthday, which changed everything.

I drink on my second birthday; it’s a tradition, which I will explain in due time. I was underage for my first second birthday and in a situation where underage drinking was easy to curb. In the interest of being honest, underage drinking did not appeal to me but for the first new birthday the more senior adults present crafted a night of revelry for all age groups in attendance. Music, plenty of conversation, the chance to relax, and an abundance of food to rival some Thanksgiving tables. From an array of appetizers; beef and seafood entrees, but oddly, no chicken; hearty homestyle sides like baked potatoes, corn, and dinner rolls with butter for those looking to indulge plus fruit and salad for those seeking mindful choices; and with cheesecake, fruit pies, and birthday cake as our dessert options, it was apparent no expense was spared in feeding us all. There was enough to feed all my brothers and sisters present.

Belonging to this big, blended family is not easy all the time. I cannot recall who all made it out to my first second birthday shindig, but I kept the commemorative menu. There are faces I haven’t seen in ages and I don’t know who has kids now versus who might still be traveling around the United States or around the world, but this paper survives.  Keeping this scrap evidence in nearly mint condition feels impressive given the moves I’ve also made across the United States over the past nineteen years and it is a healthy reminder we are all family regardless of our personal differences. Those aren’t as apparent to outsiders though; we are often viewed as a rowdy homogenous group by strangers—and I feel the lens with which others see us is not entirely false. After all, we dress in matching birthday outfits. Yep, we are that kind of family. Buttoned up in our formal attire, we look fancy to the untrained eye, until we open our mouths. Then we let it slip we only look refined. (Watch out, we swear.)

I may not miss all these family members, but every year, there are some I really miss, and we keep in touch over Instagram and Facebook. We are a weird bunch, but it is nice to share your birthday with others, and I don’t mean casually share (i.e. you come to my birthday party and I come to yours). We share the SAME birthday. Our second birthday was bestowed upon us because we all opted to become United States Marines and the Marine Corps birthplace, Tun Tavern, is why it’s common to drink on my second birthday. We had our love-hate relationship with the Marine Corps on a regular basis, but it is always amusing to reflect on how much going to a birthday ball was like being a kid whisked away to an extended family member’s house for a holiday gathering; it could be you’re visiting the extended family you love or you’re visiting the side that loves nothing more than to criticize; and since drinks are easy to find, you’re either drinking with people you like and already drink me pretty regularly or you’re in the company of people who make you want to drink and let’s hope the bar is not too expensive. A good (read: less over-the-top) Marine Corps birthday experience can fall on a workday, saving you some of the pain of readying yourself for the family to compare your achievements to those of your siblings. I think plenty of Marines (and Marine veterans) might agree that the birthday itself is often more fun than attending the Marine Corps ball. You are spared some uniform and ball prep stress: you can hold off on buying ribbons and medals you need to get your dress blues updated, you can stop looking for a ruler to see exactly what 1/8” looks like for your ribbon bar, and you are not out money to stay in a hotel room for the event or the money it takes to get there. How many hours away is this thing again?

At your home base though, it’s a different story. Everywhere you go, you run into a fellow Marine, also dressed more casually in their camouflage utility uniform. You yell out, “Happy Birthday.” In return, you are greeted with a “Happy Birthday.” The next Marine you see, you yell out, “Happy Birthday.” She responds, “Happy Birthday.” Repeat. ALL. DAY. LONG. Everyone is so busy telling each other Happy Birthday no major arguments seem to crop up and very little work gets done. No one is sizing you up on your number of deployments or knows you barely make it through the rifle range due to your pizza box rifle badge the way they might have if you were at the Marine Corps ball in blues. Instead, the day speeds by. Soon enough, it’s four-thirty and time to go home. You might end the day hanging out with Marines you like the most, and the very next day is Veterans Day, meaning no work tomorrow. This situation is probably the closest thing I can recall to being a little kid on a movie day in school or passing out Valentine’s in an elementary school classroom. Does it really matter if you like everyone or not? No. You recognize that everyone deserves to feel special and you participate.

When you’re truly fortunate, you get to marry the two experiences—and the situation gives off vibes of the prolonged birthday weekend. This can happen, too, after separating from the Marine Corps as I have been gifted a mini bottle of liquor from a fellow Marine veteran when our shared birthday rolled in on a weekday. I’ve been known to bring in a “Happy Birthday, Marines” cake even in an office populated with veterans from other services—and everyone gets to eat cake! (It’s my birthday and everyone is invited for the festivities.) My Facebook activity that day will also center on reaching out to my old boss from 1st Marine Division, seeing if my former SSgt is still doing well, and checking up on my brothers from that unit that are still involved in my life to see if they’re having a good day. If it’s not me saying hello to them directly, I might also drop in to say hi to a spouse to relay the message. I will equally haunt them the following day to wish all a Happy Veteran’s Day, too.

Maybe that’s why it is time I revisit my feelings on the birthday weekend, week, and month. Sure, it’s not my preferred way to celebrate, but not everyone is entitled to two birthdays. The Marine Corps was a workplace environment, one that honored its birthday in a way I have not seen emulated in the civilian workforce. Perhaps that issue is a big part of why my fellow adult Americans are clinging to extended birthday endeavors. The workplace they are in has let them down a bit and by connecting more with friends and family—or indulging themselves with a month of various self-purchased treats and experiences—they are rekindling their spirits. Esprit de corps is not found everywhere; it is cultivated repeatedly as the Marine Corps has shown me. If my peers are looking for others to support them as they reinvent and reinvest in themselves year after year, for someone to recognize their strengths and weaknesses, and to give them a better sense of belonging than where they started, I know I can do that. The Marine Corps taught me how—sometimes, it can be as simple as saying “Happy Birthday,” checking their birthday outfit for them before they stroll out the door and eating cake together.

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Anxiety Self-Care and Vacationing

I took a trip to Wyoming recently with my family to visit Sheridan and Gillette and as rewarding as vacations are, I am always happy to get back home.

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Flying back into Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport

Home means stability for me and it helps me greatly in managing anxiety.  I don’t over schedule myself when I am at home the way I do on vacation.

This vacation, in particular, was a bit more full than I expected.  I had dreams of lounging around a bit more but now that my daughter is 7 years old, she wants to, naturally, do more.  She wants to explore and visit, and being a young child, she is demanding, hates naps, and will squeeze every ounce of daylight when not impeded by her mother.  Unlike when we lived in Wyoming, she is also old enough now to have a fully fledged opinion.  She was “meeting” people for the first time because she didn’t remember them from years ago and she also was insistent on having as much time with her young cousins as possible.  As an only child, she craves time with other children and summertime is the worst time of year for her.  She is not around her school friends and with high temps here, we spend more time indoors.

My daughter does not yet comprehend the stress I carry on a daily basis.  She knows I don’t like fireworks but she hasn’t caught on how a significant change of routine bothers me.  I look forward to vacations but I also struggle with leaving my comfortable environment.  I worry about what could happen when I leave my home, both to my home and the people in it while we are away.  There’s a lot of history recorded in my journals, photo albums, and scrapbooks that I can lose if something happens.  Additionally, I don’t like the idea of someone’s possessions becoming personal effects, to include mine should something terrible happen while we are away.  I considered writing about these feelings when I took my trip to Albuquerque last year but was quite hesitant to do so; while I am beginning to feel more comfortable talking about my personal struggles and coping, I still tread lightly.

