Norman

I am so proud of my Molly (Ch Porcia puella pro Brute d'McKee). Her son Norman is heading to the California French Bulldgo Speciality and here is the advertisement that will be in the brochure. He is such a handsome looking boy. He is the brother to my Binde. I wish Binde took after him! This is the first time I have been mentioned as a breeder in one of these magazines.

Pretty cool, huh?

Hug a Med Lab Tech - Updated!!!

UPDATED - I was able to add the picture

This is National Medical Laboratory Professionals Week so I say hug your lab tech. But you know I would only hug MY lab tech!


In honor of this week the lab at Wright Patterson AFB held a cake decorating contest. Shay won!!!! I can't believe what a great job she did. But I will have to attach the picture later. Our server/inernet connection at work as been hosed all day Monday and again today (so far). And of course I do all my blogging at work! Actually, the pictures are onmy work pc and I can't send them. Heck for all I know I may not get this posted today either. If you get to read this then it worked.


Do you remember what we did before computers, servers and the internet? I really was not that long ago that I could do my whole job without a computer. In fact, I got my first computer at work when I was pregnant with Shay. That was 21 years ago. OMG! I am getting old. My baby will be 21 in 45 days.

Looking back.........

I was inspired by Debbie over at http://gittinitouttamyhead.blogspot.com/ I dug through some old photos and found one of me in uniform. I was a SP5 (Specialist 5) so it must have been around 1983. This is what is called a promotion photo. It would go into your promotion file for when you are considered for the next promotion. Nice legs, huh!
This is one of me and Shay on my wedding day, July 17, 1999. She was 13 and was one of my bridesmaids. It is hard to believe that she is now in the Air Force.

And here is one of me and Wes leaving the church. Yes, we had a military wedding. The Honor Guard members were all friends of mine. The first one on the right is actually Sherry Murphy. Or as I call her, Murph! Shay would babysit her kids . I think the rest of them have retired like me.And lastly, this is of us leaving the church after the honor guard stopped us. It is tradition to stop the couple and make them kiss. And just as we were done and started walking again I got swatted with the saber. A tradition that I did not know about!

What is the hardest job you ever had?

So I was thinking this morning on the drive into work about the hardest job I have ever had. I would have to say that the hardest job that I have eer had is being a parent. Yup, that would be it. Don't get me wrong, it is also the best thing I have ever done in my life.

I was thinking about how when they are little it is so easy to "fix" everything. They fall down, you pick them up and hug them and they are back on their way. As they get older you take them to soccer, softball, and karate and expose them to all the things "you never had as a child" because you want better for your kids. Right?

High school brings new challenges. Boyfriends or girlfriends. Fights with best friends. New best friends. And the most proud moement of graduation. Then they are off to college and you still have influence because you are paying for it. So you get input into which college they go to and hopefully you have helped them decided what they want to major in. Of course, this can change so many times during the 4 years they are in college.

Some choose a different path. My daughter went to college for a couple of years before deciding that she wanted to join the military. Because I am retired Army and my husband is still in we had always told her that if she wanted to join the military she would join the Air Force. Well, Thanksgiving of 2006 that is exactly what she decided she wanted to do. Off she goes to BMT in May 2007.

Now when she calls home and is sad I can't fix it. That is the hardest job I have ever had. I can give her advice and suggestions. I can even talk about other things to get her mind off of it but I can't fix it. And I can't make her decisions for her. Heck, I can't even tell her what I would do if it were me because I really don't know.

You see, Shay has orders for Travis Air Force Base in California. She is excited to be going to the west coast. She knows some people in San Francisco and it would not be that far to drive to Seattle (our original home). Now she has someone who wants to trade with her. They have Fairchild AFB which is in Spokane, WA. The same state she is from (still on the other side of the world from me though). She says it is a rapid deployment base which means she could get deployed sooner than she would if she were at Travis. (And she wants to me say that this would be a good choice?) She also says that because it is a smaller clinic she would probably be better able to go to school. So she tells me she is going to say yes.

2 days later and now she is worried. Seems that now there are at least 4 people with orders to Fairchild and she is sure that some of them will get their orders changed and she does not want to agree to a change and then have it changed by the Air Force and go to Minot (her words, not mine). And here I sit unable to fix it. If I could fix it she would be going to MacDill.

