Good Stuff

Well, I think I've neglected my blog long enough. Things have been very busy ... I was on leave for a few weeks, and my parents came to visit over Christmas. It was "go, go, go!" every day for a week -- very fun but it's nice to be back to normal in a way! One nice thing about having guests is that I usually see things on the island I haven't seen yet, like the Pearl Harbor memorials (this photo is of the flag flying over the USS Arizona Memorial). I'm back at work now for the next few days, and next week I start six beautiful weeks of training, meaning I don't have to get up at 2 am for a while! As far as other good news goes, I recently found out that I made first increment on the advancement cycle ... this means I start getting paid for E-6 next month for instead of waiting until June :) So, lots of good things going on right now ... life's pretty good!

Good Day

Today has been a great day. Ace is home (he got back on Monday), we had a good night last night (we saw the new Narnia movie and had some excellent Indian cuisine afterwards with some friends), and today has been a great no-work be-lazy-around-the-house kinda day. We got up real early, Ace cooked a wonderful breakfast, and then sat on the back porch for awhile. After much sitting around and doing nothing, we made a delicious lunch (pan-seared rosemary-garlic lamb chops with garlic-herb fried potatoes and a side salad, and of course a glass of chardonnay), and then sat outside on the porch again. That's when I captured this photo of one of the many lizards that like to call our backyard its home. Ah, what a day. Christmas is just around the corner, my parents will be here soon to celebrate, and I only have three more days of work before I officially go on leave :) I can't wait!

Famous

That's right! Kashi, my amazing acrobatic cat, is going to have his first TV appearance this Sunday, December 4th. A few months back, I submitted a video of him to America's Funniest Home Videos (yes, it's still on the air!), and yesterday I heard the final word that my video is going to be aired this weekend! So, here's the info:

Sunday, December 4th
America's Funniest Home Videos on ABC
(Check your local listings for the time and channel ... it's different depending on where you live)

The video is of my cat (above) chasing after a laser pointer, and then jumping up the wall and falling behind a chair.

I hope all of you get the chance to see my kitty cat star!

Boogy

This is for you, Currt-dawg :) ...

"I said a hip, a hop, a hip, a hippy to the hip hip hoppin' you don't stop the rockin' to the bang, bang, boogy said up jump the boogy to the rhythm of the boogy the beat."

Ah, the memories.

Misery

Sometimes things just don't go well. I am having one of those moments, a moment I hope will only last a month. I thought about it, cried, and had a wide mix of emotions ... sad, disappointed, frustrated, ashamed, humilitated, embarrased. I know I am being quite vague, and I don't really want to get into details, but I think that everyone has felt this way at some point, regardless of the situation. But as I was in the middle of these feelings I thought about the good points of my life; things could be worse. I have a wonderful husband (deployed, but still mine), a family back home whom I love to death, all of my limbs are still attached ... yes, things could definitely be much worse. But pain is in the gut of the beholder. Little kids cry when they accidentally let go of their balloon and it sails into the sky ... that balloon was everything to that little kid. They haven't graduated to the stressors that we pride ourselves in as we reach adulthood. I wish I didn't care about my problem. I wish it would just go away. But the reality is that it has to run its course ... a painful waiting game that I don't have much patience for. Also, sitting at home all alone, I felt like I was rotting away in my misery. I had to get out ... and so I did, with the company of a good friend over a bite to eat. I bitched, he listened. And I feel a lot better. I won't cry myself to sleep tonight ... I don't feel so alone anymore. Thank you :)

Photo taken in Paris, France and is Copyright Nicole Young, 1998.

