Now you can see my Twitter statuses, which are also my Facebook statuses!
One Status to Rule Them All!
This is what greeted me when I tried to use Google.com for the first time this morning.
I did a screen capture before immediately clicking that “Google.com in English” link in the lower left.
Several of my web pages are doing this, my ads on Facebook are for goods and services near my location. Some in English, some in Arabic.
Smile!
Yeah, I gave up the 3-column format…as happy as I was to have it, there was still space on the edges not being fully used. So I reverted to the 2 column format again, but was pleasantly surprised I was able to keep the cake lady picture. Whoo hoo!
Feedback please! I finally took the plunge into a 3-column blog, which I’d been wanting for some time, so I can put the “standard” widgets on one side and the “fun” widgets on the other.
Unfortunately, all of my widget code was lost in the transition, so I’m in the midst of reconstructing those.
I did this all Monday evening when I should have been viewing training videos for work…sigh…
Over the weekend I officially got permission to post a nice photo and talk about Paul on my blog. He’s my USAF “partner in crime”, we’ve been colleagues for as long as I’ve been a reservist — nearly 4 years! We now work together in SC, although I actually only see him 3-4 times per year on the occasional drill weekend. He’s in a holding pattern waiting to be our unit’s commander — I hope it’s soon for his sake, he’s starting to bounce off the walls wanting to boss us around 😉
Many of the things you see on my blog are inspired by conversations I’ve had with him. Such as the polls. He and I trade ideas about cake decorating, family dinners, what new cars to buy, Wii games, new gadgets, activities to do with the family on weekends, and many many many professional matters. He and his wife introduced me to the Pioneer Woman!
In fact, just today he mailed me this blog to read. I thought I’d share with you an example of the fun stuff we discuss.
All this time I’ve been telling Paul, “Get your own blog” so he can pontificate about his adoration of Costco, GPS units, separate master bedrooms and the true value of your vote in America.
Paul and I are taking a deployment to the Middle East in 2009 — not together. He and I received permission to split a rotation, I’ll take the first half, he’ll take the 2nd. I think this is a wonderful opportunity presented to the two of us — our opportunities to serve the Global War on Terror without being away from home for too long, and a testament of the trust and friendship he and I have for each other that we both said “Okay, we’ll do it”. After all, if one of us bails, the other is held responsible for the ENTIRE trip.
For those who knew this was coming up, I won’t discuss the details here, but I’m leaving sometime after Christmas and should be back in early April. I’m not going to Iraq or Afghanistan, but to another location that supports those locations. Please rest assured that I will be safe in this location, provided the area remains as stable as it has been for the past several years. The job I’ll be performing is quite exciting and I’m sure I’ll be super-busy! Relative to most other military members, this is a very short deployment, although one day away from my boys is a day too many.
Tangent: I’ve promised to Dave that after this trip I will never voluntarily take a deployment for the remaining 6 years of my AF career. He’s going to have a challenge playing single Dad during our first Nebraska winter, and he’s been a great sport at keeping it in perspective. He wants to introduce the boys to skiing while I’m gone!
So here’s to you Paul (I’m raising my cotton boll to you!) — thanks for your personal and professional friendship, and for splitting the trip the desert.
PS: The picture above was taken in May 2008 at a picnic while we were working in SC. At first we were both posing like superheroes and the line “Wondertwin Powers, Activate!” went through my head.
I’m excited that another one of my friends has made the jump to the dark side. Southern Girl is one of the Original Playgroup* Mom friends from when I first moved to North Carolina in July 2005.
She’s your classic North Carolina-born-and-bred lady, and her storytelling is all the proof you need that’s she’s a Southern Belle through and through.
I’ll definitely miss her from way out here in Nebraska, and it’s made my day that she now has a blog.
*History lesson: I call it the “Original Playgroup”. When I first moved into our NC neighborhood, the first thing I did when we were over the unpacking stresses was take our boys to the neighborhood pool. This was about a week after our furniture was delivered. Within an hour I meet Dawn and her two sons who were the same ages as my two sons. Within another hour the boys and I are invited to join Dawn and several other neighborhood Moms of 2-3 year olds in a once-per-week playgroup. Through this playgroup I also met Wendy, Southern Girl, Julie and Carrie. We’ve watched our kids grow up together since summer 2005 and I’m glad for e-mail and blogging to keep up from across the country.
“Why the new look, Major Mom?”
Many of you have known of my quest to find a blog layout that took advantage of the space on the left AND right sides. As much as I enjoyed the color schemes in the previous layout, enough was enough.
When Dave started putting together his new train blog, he was exploring the Blogspot layouts and came across several layouts that included a “stretch” variation.
So I reached out and grabbed one of those. There’s a little bit that I still need to get used to, and once I have my desktop computer back in a couple weeks (our goal is a 1-2 August delivery in Nebraska), I can pretty things up a little more.
I like the ability to make my pictures appear a little bigger, and hopefully you don’t have to scroll as much to read my pontifications… 😀
I have been sitting on this for long enough. My poor brain kept prioritizing things all wrong, so now it’s getting sorted out. I need to pass on the Excellent Blog Award before I pack up this laptop tomorrow, since the ExcellentBlog.jpg file is on this hard drive. Tee hee.
I had actually decided on this Memorial Day weekend, when this individual posted 7 times on Memorial Day alone!
Fotomom, you’re getting the Excellent Blog award! Your fun mix of watching your boys grow up with your beautiful photos of flowers, animals, and the ever-shrinking central North Carolina countryside is most awesome. Keep up the great work, I’ll definitely need you to when I’m in NE and it’s the only way I’m going to see Joey and Johnny (sniff sniff).
Hi again!
Eventually I’ll get around to writing about what’s REALLY going on in my life: keeping the boys happy, planning our trip to Nebraska, and keeping all of the contractors working on our house straight. Today should be a relatively relaxing day — the termite treatment is done, the remnants of our home inspection work is now scheduled, and I’ve found a preschool for Timmy in Nebraska!
But for now, allow me to introduce you to Sharon O’Donnell of Cary, NC, who apparently has become famous for her new book “House of Testosterone” about being a Mom of 3 boys.
I saw the website named on a bumper sticker in Apex last week, so yesterday I remembered to check it out. When I noticed all of Ms. O’Donnell’s book readings were in central N.C., I checked further to find out she lives in the next town over from me. Cool!
Many of my blog “regulars” are Moms of boys (Maryann, Wendy, Deidre, Dawn, Mandakini, Robin, Christina): our scrapbooking/sewing/stamping/needlepoint areas have been usurped by toy trains, race tracks, acres of Army men, and Legos Legos Legos! Thought you might enjoy this!
Ta!
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