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.

Review: In the Unlikely Event

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In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume My rating: 4 of 5 stars Judy Blume digs deeps into her past, citing the horrible 1950s aviation tragedies that struck Elizabeth, NJ, one after another. Blume takes us into the hearts and minds of several residents of Elizabeth, including children who were impacted by seeing the crashes … Read more

Because We Like The Blue House

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This is a photo of some houses who had suffered some erosion damage from recent rains in Colorado Springs. But Dave and I like the blue part of the color scheme on the right-most house. I’m putting the picture here for a Pinterest pin. That is all. Move along, there’s nothing to see here….

DIY Kitchen Transformation: The New Floor Revealed

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Can you see the difference?
Can you see the difference? The vibrant wood grain should be the biggest difference you see, but we also nudged the color a little bit to make it more brown…less yellow/orange in color.

On Thursday and Friday, we had a contractor come in to sand and re-stain our hardwood floors. Jeff from “A Cut Above Hardwood Flooring” was recommended to us by our carpet cleaning guy.

This piece of floor is continuous from the front door to the kitchen, and to access the front door, garage, basement, and staircase, you will step on the hardwood. I’ll discuss how we dealt with that in a minute.

As mentioned before, there were some areas to the floor that had clearly suffered water damage, but had subsequently dried out. The wood was structurally sound, but the sealer and stain color were messed up. It was important to me that those areas get extra attention, and Jeff did that very well.

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DIY Kitchen Transformation: Overwhelming Choices

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IMG_1756
So here we are again — time for the next installment of where we are with the kitchen transformation.

As you can see, we have a *very* white kitchen now. I absolutely love my “new” cabinets, and am excited for the next stages of our project. Those stages aren’t DIY, though.

Next up will be the floor refinishing. I’ll make sure to post before and after pictures when that project is done this weekend. The floor is in desperate need of sanding and refinishing, so we will take advantage of that work to darken the color some. I hope it turns out as well as I’m envisioning.

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