YIKES!

Op. Love From Home: Holiday Card Drive for Deployed Troops

2009-11-04T10:48:00.003-05:00

HOLIDAY CARD DRIVE FOR DEPLOYED TROOPS

www.OperationLoveFromHome.org

Please help us get the word out - deadline is Nov. 28, and we need many more cards to make our Heroes' Holidays Brighter! We can't do it without YOU - so please do what you can - blog, email, put together local card drives, etc... no matter how many or how few cards you send in, they ALL make a difference and bring a smile to a Hero far from home. :)

The Mission: To collect Christmas/Holiday cards, candy canes, and other festive holiday decorations & goodies for American troops serving all over the world, to let them know that we are thinking of them during the holiday season and have not forgotten them!

The Reason: Being away from home, often living in harsh conditions with combat & constant danger is difficult ~ our troops need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives. It keeps them motivated and focused when they know we care about them!

The Address: Send your signed, unsealed holiday cards to the following address:

OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME

P.O. Box 1660

Loganville, Georgia, 30052

ALL ITEMS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN NOVEMBER 28, 2009

The Guidelines:

**The cards can be handmade or store-bought. Even regular letters are fine. This is a great opportunity to get your Scout troop, school, church/house of worship and other civic organizations involved in doing something to tangibly show support for our troops.

**Please do not write the date on your cards. This is so that, in the event cards reach us after our shipping deadline has passed, we can hang on to the cards and use them for our next card drive.

**Keep the cards fun and light-hearted – this is not a dating service, nor do we allow any political statements! Any cards of an inappropriate, suggestive, or political/otherwise negative nature will be thrown away.

If you have any questions, please contact us at Kat@OperationLoveFromHome.org or info@operationlovefromhome.org

PLEASE CONTACT US IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE A PRINTABLE PDF OR WORD VERSION OF THIS INFORMATIONAL FLYER!

Check out our website at http://www.OperationLoveFromHome.org!

Also, you may want to consider joining our Yahoo Group to stay in the loop of what's going on and connect with others who are involved: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LoveFromHome

Postage costs are our biggest expense, along with supplies and related expenses of conducting card/care package drives throughout the community. Donations towards postage & supplies are most gratefully accepted!

Couch to 5k - FINISHED!!!!!

2009-10-09T06:32:00.001-05:00

WOOOHOO! "IT IS FINISHED!"

Today, Gypsy & I headed out to Bay Creek park (the nice, FLAT track that makes it easy to calculate distances for me, lol) for our graduation run. We got there at about 5:50 a.m. It was really nice out this morning - a pleasant 64 degrees, low humidity. There was a whole bunch of crickets, frogs, and even one whipoorwill singing their chorus this morning. It was such a nice day, and the crickets, etc., sounded so cool, I decided to listen to them rather than podcast this morning. I hung the earphones around my neck and had the volume up, so I could still hear the podcast and verbal cues & stuff, but also could hear the crickets, etc. (Besides listening to the neat early-morning sounds of the day, I also have to get used to running without an ipod for my 5k coming up on halloween, which is an iPod-free run, darn it, LOL).

Anyway, not much to tell - we went out and ran. There was a great big deer wandering around the parking lot this morning who kept us company. She must've been used to people, because everytime we circled by, she just looked up from her breakfast and watched us watch her as we went by, LOL. I tried to get a pic of her, but it was too dark and she was too far away to get a pic on my phone. Oh well. :-) Anyway, when podcast announcer dude said, "Congratulations, you've run for 30 minutes! Now on to our 5-minute cooldown walk!" I was still 1.25 laps away from having completed a full two miles. So, instead of going on my cooldown walk, Gypsy & I kept jogging thru that last 1.25 laps and made it exactly a full two-mile run! I had wanted to try for distance today, to see if I could go the whole 3.1 miles of a real 5k, but didn't have enough time to do so cuz I got there later than I wanted. x-( BUT, we did get in a full and complete two miles! Took me a total of about 40 minutes to do that two miles, give or take a few minutes. I timed how long it took me to go around the track one time - one loop was 6:09 minutes - and since 3 loops equals one mile, that means my running time is 18:27 for a mile. ack. Very slow. Practically crawling, in fact. BUT... a heck of a lot faster than I was 9 weeks ago, I can tell ya that!!!! 9 weeks ago, I woulda NEVER thought in a million years I would be able to say that I'd run a full two miles - much less that I ran a full two miles in only 35-40 minutes - and still more amazing, that I did not die - or even fear dying - while doing so! Whod'a thunk it??????

