The Color of Heather

Sorry for not posting sooner, life’s been a mess but here’s a quick update.

We are moving to Kings Bay, GA THIS WEEK. As in yes, we are packing right now and moving out by the third!

I have already transferred to the Jacksonville, FL Best Buy (no, there is no BBY in Kings Bay), and I start on Dec 6.

It’s only a three-four hour drive so it wont be hard to move the pets (the two cats, the dog and now the snake).

I have lunch tomorrow with our good friends Jacque and Mark then speed packing as fast as we can.

TIME FOR BED! It’s 6 am, and we’ve been trying to get stuff done, so hopfully we don’t over sleep! GOod night.

Friday the 13th of November, 2015 my husband, Petty Officer Third Class (ET3) Drew Siemer, graduated from one of the most academically grueling programs the US Military has to offer and is now a certified nuclear operator! The graduation occurred on an old WWII Aircraft Carrier, the USS Yorktown. We didn’t get to stay for a tour, since I was feeling really unwell due to motion sickness (emergency sewing a patch onto dress blues while in a car does that apparently), and so we went home and ate lunch instead.

{{pics to come}}

For those of you who do not know, my husband is a Nuclear Electronics Technician in the US Navy, known as “Nukes”.

After living on my own (with my husband) I have learned one very, VERY important lesson that I suggest every child should know.

I appreciate my mother 1000x more than I ever gave her credit for. The little things you take for granted, that you just assume there’s a setting or just happens magically YOUR MOTHER DOES IT. Obvious examples; cleaning the dishwasher (it does NOT clean itself), cleaning the oven (no, you can NOT just burn that off), replacing filters, getting the grossness out of the coffee maker that one does not think of naturally, unclogging drains (this might just be a daddy thing though). All those little things you mentally think your mom is crazy for bitching about? Yeah, she has perfectly good reason!

I like to say “I have not inherited my mother’s culinary deficiencies” (something she quotes me on), but I would like to publicly announce this is a misdirection. It is true, I did not inherit my mother’s cooking skills [Proof] but I am proud to say she did teach me a few things about being efficient in the kitchen, the may not revolve around, you know… edibles (or in her case; inedibles). So, thank you Mom, for a lot of things I thought you were just going nuts over. I never appreciated it, and took a lot of it for granted. So in addition I apologize for all those times I ignored you cause I thought you were off your rocker (even before you actually were, you know… off your rocker).

And to every child, every teenager, every husband who doesn’t do this stuff normally… give your mother/wife a hug. Cause this is actually a giant pain in the neck! Seriously… I just hit my head on the dishwasher trying to clean it.

Mom, I love you, I miss you, and I never actually gave you the appreciation I should have. But I promise this; I do now!
~HSiemer

If you follow my mother’s blog, you know of Nightwing the cat [Relevant Nightwing Post], and you know that my cat thinks he’s a puppy.

Now since owning a cat AND a dog, I can tell you… Nightwing thinks he is a cat… until he plays… then he’s a puppy… WITH LITTLE DOG SYNDROME!

I do, however have evidence of Nightwing FETCHING a Frisbee; [Frisbee]

However, I have yet to catch him in the act of chasing Delphi’s tail, or leash… or plain out wrestling with her, and winning!

Delphi however, occasionally gets jealous of Nightwing and tries to be a cat. She will sit on the back of the couch next to him, or try to climb on our laps like him. Or want to be picked up.

First off, thank you for reading!

Second off, if you were one of the fantastic people who sent us a wedding gift, I will be sending out thank you’s soon. And by soon I mean as soon as I can find someone to take a good picture of my family; which includes two four legged kids.

Thanks to y’all our bed is made, we have dishes to eat off of, and silverware to eat with… a wonderful knife block and serving utensils to cook with and that doesn’t include the cooking ware galore that I use every day since I absolutely love to cook or the coffee maker that keeps Drew functional (thanks mom and dad 😉 ). And last but not least, the second microwave (well first, but our apartment evidently has one already) that we were able to credit towards a tv… Translation: THANK YOU FOR NETFLIX!!!! 😉

With the money we didn’t have to spend, I was able to get Drew a PlayStation 4 for his (early) birthday. (Which was on April, 26… happy late bday) And with all the stress and frustration of working nights, and the fact that he’s classing up for prototype in two weeks (and if you know anything about the Navy Nuclear Program… you know that this final leg of his training is rotating 12 hour shifts of hell) I am glad he’s venting out by virtually shooting things in the head instead of being in a grumpy mood.

