sometimes a new look is just hard to find

So Shelby is the one person in our house that is bold enough to go REALLYYY short with her hair. I some times think about it but well my ears are way to big!!

Shelby's hair is better short, its extremely straight and healthy but if it ever grows past her shoulders it starts to get thin and ratty. There is nothing like spending an hour after every bath trying to untangle that mess while she cry's because it hurts.

Shelby finally talked me into letting her go reallly short a year and a half ago. It took her a good year of asking before I gave in. She went short and spiky in the back and left the front fairly long. Its a hard look to pull off but for Shelby it just fit her.

We really should buy stock in the Got 2 B hair products. The first thing we used was the Got 2 B Glued, from there I think we have tried all their products. The Glued is the best spiker ever and I like some of the hair sprays and gels to.

Honestly since she got that hair cut, I have never taken her any where that people don't stare and people always comment that they love her hair. She always gets "cool hair", "I love your hair" and "mommy I want hair like hers!!".

The first photo is one of my favorites of Shelby, yes there is something drawn on her face, it was left over halloween make up and we where playing around with it. Several people have said she looks like Twiggy in this photo.

When it starts growing out its a bit difficult to do anything with and starts looking a mess. But after the same hair cut for a year and a half she wants something different. Its a bit hard to go different from SHORT!! She found a photo of some girl with her hair cut except the bangs where cut short also. We did it tonight, I think Stephen isn't happy with it but Shelby is and well its hair and will grow back. I suppose we will still be supporting the Got 2 B collection because its the only hair product that holds Shelby's hair. With out the Got 2 B Glued her hair would never stand up. My mother would have never let me do any thing like this with my hair and I always said that with the exception of coloring it black they can do any thing they want. I wont let them color it black because its difficult and extremely damaging to reverse. My kids have had all lengths and pretty much all colors of hair. This summer it was purple streaks. Its been pink streaks and blue streaks, what ever its all temporaryy and hopefully a phase they will grow out of by the time they are ready to get jobs!

As for Shelby's new look, I think I like it and really wish I had the face for it, simple and easy and hassle free!!

where does the week end go?

So Stephen and I went fishing Friday night. We staid until late then went decieded we needed some fishing gear. We made a run to Wal-Mart and got new poles and a few gadgets. Saturday morning we where up early and back at the river.

It was so strange being at the river when the water so really low. The fish where every where, and jumping up into the air like crazy. There where several people out fishing at 6 AM but no one was catching anything. This young guy offered us his left over bait and one fairly large catfish. He had been there over 12 hours and caught one fish!

I actually saw several large fish surface for a second, then duck down and come back up to do a big flop but none of them seemed bothered to even nibble at our lines. I finally gave up and took a wonder down the river bed.

There are some amazing birds that tend to fly low and right over head. Of course when I remembered to bring my camera none of the birds flew close enough to get really good shots. I only took one lens and really was wishing that Stephen had brought his camera and his big lens. I have put a slide show on the side of my page with the photos that I took (oh and one photo of a fish that Stephen caught Friday night).

Spent the rest of Saturday with my niece, her husband and their 4 year old son (Keith). It was Keith's birthday. The boy is really into the Transformers at the moment. It was fun to see him get so excited over his presents. I am glad they are back in Oklahoma for the moment but honestly I am not sure she will last long. The thing about my niece is she has been in California for several years and she is very independent. I really don't think she will be happy back here where family is so close. Not that she and I don't love our family but neither of us are the clingy type and most of our family is clingy or at least in your face types of people. I don't think it will be long until she ventures at least to OKC or Dallas.

We spent this morning working in the yard. Stephen finally figured out what the huge flowers are that we have for the fist time this year. Hollyhocks. Those things are huge (7 to 9 feet tall) and beautiful while they are blooming but once they bloom they look really shabby. I wanted to find out if we could trim them of if they where the type of flowers you let bloom then cut down until next year. Turns out we can trim them so Today I did just that. I still have yard work to do but it just got way to hot. We escaped the heat by coming indoors and spent the rest of the day moving Katie in with Shelby.

I am not sure that I will sleep tonight because this will be the first night for Katie to sleep outside of our bed room. She is 14 months old and I am just not sure if she (well maybe it should be I) am ready for her to move out!

I am exhausted though so we will just see what happens.

tooooo tired and sunburned to move

So we had our 4 day week end and its almost over.. Saturday we photographed that wedding and honestly with the drive and long day what else could we have possibly added to the day....well nothing else really..
Sunday we did a couple of quick things around the house, then spent the rest of the day at the lake with the kids.
Monday we spend the day doing some shopping that REALLLLLYYYY did not need to be done, for example we spent way to much money in Lowes..more on that later.... we also had lunch at a new place that we found in Durant. It is called 2nd Street Bakery. Stephen and I both had the chicken salad which reminded me a lot of this chicken salad that we had at a wedding and I worked out what all was in it so that I could make it for some other event. Lets see if I can remember....
boiled chicken breast ( chopped into small pieces) or if your like me and in a hurry a couple of cans of chicken.
walnuts
grapes ( cut in half)
celery
a package of the Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (mixed as directed on the package)
chopped onions
hmm that is every thing, or at least what I can think of..any way it sounds odd with nuts and grapes and ranch dressing but its really really goood
The bakery had a selection of breads, we tried the pepper jack bread and it was really good! so we brought a loaf home.. I am now wondering where it is and what sort of excuse I can find for having some now.
Any way after our splurging we headed home for some WORK on our day off... We spend the rest of the day unloading the stuff that we bought, Stephen and Shelby ran to pick up some free supplies for the project we where about to do and then the hard part started.
I had less than great AC in the van the year before last (when I was pregnant with Katie) the AC would blow nice and cool for a few minutes, then the darn thing would switch to heater and no matter what you did the heater would not go off, so most of the time I just left it off so that I didn't have to deal with he heater.
Then last summer we where driving along with the AC on because Katie was a small baby and I was scared she would over heat. All of the sudden we smelled smoke and then the AC went off for good. We could feel air trying to come out of it but the blower wasn't working.

