Decorate Your Soul

1. Every afternoon at 4:30, the National Anthem blares from the voice box on base. The girls run toward it and stand with their “Hands over our haaarts” (as Lolo would say) as it plays. It’s one of the most adorable things ever.

2. With the onset of back-to-school comes school paperwork. As a student, I remember coming home with a stack for my mom being super excited for her to jot down all necessary information. As a parent, I’m overwhelmed with piles that need to be filled out for three kids. I see a lot of unnecessary items in there, actually. Like, permission to call me if some emergency comes up from the district office. YES, yes! I want to know, call my phone with an automated message. Why do I need to sign something saying that?

3. The girls seem to be completely content with their teachers (at least Sarah and Ashleigh do, we’ll find out Lauren’s take on class next week) and classes, which makes me a happy mama.

4. My toes are something nasty as I step up the mileage. Yes, I’m talking about my toes. I know: Gross.

5. While shopping for groceries yesterday, I reached up to grab a box of vanilla and it was just tall enough to hit the McCormick sign above. The sign was slightly loose and I jostled it just enough that the entire display fell on me, cutting my finger on its way down. Hmph. We’ll file this under “Adventures at the Comissary.”

6. I have to send a family picture in for the girls’ emergency kits. The last time we took a picture with all of us in it was in DC this past May and two of the three girls look less than interested- case in point…

So I’m sending the picture perfect Christmas photo taken last November. I can’t help but feel superficial.

7. I should not be shopping on etsy this week with 412 other things to do, BUT, I am tired of feeling guilty of using the plastic bags for our produce so I bought some reusable ones here. And while I was over there, I picked up a darling little make-up/cosmetic bag to hold all of my lip gloss because I have an overabundance and can never find any at the bottom of that darn bag that parades around as my purse. Super excited that it will be here soon!

8. While folding laundry tonight, Andy and I had nothing else to watch but Cupcake Wars. I would like 45 minutes of my television time back, thankyouverymuch. Reality TV has met a new low.

9. The world’s largest spiders live in my garage. After a surprise appearance of one in a small trash can the other evening, I have taken to shaking, pounding and knocking all materials gathered from the garage to be brought inside. After that, Andy found a black widow in our office, and I found a cricket on steroids in my running shorts. Now everything gets a good shake before I pick it up. It’s a great way to live, I tell ya.

10. I went to the movies on Saturday with some new friends from base. We saw Eat Pray Love and I must say, I certainly didn’t care for the book as much as I enjoyed the movie. It must have been the Julia Roberts charm. Or, the storyline that deviated from the book. Have you seen it?

Happy Tuesday!

1. Tap. Tap. Tap, is this thing on?

2. Andy noted that this has been my longest blog break, like ever. It’s true. It’s been a lot busy in our life and this little place has taken a backseat.

3. Since I last blogged three weeks ago, I celebrated a(nother) birthday, flew to California to say good-bye to my grandmother, flew home, watched fireworks for a week, packed up our home  and said good-bye to our Ohio friends. See? Busy.

4. Which brings me to today: we moved back to California for a few years. I use the word “moved” loosely since we currently are at my parents waiting to hear of the housing situation at Andy’s new base to decide if we’ll live on base or get to search for a new home off base. Just call me your homeless friend.

5. I’ve been using the alarm option on my phone more and more. Can I just say that the “harp” sound is a much  gentler sound than the actual “alarm” option that sounds like a bull horn in my bedroom? Ah, nice peaceful, kind of Zen.

6. Have you used Yelp! before? It’s one of the coolest apps we have on our iPhone- you can check it out online, too, but basically if you’re in the mood for say Mexican food in an area unfamiliar to you, you just plug in the location and choose the type of food you’d like to eat at and BAM! reviews come up for really good unknown places. We used all across America, I highly recommend it (and it’s not just limited to food, but all kinds of businesses).

7. Does it sound like I’m a little bit in love with my phone, because I am. I haven’t sat down at a keyboard for over a week, but my phone accesses some favorite spots on the Internet still.

8. Cities we stayed in during our trip: Springfield, MO, Amarillo, TX, and Flagstff, AZ. I was a little bit ready to move to Flagstaff- they have a darling Old Town area and the siteseeing is a little, grand. We’re definitely going back!