I’m not surprised by my sensitivity to people and possessions, but I’ve had 12 years to wrap my mind around the intense situation that was my first deployment.  After spending 12 hours of nearly every day on deployment knowing people died and others were wounded, I became more aware we don’t all get a fair shake at living (and living the way we choose).  Without knowing the true number of people who died on my deployment, it’s still safe to say I have few peers who will ever understand the human toll of a deployment like I do.  (For any newbies, my alternative view of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as incomplete as it is, is available for viewing here. If you check out the video, please also read the blog entry for clarity purposes.  Thanks. )

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Some of my most precious possessions

For me, this vacation was a beautiful experience and one of the true breaks we’ve taken this summer as we had quite an unexpected–but necessary–financial burden demanding our immediate attention.  My husband’s service dog tore her ACL in June but was (and is) recovering from surgery and was unable to walk more than five minutes shortly before we left for vacation.  Her recovery will still take months but she is starting to show tremendous progress and is happy again, instead of her morose state when we couldn’t let her do any activity except use the bathroom.  If she had been able to walk, she would have flown with us for the first time and yes, there was some anxiety about that issue as well.  As you can see, she’s not a petite girl and even with my husband, daughter, and I all in the same row, she would attract attention.  I have no doubt other passengers would have inquired about her and peppered my husband with questions.

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That happy kid look after surgery was too precious.

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She became quite leery we’d take all the fun out of her day with her surgery recovery restrictions.

I’ve made great strides to significantly reduce my chest pains this year through regular self-care, but I had four of them during the course of this trip.  The additional stress of monitoring my husband because he didn’t have his service dog was a contributing factor. While I can recognize times where my husband needs additional support I notice it much later than she can and I didn’t feel quite as prepared to be his “service person”–yes, that’s what we joked I was doing in my caregiver capacity–because she had to stay behind.  Other things, like not being consistent about my sleep routine, contribute to the frequency of my chest pains.  Normally, I like to be in bed no later than 10pm and  I think most nights we were lucky to be back at our hotel room by 10:30 or 11pm.  Different noises also present challenges when it comes to sleep as I have trouble drowning them out; my bedroom at home, by comparison, is kept very quiet.  I do not have a wall clock and after living in my home for a year, I am used to the sound of the house fan when it’s on during hot evenings.  I am also a big fan of blackout curtains; the darker the room, the easier it is for me to stay asleep.  There are other things I can do like moderating my consumption of coffee and alcohol that also help reduce the frequency of my chest pains.  (I know I drank far too much coffee on this vacation, nearly 3-4 cups a day, but I was pretty good about keeping my alcohol consumption in check.)

In spite of my continuing battle with anxiety induced chest pains, the vacation was successful.  I think one of the things we need to keep at the forefront of conversation about anxiety and coping is resiliency.  I’ve had these annoying things for 12 years–and it’s really only in the last few that good medical professionals have worked with me to control this condition so it doesn’t destroy my quality of life.  Occasionally, they have to remind me not to pass up opportunities because I know they may or will exacerbate the stress I already have in my life. They also remind me I’ve been through the worst so the things that bother me are triggers (fireworks, sudden loud noises, people walking behind me surpising me suddently, etc.) and not actually life threatening events.   The fact that I had four chest pains on this trip is a sign I do need to plan better for my vacations.  I am still learning to say ‘no’ and I think because I’m in my 30’s I still feel silly to say I go to bed so early and in many cases, need the additional sleep.  Not everyone understands this issue and unlike my peer group, I find it harder to forgo time with family and do not wish to come across as being rude.  Next time, I’ll also work on cutting back on coffee.  I’m sure it’s not bad to have a day or two with that much coffee but the others I should probably stick to two or less cups.

I’m only taking you on a partial journey of the trip but below are some of the wonderful things I photographed during my weeklong visit.  If you want to see more things from the trip, feel free to check out my Instagram, she_wears_dogtags.

Like always, thanks for stopping in to visit.

~Cheryl

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The view behind our hotel room

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One of the flowers in my husband’s grandmother’s garden

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My grandmother-in-law has this sign from her late husband’s job working for telephone companies.

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My readers know suicide prevention is important to me and I love how this sign is integrated into community spaces.   

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I got to see inside a home built in 1905 and it had all this gorgeous mahogany on the walls and stairs. 

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I enjoyed sharing a flight of beers at Black Tooth Brewing Company. (I also learned IPA’s are not my thing.)

