“I am aware of the fact that I am a terrible person”

… as evidenced by the fact that I have not blogged in well over 3 weeks. I’m sorry, I really am. But I have a good excuse. Well, maybe not, but I will pretend that I do.

No seriously, I’m really sorry that I haven’t blogged in awhile. First of all, there are only 3 unclassified computers (aka- computers that I can actually use to email any “normal” people in the outside world). So this makes it very difficult to even get on an unclass computer during the normal work day, much less spend time idling and writing a blog when people probably have to use the computer for work. The main reason though, is that work has been VERY VERY VERY monotonous. Like seriously, the exact same thing. Every single day. I will illustrate:

0900- Molly wakes up to the sound of the first launch cycle for the aircraft. No matter how much I try and grumble and push a pillow over of my head, the rumbling of the F/A-18 gearing up its engines to full power a mere 2 decks above my rack makes it difficult to cease back into a gently slumber.

1030- finally actually wake up and get out of bed, mainly because I have to pee so bad I must wake up, whilst still grumbling at the 2nd launch cycle rumbling over my head

1130- to go the office, check email, sort into piles of “should get back to, really need to take care of this, this can wait til later, and delete”

123o- eat Special K

1300- go back to the office and actually get started on the “really need to take care of this” email folder

1400- staff meeting

1500- gym/errands (yes, on an aircraft carrier you can actually run “errands”- the post office, the ship’s store, the library, the MWR office to check out movies)

1530-1600- sweat out 3.4 miles on the treadmill with my 34 other best friends on their treadmills all in a row of mine in a room built no bigger than for EXACTLY 35 treadmills. Imagine running through the amazon, which is like 120% humidity. Now imagine that the amazon smelled like big, sweaty, navy dudes. That’s what my workout is like in the “gerbil gym”

1600-1700- shower and clean up for dinner

1700-1730- dinner

1730-2200- watch

2200-2300- back to work to sort email into “should get back to, really need to take care of this, this can wait til later, and delete”- get started on getting back to some of those things that I “put off until later” and make phone calls back to people in SD that are in their happy little office jobs, as it is 11am SD time when I get off watch, so a perfect time to get in touch with people for work back at home.

2300- go to midrats (aka- midnight rations, which is only the best meal on the ship. I’m minorly disappointed that my 2 Tigers for Tiger Cruise will most likely unable to make it til 11pm every night to eat a delicious and amazing breakfast. This truly is their loss and I hope that I can somehow convince them that to become REAL Tigers, a midnight omelet is required of them. We’ll see what I can do). At midrats, debate between special K and grilled cheese. Usually remember my amazon-style run earlier in the day and go with the grilled cheese. Turn away when CS3 puts the melted butter on the grill (“If I don’t see him do it, it’s like it’s not really there!” right?)

Usually I spend about an hour at midrats, sinking my teeth into the most delicious grilled cheese on this planet (sorry mom, yours are good too, but much healthier J) and hanging out with those guys in the green suits, who actually are not as intimidating as I thought and I have since become good friends with many a pilots onboard (don’t worry Tigers, I have ulterior motives, I’m hoping to make friends so I have some sweet hook-ups in the Air Wing for Tiger Cruise so we can get cool personal tours of the Ready Rooms and the jets. I might hold out though and only arrange these tours if you promise to accompany me to midrats, at least once :). While sinking said teeth into said grilled cheese, silently curse the amazon-run I will have to do tomorrow. The grilled cheese are also awesome because (in addition to the butter) they are made on the same griddle that CS3 does all of his made-to-order breakfast orders. Any sort of breakfast egg scramble, omlet, or sandwich you could imagine, so the grilled cheese always has a faint taste of grilled onions for an omlet or bacon for a breakfast sandwich. It’s seriously amazing and pretty much the only good part of my day. That and emails from friends and family. If I could eat a grilled cheese while reading emails, well, I might just die happy. Oh, and at midrats- they have little bowls of anything you could put in an omlet- onions, tomatoes, olives, peppers, cheese, ham, turkey, ANYTHING!- and you scoop out whatever you want on your plate and give it to CS3 and he makes it to your exact specifications (he knows that whenever my plate is up there with morsels of onion and green pepper goodness my request is always “2 eggs scrambled with a LITTLE bit of cheese and the vegetables extra grilled”- at first I thought I was being picky but by day 2, he knew EXACTLY what I wanted. And not just me, but ANYONE who’s a regular at midrats!

Anyways, I digress. After midrats I go back down to the office to surf facebook for approximately 23 minutes, which is just as long as it takes me to catch-up on what’s going on in the real world and get utterly and totally depressed about all of the fun things that I’m missing (even 12” of snow on the east coast and major rain drainage problems in SoCal would be better than this!)