This ment that most of the summer and all of the winter I had no AC or heat. We didn't bother to fix the van because we just used Stephen's car really. I was the only one that was really having to deal with it. After having a look on line at some auto parts stores I just couldn't bring myself to go get the stuff to fix it, the price was about $300.oo for the whole blower unit.
For some odd reason we went to Auto Zone on Monday and Stephen was checking out when I suggested we just find out what the motor only cost and at least get that for now. I have been reluctant to take Katie any where in the van because it has been so hot. My idea at the time was that if Auto Zone wanted to much we would stop by the salvage yard and check their prices. Turns out the motor alone is only 5o bucks so we got it.
Once Stephen and Shelby got home we worked on building up a flower bed/goldfish pond and still to come a walk way.. Then we started on the van, the motor was easily seen but extremely hard to remove. By the end of the night we had the entire dash off the van. What we discovered was that the wires coming off the blower motor plugged into this blower regulator that had shorted out. The whole thing looked like it had been on fire at one point.
I had also been having weird problems with the speedometor, which we realized was all due to this shorted out part.

Then my daughter-n-law calls and wants me to walk her through re-installing windows on her computer so instead we went to Auto Zone, then to get the computer so I could bring it home and re-install windows.
Auto Zone really turned us into O'Reilly's customers. Stephen walks in at 6 minutes until closing and the guy never looked at the part just told him to go to the dealer cause he don't have the part. We went to O'Reilly at 2 minutes until closing and they said they could order the part and have it in 2 days.
I was up until about 2 am working on the computer and then taking my daughter-n-law home. So 8am came to quickly for me but we had to try and find this part. So we went to O'Reilly in Sherman and found the part for fairly cheap.. After a quick stop at the salvage yard to get the connetors (apparently no auto parts store carries the connectors called pig tales) we finally headed home to sort out the AC in the van.
It took a long time to get the part on and put the entire dash back together. However it was well worth the time because now my AC and speedomitor works!
While Stephen was doing that I was mowing and working in the yard. Darn its amazing how much better our yard looks with the grass cut and the flowers trimmed. We have been so busy that the flower beds have been left to grow way out of the acutal beds. I attempted to mow and weed eat in the back yard but that's gonna have to be Stephen's deal, his darn bees came straight for me when I turned the corner with the lawn mower going!!
Finally we finished our so called time off with a project that was all Stephen's idea and soooooo worth all the work!!!!

All I could say was WOW

Stephen and I finally took two days off work so we have a 4 day week end, its such a rare thing for us to just have a few days off with nothing pressing to do. So Saturday we traveled about 2 hours from home to attend and photograph the wedding of a friend in my unit (Nancy). I choose to offer to turn up early and assist in any way I could, I made this offer because Stephen and I had a small informal wedding and still found ourselves struggling to get it all together on the day of the wedding.

Nancy is the type of person who gets along ok with every one and rarely has an issue with other soldiers, but I wouldn't say she socializes much with the unit. During annual training this year we actually got to stay in a motel and had evenings free. I never saw her hanging out at the pool or anything like that. But if you take the time to talk to her and get to know her she is an interesting person with an interesting life story. In many ways its a real shame that many people in our unit don't know her personally, they only know her by the work she does in her job to support the unit.

I would have to admit that Nancy and her new husband Jim had what was the most "red-neck wedding" that I have ever attened. However as informal and "red-neck" as it was the people attending where happy people, and there was no real wedding day drama. We turned up (after getting lost) in the back woods of Coalgate Oklahoma, at a cabin sitting on about 100 acers of deer woods ( you know where men gather to hunt deer and drink beer) . Stephen was instantly ready to sell every thing we own and move into a cabin in the woods! This was a man's place and only brave hearted women dared to enter at the risk of a cold shower and no real sign of true air conditioning (AC). Now they had a small AC in the cabin, however when your cooking food for 85 people in a small cabin the stove overpowered the AC and the only chance of cooling down came from a cold beer that could be found in any of the many ice chest on the premises. Nancy, being the bride also had the fortune of a small travel trailer with amazing AC for her and her bridal party to pretty them selves up in.

When I say this was an informal, red-neck wedding, I am talking about beer mugs instead of champain flutes, and Bud Light Lime instead of chamain, cow paddies in the isle, deer horns mounted every where, a preacher dressed in camo from head to toe and a big "yeee hawww" as the bride walks down the isle. Now I was told before hand to turn up dressed casual, some of the bridal party were gonna be in capris, Ok I had on black dress capris and a nice top, OMG I should have taken her at her word and done as most of the other guest and turned up in short and a tank top, I was smoldering and my clothes sticking to me! Honestly I think that for what some would for sure call a very "red-neck" event, this was a fun and interesting event, where every one had a good time and no one felt out of place.

I am only adding 3 photos of the wedding, I just want to give you a general idea of the how things where, later when we have downloaded and edited all of them maybe I will add a few more.

We pretty much spent yesterday relaxing at the lake and spending time with the girls and my oldest daughter and grandson. The most eventful moment of the day was when Talan ( the grandson) had to get a hair cut. I swear one day he will refuse to come see me because every time I see him I cut his hair and he HATES it.

This morning we slept until about 8 AM and sad as it is we felt we had slept in. So as we slowly moved around and started our day Stephen wonders out side in his shorts and shoes only to have a look at his bee hives. It only took him a few minutes to come running in saying that the bees where swarming!! Now Sara and Shelby have gone to their sister's to spend the night so lucky for me Katie had just fallen off to sleep for her morning nap. So I was able to grab my camera and go see what was up with the bees. I am sure Stephen will post a blog about the details of the swarm and what happened before I got out there. I can only tell you what was going on when I got outside.

I was concerned that one of our hives was trying to swarm off. As it turns out our bees where minding their own buisness and doing their own thing, none of them where trying to fly away. Apparently its fairly common for swarms of bees to be attracted to places where bee hives are kept. Now I am not a bee master of any sort, but I have picked up a few bits of information along the way.

When I came around the house to where Stephen keeps his hives, I didn't see a swarm of bees and was wondering what all the fuss was about. Stephen was working quickly as possible to ready a hive for this new swarm and I must have looked puzzled because he pointed out the bees to me.