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My beer of choice at Black Tooth Brewing Company is the seasonal blonde ale.

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I’m a sucker for architecture and I’m glad my husband took me to the old post office in Sheridan to check out the marble staircase.

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I didn’t get donuts from this little place only because it wasn’t open when we walked by.

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This JC Penney’s is where I got clothes after returning stateside from deployment #2 as the only civilian clothes I had were the ones I was wearing.  It was surprising to see the store is closing.

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Clearmont, Wyoming

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The potato oles were one of my favorite foods when we lived in Cody, WY and they are still as good.  I just eat less of them now.

 

 

 

 

 

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Starting New Chapters: Personal Expression and Confidence

Good morning, everyone.

I was quite eager to do a “2007 versus 2017” series post and I had the fun surprise of looking back into my old journal entries only to discover I didn’t write a single post in June 2007!

I will give you a comparable 2007 versus 2017 substitute.

I have a good entry from May 2007 about my feelings regarding leaving the Marine Corps.  The timing works well because I started my new position in higher education.  I still work serving a military affiliated student population but I made the dramatic shift from being student facing to a non student facing opportunity.  Last week was my first week in my new role and I am just floored by the welcoming company culture.  As a veteran, I do find I get somewhat skittish that I’ll be judged for my visible tattoo (although I frequently wear long sleeves since office environments tend to be colder than I like), my preference for ponytails versus fully done up hair, and my sporadic use of makeup.

Society judges women heavily and it hasn’t seemed to matter at what age or in what industry.  The rules are written and unwritten.  The looks for stepping outside those “norms” feel the same.  Any time I’ve changed my working environment I question what will my peer treatment look like, what will my supervisor’s rules look like, and what infringement will the company place on my personal expression.  My desire to be more myself was a key part of leaving the Marine Corps.  Over the years, I’ve come to see pushing and prodding to adhere to desired female beauty standards and thankfully last week I was rewarded by the visual confirmation my new company permits a lot of personal expression.  Some female peers have full sleeve tattoos, others enjoy wearing shorts and jeans (as permitted by their departments), and makeup is worn from the slight touch of lip color and mascara to a fully done face with false lashes.

I feel more at home than I expected I would as a new employee.  I am quite happy and I feel once I get the hang of my work responsibilities this happiness will only magnify.  I don’t feel like the lost person I felt I was in May 2007.

Below is one of two entries I wrote for May 23, 2007.  I am not sharing the earlier one as I  included some personally identifying information for family friends and I don’t want to worry about anyone having that person’s address.  (By the way, anyone who knows how I feel about fireworks might laugh that back then I still thought I’d enjoy them!)

Take care and have a great weekend.

2007 Entry

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America In Times of Conflict: Creating Peace From Conflict

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Yesterday, I volunteered with a handful of other veterans to be part of a local community collaboration sharing our stories interwoven with pieces of The Odyssey for Odyssey Home: A Veteran Performance.  The Chandler Public Library held this event called Creating Peace From Conflict at the Chandler Center For the Arts in partnership with Arizona State University and Veterans For Peace.  We also had Veteran Vision Project photos on site for attendance goers to see along with the individual narratives associated with each photograph.  Once the footage is available, I’ll provide the link.

This collaboration starting off with group drumming and continued with our storytelling mixed with selections from The Odyssey.  A few musical pieces were played by Guitars for Vets and another veteran, Ahmad Daniels was there as a representative for Veterans For Peace, also sharing his story.  I know the event was scheduled to conclude with audience engagement, sort of a Q&A opportunity.  I only stayed for the Odyssey performance as I had another engagement in the afternoon and with today being my daughter’s birthday, I wanted to make headway Saturday on some other issues I’ve currently slacked on.

The theme of the performance was homecoming and I am quite thankful the event started with the group drumming.  While I did not choose to drum (I am embarrassed by my lack of rhythm) the sounds that filled the room reminded me of the wonderful performance given by citizens of Sao Vicente when I visited Cape Verde in high school.  My peers, teachers, and I landed to a beautiful musical performance at the airport that reminds me still music is a thread shared globally; we may not always understand each other’s words and actions but music binds us in such a spiritual way.

