DC tour guide...or not

I am not, nor will I ever be, a tour guide of Washington DC. Living only an hour away from the city, all my friends and family who visit from Georgia just beg to go to DC. This would be fine with me except for the fact that I do not like the outdoors, the heat, or seeing places over and over again. These things make me hate playing tour guide.

The Capitol is beautiful. It has impressive architecture, beautiful statues and intricate paintings. I could probably give you a tour on my own and do just as good a job as the professional tour guides. I could probably quote the movie at the beginning of the tour (the past few times I've slept through it, so maybe not). I hate tours. With a passion.

The Smithsonian museums are huge. And there are so many of them. When my guests tell me they want to visit all the Smithsonians, I just roll my eyes and plan to take them to the 3 major ones. I will admit, I do enjoy the museums....I just hate the crowds. The Natural History museum houses the Hope Diamond - really guys, not that impressive. Especially not worth getting close enough to 20 of your closest strangers to see the hairs on their noses and feel their sweat drip down your arm. Gross. And ridiculous.

The Metro is the best rail system I've been on. Granted, the only other one I've been on is Marta in Atlanta which is terrifying. The Metro has super clean stations, the trains are mostly air-conditioned and they are really efficient. I'm still scared to go over the water or go really fast, though. The trains shake and let's face it, the only thing keeping them out of the water or off the pavement is this relatively thin rail. Uhhh, no thanks!

The monuments are cool...for the first one or two visits. After that, they're just plain irritating. The Lincoln memorial houses a humongous statue of President Lincoln. Gorgeous. But by the time you've climbed the 8 million (ok, I think it's like 78) stairs, you're too tired to even lift your head up to see him and even if you could, the stifling heat and humidity and body odor is enough to make you want out immediately. The Washington memorial is ridiculously huge. It, however, is incredibly far away from anything else, i.e. the other memorials, a bathroom, food and the Metro.

Don't get me wrong - I am always in awe at our country's capital and respect all the monuments and memorials and what they stand for. Let's just say, I'm ready for a move to anywhere far from here - North Carolina, Georgia, California, or even Japan. C'mon Marine Corps, help me out here!

Married to the military

Almost 2 years ago, I married this cute guy I met at a club down in good ole' Milledgeville, GA. He told me he was a Marine and drove a truck, and that was all I needed to hear (and all I did hear - you know how loud those crazy clubs are!). We got engaged, he deployed, it was rough, but not all together horrible. I was still in college, living with my fabulous roomies and was totally distracted by, well, everything. Then he got back, and it's been a whirlwind - May: moved home from college. August: moved to NC. November: moved to a temporary home in VA. March: moved to our "permanent" home in VA. That's 4 moves in less than a year, folks. Crazy. Now, a year an a half after we moved into our permanent house on base, I'm starting to wonder what the future holds. Where are we going to be in a year? This is a question that has been haunting me lately. I'm a pretty flexible girl, so I don't really mind where we end up, but, I'd like to be able to plan for it. As of right now, in a year, we could be in VA with a newborn baby, we could be in south GA living in a retired military base, we could be living on the beach in California, we could be in North Carolina, I could be in any of the given places and my husband in a war zone, etc. etc. etc. The potential baby is the biggest - and scariest - factor. Do I really wanna be in Cali by myself and a newborn baby, a country away from family and many countries away from my husband? Uhh, no. Do I really wanna be in South Georgia where it's 8 million degrees 24/7 with 487% humidity (ok, maybe it's not really that hot and maybe I exaggerated on the humidity...just a bit...but you get the point)? Uhh, big time no.

But the thing about the military is that I don't get any say in anything whatsoever. Good and bad. Bad because I don't get to choose where I'll be living. Good because I don't have to choose where I'm living - meaning I don't have to decide which of the crazy places my family and I will be going. Meaning, it's not my fault if we end up somewhere awful.

Military wife life is an adventure to say the least. Hopefully I'll know in 11 months where we'll be headed in 12 months!

Hello, nice to meet you.

I've already had my first mishap. I wrote this nice long post introducing myself and explaining my life and blah blah blah. I apologize, but I won't be re-writing it. So, if you are intrigued, read my blog and get to know me that way.

The important part of that post was this....my inspirations for starting this blog:
1. My friends and family are now blogging and frankly, I feel left out.
2. I need to find myself. Find who I am and what I want and where I am going.
3  The Dainty Grenadier. A raunchy, dirty, hilarious and honest life-as-it-comes blog that I just recently started following. I don't suggest you read it if you can't handle some language and are easily offended. However, she is what started me blogging.