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.
I recently tried kombucha for the first time and it wasn’t bad! However, at $2-3 per 16 oz. bottle, it wasn’t exactly something I’d buy to keep on hand all the time. Note I didn’t say “I think it’s the most delicious thing ever!” It wasn’t bad. I’ve been trying to cut back on drinking … Read more
We’ve been doing a lot of little updates around the house lately. The most recent one I shared was with the fireplace last spring. I’ve been working full time off and on since July, but now I have a break for a couple months and I can return to our “honey-do” list.
There are some items that I usually do around the house in the fall: waxing the vehicles, cleaning out closets and the garage, and getting folks in to do preventive maintenance for our HVAC system. But this fall we are adding a couple of other things.
This was my family’s favorite Blue Apron meal so far. The chicken was flavorful, the potatoes were delicious, and that’s a homemade honey-mustard dipping sauce!
I know you’ve been seeing the numerous Instagram posts about our family’s Blue Apron meals. Unlike many of the other reviews out there, Blue Apron did not send me a bunch of free meals in return for the publicity.
I’ve been getting their meal boxes periodically for 2 months now and I wanted to summarize my thoughts on the program. This is a data dump of the features our family likes, as well as the things our family doesn’t like. I’ll try to organize the thoughts so it can be useful to someone.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Parts One and Two by J.K. Rowling My rating: 4 of 5 stars A fun read for those who crave the nostalgia of the original Harry Potter novels. But don’t expect much more than that in terms of significant creativity or mind-blowing plot twists. This isn’t a novel. … Read more
AF Academy’s football stadium got a new scoreboard this past spring. It’s very nice. Each class designs a crest that is shaped for their class ring. This crest is very interesting to me because of the flames towards the bottom (this class reported during the Waldo Canyon wildfires in 2012) and the icicles at the top (they had their “Recognition” training during a blizzard in 2013).
For the 3rd year, our family was able to go the USAF Academy graduation. This year I was able to go in non-orders status, so I didn’t have to wear my uniform. However, you won’t see any pictures of me in this post.
We were especially excited this year because it’s a year that the President speaks to the graduating class. So we were able to hear President Obama give an uplifting, humorous speech to the graduates. Since this is an election year, the whole country was paying attention this speech.
This was my teen son’s first library book in about 5 years. Image credit: P. Vollmer
A version of this post originally appeared on GeekDad.com in May 2016.
As you know, we’ve gotten around quite a bit. I am on my 8th home since graduating from college, and our sons are now on their 5th home. Each move brings new discoveries. With each new community we learn about our local schools, local churches, local grocery stores (I miss you, Publix!), and local health care capabilities. One of those things we explore at each location is our local library.
Earlier this summer our family took our annual trip “east”. For the past several years we had been flying east, but this time we drove because we’d be spending quite a bit more time visiting with friends and family. The boys and I were “out east” most of the month of June, while Dave flew out for the latter part of the trip and drove home with us.
We visited our friends Don and Maryann in North Carolina. Their home was pretty well set up with a number of devices that were all tied together with their Amazon Echo. They could control lights, the door locks, and even their holiday decorations with Alexa. They were working on tying a humidistat into the system while we were visiting.
We also visited our friend Lisa, who lives in St. Louis. She was similarly increasing the intelligence of her home with WiFi enabled lighting and door locks.
I’m doing a little housekeeping in my blog world this week. One of the things I was trying to straighten out turned into a monumental mess last week, for which I apologize.
I’m trying my hand at a capability called “IFTTT.” Which stands for “If This, Then That”…it’s a website where you can connect social media, blogging, mobile apps, and even smart home apparati together and you can have things work together pretty seamlessly. I like the idea of it, but I’m still learning here.
