OPSEC

In case you're not military and are not familiar with OPSEC, it stands for operational security.

Sara over at Welcome to the Blog of an Army Wife did an excellent post about OPSEC and I recommend everyone going over to take a look at it.

This is something that is very important to me for the safety of not only my husband but for the safety of all of our service members as well. Please remember to practice OPSEC!

I love you like a fresh meatball

Yes Toadmama - it indeed does say, I love you like a fresh meatball!

Where he came up with this, I really have no clue. I asked him and he said it was from a movie but he has no idea what movie it came from. I tried doing a little bit of google searching myself but this is all I came up with:

1. I'll sleep with you for a meatball. Not exactly the same, but close.
2. I love you like a tomato. They're both round but besides that, nothing. (a reminder to self: this sounds like it may be a good book - maybe I should buy it)
3. Lots of meatball recipes. But I liked this one the best.
4. How to tell a girl you love her. WARNING: hilarious but not for the faint of heart. Don't say I didn't warn you!
5. Meatball bubble gum. Sounds gross if you ask me - although they say it's bubble gum flavored.
6. Eye ball meatball I love you. I have no idea....

Anyone know what movie he got this from? Perhaps he made it up and I just wasted 30 minutes google searching it. That's probably the more likely scenario.

Valentine's Day

We celebrated Valentine's Day by sending the kids to the grandparents house! We had dinner with awesome friends Friday evening. Went skiing on Saturday. And then hung out with my best friend Saturday evening before heading out to dinner again. Upon the return of the kids on Sunday, they had made us Valentine's cards. While they were all cute, this one is by far my favorite.

Would you like to take any guesses as to what it says?

Please Save Me

I don't know how much more of the snow I can take. There is only so much one person can get accomplished and not have severe cabin fever. So far we've/I've:

1. Shoveled
2. Baked
3. Shoveled
4. Cleaned
5. Played board games

6. Organized
7. Shoveled
8. De-cluttered
9. Played in the snow
10. Made Valentine's cards
11. Shoveled
12. Read books

13. Completed school work (I'm actually fully caught up!)
14. Organized coupons
15. Went skiing (Sorry no pics, took the camera but never took any)
16. Watched gazillions of movies

17. Shoveled
18. Painted nails (more than once!)


19. Had dinner with friends

I don't know if there is anything else I can possibly do. I haven't worked in 8 days now people! And that's 8 working days, not including the weekends! This is insane!

Please pray that they will open schools tomorrow!

2010 Deployment Goals

I've been thinking about what goals I want to set for myself for this upcoming deployment. I've had a ton of ideas cross my head but the longer I think of them, the more unrealistic some of them seem. The last thing I need during deployment are self-imposed unrealistic goals hanging over my head and I'm not about to intentionally set myself up for failure. So here is my list thus far:

1. Read at least 12 books. This accounts to at least one book a month. Shouldn't be too hard but we'll see what happens with my course load. I also want to try to integrate some self-help type books into that mix as well...

2. Complete at least 4-5 classes towards my graduate degree. So far I've completed three and I just enrolled in my fourth. If I complete 4-5 next year, I'll be more than half way done my degree.

3. Take a picture a day. My ultimate goal with these pictures would be to email one picture a day to SF.

4. Lose 10 pounds. This has been an ongoing goal and I'm trying to techniques that I talked here. We'll see how it goes.

5. Send B (ako Girl) to Operation Purple Camp. While the locations of the camps have not yet been released - I would love to be able to send her for a week. I'm also not sure of the age limits either but if G (ako Boy 1) meets the age limits I would consider sending him as well.

6. Plan at least 6 outings/day trips during the summer with the kids. I don't plan on the older two being in summer camp at the CYS all summer because I want to be able to do things with them too. I'm thinking they'll be in camp at CYS for four or five of the eight weeks...

7. Pay off as many bills as possible. I'd love to be debt free, except for the mortgage and one truck payment if at all possible - but those goals maybe set too high, especially since I'm not sure how much "extra" money we'll be getting.

8. Finish at least one home improvement project. God knows there are MANY that are not complete! I'm not sure which one I want to tackle yet though.

9. Decide on paint color for the kitchen and PAINT it! This goes along with goal #8 but this will be a new project not a half finished project waiting to be completed.

10. Visit my parents WV Place at least three times. I know that doesn't sound like many times but it would be way more than I've gotten there in the past few years.

11. Going skiing/snowboarding with my brother and sister at least once. We had so much fun the last time we went. Maybe this time we could make a whole weekend out of it.

12. De-clutter! I'm tired of all the useless crap we have around the house. It's time to get rid of it and what better time to do it when there is no one that can object.

I've had these twelve goals written for quite some time now and have been meaning to add to them. As you can see, that hasn't happened and has delayed my posting of them. I can't even think of any that I was planning on adding so, if and when they come back to me, I'll add them.

In the meantime, if you have any good ideas or goals that you've had for previous deployments that I haven't listed, please let me know.

SNOW!

So I'm sure everyone is aware of the HUGE snow storm we got here on the east coast. Official total at our house - 26 inches! Holy cow! It was record setting snowfall totals!

Here are some pictures for proof:


To give you an idea if you've never seen my dog before in person, he's really, really big! His back measures at 29 inches!











There was SO much snow, I even got to build a snow fort. I think I've definitely won the "Mommy of the Week" award. And while you can't tell, all three of the kids can fit in there at the same time. Even I was impressed with myself.


After three days of shoveling (almost all done by SF and our snow blower neighbors) we are finally dug out. We also saw a snow plow for the first time late this evening!

Of course this is in the forecast for us here in Maryland in less than 48 hours:

This map is only for Tuesday and only shows us getting an inch of snow. However, it's suppose to continue up until Wednesday afternoon. Weather.com says we can expect another 5+ inches of snow to fall. You've got to be kidding me! WTF?