OMG!!!! I CAN CALL HIM!!!!

Guess what I did today!! Finally. I FINALLY got ahold of Seth! I was able to call HIM!! I've not had any luck with this since he deployed. For almost 4 months, I have had to wait patiently for him to call me. Not so anymore! He bought me this one calling card when he was in Iraq because it was fairly cheap. I've used it since 2008, and it's worked perfectly. I've never had problems calling before, until this deployment. I looked online to find the country code and this and that and dialed everything and nothing ever worked. I tried a few different numbers, with and without 93 (which is the country code for Afghanistan) and it never ever connected. So I basically just gave up. I was looking on my Verizon phone bill yesterday and noticed that his phone number was listed differently. We were talking on gmail this morning and I told him I wanted to try it. I made sure his phone was right by him and on. I tried a few different numbers, like what was on my Verizon bill and then with and without the 93 and it didn't connect. Then he told me to try a number and my phone card said I had 73 minutes and sure enough, I got that international call weird ring tone. I got realllly excited and then he picked up!!!!! I was so excited! I said to him, "OMG IT WORKED!!!" my coworker in the next cube said, "what worked?" She didn't realize I was on the phone. We only talked for 5 minutes and I asked him if there are limits on when I should and shouldn't call, and how often I can call. He said I can call whenever. I think we'll still keep it to a minimum because it will still be pretty expensive to talk, but it's better than me just having to wait patiently for him to call! The number he gave me, I am postive that I tried it before, but I'm guessing he had his phone off at the time, so it didn't connect. That's what it'd do in Iraq, but I thought it just wasn't working. Now I know for sure it works, and I am soooo excited!!!! Even 5 minutes a day to hear his voice will be SOOOO much better than talking to him once or twice a week. The next 70% of this deployment is going to be much more enjoyable now!!!

Waiting and waiting....

It's approximately 11:53 AM right now and I should be getting my weekly call within 2 hours. I give myself until about 2 PM on Sundays to wait for his call and during that time, I limit my activities. I don't want to put myself in a position of no cell phone service and therefore miss his call. So I wait; sometimes I do a little work out, sometimes I do laundry, sometimes I clean, sometimes I shower (sometimes I don't), sometimes I go grocery shopping early in the morning when I know the probability of him calling is slim to none. However, the last few weeks, he has been calling a little closer to noon than 1:30, so I don't know what to expect today.

But this morning, I've been still catching up on her blog. I didn't let myself read it yesterday because I didn't want to be crying and show up to the BBQ having to explain my puffy eyes and red nose. They wouldn't understand anyways. So I just didn't read it. However, I did read one post last night before I went to bed, but then I caught up on the rest this morning. On Friday night, I left off prior to her March postings, because March was the month of the "accident," as she calls it. This morning I read her March and April postings though. I've been crying and I have a bright red nose and puffy eyes. Cool. I've stopped reading now though, because I know my love will be able to hear it in my voice that I've been crying, from even some 6,000 or 7,000 miles away and he'll ask me why I've been crying. (And when I try to lie and tell him I haven't been crying, he'll tell me to not lie to him and to just tell him why. Damn, he's good.) I don't want to explain it to him either, I don't think it's a good idea for me to talk about other fallen soldiers when he himself is deployed, and in an active war zone. So, the more time I have of getting back my normal, non-crying voice, the better it is for both of us.

The BBQ was fun last night. Of course, it would have been 23020839 times more fun if he were there with me, but I digress. Such is life, and we all make sacrifices. I made a raspberry pretzel jello-y salad, which is always a hit. I reversed the middle and top layer though, and I put the white layer on top, and then made it into a pretty flag pattern. I was so friggin' excited to show it off, but I didn't have the heart to cut into it myself. So I made someone else do it. It was just too pretty. Now, I know it doesn't have the 50 blueberry stars, and the 7 raspberry red stripes, but I was limited on space, so I had to work with what I could. Please don't find this offensive. We had a little bit of fire works, rode the quads, hung out, and then had a bonfire and made s'mores. My mom found some extra huge marshmallows, seriously like 3 times bigger than regular big marshmallows. I was playing "chubby bunnies" with my friend, and I was determined to fit 2 in my mouth. I had a hard enough time fitting one in my mouth, but I was determined. My mom was taking pictures of us playing "chubby bunnies" and she made the comment, something along the lines of, "no wonder he is marrying her! she can fit so much into her mouth!!!" Thanks, mom, for declaring that in front of like 8 people. It's not like I was deep throating them, I was just stuffing them into my cheeks. Funny thing is, though, when I was stuffing them in, I wanted to fit 2 in there to make him proud. haha I just wasn't going to share that with the whole group!

Here's my dessert!!! (I guess looking at this picture, I need to work on straightening my stripes. There's always next time....)


After our phone call, my only plans for the day involve going to the pool and working on my tan. It's supposed to be hella nice today and I'm excited to do nothing. Again, I really wish he were here to do nothing with me, but I shall digress. Again. I'm missing him extra lots right now.

Oh, and sorry for all the misspellings and incorrect grammar in my last post; as I said in it, I was in the back of my parents car on my cell phone and it was a bumpy road and my fingers were flying all over my tiny keyboard and well, I was mad.

12:21 and BAM GUESS WHO IS CALLING RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow, I'm good!!!! Talking to him now and my voice isn't cry-y!!!

Weird phone call

My soldier called me the other day. It wasn't our normal Sunday talking date, so it always makes me a little nervous when he calls during the week. He actually called twice and I answered the first time, but I couldn’t hear anything. I kept saying “hello? Are you there? I can’t hear you. Helllllo, SETHHHHHH?” And then I heard a male voice with a heavy middle eastern accent. I suddenly said in a very serious tone, “HELLO?” then whoever mumbled something else again, and then the line cut out. My stomach sank, my heart dropped…whatever that saying is. I said a quick little prayer to make sure everything was OK with Seth. The first thing that went through my head was that he’d been held hostage and they were using the phone to torment me. Not sure why they’d call me, but that’s the thought that went through my head. I don’t even know if they would use the soldier’s phone to call someone, but regardless, it was a horrible, horrible feeling.

This is the reason why he can’t tell me certain things over the phone: because it’s a bold reminder that he’s in Afghanistan and he has an Afghanistan cell phone and you never know if the line is being tapped. Anyways, he called me back, and after I said “hello?” twice, he said hey. He said he was in his tent, in his bed. I was thankful for that, and he just wanted to tell me hi. I think he was having one of those days where he just wanted to talk to me.