So now what? On to the one-hour runner program, AND training in earnest for my Halloween 5k.(Which just might take me a full hour to run, LOL! )Thank you all for your support - couldn't have done it without ya! Will still be posting my progress as I go thru the OHR program, cuz i need the accountability and encouragement to git-r-done.

Week 9, Day 3 Done and Graduated. ONWARD & UPWARD!!!! *high fives all around*

Couch to 5K: WEEK 8 IS DONE! ONE MORE WEEK TO GO!

2009-10-04T12:46:00.002-05:00

Today before church, I went out for my W8D3 run. It was absolutely horrible! I ended up walking a couple times for a few seconds (once was halfway up an annoying hill) but kicked myself back in gear and kept with the running. It was NOT a good run by any stretch of the imagination. I let myself get waylaid by all kinds of negative thoughts... money, relationship difficulties, prescriptions vs. food vs. mortgage and not enough for all of them, obnoxious, mouthy teenagers, these hills really suck and I'll never be able to do a 5k and I hate this and I can't do it and OMG what am I gonna do about [insert various other stressors here] and I WANT TO CRY AND QUIT RIGHT NOW ON EVERYTHING!!!!!! Yeah, it was bad. But, no matter how ingloriously & slowly I finished today's run, finish I did. I'm NOT at all proud of how it went today (the other Week 8 runs were so easy and fun, a sucky run was very depressing... especially on top of my pre-existing depression of the day, LOL!), but hey - that's life. Some days are not good ones, some runs are not the best... but the trick is to keep going. So - regardless of my mental crankiness and downright LOUSY attitude today - Week 8 is finished.

Tomorrow morning, Week 9 officially begins!!! Wooohoo! My Couch to 5k graduation t-shirt has officially shipped, as per the email I got yesterday, and hopefully, God willing, I'll have my graduation run on Friday.

Even cooler: Today at church, I was reading the bulletin, and guess what my pastor's next four-week message series is titled? "BORN TO RUN!"

Next Sunday, the sermon is called "Focus," and is based on 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

"Remember that in a race, everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize. You must also run in such a way that you will win. All athletes practice strict self-control. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. SO I RUN STRAIGHT TO THE GOAL, WITH PURPOSE IN EVERY STEP...I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, after preaching to others, I fear that I might be disqualified."

Each subsequent week likewise has a running-related verse that would take too long to type out here at the moment. Obviously, the whole series a comparison between running for a prize and a life lived to glorify Jesus...there are definite parallels between the two (and now that I'm actually running, I can see that even clearer than before). So much of it is just not quitting...fall, get back up, keep going... FOCUS on that goal and give it your all.

Uh, where was I? Oh yeah... week 8 done. I plan on wearing my C25K graduation t-shirt to church Sunday (how timely is that??? Too cool!). Hopefully nothing happens between now & then to screw that up... I wanna be able to graduate on time this week and not let myself get derailed again, lol. I have that 5k on Halloween to train for, too... must get myself in shape to be ABLE to run the full 5k by then. :) Another cool side note - a fellow C25Ker at church pointed out to me...the final message in Pastor's message series is called "FINISH" (based on Philippians 3:12-21) and is on November 1 - the day AFTER, God willing, I finish my very first 5k.

I have to wonder if all this is some kind of freaky coincidence, or if the pastor saw all us church C25K folks Facebook status messages and got inspiried?? LOL! Nah.. probably just random coincidence...but still...how freakin cool is that??? :) To say that message series is timely (in more ways that one!) is an understatement. :)

OK, Week 8 is done - ON TO THE NEXT! 3 runs to go, and I'm an official Couch to 5k graduate. :) wooohoo!

COUCH TO 5K: WEEK 8 UPDATE (yes, very late, I know!)

