Dial “M” for Memoirs has moved

Hello all, Just wanted to let you all know that I am moving over to another blogging website. Just found one that is a little easier to use since I like the simple way of doing things, and also one that is a little easier to customize since I really don’t have the time to figure out wordpress. I do love wordpress, but my new blog home is:

http://marissa-jacob.blogspot.com/

Before he left :)

before Jake left for deployment we decided that we must put up our christmas tree. So the search began for an awesome tree. We headed over to home depot and found an awesome 7foot fraiser fir for only about $40! After tying it to the top of my car and carrying it up our stairs we finally got it into the tree stand! Since Jake did all of the hard work lugging the tree up the stairs I decorated it and made it look awesome! (of course when it came to the star Jake had to put that on…im way to short to do that!) But we took some great pictures and the animals have left the tree alone for three whole days now! YAY!

And bitter sweet pictures of us all the night before Jake left:

The first day gone

well, today was the day that Jake had to leave for training. He is getting ready for his next deployment over seas and the army is, of course, keeping him super busy with training! He isn’t allowed to come home while he is in training, I think they are trying to make it seem like part of their deployment so that the families and men can get used to being apart. He left at about 6am this morning and took the fully loaded car down to the base. Lela whined a little after he left but soon settled down and went back to sleep with me for awhile.

I am working twelve to nine this week so i slept in a little bit after Jake left and took lela out after I got ready. Well, I noticed she wasn’t feeling well but just thought it was from a bone she ate last night and didn’t think twice about leaving her in her crate all day. She isn’t used to staying in her crate all day so I knew she would be hyper when I got home, but instead she was sick and had made a gross mess all in her cage because she had such a bad stomach ache. Well, that wasn’t really what I wanted to come home to but I got it all cleaned up and gave her a bath . This kept me occupied til 11:00pm so the first night alone without Jake has really passed quickly.

I am now just hoping that Lela starts to feel better soon. She drank lots of water tonite and ate a little bit of rice and chicken broth as well as an immodium…lets hope that helps!

The end of a long friendship.

I will never forget the day that I walked into the Humane Society in Juneau Alaska. Mom had mentioned that we needed a smaller dog but once I saw the big brown eyes of an English lab looking at me I knew he was the dog for us. My dad and I went to pick him up a few days later and came home with a great companion named Bosch. He was three years old and eighty six pounds when we got him, the vet said his ideal weight should be 100 so we soon had him up to his big ol boy size! He was a handful from the day we brought him home. He refused to stay outside and would bark until we eventually broke down and let him inside to share his life with us. Bosch could do pretty much anything in his younger days, he would hike the trails around mendenhall glacier with us and go swimming at Auke Bay and other beaches in Juneau. The most exciting talent Bosch had was chasing away bears. Yes, he was a great bear dog. He would go crazy if he even smelled a bear outside and once he even chased one out of our back yard by charging it head on until it jumped into the woods! Gosh, we just had some fantastic times with this dog. Eventually it became time for us to move away from Alaska and Bosch went with us on a fourteen day road trip across America. He ran and swam in the Yukon territory, Alberta, and British Columbia. He got into a bed of cactus in Montana, and camped at Mount Rushmore. Finally, we ended up in North Carolina where he had many good times and even visited the beaches of the Outer Banks! Then, about two years ago a lump appeared on Bosch’s leg. The vet said it was cancer and could not be removed due to its placement. With a limited budget and a dog of 13, there was not much we could do other than give him a good home for the rest of his days.  The last year of his life me and my brother were not able to be home much other than the holidays, but we did both get to see him a month before he went. He had become so sad and could not run and do his old tricks anymore. (he used to be able to roll over, play dead, speak, shake, back up, leave it, stay, wait, and would “find mommy” or “find rissa, trav and daddy” if asked to) So When he went it was a very sad day, but after spending ten years with the best companion and travel buddy we all knew it was his time to go.  We will always remember the dog who knew everything you said to him, who could put a smile on your face no matter what, and who would always bark and be protective until the door was open and he could lick you do death. Bosch Marmaduke Clark, even though he hated pictures left us with a few to remember him by…So here they are; a little tribute to Bosch:

