I'm 10 days pre-surgery today, and about half that many away from D coming home.  Things are starting to happen now...things that I've been thinking about, praying about and meditating on for weeks. D's last shift will be tomorrow.  He's not sad to be leaving, he says.  He hates it there.  The people he deployed with are a good bunch for the most part.  They had a little 'going home' dinner for him last night.  He didn't want to go, but I told him he had to....

...I bake. It's true.  That's how I deal with stress.  I bake cakes, big fancy gateaus, loaded with frosing and cream. It all started when I was 15.  I woke up in the middle of the night to hear my dad groaning in his bedroom next to mine.  At first I was grossed out because I thought...well, y'know.  Then I heard my mom say that she was going to call the doctor, and I knew that something was up.  I got up and went to see what was going on. Dad was flat on ...

I'm pretty sure someone tried to get into my house last night. Thursday, early evening, I was walking past the open front door when I saw one of the local yobs standing in my front yard.  I ducked back out of sight because I wanted to see what the hell he was doing, I don't trust him.  He stood in the yard, up by Davey's bedroom window for about 30 seconds, then he walked off across the yard and up the street. Hmm.  I wish I had confronted him now. Anyway, last night the ...

I'm doing playing Mrs Nice Grl with the kids in my neighborhood.  I just got done telling them the same thing. Yesterday afternoon, a group of them were in my front yard, playing basketball with my boys (we got a basketball hoop recently - I was hoping to encourage my boys to play outside more often).  I have a little park bench in my front yard that I like to go sit on and read in the evening sun. When I stepped outside to get the mail yesterday afternoon, I was greeted by a law...

My big brother Kevin is coming to town on business the weekend of the 23rd. I'll be in the hospital, but he's still coming to see me...and this time, after yesterday's events, I really need to see him.  Living close to St Louis is turning out to be better than I thought!

Alright, Joeusers, I need your help. I'm amassing a library of books to read during my hospital stay and subsequent recuperation.  It's going to be a long haul, according to my surgeon, so I'm trying to line up as many books as I can.  My Amazon account has seen a fair bit of activity in the past couple of weeks...but I'd like it to see more. Thus far I have in my possession: The Historian, Snow Falling Upon Cedars, The Grapes Of Wrath, and a collection of Faulkner's short storie...

I taught my kids to swim last summer, and snice we've been going to the pool every day this summer I've been teaching them different strokes and breathing patterns for those strokes. We started with a freestyle.  The eldest two had a few issues with their faces being in the water and rotating their heads to breathe, but not our Jake.  He got it right away.  He had a little problem with not breathing as he was stroking, but we fixed that in about 2 widths.  Once he fel...

Recently D and I found ourselves in a unique position. We've had to deal with 2 First Sergeants instead of one.  Normally, military members only have one 'Shirt' (as they're colloquially known) - the one who's assigned to the squadron they're a member of. However, because D is deployed, we've had to deal with two.  One here, at his parent or home unit, and one at the unit he's temporarily assigned to. These two Shirts represent each end of the spectrum.  One has gone out ...

 When I was a teenager, I was bigger than average 'up top'. Everyone else was wearing A and B cups, and I was in a C.  As I got older and I stopped growing, I leveled out.  I'm not huge, but I don't have bee stings either. When I was at my skinniest, I was still a large B/small C.  At my heaviest, I was a DD, and when I was nursing I was overfilling a DD cup but never bothered to get a bigger bra so I don't know exactly how big I was...but I'll hazard a gues...

Hehehe...I'm grinning from ear to ear right now. I got my husband a gift.  Something that he's been looking at for ages.  I got him a Pentax Optio 50 digital camera.  It has 5.0 megapixels and 3X optical zoom...a 1.8" LCD display and it has Pictbridge capability so that he can get a photo printer and hook it directly to that. I happened to be walking by the digital camera display and saw that it was on sale....the list price for it is close to $300, but I got it for $189....

Is my big day.  The day that will change my life and my body forever. July 22nd is the day that I get my back fixed.  Dr Striegel (who's quite a hottie, btw) said he's going to make an incision slightly to the left of my belly button, starting at my navel and running down to my pubic bone (on me, that's about 6 or 7 inches; I have a long torso).  He's making it vertically so he won't have to cut through the muscles...he'll just move them out of the way.  July 22nd. A li...

The AF base on which I reside has what we call a 'giant voice' speaker system.  There are big speakers on poles throughout the housing areas, and they're pretty loud.  The national anthem is piped through these speakers for retreat every day at 1700, and they're also used for exercises and severe weather warnings. So, we have a system designed to get necessary information to a large number of people in a short amount of time. This afternoon I was at the store getting a movie...