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.

The Cat’s Out of the Bag!*

by

Picture by MAYNARD PAUL Lovely picture, isn’t it?  Where could that be?  It’s so pretty there…boy…I wish I could live there…. So…those who follow me on Facebook or Twitter already know this, and if you aren’t on either of those websites, you could probably just glance to the right on this blog and see the … Read more

Homemade Hamburger Helper – It’s Pretty Good!

by

(Resubmitting to correct photo error) From 2010 05 01 Hamburger Helper So here it is.  This is the Chili-Cheese Hamburger Helper-like recipe that I stole from Suzanne McMinn’s blog “Chickens in the Road”.  About a woman who lives in rural West Virginia. Like I said before, we grownups aren’t huge Hamburger Helper fans in the first place, but … Read more

Nebraska Discoveries 13: Historic Fort Crook & SAC Chapel, Offutt AFB

by

Today I’m sharing some of the history on Offutt AFB.  Unfortunately, everyone can’t just get onto Offutt.  You need to have a military ID card to get onto the base freely, or make a friend with a military member who can sign you in as a guest.

As mentioned before, I started using this software to track my runs. The software doesn’t seem very stable on my iPhone (probably because I downloaded the free version and they want my money before it works the way I want it to…). So this isn’t the most accurate thing out there, but it’s fun to give it a go.

So here’s a map of the most recent run I performed:

If you choose “view full” in the lower left, then select the satellite map (or Hybrid), you can see that I’m running the perimeter of a large field. This is the parade field of what was formerly Fort Crook, which was the original military installation that is now the home of Offutt AFB. Fort Crook was established in 1888, and was completed in 1894.  Today, many of the buildings surrounding the parade field are from their original mid-1890s construction, including the buildings of “General’s Row” which are seen in the background here from the late 1890s:

And here are the same houses today, the same ones as on the left side of the above photo:

Hypothesis Successful!

by

Yesterday morning I posted about the Hamburger Helper we were planning for dinner. I predicted that our dinner would be a beef-based gravy and it turned out that’s exactly what we ended up with. I know I had promised just a comment at the bottom of yesterday’s post about the outcome of the Hamburger Helper. … Read more

Nebraska Discoveries 12: Lauritzen Gardens…Omaha’s Botanical Center

by

Since I won’t be in the Omaha area forever, I realized recently that my time is running out for visiting the many attractions in the area.  Thanks to my boys’ field trips, Cub Scouting and birthday party invitations, they’ve already been to several area attractions.  But I’ve set a new goal for myself and the family: to visit every attraction on the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau’s “Pin Map”.

You probably can’t see it that well, but just click on the “Pin Map” link above and you can see the original PDF.   It’s called the “Pin Map” because in front of each of these attractions is an enormous mock up of a blue-tipped pin.  I’ll get a picture of one as soon as I can…
So…my goal is to visit each of the 15 attractions on the “Pin Map” before I leave the area.  So far, I’ve covered 7 of the 15 attractions (numbers 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, and 13)…and we have this summer to make our way through the rest.  Maybe I’ll blog about these “pins” as we visit them…I hope to, but I won’t make any guarantees.
Today I’ll share with you my first visit to #8 on the list: Lauritzen Gardens.
Timmy’s preschool class took a trip here on Monday.  I can’t believe I’ve lived here nearly 2 years and hadn’t been here till this week!  I guess it goes with living in a house full of boys, right?
This is a beautiful place, full of pretty flowers (of course) but I also really enjoyed the gardens “repurposing” sconces, corbels and other ornamentals from throughout Omaha…the pieces were rescued and help decorate the gardens.  The kids really enjoyed the flowers but the weather wasn’t very good and the walking was pretty tough on that group of 4 and 5 year olds.
So here are some pictures of the lovely visit.  I won’t include everything, just some of the more summary-type pics.  I STILL can’t believe I left our camera sitting on the counter as we headed out the door…so these pictures are with my iPhone camera.

This piece was repurposed from a downtown Omaha building: