07 March 2011
Deployed again...
I doubt anyone reads this anymore but if you do, I am keeping my current deployment blog on my original blog site so they were all together. If you're interested, the link is http://naylorfamily.wordpress.com/
16 March 2010
March 2010
16 Mar 10-So I know I've been a big fat slacker on this but it's been so crazy busy around this place that I have a hard time keeping up. I am going to try to do better and see how it goes this time around. I couldn't even begin to include all of the things that have been going on since I last posted so I will just leave it be. I just got picked up to go to the NCO Academy at Lackland AFB, Texas in San Antonio. It was a short notice notification and I have to be in place on Easter. I am scared but excited at the same time. It is going to be a lot of work and hopefully my fat butt will survive the physical training part of it. I'm looking at it as a new start to the life that I've let get away from me. I did finally manage through everything to knock out my Associate's degree. My credits were finally transferred to my college and applied to my Bachelor's and I figured out that in 18 short classes, I will also have my Bachelor's knocked out. I know that will take some time but I'm pretty excited to knock that out too!
14 June 2009
My ramblings-June 09
14 Jun 09-Okay, okay so I didn't hold up my end of the bargain with staying on top of this thing. Here is yet another attempt to get it done. As you can imagine, I have been super busy since Chris has been gone so that is my main "excuse" for failing at updating this! :) Buying it?? I hope so. Things have been going well for all of us. Chris has been able to do so many exciting things since he has been in Afghanistan and I'm so happy he's taken the opportunity to get them done. He has been volunteering at the hospitals and if you've been looking at the pictures on the site, you've seen some of the kids he gets to play with. It almost makes me excited to go back so I can get involved like that. It would have made my time go by so much faster had I known that you could do things like that. He's got just a month left and he is definitely ready to get home to us. He tells us that all the time. The kids are on summer break right now and they are happy to have a break from school even though they're at the same daycare at the school. I have been busy with school and the History class I'm in right now is kicking my butt a little but I'm still maintaining my A. I have my paper to write that is due (rough draft) on Wednesday so that has been stressing me out a bit. We've been making our normal weekend trips for our errands and trying to get them out and about and we've been managing. There is just way too much to fit all in here but we are doing fine. We have just been as busy as we can be. I hope everyone is doing well and I will try to do better at posting on here! I got a new phone (a BlackBerry) so maybe I can even post from work so I don't get behind with my normal nightly routine! :)
05 April 2009
My ramblings-Apr 09
5 Apr 09-It's been a busy couple of days. I have been so wiped out from not sleeping well. Finally last night I went to bed early and the kids actually let me sleep in. Friday when I got home from work I decided to unwind and do as little as possible which was very nice. I don't get much time to myself these days. The only thing I did was make sure I had everything loaded up in the van that I needed to take to the Easter event on Saturday. Saturday I was very stressed out about the whole thing and anxious to get it over with. Thankfully everything went very well and I was able to enjoy the day. We had a great turn out and the commander was very pleased. It was a great day! After I got home, Katie and her family came over and we had a nice visit with them. We still had to give Thomas his birthday present. LOL I can't believe how big he is getting and he's walking along furniture now and it's so cute! :) After that, we headed to the grocery store and to get my nails done. Harmony got hers down too and brought her friend Rachel along to get hers done as well. I was getting heavy eyed while I was waiting for their bed time to come so I was in bed shortly after them. I even fell asleep sitting up in bed with the computer on my lap waiting for Chris to e-mail me back. It was nice to finally catch up on sleep. Today I have to do homework and all my normal Sunday rituals.
01 March 2009
My ramblings-Mar 09
30 Mar 09-Okay so I slacked on this for a few days but it's been hectic. I don't know if I could possibly catch you up with everything but I will try. We had Miles' birthday party on Saturday and that was different. Usually I stay and clean up and set up and Chris does all the running around. It sucked having to do it all. Anyway, speaking of Chris, he is doing as well as can be expected over there. He's got a project he's working on and he's been staying busy and trying to make the best of it. It's his birthday today too and I know how much it sucks to spend a birthday there but we got him some cards that were sure to make him laugh and I made him some beef jerky. :) Anyway, so Miles' party went well although not many kids showed up. He still enjoyed himself. I took them out after the party so that he could spend his gift cards and money. Thank you to everyone who sent him cool stuff. He was happy as a little boy can be. I still can't believe that he is 6. Seriously, where does the time go?? I had purchased an inversion table to be delivered to the store (Walmart) and I put it together Saturday night. I am desperate at this point to get some relief from my back pain. It doesn't seem to help much though. I swear that is the last thing I buy that has to be put together. Again, I was able to do it but not without some stress and some choice words. LOL I had my mid term due on Sunday and I had been working on it throughout the week. It had multiple choice questions and essays that were worth 50 points each. I was thrilled when I woke up on Sunday to find out that I got all the questions right and a 49/50 on one essay question and a 50/50 on the other!!! Whoo hoo! I had an extra credit assignment too so I figured it wouldn't hurt to do it. I got a 100 on it so my current percentage in the class is 122%! LOL I sure hope it's safe to say that I will be getting an A in this class too... well as long as I don't bomb the final but I hope not. I took the kids out to Target yesterday. Poor Harmony desperately needed some new clothes. She really needed shorts. I bought more than I expected and almost died when I heard the total but that little lady grinning from ear to ear at all her new stuff. She's already planned out what she's going to wear for the next 2 weeks. :P She's so darn cute. I have been so exhausted. I am not sleeping well because of my back pain and my mind is always going with the things I have to do. I have been having some trouble with the dogs fighting and they're starting to do it in the middle of the night. Rascal got way too out of hand today with Scrappy and I fear that we might have to get rid of him. :( They don't act this way next to me or the kids but they woke me up at 3 a.m. with the fighting. I don't know why they're behaving this way. I got the kids school pictures back and they are loaded on the site. I will hopefully be typing up the letters to send with them and getting them out in the next day or two. Hopefully things continue to be slow at work so I can get that done. I have an appointment with Ortho on Wednesday and I'm frustrated because they don't do spines on base so they're just going to end up referring me downtown which will delay finding out what's going on. I guess it's not that big of a deal though because if they do say surgery, I can't do anything until Chris gets back. Mom, I tried to call this weekend to tell you a funny story about your son and Chris Cohen but couldn't reach you. Only you could appreciate it as much as myself, Ryan and Chris did. It's a good one! Also, Chris (my Chris) got a kick out of your card that came the day before his birthday and said sorry it's late. ;) That is all I can think of for now. I know there's more but I've written enough for one day. Hopefully the rest will come back to me.
25 Mar 09-Today started out fantastic. I keep meaning to post this but I found another old friend on Facebook. Mom, you're never going to believe this but it is Christopher Cohen!!! I couldn't believe it when I found him. I'll catch you up on that later. Anyway, he was posting comments to my pictures this morning and some of them just had me cracking up. Work was good. I got caught up again and that's always a great feeling. I made a doctors appointment because my back pain is getting significantly worse. I couldn't believe it but they actually are referring me to a surgeon. Does this mean I'm having surgery? No. It's just a consult but we'll see. I won't see the surgeon for a while so I will keep you posted. I had to run home after my appointment to grab the tables for the bake sale tomorrow. I managed to get 7 miles in on the bike today before my back just couldn't handle it anymore. That's about it for today.
24 Mar 09-Happy Birthday to my baby boy Miles!! <3 We cannot believe that he is 6!! Where does the time go?? After I picked the kids up from school, I took them out to dinner to a little mom and pop ice cream joint down the street. He picked to eat at Target but I really didn't want to drive there. We hadn't been to Scoops yet so I suggested we try it out. I don't know why he likes to eat at Target so much but they all love to eat there. LOL Anyway, he agreed to Scoops and said it's his new favorite. We ate and then had ice cream and he was happy as could be. :) It was a good day.
23 Mar 09-I got a little bit of a break today and had to sit at the house to wait for the guy from Sears to come and take a look at the exercise bike. The verdict is in and I did everything right!! :) The console was mis-marked for which way the batteries go in. Instead of negative on one side and positive on the other side like it said, it was positive on both sides. Thank goodness and now it works and I rode 10 miles on it so far. :) Other than that, I slept so horribly, I am headed to bed now. Tomorrow is an exciting day for me since it is my baby's birthday. I cannot believe that little boy is going to be 6!! <3
22 Mar 09-Boy did I have a long weekend. I am so ready to just collapse into bed. We went to Costco today to pick up some supplies for the Easter event for the squadron. I took the kids on base after that to grab some lunch and to get another pair of shoes. I had a whole list of things I wanted to do today but didn't get a whole lot of them done. I got done the things I had to do. I got another 100 on my assignment for my class. Now, I am headed to bed.
21 Mar 09-It's been a busy couple of days. Thursday I decided to complicate my life and buy an exercise bike. It was super easy. I bought it online at Sears.com and I went to pick it up in the store an hour later. I spent 4 hours trying to figure out how to put it together and rolling my eyes at the "some assembly required". Long story short, I got it all together and went to try it out but the console did not come on. I started to disassemble it to check and make sure none of the wires unattached and no suck luck. Friday was pretty boring at work. I headed to a dental appointment at 1 and then went to PT and to do my grocery shopping. That worked out very well. I have been so busy and I was so sore from working on that bike that I figured I would get to sleep early. No such luck. Chris and I chat a lot on Yahoo so I got to be late again. The kids woke me up quite early this morning and very rudely. Silly kids! Hearts Apart is a program put on the base to get deployed spouses out of their houses and get together. They have one main activity a month. This months activity was the zoo. We had a great time today and I got some great pictures. They are up on the website. After that, we headed to Blockbuster so we could have movie night. We rented 4 movies and bought some popcorn and candy and they stayed up until 9:30 watching movies and having a good time. Anyway, I messed up one of my nails while I was working on the bike so I figured we'd just stop in so I could get it fixed but ended up just having them fill them anyway. Harmony got her nails done again and she had shooting stars put on her thumbnails. It's too cute. I'll have to get a picture tomorrow. I still haven't gotten my homework done but I've done my reading so hopefully I can knock it out quick tomorrow. I have a laundry list of things to do tomorrow so it's going to be another busy one. I will be happy to get to work just to have a chance to relax.
18 Mar 09-Today was one busy but productive day. I actually had more energy today than I've had in a long time. Not sure why though. Anyway, just before I left work today, I had the coolest invitation to sing for a function. Some guy from the social security office downtown called and said they were looking for a singer at their building next month and asked if I could do it. McCain and Biden have been invited as well as President Obama!! He obviously doesn't think the President will show up but the others could and that's just awesome. I am nervous already. I have to call him back tomorrow to tell him yes. I had to check with Rich and Sheree' first to make sure they could take the kids to school because I'd have to leave an hour before the daycare opens to be there on time. This will be my first real event in the community and I couldn't be more excite about it!
