What's YOUR Song Link Up #27

Hey Lovelies!

 Head over to

to link up as part of

There is just something about this song that has me obsessed.

She is beautiful and resonates this haunting, honest aura that then highlights her music.

Perfection.

The first one is the official music video that can only be viewed on YouTube. Its worth the extra click, I promise. The second can be listened to here.

I Call A Do Over: Entertainment Chest Edition... Again

My 4 AM usually consists of DVR or Netflix, food sitting somewhere on the floor or couch, my drill, dremel, and paint.

Since Mr. Superman deployed, I got more into DIY decor and refinishing furniture. Nikki, my BFF Forever is seriously an incredible designer so she helped me a ton in teaching me techniques and easier ways to do things. 

Now that I have a collection of stuff I've done and on my To Do List I figured why not share it with my Lovelies? Without further ado, we dive in!

 To kick it off, I want to introduce you Lovelies to my seriously revamped and in my opinion, much improved Ikea entertainment chest. 

This is the original as seen on the Ikea website

This is what it looked like when I was done with it the first time around. To see the first makeover in its entirety, go HERE.

I loved the dark teal but it just wasn't sitting right with me and I wanted a lighter, fresher look so I went with a fabulous aqua.

I am really loving it now and it goes fabulous with what I've decided to do with our front room.

Homecoming..... 4 1/2 months late

We all know how incredible deployment homecomings are.

Prepping the house, deep cleaning, and grocery shopping are ALL incredibly tiring and stressful. Getting your hair done, manicures, pedicures, spray tans, waxes.... the work up of damage control that deployment has taken on your body is incredibly expensive. The sleepless nights and weeks due to nerves and waiting to get that quickie 2 minute phone call saying they are FINALLY out of Afghanistan are incredibly exhausting. Constantly calling the deployment update hotline and praying the dates and times haven't been pushed back but then hearing that they have been for the 6th time is incredibly disheartening. Waiting up all night, counting the hours of each flight as they make their way from Afghanistan to Germany to Maine to finally hearing the last flight is bringing them home... is incredibly exciting/nerve wracking/emotional.

We all cope with those last several weeks in different ways. Since this was our very first deployment and I was no longer back in Arizona, in my family's very civilian world, I was sort of at a loss of how everything would unfold here in Georgia alone. When I moved back here in February to go house hunting and settle back in, I met a wonderful beautiful Milie named Sammy. She is seriously the best and the reason I didn't go absolutely crazy. 

Her husband is a maintainer like Mr. Superman although he is AMXS while Mr. Superman is EMS and those two jobs are "rivals/enemies/nemesis". Through a weird series of events, we found out that not only did our husbands attend and graduate from BMT at the same time, they were Brother Flights! They then were at Tech School at the same time and both got stationed here at Moody. Her husband was coming home the same day as my loverface so we ended up spending the last 3 weeks waiting for them to get home, helping each other unpack, clean, decorate, and stay sane through the long nights.

The long awaited day came and we stayed up all night and watched movie after movie, screaming with excitement each time our phones rang, hung up my homecoming banner (I swallowed a nail while hanging up the banner. We're going to leave it at that. No really, leave it), and then primped and curled more than either of us had in 7 months. 0530 rolled around and we headed off to base.

We waited and we waited and we WAITED. Then we waited some more. Of course the wrapping up of a deployment wouldn't be complete without a few uh.... upsets?

After a couple hours, we got word they were finally opening the hangar. Then we heard the plane was there. Then they told us it was going to be a while. The plane had to circle above the flightline for almost an hour waiting for clearance to land even though the flight had been scheduled FOREVER. Ridiculous.

 

We then finally got word that the plane was landing. We all jumped up clapping, laughing, crying and then had to wait for the plane to taxi to the other end of base for them all to get on the bus.

We waited and we waited and we WAITED. Then we waited some more.

We finally got word that the stair truck, you know the truck with the stairs that makes it possible for them to GET OFF THE PLANE was broken. Broken. Lamesauce. I casually threw out the idea to the commander that they just inflate the emergency exit slide but it was a no-go. Not because she didn't agree but because the plane was still half full of soldier's heading to their very own homecoming's at Fort Hood. Guess what we did then?

We waited and we waited and we WAITED. Then we waited some more.

 

 

Eventually, we saw two white buses coming across the flightline. We all scrambled up crying and our heads our going back and forth between the two white buses because we had no idea which bus each of our respective loved ones happened to be on. The flood of camo began and it was a free for all. Sammy saw her husband and TOOK OFF running and about 5 seconds later, I saw Mr. Superman.

My incredible, brave, strong, handsome, loving husband was FINALLY safe! I was pretty much all up on him like white on rice and between my long hair and my great tan, he didn't recognize me for a minute.

