25 Aug 08-Today was back to the grind. It's always nice to get back to a routine although some days I dread going back to work. I really need some good time off of work I think. Anyway, you'll see this once my site comes back up but it's down because too much bandwidth was used. I guess that's because all the girls from my mommy's group were looking at the pictures from my visit with Aileen. From now on, I'm just going to upload them to Photobucket or something so it doesn't clog up my site. Hopefully Jen will get it fixed soon. :( I hate when that happens. Anyway, Miles had his home visit today with his teacher and that was a lot of fun. He really enjoyed having her here and getting to show off his room and his pets and playing Candyland with her. I think that's such a neat program that the school does.
24 Aug 08-Today was just a day to get caught up on everything that needed to be done around the house that we didn't get to Friday because we weren't here and then Saturday because we were just too tired when we got home. Nothing interesting happened at all. :)
23 Aug 08-Sorry I skipped a couple of days in there. I've been a little bit busy. A few months ago, I found out that Aileen from my "mommy's group" was going to be here from New York on vacation. We definitely wanted to make plans to meet so I told her that we'd drive to Scottsdale and then stay the night there so we could go do to dinner and then breakfast before they headed out for Sedona. So, yesterday after work, we headed out for Scottsdale (near Phoenix). It took us a little longer to get there than expected because is just construction everywhere! Anyway, we decided on just having pizza since her hubby was headed to a Diamondbacks game. Aileen and the girls met us in the parking lot when we pulled up and it was just so great to meet her in person. She is just truly a doll and so are her girls. After dinner and letting the kids run around while we chatted, we went down to the pool. The place that they were staying in was a timeshare and it was absolutely gorgeous. The pool had a waterfall and everything (which the kids thought was just the coolest). Harmony and Gabbi became fast friends and were inseparable for the short time we all had together. We got back to the hotel and got to bed about midnight and then got up to meet them for breakfast. I have been blessed to meet 3 of the girls now off the site and can't wait to meet even more. On the way back, we decided to stop at this ostrich farm that we've seen for years in between here and Phoenix and I'm so glad we did. I was wondering how interesting it could possibly be but little did I know that it wasn't just ostriches. They also had deer, donkeys and birds to feed. It was awesome!! My favorite part was the birds and had we had more cash on us, we might STILL be there feeding the birds. It's only an hour from here so we will definitely be going back before they shut down for the winter in October! On the way back, the traffic was horrendous and we had no idea why. Chris realized that there were no cars headed at all in the direction of Phoenix so that probably meant accident. We had taken a different route to come back so we had to backtrack a little to get to the ostrich farm. We missed a deadly tractor trailer accident by a very short period of time. We saw it on the way back and just knew that someone had to have died in it. We found out after we got home that someone had. :( How tragic and scary. Anyway, we had a wonderful time visiting with Aileen and her family and I am so glad that we got the chance to do that!
20 Aug 08-SSgt results came out today and I had reason to celebrate another promotion cycle. My troop, Clint, made it so I was excited to see his name today and also to be able to tack his stripe on. I guess the commander didn't expect me to be able to hit hard and was surprised when I put some weight behind in. LOL Also on that list was Ashley my favorite female troop ever, Shane my protege' and my girlfriend Monica. It was a good day to celebrate.
19 Aug 08-Happy Birthday to Auntie Katie!! Harmony was so excited to call her and wish her a happy birthday today. It was cute. Katie said she was cracking her up. I got to go see one of my favorite men today-the chiropractor! Have I mentioned that I love that man?? I wish I could see him every day. At least 1 day every 2 weeks, my back feels better! I got to visit with Sheree' tonight which is always a treat for me. She lives right next door but we hardly ever see each other and it's definitely made us appreciate each other more. Me, her and Elise are planning a coffee date for next week and I'm so looking forward to it! Life is just so busy, it's hard to get girlfriend time in!
18 Aug 08-Not much to report today. It seems as though everyone had a case of "The Monday's". It was very evident as I walked through the door and no one said a word. Normally when anyone that works in our office walks in, they're greeted with "Good morning". That was not the case today. Let's hope tomorrow is better. Thankfully I had tons of paperwork come back today so I kept myself busy was able to send my airman home early. I hate days like today. We had a nice dinner tonight so that means a good lunch tomorrow! Other than that, that's all she wrote for today!
