And the trend continues!

I have mentioned before how bad weather/bizarre happenings tend to follow the Day family, and this spring is proving not to disappoint! On Saturday I was supposed to attend the final 6th Infantry Bunco before many of us moved. I spent a good part of the day making some delicious brownies to share and was excited to get some "girl" time! The weather turned fairly ominous about 7:00 pm, but I was hopeful that it was just a thunderstorm and all would be good. My friend Traci stopped by and we headed out the door to walk down the street for Bunco, Traci clutching her umbrella and Strawberry trifle and me balancing my brownies in one hand and my umbrella in the other! We got to the house where Bunco was being held, headed in the door and weren't there for five minutes when the tornado sirens started going off! Now, there were about six of us there when this happened and we all just looked at each other, torn between the need for some serious alcoholic/food fun and the need to make sure our families were okay. It was a tough call, but we all headed back to our respective houses, to make sure the men folk and kids were okay. We did, however, say that if this storm passed quickly, we would all be back! So, I headed back down the street, with my umbrella and brownies and came in to find that Randy and the boys were just playing and getting ready for bed like nothing was going on. Apparently, along with the sound of a crying baby in the middle of the night, my husband can also not hear tornado sirens! I have never experienced tornado like weather, but it is crazy how still everything gets. When I walked down the street to Bunco, it was quite windy, but by the time I got home the wind had completely stopped and it was very, very still. The kids had no idea what was going on, they were just really excited to get to stay up late! We all headed down to the basement, put on a movie for the boys, and Randy and I took turns coming upstairs to see what was going on. Yep, we would be those dumb asses who got sucked up in the tornado, because we were too curious to stay in the basement! We kept checking Weather Bug on my phone to see what was going on, and saw that the tornado warning would expire at 8:30...well the sirens did go off around then, and we brought everyone upstairs to get ready for bed, only to have the sirens start up again! This happened a couple of times, but the sirens finally went off for good around 9:30! By this time, I was too exhausted to head back down the street! Luckily, no tornadoes hit post, although a huge tree in a yard down the street from us split in half and fell down. So, yep, the trend continues, and this may be a long month before we move out of tornado alley!!!

Holy Hair Batman!!

Carter really, really hates to get his haircut. We are talking really hates it. With Cash we have always taken him to the barber shop on post and spent $7, but with Carter we have tried everything, including one of those kids haircut places that charges $20 for a haircut. That all being said, this weekend I was talking to a friend about his and she said that her middle son was the same exact way and her husband purchased a pair of clippers and started cutting his hair and all was good. She said that Ryan would sit just fine for his dad and get a nice cut. Well, I thought to myself, we have clippers and I could do that. I mean come on, how hard could it be?? I came to found, that it can be very, very hard..... Randy had his final masters level class on Tuesday evening and so it was just the kiddos and I at home. The weather was really nice and we were hanging out in the backyard, when I got the brilliant idea that this would be a great time for a haircut. I came in the house and got the clippers and a couple of Popsicles, figuring that I could distract Carter withe the Popsicle and maybe he would not notice what I was doing to his hair. So, I handed him the Popsicle, sat him in a patio chair and turned on the clippers. I went with the biggest guard there was, but Carter's hair is so thick and curly that it didn't even seem to be doing much cutting. On top of that, the Popsicle was really not doing its trick, as Carter was turning and trying to stand up in the chair. At this point, instead of doing the smart thing and just calling it a wash, I proceeded to put the shortest guard on, and this is where the total disaster really began! I got the top of the head pretty short, but he would not sit still for me to get the sides, so he had the bald old man look going. I ran inside for another Popsicle, hoping that this would do the trick and had to chase him around the playhouse when I went back outside, to get him to sit in the chair again. The poor kid was not happy, while he was clutching his hair covered Popsicle and at this point he now just had long tufts of hair covering the sides and back of his head. So.....I decided to come in the house and get the scissors to try to finish off the job. Oh, and by the way, Cash is back there yelling that he wants Mama to cut his hair next @@! I get the scissors, chase Carter around the playhouse again and proceed to try to fix this horrible thing I have don, without chopping off my babies ear. I get a couple of tufts cut off when I realize that this just isn't going to work. I finally just look Carter in the eye, admit that I have completely effed this up and tell him to hang on, it is all coming off and I remove the guard from the clippers. Two minutes later Cash and I are both staring at a completely bald-headed Carter and Cash is asking me what happened to Carter's hair. I felt terrible. The poor kid has some big ears and this really accentuated that. He himself ran into the house and looked in my full length mirror and turned and said, "Hey, where is Carter's hair?" Needless to say, this was my first and last attempt at a home haircut! The only good news is that Carter should not need another haircut for a long, long time!

