So obviously. .

we didn't get blown away by the storm. . lol. Actually it was a joke. They hyped it up all week. . . talking about evacs and shutters. . closing schools and the base. IT BARELY STORMED!!!! It rained for most of the day, but the wind never got over about 20mph. I was quite disappointed. Oh well though, and IKE is not headed our way, so no worries there. Guess we will just have to wait and see if there is a next one.

And I will post pics of maddison's bday party as soon as I can.. My SIL is sending me some, since I didn't have my camera handy that day. But they are coming.

New Update

The track of this storm has changed a million times this week, as of the 11am track they have it making landfall around myrtle beach again, but there is still some uncertainty. We are under a Tropical Storm Warning. All schools and gov't offices are closed today, and the EMS is encouraging people to stay home and close all other businesses early. I honestly don't think that it will be too bad here, but we will wait and see I guess. The winds are starting to pick up, and the first outer rain band is supposed to come through in about an hour. High tide is supposed to be at 2pm so I think if it is not storming too bad we are going to go down to the river and see if the seawall has been breached. I will take pics if it looks cool. lol. Right now the base has been put on alert for Hurricane Ike. There is a lot of uncertainty as to what that storm is going to do right now and they are kind of freaking out around here about it. But again, we will wait it out and see what happens. . lol. I was kind of hoping we were going to have to evac, just so we would have an excuse to go back to bama for a couple of days, but oh well, ha ha. Our power tends to go out quite easily, so if I still have power later tonight I will post another update.

Update

As of now the storm track has changed to make landfall a little north of us. . around myrtle beach I think. The local EMS says that as of now there will be no evacuations for our area, but to keep monitoring the situation. The big wigs along with the military had a conference at 1pm and decided that as of now we will not evacuate on Thursday and all schools and gov't offices will remain open. If anything thing changes I will update.

The Calm Before the Storm

Well, looks like we might be having a hurricane here in a few days. We have been put on alert and will find out tomorrow if we will have to evacuate. The squadron made everyone fill out a evac form today with their destination and everything. The city has placed us on alert, saying that we will have more answers tomorrow.

This is kind of interesting. We experienced a Cat 1 when we lived in Va Beach, it was no biggy, but we have never been placed on alert for evacuation before. My MIL and FIL are in town visiting right now also. They had planned on leaving Thurs. but have now decided to leave tomorrow morning, just in case we have to evac on Thurs. They want to miss the rush, and I don't blame them. We went to Lowes tonight to get a few supplies, and it was BUSY. Lots and lots of plywood being bought. Base housing placed their alert on our website today. . and the base went from Hurricane CON 5 to CON 4 today. So things are looking like we might just be getting the heck out of dodge. I read a report earlier today that said they are expecting this to be a major hurricane when it makes landfall. So we will see how things go.

Just thought I would inform everyone of what is going on. . if we do have to evac more than likely we will be returning to AL and a couple of our friends are coming with us because their hometowns are outside of the distance we are allowed to travel. I will post more as I know what is going on.

No, I have not fallen off the face of the Earth. .

Sorry for not updating, I have just been terribly busy lately. So here we go. . lol

Most of my down time has been spent working on my Cafepress shop, I have completely redesigned the shop and added lots of new products. I have spent countless hours reading tutorials and trying to figure out the basics of this web design stuff, and I have learned quite a lot. It gets to be mind numbing though. I am finally getting to a place where I am feeling comfortable with the feel of the shop. . there are still a few more tweaks I need to make and the only big thing left is to make a page with a custom order form. A friend of mine said her husband may possibly help me, so that would be wonderful, and a huge time saver. I have also started a myspace site for the shop, and in this site I am offering layouts, graphic snags, icons, and photo edits. This is fun and I enjoy doing it, and it is an alternative to scrapbooking, since I can't seem to even try to do that because I can't keep Maddison out of it for more than 2 seconds. This is serving as my creative outlet right now, and it is very helpful. The main reason I decided to do the myspace site though is to help generate more traffic to my store, and so far it is working.

Okay now about the family. .

We (meaning I) are getting things in place for Maddie Lou's 3rd birthday. Can you believe that she is almost 3? Because I sure can't! Everyday I look at her and think. . geeze is this my baby? We are having a Mermaid Party and she is so excited she can't stand it. She has been asking about it for months now. We have decided to move the party up to Labor Day weekend because everyone just contacted us and said they wanted to come visit that weekend, lol. My sis and bro in law will be here, and my MIL, my mom, stepdad, nanny, and sister are also coming. . and one of my girlfriends from highschool and her boyfriend are coming. I am so super excited! Hopefully most of maddison's friends will be able to come, but I know a lot of them have stuff going on that weekend which is one reason why we were going to have it the next. But this is going to work out best for the family thing. I am just still having to deal with that fact that my baby is turning 3.

My dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer a few months ago, he had surgery to have it removed back in May and it was not successful. So they referred him to Vandy and he had his surgery this past monday. They were able to successfully remove it. Which is great great news. Now we are just waiting on the pathology report to determine if it has spread anywhere else, and it will be a little while before we know if he is totally out of the woods. So keep him in your prayers (or whatever you do).

My mom, is about to have a hysterectomy. She has been diagnosed with endometriosis, as well as several fibroids, cysts, and pallops on one of her ovaries. She underwent a DNC last week and is awaiting test results to move forward with the hysterectomy. So keep her in your thoughts and prayers too.

Yeah, my parents are falling apart. lol.

Brandon is doing great, he is home for a while, well at least until the end of November. He is also studying for his advancement exam right now. He will be taking the E-6 exam the first week of September. So wish him luck. If he makes it, he will have made E-6 in less than 5 years, which is a great feat. Because he has been in for only 5 years, that could come back to bite him in the butt though, it could hurt his advancement chances. But we will just wait and see. That pay raise would be really nice! lol. He will be taking a week or so of leave starting this weekend, which will be so nice. I wish we could go back to bama for a few days, but there is no way we can with gas prices what they are, and us having to spend money on this birthday party. But I am looking forward to just getting to have some here time with him. We will spend some days at the beach, and getting little projects done around the house that we keep putting off, and maybe spend a day in Charleston, and a day in Savannah. We just need a change from the daily grind around here.

Well, I guess I am all caught up for now. I will try and keep this thing more up to date from now on!









{Designs by: Married to the Navy Designs Add our myspace by clicking them to get your own}

My eyes are still crossed.

I tend to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person, not the smartest in the world, but I can hold my own. But web design is kicking my ass. Not even really "web design" I don't think there is any way that I could ever go that in depth. I am simply just trying to make a myspace layout using CSS for the shop's myspace page and use HTML to customize my shop. I have all of the basics down, but the fine tuning is killing me. I have all these great ideas in my head that I just can't seem to get onto the screen. I stared at a computer screen all day yesterday, reading tutorials, looking at examples, trying to find a good code generator so I could cheat (lol). And at 0100 I finally called it quits. I did get the myspace layout finished. . sort of. I still have A LOT to do before I can open it to the public, but it is on the way. The thing that discourages me is that there are a million people out there that make layouts, so why is it so difficult for me? I am sure the more I practice the easier it will become, but right now if I look at another line of html or css code I might go crazy and smash my computer. I don't know how computer programmers and IT guys do that every day. Kudos to them. But today I am taking the day off. No new designs for the store, not changing anything, not working on the myspace. I am going to clean my house, maybe go to the commissary, and play with my little girl since I totally ignored her yesterday. Wish me luck.

Hotdogs, Fireworks, and Tissues

Well, I haven't blogged in a while. I have been really busy, so there is a lot to catch up on.

First off, we had a great 4th of July. We had a cookout here at the house and invited our friends over. A lot of them weren't able to make it, but we had a good time with the ones that could. My husband's command was being stupid and made a lot of the guys work that day, so they missed out. But we did take some of them food. After the cookout, us and Nicole and her family went to Parris Island to watch the fireworks. It was really nice, perfect night. I think the show was shorter than it was last year. Although I was a little preoccupied last year, Brandon was leaving for deployment the next morning. Mom and them were going to try to come this year for the 4th, but turned out they weren't able to. It sucked, and they would've had fun because it turned out there were as many people their age here as ours. ha ha. But all in all it was a great night!!

