charlatan psychic

Y’all have heard me talk about Misty. She’s my BFF. Like, if we were sexually attracted to each other, we’d be married. Instead, we each fell in love with someone else, but got matching tattoos to make our friendship permanent. Misty currently lives on the east coast. That’s hella far from El Paso. She also has a baby girl that just turned 1, Sophie, my niece and goddaughter. She’s an amazing little girl. Being so hella far apart, I don’t get to see them often. I did fly out and spend a couple weeks with them when Sophie was just 3 months old. Misty has a big family. She’s the youngest of 6 and has multiple stepsiblings.  She has more family than I could ever keep track of. However, her oldest sister, Krystal, is also my friend. Krystal’s 3 daughters call me Aunt. Well, Krystal had gone back to college and graduated just this May. Misty and Sophie were flying out for it. Krystal, by the way, lives in the same state as I currently do. Actually within a day’s...

My name is Charla and I am a fangirl. J and I went to the Phoenix Comicon for the second year in a row. We weren’t really planning on going this year until John Barrowman announced that he would be going (that’s Captain Jack Harkness for those of you not in the know). I was super excited, so J said yes.  We drove to Phoenix, AZ on Friday and checked into our hotel. We actually stayed at one of the main hotels this year since it was just a block from the convention center. The room was nice, on the 17 th floor.  While checking in, we actually saw John Barrowman arrive. OH.MY. GOD. My heart pounded, I think I started bouncing and I snapped a quick pic with my phone. oh heavens Squee!! I realized I really am a fangirl. I got super excited just to see him. No, I did not have the guts to walk up and say hi. He looked a little tired from his trip and I thought of how much I just wanted to get to my room. J said I was having an anxiety attack. But he was s...

On May 10, I participated in the 1-43 ADA Spouse Boot Camp. No, it’s not as tough as it sounds. After all, we did it in half a day. See, Cavalry spouses get to do a simplified version of a Spur Ride . They spend a day doing obstacles and teamwork drills and earn their “pink spurs.” (This horrifies, me, BTW. I really don’t like pink.) Anywho, there isn’t anything like that for Air Defense spouses. So someone, somewhere, came up with a simple little Spouse Boot Camp. Of course, with my husband being the new Rear Detachment Commander, there was no way I could NOT do this, but I really would have done it either way. Let me brag a moment and mention that most of the spouses were from our FRG, including my co-leader and BFF Kristy. It was held at the Air Assault Course, which just so happens to be a block or two from my house. I walked over. We got started about 9 am. First was the Repel Tower, which I had done a couple years ago with our previous unit. This time, the repel master...

I've been meaning to sit and blog for a few days now, but every time I do, I get distracted and don't write. Let's see how far I get. Of course y'all know I'm on a long trek to get healthy. I'm still 10 pounds from my goal weight, but still happy with what I see in the mirror. The past couple weeks have been a little busy and we haven't made it to the gym as much. Remember the supplement I was taking? Don't think I'm gonna keep taking it. Apparently, some people who sell it say you can build a tolerance to it, and you either need to go off it for a month or two, or put another supplement on top of that. Ugh. Too complicated, and why don't all the people who sell it know this? So I'm backing off of it for a while. I have a bottle and a half that I can try again later if I'm still stuck. I'm going to focus on eating healthy and not overeating. Of course I'll still indulge from time to time, it keeps me sane. Gotta try to ge...

I have a couple recipes that were a huge success lately. Well, huge success with J.  I don't know what order to put them in. So let's pretend this is dinner. For dinner, we are having Shepherd's Pie. Then, for dessert, Tropical Zucchini cake, with vanilla ice cream.  I don't know what I was looking for when I found this Vegan Shepherd's Pie recipe. It intrigued me, and I decided to try it. I used the cool allrecipes feature to slim down the recipe to 4 servings, since J was deployed and I was only feeding myself. Also, I have yet to follow the exact recipe.  First, I don't like celery. So I never use it. I will sometimes add celery salt instead. Second, I used real dairy. I wasn't going to go buy a bunch of stuff just for one recipe. BUT, I loved it. I gobbled that shit up! Really, it was amazing. I used Smartground meat substitute.  I used the same recipe when my MIL came to visit to make a Cottage Pie.  Ok, ok. let me 'splain. Gord...

I know, I haven't written much lately, but I kinda feel like writing right now. So here is a general update. J and I are getting into a schedule. He's working, but not pulling late nights *knock on wood.* He gets to do his own PT and loves that. He gets up early to run, bike, or swim a few days a week, and we hit the gym twice a week. He'll work out over lunch sometimes, and of course on weekends. I'm trying to run, of course, and hitting the pool once a week or so. Like I said, I'm hitting the gym twice a week with J now. And that means the weight room. He's showing me how to use the Hammer Strength machines, which are like a machine/free weight combo. We do a few things with dumbbells and yesterday did incline sit ups. I feel good when we go, even if I'm sore the next day. When it's nice enough and not too late, we ride our bikes to the gym, which works as a warm up. I even tried a spin class. It was exhausting, but I could feel that certain musc...

It's official! The Big D (deployment) is over for us. J is home safe and sound. It was a long, tiresome trip home for him. He's already at work today. Because today starts the next D - the Rear D. J is taking over the Rear Detachment Battery for the Battalion. He gets to shadow the current Rear D Commander for a while to see what the usual routine is. This means work, and probably plenty of it. Rear D Leaders often have long days, work on weekends, all that fun stuff. It was almost surreal to know he was headed home to me. I had my trip to KS to distract myself. Short trip this year, but good as usual. I actually expected his trip home to take longer and was surprised at how quickly they got it all arranged. He came home yesterday. I was nervous, which I hadn't expected. A good friend who has been through a deployment told me it was good to be nervous. He was exhausted from the long trip and very little sleep, so we just came home. It wasn't like what you see o...