17 Mar 09-I had a great day today! I got caught up with all my work and got to relax. I actually got so much done that we had time to do an 80s quiz in the shop. ;) I had a custodian from OSI (Office of Special Investigations) come out today who needed to do some paperwork that he couldn't do from his office. He's a stand in so he doesn't know a lot of the processes and it's my job to help him out. Anyway, as he was leaving, he shook my hand and "coined me". What that means is that he had a coin in his hand and transferred it to mine. That is standard practice for being awarded a coin. It's kind of like a great job or a thank you but done privately for you to look at later. I looked at it after I got in the shop and it was an awesome coin! It doubles as a bottle opener too! Brilliant design! I was so excited to get that from him. It's so nice to have someone notice what we do for them and I was truly grateful for the gesture. It's days like this that I love my job! I came home and attempted to hang my new picture frames. That didn't work out so well. I got the wall anchor in which was a feat in itself for me. I had never done that before and I got it. Then I tried to put the screw in and dropped the whole thing back into the wall and I heard it fall. LOL Oh well! I'm not a very handy person so I'll have to find someone to come over who is and put them up for me! :) Overall, it was a great day! Check out the pictures of my coin below...
16 Mar 09-Okay so today I am truly going to keep this one short. I am exhausted. It's already after 10 and I need some decent sleep. I had a good day today but it was extremely busy. Thankfully it was a productive day. I got a lot of overdue stuff done. I have one more project that has been neglected to finish and I'll be caught up and what a great feeling that will be. On that note, I am off to bed...
15 Mar 09-We had a great day today! I was lazy this morning and didn't get in the shower until 10 but I was working on my homework. I did not want a repeat of last week where I almost didn't get done in time so I wanted to have it done before I went anywhere today. I finished up about 2 p.m. and then put the kids in the truck (we drive it somewhere once a week so she doesn't get lonely lol) and headed for Ace Hardware to get a new timer for the sprinklers. I decided to make an impromptu stop at the nail salon to get my nails done for the first time in many, many years. I like them. Even Harmony got her nails painted and she was grinning from ear to ear. Miles was so good. I figured he would get bored and act up but he was enjoying watching all the "tools" they use. After a while, he got tired of the smell but he did so good. They all loved him in there and kept asking him questions. After that, we came home for a little bit until I realized that I had forgotten a paper. So, we headed back out to Fry's to get a paper and that worked out because I remembered then to order Miles' birthday cake. They are so easily amused with little trips out so it works out great. The rest of the night was relaxing. I just did the normal Sunday night getting lunches ready, laundry, bags ready, clothes laid out, etc. I did get to talk to my parents today... finally! It was so nice to talk to them. I will not go that long again. :)
14 Mar 09-We had a busy but fun day today. We went to the DM-50 picnic today at Bama Park on the base. It is put on by a committee in Tucson to show their appreciation for what we do and they do a few things for us throughout the year and it's always great. They go all out for us. This year was extra special because my friend Michelle coordinated the whole thing and it was obvious that she put a lot of work into it. The kids really had a good time and I was able to get lots of pictures that are already up on the website (see I'm getting better). We don't normally spend but an hour there and we actually stayed 3 hours because the kids were enjoying themselves so much. We had other running around to do but I decided to bring them home and let them clean up from all the junk food and relax for a bit before we headed back out. After a while, we headed to Party City to pick up the decorations for Miles' birthday party. He picked out a Cars theme and he of course wanted 2 of everything. We don't normally do goody bags but we decided to do them this year. After that we went to dinner and I don't know what got into them today (well, I guess I do... it was all the sugar) but they were in rare form and had me cracking up. After dinner we headed to Petco to get new beds for the dogs (minus Bella). Bella and Jade have been chewing the beds up and I cannot stand picking up any more stuffing from around the house. Hopefully they won't chew the new beds up because they are not cheap. Chris wanted to see all these random things that I talk about so I created a random photo album to put all that silly stuff in. :) Anyway, I think that's it for today. I wanted to get homework done but I've come to same conclusion as always --there are not enough hours in the day.
12 Mar 09-I had a good day at work today even thought it was super busy. After I got home and relaxed for a little bit, I took care of the dishes and started dinner. After that, I started on a project that took me all night. Goodness!! I bought a pipeline (well 2 of them). I was so excited to get it but wow, was that a pain. I got it put together no problem but there are 13 picture frames per... contraption for a better word. Each one of them had sticker paper to remove from both sides of the plastic that the picture sits behind. That took me forever! I can't wait to get them up on the wall though. It is going to look really nice. Okay, how boring is my life?? LOL Oh well, it kept my time occupied. The kids weren't so good today. They figured they would just get in their PJs and that they weren't going to take showers. Wrong answer. :) I had to remind them who was Alpha in this house right now. Thankfully I didn't have to tell them again. They had a long day because they went on a field trip to the Desert Museum. They were talking non-stop about it on the way home and they had a great time. They go to the Botanical Gardens tomorrow. It's been a fun week for them.
11 Mar 09-Another fun day of figuring out discrepancies from our inventory today. What fun stuff. :) After I got home from work today, the neighbor came over to give me some mail that I guess fell out of our trash can when they picked it up yesterday and it blew in his yard. He let me know that he just had his house treated for termites and that I should look at ours. I did and saw a termite tube so I have to have someone come out to treat it. :( It is mighty expensive to get treated for termites. I don't really have anything else to report today. It was busy but uneventful. :)
10 Mar 09-Yesterday was another busy day and I never got around to blogging so I apologize for that. Our LAN went down at work yesterday about noon and totally destroyed the input of numbers from our inventory. I did end up getting some errands done because we couldn't do any work so that was nice. I was able to get to the post office, drop the movies off, go pick up Miles' prescription and pick up pop tabs from one of the offices on base. However, once it was finally time to go home and nothing had come back up yet, I brought all the count sheets home with me. They needed to be done so we could free stuff up to be used again so I was fine with that. I didn't have any homework or anything to do so it worked out. Today was equally busy but not quite as bad of a day. We just spent most of the day cleaning up the discrepancies and starting the paperwork to get everything fixed. There were just a lot of silly problems here and there. It made for quite the stressful day. I was thankful to not have to come home and cook. I had made pasta last night so we just had leftovers. I ordered a 35mm film to digital converter and it showed up yesterday. I finally got a chance to check it out today and it's pretty cool. It doesn't work all that great (not worth the price) but it's nice to get some of those pictures that I didn't even have anymore in digital format. It's a great concept. I know there's more from today but I am completely brain dead. Ha ha! Until tomorrow...
8 Mar 09-I am going to keep this short tonight. It's already 10:30 and I have just finished everything I needed to do and I still need to try to unwind so I can get to sleep. Today should have been a relaxing day but it wasn't at all. I made breakfast for the kids this morning. I had to take over Chris' duty of the "big breakfast" on Sundays and that took me a while. It was 10 a.m. before I even got in the shower. I needed to dye my hair but I realized that I was out of hair dye so I had to run to Walgreens to get it. I decided to take Chris' truck out for a little spin so we went in it. I forgot to mention this to you, Chris, but the neighbor (the guy that does painting-I can't remember his name), looked at me kind of funny when I drove by in it. Ha ha! Anyway, the kids are on spring break so I had to pack their lunches. Well, I expected that I was going to have to pack them but Harmony, bless her heart, took it upon herself to pack them for me. :) What a sweetie. Chris' grandma called today to check in on us and see how Chris was doing. I had to get laundry done today. The biggest shock of the day was knowing that I had homework to do and can usually knock it out in a couple of hours after the kids go to bed. Well, about the time I was getting them in bed, I realized that I just lost an hour today and it was due at 9 my time instead of 10 like I was used to!! Ouch!! I managed to get it done and much to my surprise, I got a 100 but talk about stressful!!! I just cannot do it on the last day with it just being me. It does not work too well. Anyway, on that note (and so much for short), I am going to attempt to go to bed. My back hurts the worst that it has in a LONG TIME tonight so this ought to be interesting.
7 Mar 09-Today was a fun day. My plan was to take the kids to the base for the heritage conference (air show) but they decided they really weren't that interested in getting out and going on the flightline. They said they just wanted to watch it from the car. LOL We had plans to go to lunch and then grocery shopping and they were more interested in that. We went to Burger King for lunch and that should have been smooth sailing. Well, of course, something was messed up with the meal as usual. This time it was only that my chicken sandwich didn't have cheese on it. I paid for the cheese so I took it back up and asked them to just throw some cheese on it (no need to wait for a new one). The girl apologized and said the guy making the food was new. No big deal. Well, the idiot girl that was back there when she asked for some cheese, chucked it across the kitchen and it landed on some piece of equipment on there where they wrap up the food. It wasn't dirty or anything (at least I hope to God it wasn't) and they put it on my sandwich and the girl at the register apologized again. I explained as nicely as I could that I knew it wasn't her fault but that I saw Lauren (I heard her say her name) throw my piece of cheese across the kitchen and that I was not happy about it and would be complaining on Monday. I asked that she make sure she let her know that was not appropriate behavior. Thankfully in my "old age" I have learned some self control. Besides being on base and having the kids, I just did not feel like making a scene but it really pissed me off. Anyway, I continued to enjoy my lunch and forgot all about it until I started typing this tonight. We went grocery shopping to get some things I forgot when I went last week and to get them some sandwich stuff, Lunchables and some snacks since they're on spring break for the next 2 weeks and have to take their lunch every day. I figured it would be fun for them to have a movie day so we stopped at the shoppette to get some candy and rented some movies. Overall, it was a good day.
6 Mar 09-Boy did today suck!! LOL I started my day out by walking the flightline.... again. My feet hurt so bad this evening but the cool part of being out there half the day was getting to watch airplanes practice. They have what's called the "heritage conference" every year and they have all kinds of planes that fly around. Thankfully I got the whole count done and everything came out good. I felt so bad when I had to leave while everyone else was still there. I have done my fair share of inventories but I hate leaving when I know everyone else is working late. I know we're all just anxious to get it done. We do it twice a year and it is not fun at all but it's such a feeling of accomplishment once it's finally done. Anyway, because the inventory, I didn't have time to do anything else. I made popcorn for the kids tonight and they laid on the couch with their blankets and played Halo. They were getting along so well tonight. It was wonderful!
5 Mar 09-Today was quite the busy day. I almost got a break and got to go to lunch with Michelle but she ended up getting called away. :( It was nice to get to visit with her for a few minutes though. Once I got home from work, I made pork chops for dinner and then had to help Miles do his project. They were making "Leprechaun catchers". He had to design and decorate something to catch one in class tomorrow. That was fun but I'm just not very handy with stuff like that. He was happy with it though and he can't wait to show it off tomorrow. :) Tomorrow is going to be extremely busy. We are starting our 100% inventory which is never fun and I get to go do the flightline again. Normally on the first day, we are there until usually around 9 p.m. trying to finish up so we don't have to come in on Saturday. Fortunately and unfortunately, I can't stay late because of it being just me and the kids. It will be a nice change to not have to work that late but I always feel bad when I have to leave the shop hanging. I am sure I will be beyond stressed out by the time I get home tomorrow. I just hope I can dump it on the way home so the kids don't know but I'm pretty good at doing that.
4 Mar 09-Today started out a little scary. I was eating breakfast and heard something on the news that stopped me in my tracks and I had to rub the "sleepy's" out of my eyes and rewind so I could actually pay attention. It said there was a "bombing at the front gate of the main base in Afghanistan". Holy crap was all I could think and I immediately e-mailed Chris. Thankfully he was at a computer and e-mailed me right back. He had no idea that had happened. He heard it from me first. LOL How ironic is that. Boy is the shoe on the other foot now. Now I know what it's like to be at home and hear something on the news and just know that I had to get a hold of him to know that everything was okay. Thankfully the rest of the day was uneventful. I still didn't sleep well last night so I'm off to try it again.
