Miss Judy

I got tired of myspace's blog format, and I never really come on here anymore, so if you'd like to be privy to my life, go to http://judymonhollen.blogspot.com. Yes, I am actually updating regularly, and you're more than welcome to take a look if you'd like to know what's going on in my life. I am horrible about calling people, and I'm not going to crosspost everything.

Cheers!

Well! We are now 8 months into Paul's deployment, and everything is going great! Paul just reenlisted, which makes me happy to no end because at least I know what we're going to be doing for the next 10 years. He also just got moved over to be the BN Retention NCO (basically, recruiting in the Army...getting people to reenlist), so he's got an office, and I get to talk to him online every day. He is much happier now than he was, so that makes me happy because he's not complaining. :) He should be coming home in February sometime for his R&R, so we're just waiting for that.

I'm volunteering as a Point of Contact with our battalion Family Readiness Group. It's very rewarding, and I've made some really good friends though doing this.

On September 29, 2007, a good friend of mine that was a part of Deuce Four, who moved to Vilseck, Germany, with most of the guys he served in the Deuce, died in Baghdad due to injuries sustained from small arms fire. His name was Bobby Ayres, and he is the first person I've known really well that has died over there. That month was also a bad month for my husband's unit, too. A few people were lost out of A Co, so I was fielding a lot of phone calls, and doing a lot of really informal grief counseling and forwarding people to our Family Life Counselors. It's amazing how deaths in a unit effect everyone.

That's really about it. Everything in my life right now pretty much revolves around the unit and the other wives. I hope everyone else is doing well, and if I don't say it before then...MERRY CHRISTMAS!

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users. Bold what you have read, italicize what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. The numbers after each one are the number of LT users who used the tag of that book.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (149)
Anna Karenina (132)
Crime and Punishment (121)
Catch-22 (117)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (115)
Wuthering Heights (110)
The Silmarillion (104)
Life of Pi (94)
The Name of the Rose (91)
Don Quixote (91)
Moby Dick (86)
Ulysses (84)
Madame Bovary (83)
The Odyssey (83)
Pride and Prejudice (83)
Jane Eyre (80)
A Tale of Two Cities (80)
The Brothers Karamazov (80)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (79)
War and Peace (78)
Vanity Fair (74)
The Time Traveler's Wife (73)
The Iliad (73)
Emma (73) (saw the movie)
The Blind Assassin (73)
The Kite Runner (71)
Mrs. Dalloway (70)
Great Expectations (70)
American Gods (68)
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (67)
Atlas Shrugged (67)
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (66)
Memoirs of a Geisha (66)
Middlesex (66)
Quicksilver (66)
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (65)
The Canterbury Tales (64)
The Historian : A novel (63)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (63)
Love in the Time of Cholera (62)
Brave New World (61)
The Fountainhead (61)
Foucault's Pendulum (61)
Middlemarch (61)
Frankenstein (59)
The Count of Monte Cristo (59)
Dracula (59)
A Clockwork Orange (59)
Anansi Boys (58)
The Once and Future King (57)
The Grapes of Wrath (57)
The Poisonwood Bible (57)
1984 (57)
Angels and Demons (56)
The Inferno (56)
The Satanic Verses (55)
Sense and Sensibility (55)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (55)
Mansfield Park (55)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (54)
To the Lighthouse (54)
Tess of the D'Urbervilles (54)
Oliver Twist (54)
Gulliver's Travels (53)
Les Miserables (53)
The Corrections (53)
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (52)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (52)
Dune (51)
The Prince (51)
The Sound and the Fury (51)
Angela's Ashes (51)
The God of Small Things (51)
A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present (51)
Cryptonomicon (50)
Neverwhere (50)
A Confederacy of Dunces (50)
A Short History of Nearly Everything (50)
Dubliners (50)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (49)
Beloved (49)
Slaughterhouse-Five (49)
The Scarlet Letter (48)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (48)
The Mists of Avalon (47)
Oryx and Crake (47)
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (47)
Cloud Atlas (47)
The Confusion (46)
Lolita (46)
Persuasion (46)
Northanger Abbey (46)
The Catcher in the Rye (46)
On the Road (46)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (45)
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (45)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (45)
The Aeneid (45)
Watership Down (44)
Gravity's Rainbow (44)
The Hobbit (44)
In Cold Blood (44)
White Teeth (44)
Treasure Island (44)
David Copperfield (44)
The Three Musketeers (44)

So it looks like Paul's going to be leaving sometime next week for Iraq. I've been doing pretty good with not getting too emotional about it. I think that being around the military my whole life has helped a ton with me not getting out of control and depressed like some of the other wives. I had a minor sad moment last night, and cried a little, but I'm ok. :) He should be deployed for a year, but I'm going to figure it's going to be 15 months because 3rd Brigade is rumored to be getting extended another 3 months.