I have always been diligent in planting flowers every spring, and often I plant bulbs that will come back year after year. Every since Stephen's first visit here he has helped me with this task. Now days (every since he started with the bees) Stephen is even more into the flower beds and plants that I ever thought about being. Almost all plants we have are pre-annual plant that specifically attract bees. Needless to say we have a lot of flowers planted all over the yard.

This swarm of bees had landed for the most part on two large flowers. I am not even sure what these flowers are, they resemble a sun flower but they do not produce sunflower seeds. There where so many bees on these two flowers that the flowers where pulled down almost touching the ground.

Stephen prepared a hive for the bees and then broke off the two flowers and dumped the bees inside the box. Again I am not a bee master but I do know that once a swarm finds a new home there are certain bees that began to "fan", basically they rapidly flap their wings and emit a scent that says "this is our new home, come move in"! Almost instantly upon being dumped into the new hive there where bees fanning on top of the hive. Stephen didn't even have the lid on yet and they where fanning.

Stephen and I stood and watched as the rest of the bees migrated from the grass around the flowers into the box. It was like they formed a line and slowly moved into the box. I was amazed at how nature works and how these bees just followed the leader and moved into this have while several bees stood at the entrance and fanned the rest of the swarm into their new home.

Stephen is currently out there looking to find and mark the queen and trying to insure that the bees do not try to swarm off some where else. I really am hoping that this swarm takes up perminate residence in their new hive. I was so impressed by the bee's natural instinct and the way the work, I just want them to stick around.
here is a couple of photos, I will post more later

To much going on I haven't managed to post anything

It seems like I haven't had a spare minute in a really long time. I had the two weeks of military training , came home and worked a week at my regular job and then had drills this week end. Every evening has been one chore after another. So I haven't had time to post a blog or take a breath or any thing.

I was pretty happy with myself last week when I put myself on the calendar to have this coming Monday off, and I had Stephen take that day off too. We were gonna have a three day weekend, leave here Friday after work and come home Monday about lunch. The plan was to go camping and just chill out. Then I went to drills this weekend and realized I had promised one of the girls in my unit that I would turn up to her wedding this Saturday. I had promised to be there early and help set up and just do any thing she needed done. I made this promise because Stephen and I found our self struggling to get things set up on our wedding day. I honestly left home only half dressed for the wedding and at the time the wedding should have started Stephen was just getting into the shower. There was a couple and their daughter who stepped in and helped out, if it had not been for them none of the tables would have been decorated or anything. So I gladly offered to be there to help with all these details for this girl. I am not complaining, and have no regrets about he offer.

However I could kick myself for not asking for Monday and Tuesday off! I have never ever taken a vacation. I need some down time at the moment but I am struggling to find time to just rest really.

A couple of years ago we took the girls camping for the week end. Not a vacation really because it was only the week end, but it was at least two days of down time. The girls loved the place and was ready to pack up and move to the area we camped in. Now I am saying lets go camping for a couple of days of down time and Sara has done a 360 on me and wants to stay home. This is because of her new boyfriend. Geeeessshhhh darn teenagers!! I need a break boyfriend or not so Sara is gonna have to suck it up and do what Stephen and I want for a couple of days.

I wanted to post some more of the photos that I took at camp and a couple that I took today with Stephen.

After work today Stephen wanted to go look at some bees that some one had called him about. The man didn't want the bees in his tree but he was reluctant to kill them because he had heard about bees disappearing.

We lucked out, because the man had built a bird house and hung it in a tree, the bees had taken over the bird box. It was a simple extraction, tape up the opening and remove the box, bees and all. It was simple and quick.

I expected to come home and have some mad bees, and they did buzz around a little bit but honestly not a lot. In fact Stephen put on his hood but I stood around with my camera in a tank top, shorts and flip flops and they bees didn't seem bothered that I was there, camera in their face snapping away.

After the bees where settled into their new home I was frustrated because I wanted close up, sharp images but I didn't manage to get any.

i




It's annual training time so I have been away for most of this week. I was allowed to come home for the night because I have an important appointment tomorrow morning.

I took my camera along with me. I normally try to remember to bring a small digital camera, however I gave Sara my small digital camera after some girl at school purposely destroyed Sara's camera ( another story of another day). So this time I took my real camera. I wanted to take a lot of photos over the two weeks, but that hasn't seemed to happen. Partly I was so busy trying to qualify with my M-16.

We drove something like 6 hours to get to this place to qualify with our weapons. The day we arrive we hear lots of rumors that things are not going well at the rang, but range control had done some work so maybe it would be ok when we qualified.

I went to he zero range and was spot on with my zero. I was happy and thinking that maybe the range was gonna be ok. Turns out that the pop up range wasn't working so well. I went out on the first try and noticed that some of my targets where not even popping up, so when those didn't pop up I fired at my neighbors targets. Why not help him out if I wasn't getting to fire at my own targets. Didn't really do either of us any good. I know I missed a couple of targets but not as many as the range machine showed.

So I went on the second try and I counted that I had hit about 28 or 29 targets but hey said I only hit 14!!!! No Way! I have never not qualified so I went for a 3rd and final try. There was a lot of people who had not qualified and where having the same complaints as me. This time they sent some one with each shooter to count our hits. The guy who went with me said he was positive that I hit 27 targets, possibly more. He counted 23 that fell, 3 or 4 that I hit but the target shook but never fell, and 3 that he thought I hit but he was not sure. So I for sure hit at least 27 targets, the range machine said I hit 22, ONE SHORT OF QUALIFICATION!

We didn't have time for another try but I am not in this boat alone there are a lot of people who did not qualify, some of the senior people who have never in 20 or more years not qualified left the range with lower scores than mine. I am not sure what the unit will do, if they can use the scores that our spotters counted or if there is a possible make up fire at some other range.

Every since we got back to the unit its been one thing after another and I keep thinking that I am not taking any photos but I haven't had time or opportunity.

I posted a few above just because I like them really. There is my Zero target, I actually had 2 spots on there where I hit the same hole twice.

There is a photo of a bird, this bird was in the motor pool where we park our vehicles. I was walking up to where my unit was gathering up for formation and this bird's feather's are standing on end, the bird is dancing and squawking and charging at me. My fried Misty said she thought it was trying to have a mating dance with me. Turns out the bird has an egg in my path way and she isn't happy that I am come so close. I grabbed the camera and took a couple photos, but by then she was less mad and her feathers where not standing on end as much, in this photo its just her tail that is fanned out. She was a pretty bird to bad she wasn't very friendly.

