What Will They Think of Next????

18. April 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

So here we are at Costco, for our quarterly stock-up trip. We were almost out of the big ticket items that I usually stock in bulk: toilet tissue, coffee, dinner napkins, kitchen trashbags, bar soap, etc. As usual, we ended up with stuff we don’t need, like a case of Mexicoke. But I have to admit I did MUCH better than usual!

So I was walking down the snack aisle, issuing an endless stream of “No, Timmy!”s and “No, Jacob!”s at their endless stream of “Mother, can we have [insert crappy snack item here]?”. And we saw these chips. And dissolved into a flurry of giggles all at once!!! I think we all agreed: none of us want this!

O. M. G. What will they think of next???

Garden Season!

05. April 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Hooray! The weather has finally warmed up well here, and the birds have returned! The grass is returning to a lovely green color, and the kids would rather be outside playing then cooped up in the house.

With the warmer weather comes one of my favorite things, starting our family’s garden! It’s been very exciting to see what perennials are returning…about a month ago, the snow pack had melted (after about 90 days!) near my herb garden and it was great to see the parsley, chives, sage, oregano and thyme all returning for us. The hops are coming in with incredible enthusiasm, and just yesterday I saw the first peek of rhubarb!

From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden

Chives, Parsley and Hops all returning!

So I have quite a challenge being such a gardening enthusiast having to move her family every 2-3 years: it seems that as soon as something gets well-established, it’s time to move on. In Florida and North Carolina, it was so difficult to say goodbye to gardens that were in their peak productivity in the month of July. Dave and I have made efforts in each-and-every home we’ve had to grow our own flowers and veggies. In fact, I even wrote a letter to Organic Gardening Magazine in 2006 about it after reading about Hanscom AFB’s successful community garden.

Here’s the article that spawned the letter.

It was like a breath of fresh air, since typically OG magazine leans towards more, shall we say, liberal topics. So I wrote a letter to the magazine expressing such (click on the image to zoom in):

Anyway, this past weekend we planted our lettuce and cabbage, and sweet onion sets are waiting to go into the ground. I have tomato plants ready for my upside-down planters, which I buy from this company here so I can just purchase the refill sets every year. They did a wonderful job last year…they took a hit during our 16-day vacation, so hopefully I’ll manage its care better this year.

It was fun hanging out at Lowe’s with Timmy last week to pick up some gardening supplies. I noticed that Ferry & Morse has quite the marketing campaign going…they’ve attached so many of the kids’ favorite characters to gardening:

From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden
From 2010 04 Garden

I get a bit camera happy when I see great-looking veggies and flowers, so I’m sure you’ll see more photos soon!

Recycling…In Its Own Peculiar Way…

26. February 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Meet Scruffy, Jacob’s very first Webkinz toy. He got Scruffy for his 5th Birthday from a preschool friend. Webkinz are stuffed animals that come with codes so you can play with their alter egos online. It’s fun, safe, and more educational than I thought it would be.

From 2007 09 15 Jacob 5th Birthday

Once we signed him up for Webkinz World online, it opened up quite a world of computers for Jacob. Grammy Vollmer had fun buying Jacob several additional Webkinz, along with several birthday, Christmases, Easters, and preschool graduations later, Jacob’s up to 21 of these toys. Plus clothing for the toys, carry cases, zipper pulls, Christmas ornaments, and even a mouse pad at our desktop!

Timmy also has several, as we’ve all seen him toting around his favorite Webkinz, Thomas the Yellow Lab:

From 2008 06 21 DriveToPA_Beilers_ThomasStrasburg

Jacob’s original Webkinz, Scruffy the Golden Retreiver, was accidentally run through the washer/dryer a few months ago, and it was pretty mangled up. It looks nice and clean, but Scruffy’s head stuffing was all pushed to his body.

Jacob recently is on this phase where he rotates through which animals to sit up on his bed at night. Both boys love their animals, we put most of them in wicker baskets in one corner of their room. Jacob decided to give props to some of the animals he’s been ignoring lately, and Scruffy appeared last night. We explained why we think Scruffy has an empty head and Jacob took him to bed. All seemed well.