I want her to establish herself as her own person and live her life. I don't want her making decisions based on me. Since we are currently living in Florida she would love to come to MacDill. But what happens in 2 years when we get transferred (I hope)? Will she then try to get assigned where we go? Of course I would love that but that would not be what is best for her.

This job is so hard!

Week in Review

So I finally got around to downloading pictures from my camera. These were pictures from my trip to Wright Patterson AFB to see my daughter last weekend and pictures from Yappy Hour at The Dog Water. It is a sports pub that allows dogs on special occasions. This was the first time we went. Well, it appears that my camera has not been cooperating with me because hardly any of the pictures I took turned out viewable. I will share with you the ones that did turn out semi ok.

This is the hospital at Wright Patterson Air Force Base.

This is the sign outside the entry way to the collection area where my airman was working. She would nto let me take one of her in the lab.

This one is so bad but it is the only one of our night at the Dinner Theater so I had to share.

This is a little bulldog puppy at The Dog Water. He was so cute I could not resist.

I had to take a picture of the only wiener dog that was there. I now know so many people that have them.

And just for Hallie at Wonderful World of Weiners http://wonderfulworldofweiners.blogspot.com/ I wanted to show her that not every day in Florida is a sunny day.

What did you do today?

Today is Saturday and I have spent the whole morning and mid afternoon cleaning. I guess you could call it spring cleaning. This is spring time, right? I washed all of the dogs bedding, pillows blankets and I even cleaned their crates. I did this on the back patio so I hosed down that as well. Now doing this caused the sliding doors to get wet so I had to clean them too. Now picture this, I have three sliding doors on the patio. One from our bedroom, one from the dogs room and the other from the family room. The one from the family room is a triple slider which means there is 3 glass panels that slide back and away. This allows you to open up the family room to the great outdoors. It also means lots of glass to clean. AND, I just gave all three dogs a bath. Boy am I tired!

I think I deserve to be taken out for dinner.

Just talked with Shay. She is out trying to find a storage facility. Seems she is supposed to get a room mate next week. If you can imagine, her room has 2 twin beds and they are pushed together to make a king size bed. All the kids have done this in the dorm. Now she comes home to find a bag of linen and a not saying "Inbound 4/23/08". She has so much "stuff"that she takes up both wall units and she has two duffel bags in the corner. Did I tell you my daughter is a clothes hog? She loves to shop. Anyway, I suggested she rent a small, 5x5, storage unit so she can make room for the room mate. There was one other person in her class (a guy) who got the bag of linen and the inbound note. Her classmate called their supervisor who did not know anything about the room mates and told them he would look into it. She is content with that for now.

She got a call from K, her new pen pal. K was in the hospital last week and Shay sent her a Air Force Teddy Bear that she got today. This is the start of their relationship and it was sweet to hear the excitement in my 20 year olds voice that her young pen pal called. It is times like these that I am reminded that I raised a pretty neat daughter.

OMG! I've been tagged (my first)

Debbie at http://gittinitouttamyhead.blogspot.com tagged me last week and I just found my draft response that never got posted (Sorry Debbie).

Four films I'd Watch Again (and again):

• Somewhere in Time
• Fried Green Tomatoes
• Steel Magnolias
• 50 First Dates

Four Places I've Lived:

• Long Beach, California
• Honolulu, HI
• The Dalles, OR
• Seattle, WA (currently in Tampa, FL)
  

Four TV Shows I watch

• American Idol
• ER
• Law and Order (all of them)
• Criminal Minds

Four Things to Eat

• Pizza
• Oatmeal (every morning)
• Tacos
• Chicken

Four places I'd Rather Be:

• Seattle, WA (home)
• Dayton, OH (where daughter is, oh yeah, I'm going today!!!)
• Las Vegas
• Anywhere but work

I am back

If I told you that I was sad because I had just spent 3 full days with my daughter would you understand? It was so great to see her, hug her and yes, smell her. But I had just gotten to the point of not feeling sad that she was not here and I get that taste. Now I am sad again! We have plans to meet in Phoenix the first weekend in June for a wedding. It will be the weekend after her 21st BDay so we plan to celebrate then.