Holiday

I'm slowly learning what it is I like about the holidays. I've always loved everything about them ... seeing family, all the lights and decoration, and all the yummy food. But, I guess in trying to re-create what it is I feel Christmas should feel like at home, I am noticing all the little things that I wish it could be. I've got the Christmas tree up already (I couldn't wait ... ), some decorations, and a few presents already under the tree. I still need the smell of apples and cinnamon ... I have some potpourri for that but I think it's lacking in aromatic strength. I don't have nearly as many decorations and knick-knacks around the house as I'm used to, but I have lots of lights, so I think that makes up for it (notice the tree lights above ... I think that's what they look like to someone after too much egg nog). But the one thing that I can't even come close to re-creating, aside from having my entire family over, is my favorite of all ... cold weather and snow. I've decided that on Christmas Eve I'm going to shut all the blinds, make sure that the a/c is down to (at most) 60 degrees, and then I'm not going to go outside all day on Christmas so maybe I'll forget I'm in Hawaii. This place wouldn't be so bad if it would only snow every once in a while ;)

Selected!

Well, it's official, both Ace and I are going to be advanced to E-6! I just found out yesterday, and poor Ace probably won't find out until he gets home :( A lot of people made it this cycle ... congrats to everyone! We'll probably get frocked sometimes next week, and I'm crossing my fingers for 1st increment for both of us! It was definitely good news for me yesterday, since I woke up with a touch of food poisoning ... at least, that's all I could figure it could have been. I'm still in recovery today from it, and lucky for me, I had today and yesterday off from work. Go figure.

( I just got a few more negatives put onto a CD, and this photo is one I took back in '98 when I was in France.)

Photo taken in Paris, France and is Copyright Nicole Young, 1998.

Anticipation

So I got a phone call from my chief today, and he had the statistics for this promotion cycle. The actual results haven't been released yet, but probably will be in a few days, so I am HIGHLY anticipating the actual results, but so far I think they look good. 81% of the people who tested for E-6 made it this cycle, so I have a pretty good shot. Actually, I have an outstanding shot. Let's just hope I'm not one of the 19% who didn't ...

I was on my front porch, taking some fun photos, and I thought these two looked the coolest. The first one is neat beacuse it looks 3-D, and the second one kind of looks like a robot-dog to me. What do you think?

Photo taken in Oahu, Hawaii and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Hunters?

So, I was putting my laundry in the dryer, and all of a sudden I hear the doorbell -- maybe. The washer/dryer is in the downstairs half bathroom, which is immediately to your left when you walk in our door, so it's possible I was just hearing things ... ironically it's harder to hear the doorbell from that room and it's right next to the door. So, anyways, I look in the peephole ... no one there. So I open the door just to be sure it wasn't a neighbor kid (they are constantly throwing balls and other odd objects in our backyard ... we're fenced-in so no one can access it but us) and all of a sudden someting jumps on my hand! I thought it was a gecko ... no big deal, see them all the time. So my cats start chasing around whatever it was, and it happened to be a huge cockroach! Yuck! I turn into girly-girl when I see huge gross bugs and usually I'm throwing out little girl screams while I'm trying to chase/kill/run away from the thing. So I was kind of relying on my cats to "clean up" the mess ... they wouldn't stop playing with the darn thing! I finally had to beat it down with a stick and get it into a cup to throw it outside. Those cats will eat a gecko faster than they will kill a bug ... they don't get outside much. At least it wasn't a giant centipede ... one time seeing one of those things in my house was enough to scare the poop out of me for a lifetime!

Kitties

Kashi and Fuji came home today from the vet. They seem like they're doing just fine ... poor Kashi has to wear this lovely contraption to keep from licking his stitches, but, other than that little annoyance, they don't seem to be in any pain :) It is kinda funny watching Kashi try and walk around with this thing on! He keeps bumping it into things and tried to push himself into the kennel at one point, even though the guard wouldn't let him fit in it! I'll have to keep them locked up most of the time to keep them from jumping around and possibly opening the stiches. The poor little guys!

