Goodbye Blog!

I'm leaving today for the MEPs hotel and will be shipping off to Fort Leonard Wood tomorrow! I'm excited and ready to get this part over with! I haven't updated in a while so I will give a full run down of the past few days.

I spent my last night in Denton hanging out with my wonderful boyfriend. We went to the Greenhouse for dinner. On the way out I noticed this view of the courthouse in the distance and thought it was so pretty. Goodbye Denton!! I will miss the Mini-Mart, the Loophole & 288 traffic!

Earlier in the day Scott and I had a ceremonious final meal at Taco Bell.
That evening my brother got into town and we spent the rest of the night visiting and getting ready for my big move. Of course he is the epitome of Army Strong so he is very useful for moving large objects, such as refrigerators. The next morning Murr & Lance packed the 12 foot U-Haul to the brim. It was completely full in every nook and cranny and with stuff almost spilling out. Hopefully this is the last time my dear brother will have to move all my stuff. I owe him big time!

We set out for Willis around noon. It was a pretty smooth trip, apart from when it started to rain on the uncovered TV in the back of Lance's pickup. He stopped to cover it and locked his keys in his car. He is blaming Geordi, trying to claim she stepped on the lock when he was out.... riiiight. Either way the best part is that after trying with several failed methods, including a ROOT that he dug up from the ground, he was finally able to jimmy it open using a piece of rebar he found laying around. Nice. My brother is MacGuyver.

When I think of home, I think of tomatoes. My Grandmother and my Dad have dueling tomato gardens. They put my measly little tomatoes to shame. This is just one of the piles of tomatoes lying around the house.

It was so nice to be able to spend some time with my amazing family before I leave.

Lance is chowing down on some catfish here while mom is blissfully unaware of the awful face he is making for the camera.

Lots of my family was in town for Father's Day. This is my Dad. He is pretty ridiculously awesome. Did you know he was a Master Sergeant in the Army National Guard? Here he is eating some of the AMAZING food he cooked for us. Notice Buttercup the old fat chihuahua snuggled in his lap. Also notice his shirt. This is where I get my unreasonable love for things with crawfish printed on them.

Here he is with four of his six children. You've already met Lance, plus my brother Billy and my sister Roxie. Clearly the girls are #1.

My birthday is June 25th and since I will be spending it in Basic Training, my family did a touch of celebrating for that this weekend too. Here I am with the amazing snake cake that my aunt Pat brought over for me. A little 11-year old boy she knows made it!! It's in memory of Skeeter!
Here I am with my amazing sister Roxanne. Her husband Dave SAVED MY BUTT because they were here when Lance and I pulled up with the U-Haul. He helped us move all my stuff into my parents house and did most of the heavy lifting with Lance.




My brother Donny had the sweetest hat known to man. Camo UNT!!!

My mom wrapped my birthday present in camo... with grenade balloons, which I thought was really hilarious. Inside was one bodacious gift... CAMO FOR GEORDI!!!! She is so cute. Look at her bone camo bed!!! She loves her new collar and water bowl too. She will be staying with Mom & Dad until I get out of Basic Training and back from my first tour with the band, so I probably won't see her again until November! :(

As you can see she had a nice time schmoozing around with all of my fam.

This morning my Aunt Pat planned a Father's Day/Birthday/Going-away Breakfast. The spread was amazing and it was soo nice to have home-cooking! Look at all the cool decorations! She also made that cake in the middle!!


Well, I'm just about to leave with my Mom to head back to Dallas. It's going to be a wild adventure I'm sure. I can't wait to post some of the more interesting stories from Basic. I'm going to miss everyone lots but I'm very excited about all that is to come. Thanks for being such fantastic friends. I thought this picture of my Grandmother serenading me on my new valve trombone (best birthday gift of all time from my Murr), would be a fitting send off!

Hooah and BYE FOR NOW!

Party

I'm really sleepy now so I'll be brief. I wanted to post a few of the awesome pictures from the going away part that my friends had for me last night! It was so nice to get to see everyone one last time before I leave Denton. 

Busy!