Transportation and other little things

It is no secret that life has been crazy lately, I just managed to go and get my name changed at social security yesterday. Then today Jake and I went at 8:00am to the DMV to get new licenses and finally to the title office to get our cars switched over…which took until 11:00 so I was really late for work today! But, luckily they were okay with me being late since I called in and I just skipped lunch to make up for one of the three hours I  missed. If you all didn’t know we have also had Jakes muffler replaced! YAY! We now have a quiet car to drive around Of course this is after two failed inspections and $300.00 spent, but now his car is in great shape. Other than this the month has been pretty good. I got to celebrate my parent’s birthdays with them at our Clark family reunion and I also got to see my older brother and his new place! Jake and I wanted to get more connected in our community and Church before he leaves Dec. 1st, but we haven’t exactly succeeded in all of those areas. We have been able to find a great dog park for lela and I am making friends with all the great people at work, but Church has seemed really hard lately. It is always so obvious that when God pours blessings on your life that staying in church and worshiping him is made more difficult by temptations. Jake and I found a great church in the area to go to but it seems like I am always either working nights or weekends…in fact I looked at my schedule and realized that when I work 12-9 or 10-7 we have to miss small group and when I work my two weekends then I have to miss church….that means Jake and I have to miss one or the other every week! It has really become frustrating what the schedule at work can do, then when you do have time left to go to small group or church you are just worn down enough or have so many chores piled up that it is so much easier not to even go! ARGH. Guess thats just how temptation goes, satan really knows how to pull the strings and how to distract us from the important things in life.

The Question is: Why did you vote?

Yesterday our nation experienced a major change in the history of our nation. As a country we elected Obama to be our first black president. Yes, this is a milestone for America, but as I read the numerous articles online I have come to the conclusion that his election might have had more to do with race and gender than we, as the American public, are admitting. I can not even begin to count how many articles were praising the turnout of so many minorities for this years election. The NAACP (in their efforts to provide reverse descrimination) even argued for extended hours at the polls in low income neighborhoods where (they claim) african americans would be more likely to vote later in the evening. Even though Obama never once mentioned race during his campaign it has become painfully obvious that the American public looks at the superficial qualities of candidates such as race, gender, and age when they are making their choice for president. While we are all guilty of making assumptions about people based on their gender or race we should put these aside when we step up to make our choice on voting day. If Obama had been an older white woman with the same ideas and policies would we have seen such an overwhelming win last night? Would the American people clamor for a “sally jones” instead of a barack obama? I think not. Now, this is not a one sided argument of course. You must also look at the republican candidates. Had McCain been a black man and used the word change in every other sentence instead of discussing his real agenda then he might have won last night (….of course he would have needed to be about twenty years younger and have a male vice president). But my point is made, McCain is old, white, balding and had a vice president who was female with a large family….not exactly the American dream anymore.  And so it appears America has entered the new low of not voting because of what we believe in, but voting because we like or dislike a candidates age, race, or gender. If this continues we, as a nation, have a very sad and bleak future.

the married life of mr. and mrs. smith

ah yes, the married life. Sounds like something a veteran would say, not someone who has only been married a few weeks. However, things have gone so well since the wedding we feel like we can enjoy ourselves and breathe a sigh of relief after we made it through the crazy months that led up to our wedding. The apartment is officially packed with all of our things and we have even tackled our first home improvement project. Well, we will call it a home improvement project but im not really sure it turned out to be such an improvement. While we did our best to hang “floating” shelves on our dining room wall we really ended up drilling one inch holes into our crummy dry-wall. Our apartment complex decided to use the cheapest, thinnest dry wall they could find thus leaving any potential shelf hangers in the lurch. So our first attempt was to use dry wall hooks that drill into the wall and are supposed to make the shelf more secure…wrong. the hooks ended up leaving giant holes in the wall and the screws fell out of them. So we went to option two which was to go to lowes and buy the longest screws we could find so that we could hang these shelves. It worked! However, the large “floating” shelves are no longer floating because we had to add decorative brackets to them so they would not fall down. Oh well..at least we tried!  

