A Race to Win My Heart

Having married a lifelong Redskins fan, and living in the Greater DC Metro area, I have begun a slight love affair with the 'Skins. I mean, they have a band, and a song and Chris Cooley. These are things that are hard to compete with - and if my heart didn't already belong to a team with people like Tom Brady and Tedy Bruschi, well then the 'Skins would have a chance at coming in first. But since they are in different divisions, I manage to cheer for both teams.

You may also know that I love television. The more awful the tv, the more I tend to love it. And my love of the Emmy nominated Dancing With the Stars is well known. Which is why I am so happy to read that JASON TAYLOR, yes AdorAble Jason Taylor is coming to the Skins. The Redskins are really making a run for my heart this year. I think its also common knowledge that I love Rock Cartwright and the name Colt Brennan (I have no real opinion on the man, I just think a child named Colt Brennan Exnicios is pretty awesome).

So here you go, a look at what's to come Redskins' fans. Hail to the Redskins indeed.

BTW, check out Chris Cooley's blog. I really think he is one of the more grounded and generous NFL players I'm aware of. (Mr. Taylor is very generous too, you may remember his love of jungle animals.) But Mr. Cooley is having a beard growing contest - and if he likes your beard, you win awesome preseason tickets. I would totally grow a beard if I could. I am also trying to convince my husband I need a Cooley jersey (NOT A PINK ONE) to wear when we're watching the Skins play. While it shouldn't be so, sometimes the Brady jersey isn't the most appropriate (sad but true.)

Puppy Search Continues

My husband decided this week that lab puppies are too cute to be out of the running for the first Exnicios family dog. Here is an adorable photo of someone's lab puppy named Berkeley. (It is what Google brought me in an image search of "lab puppy" - just a bonus his name was Berkeley.) I see what Andrew is saying - they are really cute - but I just worry what happens when they gain 80 lbs.

Doing Something Well

A suggestion to help make the deployment go by quicker - or at least make something of the time - was to pick something I wanted to learn how to do and then become good at it. Seemed like good advice. So I started taking both cake decorating and knitting classes. I will never make money at cake decorating - but I make a mean rose and now a good rose bud on a vine and honestly, those two talents will get you pretty far. I'm trying to learn how to basket weave and I am not very good with Royal icing - but Royal icing doesn't taste that yummy so why use that when you can make delicious butter cream roses?

My knitting is coming along well. While I may never make money from that either, its a talent I am really taken to, in no small part to my mom and my friend Jeniffer. Both are knitters and its been fun to share the art with both of them. Its been a great skill to have as our lives are sudden filled with babies (not our own) because who doesn' t love handmade knitted baby gifts. It keeps my hands busy and gives me something to focus on. This is my next project the Rusted Root sweater. I am itching to get started on it. . . I can't decide on the color. As you can see from the name, a rust color is suggested(or "Sedona Red"), but I've seen it in a delicious blue or a sage. I may go sage. . . but I don't have a lot of this reddish color in my wardrobe so maybe I will go with that. Here is the company's website, I'll take suggestions as to what color you think best, RSN readers. It will be my first project of "knitting in the round" so wish me luck. I will also be learning toe up socks on double pointed needles next month. I am pretty excited to be able to send my husband some awesome socks. After that, I hope to master the cable knit. Who doesn't love a big poofy cable knit sweater?

I'll let you know how the sweater goes and try to post some pictures of my finished stuff, so you can all oo and ah along with me and marvel at my talents as they grow.

Passing Time

One of the ways I've passed time during this deployment is throwing myself head first into catching up on tv I have missed along the way. This is no better illustrated than by my record breaking 5 seasons of One Tree Hill in five months. That may not sound that impressive but I did the last two seasons in about 3 weeks. Its all about dedication, people.

Anyway, once I finished OTH, left tortured by the summer break to find out who Lucas chooses to take to Las Vegas, I decided to try out a series my husband enjoyed and would soon be returning, Mad Men. I am glad I did, because I managed to finish all but two episodes before the Emmy nominations came out, so I could say that I enjoyed and watched the first season before it was cool to do so. The second season starts next Sunday, July 27 on AMC. You should check it out. I will try not to give plot line away in case you decide to go on a marathon Netflix DVD watching marathon to catch up, but some highlights. 1) Zoe from the West Wing is on it. 2) Don Draper is hot. He's a cad but he's hot and you understand how he has gotten away with it all these years. 3) There are almost no sympathetic or likable characters. I think the Drapers are the most sympathetic, but I find myself wanting to slap her too often. Don is, as above, a cad. 4) The smoking and drinking can turn your stomach if you watch too many episodes in a row. 5) The head writer, Matthew Weiner, was also a big writer on the Sopranos (HBO turned Mad Men down. . . ) but also on the sit com Becker. For some reason this fact amuses me.

