In Love
Do you believe in love at first sight? Maybe you are unsure about it or maybe you just can’t imagine anyone being able to fall in love at first sight. For me it’s a simple answer…YES!! I believe in love at first sight because it happens to me when I go shoe shopping. My love for shoes goes far beyond just an article of clothing. Every single pair of shoes I own I can tell you exactly where, when, why and how they make me feel. For me, shoes are a work of art and are a great way to show the world a part of your soul. They can also transform you into who you want to be or give you that little boost of confidence on a crummy day. Another amazing thing about shoes are they always fit. You never have to worry about eating too much during the holidays or loosing too much weight after a bad flu. I love my shoes so much that when I am feeling sad or down, I like to go into my closet where I can just admire my shoes and try them on. Doing that always calms my mind and re-centers my soul. You can always tell what type of mood I am in by what shoes I am wearing. I have a wide variety of colors and styles which make it easy to not wear the same pair of shoes two days in a row. Because I have such a strong bond to each pair of shoes that I own, I find it extremely difficult to get rid of any old pairs. I have shoes that I have owned for over ten years and I even have pairs that I won’t wear anymore because the soles have holes. As a matter of fact, I still remember these gold ballet flats made from some cheap fabric with little crystals on them. They were designed by Steve Madden and I wore them all of the time for many years. By the time my husband made me throw them away they had water stains all over and my entire bottom sole on my left foot was gone. There were impractical to ever wear but I didn’t want to throw them out because they made me so happy whenever I saw them. In 2015 Danny finally convinced me to throw them out. I cried a little tear as I did and sitting here now, I still miss those amazing shoes. In my life I have also experienced, “The one that got away.” My junior year of High School I fell madly in love with these incredible purple peep toe pumps that had a bow across the top of the foot. I made the foolish mistake of not buying them and I have yet to forget those beauties and I definitely still kick myself for it. I have had this strong love for shoes since a young, young girl and over the years my love has only increased. I remember my first pair of high heels, they were these amazing matte, black leather, long pointed-toe, four inch heels. My uncle bought them for me when I was in seventh grade and that is when I first discovered Steve Madden. Steve Madden will always hold a special place in my heart for his unique and amazing shoes but I must admit that my sights now are on Christian Louboutin and Manolo Blahnik. Now that I have children I have found myself not only falling in love with shoes for myself but also my children. I am so excited to say…My little Jacquelyn has a strong admiration for shoes. As I watch her eyes light up and see her transform into a little goddess when she tries on one of my shoes or a new pair for her, I just melt. It is so incredible to watch my daughter discover the art in shoes and I look forward to continuing to bond with her over our love for shoes. I like to believe that one day my daughter will say, “I believe in love at first sight…when I go shoe shopping!”
Xoxoxo Chelsie
You Got A Friend In Me
Living the life of a military spouse can be an amazing experience with the opportunities to travel the world. With every move comes the excitement of meeting new people and making friends. However, that can be equally difficult when you realize that you have friends scattered all around the world. In our entire lives we will make many friends; friends who are there to build memories with, friends who are there to help us through difficult times and friends who are there to teach us life lessons. All of those friendships are extremely important. Often times I find myself reminiscing about all of the friendships I have or have had. Sometimes I feel sad and other times I feel happy. But I always fee l thankful for each friendship I have formed. I can still remember my first real friendship; her name was Betty Jo. I remember we watched a lot of Zena the Warrior Princess and Hercules. We would pretend we were warriors and practice our fighting moves in the backyard in between playing with Barbies and singing the theme song to, “Cops” to the local police officer. That friendship ended like most do at such a young age, my family moved to a new town. Another deep friendship was with a young man named Cody. He was one of my neighbors and he helped me through some of my most difficult times as a young teen. His friendship was an escape from a lonely and dark home. Our friendship was a bright light to look forward to and when he was tragically killed in a car accident I struggled. I struggled hard with losing him but I also learned how strong I was. Later on I made some friends with this amazing girl who was the complete opposite of me. We had only one thing in common and that was a love for scary movies. She and I remained close friends for years and years. We managed to remain friends through moving to different towns and life changing events. I have so many great memories with her. I would say we are still friendly but not really friends anymore. Nothing crazy happened, no one wronged the other…we just drifted apart and now are strangers with many memories filled with lots of laughter. Sadly, as we grow and our lives change we can grow distant to our closest friends, but that is okay because it doesn’t make their friendship any less special. Then comes the friendships that teach you lessons, lessons such as, not everyone will say the same things to you as they will behind your back. That is such an important lesson to learn. It teaches you how much words can hurt and how important it is to be genuine. Some friendships will also change you in a bad way. Maybe you find a friend yourself being mean to people or doing activities you wouldn’t normally do. Those friendships usually end the messiest and can be one of the hardest to walk away from. But those friendships teach you that it is okay to walk away from someone who isn’t good for you or from someone who only encourages the worst in you. The new and adult friendships are one of the most different types of friendships. Those are the friendships that are solely based on mutual interests. They are generally more flexible because life gets busy and it’s much more difficult to find time to talk, let alone hang out. Those friendships teach you how to be patient and how to really treasure the memories you do make when you are finally able to hang out. The last important friendship is called your “lifer”. A lifer is someone who you know you will be friends with for your life. Not everyone gets to have a lifer and sometimes your lifer ends up not being in your life. What I have learned is that if you want to have long lasting friendships you must make an effort. If you have a friend who means a lot to you then make sure you reach out to them, even if it’s just to say, “I’m thinking of you and hope you are doing well.” Friendships can truly be the best things you can build and maintain. They can make such an enormous difference in your life and they definitely help groom you into the person you are supposed to be. To all of my amazing friends, thank you for all of the memories, laughter, tears and lessons. I would not be the person I am without each one of you; past, present and future! Xoxo Chelsie
