Award Time

I don't know why she chose me, but thank you Melissa for the awards!

and

From I'm not sure what I want to be when I grow up...

So I'll go by the rules that Melissa established...a boring tidbit of me for each blog awarded:

7 Blogs, 7 Tidbits...(and yes, they all happen to be military spouses...or at least at one point):

Ellyn

Lizabee & co.
Lindsay Writing
.Lovely Yellow Ribbons.

Byers Babble

A Hapa Girl and her Hapa Family!

A Pocket Full of Buttons

1) I'm a liberal military spouse...we're a rare breed.

2) I graduated with a degree in Criminology & Criminal Justice from the #1 ranked program in the country...and doing squat with it.

3) I never envisioned myself to be a stay-at-home mom and only accepted the fact 3 years ago...my eldest is 6.  Go figure.

4) I like to eat...a lot.  Fortunately, my metabolism is higher than most and allows for that passion.  Unfortunately, it's only a smidgen of what it was...meaning...I've become very well-acquainted with the term muffin top.

5) Before kids, I imagined that at this age I'd have a graduate degree or two in hand in social justice and/or ethnic studies and teaching at the college level...and two toddlers.

6) When I accepted my position as the Director of Programs for a nat'l civil rights group I made less than I was making at the mall in my management position.

7) I love fiercely and am a very loyal person/friend.

Figure It Out Friday...

It's that time again, Kids...



I've had a cold that's been kicking my ever-shrinking tush (thanks to no exercising for a week now...and this bad boy deflates real quick)...which had been expanding quite nicely prior to this crappiness.

Anyhoo, so this week I'm stealing a photo...without permission.  Shhhhhhhhhhh.  Yup, I'm a total bad-a$$ like that.  

Did I mention the photographer is only 6YO and that I supplied 50% of her DNA (if not more, since poor baby seems to really take after her maternal side...poor girl).  So, since I feed, clothe, and nurture this little photog...I can do things like steal her photograph.  

OK, mommy guilt...I asked.  ;o)

My baby's photography talent seems to be heading in a pretty awesome direction.  Her perspective and composition is just *wow*.  This is her shot of me taking my turn doing what she had just done.

I love my daughter.

Friday Follow

I'm going to try this again...



Last week was fun and I got to check out some pretty awesome blogs.  For me it's definitely more of finding blogs I'd like to follow and less of being followed.  Check it out!

Figure It Out Friday...

This photo is so wrong on so many levels...

1) The woman in pink was attempting to snowboard on a toboggan.  Said woman has never snowboarded in her life.  Said woman should not have even attempted this since she tore her darn ACL back in h.s. and...back to the main point, she was attempting to snowboard snowboarding on a toboggan.

2) The woman fell off of the toboggan perilously close to her 6YO daughter...potentially decapitating her.  JUST KIDDING...but still, had I she chucked that toboggan higher, it could've happened.

3) The woman is wearing size 14 snow pants from when she was that old...size 14 kids.  Normally that is something to be celebrated, except these were big pants apparently made back when fitted was not in style but extremely baggy and made for short 14YOs...except that I am she is the height of many 10-12YOs.  Also, please don't judge that my mom said woman's mother has kept the snowsuits from when said woman was more than half her current age.

Note here the female Asian American versions of Mario & Luigi (the identities of the 30-something YO sisters have been protected for the sake of their reputations...except for the cutie 6YO who is doomed by her dominant maternal genes...sorry Sweet Pea):

There are actually more normal shots of our weekend in DC.  You can find them here.

Friday Follow

I found out about this through my awesome friend and fellow sub wife Melissa.  So I visited here to find out more info and to give it a try...

Turning Over...

Yesterday started day #1 of the hubs turning over with the PWEPS.

I can't believe how fast these 3+ years have flown by.

We're in the homestretch...and I'm a little sad.  It's weird having been the "senior" wife in the wardroom during this past year in the shipyards with the CO geo-bacheloring and the XO is a newlywed.  We have a great wardroom and I've grown the absolutely adore all of the spouses.  From the rockstar newbie wives who don't even know how much MORE of a rockstar they'll be when their hubbies' tours are over to the more "seasoned" JO wives who have experienced so much as single married spouses/parents/women.  My fellow department head wives have all been pretty stellar and our XO's new wife...couldn't love her more.

