The Cabbage Patch

Remembering 9/11

I read a blog post the other day written by a young woman who was 8 when 9/11 happened.  Her dad was in the Army, the peaceful Army.  That day life changed for her family.  Her dad deployed twice before he retired from the military.  

This post hit home for me.  It made me think about my children.  What has 9/11 meant for us as family?  

It's meant a lot more sacrifice as a military family.  

It's meant that daddy is gone for months at a time.  We are blessed.  Ben is only on his third deployment.  He's never been gone for a full year.  The longest has been 8 months.  There are some families who are on their 4th or 5th deployments.  That wears on a family.  The families sacrifice a lot.  

It's meant that my children see armed guards patrolling the parking lots of the PX and aren't unnerved by it.  

It's meant that my children's Uncle Dave is no longer around.

We pray for the victims of 9/11.  It was a very sad day and it still continues to be.  Six years ago, I hesitated when scheduling a baptism on this day.  But, I thought what a fitting thing to do on a day that held so much sadness.  Pumpkin was baptized on this day.

So, we will never forget.  Neither the sad not the happy.  And, we pray.  We pray every single week for peace at our parish.  We pray every day for the soldiers deployed.  And, we hope.  

Labor Day

So, what are you all doing this weekend?  I hear there are cooler temperatures in the forecast.  I sure hope so.  We have had so many days of 100+ weather that I'm a wilted Texan.  A cousin of Ben's posted pictures on Facebook of pumpkins.  Pumpkins!  Fall seems like such a foreign concept to me.  Another friend posted a link to a Johnny Appleseed lapbook.  The thought of fall books hasn't even crossed my mind yet.  But, it is September.  And, it's Labor Day weekend.

In all the years Ben has been an active duty soldier, he gets the Friday before a three day weekend off as a training holiday.  It's great.  The children really enjoy having him home for the four days.  Obviously, we are not going to be able to do that now.  It makes tracking holidays harder for me.  There's no Ben is home to look forward to so I tend to not see those types of holidays on the calendar.  

Tomorrow, a friend is taking several of the moms in our homeschool group to the range.  We are practicing with our pistols in preparation for our CHL (concealed handgun license).  I'll take pictures.  I even purchased pink ear protection.  I looked for pink or even purple eye protection, but no such luck for the ones that go over prescription glasses.  

Enjoy your weekend.  I have sewing and shooting to do this weekend.  

Not Quick Takes

It's been a while since I've been here.  My last post besides the birthday one was right after the girls' ballet performance.  Wow.

Why?

Well, we've been living a full and busy life; so busy that by nighttime when I usually blog, I'm exhausted and don't want to do anything more than read some pop fiction book and crash.  

Ben is leaving in less than three weeks.  We've been cramming activities into our days.  He was off for three weeks in June.

We went to Legoland, the Genghis Khan exhibit, and the Great Wolf Lodge one long weekend.  We also went down to Fredricksburg, TX for some peach picking.  For the 4th of July weekend, we spent time at Lake Buchanan, and then had our annual tailgate before the fireworks on the 4th.

Tonight we had our FRG (Family Readiness Group) meeting before deployment.  There were the normal things like OPSEC (Operational Security) which is basically don't talk about anything on unsecured mediums.  The support that's available.  Who everyone is.  And, the casualty notification things.  Then the big guys had to beat the dead horse and all chime in on what good work everyone who is going will do.  Luckily, they all kept it to a minimum.  What did they forget to give us?  The mailing address for the guys.  

I'm going to try to post pictures and descriptions of all the fun we've had but it might be slow going.  There is going to be some quiet time between ballet camps and the start of the new ballet year so maybe then.  I need to do some purging and organizing but then that's always the case.  I've given up on doing "school" for a time.  Math is probably the only thing I'm going to have the kids work on.  But, we're doing great learning things all the time so I'm not concerned.  

Well, this has basically been a brain spill.  There is just lots of stuff in here.  Wonder how I've been able to keep it all going without all the thoughts and needs turning into sludge.

 

Sunday Summary

Today we drove to Llano, TX.  This is part of the Bluebonnet Trail.  I knew that it was past peak but I expected to see some.  There were no bluebonnets this year.  At all.  Not even any wildflowers.  We've had no rain.  And, of course, we were ready with beautiful dresses.  Oh, well.  We did stop at Buchanan Dam.  It was closed.  The water levels are extremely low.  I don't know if that has anything to do with it but it was disappointing.  The little beach there was open so the kids were able to romp around a bit.  We then kept going to Llano for some Texas BBQ.  It was good.

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Yesterday, Cecelia and I cut the rest of the Court Ladies costumes.  I need to get started on the Empress's costume first so she can have her dress for publicity photos.  I still need to cut the pattern for the Clockmaker's costume.  She'll wear a tunic, pants and a robe.  

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A lady I met on-line but have met IRL, spoke about interval training just recently.  As soon as I can get the treadmill opened (which involves organizing the pantry), I want to try this.  Right now, I do Pilates.  I just want to get back into shape for the summer.  Winter always brings on a bit of extra weight.  

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The wind has been blowing like crazy.  Friday was miserable with the wind.  It also brought smoke into our area which made Pumpkin's asthma act up.  It had been a while since she's had an asthma attack but for the past month she's been having trouble.  Honey's asthma has not been struggling though.  Honey's lung function is at 89 percent so I really thought she'd be the one struggling.