For those of you going; “he should study, not play videogames” you can’t begin to fathom his job. Not only is his job classified (I don’t know everything he does… which I haven’t decided if I care enough to hate yet) but his study material is the same. When he has to study they MAKE him study (10-2’s… ten hours a week, at least 2 hours a night… etc.) and he CAN’T study off base. He has to do it there. At least, that was how the previous two schoolings worked. So working 12 hours a day between 5-7 days a week… I think he’s earned his PlayStation.

As for me, I am once again working a minimal wage job as a cashier until I start going to school again. The plan is to do a few online courses (at least) while Drew is deployed. The reason why that is the plan, is because while he’s here, we want to get things done and spend as much time together. While he’s gone I’m going to need daily distractions to keep me going. Therefore; school. At least that’s better than babies (and for those curious; NO. No plans for kids… for a while… I’ll get on my child podium some other time).

I was sitting here on my husband’s computer (weird huh? that 9 year old you knew over a decade ago is married?!) since, you know, my computer decided to randomly not load my OS for an hour (but for some reason I can use the task manager to launch programs?). Anyway, I’m sitting here 1707miles from my family reading my mothers blog (if you’re not familiar about it, shame on you [Moms blog]) laughing about my little brother growing apparently the size of a small whale, while also laughing at how my own pup, Delphi, sits like a human. In which case I promptly decided “Hey! I’m going to start blogging again.” WHICH, evidently I said out loud prompting a weird look and scoff from my husband, since he knows all about the tomfoolery that my mother blogs about.

Therefore, first new post: Hello from North Charleston, SC. My name is Heather Siemer, I am a Navy Wife. I have two four-legged children. Nightwing [More about Nightwing] the cat, and Delphine “Delphi” our two year old, 40lbs beagle/blue tick hound… who like’s to sit like a human 😉

For those of you who have been following my life, I am now married to Petty Officer ET3 Drew C. Siemer. Which in turn means I am Mrs. Heather Leigh Siemer (I’m still in the process of changing my name; no easy task). We just moved into a 780ish sq ft apartment in North Charleston. And let me just say, I love it!

I will post pictures of the apartment when it’s a little more cleaned up. Since we just moved in we have a very unattractive pile of trash and some things that do not have a place yet.

A LOT of people have been Emailing and IMing me asking a bunch of questions about what’s going on with my wedding plans. At one point we had decided to go to Las Vegas in December, and another point maybe just something private at his moms house…

Let me clarify something: There are no longer any immediate plans. YES, we are still getting married. Just follow me for a second.

About a month ago, Drew found out that if he was to take holiday stand down (basically christmas/new year’s vacation or hanukkah if that is what you prefer) he would get back to base and the NEXT DAY he would have to take a comprehensive final that dictates whether or not he graduates from this phase of his naval schooling. YIKES!

Normally people would go “Well, study while you’re on vacation!” which is something I would both do and say… HOWEVER, due to the classification of said study material (correct; I don’t even know exactly what he’s learning. Stuff about nuclear reactors and circuitry last I checked) he can not bring this material outside of the classroom building. Therefore, for the holidays in order to study for this final, he wants to stay near base.

Therefore: In December I will be flown out to South Carolina to see him.

Now, whether or not we use this time to sign in legal documents for marriage in order to apply for military housing allowance, military health insurance, etc. is honestly up in the air. A marriage ceremony (if we have one) wont be until next year, when we can save for it, plan correctly and he is not swamped in school work that could honestly dictate our future.

On this point; He graduates in January. Fun note though–we STILL do not know where he’s going to end up after this phase of school (ATM the  possibilities are upstate New York and where he is now, South Carolina). This means we will not be making any final decisions on when and where I move out to until we know for sure we’ll be there long enough to find an apartment to rent.

Now you know as much as we do. That’s the crappy thing about being a military spouse; everything is just kinda last minute and thrust on to you. As soon as we have more information about actual ceremony dates (IF we have one), I will post again. Until then, it’s pretty much play by ear.

If anyone has any advice with being a military wife (or a wife in general) that would be fantastic…