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.

Sad Day

I was going to post today about the price of gas but it will have to wait for another day. This morning when I logged on the internet I was slammed with the news that Staff Sergeant Keith Matthew Maupin's body had been recovered in Iraq. As many of you know he was captured in April 2004. While there was a video of a person with a hood being executed there was never any proof that it was in fact Matt. This gave America hope that he would be returned home alive. You may be surprised to know that when Matt was taken hostage he was a Private First Class (E-3). The Army Reserve Command made sure that PFC Maupin was advanced to Specialist when he would have been eligible. His promotion packet for Sergeant and then Staff Sergeant was presented to the promotion board just as if he were present for duty. His family has been taken care of for the past 4 years. Now that he has been positively identifed then his family will hace closure. There will be no more wondering. If you get the chance today, stop and say a prayer for Matt. Soldier On Staff Sergeant Maupin!

What I did on my day off (so far)

I work a schedule so I get every other Friday off. I had never done that in any of my other jobs (was not offered) but now that I work for the VA they allow compressed schedules. I work 9 hour days Mon-Thur and then 8 on Fri and get alternating Fridays off. Since I don't earn as much vacation as Iwould like it makes it nice to get three day weekends. Sometimes longer if they coinside with a holiday. ANYWAY, today being my day off is supposed to be my sleep in day. Did I get to sleep in? NOOOOOO. Daughter calls every morning around 6:45 when she is on her way to the hospital. I reminded her last night that this was my Friday off. Who called this morning? YEP! A1C Shay! Now don't get me wrong. I LOVE talking to my daughter and I am so excited that in 6 days I will get to see her, live and in person, that I am beside myself. But please...it was my day off. Another thing that kept me from sleeping in is that hubby scheduled his military physical for today so he had to get up early anyway. And it seems that I am the alarm clock. So I was up at 6:45 because my phone rang and then I continued to be up because hubby was getting ready. So I got the dogs up and took them outside to potty and then dragged them back to bed with me. They are such bed hogs. I don't know how people do it of a full time basis. We have a queen size bed and they were literally on top of me.

Well, we got up around 8:30 and then I had to take Binde to the vet for her comprehensive exam. Everything looks great, she has lost a couple of pounds (wish I could say the same) and she got her anal glands expressed. DO NOT ASK ME TO EXPLAIN. So all the dogs got to go with (I have three) and we walked around Petsmart and got new chew toys and treats. Now they are all exhausted and sleeping.

Tomorrow we have a dog show in Palmetto, FL. Not too far which means we do not have to stay in a hotel. I have decided that this is the deadline for Binde to prove herself. If she doesn't get at least a point this time then I am going to hold her back until she matures a little. She is such a puppy! She won't pay attention and looks everywhere but at the judge.

I guess now would be a good time to go to the grocery store so I will sign off for now.