Good Old Fashioned Catholic Guilt

Growing up I was "that girl". I was shy. I was quiet. I was reserved. I wanted to be outspoken and crazy but it never seemed to fit quite right, so instead I was the "goody two shoes". I never really had a problem with it. I loved church. I loved God. I loved religion. I loved mass. I loved Catholicism. I loved singing. I loved me.


Being naïve was always a little bit annoying. I rarely had any idea what was going on after everyone hit puberty. Although I mastered he convincing laugh to inappropriate jokes, I didn't start getting them until I was about 19 and, well, lets be honest, I still don't know what people are talking about half the time. My "x-rated" knowledge seems to be a lot of peoples "PG-13 rated" knowledge. Just the other day some folks were talking and I asked a friend what something meant and she just laughed and said "Oh lauren." Most people seem to want to keep me as naïve as possible. There is the occasional person who resembles my high school ex-boyfriend's brother that wants to tell me every inappropriate thing in the universe, but those people seem to be dwindeling as we get older.


I didn't swear until I was in college, and even know, I say it out of habit, but I still feel guilty.


Many days I miss the girl I used to be. The thing is, I kind of like the girl I am now. I like being able to speak my mind a little more and not always blend into the wall. However, I can tell the self-conscious, naïve person is still with me.


Nearly everyday the thought crosses my mind "how do I get back to her?" How does sinner mesh with the do-gooder. Growing up I rarely sinned, in fact, I can't think of a time when I did anything more than lie to my mom about cleaning my room. I was so terrified of upsetting God and disappointing myself. My senior year of high school my life changed, everything changed. As much as I still loved the Lord, I lost faith in my church. I'm not sure I've ever written or said that out loud before, but I lost faith in my church. Instead of choir being led by a volunteer from the congregation they hired someone who wasn't even Catholic. my ex-boyfriend still participated in the band even though he no longer believed in the religion. People started wearing sweats to church instead of dresses or nice dress suits. Among these were a plethora of other changes and I started to realize the old fashioned Roman Catholic Church I grew up in, the one I knew and loved, the one that defined me, was gone.


I tried to hang in, but I was so strict and felt like everything was wrong. I sang in the choir an participated as an alter sever until I started at the university. I began attending church less and less. At school I was introduced to alcohol, I had more people willing to explain those things to me that turned my cheeks red, curse words were more popular than in grade school and I began to sin. I felt guilty about it at first, terribly, terribly guilty. After a while some things became habit. A night out with the girls with alcohol, a minor curse word here and there; I could feel myself turning, but every step of the way the quit, naïve, church mouse from my past was echoing through my mind.


I want to go back to church. I want to sing again. I want to feel care free and good again. When I go to a church I feel out of place, nothing seems quite right and I feel like a heathen. I know deep down in my heart that the two sides of myself could potential merge into one unified being and I could stop feeling so guilty, and start being more ... "me", but I often wonder "Have I strayed to far?"

Real estate

For the past couple months I've been working on getting my real estate license. For the first time in my life I have actually failed something. Part of me thinks it may be due to Steven's training schedule, my mom visiting, my trip home and being sick for three weeks, but the other part of me just feels like a failure.

I have been taking tests and going to classes for as long as I can remember and never have I actually failed something. It may be due to having to pay for the test also. I want to start and there's this huge road block in my way... the stupid test. I knew it cost a bit to start real estate, I mean to start any career it costs a lot of money because of all the school, the problem with real estate is it's all at one time. I seem to be doing better and there aren't anymore big plans for a while so I think i'm going to trade in my study guide for the text book and start from square one.. there's got to be a way to pass this test and I want to find it.

Lazy Day

Today has been a day of naps, cell phone video games and a burn notice marathon. I am not proud to say I only got out of my pajamas to go with my husband to get a new battery for his key. On Sunday I fell ... in my living room ... twice, not once, but twice. I'm not even sure how but I can sure say it hurts like crazy. Apparently my feet and hardwood floors do not get along well.

Last night was pretty rough because I found out my 11-month old German Shepard is afraid of thunder... yay! Thankfully, my hubby had the day off an slept through everything last night so I was able to nap and relax today :) I love him. lol :) I even overlooked his ulterior motive ... video games and top gear, two of my least favorite things haha. We are now getting ready for bed and watching episode 7 of Burn Notice Season 6 which apparently made it's debut on Netflix and is one of the hubby's favorite shows. Unfortunately it's better than I thought it would be and my concentration is not what it should be, so I think I'll pick up my blog tomorrow morning :)

Turning Over A New Leaf

Tonight at dinner my husband asked me why I stopped blogging and I realized it was mostly because for a really long time I felt I had nothing important to say. I realized today, however, that everything is important to me, to him, to someone and perhaps I may not be the only one feeling at that specific time. Regardless if 1 person or 1 million people read my blog I'm sure at some point there is someone who is feeling happy, loved, blessed, depressed, alone, defeated, sick, optimistic, rejuvenated, or so many other things. Therefore, I've decided to try and blog everyday.

I am currently a stay at home army wife, in search of a career. Since I moved to North Carolina I've had a terrible time finding jobs with a career path. I don't necessarily have to work but I want to. I need something that is my own and I need something to do. Being in the town we're in there's not much place for advertising. Most things are chains or mom n pop shops without advertising funds. Over the past couple months I've been working on getting my real estate license, however, I've also been very sick and haven't been able to study as I should. I took my second x-ray today and hope to figure out what is wrong with me so I can put 100% of me into this new career path thing.

