Major Mom

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.

DIY Fireplace Transformation: The Reveal!

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Tonight Dave finished up the fireplace paint job. Today’s work was mostly just correcting the bleed-under at the tape lines. (That’s a whole other rant: we have tried EVERYTHING and can’t seem to find a masking tape that can completely avoid bleed-under. We invested in the good “Frog Tape” and we’ve tried the 3M “Blue” tape. Those … Read more

Colorado Discoveries 48: Colorado Springs Labor Day Liftoff Balloon Festival

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Okay, so I was a bit of a madwoman photographing all the balloons.
Okay, so I was a bit of a madwoman photographing all the balloons.

In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t write quite as much as I used to. Blame my full time work, but you can also blame this lack of motivation issue that I have these days. After a full day of work, I tend to come home, make dinner, and then not want to do much.

This evening I was cleaning up the photos on my iPhone and realized how many things we’ve done over the past couple seasons that I have failed to share here. Those of you who follow me on Facebook have seen some of this before, but in case you just follow my blog, let’s catch up with some of the things we did.

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DIY Fireplace Transformation

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Our next (small) DIY project, freshening up our fireplace.
Our next (small) DIY project, freshening up our fireplace.

We’re at it again. Dave and I had been contemplating our fireplace for quite some time…with some of other changes happening on the main floor of our house, we wondered what we could do to make our mundane, builder-grade fireplace more modern-looking.

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Review: Outliers: The Story of Success

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Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell My rating: 4 of 5 stars If you were a fan of 2005’s Freakonomics by Dubner and Levitt, you’ll enjoy this compilation of examples of how successful people might or might not have had some amazing opportunities and circumstances that led to enhanced success. Outliers author Malcolm … Read more

Colorado Discoveries 47: The Royal Gorge Route Railroad

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We got a nice photo of the family before boarding. I wish Dave's Dad was more visible.
We got a nice photo of the family before boarding.

As you might imagine, being the wife of a train guy, I’ve been on a lot of trains. From the Amtrak Auto Train to dozens of tourist railroads, we’ve experienced rides that range from luxurious to utilitarian, with lengths from just 15 minutes to 7 hours.

We have been driving past the Royal Gorge Route Railroad depot for the past couple years on our numerous day- and weekend-trips to Monarch Mountain. We kept telling ourselves “We need to check out that railroad.” but hadn’t gotten around to it for a while. The Royal Gorge takes a 20 mile route along the Arkansas River that one can only see via this train or whitewater raft (or the Royal Gorge pedestrian bridge at the park).

In 2014 we tried to get tickets for a ride, but the Holiday Train route we were interested in was sold out. The boys are too old for the Santa Train that dominates the holiday season, and besides, it didn’t take the complete route. Dave would have wanted the complete route.

Dave’s parents visited during Christmas week and we got tickets for everyone for a daytime Holiday Train for the day after Christmas. We got the tickets nice and early (around Veteran’s Day) and were very pleased with the number of options available to us. We choose to do a 12:30pm trip so that we could see the beautiful gorge.

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Colorado Discoveries 46: Breckenridge on a Budget

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I know, it’s been a while! I’m here, really, but with my full time work and the kids’ activities, I have had to re-prioritize my blogging. This also goes for GeekMom, where my writing is now at a bare minimum (despite having ideas for posts all the time), but I still do editor duty every few weeks.

I have numerous things to write about here on the home front, including a stunning ride on the Royal Gorge Railroad back in December but for now I want to share what a fun weekend our family had in Breckenridge. We didn’t ski (I’ll explain in a minute) but we found many other things to enjoy without spending much money.

Breckenridge Ski Resort is like the Walt Disney World of skiing. Tourists come in from all around the world for some amazing skiing, and the town of Breckenridge keeps up with that tourism industry with premier shopping, restaurants, and lodging options for their guests.

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Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

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Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs My rating: 4 of 5 stars A fun read, which I think would be especially exciting for Rigg’s intended YA audience. However, I didn’t give it 5 stars because I saw numerous parallels to other stories I’ve read over the years. For example, Jacob discovering he’s … Read more

DIY Guest Room Transformation: Planking the Wall!

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I’m not sure it’s actually called “planking”, since my first thought would have gravitated towards this kind of planking. But it’s what I’m calling the process Dave and I went through today, putting the planks up on the wall in our guest room.

We picked up the wood, called blue stain “beetle kill” ponderosa pine, at our local Home Depot. The planks are actually cut for paneling on the opposite side, and there are tongue-and-groove cuts on the long edges…for vertical paneling. I’m sure Home Depot was happy that we were picking the most beat-up planks for our project. We purposefully took the pieces with holes and gashes.

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