2009-10-02T08:34:00.004-05:00

Fell behind on everything, sorry, y'all! Here's my updates for Week 8, Days 1 & 2;

WEEK 8, DAY 1:

Howdy, folks! Sorry it's been eons since I've been by. Life - and the deluge of torrential rains flooding that hit Georgia As Seen On TV - kept me away from running for the past three weeks or so. Ack! Today, I was DETERMINED to get out there again, since it hasn't rained in a few days and the door to our ark finally opened (LOL). It was 50 degrees when I left the house today... SO much better than jogging in 78 degrees of total humidity!!!!! Long story short, I ended up going to the park right down the road from our house, rather than the nice, FLAT park that's 15 minutes away. Ugh. But! I survived! And so did the dog! :) Even after not having jogged a bit in 3 weeks, it was surprisingly easy. Not "easy" like, literally "easy," but I wasn't dying like I thought I'd be. There were only a couple times I had to do some serious self-lecturing to get thru a tuff spot. 28 minutes, start to finish - wooohoo! Friday night (assuming I complete w8d2 that morning), I'm going to go ahead and order my graduation shirt...so I'll have it when I finish C25K - just 5 runs to go and I'm a graduate! Yikes, gotta run...time to jump in shower and hit the road. :) More later!

WEEK 8, DAY 2:

Week 8, Day 2 is finished!!!! :) Got out there again today with the dog... it was a little warmer today (57* as opposed to Wednesday's 49*) but still nice running weather. :) I've switched back to going to my "original" park with the small hills on the path, as opposed to the "flat" running track at the other park I was going to. There's two reasons for this: (1) the hilly-path park is exactly one mile from my home; the "nicer" park is 15-20 minutes away and is a pain to get home from due to morning traffic; and (2) there is a real live 5k i want to try on Halloween (the "Run Like Hell 5k" at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta) which apparently has a few hills along the way. Gah. I'm nowhere near running 5k "distance-wise" yet... I am just barely able to do 2 miles in 40 minutes (that's 28 mins of running, plus warmup & cooldown walks, lol). I figure it may take me an hour, or close to it, to do a REAL 5k... but by golly I'm gonna try!!!! I figure if I can cross the finish line and not die, I've succeeded. :) (and of course, i've already decided to wear my C25K graduation t-shirt at the race!) But, I'm digressing here. :)

Anyway: the doggie & I went to park, jogged, came home, both survived. :) Not really an awful lot to tell that I can recall...just yer average run in the park. Golly... 10 weeks ago, I never would have imagined saying that, ever! I couldn't even run ONE minute then... and I just ran 28 of them all at once, LOL!!!! pretty amazing. :-) No doubt now that the extra 2 minutes tacked on to next week's program - the final week of c25k - will be very do-able. And I absolutely CANNOT believe I just said that. Like, wow. Unbelievable... whod'a thunk it???? Certainly not me!!!!!!

OK, week 8, day 2 done... going to a Bible conference thingy tomorrow, then Sunday morning am planning on getting W8D3 out of the way, so next week I can knock out Week 9! :-)

Better Late Than Never: Couch to 5k, Week 7, Day 2 Report

2009-09-13T12:31:00.001-05:00

OK, so last week was the week from you-know-where! All week long I was going to work early and/or staying late. College projects and oodles of homework (that I'm still behind on) kept me off the track all week. Monday was Day 1 of Week 7 today (sunday) morning was Day 2 of Week 7! Gah! My hubby & kids were convinced that I'd quit the program and would never get back to it again. Nice thought, lol - but nope! today, I woke up at about 8:30 and went for a pre-church run.

Was DEFINITELY not looking forward to it - not with a six-day lapse, AND with yesterday going to a "Celebration of Life" for a very dear friend's husband who recently passed away - said celebration was LITERALLY a big PARTY at Lake Lanier - tons of food, tons of desert, live music, the works. :-) Absolutely an awesome time all around. I ate entirely too much of both food and desert, LOL! Whatever little bit of weight I've lost so far, I'm positive I gained it all back yesterday. Oh well - it was worth it. :-)

Anyway, wasn't sure how well I'd do today, what with consuming enormous amounts of food yesterday and not having run for six whole days. However, Gypsy (our dog) & I both survived. Barely, but we did. :) Those last five minutes were BRUTAL!

Prior to my run, I had tossed around the idea of starting tomorrow with W8D1 to stay "on schedule" - at least, the internal schedule I'd set in my head. But about 5 minutes into the run, and especially during the last 5-10 minutes of the 25-minute jog, I decided that there is no way on God's green earth I was ready to tack on an additional 3 minutes tomorrow...I seriously barely made it thru 25 minutes today. So, tomorrow morning, I will do W7D3, and start Week 8 on Wednesday. No rule that says Day 1 of a C25K week HAS to be on a Monday, right? right. :) I just need to get all three of the Week 7 runs in, i think, before I attempt Week 8.