Unfortunately, I started this blog later in the night than I'd planned and I'm going to sign off to watch Kung Fu Panda on tv with my hubby until The Glades come on :). I absolutely LOVE The Glades! If anyone hasn't watched it and loves crime shoes with a bit of drama, sarcasm and attitude, it may be the show for you!

Rainy Days

So the hubby left this morning for another field exercise, I am so happy I have to guard puppies and an alarm system. At first I was really disappointing we were going to be spending our first (out of 6) Valentine's in the same zip code apart AGAIN, but no i'm over it. Mandi, Willow and I are going to go to New Bern, home of lots of exploring, Nicholas Sparks, and a fish market and I'm pretty excited about it.

We are definitely settling in to our life a little more. Zeus is getting better with everyone and Baxter is only a spoiled brat, stealing toys 3/4 of the time instead of all of the time. We've gotten our house unpacked, had a Superbowl party and had Mandi and Willow over for dinner so it almost feels like a real home, we are almost there. All we need now is grass and our dog run! I can't wait for our dog run. We got it in the mail last week, however, the box was all torn up and one of the pieces was bent. After a long talk on the phone, and a complaining UPS driver we got the first one "exchanged" and have a new one on the way. I wanted to have one up before the trip Thursday, but i'm not sure if i want to do it by myself lol, that is if it even gets here before then.

Websites and Recipes

Life since the big move has been going surprisingly better than I imagined. I've made a friend joined a few groups comprised of other army wives. I'm not sure how many lifelong friends I will make, but how can you ever know in a quick meeting. I have met a lot of great people and I can't wait to get to know them better.

In the meantime I am learning how to be a housewife and a puppy parent. Being a house wife is stressful but fun. Having my minor OCD is nice because my husband and two puppies destroy the house nearly every day so I ALWAYS have stuff to do. The frustrating part is the husband part. I really hope he'll get better with time but right now he is such a man, for example, while I was unpacking there was a stack of paperwork in the living room and I asked him to move it. The next day I found it in the kitchen and I asked him to put it away. The next day i found it on a box in our office and finally had to say I'm not asking you to move it around the house I am asking you for a place to put it away. Like many men, his idea of cleaning is putting everything in piles and, well my clean is way different. I am learning that if I want the house my kind of clean i'm going to have to do it, however, I hope he helps a little and learns that everything has a place, such as putting the mail in the mail slot and not on the kitchen counter lol.

Being a puppy parent has it's ups and downs as well. I love them more than anything and I love how excited they are to see me when i leave and how no matter where i am they are right next to me, however, they stress me out haha. Steven surprised me with Baxter when we got to NC. When we picked Baxter up at the Animal Hospital he was boarding with they told us they had a puppy named Zeus, also a German Shepard, who had been abandoned by his owner. The poor puppy had had his ear nearly bitten off by a big dog with his previous owner and had stitches. The woman at the animal hospital suggested we adopt him. His legal abandon date had not yet come so they told us they'd call on the day to see how we felt about it. After an extremely short discussion we agreed to adopt him and it has been an adventure ever since. Poor guy is so accident prone and always getting hurt, I feel so bad for him because he's traumatized and every time he starts to get comfortable he gets hurt and no he will barely leave my side. In all reality he's only been with us since January 11th so my hope is that over the next few weeks/months he'll feel more comfortable. Our biggest obstacle is our other little teenager who is having major sharing problems which includes branches, toys, parents, petting by anyone, etc. All I can do at this time is hope everything works out for the best.

I am not having much luck finding a job that I like and since I don't technically need to work I am going to try and start a small website design company. Today I am working on my site and my father's since he is paying me to build him a site.

Wish me luck!

Puppy Duty

o my! What a year this has been already! Steven and I arrived in North Carolina December 30, 2012 and on December 31st, he surprised me by taking me to the animal hospital to pick up our little puppy! While getting Baxter's shots a few of the receptionists told us about Zeus. Zeus is an adorable, pain-in-the-butt puppy about the same age as Baxter. After having his ear almost completely bitten off his previous owner had dropped him at the office and abandoned him. The receptionists asked us to consider adopting Zeus and on January 11. These two have been driving us absolutely crazy lol. They seem just like little kids "you want to rest? I think no!" 

Right now is heaven! I wanted to rake the backyard so we can have lawn in the summer I had the puppies outside with me and they were running and jumping, chasing bugs, eating sticks, and for the first time ever they both sat at the door to the house and stared at me. I opened the door and they ran to their respective places on the floor next to the couch and passed out! haha I think I have just found my solution to hyper puppies! 

In other news. Out of 79 boxes I'm down to about 12. 2 are Christmas stuff, a few are clothes and some are "random boxes of crap" as I labeled them, which i now have to go through since I was a hoarder when packing lol. They house was looking a lot better but something was just off and we couldn't really figure it out; there was just something that didn't feel like home. Well, yesterday Steven we bought a Hoover Pet Vacuum and curtains, took down the blinds the puppies ate and vacuumed up all of the pine needles and an ddirt dragged in by the moving company and puppies and it feels so much more homely! It's amazing what a clean home can do! We figured out the alarm system and have gotten both puppies potty trained and the beds and new tv set up. All we need now is to get them to sleep through the whole night and we'll be golden! 

Hope the rest of the day goes well!