June 27
June 27 2014 is one of the best days of my life! On that day at 3:15 pm I met my first child, Sabina. This year my little beauty is turning five years old and will start kindergarten this fall! There are many things to love about her but my favorite is her heart. I have never met someone who loves as much as she does. She is an amazing big sister, a best friend, an avid lover of most all living creatures and she teaches me about self-love. She believes in magic, fairies, super heroes, dragons and princesses. She sees the beauty in everything…well except for spiders and snakes! ~haha~ Sabina has a mission in life to say, “Hi!” to everyone she sees. She manages to tell the greatest stories because she is full of drama! When I was pregnant with her she had a strong desire to be born early. She kept putting me into preterm labor and caused me to be put on bed rest multiple times. After many long weeks filled with stress, pain and a lot of, “Let’s just make it one more week,” my doctors began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to have a natural birth. After having two minor surgeries in a place no one wants to have surgery, I became high risk and my doctors decided a C-Section would be the best option for a safe and healthy delivery. That is how Sabina became my first of three C-Sections. Five years later, my little princess has moved from Washington to Wyoming, Wyoming to Washington and then Washington to Germany! She has gone through a six-and-a-half-month long separation from her daddy while he was deployed in Afghanistan. She has become a big sister twice and has built a fairy village full of little fairies and gnomes. Sabina loves Lady Gaga and The Fitness Marshall. She is obsessed with fancy dresses, sparkly shoes and make up. She always wants me to do her hair, paint her nails and take her shopping! She looks up to Wonder Woman and is a big fan of Captain America. She’s madly in love with Bruno Mars and Dean (Jensen Ackles). This year she has decided she wants to take ballet classes and get, “Fancy ballet shoes!” She is a little baker who loves watching all the baking shows on Netflix and loves to have tea parties! I look forward to seeing where the years take her and boy, do I love to watch her grow into this incredible young lady full of love, passion, laughter and life. Happiest 5th Birthday to my little Sabina, I love you more than you could ever know and may all of your dreams come true!!!
Summer Lovin’
Hi again! Writing my first piece was easy…introduction. Now trying to figure out what to write next took some thought. As I was sitting debating a topic, I noticed my husband placed his ball caps on the hooks on my mirror…and that slightly irritated me. With that being said, today’s topic will be Danny and our story! I met Danny the summer of 2009. We both played co-ed rec softball on two separate teams. When we first met we simply noticed one another but nothing more because we were both in relationships. Fast forward to 2010, I was 21 and was a bartender in a local downtown bar. Danny and his friends would come into the bar where I worked and we finally learned each other’s names. We talked occasionally when we saw one another but still nothing more because at that point I was still in a relationship. We still played softball against each other and discovered we had mutual friends. We spent that summer trash talking other teams and asking our mutual friends about one another. 2011 summer came around and we were both single but just couldn’t get the courage to do anything besides trash talk about our football teams. Softball season came around again and this time I decided to invite him out for a few drinks after a game…He said yes! I was so excited, I ran home where I got all cleaned up and headed to the bar to wait for him. He NEVER showed up! I took that as his way of saying he wasn’t interested and I went on my way. We still were friendly and did a lot of trash talking whenever we ran into one another but that was it. I had started to see someone else and so did he. New Year’s Eve 2011 into New Year’s Day 2012 rolled around and I had gotten off of work early so I decided to go out with some friends to ring in the New Year. After many drinks my friends had convinced me to go to this bar to dance. I don’t dance and I never went to that bar but, it was New Year’s so I said what the heck! I ran into Danny and his friends, one of whom I went to college with. With the help of some liquid courage, I told our mutual friend that I had a big crush on Danny and had been crushing for the past three years. She laughed and told me to ask him to dance. Little did I know that he had been crushing on me for the past three years also and that is why she laughed. So I asked him to dance and we danced to one song before he left to grab me a blue moon. At that exact moment I realized it was very late and I had to work at twelve hour shift the next day. A friend of mine who never drank walked past me and so I asked them for a ride home. Yes, I left without saying goodbye to Danny. He showed up to the bar the next day where I worked. We watched some football and I apologized for leaving without saying goodbye. We finally exchanged phone numbers and that is when I found out he had enlisted in the United States Air Force and was leaving for basic training in two weeks. He left and said he would write to me, which I did not believe. But I did receive two letters in the mail from a Danny Moncecchi. However, I had contracted MRSA and almost lost my leg. I was staying with my mom because I was on bed rest and loaded up with a lot of medication. I never did mail out my responses to his letters. Once he graduated basic and received his phone back I messaged him. We continued to talk for months and really became best friends. When he graduated from Tech School he came back to town to visit everyone and we had planned to spend the weekend going on dates to see if we wanted to try a long distance relationship. About three hours after being around one another, we decided to try long distance and became an official couple. He moved to WA state where we did long distance for a few months until I made the decision to move to WA state. Six months after moving there, we secretly got married. Now we celebrate two wedding anniversaries and we have built such an amazing life together with our loving fur babies and our beautiful children. Danny, it may have taken us years to even exchange phone numbers but it took no time at all to fall in love with you! There isn’t anyone I would rather make a life with. I love you! I hope you all have enjoyed hearing our story! Xoxo Chelsie
All Aboard Chel's Hot Mess Express 