So I turn back to the work that simply must be accomplished before tomorrow and I wrap this up around 1 or 2am, usually interspersed with some laundry (as the middle of the night is the best time to do laundry since most people are sleeping). Then I go to bed and read until 2 or 3 in the morning (depending on how good the book is). Repeat again. EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. there is seriously NO differentiation day-to-day, other than that every other Friday we have the fancy brunch. Thank goodness for the fancy brunch or I wouldn’t know how to count my days.

Anyways, wow, that was a lot. Although, looking back on this post thus far, I realized I haven’t said much (I think I may have won “Talks the Most, Says the Least” for my High School superlative, now I’m starting to understand why….). I feel like I have a lot more to say too (it only took me 3 weeks to drum up something to say!)--- guess I’ll have to blog tomorrow too!

Speaking of blog, our wedding photographer, Sarah Cramer Shields was nominated for the 2010 “Bride’s Choice Award”, which is very very exciting for such a talented photographer. Her blog announcing her nomination featured a picture of none other than yours truly (and yours truly’s handsome hubby)—check her out at www.blog.cramerphoto.com! Congrats, Sarah and thank you for giving us such wonderful memories!!!

Well, I guess that’s all I have time for now. I’m really sorry I didn’t write, but as Dan will attest, the past 3 weeks (basically, since I’ve seen him :( ) I have been utterly miserable and homesick. Month 4 of deployment has hands down be the hardest. I felt like I did when I went away to summer camp when I was like 10. Complete with the crying myself to sleep at night. but somehow worse. I was hoping this would get easier, this being my 3rd deployment and all, but alas, I guess it never does. What is so hard about this deployment is that for the first time, I know that when I come home, I’ll never have to drive 5 ½ hours to see Dan or won’t ever have to plan my weekends out to see him, what hurts the most right now is for the first time in 5 ½ years (wow, that’s a lot!) I could be living with him right now and getting to do all of those things that I hear you get to do when you’re married- hang out and go for walks, watch TV, cook dinner, explore and grow together. I know Dan feels the same way (at least I’m pretty sure he does!) but he is doing a great job staying busy with work- his job at Mitchell is going exceptionally well (did you really think he would have it any other way? :) and I am so very proud of all of the good stuff that he has accomplished!

But so that’s why I haven’t really written b/c I’ve been too sad and blue to get in the spirit of writing. However, in the spirit of being less sad and less blue, I’ll wrap up with a few exciting things. In just a few days we’ll high-five our friends on the new carrier who is going to take over all of the roles and responsibilities that we’ve been filling for the past 5 months and start heading east! Soon we’ll be fast-forwarding our clocks an hour, gradually, until we cross the International Date Line and get back to the same day as San Diego. I am looking forward to the month of February- which brings port visits in Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong (February’s blogs are sure to be good, with a new port visit blog every single week- I swear!!!). I am looking forward to seeing my mom & Dan’s mom in two months from TODAY in Bremerton, Washington for Tiger Cruise. I can’t wait to have Miss. Molly V be one of the first people I see back in the good ol’ US of A. Dan and I are already planning our big post-deployment trip (aka- our “Third Honeymoon”!)- which involves San Francisco and a few days in the wine country of Sonoma and Napa Valley, which I cannot WAIT for and Dan has done an AWESOME job of planning so far! So, as I look back on 4 months and try and gear up for the next 2, I am looking ahead that all those next 2 months hold- hopefully some incredible new life adventures and places and experiences. I close with a quote from one of the books that I just finished reading (I LOVE reading, I read for like 2 hours a day, hence why I have to run errands to the ship’s library, because I have run out of books!). if you’ve never read The Alchemist, I suggest that you stop whatever you’re doing (ok, wait first til you finish reading this!) and go get it. It will change your life, I swear. Every single sentence is deeply profound and “meaning of life” kinda stuff, but not in the “greek philosopher, this is too hard to comprehend way).

“Don’t think about what you’ve left behind,” the alchemist said to the boy as they began to ride across the sands of the desert. “Everything is written in the Soul of the World, and there it will stay forever”

“Men dream more about coming home than about leaving,” the boy said. He was already reaccustomed to the desert’s silence.

“If what one finds is made of pure matter, it will never spoil. And one can always come back. If what you had found was only a moment of light, like the explosion of a star, you would find nothing on your return”.

As for me, as I continue on this journey nestled in between the waters of the same deserts where The Alchemist is set, I’m quite grateful to have so much pure matter to return to :)

Kisses & Hugs,

M