There is also a photo of a couple of people cleaning up one of the Hummers. They lifted the end of the Hummer with one of the trucks so that they could power wash the underneath.

Hopefully I will get a few more photos in the next week. On Monday Stephen and Katie (Sara and Shelby if they are home) are coming to the unit for a family day/ open house where we should get a few good photos. Can't wait really because Stephen has had very little interaction with my unit. I think the more the family is involved the better so I love these events where the family get to come and be part of it all.

When is the right time?

So Katie turned 1 in April. According to my oldest daughter (who's son turned 1 in October) babies should not have a bottle after their first birthday. Apparently the correct thing to do is throw out all their bottles at their birthday party and be done with it. Well it worked for her but I don't remember bottle breaking being that easy.

I helped a LOT with my adopted brother and sister, I was 12 when my parents adopted my little sister and I don't know 14 or so when they adopted my brother. I took care of them so much that people thought that they where mine. If I recall correctly breaking them off of the bottle was pure hell really. They cried for hours before they fell asleep.

Steven and Summer where 2 and 4 when I married their dad and even though they lived with me until they where 15 and 17 I was lucky and didnt have to bottle break or potty train either one of them.

Sara was pretty easy to bottle break well sort of. I went to military boot camp on her first birthday and my mother helped take care of her for my X. She was bottle broke when I got back and only had a bottle because I felt like I missed so much and encouraged her to take her bottle so that I could break her from it. Dumb I know but well I was young and wanted to be mommy, I was upset that my mother had done such a huge thing and I had not been a part of it.

Shelby was the hardest of my children. I wanted her to still be in her crib in my bed room. Her dad insisted that Shelby and her crib move into her sister's room. I reluctantly moved her but this in its self was a mistake. Summer had the choice she could have the smaller bed room to herself or take the bigger bedroom and choose either Sara or Shelby to share with. She chose to share with Shelby. Another mistake, Summer chose Shelby because Summer hates to sleep alone. So every night I would give Shelby a bottle, turn on Barney and leave the room. Shelby would lay down and go to bed. I had no idea that Summer was taking her out of the crib and putting Shelby in bed with her.

When bottle breaking time came Shelby first would stand up in her bed and yell "sissy come get me" when that wouldn't work (I was being strict and making Summer let Shelby start falling asleep alone) Shelby would cry and cry and cry. It was terrible, I honestly don't know how I ever got through it.

I really didn't let Katie lay down with a bottle until she was able to hold it on her own. For some reason until Katie I had no problem with people propping babies bottles, I know my brother and sister and Sara and Shelby had their bottles propped at daycare all the time. I worked at the day care where Shelby went and I know all the babies got their bottles propped at one point or another. I never really propped bottles in the baby bed though I was always worried that they would choke.

I read some where that propping bottles causes ear infections and cavities. So Katie never had her bottle propped and never had a bottle in bed with her until she could hold it herself. Maybe its just that I am not an 18 year old mother this time, but I was very against the whole propping bottles idea.

Now at 1 Katie seems quite happy to drink from a cup and would really rather have a cup than a bottle. I only really give her one when she is sleepy. I honestly think we could break her from the bottle easily except at bed time. I am so dreading it and recently read some one's blog where mom said she got 3 hours of sleep on day one of weaning I don't know if I can handle that at the moment. Things are crazy enough here with Stephen's job changing his hours every day and me leaving for annual training I don't see either of us managing on 3 hours of sleep.

The other thing I am stressing over is the baby crib. Summer and my daughter-n-law are both pregnant and still has a few months to go. I bought Summer a used but very nice baby bed when her son (Talan) was a baby. Summer still has that bed and plans to use it for her next baby. My daughter-n-law is having her first baby and needs a bed. I was thinking that by the time she has the baby Katie would be in a toddler bed but its only 4 or 5 months away and I am in no way ready to move Katie out of her crib or out of our room.

Katie don't sleep through the night as it is. If I moved her into the bedroom with Shelby now she would wake Shelby up during the night, so I am waiting until school is out so that Shelby can sleep in if Katie does wake her. If I put Katie into a toddler bed, holy cow the house would be destroid every moring. I could see every toy pulled out of the toy boxes and DVDs every where. I just can't bring my self to do it.

When is the right time to break them from the bottle and put them in a toddler bed? Geeeesshhh Shelby is 10 I don't remember when to do all this stuff.

My Review!

This is gonna short cause I am sleepy and have a long day ahead of me tommorow.



So it's drill weekend again and I am once again gone for two nights. The unit pays for the room and lunch, with the room comes coupons for a discount on food at the Denny's that is attached to the motel. I like Denny's but who wants to eat there all weekend.



Last night my room mate was laughing at her sister for trying to convince their parents into taking her to a Mexican restaurant that she wanted to go to. Ever since then I just wanted some Mexican food, but I wanted to go to one of those places that bring you chips and salsa when you sit down.



So tonight we do an Internet search for Mexican place to eat. My room mate is 110% against Tex-Mex she only wants original Mexican food cooked by true Mexicans, a Mom and Pop Mexican place, that's what she wants. I only spot one place on the net that looked like it may be what she is looking for. So we take off for this restaurant but find it to be closed!



Determined that I want Mexican food and she wants Mom and Pop we start driving. We are just driving around and all of the sudden she is doing a u-turn and saying there it is!!! She had spotted a place that she thought could be the place some one had told her about.



So we pull into Coronatdo's , as it turned out that wasn't the exact place she thought it was but it turned out all good any way. We open the door to go in and realize that the place was closed. The woman insist that its ok and we should come in and eat any way. The actually unstacked two chairs and pulled out a table for us! Now that is Mom and Pop service for you, no fancy restraunt would do that.



The woman brought us a hand written menu, all in spanish and we proceeded to try and sort out what we wanted that they had. My friend ask for Barbacoa and the woman gets excited we have a language breakthrough!! lol



I have no idea what Barbacoa is so I ask my friend and she says its beef, just beef! However I am a little worried because the way she is telling me its beef I am thinking its not hamburger or steak. I waivered but ended up saying ok give me a bean burrito with cheese sauce and I will be ok and feel safe in my choice.