But then about an hour later, Jacob was back downstairs in tears — he had a bad dream about Scruffy getting unstuffed. About 5 minutes of comforting, cuddles and reassurances that Mommy would re-stuff Scruffy the next day, and Jacob headed back to bed.

So today I broke out my mending supplies and set forth to open up Scruffy.

And I was slack-jawed at what I saw….

From 2010 02 26 Webkinz stuffing?

I pulled FOUR pieces of knee-hi stockings out of Scruffy’s torso! I redistributed the poly-fiber stuffing that got pushed around and then put back the stockings. Sewed Scruffy back and he’s better…but clearly still traumatized from the trip through the washer and dryer. Jacob’s happy enough with it, I guess.

So…stockings to stuff Webkinz. I honestly don’t know what to make of it. I posted the above photo on Facebook and if you’re a Facebook member you can see all the comments generated. For anyone wondering, I didn’t stick the stockings up to my nose to check for odors or anything, but from the brief inspection of the stockings, they looked all crumpled up as if they’re fresh out of the packaging. That was encouraging.

My guess is that the factory in China that makes these animals solicits for the mistakes out of the pantyhose factory next door. Recycling in its own “special” way.

So there, the cat is out of the bag…I did a web search to see if anyone else had discovered or mentioned this, but so far my web searches have yielded nothing.

Do-It-Yourself Demotivational Posters!

25. February 2010 · Comments Off on Do-It-Yourself Demotivational Posters! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

This is a re-post from April 10, 2008…thanks again to Paul G. who had first enlightened me about this.

Presenting the Do-It-Yourself Demotivational Poster Generator

Dave and I have always gotten a kick out of those motivational posters, such as this one:


But we get MORE of a kick out of the parodies on the motivational posters. This one was framed in Dave’s office in Florida.


Sure, folks have tried to make up their own, and you get something like this one below, which is from the USJFCOM Joint Warfighting Center in Suffolk, VA. Framed, hanging up on the wall. I couldn’t even go into this room with a straight face. I did a lot of Reserve work in the room with this poster in 2006 and 2007. There was a series of posters featuring different facets of military capability: “Intelligence”, “Operations”, “Logistics”. While I’m honored that someone thought to include “Meterology”, I wish someone had consulted a spell-checker first.
I didn’t add that Post-It note, someone else did:

With the link I’ve shown above, you can upload a picture of your choice, then add your own title and catch-phrase. Then you can e-mail the poster to friends, save a JPG of the poster to your hard drive, and you can even order an 11 x 14 of the poster for about $12!

Enjoy my latest creations.



Feel free to try it out and let me know if you come up with any particularly good ones!
Here’s a link to the company that markets the REAL motivation posters, if you’re wanting to learn more about the real thing: Successories.

Happy Mickey Birthday!

23. January 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
From 2010 01 23 Timmy’s Mickey Mouse 5th Birthday Cake

This is Timmy’s birthday cake (duh!). Due to a series of unfortunate events, Timmy’s birthday was reduced to having a friend over for cake and ice cream after dinner tonight. We were planning a trip to the local indoor water park with the same friend, but we have some behavior issues earlier this month and Timmy lost that privilege. We may go later this winter, just not as a birthday thing.

I was thrilled that this cake was made with materials I had in the house already, from the cake mix and powdered sugar for the icing, to the colors and cake pans. The weather has been so absolutely lousy, I’ve only been heading out for essential errands, such as taking the boys to/from school and picking up groceries about every 4 days. Non-essential shopping trips and visits to the gym have dwindled down to a minimum.

Click on the link underneath picture to see the full album that covers some of the steps taken to make this cake.

Harvesting the Poop!

04. January 2010 · Comments Off on Harvesting the Poop! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Around Halloween, it got cold enough in our basement that I had to bring my worm bin upstairs to the living room. I keep my house pretty cool, but for the past 2 months my worms seem happy enough. We have been giving them about a pound of food scraps per week.

Other than giving them food, I sort of neglected giving them additional “bedding materials” since Thanksgiving, and today when I opened the bin to toss in some banana peels, I was greeted with an, um, odor. It wasn’t a horrible odor, but it was certainly different than what I had been smelling, which was just the smell of dirt.