I loved being reminded of a place that was my home for a short period of my life.  Three weeks may not be an eternity but it’s sufficient time to be welcomed as a stranger, treated like a daughter, and remembered as a friend.  I am forever grateful for that experience and everyone who welcomed us into their country, their homes, and let us savor their culture that we might never have experienced in our lives had our paths not crossed.

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The airport in Sao Vicente

I think I was better able to embrace my role as a participant yesterday feeling like I was welcomed to this group much like how I was welcomed into Cape Verdean life.

My cohort of veterans included an ASU professor, my close friend and fellow ASU student, and a future student.  For our individual tales, we provided the audience a better glimpse of ‘homecoming’ as experiences shaped by individual perception and built a bridge that homecoming is not exactly a single finite moment in time, but a process.  I focused on the more immediate aspects of coming home to family tragedies and feeling like I did not fit into my life stateside.

I think a vital part of the construction of this storytelling was how well Robin Rio and her students shaped the music performance.  I met Robin back in the fall of 2014 when I started my graduate degree at ASU.  She is an Associate Professor with the School of Music and the Director of ASU’s Music Therapy Clinic.  I interviewed her to gain a better understanding of ASU’s chapter of Guitars for Vets.

Looking back, I did not ask great interview questions, but I think we all have moments like that in our lives where our place as students does not necessarily provide us a sufficient lenses to see and understand the larger context of our community because we are also shortsighted about more immediate concerns like passing a class, juggling work, and testing our fit with fellow students.  Seeing Guitars for Vets on campus though did inspire me to get out of my comfort zone about trying a musical instrument.  I purchased a Taylor guitar awhile back and now, with my reduced commute, can commit more to my goal of learning the acoustic guitar.  (Maybe I’ll be able to play a song before the year ends!)

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This talented bunch just wow me; there’s so much musical talent in this group. I cannot wait to share the performance so you can understand how beautifully they play.

 

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America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War

Good afternoon, everyone.  The video for the Chandler Public Library’s America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War panel I served on March 11th is now posted.  I consider myself still somewhat of a beginner when it comes to public speaking and as such, have not watched the video yet.  I think if I do and see how nervous I was, I might not be willing to share it with you all today.  (I love written storytelling but I am dipping my toe into the territory of oral histories.)

I agreed to be a panelist to show support for my dear friend, Nancy Dallett.  She is the Assistant Director of the Office of Veteran and Military Academic Engagement at Arizona State University and she is quite passionate about oral histories.  She knew a past misstep with another oral history project left me somewhat reluctant to take on another but the way this project was shaped is what changed my opinion on the matter.  What I do like about a panel is the interpretative distance the moderator plays with the panelists.  She directs the conversation and keeps it in check, but her influence on what is stated via certain questions is tempered by the panelists.

I am quite proud of the types of questions asked of my fellow panelists and I.  Often times, I feel it is hard for us as women to be asked truly valuable questions outside the context of victimization.  I get stuck with questions that tiptoe around or center on the issues of sexual harassment and sexual assault within the military service branches and while I think it is important not to minimize those social problems, I think it is quite valuable our society continues to also see the professional opportunities for women in military service and the opportunities they can have post-servicing to enhance their lives and their family legacies.  Situations like the recent nude photo sharing being discussed in the news   can impact the willingness of women to join and/or to have their families’ support when considering service in one of our military branches.  (The ‘Marines United’ nude photo sharing scandal came up as one of the questions asked by our audience.)  As a female veteran, I want people who hear and participate in these conversations to understand any person (man, woman, or child) can be victimized at any point in his or her lifetime; it is more imperative we look for ways to make our society safer through education and awareness for everyone, not just groups of people or individual persons, and to instill appropriate punishments on the perpetrators so as to give the best measure of justice to the victim(s) of heinous deviant acts like this photo scandal.