I've been scrambling to get all kinds of stuff done before Saturday, which is the day I'm leaving Denton. I was sooo productive today, I rocked! I bought all the stuff I need to ship out, got all the bills switched out of my name, got my hair cut and that kind of thing. Tonight I am going out with some friends to celebrate my last days in Denton. I will have a more extensive post with pics after that. I'm getting excited and ready to just throw myself into the whole basic training thing. Okay more later!

Geordi Hates W

As you can see, the packing is well on its way. I should have everything out into the garage by tomorrow so that I can clean. Wednesday a lady is coming over to inspect the place and decide if I get my deposit back. I think I should be able to get most of it, but I've had back luck in the past. 

I bought my first ever UNT sweatshirt. Hard to believe that after 6 years in this place that I never had one, but I do now! It is very mean green. 

So earlier this year Jessica and I had a toad that was living in the back yard. Geordi kept trying to attack it so we moved it to the front yard. We hadn't seen him in months and months, but now he has made a triumphant return. He's so cute!!

In other news, my dog is deathly afraid of George W. Bush... or at least his cardboard cut-out. I inherited this fine piece of decor from Dan Ord, probably because I was the only other Republican he knew at UNT :) I found it this week when cleaning out my closet and Geordi tried to run and hide whenever she saw him. I don't know if it's his economic or foreign policies that offend her, but she kept running under the bed and hiding. Today I took down my bed frame, so she had nowhere to go. 

Tomorrow I'm going to the Mac store to get my computer fixed- it keeps dying suddenly when it isn't plugged in but has a high battery charge. I'm also going to buy some other things I'll need for Basic and see my recruiter later. Keeping busy, time is flying by!! Only 6 more days of freedom left! 

Garage Sale

The garage sale was a success! I made exactly $200, purged many excess belongings, and met lots of very... interesting people. I had advertised the sale starting at 6:00am in the newspaper... so of course as I'm setting stuff out at 5:30am our first customer arrives. He was definitely a hardcore "saler." He left with all my Simpsons and Star Wars PEZ dispensers for 25 cents.  

We actually had a fairly steady stream of customers all morning until around 12:00pm. I never knew I had so many unique neighbors! It was funny how people would take the things that I considered to be some of the junkiest items, but I had some of my nicest clothes left at the end of the day. It started sprinkling briefly, but otherwise the weather was perfect. During one of the lulls Maura and I took pictures goofing off with some of the choice items. 

There were so many early professional garage sale people that most of the good stuff was gone by 7:30am. So I felt guilty the rest of the day when people would show up and look around and be like, "this is all you have?" 

Marco joined us later in the morning and got in on the fun. He also made off with my big bookshelf! By 1:00pm we hadn't had a customer in a while and I was nodding off hardcore, so Maura and I packed up and then went inside and passed out power nap style. 

By far the worst part of th

e day was when the front door cracked open and Geordi escaped. Maura was putting up signs down the road when she called me and said that Geordi was running around on 288! 

I tried to coax her back to me with food, but every time she saw me, she got this gleeful look on her face and would run as fast as she possibly could in the opposite direction. I had to watch in horror as she ran right in to traffic across 288. Luckily all the cars stopped or avoided her and were nice about it too. 

Finally she ran back into the apartment complexes near my house and when she stopped to sniff something I was able to snatch her up. I was not pleased, as you can see. 

The rest of the day was great. I got to hear Jamie Lipton play a fantastic recital and hang out with friends that I won't be seeing for a long time after this week!  Here is Jessica and Leah working hard on a puzzle. 

MEPS

Thursday I spent several hours in this place, the Denton Army Recruiting Station. Soooo much waiting around it's ridiculous, and it never ends up being for reasons that you can understand or make sense so that you sort of feel better. It is always for nothing, haha. Wasting time for wasting time's sake. 



They had this brochure in the Army office, and I thought it was funny because recently I had been discussing with somebody that if I end up eventually getting a tattoo, I might get a music note filled in with camo. So there is a preview I guess! I was thinking more of an 8th note though. Definitely no treble clef- I'm not British! 

Here I am in my MEPS hotel room. My roommate was nice, but liked to share... a lot. 

We woke up at 4am and were shuttled over to the MEPS building from the hotel. A lady from the Red Cross had set up this nice cookie and coffee table, which was VERY nice because they won't let you sleep while you are there. 