In other news, I'll be going to Opening Day for the Mariners and also going to another game the next day with Paul and the rest of his unit. So yay for baseball! Other than that, I'm getting the wedding plans started for our big wedding next summer, which looks like it's going to be here in Lakewood. I just need to get a preliminary guest list together and addresses, so if you want an invitation, send me your address!

And that's all for now!

So, my husband and I spent the last week in California visiting family, and we had a wonderful time! We left on Sunday, and stopped in Klamath (which is near Crescent City, about 45 minutes south of the Oregon/California border on 101) to visit my grandparents. So that was interesting, but we had good food for dinner, and Grandma did her normal thing and took us around to all the weird places in Klamath and the area to look at things, basically. We had dinner with them on Monday morning, and Grandpa made his awesome pancakes, and Paul went on a walk with him before we left for my Aunt Kolleen's.

We had an AWESOME steak dinner at my aunt's house down in Petaluma (North Bay area, and Kristin, we drove by Novato, but your phone number's not in my cell phone, or I would've called you!), and had fun visiting. We got up the next morning, and took off for SoCal around 11, and we stopped in Monterey to visit the Presidio and pick up Disneyland tickets, so I bought a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and we bought my mom a shirt with Korean on it, and the back says "We learn Korean so you don't have to." (For those of you who don't know, the Defense Language Institute is based at the Presidio in Monterey.)

We got down to Santa Clarita around 10, dropped our stuff off at Andy and Becky's and went and visited with Paul's sister Linda. We spent the night at Andy and Becky's, woke up the next morning, and headed up to Palmdale to drop our stuff off at Paul's sister Faith's house and go see our nephew play some baseball, where I met my new brother-in-law, Geoff. We went to Bonzai Garden for dinner (awesome Japanese restaurant), and spent the night at Faith's.

On Thursday, we finally had a chance to relax for a little while, so I did some laundry at Faith's house, and hung out around the pool getting some sun. Paul dropped by Faith's classroom (she teaches 6th grade) because they all want to write to him while he's in Iraq. That night we went to watch some Kings hockey at Staples Center, so that was a lot of fun!

Friday we went to Disneyland and California Adventure, which was great because I've never been there before. So I got to ride a roller coaster, and California Screamin' is probably the smoothest roller coaster I've ever been on. I think I probably would've enjoyed it a lot more if I was younger, but it was still fun. We got there around 10:30, and stayed for about 12 hours, so by the end of it, my feet and legs were killing me from walking around all day. But I got to ride the Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean rides, got my picture with Pooh, and watch the Main Street Electrical Parade. I think my favorite ride was probably Soaring over California, though. We got in really late, stopped at Andy and Becky's and then headed back up to Faith's house.

Saturday we got to sleep in a lot, and relax a little more before having St. Paddy's dinner at Linda's house. So after we got conscious again, we went to the movies and saw 300, which was pretty good, and then headed to Linda's. We had corned beef and cabbage for dinner, and Linda's husband Dean cooked up some tri tip, too, so we were extremely full by the time dinner was over! Dean is also a big fan of wine, so I got pretty toasted on just drinking all the wines he wanted me to drink! We finally got back to Faith's around midnight after visiting with everyone all night, and got about 4 hours of sleep before we had to get up to drive back to Washington.

All in all, it was a great trip! We didn't have a ton of time to relax or anything, but I got to meet all the in-laws, and I really like them, and they really like me a lot, too, so that definitely makes life easy! I've already been invited to come down for a week or so in August when Margot, Paul's immediately older sister, is going to be in town, so I'll get to meet her and my niece and nephew there, too. So, in conclusion, yay for getting along with the in-laws!

Today, Paul got his wisdom teeth pulled, so he's been in a pretty considerable amount of pain and kind of passed out on the couch all day. I made him some French onion soup, and hopefully he'll be feeling better in a few days. The dentist has him on quarters for 72 hours, and on light duty until the 29th, so he should be good.

And that's all I have!