In the mean time another family comes in and are welcomed to come in and eat. I love that the people are so welcoming when just 5 minutes ago they where about to end their long day's work and head home to their own lives.



We had a Mexican Coke (apparently different from American Coke) and our food was ready very quickly. Our food is on the table and I realize that my friend has basically ordered Tacos made out of soft corn tortias, chopped beef and onions. I was like um why the odd name for tacos? But before I can ask she pops one of the tacos on my plate. I ate the whole thing before I ever touched my burito. It was good and I thought nothing of.



We finish up and get ready to leave. OMG we only have ATM cards with us and the darn sign behind the registar (which by the way is the only English in the place and we missed it!) says CASH ONLY! So my friend takes of for the ATM while I stand there looking sort of dumb and trying to explain that my friend went to get cash.



The woman's son turns up with his two young children to run the cash registar and help close up for the night. He speaks more English and insist that we don't worry about the bill cause he knows that no one carries cash and its a real pain to not be able to use your card.



Apparently they have only been open about 2 weeks and have not been able to get a card reader because they need a phone/fax machine and are actually having trouble getting the phone company to come and install it. Now I may be way off as we had a language barrier but I swear she said that the phone company wont turn on the phone because they tried to pay for it in Mexican money and the phone company wouldn't take it! again I may have miss understood. But I still found it funny.



My friend whips in with the cash and we pay and leave. I am going on and on about how much I love the whole Mom and Pop atmosphere when my friend ask if I like the Barbacao. I loved it and thought it was great and on and on.. then she informs me that Barbacoa is "a certain barbeque technique using the head of the beef cattle. " OMG she fed me COW FACE!!!!

Still it was good food and most importantly the customer service was great and I think that we will go there on drill weekend.

Confused Kat

Ok so I have posted a previous blog about the cat and her tragic entry into our home. Things seem to just get odder.Stephen jokingly named her Kat and that name has stuck with her. After loosing all of her kittens Kat suddenly has milk (which she didn't have when she delivered the kittens).

Kat seems oddly confused about her motherly roll or should I say lack of. In the last few days I have noticed that every time Katie cries Kat does some super hero jumping and running. I really noticed it a couple nights ago when Katie woke up in the middle of the night and let out a big cry. Kat jumped from the floor, to my bed (landing on top of me) and instantly into Katie's crib, all before I could get the blanket off of me!

When I got to the crib Kat was coddling and soothing Katie! It hit me that she is post delivery and knows she should be tending her kittens, but as there are no kittens to tend to she is trying to tend to Katie.

I went to a web site called Catster and ask if it was possible that Kat has confused Katie with her own baby. Apparently its common for a cat to adopt other cats or other animals especially when they have lost their own kittens.

I knew this much because we once had a cat that had kittens on the same day that my daughter came home with a tiny baby rabbit. The cat went nuts chasing this rabbit. I thought she wanted to eat it. However once she finally caught me off guard enough to get the rabbit she took it and put it in the bed with her kittens and tried to force it to nurse. I suppose Kat is doing the same thing with Katie, she is trying to adopt a human baby to fill her motherly needs.

Crazy Kat...

best meds for baby!!

Katie had the worst couple of months, she had a virus then the flu, then another virus and as soon as she got over the virus and went back to daycare she caught it again. Thankfully she is much better now but all that sickness left her with the worst diaper rash ever. We have tried every kind of cream from over the counter to prescription stuff, nothing seemed to help.

Then my niece recommended using this Corona Ointment that is actually found at feed stores and made for horses. $4.oo for the jar and an overnight application and she is completely healed up!! Think this will be one of our staples in the medicine cabinet from now on!

Sadly we where not able to save any of the kittens, but Stephen seems to have a new pet who follows him every where. She even jumped in the care and tried to go to work with him this morning!~

A couple of years ago right after I moved into this house, both Sara and Shelby some how managed to talk me into letting them have one kitten each. Now I wasn't exactly wanting them to have the cats but well I am a sucker at times.

Sara had a female cat named Tiger that looks very much like the cat pictured above. The only difference that I can see is that Tiger had blue eyes and this cat has green eyes. And Tiger's hair was a bit shorter and slicker.

Shelby had Precious who you would think would be a girl and we thought it was a girl for a very long time. This cat was very long haired cat. He was a true ball of fur. White with orange trimmings. Beautiful cat really. The thing with Precious was that Shelby picked him out a couple days after he was born, then while she was waiting for him to be old enough to bring home, well some how he got under a rocking chair and the guy who gave us the cat smashed the kitten's head. We ended up waiting longer than normal for the kitten because the owner wanted to make sure that the kitten was going to be ok. Precious was ok, well sort of ok. For a very long time he didn't have a clue how to clean himself and he was a bit slow. Shelby had to bathe this cat, so much so that the smart fur ball would jump into the shower with you if he got half a chance.

Last fall when I was big and pregnant with Katie we realized that Tiger was pregnant. Stephen was beside himself worried that we would be over ran with cats. I personally was pissed that I had already been fat and pregnant for so long and this darn cat got to have her babies in no time at all.

When Tiger had her fist litter of Kittens she was a bit slow to mother them. However once I got her to nurse them she was fine and Nature took its course and she turned out to be a great mommy. Trouble was that she was still nursing kittens when she got knocked up again.

Needless to say we had a lot of Kittens, but we did find homes for all of them except one. Then all of the sudden both Tiger and Precious where missing. We had made them start living outside full time just before Katie was born. They where fine outside but then all of the sudden they went missing. and the one kitten was alone and sad looking really. But a day or two after the mom and dad went missing so did the kitten. I really thought something ate it.

We live on a circle drive where most of the homes are owned by one guy. There are only a couple of us that don't rent from this man. A few months ago I mentioned to the handy man that my cats had gone missing. The man said boldly as ever, right in front of my 10 year old " yeah I shot them, I was sick and tired of having cats all over the neighborhood so I shot all of them" Now I was shocked and pissed really. But Mostly I was upset that he said it in front of my daughter who cried about her cat being shot.