"I totally didn't recognize you. You're so tan!" Nice right? 

Afterwards, it took a bit for it to sink in that he was at his home base, on US soil, and able to finally leave at will. I kept telling him to get his bags so we could leave and he looked confused and was like, "I can leave? Are you sure?" I assured him he could in fact leave. We said our "Goodbyes", "Welcome Home's", and gave hugs to a few people and I brought my man to our new house!

Yes, we all know deployment homecoming's are incredible and despite all the date changes, disappointments, stresses, expenses, sleepless nights, and Murphy's best attempts at throwing us Milie's off our game's, the incredible's I remember aren't the negative one's.

Incredibly rewarding.
Incredibly strength building.
Incredibly revealing.
Incredibly butterfly inducing.

in·cred·i·ble

1: too extraordinary and improbable to be believed

2: amazing, extraordinary

  

And you know what Lovelies? Its all so fitting, these incredible things that accompanied the celebration of my husband returning home safe and sound because he is the most incredible human being I know. I'm so lucky to have him to love. 

I Call A Do Over: Sitting Room Hutch Edition

My 4 AM usually consists of DVR or Netflix, food sitting somewhere on the floor or couch, my drill, dremel, and paint.

Since Mr. Superman deployed, I got more into DIY decor and refinishing furniture. Nikki, is a seriously incredible designer that helped me a ton in teaching me techniques and easier ways to do things. 

Now that I have a collection of stuff I've done and on my To Do List I figured why not share it with my Lovelies?

Without further ado, we dive in!

This hutch was one of the last pieces of furniture I have felt good enough to work on and had enough energy to do at all and I love how it turned out. 

I got it for $30 at my favorite thrift/antique place.

It still took me 8 hours but that was mostly because I dry brushed the entire piece.

Dry brushing is a great technique but takes forever especially on a bigger piece. 

I was armed with three paint brushes and 5 colors of paint. 

To dry brush you just barely get the ends of the bristles wet and make almost whispy strokes. 

It sits in my formal sitting room and holds my Christmas china. 

Here she is!

BEFORE

AFTER

I used the original hardware and just brushed two of the neutral shades of paint on it all and before it dried all the way, wiped most of it off. 

Now Lovelies, instead of already having a Linky up, I figured if you have something you want to share, post about it and let me know and I'll open a Linky for you to share it with the rest of us.

Muah!!

The Secret

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                 
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

-ee cummings

the secret to making it through everything thrown my way?

this man.

from the countless times he's held my hand to the incredible strength of his heart...

on a daily basis, he saves me. 
his love is the secret my Lovelies.

I'm Not Back Yet, But...

People are driving me crazy. 

Have you ever attempted to be the bigger person but the more you try, it seems like people all over the place get more annoying, more insensitive, and the act itself gets seemingly more impossible?

I have.

Geeze I have. 

I wish I could just tell people exactly what I think of them, exactly what I feel, and exactly how WRONG they are without repercussions.

 

This has become my mantra and I so WISH I could walk around with this on a small portable billboard that runs on a constant loop. The more annoying or hurtful or ignorant the person is, the bigger and brighter this would flash.

Don't confuse silence with apathy or seemingly prevalent loneliness with the purposeful suppression of thoughts and feelings in an attempt to spare someone else's emotions.

Other times I wanna say, "Eff being the bigger person" and go and do what benefits me. Its almost an ever-constant tug-o-war. I have to keep myself in check, exercise epic self-control and make positive use of all my energy in moving onward and forward. The more space that there is between us and the dummies past, the better. 

Despite wanting to oft times throw ourselves on the ground, kick and scream, and then once once we are emotionally exhausted, just curl up in the fetal position and wait for the world to change, we must face the music. I don't know if you know this or not, but change doesn't just skip along and figure your life out for you.  Its about you putting your feelings on the back burner, sucking it up, and being the type of person this world so desperately needs more of. Rather than arguing back and wasting your energy on petty little things, focus on the words, thoughts, and emotions that will help you and even if it doesn't seem possible, the person that's making you turn into a crazy white girl who's about to open a big ol' can of wh...

Despite an almost instinctual reaction, we as humans need to sincerely think about what has been said or what we wish to say. Is any of it worth losing friends, hurting family, and losing ourselves to the compromise of what we know we SHOULD do? 95% of the time, you unknowingly become a self-deprecating pawn in the hands of negativity and pessimism.

 

Once I'm able to move far enough away from a certain person or a hurtful thing that may have been said, I'm able to start forgiving. Its funny really because forgiveness definitely isn't about another person. The act of forgiveness is solely and perpetually about US.