There is not much else on right now, and you don't want to be that person on Emmy Night being all "I've never seen half of these shows" or voting for Lost just because it heard it was supposed to be good, (No offense Lost, you did totally rock this season.), so try to catch it in reruns this week or just pick up with it in season two. Its great writing, but not so dense you will never catch up. Or email me nicely and maybe I will provide a plot summary for you.

Another Favorite Blog

As you may know, June 21, 2009 will be our big "wedding reception" that Andrew and I never had. While our homespun wedding was fantastic, we didn't want to miss out on all the wedding fun all our friends got to have - and thought hey, we have $30,000 laying around that we have no other use for - and so we have always planned on having this Wedding Redux once Andrew returned. Our photographers have a great blog and they are one of the aspects of our reception I am looking forward to most. So take a look at the awesome photos that Eric and Brooke have taken and then think how awesome our photos will be, you know, even if we're already married. And yes, that is a gratuitous wedding shot above - fabulous photography courtesy of Uncle Neil. Who should totally have his own photo blog as well.

On the Other Side

Check out my husband's blog for an adorable photo of the newest Bardill - Abigail Rebecca who I will be meeting one week from today! Abigail's parents, Patrick and Alison, have been huge supports through this deployment for me. Talking to Alison about her pregnancy and now seeing new photos of baby Abigail has been a bright spot that helped distract me on some tough days. (Not to mention all the fun times I've had buying adorable baby gifts!) Traveling to see Abigail next week is something Andrew and I have had on our calendar for several months and will be the highlight of Andrew's leave at home.

Look for the photo of Megan and Wade and a post on their Emmy successes. While we love Megan and Wade dearly, I have to say they are not as adorable as Abigail. Sorry guys.

Army Wives

Since reading the book Army Wives was based on, I have tried to be a little fairer to the show. Some of the plot lines I thought were outlandish turned out to be based in fact - something I should have realized after my experience in Legal Assistance.

This week's ep had a plotline that at first seemed silly to me, but after more thought I realized that it was not only more true to life but that it was something I was a little familiar with. Denise, the Major's wife who is working as a nurse, has been seen with a doctor and people have begun to spread rumors because her husband is deployed. Now Denise's behavior may be a little inappropriate - driving on the back of the doctor's motorcycle - but thus far its been only a friendship. Now I avoided riding on the back of anyone's motorcycle while my husband was deployed, but I have seen that people hold very specific ideas as to how you should behave while your husband is deployed. The night before I was getting married, in a wedding that was sped along because of my husband's deployment, the Army Chaplain who was marrying us told me to not befriend too many males while my husband was deployed. He said I would be "lonely" and "weakened" by the deployment and being friends with other men would allow the door to be opened to other things that would be inappropriate for a married woman. Having seen the horrors that deployment can do to marriage and knowing that perhaps only the Chaplain sees more than a Legal Assistance attorney, I understood where he was coming from, but I was a little insulted since I had and have no intention of opening the door to anything else. More recently our office had an outing to a baseball game - one ticket was ordered for me and I asked for a second, a friend would be coming along with me. I was asked who was coming with me, my husband was still deployed. I explained another Army Captain, a male Army Captain, who was a good friend, would be coming. I was asked if that was appropriate. In the end I didn't go to the game because I didn't want who I brought to an office event to be a topic of discussion. So people jump to conclusions or get bored and look for gossip or maybe are just jaded from the tales you see in the JAG or the Chaplain's office.

Quickly, the plotline regarding the family care plan, the Army would have allowed her that Soldier to stay home until her care plan was reworked and if she could not have, they would have either delayed her deployment until her husband returned home or allowed her to get out of the Army. They would not have asked the FRG to find somewhere for her to place her daughter. It annoyed me because I worked with Soldiers on their Care Plans - and what happens when they fail - and thats not how it works.

So in this week's tally, I would score one for a realistic plot line and score one for completely outlandish and having nothing to do with Army life.