I decided an emergency “worm castings harvest” was in order. I hadn’t done this yet, so I had to refer to a technique I had read several months ago. I attempted another popular technique of pushing the older, more processed castings to one side of the container, filling the empty side with clean bedding and fresh food. This didn’t seem to make a difference for the worms, many of them went to the clean side, but websites seemed to indicate a mass exodus from the “old side” and this simply wasn’t the case for me.

So here we go — I dumped out the contents of the bin and immediately tossed the newer bedding and food scraps back into the bin. The black tray there is the bottom of Howie’s crate from when he was a puppy. He no longer uses a crate.

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

Note the light on the right. This light is used to “scare” the worms into the center of the pile.

This project took me two hours — to slowly pick at the castings. The clumps of castings went into the buckets, while worms, food scraps and obvious areas of shredded paper went back into the bin.

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

By the way, yes, those are margarita mixer buckets you see there. Great for gardening jobs!

So…as you can see, the pile works down pretty nicely, with a bit of patience.

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

I guess now’s a good time to mention that my castings were chock full of cocoons that I was attempting to save as well.

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

A view of a hunk of casting with worms and cocoons.

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

Now for the cool part — as I pick away at the castings, the worms are continuing further and further into the center of the pile to avoid the light. But at a certain point, the pile becomes nothing but worms!

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

Then, it’s easy to pick up the clump of worms and toss them back into the bin:

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

Jacob won’t touch the worms, but Timmy enjoys checking them out!

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

I filled both of these buckets with castings, I’d guess about 10-12 lbs. total! There are still a number of baby worms in the buckets, ones that I couldn’t easily pick out of the castings…I don’t know if they’ll survive in the basement, either from the cold or from the lack of food scraps. For now the buckets are simply in a giant Ziploc bag in the basement. It had been on my mind to toss the castings into my garden plot immediately (after all, wasn’t that the point of all this effort?), but it’s currently under about a foot of snow.

From 2010 01 03 Worm Casting Harvest

There you have it! I’ve successfully harvest castings from my worms! I’m so excited about that.

However, I’m not sure I like the two-hour-long pick-fest with the castings. I’m eyeing this apparatus for future use.

Nebraska Discoveries 9**: Skiing at Mount Crescent, Iowa

29. December 2009 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

**Yes, I know this is in Iowa, but it’s easily something that someone in Nebraska could do.

Today the family took a day trip to Mount Crescent Ski Area in Crescent, Iowa. Dave and I can now proudly add this small mountain to our “I didn’t realize there was skiing there!” locations that includes Mad River Mountain, Ohio, Mountain Creek (formerly Vernon Valley), New Jersey, and several resorts in South Korea.

From 2009 12 28 Mount Crescent Ski Area

First off, realize that this is the first time Dave and I have skied since we’d had kids. We skied almost annually every year we were dating/were married from 1994-2002. I was about 12 weeks along with Jacob when Dave and I took our AFIT graduation trip to Lake Tahoe in March 2002. Dave and I like to think we’re decent-enough skiers.

So combine the fact we hadn’t skied since 2002 with our never having to pay for more than just a pair of lift tickets for Dave and me.

That being said, we were met with the shell shock of the price tag for a family of 4 to ski, rent equipment for the kids, and get 90 minutes of semi-private lessons for the boys — with one of the kids skiing for free at age 4: over $200! Phew. Plus lunch at the slopes, and dinner on the way home. Our checkbooks were still in shock from Disneyworld!

What’s really sad is that Mount Crescent is probably one of the least expensive ski opportunities there is! I looked at all the other ski mountains Dave and I had been to that might have cost the same, and they cost more! So if we’re going to make this a routine family outing, I’d better up my AF Reserve work!

Dave had to wait about 45 minutes just to get our lift tickets, and we got quite annoyed. I was imagining the minutes ticking away from our day. It turned out the computer system was down and the attendants were having to manually calculate our bills. Thankfully the credit card machine was working!