17 Aug 08-Happy Birthday to my friend Amy!! I had one of the busiest days today. It's already 9 and I'm just now getting to write in my blog before I go shower, get ready for bed and watch Big Brother. Today after breakfast and relaxing, I took Harmony, Miles and Bella to Petco to get mice. That is our weekend routine now and all the girls there know me. One in particular always comes to see Bella and commented today on how she's growing. They all just adore her for sure! Today was "sheet day" and that is probably one of my least favorite chores. I cleaned the fish tank today, did more laundry, put all the laundry away that I never got to yesterday, went through the kids backpacks (finally), cleaned the kitchen, blah, blah, blah. Chris finally installed the last 2 lights and was also working his butt off outside. It was just so hot and muggy that neither one of us wanted to cook. I needed a few things so I decided to go to Fry's and check out the deli for something for dinner there. It was nice that we didn't have to cook. So, now that the bags are packed, laundry is put away, kids are bathed and in bed, I am off to relax before starting another week. Ugh! Thankfully we have a 4 day weekend coming up!
16 Aug 08-We had our visit with Katie and family today and it was so nice to see them. Her boys are just the cutest!! They enjoyed the dogs and the other animals and I even took Ali out so they could "pet" her too. I got my baby fix in today big time! LOL Thomas is just the sweetest little baby. Thankfully he took to me and I got to hold him a lot and it was so nice. They are all just so wonderful and it's so nice to have more family in town. I've gone from having no family around me for most of my career to now having Chris' uncle who doesn't live in Tucson anymore but at least Arizona, Chris' cousin Bruce and now Katie and her family. It just makes being here feel a little more "normal". I put pictures up on the website today so go take a look and you'll see just how cute their boys are. We had a nice storm tonight too. We got an inch of rain in only about 20 minutes. I was just telling Chris earlier today that I was hoping for some good rain so it would wash all the dirt in the street away from when he was hauling truck loads of dirt here so we could extend the grass in the backyard. Boy did I get what I asked for. The backyard started to flood so poor Chris was in the backyard in the rain with a rake trying to dig a path for the water to flow out. He was soaked when he came back in but we sure needed that rain. Just as he was able to go out and do it properly with a shovel, it started to rain again. I say bring it on! I had to laugh as I was tucking Miles in tonight. Apparently he has my OCD. He couldn't get something on his shelf just right and would not let me tuck him in until it was perfectly straight. All I could was be patient and laugh.
15 Aug 08-Today was really, really hot and sticky. Yuck!! We had Mike's (Koeller) retirement today. It was bittersweet. I know he's moved on to bigger and better things but it will be weird not having him around. I sang for his retirement too and I'm so glad. I wouldn't have missed it for the world! Chris is playing poker with the boys tonight so it's just me at home with the kids. Harmony is super excited because Auntie Katie and family are coming to visit tomorrow. I'm so glad we're finally getting a chance to get together. I know Harmony is going to have a hard time sleeping tonight. She was jumping up and down screaming when she overheard me mention to Katie about coming tomorrow. It's going to be so much fun to see them!
14 Aug 08-We sure did get those storms I was hoping for last night!! We woke up at 11:30 p.m. to Bella barking and we couldn't figure out why. It was hailing and it was hitting the window unit and caused her to go into protect mode although the poor thing was scared too. I ended up sitting with her on the couch for a bit until she calmed down. The storm was AWESOME!! The news said we had 450 lightning strikes per 10 minutes. The sky just looked like a big strobe light. I was laughing because Holly was just mentioning yesterday that the storms were weak here after we'd done all this bragging to the "newbies" about how the monsoons are so awesome here. We all told her today she needed to keep talking smack about them so we could get some more raging storms! My rain barrel is completely full today!! Other than that from last night, today was one of the most boring days of my life. I never thought we'd see 4:00. After I got home and finished up the nightly routine, just before Miles got in bed, he gave me a very proud mommy moment to brag about!
13 Aug 08-It was a HOT one today! My goodness! I was drenched after doing my PT at 6 in the morning. It was already almost unbearable. It only got worse as the day went on. Humidity is up and storms are all around us. Hopefully they will hit because I really need to have my rain barrel filled back up. The garden sure doesn't need it but I really need my Oleanders to start growing. They are sure slow starters. Other than that, there's not much going on at all. I finally got a chance to sit down and relax after emptying book bags, making lunches, helping with homework, cleaning up after the messy clan, etc. Chris moved the Wii into the bedroom for me so I could actually play it. I never get to use it because everyone else is always hogging the big TV. :( Now I can actually enjoy my Wii Fit daily like I've been wanting to. Wow! I just realized, I have a TiVo, a laptop, a scrapbook desk, a treadmill with weights AND the Wii in my bedroom now. I might never come out!!! LOL It's like my own mini apartment! It will really be nice once I paint it and hopefully rearrange some.
12 Aug 08-Today we had a squadron "stand down" and had to go to the theater for a briefing. What this means is that it was time for the commander to get us all together to brief us on what has been going on. In the group overall, there have been a rash of incidents that are concerning to senior leadership. I won't share them all here because it's like airing dirty laundry and I don't want to do that. It was basically a "come to Jesus" meeting and it was eye opening. Hopefully it does the trick because I was here 4 years ago when things went down the tubes and we worked long hours and life was hell. I have been praying hard that things don't go down that road again. Other than that, it was another quiet day in my world.