Hike

Yesterday I went on a hike with some of the people I work with. We hiked three to four miles, and saw some beautiful scenes! Since it was my first hike on Oahu, it was an eye-opener to see all the nature that this island still has. Most of what I see are roads, buildings, and pineapple fields, so it was good to see the more beautiful aspect of this island. Today I take my kitties to the vet for their check-up before they get neutered tomorrow. I feel so bad for the poor guys! I'm having them declawed as well, which I feel even worse for doing, yet I feel it is a necessary evil that must be done. They don't wreak too much havoc on the furniture yet (though the furniture we have isn't exactly nice), but I'm mostly concerned with the cats playing with and potentially scratching our future kids. I love my kitties so much (laugh all you want ... if you don't love animals you'll never understand!) and I'd hate to have to get rid of them after we have kids. But I feel so bad for them that they have to go through all the ickiness of the surgeries.

Photo taken in Oahu, Hawaii and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Away

My computer is finally back up-and-running again. I re-formatted the entire thing, just to be sure to wipe away all of the nastiness. I didn't lose anything important ... and by important I mean all of the photos I have on my hard-drive that I haven't burned to a CD yet (which I am definitely going to do very soon...).

Halloween is just around the corner, and I don't have anything planned, aside from staying home and handing out candy to the neighbor kids - I still have a pumpkin sitting on my table that needs carving, too. Last year, when we were in Misawa, we forgot it was Halloween and didn't have any candy for the kids. Those poor children ... the looks on their faces when we had to turn them away! We finally just had to put a sign on our door :( This year, I'm hooking them up. Oh yes, I remember being a kid and going through the candy bag, separating out the "good" candy from the "bad". I think our parents actually did that for themselves, though, when they "checked" it for tampered candy. ;) This photo is another one from our vacation. We went to the Maui Ocean Center, and the lady was feeding the fish and the stingrays. There was even a tiger shark floating around ... it pretty much ignored all the action, though.

Photo taken in Maui, Hawaii and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Vacation!

Andrew and I got home just a few days ago from our 11-day cruise of the Hawaiian Islands. It was so relaxing! This photo was taken at an island called Fanning Island ... the MOST beautiful of all the islands we saw while we were on our cruise, in my opinion. All of the islands have their own unique beauty ... Fanning Island was more like the type of place I tend to think of when going to a tropical paradise in the middle of nowhere :) We went hiking past waterfalls on Kaua'i, drove along the coast in Maui, and visited a coffee plantation in Kona. It was so much fun! Cruising is definitely the way to have a nice, relaxing vacation (especially if you like to eat!). I am kinda sick of old people, though. There is hardly anyone my or Ace's age on those boats ... sometimes it feels like you're aboard a floating retirement community! Of course, that also has to do with the cruise line we sailed with.

Life after vacation is going quite alright, unless you count all the computer problems we've been having. Our desktop has some weird virus or something that's not letting it work right, my laptop won't let me load a new version of Windows in it to clear the HD, and I'm typing on Ace's new laptop, since he had to get another one because his other laptop is fried. I love computers and technology, but it can be so finicky sometimes ... you never know when you're going to lose everything you had because of a small glitch. But I still love 'em ;)

The above photo is Copyright 2006 Nicole Young. Please visit iStockPhoto.com for purchase information.

Luau

Andrew, Jon, Nicole and I all went to a Luau the other day ... it was my first one. It was good times -- probably more fun for tourists, though, since the "awe" of the island has already worn off by now for me and Ace :) I'm still trying to master my new Nikon ... my "old" flash and "new" camera don't seem to want to play well together, so I'm having difficulties trying to figure it all out. It seems to have a mind of its own sometimes. Oh well, Ace and I leave today for our 11-day cruise of the rest of the islands, plus an additional one called Fanning Island (I think it was where Gilligan's Island was filmed), so I should have plenty of time to learn to use it better :) I'm still trying to pack all of my stuff with only a few hours before we have to drive to the pier! But, of course, I had to get one last blog entry in (not like I'm consistent about them anyways, but I'm trying to make more of an effort). The photos of our kitchen/office room are still on the way. We haven't quite finished organizing the junk and file folders, so once that gets squared away (mostly it will just take a trip to Office Max) then I'll post the before/after pics.