From 2009 12 28 Mount Crescent Ski Area

The boys didn’t have their lesson till about 2 hours after we started skiing, so Dave and I worked with the boys some on little fundamentals. The boys seemed cooperative, and after about 45 minutes of letting the boys ski down to us, then pushing or pulling them back up the hill, we convinced them to take the lift up to the top of a green run. Timmy had a blast — he just pointed his skis down and went. Stopping was an issue (which the lessons helped with immensely), but he was having a ton of fun. Jacob, on the other hand…not so good. He took his first spill about 20 feet from the end of the lift and was in tears after that.

Uh oh.

We had to explain very carefully to Jacob that the only way down the hill was for him to simply go, and that we had arranged a lesson for him later on and we REALLY hoped he’d be cooperative for the lesson. It was slow going, but he made it with a lot of help! He calmed down with a snack and a chance to warm up in the lodge before his lesson.

From 2009 12 28 Mount Crescent Ski Area

Both boys had a fabulous time with their lesson and their confidence was well-boosted, and we spent another 2 hours skiing and had so much fun. Dave and I would take turns with each of the boys…with Timmy, we could ski at speed and still not keep up with Speedy Gonzales, but with Jacob, while he’s a champ at the snowplow, he’s VERY CAREFUL. I would just snowplow with him, giving more pain to my already-anguished thighs from last night’s plyo workout.

From 2009 12 28 Mount Crescent Ski Area
From 2009 12 28 Mount Crescent Ski Area

NOTE: The boys didn’t keep the poles for long. After about an hour both boys relinquished them for the rest of the day.

From 2009 12 28 Mount Crescent Ski Area

In summary, we had a great time and both boys would enjoy more ski trips. This is a tiny little ski area, but definitely a great place for the boys to establish confidence. The ski conditions were exceptional, since it was about 10-15 degrees F most of our time there, with snow flurries most of the afternoon. None of that softened snow freezing into ice sheets at sunset like Dave and I typically experience in the northeast!

In other news, as I’d mentioned before, Dave and I hadn’t skied since March 2002, meaning our equipment hadn’t been used since March 2002. While our skis, bindings and poles — albeit out-of-ski-fashion — worked well, my boots each developed visible cracks in the plastic when I put them on. They didn’t seem mission-terminating, so I used them today, but I’ll definitely need to start looking for new boots soon.

I’d also like to keep an eye out for second-hand equipment for the boys. If anyone knows of any good sources, let me know!

Contemplations on Laziness

13. November 2009 · Comments Off on Contemplations on Laziness · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I’ve been thinking….

“Great, here we go again!”

No…no…these are just some thoughts I’ve been having in general. About goal-setting, future plans, life in general.

Today a friend is taking her GRE. She’s in her 30s, like me…and has young sons, like me…and is an Air Force wife, like me. UNLIKE me, she’s gotten off her rear-end and uses the time while her sons are in school to go back to school herself and this spring will be graduating from college. She’s already submitting applications for a PhD program, location subject to where her husband gets stationed next.

Another friend, who I went to high school with, earned her PhD this past summer, while working full time and raising two young kids!

No, I don’t want a PhD. Contrary to popular belief.

Not too many people know this, but it’s crossed my mind to go back to school and start on a second career. It’s a quiet little goal I have, to become a secondary math/science teacher. I haven’t been motivated to start on this goal, unfortunately. I’ve been lazy. Way lazier than all these other Moms who are juggling jobs, raising kids, keeping up a household, moving with the military, etc.

My first excuse: “When Timmy starts school, I’ll go back to school.”

Well, with Timmy starting school in 9 months, by now I should have applied, or looked more into online programs than I’ve done so far.

My second excuse: “Why start a program now? We could be moving as soon as 1 year after I start school if I were to start here.”

No…of course my work can transfer, and if I choose an online program, heck — who cares where I am, right? People do it all the time, transfer their coursework.

I’ve told myself, “Patricia, you’ve already achieved a lot in life, aren’t you tired of school, additional stress, running around all hair-on-fire?”

So I’m thinking…

The answer is “Get my butt back in school and work on that new career!”. I need to set up some graduated goals related to that, with some research to back it up. My druthers is to do this online, I’ll need to learn more about it, I suppose. Dave can retire from Active Duty in 6 years, and I figured by the time he has 5 years left, if I wanted to go back to work full time after he retires I should be on my way. Especially if I want to take my time on this one. Some other options have opened up, such as teaching AFJROTC after I reach my 20 years in the Reserves. That might be nice…as some of my blogosphere friends have said “I’m one of those people who actually LIKES the Air Force.” Again, I haven’t looked enough into it to know whether it’s right for me.

