Just Say Julie

This will probably be the last post I will be able to label “Military” now that my life as a military spouse has come to an end. I received an email from Shawn’s old commander’s wife about a volunteer award they had put me up for in recognition of my time as FRG advisor. I didn’t think much of it because I knew that there were many awards out there for volunteer service and I felt fairly certain they were easy to get. So several emails later we were finally able to nail down a date when I could escape from work in Austin to head up to Killeen to have the award presented. My one criteria for this date was that it had to be before November 30 since that was when my ID expired and I refused to go get a visitor’s pass for an installation I basically lived on for the last two years of my life. So Wednesday was the day we chose since I also had to be in Killeen for a meeting about the church retreat. Little did I know when arrived at the ceremony just what a big deal this award was. I

Thanks to the cold temperature and rain, today has turned out to be a very lazy day for Maverick and me. Puppy dog has pretty much not left my side on the couch since this morning, with the exception of jumping up to bark at the Pizza Delivery person. Mom & Dad left this morning to drive back to Alabama and hopefully avoid some of the post-Thanksgiving traffic. I should be unpacking the boxes that seem to be multiplying like rabbits around here but somehow I have gotten sucked into the reruns of the first season of October Road on the Soap Network (who knew there was a Soap Network?). Despite not leaving the house, I still managed to be hit on today. After muting October Road and curling up for a nap with Puppy, there was a knock on my door. All I could think to myself was that no one knows where I live so who would be here? Of course it was someone trying to sell me something. Some guy in some program selling books to help earn money for college (UT of course). During our

Well the day finally came for my apartment in Austin to be available. I can officially call myself an Austinite now that I have a job and a residence in this fine city. I woke up last Saturday and waited patiently for the movers to arrive so I could watch them pack my life away. Ten hours later I was sitting in my apartment in Austin surrounded by more boxes than I knew what to do with. Losing 200 square feet and a bedroom may not seem like a lot but it is for me since the majority of the space lost was in the kitchen. While I know I have a lot of kitchen gadgets, I still figured there would be some way to cram all the stuff into the cabinets and the pantry. Well, 5 days later I am still staring at stacks of random Pampered Chef products wondering where I am going to put all this stuff. And then there was the mystery of the missing kitchen box. Half of my everyday dishes made it into one box while the other half made it into another box. Well, once we (thanks to help from Mom and Jenny

Just when I think I am handling single life well, something comes along and just knocks me on my butt for a while. Yesterday afternoon I decided that a little retail therapy was needed after Alabama’s loss to Mississippi State. So I got myself cleaned up from packing and headed over to the Killeen Civic Center for the OWC* Holiday Bizarre. The last couple of years I had gone and found some great home decor items and gifts for Christmas. Little did I know how hard it was going to be to step back into my former life. No sooner had I walked in the door to purchase my ticket did I run into someone from Shawn’s old unit. Granted this was a wife I had been friends with but the first question I got from here was “I thought you moved.” So then I had to proceed to tell her about the divorce. I noticed myself tearing up as I talked about it and I couldn’t understand why because I don’t get emotionally about the divorce typically. As I moved on into the bizarre, I ran into two ladies from my chu

I just discovered something that I have to share with everyone. One of the lessons that I learned in my one and only cross country military move is that there are certain things the packers won’t pack. For example, you have to take the batteries and light bulbs out of everything which is annoying because you don’t want to break the light bulbs and who keeps the packages that they come in and how many things have batteries in them?!? Another thing they won’t pack is bathroom items such as lotions, liquid soaps, and shower gels. Apparently anything liquid they can’t pack. Who knew! Well, this time I am one step ahead of the movers. I went to Target (thanks, Brent!) and purchased some trusty Rubbermaid totes (purple of course) to load up with all of the extra bath items I have accumulated over the years. I have now realized one of the few things I got out of my 4 years as a military spouse. Apparently my trips to the various case lot* sales at the commissary have afford me a vast supply o

So here I am in Portland for work this week training on our accounting software because every good accountant needs to know how to use the software her company provides. I was a little freaked out about coming out here by myself but I ended up making a friend in my class who happened to be staying at the same hotel as me. In the process of hanging out in the evenings after class, the details of my pending divorce came out. Yesterday morning I logged into my email during break to find an email from Shawn’s lawyer stating that she was taking the final papers to the court house that day. So I shared the news with my new friend. I have been through such a roller coaster of emotions over this whole situation that I didn’t really feel anything when I got the email. I guess it has all been a long time coming. This morning Michelle looked over at me and said, “Happy Indepenence Day.” I looked at her funny until I realized what she was referring to. And you know what, she is right. To