Photo taken in Oahu, HI and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Busy

I'm back to my blog, after way too long of neglecting it. Life has been very busy, yet enjoyable! Andrew's brother, Jon, is visiting us right now, and it's been great having him here. We've been trying to spruce up our house and get it closer to what we want, and so since Jon is here we finally got the guest bedroom mostly done. It has all the necessities, and I'll add things like curtains and pictures after a while. This weekend we plan on taking on the grueling task of taking down the yellow-plaid wallpaper in the kitchen, and then adding some more color to the kitchen walls and the connecting room (I'll be sure to post before-and-after photos when it's all finished).

This photo is of my cat, Fuji. He loves sitting on that chair like that ... my cats are so odd. I actually got some funny footage of my other cat, Kashi, and I sent it to AFV just for the hell of it ... I've always wanted to do that! Ya never know ...

Photo taken in Oahu, HI and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Party

Last night Ace and I had our official housewarming party. Lots of people showed up and we all had a great time. Today is Ace's birthday, too, so before the party we had some people over for dinner "Young"-style (if you've ever been over to dinner at our place, you know we aren't messing around!) Plus, we finally got to break in the new patio furniture and had dinner, and the party, mostly outside. Good food, good drinks, good company ... wish you all could have been here :)

Photo taken in Oahu, HI and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Ginger Cat with Yams

This is one of my first photos taken with my new digital SLR camera, a beautiful Nikon D2H. I, of course, had to take it out for a test run within hours of receiving it in the mail, and to my delight it works beautifully! (We went downtown and walked through China Town a bit, and found this cat hanging out in the produce.) I'm still trying to figure out all the complexities of my camera. It has soooo many features to it ... a lot more complicated than my rugged F4. It's my new fun toy, and now I will be able to create so many more photos to post in the future!

Photo taken in Oahu, HI and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Time

I went home a few weeks ago to see my brother, Nate, and his new bride, Jodi, get married. I had such a great time! The wedding was beautiful, and it was so nice to see so much of my family again. It seems like I waited my whole life to graduate and get out of Lincoln, only to wish I was still living there. I am so glad that I have been able to visit so many places, and I wouldn't change it if I could, but there's just something about home that draws me back. :)

Life here in Hawaii is still going on as usual. I wish it wasn't so hot, though. I work such an odd schedule, and it's hard to find the right time to go for a run. I have to be at work by 3:00 am, and I get home around noon, but at that time of day it's too hot to do anything! I either have to get up at 1:00 am and go running before work (yeah, right!), or take a 4-hour nap after work, wake up to do my regular stuff, go running when the sun sets, and then go back to sleep for another 4 hours before morning. It's really inconvenient, and it will be even more so when Andrew gets back. With a schedule like this, who knows if we'll even see each other when he's actually here! Aah, one day I'll look back on these times and see them as the best days of my life ... I'll figure it out, why worry now? :)

Photo taken in Lincoln, NE and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Lazy

I think that my "new" job is finally getting to me. It comes and goes ... some days it's good, but some days I just want to pull my hair out! I think part of my stress is because I have only seen my husband one whole week in the last three months. Comes with the territory, I guess. I've been doing rather well, considering the amount of time he's been gone. Ah well, we've got a vacation planned in late September that we both have to look forward to ... can't wait!

Right now I am sitting at my desk, trying not to notice the huge stack of groceries sitting on my counter, waiting desperately to be put away. My usual routine for putting away groceries is to set them all on the floor when I come home from the store, then let the cats jump around the plastic bags until I put away all the cold and frozen stuff. Next, I take out all the non-perishable items and set them on the counter, throw the plastic bags away so the cats don't suffocate themselves to death, and then I tend to more important tasks in my house ... such as, re-watching DS9 episodes on DVD, reading my new HP book, and sitting down to play my new favorite number-logic game I discovered in the newspaper - sudoku. (For those of you who can decipher my acronyms, you will realize how much of a geek I truly am ... but don't forget the fact that you actually know what I'm talking about!) I really wish Ace would come home soon ... DS9 just isn't the same without him! (Not to mention that he has two seasons of STV to catch up on when he gets home so we can finish off the series! Ah, yes, I am a geek.)