Well, one of the things about being a military wife is having to learn how to make a great friend and then turn around and tell them bye. It SUCKS. I have lost 2 great friends in the last 2 months or so. Sandi left unexpectedly, so I didn't really have a chance to prepare myself for that. It was very sad and I hate that she is gone, but I know she is having a better time back home than she was here. On the other hand, I had time to prepare for Ashley leaving, and I think that may have been harder. We just kept pretending like she wasn't going to go. ha ha. But then time crept up and all of a sudden we were loading a moving truck. It is so hard to stand there and watch a person who you have known for so little time, but feel like you have known forever drive away in a Budget truck. They are doing what is best for them also. Her hubby is getting out of the military and starting his own company. I wish them the best. I know things will work out great for them. Another friend of mine, Nicole, will be leaving soon also. We haven't known each other very long, we met through another friend and at mom's morning, but I think if we would have met sooner we would be best friends now too. We seem to have a lot in common, and I really like being around her. And our kids get along great too! lol. I am sad that she is leaving and we won't have the chance to get to know each other even better. I wish them the best in their next adventure as well. Many of us wives have talked about this before, it is so hard to make a friend knowing that in a few months or a year you might never see that person again, but then again it is amazing, that we can say we have all of these great friends from all over the world that we will always have one common bond with and that is the military. Even if they are getting out, or just changing duty stations, they will always be a part of the huge military wives family. Anyway, enough sadness. lol

Well, I am sure there is much more to write about, but it will have to wait for another day. My child is begging for my attention and I have to get stuff together to ship Brandon off. Only for a few weeks this time though.

Hey you people!

Any of you lovely people that read this blog (bless your hearts) should take a few seconds out of your busy day and help a sister out . . lol. I am not asking for a kidney or anything but you could go to this website and rank my Cafepress shop! All you have to do is click on however many stars (5 preferably. . lol) you would like to give me and leave you HONEST comment on how you like my stuff. That's it, that's all I need. . didn't hurt much did it? lol. Thanks guys! I appreciate it!

http://bestcafeshops.com/index.php?a=stats&u=jenafur1308

Check out my newest stuff!!

I have added some new designs to the shop so check them out!

Also, order your 4th of July shirts by June 23rd to get them here by the 4th using standard shipping after that day you will have to upgrade shipping.

If you would like a custom 4th of July shirt please let me know by the 22nd and I can make it for you. If you have an idea of what you want email me and let me know and I can make it for you. You can find my email address on the homepage of my shop.


Here are a few examples of the new stuff.


4th of July items





























Other new designs

























Also Available with pink letters and blue letters





Check out the shop!!


Thanks guys!!

EWW Gross!!

So today has been a fun day. Let me start by saying what has been happening the past couple of days. . . Monday evening Maddison had crawled up in my lap and I realized she smelled horrible, I mean horrible. It was time for her bath anyway so I got her ready, put her in the tub and scrubbed the crap out of her. Then I got her ready for bed and she was cranky so I decided to let her lay on the couch and go to sleep. When Brandon got home from work he picked her up to take her to bed and he said she smelled bad. I was like "WTF I just gave her a bath?" So I smelled her and sure enough the smell was back. I started sniffing her all over and realized that it was her face and hands that smelled so bad. So I made Brandon wake her up and take her to the bathroom and wash them really good again. Then we all went to bed. Well yesterday I didn't notice it again, and we spent all day outside with her playing in the pool, when we came in she was exhausted so I put her down for a nap. When she woke up she wanted me to hold her for a little while and when I picked her up I realized she stunk again. Now I am starting to really wonder what the problem is. I decided to hold off on the bath because it was only a few hours before bath time anyway. Well, again I scrubbed her until she was pretty much raw. .washed her hair twice, made sure every nook and cranny was spotless and I got her out and took her to her room to put her jammies on. While I was doing this I started smelling it AGAIN. Now I am like going crazy trying to figure out what it is, so I smelled her entire face inch by inch and realized it was coming from the mouth/nose area. So I took her in the bathroom and brushed her teeth like crazy and sniffed again. . still there. Then I made her blow her nose and I smelled the tissue. . I almost gagged. . it was sooooo nasty. . it smelled like something dead and rotting. EW. So I called mom and was like WTH?? What is this, and she says "Sounds like she has shoved something up her nose!" OMG, are you kidding me. So first thing this morning I call and get her in to see the doctor. . she looks and can't see anything (oh yeah, the smell had stopped too. . and in my panic last night trying to figure out what it was I gave her Little Noses) but she was concerned that it could be deeper in the sinus so she wanted to refer us the see an ENT and have a scope done. So off we go there. . and luckily the ENT said that there was nothing there anymore, but it was a little irritated like something had been there, and by the smell I described it was probably some kind of food. He said possibly when I gave her the little noses she sucked it on down and now it is in her stomach. . EWWWWWWWWWWW. That is so nasty. But he said everything looked fine and she was a healthy little girl. . so that is good news. But it has been and interesting day, and we had a serious talk about sticking things up our nose. . LOL.