Then a couple of weeks ago the lady across the street starts calling and throwing a fit cause there was a stray cat on her porch and she swore it was our cat. We told her several times that Jerry shot our cats and we don't have any cats now.

Yesterday Shelby comes in with the above cat swearing that this is Tiger and she has to save her because the lady across the street has been hitting, kicking and throwing the cat. I was really tired and didn’t feel like getting into it with her, not to mention that at a glance this looks like Tiger.

The entire time Stephen is going on and on about how "that's not our cat, we are not keeping the cat and it’s not our cat!!" Then Shelby says the oddest thing. She is standing there holding the cat up to me going on and on about it being Tiger and the she says "Omg she peed on me!!!" I was so exhausted that it took me a second for it to click as to what she had just said. Once I realized what she said I thought ummm cats don’t normally just pee while being help up in the air.

Of course I look to see what Shelby is on about and I will be darned if there isn’t a kitten butt hanging out of this cat. Even though the darn cat's water had just broke on my bedroom carpet and even though Stephen was still chanting "it isn't our cat" I couldn't throw the cat out the door with a kitten hanging out of her. So I made a bed in a container and put her inside.

It didn't take long to win Stephen over, because it didn't take long to realize things where not going well with the cat. She had 5 kittens all of them where either butt first or sideways. Stephen had to pretty much pull the kittens out and three of them didn't make it.

Mommy was struggling to clean her self up and the babies where pretty much on their own. Now I know that the mom cleaning up the Kittens is what gets them started really breathing. Stephen had to do all the cleaning up and tried to rub them all enough to get them breathing but only two of the kittens made it.

Mom isn’t interested in letting them nurse and the kittens are not even trying to nurse. The kittens had no hair and no idea who to suck or swallow.

We put mom and babies in the laundry room on a shelf with a heat lamp to help keep them warm. Apparently this is necessary with premi kittens (per my internet search). When we came home today the kittens where gone and mom was wondering the house. We searched for a long time and found the kittens beside the tub we had them in, one had died during the day but one was hanging in there.

Mom refuses to leave the kitten any where besides on the cabinet so we actually have mom and baby on a towel on the cabinet with a heat lamp over them.

One of Sara's friends brought me the tiniest bottle to feed the kitten with. We are basically manually pumping milk from mom and forcing open the kitten's mouth to teach it to nurse but also giving it some vaporized milk in this tiny bottle. The kitten seems to be giving nursing an effort but it’s difficult because mom has very little milk. Also because mom isn’t really nursing she seems to have a very large tummy still. I am thinking this is because the nursing is what causes the uterus to contract back down and she has had no real nursing yet.

Stephen has named the mommy CAT, and for some reason CAT has decided that even though Shelby brought her home, I made her a bed to give birth in and Stephen insisted she didn't belong here, she is defiantly Stephen's cat! She follows him every where and jumps into his lap when he sets at the computer. This cat has claimed Stephen and now he is talking about buying her a collar.

Stephen swears that we can't keep the kitten but I have a feeling that if the Kitten makes it he will be so attached he won’t let it go any where. The girls want to name the kitten Faith or Miracle. Not sure about a name at the moment I am just hoping for survival for the poor kitten.

Drowning in work

Some days Stephen and I have to wonder how we manage.

Recently Stephen says he is drowning in photography work. All though its tiring and can be stressful, its a good tired and a good stress. Of course we would rather be drowning in photography than not having enough of it.

So yesterday morning Stephen had a photo shoot for the magazine and senior photos as soon as he was finished with that. The senior's mom calls on Friday night worried about every thing, she was concerned because at her sister’s prompting she had canceled an appointment at a photo studio where she was going to pay for a sitting fee and then order a package of photos, but we where charging her more than the sitting fee. She was certain that she wouldn’t be able to print our photos for less than what the studio was going to charge. Oh and if she gets wallets how would she cut them out.. it was a total panic moment, you know good and well that if she had a page of wallet photos in her hand after the fact cutting them wouldn't be an issue she was just in that "mom's first senior panic mode" Stephen actually said to her " you will use scissors.

So I called the mom back, before the call ended I had to put her mind at ease about hair, makeup, jewelry, our prices and my ability to convince her 18 year old daughter that these where senior photos and “sexy” wasn’t the intention. Been there and done that with my own girls, some times with teenage girls its easy for them to confuse confident sexy with porn sexy so Stephen and I work hard at keeping every one on the confident side and if the poses start crossing lines Stephen haa became comfortable with stopping for adjustments, and well I have armed myself with wardrobe tape!

I hung up the phone and had to discuss it all with Stephen, you see I used to be very uncomfortable with charging the $150.00 for a disk or charging in general. Its been said that I could bankrupt any buisness because I tend to want to "help out" every one and charge no one. So I needed Stephen to tell me again that we really where giving them a deal.

I realize they had canceled an appointment where she was only going to pay $35.oo for her setting fee but the setting fee did not include photos, hair, makeup and the photographer was not coming to her house. Not to mention the setting fee was for her daughter’s photos only, we had agreed to do the senior photos, some of each kid, groups of her kids and some family photos. What we are doing at the moment ( and this is sooooo temporary just to get things started), we sort out a place to do the photos and then take what ever photos they want. Then we give the customer a disk with all the photos and they get them printed. We have done weddings that included family photos for almost every family attending the wedding. We do it this way for now because the customer gets a heck of a lot of photos for their $150.oo. I think the last two weddings the bride got disk with 300 to 400 photos on them. The disk we turned over this morning for the senior photos had 280 photos on it. The only duplicates where, if we turn one black and white I do it in addition to the color photo, and a couple of the ones that I put senior 2009 on I did it as a duplicate so they maybe got 6 or 7 duplicates but the duplicates where not exactly like the original photo.

Now I have spoken to a few moms recently about their senior photos, most of them paid a sitting fee and the package cost them at least $400.oo. That is not including all the extra photos we take of the entire family. When Stephen and I first got married I felt odd about charging $150.oo for a disk but now that I am helping with the shoots and editing and putting in the time labor . honestly I am feeling ok about $150.oo.