I've felt blessed with this boomer tour.  The fast attack tour was rough and the schedule hellish at times...making this boomer tour (for me) feel like shore tour with a few underways sprinkled here and there.  Still, I know the crazy fast attack schedule made me thankful that even though he was gone for 90% of the time, he still was home for that 10%...unlike other branches of service where a 6-month deployment is only the HALF-WAY mark for others.

Still...as hardworking as our spouses are...I think plenty of kudos lie within the ones at home (those working outside and inside the home).  There's definitely a special type of personality that a military spouse needs to possess.  From the seasoned higher-up wife like Liza whose grace, wisdom, and strength has probably given her hubby an awesome piece of mind to know that his family has been more than well-taken care of during his various underways/deployments/patrols/geo-bacheloring to the nearing-the-end-of-the-tour-and-career-JO wife Melissa whose life as a mommy of 3 under 3 (two of them being the uber-adorable twin GallaGIRLS joining their uber-adorable big brother Jack) and hilarious exploits that would drive an ordinary person insane make her even more thankful for everything she has...definitely a woman who would've made an awesome DH/XO/CO wife!!

We'll be staying put...which is the main thing we wanted.  Giving our kids some piece of normalcy in this type of lifestyle is something we try to get when we can.  Although it would've been nice to be back home in DC...for once, we didn't want to go.  Let me clarify...I didn't want to go since with two mortgages (one being in the wonderful FLORIDA housing market)...buying a home in DC was not the best option.  We'll be home one day...but for now, I'll enjoy the constant uprooting to new places (although most of our time has been in VA so far...and by choice...hahahaha...nice to be close to home) and enjoying the culture of each different area in our lovely little country.

Hail & Farewell next week...can't wait and yet I can...

I hate you...

Cusinart coffee maker.

Seriously....3 times to make a damn pot of coffee.

Try #1) Coffee grinds come spewing out from the built-in grinder past the basket (that popped out unbeknownst to me) and into nowhere land behind the carafe and on top.  Of course...this has nothing to do with human error.  Really.

Try #2) Save all the ground coffee that escaped and put in basket.  Turn "grind" function off and start up coffee maker again.  Come down after 1/2 the coffee has "brewed" to find that said coffee is running down the countertops onto the dog food (containers luckily and not opened down food) and floor below...mingling with the coffee grounds I neglected to pick up.  Hold in expletives since children eating breakfast...incl. one child home sick from school.  Clean up HOT coffee mess and again curse the coffee maker since again, it has nothing to do with human error.

Try #3) Grind function off.  Hot coffee grounds dumped.  Carafe washed out of coffee & coffee grounds.  Grab other coffee grinder and grind another batch of beans.  Turn on pot and pray for a miracle..since again, it has nothing to do with human error.

Houston...we have lift off.

I have coffee and it's another brilliant start to Daddy Duty Day.  Seriously...only on single married mom days does everything go straight in the crapper.  But still...it's definitely laughable and keeps us in check to not sweat the small stuff.

Less than two weeks to go and I'll soon forgot how duty days & deployment/underway/patrol days felt...for a little bit at least.

Figure It Out Friday...

That, my friends, is gluttony at it's finest.

Figure It Out Friday...

I often think it'd be so awesome to get inside my kids' minds and see the world from their vantage point.  

I want to visit this world where knights ride in on tiny race cars and dino skeletons drive bulldozers.

Kids

My kids are a trip.  They are silly and cool and I want to be like them when I grow up.

I was getting Jaron (my 4YO son) into the car yesterday and he was talking about how he was going to keep his babies safe and take really good care of them.  I didn't want to ask him who was going to have his babies and instead phrased it as such "Where will you babies come from?"

His reply.

Your uterus.

Oh my little Oed(ipus)...you are so darn cute.

Later that night, Kaia (my 6YO daughter) was reading a book to me before she went to bed.  It was about a bunny who wasn't happy with her burrow and went searching for other homes.  The last home she went to look at had a fox lurking around it...so it scared her silly all the way back to her home.

To which Kaia replies...That's what she gets for not appreciating what she has!

Oy...these kids...man I love them.