3 Mar 09-Today was a day that I would not choose to do again at all. It started out as a normal day for the most part. I had a plan at lunch today and that was to go get the new video game Halo Wars for the XBox 360 for Miles. He has been so excited to play it. I had 3 meetings lined up today and a full plate overall at work. I went to Best Buy and ran by Burger King on the way back to work. I had to scarf down my lunch so I could make it back out the door by 1230 to get to my 1300 meeting. That did not pan out. The school called to tell me that Harmony had been accidentally tripped at school and she was complaining that her leg hurt. She wanted me to come pick her up and I called the nurses line and they told me to take her to urgent care to be seen. Two and a half hours later and x-rays taken and she's fine. She's probably just got a bruise from where she hit the ground. Thank God she's okay but boy did that make my day stressful. I had pork chops out to make but it was too late when I got home. So I improvised and we had breakfast for dinner and the kids loved it! The great news from today is that my instructor graded my final paper and I got an A on it. I was a little worried because I put so much into it. Now that it's graded, that makes my final grade overall in the class an A!! The coolest part is that she asked me if she could use my paper as an example for future classes!! How exciting is that?? :) I was grinning from ear to ear.
2 Mar 09-I am tired today. I am still not sleeping well. I walked 3 miles for PT today and my feet are really bothering me. When I got home I had to drag the trash cans out and mow the yard and my least favorite chore, cleaning up poop. Ha ha! I made it a week without having to ask for help. Our mower is about 5 years old Chris said and the stupid thing doesn't turn off when you let go of the handle. When he was gone last year, I figured out how to turn it off but I couldn't remember it this time. I had to get Frank from across the street and he couldn't figure it out either. He finally got it but it wasn't the right way to shut it off so I may be making a trip to Home Depot this weekend to purchase a new one! That will definitely be something new for me. My American Government class started today. I read through the syllabus and did my initial introduction post and that was it. I needed a day to brain dump and that's exactly what I did. Now I am just going to relax before bed.
1 Mar 09-Today was a good day. We all slept in a little bit and had a lazy morning which was nice. The kids played in the PJs until almost 10. :) After that, we made a trip to Target to get the kids some new shoes and to have lunch. They really enjoy eating lunch there and they have the best Blue Raspberry icee I've ever had. :P We went to Petco after that so I could get a mouse for Ali. After we got back, I continued to work on my final exam and finally just stopped over analyzing and hit submit and.... I PASSED!!! Whoo hoo! I will post my final grade once she grades my final paper and extra credit. Hopefully I keep my 4.0. Other than that, I didn't do much of anything else. Well, nothing blog worth. Just my normal cleaning, laundry, dinner, dishes, etc. I hope everyone had a great weekend!
Chris got his address today so if you would like to send him some notes or some goodies, I know he would appreciate it:
Christopher Naylor
455 ECES/FP
APO AE 09354
25 Mar 09-Today started out fantastic. I keep meaning to post this but I found another old friend on Facebook. Mom, you're never going to believe this but it is Christopher Cohen!!! I couldn't believe it when I found him. I'll catch you up on that later. Anyway, he was posting comments to my pictures this morning and some of them just had me cracking up. Work was good. I got caught up again and that's always a great feeling. I made a doctors appointment because my back pain is getting significantly worse. I couldn't believe it but they actually are referring me to a surgeon. Does this mean I'm having surgery? No. It's just a consult but we'll see. I won't see the surgeon for a while so I will keep you posted. I had to run home after my appointment to grab the tables for the bake sale tomorrow. I managed to get 7 miles in on the bike today before my back just couldn't handle it anymore. That's about it for today.
24 Mar 09-Happy Birthday to my baby boy Miles!! <3 We cannot believe that he is 6!! Where does the time go?? After I picked the kids up from school, I took them out to dinner to a little mom and pop ice cream joint down the street. He picked to eat at Target but I really didn't want to drive there. We hadn't been to Scoops yet so I suggested we try it out. I don't know why he likes to eat at Target so much but they all love to eat there. LOL Anyway, he agreed to Scoops and said it's his new favorite. We ate and then had ice cream and he was happy as could be. :) It was a good day.
23 Mar 09-I got a little bit of a break today and had to sit at the house to wait for the guy from Sears to come and take a look at the exercise bike. The verdict is in and I did everything right!! :) The console was mis-marked for which way the batteries go in. Instead of negative on one side and positive on the other side like it said, it was positive on both sides. Thank goodness and now it works and I rode 10 miles on it so far. :) Other than that, I slept so horribly, I am headed to bed now. Tomorrow is an exciting day for me since it is my baby's birthday. I cannot believe that little boy is going to be 6!! <3
22 Mar 09-Boy did I have a long weekend. I am so ready to just collapse into bed. We went to Costco today to pick up some supplies for the Easter event for the squadron. I took the kids on base after that to grab some lunch and to get another pair of shoes. I had a whole list of things I wanted to do today but didn't get a whole lot of them done. I got done the things I had to do. I got another 100 on my assignment for my class. Now, I am headed to bed.
21 Mar 09-It's been a busy couple of days. Thursday I decided to complicate my life and buy an exercise bike. It was super easy. I bought it online at Sears.com and I went to pick it up in the store an hour later. I spent 4 hours trying to figure out how to put it together and rolling my eyes at the "some assembly required". Long story short, I got it all together and went to try it out but the console did not come on. I started to disassemble it to check and make sure none of the wires unattached and no suck luck. Friday was pretty boring at work. I headed to a dental appointment at 1 and then went to PT and to do my grocery shopping. That worked out very well. I have been so busy and I was so sore from working on that bike that I figured I would get to sleep early. No such luck. Chris and I chat a lot on Yahoo so I got to be late again. The kids woke me up quite early this morning and very rudely. Silly kids! Hearts Apart is a program put on the base to get deployed spouses out of their houses and get together. They have one main activity a month. This months activity was the zoo. We had a great time today and I got some great pictures. They are up on the website. After that, we headed to Blockbuster so we could have movie night. We rented 4 movies and bought some popcorn and candy and they stayed up until 9:30 watching movies and having a good time. Anyway, I messed up one of my nails while I was working on the bike so I figured we'd just stop in so I could get it fixed but ended up just having them fill them anyway. Harmony got her nails done again and she had shooting stars put on her thumbnails. It's too cute. I'll have to get a picture tomorrow. I still haven't gotten my homework done but I've done my reading so hopefully I can knock it out quick tomorrow. I have a laundry list of things to do tomorrow so it's going to be another busy one. I will be happy to get to work just to have a chance to relax.
18 Mar 09-Today was one busy but productive day. I actually had more energy today than I've had in a long time. Not sure why though. Anyway, just before I left work today, I had the coolest invitation to sing for a function. Some guy from the social security office downtown called and said they were looking for a singer at their building next month and asked if I could do it. McCain and Biden have been invited as well as President Obama!! He obviously doesn't think the President will show up but the others could and that's just awesome. I am nervous already. I have to call him back tomorrow to tell him yes. I had to check with Rich and Sheree' first to make sure they could take the kids to school because I'd have to leave an hour before the daycare opens to be there on time. This will be my first real event in the community and I couldn't be more excite about it!
17 Mar 09-I had a great day today! I got caught up with all my work and got to relax. I actually got so much done that we had time to do an 80s quiz in the shop. ;) I had a custodian from OSI (Office of Special Investigations) come out today who needed to do some paperwork that he couldn't do from his office. He's a stand in so he doesn't know a lot of the processes and it's my job to help him out. Anyway, as he was leaving, he shook my hand and "coined me". What that means is that he had a coin in his hand and transferred it to mine. That is standard practice for being awarded a coin. It's kind of like a great job or a thank you but done privately for you to look at later. I looked at it after I got in the shop and it was an awesome coin! It doubles as a bottle opener too! Brilliant design! I was so excited to get that from him. It's so nice to have someone notice what we do for them and I was truly grateful for the gesture. It's days like this that I love my job! I came home and attempted to hang my new picture frames. That didn't work out so well. I got the wall anchor in which was a feat in itself for me. I had never done that before and I got it. Then I tried to put the screw in and dropped the whole thing back into the wall and I heard it fall. LOL Oh well! I'm not a very handy person so I'll have to find someone to come over who is and put them up for me! :) Overall, it was a great day! Check out the pictures of my coin below...
16 Mar 09-Okay so today I am truly going to keep this one short. I am exhausted. It's already after 10 and I need some decent sleep. I had a good day today but it was extremely busy. Thankfully it was a productive day. I got a lot of overdue stuff done. I have one more project that has been neglected to finish and I'll be caught up and what a great feeling that will be. On that note, I am off to bed...
15 Mar 09-We had a great day today! I was lazy this morning and didn't get in the shower until 10 but I was working on my homework. I did not want a repeat of last week where I almost didn't get done in time so I wanted to have it done before I went anywhere today. I finished up about 2 p.m. and then put the kids in the truck (we drive it somewhere once a week so she doesn't get lonely lol) and headed for Ace Hardware to get a new timer for the sprinklers. I decided to make an impromptu stop at the nail salon to get my nails done for the first time in many, many years. I like them. Even Harmony got her nails painted and she was grinning from ear to ear. Miles was so good. I figured he would get bored and act up but he was enjoying watching all the "tools" they use. After a while, he got tired of the smell but he did so good. They all loved him in there and kept asking him questions. After that, we came home for a little bit until I realized that I had forgotten a paper. So, we headed back out to Fry's to get a paper and that worked out because I remembered then to order Miles' birthday cake. They are so easily amused with little trips out so it works out great. The rest of the night was relaxing. I just did the normal Sunday night getting lunches ready, laundry, bags ready, clothes laid out, etc. I did get to talk to my parents today... finally! It was so nice to talk to them. I will not go that long again. :)
14 Mar 09-We had a busy but fun day today. We went to the DM-50 picnic today at Bama Park on the base. It is put on by a committee in Tucson to show their appreciation for what we do and they do a few things for us throughout the year and it's always great. They go all out for us. This year was extra special because my friend Michelle coordinated the whole thing and it was obvious that she put a lot of work into it. The kids really had a good time and I was able to get lots of pictures that are already up on the website (see I'm getting better). We don't normally spend but an hour there and we actually stayed 3 hours because the kids were enjoying themselves so much. We had other running around to do but I decided to bring them home and let them clean up from all the junk food and relax for a bit before we headed back out. After a while, we headed to Party City to pick up the decorations for Miles' birthday party. He picked out a Cars theme and he of course wanted 2 of everything. We don't normally do goody bags but we decided to do them this year. After that we went to dinner and I don't know what got into them today (well, I guess I do... it was all the sugar) but they were in rare form and had me cracking up. After dinner we headed to Petco to get new beds for the dogs (minus Bella). Bella and Jade have been chewing the beds up and I cannot stand picking up any more stuffing from around the house. Hopefully they won't chew the new beds up because they are not cheap. Chris wanted to see all these random things that I talk about so I created a random photo album to put all that silly stuff in. :) Anyway, I think that's it for today. I wanted to get homework done but I've come to same conclusion as always --there are not enough hours in the day.
