My name is Patricia, but in the blogging world I became known as "Major Mom" thanks to a friend in the Air Force Reserves. As soon as he had said it, the David Bowie song "Space Oddity" went through my mind.
I am a mother and wife first - an Air Force wife, that is. My husband proudly serves in the Air Force as a weather officer.
I also continue to serve my country as a Major in the Air Force Reserves.
It's a wonderful double-life I lead.
It was a very difficult decision for me -- I had our second son in early 2005 just before the 10-year-point in my career. It was already tough having to turn my oldest son over to a child care center every duty day -- 50 hours per week. So in spring 2005 I took advantage of a Reserves job opening for which I was qualified in Norfolk, Virginia -- my hometown!
It's truly wonderful getting to see my sons grow up, and be able to help out at their school, on their sports teams (I've coached soccer before) and as a Cub Scout den leader. I'm not sure I'd have had time for that if I had remained on active duty.
We currently live in Navarre, Florida, while my wonderful husband is assigned to Hurlburt Field, Florida.
We've also lived in the following locations since we graduated from Penn State University in 1995:
Fort Polk, Louisiana, 1995-1998
Yongsan Army Installation, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 1998-2000
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, 2000-2002
Patrick AFB, Florida, 2002-2005
Raleigh, North Carolina (Dave was assigned to North Carolina State University), 2005-2008
Offutt AFB, Nebraska, 2008-2010
Hurlburt Field, Florida, 2010-present
I started this blog in December 2007, thanks to suggestions from friends. We're in our third home since I started the blog.
I used to send out captioned photo albums -- from AOL Pictures to Shutterfly albums to Picasaweb albums. Instead of flooding everyone with photos, now I can use this blog to send out the highlights.
I'll talk about anything on here -- usually I'm talking about the kids, but I'll also delve into the local scene wherever we're living, and you'll also see some great posts about the two military moves (PCS: Permanent Changes of Station) we've had. Sometimes I talk about utter nonsense, such as finding a product called "Piggies in Pancakes" in a grocery store in South Carolina.
In my spare time I write for the parenting blog GeekMom.com, I serve on the board of the Hurlburt Spouses' Club, and I'm a Cub Scout den leader. I also enjoy running and playing the violin.
Jacob turned 10 years old earlier this month. We had a small birthday party for him at the house, and Jacob enjoyed playing with some of his birthday gifts. Thanks to everyone to recognized his birthday with nice gifts, and thanks to those who took time out of their busy schedules to celebrate with us … Read more
This post has been a long time coming…but because GeekMom’s credientials got me a free press pass into Dragon*Con, I had to write all my Dragon*Con related posts for GeekMom first. Our whole family drove up to Atlanta over Labor Day weekend and stayed in a hotel near Turner Field so we could also enjoy … Read more
So I wrote a post 363 days ago about how I had received a notification for promotion about 390 days ago. In that post I also promised not to change the name of my blog… But who’s counting the days now? On September 1st the promotion went into effect. While for those on active duty … Read more
So…the last time I did one of these was precisely 52 weeks ago (9 Sep 2011). I guess it’s been a while. I got a bit lazy and now that I’m not running around crazy with my Hurlburt Spouses’ Club responsibilities, I have time to do this again and I’m so excited about it! For my … Read more
Three and a half years I elected to grow out my hair (February 2009, while I was deployed, after a very bad haircut), I faced the scissors and cut off about 16″ of my hair about 2 weeks ago. I had last done this in September 2007 right before I had started a new position … Read more
Our friends and neighbors, the Scotts, took our family out on their boat last weekend. It was so kind of them to offer; their boat seats 4 adults and 2 kids pretty well, but no more passengers than that can fit, so we had to find a weekend that didn’t involve other visitors. We here … Read more
A gift for a GeekMom writers’ gift exchange last June.
We and our house is doing just fine with Issac. It’s no worse than tropical storm-strength here, but my neighbors and our family are all puzzled by this dull roar that we’re hearing outside.
In the meantime, we are all stuck in the house, and the kids are off of school both today and tomorrow. This is a quiet week for me, some Air War College reading, and preparing the family for this weekend’s trip to Atlanta for a Braves/Phillies game and Dragon*Con.
I had just realized today that I didn’t share a craft I had done this past June! So here we go!
While everyone’s minds are on preparing for the storm itself, something many folks don’t think about life for the week-or-so after the storm!
I’m slowly working through our checklists for getting the house prepared for the storm. I just got back from the store picking up some preemptive supplies, and I filled up a spare 5-gallon gas can that we have. I think we’re about as ready as we can be with the current forecast information.
For those new to the hurricane-life, folks may not realize how post-apocalyptic things get in an area recently ravaged by a storm. After hurricanes France and Jeanne in 2004, during which our house suffered VERY minimal damage, we were more traumatized by how things were in the week after the storms hit.
Dave, the kids and I took care of a lot of stuff last evening (after a wonderful afternoon boating with our friends the Scotts), to include burning the enormous pile of palm fronds and branches that had been sitting much of the summer in a corner of our backyard.
Today I will be attempting a trip to my local Walmart just for some groceries. I’ll toss our 10 gallon gas can into the car just in case. Although Facebook friends are saying that only premium gas is left in our community.
The kids don’t really know what to expect. The 2004 storms impacted us right around Jacob’s 2nd birthday, and I was pregnant with Timmy at the time. For Hurricane Jeanne, while I was evacuated with my Air Force unit, Dave stayed home with Jacob and Howie…and Jacob slept through the whole thing. Dave says he doesn’t wish staying home in a Category 3 storm on anyone!
Our family likes to go to the beach on weekends. It’s Dave’s and my little indulgence on Sunday mornings these days: we head out around 10am and come home in time for a late lunch around 1pm.
You never know how the Gulf is going to behave on a given trip to the beach. Sometimes there’s a ton of seaweed, sometimes there are jellyfish, sometimes the water is really deep at our favorite spot, sometimes it’s really shallow.
On our last trip, two weekends ago, the seashells were out in force and we enjoyed collecting several.
The kids have brought home buckets full of small seashells before, and they’ve mainly sat in our garage awaiting an idea. This time the kids begged me to help them do something more fruitful than have them sit in the garage.
So I offered to buy the kids a vase and they could fill the vase with the shells. I went to Walmart and took a look at the glass vases in the craft/candles section and thought to myself “That’s going to take forever”.
I found a hurricane glass and chose a sand-colored candle to add to the glass. The kids filled the hurricane glass with the shells and it now sits in the bathroom to match their surf-shop bathroom look.
First we washed the shells and sat them out in the sun to dry.