And oh yeah, I have to balance this with my boys’ activities, my AF Reserve work, and some AF continuing education I predict I’ll be needing to do by late next year.

So there are my thoughts – somewhat messy, but it’s been on my mind. A lot.

Reality check: Might I be more motivated to do this if I truly “enjoy” those 7 hours per day I’ll have when Timmy and Jacob are both in school? Pedicures? Facials? Shopping trips? Coffee dates with girlfriends? Chick-flick marathons in my PJs?

I don’t know. I’m coming up on this crossroads and not even feeling motivated enough to say “Here’s what I need to do next!” I guess it was a lot easier when high school guidance counselors and Air Force Instructions made those decisions for me.

How John Deere Brought My Sons Closer Together….

30. October 2009 · Comments Off on How John Deere Brought My Sons Closer Together…. · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I’ve quite a queue of potential blog posts in my mind…mainly things that have been happening in our lives, and every once in a while something happens about which I think “That would be a fun/funny/silly/insightful blog post.” I think I’ll be improving in the next week or so, as the boys’ soccer seasons wrap up for the fall, and I have my week of 12-hour shifts at my new AF Reserve job behind me.

So here’s one of our lives’ vignettes from this fall…

Lately my sons haven’t been getting along so well. Jacob is in this smug phase, where he feels his lot in life is to constantly correct his little brother about everything!

Timmy: “Mommy, may I have shredded wheat for breakfast?”

Jacob: “Timmy, we don’t have shredded wheat! We have frosted shredded wheat!”

Timmy: “That’s a lie!”

Jacob: “Fine…don’t believe me…go check the pantry yourself…you’ll then see that I’m right. I’m always right!”

I’d love nothing more than to ignore these little jabs, but it’s also happening at school too so I want to continue to work this one out of his system. That’s for another blog…for another day when I can look back on this and laugh…

Anyway, even though my boys aren’t the friendliest towards each other these days, there is something that bonds them like nothing else: tales of death, maiming and destruction! Moms of boys, I’m sure you understand completely! They’re all giggles, truly enjoying each other’s company! It’s hilarious, even though there’s a part of me that wishes they’d be happy with each other over butterflies and puppies instead of how they can kill flies slowly and pour salt over slugs (which Timmy recently learned about).

So here’s a photo gallery from our day at the Nebraska State Fair back over Labor Day weekend. I’ve been wanting to share this and tell the story of how seeing these caution labels on the John Deere equipment was our boys’ favorite part of the State Fair. They begged me to take pictures of their favorite labels, then wanted me to print out the pictures. I talked them out of printing the pictures, thankfully. I didn’t want to have to explain that one at school…

So here are my boys in front of one of the HUGE pieces of John Deere equipment at the farm equipment “museum” at the fair:

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

The boys scoured every square foot of this equipment that they could, as if on a scavenger hunt for caution labels such as these. They’d run around frantically, and one of them found one, you’d hear “I FOUND ONE! OVER HERE!” You’d have thought they found the Holy Grail, they were so excited!

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

I call this one “Mr. Twisty”:

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

From 2009 09 04 NE State Fair

Coming soon — Major Mom’s first forays into true “Mom’s Taxi”-hood. Balancing school, soccer, scouts, and piano lessons!

Happy Halloween!

28. October 2009 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I stole this idea from an NCO I worked with in South Carolina (thanks MSgt B!). She has 5 kids so her 5 pairs of pants across the lawn generated so much buzz last year, it was featured on the front page of the Sumter, SC newspaper Halloween week. I was inspired when I was sorting through the boys “can’t wear it anymore” clothing pile in their closet. Most of the pants are too small, but I happened across two pairs of jeans that were otherwise fine except for the holes in the knees, I knew they couldn’t go anywhere except the trash….

…unless….

From 2009 10 27 Halloween2009

Anyway, I’ll update this blog a little more later on. There’s lots going on, but nothing earth-shattering.

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