I have makeup that I use every time Sara’s friends turn up here wanting some “cool” photos and I have some jewelry that I have picked up at various sales just for the photography. However I got to thinking that I needed a couple of things to make sure this girl would have what she needs. So while Stephen was doing his first photos of the day Shelby and I ran to Wal-Mart to look for some cheap but big ear rings, and a bag for my makeup, jewelry and hair stuff. I have been keeping an eye out for a bag but I had in mind what I wanted and I just haven’t seen it yet.


Turns out that Wal-Mart has very little jewelry these days. I remember when they used to carry a lot of cheap stuff that would make due. I managed to find one card of ear rings that was not what I was looking for but would do. The bag was another challenge. Near the makeup was some bags but they where just bags, no real slots for stuff. I stood there picturing makeup piled in those bags and me digging through the bag unable to really find anything that I needed. So I went to the hair isle and found pretty much the same thing, then I went to the purses and …nothing… Finally I went to the arts and crafts isle and even though it wasn’t exactly what I had pictured, for less than $20.oo I found a tote just like this only mine is pink instead of blue

This has lots of pockets and places to put stuff so I was pleased. I managed to get all of my make up and combs and hair spray in there. I even bought a plastic box to put jewelry in ( the box was made for arts and crafts items but it works for me) . The box fit right into the tote. I was quite pleased with myself until I looked at Wal-Mart.com and saw this

Now I want this tote for my make up and jewelry and the pink one can be for curling irons, straightening irons and all that stuff.. not gonna happen as I am to frugal to spend a $100.oo on a tote.. the only chance I have of getting this tote is if Stephen goes and buys it with out telling me then once the money is spent I am ok but, me I would stand there and stare at it and want it and then think $100.oo buys a few packs of diapers or could pay a bill and I would never actually give up the money just because I want the tote.

So any how back to the situations we get into. After our trip to Wal-Mart, I had to take both seats out of the van, pack up all the makeup, hair tools and jewelry and I was suppose to get all the lights, background and support system ready to load into the van, oh and at some point I should at least brush my hair and put on a little make up too. I was in the middle of brushing my hair when Stephen got home, none of the lights, background and supports had been touched, but the van seats where out and my stuff was packed up!

Stephen didn’t complain though, I suspect that he left the house knowing that there was no way I could do every thing I had planned on before he got back lol. So Stephen loaded the van up with everything while I finished getting dressed and we headed off to do these senior photos.


I had explained to the mom call Friday nights phone call that the more her daughter was willing to pose the more shots she would get. The girl was pretty enough but she does exactly what my daughter does, she goes in her room or hangs out with her friends and acts goofy and snaps photos of her self. But put the lights and camera and every one watching they freeze and suddenly can't think of one cool pose. It really reminded me of Sara. One of the older boys brought out his horse and Stephen was able to get some good ones of the boy riding.

After the photos Stephen had to go farther away from home to pick up some bee supplies. Stephen had found some one selling used be boxes and other bee stuff. I personally wouldn't have bought them because the looked a bit yucky to me but Stephen went ahead and got them.

Needless to say several hours later when we got home, we where exhausted and ready for a day to crash. That didn’t happen though.

Today Stephen had another photo shoot for the magazine ( the magazine is the best these shoots almost always go smoothly). Then when he got home he had to sort out all of the used bee boxes he bought.. I will leave that part for him to explain on his blog.

While Stephen was out I was editing yesterdays photos and taking care of a cranky Katie. But things got really strange when Shelby came up to me with this cat that the neighbors have been hitting and kicking and throwing things at. They say it’s a stray and they don’t want it near their house. So Shelby is holding this cat up telling me how she needs to keep it and save it cause its been treated so awful when all the sudden she says “mom it peed on me”. Ok We had a long day on Saturday and I had been at the computer editing the photos all day so I staried blankly at Shelby for a few seconds before it clicks what she has said..I am thinking cats dont just pee on you!!! So .. I look down and I will be darned if I didn’t see a kitten poking its rear end out! So of course I am not going to throw the cat out the door even if its water did just break on my bedroom carpet. We got a container and an old towel and put the cat in there. Stephen only had one thing to say and he said it over and over and over.. Thats not our cat, thats not our cat, thats not our cat....

It didn’t take long to realize two things, The kittens are extremely premi!! And this cat don’t have a clue what is going on. The cat struggled to clean her self up let alone the kittens. The kittens have no fur, 3 of the 5 she had where born breach and dead, and the cat is scared to death to stay in the box with them. So suddenly Stephen goes from "thats not our cat" to CPR on a stillborn kiten!!! Stephen has had to actually help her get some of the kittens out, he has done all the cleaning up of the kittens and the two that are still alive, Stephen managed to rub them enough to get them to breath. I know that the mother cleaning the kittens at birth stimulates them to breath but with mom not cleaning them its been up to Stephen. He tried with all of them but only two of them finally started breathing. I honestly hold out little hope that the two kittens will make it. We did some research because the kittens are not attempting to nurse. Apparently if they are really premi they don’t know how to nurse or swallow. Its late at night and there is no place to buy the needed feeding tube and they will need feeding every hour and we both work all day so the only thing I can think of is to do what we can and hope that nature kicks in and the mom figures out what to do.

This week end is one of the reasons I love Stephen so much, We manage to book a lot of photo work, have 101 things on our plate and still get it all done, and them throw in a suprize cat/kitten rescue and he jumps right in and helps try and save them!

Darn what messes we get into!

So its drill weekend and the very first time that I have ever spent the night away from Katie. Its been very strange and hard to stay in a motel and not go home. I use to drive home after drills but that is an hour away which is exhausting and costly. Recently the Guard started paying for our motel room on drill weekend. Most drill weekends include Saturday and Sunday but once in a while it starts on Friday. This drill started on Friday so I spent the night here last night.

They gave us some coupons for 50% off our breakfast at the Denny's that is in our motel. So this morning my room mate and I went to have your breakfast. We where ready to head to the unit as soon as we finished eating so of course we where both in our military uniforms.

My room mate had to run back to the room to get something so she handed me her wallet and took off back to the room. I pushed my plate back and pulled out my ATM card and was about to look for my friend's ATM card when the waitress came up to me. I was thinking she was bringing our ticket. Instead she came to inform me that some one had paid our ticket for us. I was left sort of speechless and didn't know how to respond. I eventually found my voice and ask who paid it so that I could thank them. However the man and ( I am assuming) his wife where already pulling out of the parking lot. I still really had no idea what to say.