Photo taken in Lincoln, NE and is Copyright Nicole Young, 1997.

Home

I am back in Hawaii after my week-or-so in Nebraska. It was so refreshing, spending time with my family. My little nephew Christian was one delight of my trip! He is just so adorable ... this photo is of him at my parent's house in Lincoln. I also went to my Nate (my brother) and Jodi's wedding (they are Christian's parents) . It was all just such a blast! Seeing them with their baby boy has made me re-think our plans for when Andrew and I have kids. I'm not sure if I'm so keen on sending our kids to day-care right away ... well, we have plenty of time to think about that before we really need to worry :)

Photo taken in Lincoln, NE and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

Favorite

This photograph was one of my first attempts at lightening-photography, and it turned out being my all-time favorite photo that I've taken so far. This storm came right after the photo I took of the cloud in my previous post. I took the photo from my back porch in Lincoln, but if I were to take the same photo today, it would look completely different. They've built so many buildings back there, in what used to be only milo fields. There is a huge mall, some office buildings, restaurants ... you name it and they've probably put it in my parent's backyard. It's not too bad having it there, since it's convenient shopping and all, but you can't see the starts at night anymore. I miss places like that. Hawaii is a small island, so I can't just drive for miles out into the country like I used to back home, so I won't be getting many lightening photos anytime in the near future ... but plenty of shots of Hawaiian paradise, instead :)

Photo taken in Lincoln, NE and is Copyright Nicole Young, 1997.

Photography

One of my favorite past-times, if you can't already tell or don't already know, is photography. I was a huge shutterbug when I was a teenager ... and I've been trying to re-kindle that flame lately. Back then, almost all you could work with was film, which I still love, but the world of digital photography has made so many things possible! I'm in the process now of trying to digi-tize all of my old negatives, but since I have hundreds of rolls worth of negative, it will be a slow process ... mostly because of the cost for that many negatives. Looking back on all of my old photos really brings back good memories, and some of those is just remembering how much I enjoyed my hobby. (I took this photo 8 years ago; it was a huge cloud right before a beautiful lightening storm ... I'll post the photo from the storm later on.)

Not too much is going on for me, right now. It's just me and my cats at home by myself right now until Ace gets back ... I do get to leave in four days for home, though :) It will be a very nice break for me, to get away from this monotony! My schedule has been changing over the last few months, but it's finally settled on a fixed time. I do shift-work, from 0330-1130. It's not too bad, cause I don't mind getting up in the morning ... it's just coming home and trying to stay awake until my normal bedtime that's tough. I'm really not sure why I can't do it. Maybe cause I don't have anyone (but my cats) to keep me company at home. Ah, well ... only a little longer and I will have my husband back!

Photo taken in Lincoln, NE and is Copyright Nicole Young, 1997.

Papaya Tree

One thing that's great about Hawaii is that a lot of people have fruit trees in their backyards. Well, I wasn't one of these lucky people, so I decided to do something about it. Meet my beautiful, tiny (but growing) baby papaya tree. I got it about a month ago, and it's actually growing! I took these photos a few weeks apart and you can actually see that there are more leaves on the bottom pic. I definitely do not have a natural green thumb, since I've probably killed more plants than ... wait a minute, I think I usually kill all of them ;) But I'm going to change from my evil plant-killing ways and nurture my baby tree to be full-grown and fruit-bearing. Wish me luck!

(Only six more days until I get to go home and see my family ... yay! Hmmm ... I guess I'll need a papaya tree babysitter ...)