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I am in denial.  Completely in denial.  I don't want my son to grow up.  My son is almost 100 pounds; he is almost 5 feet 1 inch tall.  I don't know how this happened.  He is big!  I can wear his shoes.  Recently he was prescribed antibiotics.  I read the dosage at least 10 times and each time I read it as "Take twice daily".  Not once did I read it as "Take TWO twice daily."  See?  Denial.  Now, I know why he is not getting better as fast as I'd like.  So, we'll continue to take two twice daily and see what happens.  

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Ben is deploying to Afghanistan in August.  He'll be missing his cousin/goddaughter's wedding.  We'll be taking another trip to Massachusetts this year but this time, it'll be drive there, attend wedding, drive back.  It's right at the beginning of Nutcracker season and we just can't spare that much time.  The deployment is not a big surprise.  He was actually supposed to deploy in July for a 12 month deployment but is instead on a 6 month one leaving in August.  

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And, a photo from today.  I worked on editing it with many different things.  I will work on others and spread the attention around the other children.  It must all be equal.  

Lots of Changes

My parents moved in yesterday.  All of my siblings along with Ben and my brother-in-law helped with the move.  It was accomplished with minimal fuss and finished shortly before 3pm.  

With the move, I've had to change my email address because my email address was connected to their Road Runner account.  Talk about headaches!

I needed to then change many, many accounts that are connected to that address.

The biggest headache has been Google.  I had a gmail account from a while back.  I wanted to somehow combine the Reader with my gmail account.  No dice.  I can get a new gmail address that's connected to my current email account which is where all my other Google stuff is.  I didn't want that since that email address will no longer be valid.  Following?

I finally figured out how to copy all the subscriptions over to my gmail account, but have not figured out how to write the code for the Google Reader Share widget to connect it to my newer gmail account based Reader account.  Got that?

I was also following a few people so I could see what they liked.  Well, I can't find everyone yet.  And, if you're following me, you'll have to find me again.  Sigh.  

It's not that big a deal.  It just gives me a headache because I'm just not as technically savvy as I'd like.  

If you need me to send you my new email address, please leave me a comment.

Oh, and I'm going to get ride of almost all my sidebar stuff.  People tell me they're having trouble loading my page to leave comments.

Bits and Pieces

We went to Austin on Saturday after ballet.  I needed to find shoes and we were celebrating my dad's 70th birthday.  

At the mall, we lost Pumpkin for about a minute.  We only realized it for about 20 seconds, but those were the longest 20 seconds of my life.  I think I shaved about a decade off my life.  After that she spent the rest of the time with her hand in mine.  We were both shaken up quite a bit.

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We celebrated my dad's birthday at The Salt Lick.  The food there is always fantastic.  The service usually is not bad.  However, that day was horrible.  We were seated about 30 minutes after arrival which is okay since it's a Saturday night, but we were seated without menus.  Then it took the server at least 10 minutes to get to us.  Tables that were seated after us already had drinks by the time our server even arrived.  I wondered at his need to do well as a server since with our large party, he was going to receive an automatic 20% gratuity.  I know that they lost power to their computer system momentarily, but it was not enough of an excuse for me.  It ruined the experience a bit.  The server picked it up a bit towards the end.

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I have bone to pick with parents who bring food to church.  Okay, getting beyond the actual food at church thing; if you must, please make sure it doesn't have peanut butter in it.  The kid in front of us who is about 18 months old had peanut butter crackers.  He couldn't keep his hands off my Honey before he started eating.  I had to pull her away from him.  She has an allergy.  It's not that severe for my girls, but I do know of a child who can't even be in the same room as peanut butter.  

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I need to buy regular shoes.  Loafer type shoes.  I did find shoes for the ball I am attending.  I had go to three different department stores, but I did.  I haven't bought black loafers since 2001.  My brown shoes since probably about 2004/2005.  I'm not sure.  They're starting to really fall apart.  But, I can't seem to find shoes that fit well and are simple conservative shoes.  So, as much as I like shoes, I hate shopping for them.

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Gramma is coming to visit tomorrow.  I need to clean the bathrooms and get her room ready.  Sister is vacating her room for Gramma.  She's looking forward to "traveling" to her sisters' room to spend the weekend there.  She's even packing a bag of clothes.  It's very funny.  I think we'll go bowling.  

Smart Car

Ben and I have decided to purchase a Smart Car for when the girls are teenagers.  If any boy wants to take one of them out on a date, they must drive the Smart Car.  No back seat, ya know.

Social Networks

I often read about the differing opinions on social networking.  You know, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  I do have a Twitter and a Facebook account.  I enjoy social networking online.  It's fun although sometimes it can be very time consuming.  

Last month, I posted a quick status update on FB requesting prayers for my SIL, Erin.  One of my family members mentioned that I shouldn't have posted something so person on there.  My response was that it was a prayer request.  I didn't feel I was putting Patrick's personal business out there so much as asking for prayers.  As I was driving down to Houston, my iPhone kept dinging letting me know someone had responded to my prayer request.  They were praying for Erin.  Each ding was a balm to my soul at a very frantic time.  

I was grateful each and every one of those responses.  I know some of the greatest prayer warriors even if only in cyberspace.  

So, social networks?  I love them.  

Nothing to Say

Really, I don't have anything to say.  I don't know why.  I can be quite talkative.  Sigh.

My nights are spent silently reading books or watching TV.  They're pretty solitary things.  

I'm hoping for some inspiration for more things to write or talk about.  I feel badly that I'm not posting enough pictures for Ben.  That'll be on my to-do list from now on.

My Eyes

It's age.  I can't read a lot of things on the computer nowadays without having to increase the font size.  Sigh.  Seriously?  When did that happen?