Again, I want to reiterate the questions asked were quite considerate so as to not give you the wrong impression the panel was skewed far to the victimization spectrum of women’s issues.  General themes included our motivations for service, expectations of what Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam were prior to serving overseas, the reality of our living/working situations abroad, and concern over whether we thought our service had a positive impact in our lives.

Fair warning, the video is lengthy.  At almost two hours, you might want to set aside time to listen to it in its entirety or skip around for shorter conversations.  My daughter asked a question of me near the tail end of the audience Q& A section (proud Momma moment here!) so I hope you her piece of the presentation.  I didn’t expect she would actually have something to ask although she did ask before the panel began if it was necessary.

Take care and enjoy.

(If you have any tips on how to improve my presence as a panelist, I’d love to hear back from you.)

 

 

 

 

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Turning 33

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My Mini Me and I Out at Dinner Tonight

Good evening, everyone.

My entry will be quite short.  I am currently in the middle of crafting a post about recently going back through the disability claims process with the Department of Veterans Affairs but it is appropriate to take a break to share that today is my 33rd birthday.

I am very blessed to make it to 33 years of age.  I came home from Iraq the first time on my 21st birthday and my birthday has taken on a different meaning since that important transition.

Like my 2005 birthday, I did indulge in some alcohol.  Back then it was beer and cranberry vodka shots (Not a good idea…I repeat a horrible freaking idea…don’t repeat my mistake…seriously, do not make this mistake…you’ll puke a lot) and tonight I enjoyed a new Chardonnay at one of my favorite places, Bar Vinedo.  I made the adult decision to stop at reasonable point, made easier by the fact I’m completing the Fighter Diet and have a horrible ability to tolerate alcohol right now.

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I like to keep my birthday festivities to quiet small gatherings.  My daughter changed my plans further today when she asked (last night to her dad) about hanging out with me for the day in lieu of attending school.  How do I say no to such a cute request?! I threw out plans I had today to enjoy being a hermit while she and my husband were in school, completing my lower body workout and cardio routine, reading from Mind Over Money: The Psychology of Money and How to Use It Better, and taking a nap.  Yes, I had great ambitions as an adult for birthday indulgences!!!

I still kept to my Fighter Diet workout routine, mostly because I wanted to not feel guilty about indulging for dinner (dessert was not planned at all!).  I like working out.  Do I always want to work out? No.  However, it is great seeing the progress I’ve made and I know I’ll continue to make progress with mostly healthy eating habits and sticking to a solid workout routine.

Instead of hanging out with my fellow Marines in the barracks drinking horrible drink concoctions, my husband, daughter and I went out to dinner after I spent the day in my daughter’s company doing kid friendly things (splitting lunch and a cookies and cream monsoon, hanging out at the playground, and completing homemade craft projects).

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Cookies and cream monsoon with coffee from the Agritopia Coffee Shop.

I am very grateful I took today off from work.  My birthday is one of those days I quite enjoy a quiet respite from my typical hectic pace.  This year, I enjoyed it even more since I stayed up late watching an few episodes of Gilmore Girls with my family and additionally, my daughter camped out on the couch with me depriving me of a full night’s sleep.

My day ended with a fabulous grilled cheese and prosciutto sandwich, some of my favorite french fries, and this delicious dessert which I’ve been hesitant to order before because it has banana ice cream. Chocolate Mousse+pecan crust+chocolate ganache+ brûlée banana ice cream covered in salted caramel + chocolate drizzle on the side=How did I not order this item earlier? (Yes, my fear that it would be too banana flavored.)

Good night, everyone.  I hope your day turned out as well as mine and when your birthday rolls around, it’s just as wonderful.  I owe many thanks to everyone who loves me and wished me a happy birthday in text message, Facebook posts, voice mails, emails,and so on.

I have a great support system.

~Cheryl

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Pecan Chocolate Torte ($7)….It’s better than birthday cake.

 

 

 

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