Fireworks

The 4th of July has finally come, and I was, once again, out there with my Nikon, shooting away. The photos turned out okay, not my best, but this was my first attempt at fireworks in Hawaii. I've had a great weekend so far ... I've spent a lot of time with friends, and I also did some much-needed shopping today. (Now all I have left to do is some very-much-needed house-cleaning!)

Only eight more days until I go home! I really miss the little things about Lincoln ... the fireflies, thunderstorms in the middle of the night ... I always used to say I would never settle down in my home town, but after being so many other places, it doesn't sound so bad after all ;) The only problem would be convincing Andrew ...

Photo taken in Oahu, Hawaii and is copyright Nicole Young, 2005.

The weekend ...

... is amost here! I have been working a strange schedule lately that doesn't give me regular "Monday thru Friday, nine-to-five" work-days, but it works out that I get a nice, long, 4th of July weekend. I don't have too many plans, aside from taking photos of the fireworks and going over to a friend's house. I'll probably just do the regular-stuff-that-normal-people-do-on-the-weekend thing .... mow the lawn, clean the house, feed the cats. Ah, the life.

I lately realized that as I move from place to place, I find myself missing all the places I've been to over the last 6 years. When I was in Japan I couldn't wait to leave. But now that I'm gone I can list off all of the reasons that it would have been nice to stay! The weather was great there (perfect running weather ... aside from the snow!), it was quiet and safe, the people were friendly, and even my job was great. I always seem to see these things too far after the fact, and I'm trying to learn how to appreciate what I have now, instead of waiting until after I move again. Okay, so I do live in Hawaii, and you might think it's easy to live in a place where the sun always shines, the days are always warm, and I can see both the mountains and the ocean on my drive to-and-from work everyday. But, I am a mid-western girl. Give me a few cloudy, cool, stormy days ... I'll be there with my camera trying to take pictures of lightening! I already miss things like cold weather, snow, and the bugs singing early in the evening telling everyone that summer is finally here. But what I need to do is look past all that and just enjoy all of this beautiful weather ... because one day I'll be back on the mainland in the middle of winter, wishing I was still here in Hawaii!

Well, only a week-and-a-half before I'm home on leave :) I'm so excited to see everyone! I'm almost broke now after paying for my plane ticket, but it's well worth it. (Plus, I was able to upgrade to First Class on my trip home ... thank you, frequent flyer miles!) I'm gonna be a picture taking fool ove the next few weeks. I'm taking my "real" camera, meaning my Nikon F4, plus my tripod, on the trip, and I plan on using all of my film up. I have my sights on a new camera, which is basically the digital equivilant to the one I have now ... now all I need is the $$$. After that, watch out world! I'll be looking at life through a lens for the rest of my existence once I have that beautiful camera ;)

I've written enough ... it's time for me to clean the kitchen and go for a walk. Life is full of excitement, don't you think! ;)

Photo taken in Misawa, Japan, and is copyright Nicole Young, 2004.

Hello!

Well, this is my first official entry in my brand-new blog ... I'm at a loss for words (yeah, right - like that will ever happen!) Okay, so there's not much going on in my life right now. Ace is, once again, gone for a little while. We saw each other for one whole week before he set sail on his second trip. We, or should I say I, am getting quite settled in our new house (Ace has only lived in it the week he was back). It's still a mess in some areas, and I have way too many plans for painting and decorating, but it feels like home :)

My cute little kittens are still cute as ever. They keep me company, and drive me crazy at the same time. I love having cats again. (The photo above is of one of my kittens, Fuji.)

In less than three weeks I get to go home and see my brother get married! I'm so excited to see my family again, and it will probably be a while until I go home after that. I'm expecting more people to want to come out here and visit, since it's free room-and-board in Hawaii for all my friends and family ;) I wish I could come home during Autumn ... I haven't had a real fall season since before I joined the Navy. Hawaii is extremely beautiful, but I like the changing of the seasons better than just one season all year round.

Until next time ...

Photo taken in Oahu, Hawaii and is Copyright Nicole Young, 2005.