How Did I Get So Lucky????

As many people know, I was a little bit "older" when I met Randy and we got married. While people are waiting longer to marry these days, by age 32, I was wondering if I would ever find "the one." Once you hit a certain age, it seems like it is harder and harder to meet people. I had great friends at work, but most of them were either married, or in relationships and didn't really want to go out and do the singles scene. I gave my best friend Krista a lot of grief for doing the Internet singles thing, and I swore I would not do it.......that being said, I finally decided I would give it a try, since I wasn't meeting anyone any other way! Boy, did I meet some doozies!!! I usually assigned them names, as it was easier to keep track of them this way. There was T-Rex, who had these really short arms; Corvette man, who was the largest man I had ever seen stuff himself into a tiny car; Stinky, well lets just say if you fart on the first date, you aren't getting a second; Crazy Dave...fairly self explanatory; then there was Howdy Doody! My first date with Doody, he took me hiking and to lunch. I am not much of an outdoorsy girl, and I did worry a bit that he was going to take me to the mountains and chop me up, but it went okay and I agreed to a second date. On our second date we went to the movies. I thought he was a little odd, because he made sure that our arms didn't even touch on the shared armrest. Our third (and supposed to be final) date he took me to a drum recital at UTEP. By this point I had decided this was a nice guy, but a little too nerdy for me and I needed to move on, so I wrote him an e-mail saying that, but without calling him a nerd!! Well, he was composing an e-mail to me at the same time that said he knew he had come off a little nerdy, but he had been married before and things had ended horribly and he didn't want to move too fast.....so, I decided to give him another chance and nine years later here we are, Me and Doody against the world!!! I could not have asked for a better husband or father for my children. He loves me unconditionally, even when I tease him mercilessly and accidentally shave one of the children bald. I often tease him that the third time was a charm for him, but I am indeed the lucky one, and I would not trade my Doody for anyone else!!! I love you, EUGENE!!!! lol

Post Wide Yard Sale

Yesterday was the spring post wide yard sale here on lovely Fort Leavenworth. You are not allowed to have yard sales here on Leavenworth, if you live in quarters, except for on designated days twice a year. We had not been here all that long when the fall sale happened, so we did not participate, but since we are fixing to move again we decided to go ahead and get rid of some stuff. Boy was this an eye-opening adventure! First of all, the sale itself was from 6-3 on Saturday, but most people were out in their garages and driveways getting things priced and together on Friday evening. Starting about 4pm Friday afternoon, the early birds showed up in full force! We are talking 80 year old couples with Iowa plates, folks! We (being the Day family, as I have posted before) were of course no where near ready, so no one stopped at our house, but I swear to God the guy across the street from us had half of his stuff sold by 6pm Friday night! He and his family are PCSing overseas, so they did have a lot of stuff to sell, so I was very happy for him. Fast forward to 5:30am on Saturday morning. Randy got up to get all out big stuff out into the driveway and told me to sleep, but I felt too guilty (and also because I know Randy very well and he just wants to get rid of stuff, so he would sell things at a ridiculously low price if I were not out there to supervise) and went on out to help him. When I stepped out into the garage, there were already people buying stuff, so yay for us! As I said, we didn't have a lot of stuff, so I had a lot of time to just people watch.....and oh what a sight it was! We had been told that people come from four and five states away to attend the sale. I guess since this is the most transient post in the Army, and about 80% of its occupants are officers that will be moving soon, people figure they can get some good stuff. I saw several U Haul trailers and a few trucks. I am guessing these people either owned thrift shops, or were people I had seen are Hoarders:Buried Alive, because they were really serious about their yard saleing! I saw several people on those motorized scooters with baskets piled high, and I even saw one of those suckers that was equipped with its own little trailer. Let me tell you, I saw a lot of stuff I had never seen. The other thing that got me, was the fact that some of these people absolutely REFUSED to pay the price you had on items. I understand trying to bargain, if what you are buying is, oh say, $50. I get the whole, "I will give you $30 for it," thing, but I had a wooden stool in the sale that I had priced at $2. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this stool, I just have two others that are a little taller and I did not need this one anymore. A lady comes by, looks at the stool, turns it upside down and looks at it, asks if she can take it across the street where the ground is level and try it out and then brings it back and proceeds to say, "Will you take $1 for it?" Seriously..it was TWO DOLLARS!! I went ahead and gave it to her for the dollar, just because I had very much enjoyed how seriously she had taken her whole stool shopping thing. All in all, it was a good day. We made about $300 and the entertainment was priceless!!!!