I had a minor panic moment when they announced that we wouldn't be allowed to process if we were wearing open toed shoes. Of course all I brought were flip flops. I'm sure I knew this rule at some point, but I completely forgot today. Luckily the Air Force people keep a box of old tennis shoes and new socks for such occasions. The guy was really nice but made fun of me because my huge feet actually fit really well in the men's shoes. :) 

So after many hours of waiting I did my weigh in, got my contract in order, had fingerprints done, and officially swore in and joined the Army!! It was pretty exciting. The biggest news is that I got my official ship date for Basic Training. I will be leaving on June 16th for Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. 

#1. That is really soon!!! A week from Monday!

#2 Everyone kept telling me I would likely get Ft. Jackson, SC so I am surprised to go to the Wood. 

So that's the news for today. My big garage sale is tomorrow morning, so I will be up early haggling and relaxing. My friend Maura is driving up from College Station to hang out and help with things, so I'm really excited about that! Hope everyone has a great weekend. 

MEPS

I have to go to the recruiter at 4pm today so that I can check into the awesome MEPS hotel. There I will twiddle my thumbs and watch TV all night. Up at 4am and then off to MEPS to officially sign my contract & swear in! It will be interesting coming up with ways to entertain myself through all of the waiting around. Updates later! 

Fishing

Look at the beautiful flowers that my wonderful brother Don and sister-in-law Nancy sent to me!  They are so sweet! I've gotten to that point in my packing where there are just little odds and ends, and none of them all fit together in one box, and I just wander around the house not accomplishing much, pushing things from one pile into another. 

Oh well. I think I will be able to look at the rest of packing with a clear head once I have my awesome GARAGE SALE!! 

That's right. Saturday, June 7th, get pumped for the Garage Sale of the Century.  I am getting rid of a ton of stuff. Here is a litte preview picture. I am selling lots of clothes, some furniture items, random stuff. The best part is that I'll be hanging around all day, maybe even sipping a brewski- so if you are in Denton and bored, come keep me company! 

Geordi had an exciting day. She got to go the vet to get microchipped. She is going to be living with my parents while I am in Basic and getting settled in MD. She has the propensity to bolt when she gets the chance, so hopefully the microchip will be a good backup that we never have to use!

So two things I saw on my walks with Geordi today reminded me that I really would love to go fishing. It is perfect weather, oh how nice it would be! Maybe Dad will take me out on the boat while I am in Willis before I leave... 

Keepin' it going

Today I had lots to do. In the midst of running errands up at UNT I realized that I might have walked into the Eagle Student Service Center for the last time... and waiting in those long lines to pay for an overdue parking ticket FOR THE LAST TIME!!! 

I went to see my recruiter and will officially be joining the US Army on Friday... after I hurry up and wait all day at MEPS. The highlight of my recruiter visit was definitely receiving my first ever ARMY T-SHIRT!!! 



 

In other news, my tomatoes are doing splendidly. Too bad I won't be around to eat any of them. 

Murr came over and helped me do some more packing tonight. Then he got in a wrestling match with Geordi, who sorely needed the attention. 

She looks pretty vicious huh? But she's a cuddly softy... most of the time. :) 

Here is her scooting under the bed, which is where she hides all the loot that she steals from the living room when I'm not looking. Earlier I caught her with a giant roll of masking tape in her mouth, headed straight for the bed! 

Packing

Today was mostly spent packing my stuff. Geordi is so confused by everything that has been going on. She has been spending lots of time laying in her crate, which she normally never does.

I keep getting these giant piles of boxes thinking, "yeah, that should be plenty!" Yeah right. I finally scored some last night. The first guy fell through but I found another gas station to help me out. The the honorable Miss Jamie Lipton let me raid her garage which had lots of good boxes. 

So I'm having a garage sale next weekend, and I'm getting rid of a ton of stuff. More on that later, but get excited! 

I have so much stuff to take care of tomorrow- all the phone calls and arrangements I couldn't make over the weekend. I'm also supposed to go see my recruiter, and hopefully he will have some info for me. I started memorizing Army ranks, but there are lots of long creeds and things I need to get going on too. 

More tomorrow! Bye for now!