I am now married! We got married yesterday with my parents, Paul's mom, and some close friends in attendance, and I get along great with his mom, so bottom line is that I'm very happy! :D

Ok, so update. I'm getting married this Saturday, February 24th, at 11:30 in Lakewood. So first...YAY! Paul's excited, he got to talk to my parents, and they both like him, so that makes things a bit easier. I also got to talk to one of his sisters and his mom this past week, and I feel very welcome by his family, which also makes things easier. :) His mom's going to be flying up from New Mexico on Saturday morning, so hopefully she'll make it in time for the ceremony. So all of today is going to be super cleaning, so the apartment looks decent for when she comes over here. I also need to get some laundry done, so I'll do that while I'm cleaning, too. Paul's mom is going to be here until Tuesday, so I know we're going to be doing touristy stuff all weekend, which kind of sucks because I would like to have that post-marriage time with Paul since he's been so busy at work getting ready to leave for Iraq, but it's good because I'll get to know his mom better. :)

So other than that, this ceremony is just going to be our parents and a couple of close mutual friends, but we are having a big "real" wedding next summer. The tentative date is July 26, 2008, so save the date, and send me addresses! That's about it for now!

I'm getting married! :)

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
So, here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...



1. Opening Credits:
Norah Jones - Don't Know Why

2. Waking Up:
Ciara - And I

3. First Day At School:
Pedro the Lion - Of Up and Coming Monarchs

4. Falling In Love:
Dido - You Take My Breath Away

5. Fight Song:
Hahahaha! 2Pac - California Love

6. Breaking Up:
Unwritten Law - Coffin Text

7. Prom:
Mariah Carey - I Still Believe

8. Life:
Stan Getz - Dear Old Stockholm

9. Mental Breakdown:
Lenny Kravitz - American Woman

10. Driving:
Jack Johnson - Crying Shame

11. Flashback:
Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli - Time To Say Goodbye

12. Getting back together:
Save Ferris - For You

13. Losing your virginity:
Frank Sinatra - Night and Day

14. Wedding:
Semisonic - Closing Time

15. Birth of Child:
Dido - White Flag

16. Final Battle:
Warsaw - Club Sex

17. Funeral song:
Counting Crows - Round Here

18. End Credits:
REM - Losing My Religion


What's funny is I have TONS AND TONS of music on my player, and the same bands kept coming up LOL

I will admit, I used to be that girl....you know. The jealous, possessive type. That didn't want her boyfriend talking about or to ex-girlfriends, and God forbid if their best friend is a girl. I'm glad to say I've grown out of it.

My best friend has been dating this girl for about 7 months now. She has freaked out about his friendship with me, and, more recently, tried to convince him that his sister is trying to break up their relationship.

As for the me part, not that it matters, but he did tell her that he wasn't going to throw away an 11 year friendship for something that's only been around for 7 months, to which she replied that she wasn't asking him to do that. And then proceeded to tell him to "respect" her by not hanging out with me by ourselves. Which he is complying with, I'm assuming because I can't even get him to return my phone calls. Which, I'm sorry, is affecting our friendship. I don't like having to tiptoe around some girl that I don't know, and fighting for the "affection" of my best friend, when I'm not fighting for his affection at all. I mean, come on. We've known each other for 11 years. If something were going to happen, it would have happened by now, and it doesn't matter anyway because I have a wonderful boyfriend who I love very much. And I just don't see him in that romantic type of manner, and never will. He's like a brother to me, and his family is my second family.

But the thing that's REALLY angering me is her behavior towards his sister.

His sister has done nothing but be nice to his girlfriend. And I know his sister. If she doesn't like you, you know it right off the bat. She uses Myspace to fight her little battle, and this whole thing has turned into an immature pissing match. There's no point to it, and I know he knows this, but his sister is his BLOOD, and nothing runs thicker. So I don't understand why the girlfriend is being so insecure that she needs to attack his sister. And it all started over a set of fake eyelashes.

He's had to lie to her about hanging out with me, and I find that completely ridiculous because he shouldn't have to. Yet he's forced to because he feels like he's walking on eggshells with her all the time. It's gotten to the point where he thinks this is the way normal relationships are, and tried to convince me to lie to my boyfriend about staying at his house on Friday night. Woop-de-doo. There is NOTHING to lie about. He slept on the couch, and offered up his bed because it would have taken me an hour to get home. Nothing happened, I don't understand why this is such a big deal.

Either way, this is making me very, very angry, mostly because of the way she's acting towards his sister. She did nothing to deserve it. Maybe his girlfriend will grow up eventually and realize that not every man in the world is a cheating asshole, and understand that he is actually a good guy who has never cheated on a girlfriend. And maybe she'll stop the asinine games and immature, petty arguing about stuff that doesn't even matter. Hello...he's coming home to you, and no one else. Appreciate that. If he didn't want to be with you, he wouldn't be with you, he'd be with someone else. Let go of your insecurities and start respecting yourself as a woman.