indiana.girl asked: What would your dream house look like? What would have have to have in the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom?
I really like the Cape Cod style houses (that's what we have now) and I think I would love to have one on/near the beach. However, I've only ever owned one house, so I haven't had much of a chance to really figure out what I love/don't love about houses. I know it wouldn't be a mansion. I have no need for rooms I wouldn't use and then I would just have to clean them. I have a hard enough time cleaning rooms I do use. However, the house we have now is a bit cramped because the rooms are so small, so I want a house that has a more open layout. Oh and definitely a house with air conditioning!
In my kitchen, since I'm not fond of cooking, I would have to have a cook. Haha! Maybe if I had more room to cook, I would enjoy it more because I would have the space to spread out and make the turkey while I'm also making the bread. So more counter and cabinet space. I also want granite countertops and a wine refrigerator
In my bathroom, I want a whirlpool tub and a shower with like six showerheads. I want to feel like I'm in a spa when I walk into my bathroom. I also wanted heated floors in my bathroom. How awesome would that be to step out of the tub and onto a heated floor? Ahh, heaven.
In my bedroom I want a window seat. I want to be able to tuck myself into the cushions on a Sunday morning with a cup of tea and an awesome book. I also want the softest plushiest (industry term) carpet I can find in my bedroom.
Leofwende asked: What is your absolute favorite book that you've ever read?
I love to read, so it's really hard to pick just one book. I wrote a post awhile back listing my top 10 favorite books. You can look at the list here. Many of them I'll still read from time to time.
However, there is one book I didn't list there that is probably my absolute favorite of all time and I didn't list it because I don't remember what it was called. Some favorite, right? It was a collection of children's stories that I got one year for Christmas when I was younger than 6 and in the cover was a note written to me from "Santa." I loved the stories in that book. There were fairy tales and poems and exerpts from books like "Winnie-the-Pooh." I lost the book as I got older. Unfortunately, at the time I didn't realize how important that book would be to me today and how much I wish I still had to read to Lil' Mootz. I've tried finding it, and while I find Collections of Children's stories, none of them are the one I had.
Sara asked: I am unfamiliar with a guard family's life, but it sounds like you are living both a civilian and military lifestyle. Do you kinda feel like it's a double life?
There are basically two different ways (that I'm familiar with, anyway) a soldier can belong to the Guard.
First, there is the civilian-soldier or "Weekend Warriar" (Ugh! I hate that term, but it's a common term, so whatever) and this is what most people are familiar with and it's how most Guardmen do it. The soldier has a civilian job with a civilian employer and then one weekend a month (although a "weekend" can be Thursday to Friday) and two weeks during the summer (since Stonewall and I have been married his AT's have been 3 to 4 weeks) they train with their National Guard unit. Once Stonewall returned from his first deployment, this is what he did. This did kind of feel like a double life because on one side you have the military community and on the other side you have the "real world." And neither side really meshes well with or understands the other side.
What I mean by that is the civilian side has it's ideas of what the National Guard is/does and those in the civilian world don't always want to accept that the NG isn't just some part-time job. Then the NG side is the military and the military is the military and they don't budge for anything, no matter what. Then there is also the military community and they don't always accept NG as being as hardworking and making the same sacrifices as active-duty, which is probably the most difficult to deal with.
However, the upside of all this is the pay. I forget exactly how it works, but NG Soldiers pretty much get paid double-time when they train. And you can't beat that with a stick.
Then the second way a Soldier can belong to the NG is through AGR or ADSW orders (there are differences between these two types of orders, but I don't really know what they are). In July of 2007, Stonewall received ADSW orders. In a nutshell, when a Soldier is on AGR or ADSW orders they are active-duty NG. They do not have a civilian employer. Everyday they put on the uniform and go to work on base or at the armory, etc. and they get all the same benefits as regular active-duty. People kill for these orders and they are difficult to get. All the benefits of active-duty military and the benefits of NG which means no PCSing (in most cases). This way doesn't feel as much as a double-life because we don't have to deal with a civilian employer. In this case, when someone asks, "What does Stonewall do for a living?" He's an Army Officer, plain and simple. However, we still don't have the military community right outside our front door. Our NG military commuity is spread all over the state rather than mainly concentrated around a base, so other than Stonewall's job, everything and everyone else we interact with is civilian.
We're going to call it a night. Once again Lil' Mootz fell asleep beside me on the couch with his sucker hanging out of the side of his mouth. Good night!
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