12 Mar 09-I had a good day at work today even thought it was super busy. After I got home and relaxed for a little bit, I took care of the dishes and started dinner. After that, I started on a project that took me all night. Goodness!! I bought a pipeline (well 2 of them). I was so excited to get it but wow, was that a pain. I got it put together no problem but there are 13 picture frames per... contraption for a better word. Each one of them had sticker paper to remove from both sides of the plastic that the picture sits behind. That took me forever! I can't wait to get them up on the wall though. It is going to look really nice. Okay, how boring is my life?? LOL Oh well, it kept my time occupied. The kids weren't so good today. They figured they would just get in their PJs and that they weren't going to take showers. Wrong answer. :) I had to remind them who was Alpha in this house right now. Thankfully I didn't have to tell them again. They had a long day because they went on a field trip to the Desert Museum. They were talking non-stop about it on the way home and they had a great time. They go to the Botanical Gardens tomorrow. It's been a fun week for them.
11 Mar 09-Another fun day of figuring out discrepancies from our inventory today. What fun stuff. :) After I got home from work today, the neighbor came over to give me some mail that I guess fell out of our trash can when they picked it up yesterday and it blew in his yard. He let me know that he just had his house treated for termites and that I should look at ours. I did and saw a termite tube so I have to have someone come out to treat it. :( It is mighty expensive to get treated for termites. I don't really have anything else to report today. It was busy but uneventful. :)
10 Mar 09-Yesterday was another busy day and I never got around to blogging so I apologize for that. Our LAN went down at work yesterday about noon and totally destroyed the input of numbers from our inventory. I did end up getting some errands done because we couldn't do any work so that was nice. I was able to get to the post office, drop the movies off, go pick up Miles' prescription and pick up pop tabs from one of the offices on base. However, once it was finally time to go home and nothing had come back up yet, I brought all the count sheets home with me. They needed to be done so we could free stuff up to be used again so I was fine with that. I didn't have any homework or anything to do so it worked out. Today was equally busy but not quite as bad of a day. We just spent most of the day cleaning up the discrepancies and starting the paperwork to get everything fixed. There were just a lot of silly problems here and there. It made for quite the stressful day. I was thankful to not have to come home and cook. I had made pasta last night so we just had leftovers. I ordered a 35mm film to digital converter and it showed up yesterday. I finally got a chance to check it out today and it's pretty cool. It doesn't work all that great (not worth the price) but it's nice to get some of those pictures that I didn't even have anymore in digital format. It's a great concept. I know there's more from today but I am completely brain dead. Ha ha! Until tomorrow...
8 Mar 09-I am going to keep this short tonight. It's already 10:30 and I have just finished everything I needed to do and I still need to try to unwind so I can get to sleep. Today should have been a relaxing day but it wasn't at all. I made breakfast for the kids this morning. I had to take over Chris' duty of the "big breakfast" on Sundays and that took me a while. It was 10 a.m. before I even got in the shower. I needed to dye my hair but I realized that I was out of hair dye so I had to run to Walgreens to get it. I decided to take Chris' truck out for a little spin so we went in it. I forgot to mention this to you, Chris, but the neighbor (the guy that does painting-I can't remember his name), looked at me kind of funny when I drove by in it. Ha ha! Anyway, the kids are on spring break so I had to pack their lunches. Well, I expected that I was going to have to pack them but Harmony, bless her heart, took it upon herself to pack them for me. :) What a sweetie. Chris' grandma called today to check in on us and see how Chris was doing. I had to get laundry done today. The biggest shock of the day was knowing that I had homework to do and can usually knock it out in a couple of hours after the kids go to bed. Well, about the time I was getting them in bed, I realized that I just lost an hour today and it was due at 9 my time instead of 10 like I was used to!! Ouch!! I managed to get it done and much to my surprise, I got a 100 but talk about stressful!!! I just cannot do it on the last day with it just being me. It does not work too well. Anyway, on that note (and so much for short), I am going to attempt to go to bed. My back hurts the worst that it has in a LONG TIME tonight so this ought to be interesting.
7 Mar 09-Today was a fun day. My plan was to take the kids to the base for the heritage conference (air show) but they decided they really weren't that interested in getting out and going on the flightline. They said they just wanted to watch it from the car. LOL We had plans to go to lunch and then grocery shopping and they were more interested in that. We went to Burger King for lunch and that should have been smooth sailing. Well, of course, something was messed up with the meal as usual. This time it was only that my chicken sandwich didn't have cheese on it. I paid for the cheese so I took it back up and asked them to just throw some cheese on it (no need to wait for a new one). The girl apologized and said the guy making the food was new. No big deal. Well, the idiot girl that was back there when she asked for some cheese, chucked it across the kitchen and it landed on some piece of equipment on there where they wrap up the food. It wasn't dirty or anything (at least I hope to God it wasn't) and they put it on my sandwich and the girl at the register apologized again. I explained as nicely as I could that I knew it wasn't her fault but that I saw Lauren (I heard her say her name) throw my piece of cheese across the kitchen and that I was not happy about it and would be complaining on Monday. I asked that she make sure she let her know that was not appropriate behavior. Thankfully in my "old age" I have learned some self control. Besides being on base and having the kids, I just did not feel like making a scene but it really pissed me off. Anyway, I continued to enjoy my lunch and forgot all about it until I started typing this tonight. We went grocery shopping to get some things I forgot when I went last week and to get them some sandwich stuff, Lunchables and some snacks since they're on spring break for the next 2 weeks and have to take their lunch every day. I figured it would be fun for them to have a movie day so we stopped at the shoppette to get some candy and rented some movies. Overall, it was a good day.
6 Mar 09-Boy did today suck!! LOL I started my day out by walking the flightline.... again. My feet hurt so bad this evening but the cool part of being out there half the day was getting to watch airplanes practice. They have what's called the "heritage conference" every year and they have all kinds of planes that fly around. Thankfully I got the whole count done and everything came out good. I felt so bad when I had to leave while everyone else was still there. I have done my fair share of inventories but I hate leaving when I know everyone else is working late. I know we're all just anxious to get it done. We do it twice a year and it is not fun at all but it's such a feeling of accomplishment once it's finally done. Anyway, because the inventory, I didn't have time to do anything else. I made popcorn for the kids tonight and they laid on the couch with their blankets and played Halo. They were getting along so well tonight. It was wonderful!
5 Mar 09-Today was quite the busy day. I almost got a break and got to go to lunch with Michelle but she ended up getting called away. :( It was nice to get to visit with her for a few minutes though. Once I got home from work, I made pork chops for dinner and then had to help Miles do his project. They were making "Leprechaun catchers". He had to design and decorate something to catch one in class tomorrow. That was fun but I'm just not very handy with stuff like that. He was happy with it though and he can't wait to show it off tomorrow. :) Tomorrow is going to be extremely busy. We are starting our 100% inventory which is never fun and I get to go do the flightline again. Normally on the first day, we are there until usually around 9 p.m. trying to finish up so we don't have to come in on Saturday. Fortunately and unfortunately, I can't stay late because of it being just me and the kids. It will be a nice change to not have to work that late but I always feel bad when I have to leave the shop hanging. I am sure I will be beyond stressed out by the time I get home tomorrow. I just hope I can dump it on the way home so the kids don't know but I'm pretty good at doing that.
4 Mar 09-Today started out a little scary. I was eating breakfast and heard something on the news that stopped me in my tracks and I had to rub the "sleepy's" out of my eyes and rewind so I could actually pay attention. It said there was a "bombing at the front gate of the main base in Afghanistan". Holy crap was all I could think and I immediately e-mailed Chris. Thankfully he was at a computer and e-mailed me right back. He had no idea that had happened. He heard it from me first. LOL How ironic is that. Boy is the shoe on the other foot now. Now I know what it's like to be at home and hear something on the news and just know that I had to get a hold of him to know that everything was okay. Thankfully the rest of the day was uneventful. I still didn't sleep well last night so I'm off to try it again.
3 Mar 09-Today was a day that I would not choose to do again at all. It started out as a normal day for the most part. I had a plan at lunch today and that was to go get the new video game Halo Wars for the XBox 360 for Miles. He has been so excited to play it. I had 3 meetings lined up today and a full plate overall at work. I went to Best Buy and ran by Burger King on the way back to work. I had to scarf down my lunch so I could make it back out the door by 1230 to get to my 1300 meeting. That did not pan out. The school called to tell me that Harmony had been accidentally tripped at school and she was complaining that her leg hurt. She wanted me to come pick her up and I called the nurses line and they told me to take her to urgent care to be seen. Two and a half hours later and x-rays taken and she's fine. She's probably just got a bruise from where she hit the ground. Thank God she's okay but boy did that make my day stressful. I had pork chops out to make but it was too late when I got home. So I improvised and we had breakfast for dinner and the kids loved it! The great news from today is that my instructor graded my final paper and I got an A on it. I was a little worried because I put so much into it. Now that it's graded, that makes my final grade overall in the class an A!! The coolest part is that she asked me if she could use my paper as an example for future classes!! How exciting is that?? :) I was grinning from ear to ear.
2 Mar 09-I am tired today. I am still not sleeping well. I walked 3 miles for PT today and my feet are really bothering me. When I got home I had to drag the trash cans out and mow the yard and my least favorite chore, cleaning up poop. Ha ha! I made it a week without having to ask for help. Our mower is about 5 years old Chris said and the stupid thing doesn't turn off when you let go of the handle. When he was gone last year, I figured out how to turn it off but I couldn't remember it this time. I had to get Frank from across the street and he couldn't figure it out either. He finally got it but it wasn't the right way to shut it off so I may be making a trip to Home Depot this weekend to purchase a new one! That will definitely be something new for me. My American Government class started today. I read through the syllabus and did my initial introduction post and that was it. I needed a day to brain dump and that's exactly what I did. Now I am just going to relax before bed.
1 Mar 09-Today was a good day. We all slept in a little bit and had a lazy morning which was nice. The kids played in the PJs until almost 10. :) After that, we made a trip to Target to get the kids some new shoes and to have lunch. They really enjoy eating lunch there and they have the best Blue Raspberry icee I've ever had. :P We went to Petco after that so I could get a mouse for Ali. After we got back, I continued to work on my final exam and finally just stopped over analyzing and hit submit and.... I PASSED!!! Whoo hoo! I will post my final grade once she grades my final paper and extra credit. Hopefully I keep my 4.0. Other than that, I didn't do much of anything else. Well, nothing blog worth. Just my normal cleaning, laundry, dinner, dishes, etc. I hope everyone had a great weekend!
Chris got his address today so if you would like to send him some notes or some goodies, I know he would appreciate it:
Christopher Naylor
455 ECES/FP
APO AE 09354
07 February 2009
My ramblings-Feb 09
28 Feb 09-Ah finally it is the last day of February. One more month down! I had to set my alarm for 6 this morning to get ready to take Bella in to get fixed. The drop off went smoothly but when I went back to pick her up, it wasn't so smooth. I will NOT be going back to that place. Anyway, I'll get to that in a minute. On the way back from dropping Bella off, the kids decided they were still hungry so I figured I'd swing by McDonald's and treat them to breakfast. Harmony mentioned wanting to go check out yard sales so after we ate breakfast, we headed back out. She is so funny about yard sales. She is really into it and enjoys going but once we get there, she gets a little shy and wants me to help her find stuff she likes. Silly girl. They both got a couple of things and I even picked up a couple of shirts. Chris called before we headed out and it sounds like things are working out with the tent. They were having some wall lockers made so they could put their stuff away. He said one of the guys that lived in the buildings that I lived in came over to check out the tent and said he'd rather live in the tent than the metal tin. I would have to agree. I'm glad there's a positive spin on it for him. He's having some trouble getting the pictures on the website because he doesn't have internet in his room and trying to use the Wi-Fi anywhere else is a joke. He might end up having to send home his SD card so I can upload them for him. I am still waiting on his address. I will share that when I get it. Okay, now back to the story of picking Bella up. I went to the desk to check in and the lady told me that she would put my sheet in the stack and the other guy in there would call me up to pay and have her brought out. Well, my sheet didn't make it in the stack and I didn't realize it until a guy that I recognized from the morning when we dropped her off came in after me and got his dog before me. Of course they apologized and he told the tech that Bella was ready to go home. Well SHE FORGOT!! Holy crap was I pissed. Lucky for them I had the kids with me or I would have made a scene. It was ridiculous. I finally grabbed the tech and told her that I heard him tell her that my dog was ready to go home and asked what the hold up was. The first girl saw me back at the counter and said "Again?" I almost lost it! Idiots! I will definitely not be going back to that place. I was thinking because shots were so cheap there that I would just take the dogs there but no thank you. I will wait for an appointment at the base vet where they are professional. So that was my day. Fun huh? :)
27 Feb 09-Chris finally made it to Afghanistan. He called me today while I was on my way home from grocery shopping to tell me he had made it. I was relieved to hear it. Unfortunately, he got some bad news about living arrangements once he got there. He is living in what I referred to while I was there as Camp Cunningham. They are completely booked on rooms so they converted the old cardio tent into a home for these guys. :( I was so disappointed to hear that. Who sends people over and they don't have rooms for them?? If it's not hard enough to deal with that place and you have to start out with living conditions like that. They say they're going to be there for the whole 4 months. I don't see how that is even possible but we'll see how it goes for him. I just hope that doesn't start getting his spirit down. I actually preferred living in a tent but it sounds like it's quite different for him. Anyway, I called his grandparents when I got home so they knew he was safe. I tried to call his dad but the home number I had was disconnected and his cell phone went to voice mail. I know his grandma will be spreading the word though so I wasn't too worried about it. The rest of my day consisted of 8 hours of working on my final paper! Yikes! I guess that's what I get for just starting it today but I work better under pressure but that was tiring. Now I just have my final exam to finish tomorrow and I will be all done with American Pop Culture! Whoo hoo! Miles was busy building blanket forts in the family room today which was adorable. I think that's about it for today. Tomorrow I have to set my alarm for 6 so I can take Bella in to get fixed. :(
26 Feb 09-Today was a busy day. We had our monthly commanders call which meant another key spouse bake sale. We ended up making $206 from it! It is so exciting to watch how the different flights get in to hosting the bake sales. I'm glad that people aren't complaining about having to do it. Chris is still doing well but very bored still sitting at Manas. He finally leaves at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow so he's almost out of there to make the short trip to Afghanistan. I know he is ready to get settled. He says that he has a new found respect for the traveling I had done over there twice now that he's gone through it himself. It is not fun and it is very exhausting. Anyway, he'll be there soon and I will start making my phone calls to his family to let them know he is safe and sound (they don't get on the internet so wouldn't be reading this). I am off tomorrow because the kids don't have school and the daycare is also closed. Every year they get 2 days off for the rodeo. It is still amusing to me after being here so long that they get out of school to attend a rodeo that we don't usually go to. We went in the past but it's just too hot and not very interesting to them so we don't bother.
25 Feb 09-Another day down. Chris is at Manas now (Kyrgyzstan). He finally flies out for Afghanistan tomorrow night so I will update again once I know that he is there for sure. He is only having to spend a couple days at Manas so that's not too bad at all but as he quickly learned, there's not a whole lot to do there. They have a lot more places to get internet access now than when I was there so we've been able to IM back and forth which has been nice. I know he is just ready to get there and get settled. I had to go to the flightline again to count launchers some more. I had to drag the tables in to work today too for my key spouse bake sale tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a good money maker. We have a big event coming up for Easter so we need some funds for that. I ordered some business cards today with the website address for the key spouse website and we're going to hand that out at the function to encourage people to come to the site. I will be playing photographer for the day and I'm going post the pictures of the kids with the Easter Bunny on the site so hopefully that will bring more traffic to the site. Anyway, we just goofed around the house tonight and I did a paper for extra credit for my American Pop Culture class after I put the kids down. All in all, it was a good day.
24 Feb 09-I am exhausted today. I didn't sleep very well last night waiting for Chris to call from his stops. I left the laptop up too in case he got online. I kept waking up and checking to make sure I didn't miss a call or an IM. Chris forgot to turn his alarm off so that woke me up at 4 something. Miles woke up about 20 minutes before my alarm. Overall it was just a rough night. Hopefully I will sleep well tonight but I haven't heard from Chris yet so obviously that will be on my mind as I attempt to sleep. From where I last mentioned, he went to New Hampshire, to Iceland and then Romania. I'm not sure if there were any more stops before he got to Manas in Kyrgyzstan but I haven't heard from him again. He called when he stopped in Iceland and again before he left for Romania but unfortunately, I was on the flightline and cell phones are not allowed out there. :( Now I know how nerve wracking this was for him waiting to hear from me to know that I made it safely. Work was work today. I stopped to get water after work, stopped at H & R Block to pick up the amendment paperwork, picked up the kids and the mail and headed home to start dinner. I really want to start expanding what I cook so I found some pan fried chicken recipe on allrecipes.com that came out really good. The kids gave it "2 thumbs up". LOL I cleaned out Miles' hermit crab tank and then got them in the showers. Once I finally got them in bed, I cleaned up the kitchen and then got on my treadmill to run/walk for a bit while I watched The Biggest Loser. Yes, my life is interesting! :) This is how it's going to be for the next 4 months. I will have my routine and hopefully I won't go too stir crazy.
23 Feb 09-What can I say about today? It sucked. We said goodbye to Chris today. Harmony seemed okay but poor Miles had tears in his eyes. What was even worse for me is that he waited until he got to school to cry. I know he didn't want me to cry and he's smart and knows I would have if I had seen him cry. :( Breaks my heart! It was different taking him to the airport instead of the way that I usually deploy-in a big room full of crying and sad families. Poor Chris has been stressed out and he's tired and just ready to get there. It is 9:45 p.m. and I just got a text from him telling me he was boarding in Virginia to start heading over so please think of him. Hopefully he can get some rest and get there and get settled. He is unsure of his route at this point so I don't know if he'll be making the same stops that I did but I will update as I get those updates. Anyway, on a lighter note, I was going to take a break for a semester to get in a groove with the kids but I decided against it. I might as well keep up on it while I'm on a roll. :) So, I signed up for American Government today. We will see how that goes. It starts the day after my current class ends. Thank you to everyone for all the love, support and well wishes for Chris and our family. It means so much to us!
22 Feb 09-Today was another busy day. I packed all of Chris' stuff today and poor Scrappy is all too familiar with the moving of the bags. He definitely sensed it. Thankfully the kids seem okay at the moment. I'm sure tomorrow will be a different story. I need to stay strong for them so hopefully I make it through it. I am still excited for him to see where I've been though and to get the experience. I think he is going to enjoy himself. Please think of him as he makes his journey out tomorrow. I will keep everyone that reads this posted on how he's doing and when he gets there. Thank you. (Mom, I promise, promise, promise I will call you soon. I have been such a bad daughter.) :)
20 Feb 09-We had a good day today. We went to the annual Vail Pride Day at the fairgrounds (Vail is our school district). The kids climbed the rock wall, pet a horse, we checked out their artwork that was on display and ate lunch. It was a nice day. We played some more rock band tonight too. Chris is just trying to enjoy his last couple of days.
19 Feb 09-Today was another running around day. The biggest thing of today was dropping my van off for it's 100K mile check up. That was a little expensive but I guess not really for everything they did. I just hate spending money for something I can't see. LOL I guess "she" needs to keep running for me though until we pay the truck off. We went grocery shopping today too and determined that we are never allowed to go shopping again together. It was an expensive trip but it's good because I got all the Easter stuff and I won't have to grocery shop much next time while I'm adjusting to being on my own with the kids. I finally got a chance to work on my quiz too so that was nice. I really need to get cracking on it. :) Tomorrow should be more relaxing than the rest of the week.
18 Feb 09-Today was yet another busy day. We got some more stuff for the house and Chris surprised me with a flash for my new camera. So now, I have the camera, extra lens, carrying case, tripod and flash. Whoo hoo! I set up a drop cloth to see if I could take professional looking pictures in the house. We'll see how they look during the day. We picked up his weapon from the armory today and took it over to the main armory so he can pick it up this weekend. It's almost time for him to go and I know he's stressing out about it. Other than that, there's not much to report for today.
17 Feb 09-Sorry I missed yesterday. We had a very busy day shopping because we got our tax money. Of course my disclaimer before I post this is that of course we saved and paid off bills too. I finally, finally, finally got my wonderful SLR camera and I LOVE IT!!! It takes such fantastic pictures so I am going to learn how to use it so I can start posting pictures. I bought a tripod and camera case for it today and I can't wait to use everything. Chris needed some stuff to take with him on his deployment to help pass the time and we picked up all that stuff today. It was a good day.
15 Feb 09-Happy Birthday to my brother Ryan!! I hope you had a great day! :) Today was PJ day for me. It has been kind of nice without football and having people over every Sunday so I could just relax and stay in my PJs. Of course, I still got plenty done around the house. (Sunday is laundry day! LOL) I will be glad once this class is over so I can have my days back. I just finished my paper and now I can relax and hang out with the kiddos and get caught up on some T.V. shows! The paper that I had due today was rough. It was all about "zines" which I know nothing about. Even reading about them on the internet and picking 2 of them to write about, I struggled my way through it. I just hope it was enough! I am off all week to spend Chris' last week with him. The kids have school tomorrow even though it's a holiday so we have all week to just hang out while the kids are in school. I will be packing him up this week and we'll be do some shopping to get some stuff he needs for his trip.
14 Feb 09-What a great Valentines Day!! Chris put out roses in a vase and then some mini roses in pots that he hung on the wall while I was getting ready for our Saturday outing. It was a nice surprise. We went to "A" Mountain and let the kids hike around. They had a lot of fun and I got some great pictures (which are on the site already). We were going to go to this cute little Italian joint that I love but Chris and the kids haven't been to yet but the wait for a table was too long so we went to Texas Roadhouse instead. I'm glad we did because we had a great time and a great (whew, but expensive) meal. The kids thought it was so cool to eat peanuts out of the shell and throw the shells on the ground. :) I had never been to a place like that before and we really enjoyed it. While we were in this little lookout spot on the mountain, Chris pulled a box out of his pocket that shocked me! I had no idea he had another surprise in store for me. He bought me a tennis bracelet!! I had been wanting one for a long time and I was so surprised that he got me one! It was a great day!