9. During this trip, I was super excited to cross off ONE more state on my list of states I’ve traveled to/through. Oklahoma goes in the 31st slot, only 19 states to go and I’m scheming now to get more crossed off. How many states have you been to?

10. I’ve taken a few pictures in the past 3 weeks, but I can’t access them at the moment, so enjoy one from St. Louis via my camera phone: the famous Gateway Arch. Kind of cool, no?

*please pardon the extreme randomness

1. I much prefer whiteboard markers and whiteboards to chalk and blackboards.

2. Do you ever compare your left fingernail growth with your right fingernail growth? I forget who taught me this silly habit years ago, but it’s always my left handed fingers that win.

3. It’s easier to find viable veins in my left arm than my right.

4. Today is our eighth wedding anniversary- what were you doing on June 15, 2002? I was wearing a beautiful white dress with purple toe polish. One of those two can be said about today.

5. I am thinking about getting presciprion sunglasses. We’re moving to the desert. I don’t wear contact lenses anymore. I think I’ve justified it enough in two sentences.

6. Confession: I’ve started to give stores our former phone number when they ask at the cash register. WHY does it seem like all stores want all my contact information? Seriously folks, can we do the transaction and you can stop pretending like you need my phone number to charge me for a shirt?

7. Speaking of cashiers (we were, right?), I recently sent an online not-so-good evaluation of a local Panera swearing off that store forever (which isn’t hard to do when you’re leaving in a month) and they sent an apology and reimbursed me for my trouble, plus some. I’m thankful that they did not just let my note go by the wayside, but I’d still like to see some real change in their customer service department and I’m afraid my one little note probably won’t do the trick.

8. My parents keep sending me text pictures of their zucchini garden. I’m buying them shirts that say: Benfield Garden Pride. And charging them for when I go over my text allotment for the month. hee-hee.

9. For those following the drama that the paperwork has been for our upcoming move, you’ll be happy to hear: We have “orders.” What does that mean? We can schedule packers/movers and hopefully meet the date to get out of our house by the end of the month. For those who’ve inquired, thank you for thinking of us!

10. My neighbor friend Lisa celebrated her birthday this past weekend so a couple of us plotted to start her day off in a celebratory mood. We planted some 39 pinwheels in her garden and put these half-full cups of water on her driveway to wake up to. There were some signs and artwork in chalk, too, and luckily, she has a wonderful sense of humor Andy had no idea that I moonlight as a prankster.

Happy Tuesday, friends!

1. I am out of detergent. Like call the neighbor and ask to borrow some detergent the night before you leave out of town out.

2. Are you on Twitter? That place cracks me up, but this fan favorite had me giggling: Ken Levine tweeted: Al & Tipper Gore are separating. Who gets custody of the Internet?

3. I tell you, some people have all the wit.

4. Andy doesn’t have orders. No orders = no scheduling movers = no getting on a list for base housing at our next base. This might be a good time to do a little PSA: Don’t procrastinate paperwork. The military peeps love them some paperwork to be filled out.

5. Ashleigh finished up her last day of preschool on Friday and Lauren ended her little playgroup day as well. They both think they are going to Kindergarten in the fall.

6. The GPS in my truck took me on one too many backroads from Virginia to Ohio today so I fired it. Override, turned it off, unplugged it. Do you see my tongue sticking out at you, Mr. I-Know-The-Best-Route-To-Go GPS? Luckily, Ms. Felicity has a better idea. Yea for the Google App.

7. I have four of ten places left to cross off our Spring Adventure list before moving. I don’t know if we can do them all but we are certainly going to try.

8. Do you like to buy super cute summer tanks at really decent prices? I’ve picked up a few of these tanks with gathered  edges at Target this spring. They are only $8- shhh… don’t tell too many people or they won’t have your size ! Here’s an insiders tip: buy a size down for a more fitted look.

9. I also stepped out of my comfort zone and ordered these gladiator sandals to replace my Bendolino’s that broke- twice. Arg. But, I’m hopeful with seventeen straps, these new sandals won’t be trying to break free from my feet.

10. I really try to hand over my camera to strangers to get us all in a family shot from time to time. But its results like this that make me shake my head and wonder, “What DID he see in there?” and “Why did I bother?” Ah well, here we all are together at the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. yesterday- uncropped for added humor, of course.