I arrived in Dayton last Thursday and Shay picked me up after doing PT. We went grabbed a bite to eat and then headed to the lodge to check in. After that we went to her dorm room to pick up her stuff because she was spending the weekend at the lodge with me. It was great just hanging out and watching TV together. She had to be at the hospital at 7am and lucky for us the lodge is right across the street. I went over around 9 and she was able to take a break and show me around the lab. I did not realize how many students there actually are there. I picked her up at 4pm and we went to her dorm so she could shower and change. We had reservations at La Comedia and had to be there by 6pm. It is a dinner theater and they start serving food at 6:15 and the show starts at 7pm. We saw Thoroughly Modern Milly and had a great time. We shared our table with a couple of young ladies there celebrating a birthday. Back to her dorm to get clothes and check email and then back to the lodge. By now it is 11pm so we pretty much just got in our jammies and went to bed.

Saturday we decided not to go to Cleveland (over 200 miles one way) and headed to Cincinnati instead. Walked around downtown a little then headed over to the Kentucky side of the river and there was a shopping area. We decided to see a movie (Leatherhead) and then after we walked around some more. Then back north to Dayton (actually the city outside Wright Pat is Fairborn). We had enough time to hit the mall for an hour before it closed! Boy was I tired when we finally made it back to the room. Dinner was grab and go and eat in the room that night.

Sunday we went to the Air Museum at Wright Patterson. Boy is it huge!!! We could have spent much more time than we did. But we wanted to go to Costco and Target and that was 35 miles away. Well, Costco is that far and there just happened to be a Target next to it. Then we went to a shopping area called The Greene. It is like a mini downtown area. Shops are on blocks and there are multiple blocks in the shopping area. It was such a nice day too! Dinner was at The Cheesecake Factory, which we always love. I was a good girl and did not order desert. Shay got cheesecake for later though. Then we had to go back to her dorm to get her uniforms that she would need for this morning and we headed to the lodge. Sitting there, watching TV and then all of sudden she realized she forgot her hat. Road trip back to the dorm (9pm) and then back to the room. She got her uniform ready for today and we wre both so tired we went to bed to watch tv. She was up at 530 this morning because she had to be at the hospital at 7am again. She is so nice. She drove back to the dorm to pick up this other airman who had to be there at 7am because he does not have a car. One last break with her at 9am and then I had to get ready for the shuttle to pick me up.

Here I am at home, writing here and watching the dogs chase the flashlight. I have already talked to Shay like three times tonight! Life gets back to normal pretty quick.

Lots of blogs to catch up on so I better get going.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

I love ya, tomorrow, Shays only a day away.

Yes, tomorrow I get to fly out to Dayton, OH and visit with my little girl. Well, she is 20 years old but she will always be my little girl. I am so excited and better yet, so is she.

We are in the middle of a huge storm here in Florida. Our power went out and the wind is churning and the thunder blasting. There is lightning and the dogs are freekin. I need to get this posted before I lose the internet.

My flight is not until 3pm so I have all morning to finish laundry and pack.

I need a loan....

Looks like I won't be able to leave the State of Florida anytime soon. So any of you northerners wanting to get some sun, come on down. I have plenty of guest rooms and we are not that far from Disneyworld and all the parks in Orlando and we are not from Busch Gardens. If you fly in, I will let you use a car. But you will have to pay for the gas!

Anway, the reason I know I am not leaving Florida soon is the price of gas. I had to take out a loan to fill up the tank on the Kia Rio. You think I am joking? Take a look at this.

I heard on the radio today that it is impossible to find gas under 3 bucks a gallon. I paid $3.15 at Walmart he other day. Walmart gives you a 3 cent discount if you use their credit card. What I do is buy a $200.00 Walmart gift card and use that to buy gas. When it is empty I just add more money. Helps me to keep track of what I spend on gas too.

I will leave you with a couple mor cartoons.

And if you really want to read something funny (kinda sick and funny) head over to visit Hallie at WWoW. http://wonderfulworldofweiners.blogspot.com/ I swear it will effect how you act the rest of the day and perhaps the rest of your life.