13 Feb 09-Thank God it's Friday!! That is all I have to say about today! I had a nice lunch out with Holly today and that was the highlight of the day. :)
12 Feb 09-Much better weather again today! I got to see my favorite doctor today (after over 3 weeks without), my chiropractor! Whew! I needed that. That was probably the most he'd ever been able to crack my back. Other than that, I have nothing else to report for today. I am just ready for this week to be over with. Mom, I am on leave last week (to spend Chris' last week with him) so I will call during the week. :)
11 Feb 09-The weather was much better today thankfully. I went back to see the doctor today about my back. I never got the results of the MRI so I wanted see what the outcome was. The report said that my disc was worse than the last one. It wasn't a whole lot worse but it was still worse. He gave me some pain meds and updated my profile so we'll see how that goes. Other than that, it was a pretty boring day.
10 Feb 09-I got a call at 12:30 a.m. telling me that we were not to report until 9 a.m. do to weather. At 2:30 a.m. (ish) Miles came and woke me up to tell me that it was snowing outside!! They said we were going to get it but I wasn't sure I believed it would be that much! It was nuts! It was nice going in late and it made the day go by fast but it was cold!! Other than that, not much to report. It's still cold but the snow is all gone. Back to the grind as usual tomorrow.
9 Feb 09-Today was a good day. I was lucky enough to find an old wonderful friend from when I was stationed at Whiteman. We were dubbed as twin sisters and everyone knew us. I was looking for her for years and finally found her. She had no idea who I was because she didn't recognize me after all these years. She remembered me with long, brown, curly hair. Anyway, it was fantastic to find her and I enjoyed catching up. I also got a wild hair to pull out old pictures a few weeks ago and I finally got around to scanning them all in tonight and posted them on Facebook. It was fun to make people smile with old pictures. Not a very productive day but it was fun. Tomorrow, we're supposed to get snow in the valley. That ought to be interesting. I'm thinking warm thoughts tonight!
8 Feb 09-I thought I would miss football being on today but it's 6 p.m. and I'm still in my PJs and it's wonderful! :) I was super busy today doing laundry (which had been neglected for a while because of everything else I had going) and working on school work. Due to the fact that I have homework due on Wednesdays and Sundays, I don't normally get my homework done for Sunday until Sunday. She hasn't posted the assignments ahead of time either so I can't get ahead like I did in my last class. She did post ahead finally yesterday so I'm going to try to get ahead a little bit so it's not quite so stressful. It was a cold and rainy day today so there was another reason not to get dressed. Dinner is going now and then it will be bath time, time to put the laundry away, then I have to dye my hair and get all my stuff out to get ready for work tomorrow so that will take up the rest of my evening. Whew! I could have used a couple more days off though.
7 Feb 09-Okay, so contrary to popular belief, I'm alive. I apologize.... again... for taking so long to post in this thing. I just have not had the strength or the energy to do much of anything. Let's see if I can pick up where I left off. Grab a snack, this will be a long one. :)
Thankfully I survived the exercise although it sucked!! It had been way too long since everyone had done one and it got messed up from the very beginning. I won't harp on it because I don't even want to think about it anymore! ;)
On the 16th of January, I sang for the Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast. It was a good time and thankfully I did well. I was amazed at all the work that went into setting that event up. I really enjoyed it and was happy to be a part of it. I received multiple e-mails afterward thanking me for my participation. I also received a picture that was taken of me and the chaplain while we were waiting for everything to get started. I will put that in the photo albums tomorrow. I got another e-mail saying that we should be receiving a letter from the wing commander thanking us as well.
My class that started on the 5th of January is going well. I currently have a 95% in the class and I am so happy that I'm getting the hang of it. It's still very stressful. My last class had homework due on Sunday and it was one assignment per week. This class, I have a discussion post with 4 replies due on Wednesdays and then a paper due every Sunday. I also just took my midterm on Superbowl Sunday and scored a 95% on it!! Whoo hoo! The class is American Pop Culture if I haven't mentioned it yet. I realized that I don't know crap about pop culture but I'm learning. :)
Let's see... what else? We filed our taxes on the 24th and I'm enjoying the benefits of buying a house. ;) It couldn't come at a better time because of Chris getting ready to deploy. Speaking of that, have I mentioned it?? See, I can't even keep track of myself! If I haven't mentioned it, Chris is leaving for Afghanistan on the 23rd of this month. Thankfully it's only 4 months and I know I'll be glad that he'll get to see where I've spent so much time but we're all going to miss him. It will be interesting to hear his take on that place.
Next, just before my second week long exercise started, I got a bad sinus infection. :( I am still trying to kick it some 3 weeks later. Chris had it too and it lasted a long time. I survived the second week of exercises too but it was sooooo boring! I spent the whole week on the verge of tears though because of being sick and just dealing with stress. I have been having a rough time lately.
Now finally on to February. This month is inventory time for me at work which means an extremely busy schedule. I had two troops at work and one just left for Korea so I only have 1 left. He was on leave last week so it was just me. It was kind of nice though because a good friend just left for Italy and it hit me harder than I could have expected so it's been nice to keep busy. Wednesday I had my monthly meeting with the commander for the key spouse program. It was lunch at the golf course this time so that was a nice change. It is so refreshing to see how excited he still is about the whole thing.
The Superbowl was a blast but of course we hated the outcome. We had a nice turn out and a lot of good food. I made my chicken biscuits of course and they were a hit again. Chris and I were up until 4 a.m. so I was exhausted the next day but thankfully we had the day off.
Now onto my nightmare turned awesome ending! So, every year, I sing for the yearly Maintenance Professional of the Year banquet. It is a HUGE deal in semi formal uniform at Pima Air and Space Museum. I love doing that one but I get completely stressed out before doing that one because it is such a big deal. Anyway, they booked me for it last August. Then, I got a call a couple of weeks ago and they said they had asked someone else to do it and I was not happy about it. Well, as it turns out, they had already printed my name in the programs and the group commander asked if I was who did it last year and said he wanted me to do it again. So, they called and begged me to do it and I agreed. It was hard to say yes but my name would have been mud had I not done it. Anyway, I got there and they showed me as a Staff Sergeant in the program AND my name was spelled wrong. :( I tried to let the emcee's know that my rank was incorrect so they wouldn't call me a Staff in front of everyone. They called me a Staff when they announced me anyway. However, it was made known by someone else and the Chief that said it publicly apologized to me and told me he owed me a drink!! (He asked me to stand up and everything.) I was shocked and embarrassed but it was great! :) Anyway, the best part of the night was that it was the best performance of my life!!! Sick and all, I nailed it and was so proud of myself!!! I just LOVE singing at that place. The acoustics are fantastic. I had tons of people coming up to me afterward telling me what a great job I did. I was grinning from ear to ear all night!
That was last night and today came the highlight of the year... getting to sleep in!!! Whew! Exhausted doesn't begin to describe me.
So there it is Mom. Sorry to worry you. I had tried to call a few times (and on Dad's birthday) just never left a message. I didn't know if you had service with the cell. I still have his card here because I had nowhere to mail it! Ha ha! I just need to get through this month and hopefully things will be back to almost normal. Normal except that Chris won't be here.
27 Feb 09-Chris finally made it to Afghanistan. He called me today while I was on my way home from grocery shopping to tell me he had made it. I was relieved to hear it. Unfortunately, he got some bad news about living arrangements once he got there. He is living in what I referred to while I was there as Camp Cunningham. They are completely booked on rooms so they converted the old cardio tent into a home for these guys. :( I was so disappointed to hear that. Who sends people over and they don't have rooms for them?? If it's not hard enough to deal with that place and you have to start out with living conditions like that. They say they're going to be there for the whole 4 months. I don't see how that is even possible but we'll see how it goes for him. I just hope that doesn't start getting his spirit down. I actually preferred living in a tent but it sounds like it's quite different for him. Anyway, I called his grandparents when I got home so they knew he was safe. I tried to call his dad but the home number I had was disconnected and his cell phone went to voice mail. I know his grandma will be spreading the word though so I wasn't too worried about it. The rest of my day consisted of 8 hours of working on my final paper! Yikes! I guess that's what I get for just starting it today but I work better under pressure but that was tiring. Now I just have my final exam to finish tomorrow and I will be all done with American Pop Culture! Whoo hoo! Miles was busy building blanket forts in the family room today which was adorable. I think that's about it for today. Tomorrow I have to set my alarm for 6 so I can take Bella in to get fixed. :(
26 Feb 09-Today was a busy day. We had our monthly commanders call which meant another key spouse bake sale. We ended up making $206 from it! It is so exciting to watch how the different flights get in to hosting the bake sales. I'm glad that people aren't complaining about having to do it. Chris is still doing well but very bored still sitting at Manas. He finally leaves at 4:30 a.m. tomorrow so he's almost out of there to make the short trip to Afghanistan. I know he is ready to get settled. He says that he has a new found respect for the traveling I had done over there twice now that he's gone through it himself. It is not fun and it is very exhausting. Anyway, he'll be there soon and I will start making my phone calls to his family to let them know he is safe and sound (they don't get on the internet so wouldn't be reading this). I am off tomorrow because the kids don't have school and the daycare is also closed. Every year they get 2 days off for the rodeo. It is still amusing to me after being here so long that they get out of school to attend a rodeo that we don't usually go to. We went in the past but it's just too hot and not very interesting to them so we don't bother.
25 Feb 09-Another day down. Chris is at Manas now (Kyrgyzstan). He finally flies out for Afghanistan tomorrow night so I will update again once I know that he is there for sure. He is only having to spend a couple days at Manas so that's not too bad at all but as he quickly learned, there's not a whole lot to do there. They have a lot more places to get internet access now than when I was there so we've been able to IM back and forth which has been nice. I know he is just ready to get there and get settled. I had to go to the flightline again to count launchers some more. I had to drag the tables in to work today too for my key spouse bake sale tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a good money maker. We have a big event coming up for Easter so we need some funds for that. I ordered some business cards today with the website address for the key spouse website and we're going to hand that out at the function to encourage people to come to the site. I will be playing photographer for the day and I'm going post the pictures of the kids with the Easter Bunny on the site so hopefully that will bring more traffic to the site. Anyway, we just goofed around the house tonight and I did a paper for extra credit for my American Pop Culture class after I put the kids down. All in all, it was a good day.
24 Feb 09-I am exhausted today. I didn't sleep very well last night waiting for Chris to call from his stops. I left the laptop up too in case he got online. I kept waking up and checking to make sure I didn't miss a call or an IM. Chris forgot to turn his alarm off so that woke me up at 4 something. Miles woke up about 20 minutes before my alarm. Overall it was just a rough night. Hopefully I will sleep well tonight but I haven't heard from Chris yet so obviously that will be on my mind as I attempt to sleep. From where I last mentioned, he went to New Hampshire, to Iceland and then Romania. I'm not sure if there were any more stops before he got to Manas in Kyrgyzstan but I haven't heard from him again. He called when he stopped in Iceland and again before he left for Romania but unfortunately, I was on the flightline and cell phones are not allowed out there. :( Now I know how nerve wracking this was for him waiting to hear from me to know that I made it safely. Work was work today. I stopped to get water after work, stopped at H & R Block to pick up the amendment paperwork, picked up the kids and the mail and headed home to start dinner. I really want to start expanding what I cook so I found some pan fried chicken recipe on allrecipes.com that came out really good. The kids gave it "2 thumbs up". LOL I cleaned out Miles' hermit crab tank and then got them in the showers. Once I finally got them in bed, I cleaned up the kitchen and then got on my treadmill to run/walk for a bit while I watched The Biggest Loser. Yes, my life is interesting! :) This is how it's going to be for the next 4 months. I will have my routine and hopefully I won't go too stir crazy.