So, despite our little shelf mishap we are doing very well. The apartment is starting to look very cute and we have little things sitting around for halloween like candle holders, pumpkins and some flashing orange lights in the sun room. lela is also doing well even though she broke two of her little front teeth off by chewing on her kennel. We never noticed that she chewed the metal crate until i opened the door a few weeks ago and realized it had rust spots on it. Then we noticed that she had a gap in her cute doggie smile and sure enough those two teeth are broken off down to the gums. She has had no problems eating and doesn’t even seem to notice that her teeth are broken so we are holding off on taking her to the vet until we notice something bad. But we did go buy doggie tooth paste so we can now brush her teeth and keep them healthy. We have also come to realize that we cannot place lela in her crate any more. We just decided that it was too much for her so we have started leaving her out when we go places. She has done well so far and only gets into the garbage if we leave it out where she can reach it so there might be a chance she won’t ever have to go into her crate unless guests come over or the maintence guy has to come over.

and that covers all the news from the home front

The time draws near

Thats right! wedding day is now only 19days away! All of the plans have been set and everything is coming together. We have been blessed to have so many people help us with our wedding and we cannot wait for the day to arrive! In the mean time however, our lives are staying insanely busy. We still have to finish our programs, tie pew bows, and get in touch with the mysterious hair dresser…..ahh yes…let me tell you about the hair place. They are not open sunday, monday, wednesday, or saturday afternoon and they close in the early evening. For a bride who usually works all day it makes it very hard to ever get in touch with them!  I am beginning to think that wedding day might be the first time that I ever see them to get my hair done! EEEEEEEKKK.  Oh well, a wedding wouldn’t be a wedding without some excitement thrown in somewhere! The good news is that the cake is taken care of! I met with the cake company and it was the best cake I have ever tasted! The outside is going to be buttercream the color of my bridesmaid dresses with silver fondant ribbon running around each layer. It is going to be round with three layers, one of marble, one of vanilla, and one of chocolate. I am really hoping it turns out to be beautiful and not a periwinkle color.  On the honeymoon side, we have all of our plans made and laid out for Florida! I am looking foward to getting away and spending time with just Jake! Life has been hectic lately with two pets, and finding a little stray kitten at the apartment. The little kitten we found is about 8 weeks old and is a little handfull! She has so much energy is is insane. she will hopefully be going home with a coworker to see if she will fit in with her cat, I hope it works out well since my last resort is to take her to the shelter. Well, work is slow but I had better go anyway. Hopefully the next blog will be full of pictures from the wedding!

okay so a month or so tends to go by in a flash!

yes, it has been FOREVER since I took the time to sit down and blog a little. We all know what crazy days one runs into working a rotational schedule! My days working a rotating schedule will hopefully come to an end one day soon, I love the people at work but the schedule and actual work of answering phones all day is really starting to bother me. I don’t want to give up before six months is up though, so I am determined to stay at least that long. I figure it will look really good on my resume if I stay for awhile, but an 8-5 job sounds better and better every day! Jake and I have decided to go to Orlando on our honeymoon, and the cool surprise is my cousin will be at Disney while we are in town so we get to have a fun dinner together with her husband one night! I found out this exciting news while at my second bridal shower today. I have to say that it was SUCH a blessing to see family members that I have not seen in years. I forgot how much fun it is to hang out and just be family, even when the two people who first brought the family together are passed away that is simply a stronger reason to pull together and be family! Plus, I got to see two of my bridesmaids so that made things even better! Poor Lela was stuck in the house all day though, I felt so bad about leaving her in her crate for so long but boarding her for one day did not really seem like an option since money is tight right now. Wouldn’t you know it that when money is tight the blue bomb decides to break down! Well, it didn’t really break down, just all of my antifreeze leaked out because the AC was putting too much pressure against a hose! Dad thinks it might be my compressor because it doesn’t leak when the AC is off, just when you turn it on…SO I am driving back and forth to work in a car with no AC and it is August!! AHH! But God does provide because the same week the blue bomb broke, Jake got a job! With a problem a blessing usually seems to be close behind! ohhhh. I got my veil today as well and it looks great!

Everything else is coming together pretty well for the wedding, just a few appointments with cake, hair, and kelly and everything will be in order! Super super excited to see everyone on the big day! Yippee!

ohhh…and the big brother Travis is going to be a police officer because he got his job! YAY! Go TRAV!

here are some pics of the new puppy lela!

a long weekend

yes, It is true! I have the 4th off! horray!

I will get to spend time with the new puppy leela! She is a cutie

she is a five month old black lab…but i think she might have something else mixed in somewhere…but 98% black lab.

other things are going well too, I am finally getting the apartment decorated like I want it and leela is learning to stay in her crate during the day. I am going to have my first bridal shower in a few weeks and I am SOOOOO excited!

I will leave you all with a picture of leela!