11 Aug 08-Boring, boring, boring is all I can say about today. I went to to the doc. He gave me some drops to try and said if it doesn't get better to make an appointment with my off base eye doc and they'll put in an emergency referral so that was good news. Hopefully the drops will work and it's just acting up because of my recent sinus infection but we'll see. Other than that, nothing to report. Be back tomorrow with hopefully more to talk about. :)
10 Aug 08-We had more fun shampooing carpets today! (Or should I say Chris did.) Anyway, the most exciting thing of the day was getting in the garden and harvesting veggies. We pulled out some huge radish and cucumbers and pulled a ton of lettuce. The kids had cucumbers (by request) for snack today and I made salad for dinner from the garden. We'll have to take quite a bit to people at work to get rid of it because there is just so much. Chris said that there are about 30 more cucumbers growing. He also pulled out two gourds. I have no idea what to do with them so I'll have to search the internet for those. LOL I don't think they'll make it to Halloween for decorations! My eye is bothering me unfortunately. A couple of years ago I had to have surgery to have some of my natural tube that connects my nasolacrimal duct (or commonly referred to as tear duct although that's not what it is) and have a plastic tube put in because the hole is so small on mine that it would get blocked easily. Well now my right eye is doing the same thing. What happens is that my eye constantly waters because what is supposed to drain out down the tube can't because I can get the tiniest speck of dirt in there, comes out of my eye instead. It's annoying because it blurs my vision and causes the skin in the corner of my eye and the side of my nose to become irritated from wiping away the tears and stuff so often. I really don't want to go through that surgery again and all the poking and prodding in my eye but it's better than the annoyance of my eye constantly watering. I can't wear mascara or eyeliner now on the bottom either which makes my eyes look small. That may sound silly to you but I'm pretty set in my ways when it comes to my make-up. LOL I go with what works and what looks good and I hate having to change it. Ugh! More to come on that.
09 Aug 08-I guess while I was at dinner last night, Cody was out front playing football with some of the neighbors. Well he jammed his finger and was complaining that it hurt but his range of motion was fine so I didn't think too much of it. I've had that happen and I know that it hurts. Today, we went shopping at the BX and I saw that it was turning a little purple so I showed Chris and he took him to urgent care to get it looked at. We were guessing it was sprained and that's what it was. The doc taped his 2 fingers together and ordered x-rays for him. However, the x-ray place was closed so he'll have to take him this week. They said it wasn't broken though so that's good. We got Miles his "big boy" haircut today and he really liked it. The stylist was just making such a fuss over him and his big blue eyes and long eyelashes. I was getting a kick out of it. He was quite talkative to her which is unusual for him to do to a stranger. I couldn't help but just sit there in the chair and smile at him. We bought a steam cleaner today for the carpets which was fantastic. I like our Kirby but we really needed something that could deep clean. Let's face it, with 3 kids and 4 dogs, the carpets get some spots on them that we can't tell which one of them made it. That thing is awesome. Chris is going to be busy for a while. I told him that I even want to move furniture eventually. LOL Poor thing. I have all these projects. I told him that the one I had for myself was to paint. I really, really, really want to change some of the wall colors, especially in the bedroom. I want some kind of warm brown tone. Something other than that green. I do not like that color of green at all. Yet another benefit of owning our home!! We all had a nice lunch together too and then came home so Chris could take Cody to urgent care. I took the other 2 and Bella with me to get mice and fish food. That's always an adventure. One of the girls there came up to us and spoke directly to Bella about remembering her. She is just so in love with her. How could you not be? She's adorable! LOL I think that's about all that went on today. I just love the weekends!
08 Aug 08-Thank goodness this week is over. It was sure a long one after my short leave. I really feel like I need a vacation! I went out to dinner tonight with Leah, Kelly, and Tiana. We went to Outback Steakhouse. It was the first time I had ever been there. It was a little expensive for me but it was really good. It was nice to get out and enjoy some time with friends. I am going to miss Leah so much when she leaves. I just adore her. :) Other than that, not much is going on or not anything that I care to talk about. Things are work are getting kind of crazy but not in my shop. It's things that the flight as a whole will end up having to pay for so I'll deal with/post about that when the time comes. Hopefully supervision has a handle on it so it doesn't come down to that. We'll just see how it all goes. I've been down that path once before here and I surely don't want to go again. We are taking Miles to get a nice big boy haircut tomorrow for his pictures on Tuesday. I'm so excited for his first school pictures! They are all doing so well in school. Cody just started back this week too and he said he really liked it and he liked his teacher. I guess people said bad things about his teacher so he was apprehensive that he might not like him. He said he did though so that was good. That helped to spark the conversation with him about hearing what other people say but not forming an opinion based off of what he hears. I told him to always find out for himself. I have always been that way and want to instill that in my kids as well. I'm not a first impression kind of gal. I hope that others are the same way because if people went off first impressions of me, I might not have as many friends as I do. I know that people have off days or just aren't good at meeting people. I never hold that against anyone. Anyway, since I've truly lived up to the title of my blog tonight, I'll close with that. I am ready to get a good night sleep finally. This is the first night that my OCD has NOT kicked in even though I'm still up late. I cannot wait to sleep in tomorrow!