23 Feb 09-What can I say about today? It sucked. We said goodbye to Chris today. Harmony seemed okay but poor Miles had tears in his eyes. What was even worse for me is that he waited until he got to school to cry. I know he didn't want me to cry and he's smart and knows I would have if I had seen him cry. :( Breaks my heart! It was different taking him to the airport instead of the way that I usually deploy-in a big room full of crying and sad families. Poor Chris has been stressed out and he's tired and just ready to get there. It is 9:45 p.m. and I just got a text from him telling me he was boarding in Virginia to start heading over so please think of him. Hopefully he can get some rest and get there and get settled. He is unsure of his route at this point so I don't know if he'll be making the same stops that I did but I will update as I get those updates. Anyway, on a lighter note, I was going to take a break for a semester to get in a groove with the kids but I decided against it. I might as well keep up on it while I'm on a roll. :) So, I signed up for American Government today. We will see how that goes. It starts the day after my current class ends. Thank you to everyone for all the love, support and well wishes for Chris and our family. It means so much to us!
22 Feb 09-Today was another busy day. I packed all of Chris' stuff today and poor Scrappy is all too familiar with the moving of the bags. He definitely sensed it. Thankfully the kids seem okay at the moment. I'm sure tomorrow will be a different story. I need to stay strong for them so hopefully I make it through it. I am still excited for him to see where I've been though and to get the experience. I think he is going to enjoy himself. Please think of him as he makes his journey out tomorrow. I will keep everyone that reads this posted on how he's doing and when he gets there. Thank you. (Mom, I promise, promise, promise I will call you soon. I have been such a bad daughter.) :)
20 Feb 09-We had a good day today. We went to the annual Vail Pride Day at the fairgrounds (Vail is our school district). The kids climbed the rock wall, pet a horse, we checked out their artwork that was on display and ate lunch. It was a nice day. We played some more rock band tonight too. Chris is just trying to enjoy his last couple of days.
19 Feb 09-Today was another running around day. The biggest thing of today was dropping my van off for it's 100K mile check up. That was a little expensive but I guess not really for everything they did. I just hate spending money for something I can't see. LOL I guess "she" needs to keep running for me though until we pay the truck off. We went grocery shopping today too and determined that we are never allowed to go shopping again together. It was an expensive trip but it's good because I got all the Easter stuff and I won't have to grocery shop much next time while I'm adjusting to being on my own with the kids. I finally got a chance to work on my quiz too so that was nice. I really need to get cracking on it. :) Tomorrow should be more relaxing than the rest of the week.
18 Feb 09-Today was yet another busy day. We got some more stuff for the house and Chris surprised me with a flash for my new camera. So now, I have the camera, extra lens, carrying case, tripod and flash. Whoo hoo! I set up a drop cloth to see if I could take professional looking pictures in the house. We'll see how they look during the day. We picked up his weapon from the armory today and took it over to the main armory so he can pick it up this weekend. It's almost time for him to go and I know he's stressing out about it. Other than that, there's not much to report for today.
17 Feb 09-Sorry I missed yesterday. We had a very busy day shopping because we got our tax money. Of course my disclaimer before I post this is that of course we saved and paid off bills too. I finally, finally, finally got my wonderful SLR camera and I LOVE IT!!! It takes such fantastic pictures so I am going to learn how to use it so I can start posting pictures. I bought a tripod and camera case for it today and I can't wait to use everything. Chris needed some stuff to take with him on his deployment to help pass the time and we picked up all that stuff today. It was a good day.
15 Feb 09-Happy Birthday to my brother Ryan!! I hope you had a great day! :) Today was PJ day for me. It has been kind of nice without football and having people over every Sunday so I could just relax and stay in my PJs. Of course, I still got plenty done around the house. (Sunday is laundry day! LOL) I will be glad once this class is over so I can have my days back. I just finished my paper and now I can relax and hang out with the kiddos and get caught up on some T.V. shows! The paper that I had due today was rough. It was all about "zines" which I know nothing about. Even reading about them on the internet and picking 2 of them to write about, I struggled my way through it. I just hope it was enough! I am off all week to spend Chris' last week with him. The kids have school tomorrow even though it's a holiday so we have all week to just hang out while the kids are in school. I will be packing him up this week and we'll be do some shopping to get some stuff he needs for his trip.
14 Feb 09-What a great Valentines Day!! Chris put out roses in a vase and then some mini roses in pots that he hung on the wall while I was getting ready for our Saturday outing. It was a nice surprise. We went to "A" Mountain and let the kids hike around. They had a lot of fun and I got some great pictures (which are on the site already). We were going to go to this cute little Italian joint that I love but Chris and the kids haven't been to yet but the wait for a table was too long so we went to Texas Roadhouse instead. I'm glad we did because we had a great time and a great (whew, but expensive) meal. The kids thought it was so cool to eat peanuts out of the shell and throw the shells on the ground. :) I had never been to a place like that before and we really enjoyed it. While we were in this little lookout spot on the mountain, Chris pulled a box out of his pocket that shocked me! I had no idea he had another surprise in store for me. He bought me a tennis bracelet!! I had been wanting one for a long time and I was so surprised that he got me one! It was a great day!
13 Feb 09-Thank God it's Friday!! That is all I have to say about today! I had a nice lunch out with Holly today and that was the highlight of the day. :)
12 Feb 09-Much better weather again today! I got to see my favorite doctor today (after over 3 weeks without), my chiropractor! Whew! I needed that. That was probably the most he'd ever been able to crack my back. Other than that, I have nothing else to report for today. I am just ready for this week to be over with. Mom, I am on leave last week (to spend Chris' last week with him) so I will call during the week. :)
11 Feb 09-The weather was much better today thankfully. I went back to see the doctor today about my back. I never got the results of the MRI so I wanted see what the outcome was. The report said that my disc was worse than the last one. It wasn't a whole lot worse but it was still worse. He gave me some pain meds and updated my profile so we'll see how that goes. Other than that, it was a pretty boring day.
10 Feb 09-I got a call at 12:30 a.m. telling me that we were not to report until 9 a.m. do to weather. At 2:30 a.m. (ish) Miles came and woke me up to tell me that it was snowing outside!! They said we were going to get it but I wasn't sure I believed it would be that much! It was nuts! It was nice going in late and it made the day go by fast but it was cold!! Other than that, not much to report. It's still cold but the snow is all gone. Back to the grind as usual tomorrow.
9 Feb 09-Today was a good day. I was lucky enough to find an old wonderful friend from when I was stationed at Whiteman. We were dubbed as twin sisters and everyone knew us. I was looking for her for years and finally found her. She had no idea who I was because she didn't recognize me after all these years. She remembered me with long, brown, curly hair. Anyway, it was fantastic to find her and I enjoyed catching up. I also got a wild hair to pull out old pictures a few weeks ago and I finally got around to scanning them all in tonight and posted them on Facebook. It was fun to make people smile with old pictures. Not a very productive day but it was fun. Tomorrow, we're supposed to get snow in the valley. That ought to be interesting. I'm thinking warm thoughts tonight!
8 Feb 09-I thought I would miss football being on today but it's 6 p.m. and I'm still in my PJs and it's wonderful! :) I was super busy today doing laundry (which had been neglected for a while because of everything else I had going) and working on school work. Due to the fact that I have homework due on Wednesdays and Sundays, I don't normally get my homework done for Sunday until Sunday. She hasn't posted the assignments ahead of time either so I can't get ahead like I did in my last class. She did post ahead finally yesterday so I'm going to try to get ahead a little bit so it's not quite so stressful. It was a cold and rainy day today so there was another reason not to get dressed. Dinner is going now and then it will be bath time, time to put the laundry away, then I have to dye my hair and get all my stuff out to get ready for work tomorrow so that will take up the rest of my evening. Whew! I could have used a couple more days off though.
7 Feb 09-Okay, so contrary to popular belief, I'm alive. I apologize.... again... for taking so long to post in this thing. I just have not had the strength or the energy to do much of anything. Let's see if I can pick up where I left off. Grab a snack, this will be a long one. :)
Thankfully I survived the exercise although it sucked!! It had been way too long since everyone had done one and it got messed up from the very beginning. I won't harp on it because I don't even want to think about it anymore! ;)
On the 16th of January, I sang for the Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast. It was a good time and thankfully I did well. I was amazed at all the work that went into setting that event up. I really enjoyed it and was happy to be a part of it. I received multiple e-mails afterward thanking me for my participation. I also received a picture that was taken of me and the chaplain while we were waiting for everything to get started. I will put that in the photo albums tomorrow. I got another e-mail saying that we should be receiving a letter from the wing commander thanking us as well.
My class that started on the 5th of January is going well. I currently have a 95% in the class and I am so happy that I'm getting the hang of it. It's still very stressful. My last class had homework due on Sunday and it was one assignment per week. This class, I have a discussion post with 4 replies due on Wednesdays and then a paper due every Sunday. I also just took my midterm on Superbowl Sunday and scored a 95% on it!! Whoo hoo! The class is American Pop Culture if I haven't mentioned it yet. I realized that I don't know crap about pop culture but I'm learning. :)
Let's see... what else? We filed our taxes on the 24th and I'm enjoying the benefits of buying a house. ;) It couldn't come at a better time because of Chris getting ready to deploy. Speaking of that, have I mentioned it?? See, I can't even keep track of myself! If I haven't mentioned it, Chris is leaving for Afghanistan on the 23rd of this month. Thankfully it's only 4 months and I know I'll be glad that he'll get to see where I've spent so much time but we're all going to miss him. It will be interesting to hear his take on that place.
Next, just before my second week long exercise started, I got a bad sinus infection. :( I am still trying to kick it some 3 weeks later. Chris had it too and it lasted a long time. I survived the second week of exercises too but it was sooooo boring! I spent the whole week on the verge of tears though because of being sick and just dealing with stress. I have been having a rough time lately.
Now finally on to February. This month is inventory time for me at work which means an extremely busy schedule. I had two troops at work and one just left for Korea so I only have 1 left. He was on leave last week so it was just me. It was kind of nice though because a good friend just left for Italy and it hit me harder than I could have expected so it's been nice to keep busy. Wednesday I had my monthly meeting with the commander for the key spouse program. It was lunch at the golf course this time so that was a nice change. It is so refreshing to see how excited he still is about the whole thing.
The Superbowl was a blast but of course we hated the outcome. We had a nice turn out and a lot of good food. I made my chicken biscuits of course and they were a hit again. Chris and I were up until 4 a.m. so I was exhausted the next day but thankfully we had the day off.