Above is something that Stephen made to put on myspace or something a while back. Because he always says how proud he is of me. I even find myself wondering at times what is it that he is proud of, I am in the military because it is part of who I am, or it was any way. The last time I re-enlisted I had said for months that I wasn't going to re-enlist, I was going to finish my current enlistment, get out, marry Stephen and start a new life. My new life was to be for the most part separate from my old life. The only thing I wanted to bring along in my new life was my children. But at the last moment I simply couldn't let go. It was partly the sign on bonus, who couldn't use the money they where waving in my face? But honestly for the most part it was me not being able to see me breathing if the ties to the military where cut. It wasn't until the last year or so that realized that I have SOOOO many other things in my life that letting go of the military would be so much easier than I thought it would be.

Recently faced with the posibilitiy of being put out of the military due to an injury that occured while I was deployed I had to really come to terms with the idea that I may not be active in the military in the near future. A year or two ago I would have been 110% sure that if the military was yanked away from me I would have fallen apart, today I know that I would be ok with it.

So for many years the military for me wasn't about me serving my country nearly as much as it was about filling a need with in me. With me seeing the military as something that I need, something that serves a purpose in my life, I am always suprised and even shocked when people do things like pay for my meal just because I am in the military.

Things like this tend to happen, when we stop by Wal-Mart on our way home and a complete stranger comes up to us and says "I just wanted to say thanks for your service to our country" . Or a little kid stops you in the store and is beaming at you because your in uniform.

Or when we stop off to buy a soda on the way home from drills and some one pays for the drink or the attendant wont let us pay because we are in military uniform.

During our deployment to Kuwait in 2003 it happened a lot, where one Kuwait citizen or another would pay for your drink or food just because they are grateful that American Soldiers liberated their country.

Even outside of the military when I get a "thank you" or some other complement I never know what to say back. If I have done something for the person a "your welcome" works but if its just a random complement I am at a loss for words. As for the military and people being nice, I never want anyone to think I am being ungrateful or that I am being a real *@%@*, I just really don't know how to respond.

I think that the main reason I feel so awkward about people thanking me in reference to the military I never feel like I did anything in the military that warrants a person to be grateful or thankful to me. I joined the military originally to get medical insurance for my children. I ended up staying in the military for the last 14 years because the military became a part of me and eventually I couldn't identify me with out having some sort of military in my life.

Yes I went to Kuwait, yes I went to New Orleans after Katrina but in many ways those where selfish acts on my part. I have this weird need to be a part of something important. So I view the things I do in the military as a way to fill that need within me. I do realize that its very strange to say that I would WANT to put myself in less than cozy position in order to help some one else just so that I can fill a weird need with in myself. This is a part of me that I never realized or saw until just a few years ago.

So I suppose that I have a hard time knowing how to react to some one thanking me for doing something that in many ways I did for myself.

At dinner my room mate and I was discussing breakfast and the whole issue of people saying thanks to us. It turns out that she don't know how to respond to people either. She indicated that she often thinks "what exactly have I done to be thanked for" . Yes she has been on two deployments but even though she didn't volunteer for either deployment she wanted to go, wanted to see the world and meet people of different cultures, not to mention that they paid her a decent amount of money to do that.

Now don't miss understand deployments are not easy, you miss your family, you work long hard hours and endure some hard times, and well there is always the possibility of being injured and even killed. However we are lucky enough to be in a unit where the missions are more often than not in more secure places. I am not saying no one will ever be injured, shot at or in a battle but our chances of seeing that sort of action is slim.

I suppose that my whole point to this blog is that we don't feel like we have made a real true sacrifice so we don't know how to respond when people are so very grateful. Its hard to explain, how can you feel like you deserve thanks for full filling your own need? In many ways I feel like my family deserves the thanks more than I ever would. Its my children that missed out having a mother that suffers the most on deployment.

Sara's friend had a birthday party with an Emo/Gothic theme. The girl wanted Stephen to come over and take some photos at her party. Stephen couldn't go because he had work for the magazine and then a concert to photograph after. I couldn't go to where the party was because Katie has been so ill and is just now getting better. The weather had turned cold out so I didn't want to take a chance on her getting sick again. So I text Sara and said that if they came here I would take a few photos for them.

With Stephen out taking photos all day he of course had his gear with him. I only had one lens here. Every time I use this lens I complain about the results. Stephen broke the lens into two pieces a couple of years ago and we mailed it off to the manufacture (Sigma) to be repaired. When I first met Stephen this was the lens he used most, or at least the one I saw him use the most. Now every time I use this lens every thing turns out so very soft. I officially don't like this lens. Stephen says that if we change some settings it may work better, we will see.

Above is a few of the photos that I took yesterday. The photos and the lens where not that screwed up. I used Lightroom to make them odd colors because the girls wanted odd and different photos, I have a few that have not had the colors changed and I will post more later.

Sunday my daughter-n-law called and wanted to have some photos of my granddaughter (Cloey) in her Easter dress. Stephen's day was full and mine was suppose to be cleaning house so I opted to do the photos instead. Easy choice who wants to clean house!

I wasn't exactly happy with the first set of photos, there simply wasn't enough light and even though the pics printed ok on the screen when I zoomed in it all seemed very soft to me.

We have these lights in the closet that are not for photography and Stephen wont use them because he insist that the lights are not clear white light. But I used one of them on the second set of photos with my son and his wife. I was much happier, the photos seemed much sharper. The light isn't perfect but for me it will work until Stephen gets some studio lights. Now the next step is on me to work on framing up the photos.

Was a good day, we took Cloey out and let her help plant about 60 plants. She loved getting dirty.

Katie was having a great time just being outside, until she suddenly got sick. Turns out she has thrush mouth. Its nasty stuff and made her really ill. Lucky for us my daughter's friend had gone through it and discovered that the best treatment going is Gentian Violet. Stained her mouth and bottom with this stuff and almost instantly she was feeling better. So off to daycare with her tomorrow with her purple lips and bottom.