07 Aug 08-I had another fun day cutting up at the office. I was a little moody today for some reason. I'm not quite sure why but I'm over it. LOL I paid off a few more bills today and figured out my budget and what we have coming in versus going out. I'm in major "planning for our first mortgage payment" mode. Scary! My lights came today so I was super excited for that and Chris was nice enough to put up the 3 out front for me today so we could see them tonight and they look so nice. It took me a while to find them but I think I did well! The pics are in the house album on the site. :)
06 Aug 08-I am such a dork. I just got done signing up for e-bills for every account I own. Most don't have balances but just in case, I wanted to set them up. I even created a new account just so the e-mails wouldn't get lost with all the spam in our main account. I was super excited when DIRECTV said they would give me a $5 credit for going paperless! Whoo hoo! I saved tons of trees today. Okay, so don't think that I am going to turn into a tree hugger or anything. I won't be quite like that (not that I think anything is wrong with it, it's just not my style) but I am really enjoying this whole going green thing. On my "Mommy's group" we do a weekly photo contest and Michelle, who is an awesome photographer, teaches us things that our cameras can do and urges us to use our manuals to learn more. She gives us tips and has us try new things. I did that today to submit my photos for the contest and it was a lot of fun. I'm going to need to learn how to do all this stuff anyway because I really would like to be a professional photographer when I retire and set my own schedule. After being the military's "drone" for 20+ years, it would be nice to call my own shots! In case you are wondering, I am starting to feel more human although I am still feeling quite run down. Besides that, I just really had a good day today.
05 Aug 08-I got to start my day by seeing one of my favorite men-my chiropractor. Besides him always making me feel like a million bucks, he's always such a joy to talk to. After I got to work I spent an hour or so cleaning the bathroom in our building. As a NCO, I shouldn't be doing it but no one else did it so I had to do it. It will be pointed out that I had to do it and how the bathroom should stay. I don't even like cleaning my OWN bathroom! Yuck! It was nasty!! The rest of the day was just catching up still from the week that I was on leave. I was busy at home tonight going through the kids backpacks, packing their snacks, my lunch, my gym bag, paying bills, balancing checkbook, etc. Whew! I am amazed at how much paperwork having multiple children in school generates. I decided to get a little more organized this year and start scanning in the papers that are important and keeping them in their own folders and then throwing away the actual paper copy. It's so nice to have that capability!!
04 Aug 08-It was so nice to get back to the grind today after my whirlwind trip. It was nice to have some normalcy again. I received a call from the Command Chief this morning thanking me for the interview again and letting me know that I wasn't selected for something I didn't do, that the interview was very good but he just went a "different route" whatever that means. He said that he could tell I had a bright career ahead of me and hopefully we'd cross paths again. I thought that was nice and it made me feel much better.
03 Aug 08-I am back home now and finally settled. It was such a whirlwind of a trip but I had the best time ever and realized just how much I missed my family and I can't wait to get back and spend the kind of time I want to with everyone. My brothers wedding was so beautiful and everything was so perfect. It was such an emotional day for me and I hadn't even thought about it being that way. The whole setting was just beautiful and I could not be happier for them. We all just love Juliet so much. As far as we're concerned, she's been in our family for years anyway, now it's just official. She was the most beautiful bride. The reception was really nice too and I had a blast just watching my kids enjoy themselves. Harmony was the life of the party for sure. She showed off dance moves that I had no idea that she had. It was great. Miles ran around doing cartwheels and rearranging the chairs from the wedding. They were so good and did their parts so well. When the reception was over, I took them in the pool at the hotel until 11:30 and then they finally crashed at midnight. I am just exhausted and my whole body hurts from carrying luggage and everything else. I am going to recoup today and get back to work tomorrow. I don't think I posted yet either that I did not end up getting the job as the executive assistant that I applied for but I'm okay with it. I know I did well and I just wasn't what he was looking for and that's okay. I am thankful for the experience and I'm glad I put myself out there to go for it.