Now onto my nightmare turned awesome ending! So, every year, I sing for the yearly Maintenance Professional of the Year banquet. It is a HUGE deal in semi formal uniform at Pima Air and Space Museum. I love doing that one but I get completely stressed out before doing that one because it is such a big deal. Anyway, they booked me for it last August. Then, I got a call a couple of weeks ago and they said they had asked someone else to do it and I was not happy about it. Well, as it turns out, they had already printed my name in the programs and the group commander asked if I was who did it last year and said he wanted me to do it again. So, they called and begged me to do it and I agreed. It was hard to say yes but my name would have been mud had I not done it. Anyway, I got there and they showed me as a Staff Sergeant in the program AND my name was spelled wrong. :( I tried to let the emcee's know that my rank was incorrect so they wouldn't call me a Staff in front of everyone. They called me a Staff when they announced me anyway. However, it was made known by someone else and the Chief that said it publicly apologized to me and told me he owed me a drink!! (He asked me to stand up and everything.) I was shocked and embarrassed but it was great! :) Anyway, the best part of the night was that it was the best performance of my life!!! Sick and all, I nailed it and was so proud of myself!!! I just LOVE singing at that place. The acoustics are fantastic. I had tons of people coming up to me afterward telling me what a great job I did. I was grinning from ear to ear all night!
That was last night and today came the highlight of the year... getting to sleep in!!! Whew! Exhausted doesn't begin to describe me.
So there it is Mom. Sorry to worry you. I had tried to call a few times (and on Dad's birthday) just never left a message. I didn't know if you had service with the cell. I still have his card here because I had nowhere to mail it! Ha ha! I just need to get through this month and hopefully things will be back to almost normal. Normal except that Chris won't be here.
02 January 2009
My ramblings-Jan 09
14 Jan 09-I am still alive. I am just worn out beyond belief from this exercise. I have some news to share soon but it will have to wait until this weekend. For now, I just wanted to post to get something on here. It's taken it's toll on me working these long hours. I'll post more this weekend!
11 Jan 09-Sorry I haven't posted. Work has been nuts. We have an exercise coming up next week and the prep for it has been a little crazy. I don't know how much I will post next week while I'm working 12s but I will certainly try. We had people over for football again today which is always a lot of fun. I really don't have much to talk about yet. Besides busy, life is a little boring. :)
7 Jan 09-I am beyond exhausted today so this one will be short. I was able to get my homework finished with 30 minutes to spare. LOL I think I'm going to like this class but I'm definitely going to have to think a lot more than the last one. I really want to keep my 4.0 so I'm hoping to kick butt in this one too. Today was just super busy and I'm so ready for bed. Until tomorrow... (Forgive the worthless post but I just want to make sure I keep my promise and stay with it this time!)
6 Jan 09-Oh the joys of preparing for an exercise. We had briefings today and then even had to go to the squadron to "dress up". It was nice to make sure we had everything but I'm an old pro at exercises. LOL Chris was a little "off his game" today. Normally he is the one that walks around the house scaring people. I don't like it so I don't know what came over me but I got him back today. He was walking out of the bedroom and I clapped and yelled behind him. LOL It was hilarious but I still don't know what came over me. The reason he said he was off his game was because Miles was able to scare him later in the hallway. I guess that's a little bit of payback. Nothing else interesting to report today. :)
5 Jan 09-I survived my first day back to work thankfully. It was actually kind of fun but I was sure busy. We were doing all of the prep work for the upcoming exercise. I got some of my class work done today and finally read through the syllabus. This class should be a lot of fun but I have A LOT to learn. There is just a lot of terminology that I don't understand. I am just proud of myself for keeping up with it. I can't stop this time until I get my degree. It was freezing today. I am so ready for winter to be over already. The kids had a good first day back at school. They were wiped out tonight but they were happy to be back in school. I think that's it for today.
4 Jan 09-Today was relaxing. We just hung out at the house and watched football. I did a couple of loads of laundry and that was it. It was a cold and rainy day though. I am ready for warmer weather. Unfortunately that's not coming for a while. LOL We did get a new Wii game today. The girls on my mommy's group were talking about Outdoor Challenge and how much fun it was. So, Chris went and bought it today and they were right! It's a blast! It's a great workout too. (Sorry I didn't get a call in to you today. We had company most of the day and then it was bath/bed time.) Tomorrow will be the kids first day back at school in a couple of weeks. I've been off work for a week too so tomorrow is going to be a long day for sure! I start my next class tomorrow too. Back to stress city! :)
3 Jan 09-Today was another good day. I headed out early to go shopping this morning. Little Thomas was having his birthday party today so I wanted to get him a gift. Turns out though that he and Katie are both sick so they canceled it. :( I hope they feel better soon. I had to get a few other things too and ended up picking out something for myself which is something I rarely ever do. I am always on my desktop computer to blog, play on MySpace, chat with the girls, etc. When I do my schooling, I use the laptop because I can take it somewhere quiet. It was quite the pain to do my homework without an actual mouse so I bought a laptop mouse today. It's pink and I love it! :) I got to get a coffee this morning too which is always a treat for me. After that, I just took the rest of the day to relax (and of course do some laundry because that is never ending in my house). :) I signed up to do fantasy football for the playoffs so I watched it to try to learn how it works so I can play the whole season next year. Anyway, Chris had to go to work on Friday for a little bit because he was being "coined" by the 3 star general! I am so proud of him for all his hard work with Santa's In Blue and I wanted to show off his 2 coins he received. One is from the 3 star general and the other was from the 12th AF command chief. Both of these coins are by very important people and are a HUGE deal! :)
2 Jan 09-Whoo hoo! We actually made it through 2008! Thank God it's over too. I wanted to do a kind of year in review thing but I think I'll save it for this year and keep track of all the cool stuff that is going to happen. I can only stay positive about how this year is going to go. No more negative for me. I predict this to be a great year and I'm going to keep up with that thinking as long as I can. It's been good so far. Granted it's early but all I can do is take it one day at a time. We had a great day today. We went to Mt. Lemmon today and let the kids sled and snowball fight. We also brought home our usual truckload of snow and put it in the front yard. It is amazing to me how many it attracts when it's sitting in the front yard. :) I managed to actually take a bunch of pictures AND post them all in the same day. It's amazing! ;) I got some really great shots of the kids. We took a picnic lunch up and just enjoyed all being together. I hate that ride up and down from there but it was still fun. I'm going to try to enjoy the next 2 days off before starting the month of hell. Wait, I said I'd be positive. Well, you'll just have to give me that one because exercises suck! There's no denying that! I will be beyond stressed out but it will be all good in the end. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years and I hope that 2009 brings great things for all of you!!
11 Jan 09-Sorry I haven't posted. Work has been nuts. We have an exercise coming up next week and the prep for it has been a little crazy. I don't know how much I will post next week while I'm working 12s but I will certainly try. We had people over for football again today which is always a lot of fun. I really don't have much to talk about yet. Besides busy, life is a little boring. :)
7 Jan 09-I am beyond exhausted today so this one will be short. I was able to get my homework finished with 30 minutes to spare. LOL I think I'm going to like this class but I'm definitely going to have to think a lot more than the last one. I really want to keep my 4.0 so I'm hoping to kick butt in this one too. Today was just super busy and I'm so ready for bed. Until tomorrow... (Forgive the worthless post but I just want to make sure I keep my promise and stay with it this time!)
6 Jan 09-Oh the joys of preparing for an exercise. We had briefings today and then even had to go to the squadron to "dress up". It was nice to make sure we had everything but I'm an old pro at exercises. LOL Chris was a little "off his game" today. Normally he is the one that walks around the house scaring people. I don't like it so I don't know what came over me but I got him back today. He was walking out of the bedroom and I clapped and yelled behind him. LOL It was hilarious but I still don't know what came over me. The reason he said he was off his game was because Miles was able to scare him later in the hallway. I guess that's a little bit of payback. Nothing else interesting to report today. :)
5 Jan 09-I survived my first day back to work thankfully. It was actually kind of fun but I was sure busy. We were doing all of the prep work for the upcoming exercise. I got some of my class work done today and finally read through the syllabus. This class should be a lot of fun but I have A LOT to learn. There is just a lot of terminology that I don't understand. I am just proud of myself for keeping up with it. I can't stop this time until I get my degree. It was freezing today. I am so ready for winter to be over already. The kids had a good first day back at school. They were wiped out tonight but they were happy to be back in school. I think that's it for today.
4 Jan 09-Today was relaxing. We just hung out at the house and watched football. I did a couple of loads of laundry and that was it. It was a cold and rainy day though. I am ready for warmer weather. Unfortunately that's not coming for a while. LOL We did get a new Wii game today. The girls on my mommy's group were talking about Outdoor Challenge and how much fun it was. So, Chris went and bought it today and they were right! It's a blast! It's a great workout too. (Sorry I didn't get a call in to you today. We had company most of the day and then it was bath/bed time.) Tomorrow will be the kids first day back at school in a couple of weeks. I've been off work for a week too so tomorrow is going to be a long day for sure! I start my next class tomorrow too. Back to stress city! :)
3 Jan 09-Today was another good day. I headed out early to go shopping this morning. Little Thomas was having his birthday party today so I wanted to get him a gift. Turns out though that he and Katie are both sick so they canceled it. :( I hope they feel better soon. I had to get a few other things too and ended up picking out something for myself which is something I rarely ever do. I am always on my desktop computer to blog, play on MySpace, chat with the girls, etc. When I do my schooling, I use the laptop because I can take it somewhere quiet. It was quite the pain to do my homework without an actual mouse so I bought a laptop mouse today. It's pink and I love it! :) I got to get a coffee this morning too which is always a treat for me. After that, I just took the rest of the day to relax (and of course do some laundry because that is never ending in my house). :) I signed up to do fantasy football for the playoffs so I watched it to try to learn how it works so I can play the whole season next year. Anyway, Chris had to go to work on Friday for a little bit because he was being "coined" by the 3 star general! I am so proud of him for all his hard work with Santa's In Blue and I wanted to show off his 2 coins he received. One is from the 3 star general and the other was from the 12th AF command chief. Both of these coins are by very important people and are a HUGE deal! :)
2 Jan 09-Whoo hoo! We actually made it through 2008! Thank God it's over too. I wanted to do a kind of year in review thing but I think I'll save it for this year and keep track of all the cool stuff that is going to happen. I can only stay positive about how this year is going to go. No more negative for me. I predict this to be a great year and I'm going to keep up with that thinking as long as I can. It's been good so far. Granted it's early but all I can do is take it one day at a time. We had a great day today. We went to Mt. Lemmon today and let the kids sled and snowball fight. We also brought home our usual truckload of snow and put it in the front yard. It is amazing to me how many it attracts when it's sitting in the front yard. :) I managed to actually take a bunch of pictures AND post them all in the same day. It's amazing! ;) I got some really great shots of the kids. We took a picnic lunch up and just enjoyed all being together. I hate that ride up and down from there but it was still fun. I'm going to try to enjoy the next 2 days off before starting the month of hell. Wait, I said I'd be positive. Well, you'll just have to give me that one because exercises suck! There's no denying that! I will be beyond stressed out but it will be all good in the end. I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years and I hope that 2009 brings great things for all of you!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)