When I've made it thru days 1&2 of Week 8 - SUCCESSFULLY, without stopping or walking (which i seriously considered today, but didn't!) - I'm going to order my C25K Graduation t-shirt -- by the time it arrives, I'll be well into week 9, or even finished completely (depending on shipping times). And the very first sunday after I finish c25k, I'm wearin' it to church, totally. :) After reading my facebook updates, one lady at church started c25k...then another...then folks reading THEIR facebook pages joined them, sooo...looks like c25k is spreading thru our church and facebook friends like wildfire. :) How cool is that??? :)

So, there's my motivation to NOT quit right there, LOL! These longer runs are BRUTAL and I can't ever imagine "enjoying" a nice, long run...but I DO feel really good AFTER a run, so that helps, as well. :) It's just "during" a run that really is no fun whatsoever, ROFLOL! I'm sure it'll get better with time as my endurance increases. :)

Oh, and almost forgot - today, I did something a bit different. Instead of my 5-minute warmup walk looping around the track, I essentially paced back & forth on the straight stretch of track in front of where I parked my car. See, every time I pass my car, I know I've completed one loop - and three loops around the track is a full mile. So, I wanted to see how far I was actually JOGGING around the track, not including the warmup & cooldown. When it was time to start jogging, i put myself right in front of my car so I'd have an accurate count of how many time's I'd circled the track while jogging. Total times JOGGING around the track was a little more than 4 loops (or just over 1 & 1/3 miles), plus one complete loop (about 8 minutes) for my cooldown walk. So, I actually jogged just over 1 & 1/3 miles, and when you add in my warmup & cooldown walks, that's right about 2 miles total altogether. But actual jogging was 1 & 1/3 miles. Woohoo! Who'da thunk it? In three weeks, I will NOT be running 5 k (will be happy to be actually running TWO miles, much less 3.1, lol) - but I WILL be running for 30 minutes straight -- and the more I do that, the better my times will become as I progress. :) Endurance first, speed later. It's all good!

Anyway, I have a ton of homework to do, and a Board meeting to get ready for, and lunch to make, so I'm signing off for now. Week 7, Day 2, finally done; Week 7, Day 3 coming up tomorrow a.m.

Onward & Upward!!!!!!! HOOAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Couch to 5K: Week 7, Day 1 update!

2009-09-07T21:45:00.000-05:00

Well, I didn't die! :) I also really hate these 25-minute runs -- SO not fun, LOL! I'm so seriously ADD, I am good with "small" projects that don't require long stretches of time, LOL. It's a challenge keeping my mind engaged, un-bored, and body moving for a whole twenty-five minutes straight. I think the next three weeks are going to be challenging for me for this reason -- gotta keep my motivation up somehow. :-) If nothing else, with sheer dogged determination, lol.

I did NOT get up at 0500 to run this morning, because it was labor day, and after several weeks of working 50-60 hours a week, PLUS college, PLUS my 75-90 minute commute, PLUS God only knows what else... I was TIRED! I slept quite a lot this weekend (which is why I'm still awake and doing laundry, lol). I spent most of today (Labor Day) curled up in bed watching the Ghost Hunter rerun marathon on the SyFy channel. :-) Cool, huh? OK, not so much, but whatever. I was officially 100% off-duty today, darn it! :) Anyway, at about 7:30 p.m., it had cooled off enough to make it acceptable jogging weather. Gypsy and I piled into the car and headed for Bay Creek park. We got there at about 7:45, just as the last remnants of a kiddie football game was wrapping up. Still LOTS of people milling about. I circled the parking lot a couple times, trying to decide if I REALLY wanted to humiliate myself in front of all these people. In the end, I decided it didn't matter, and off we went.

The first five minutes of the jog (following the warmup walk) were, of course, icky. I've found if I can survive the first 5-10 minutes of it, the rest isn't so bad. I kept having to keep myself in check -- so many people around always makes me jog faster than I should, without even realizing it. I am SO slow, it's kind of embarrassing, especially when surrounded by others who are "really" running. But whatever, I'm not jogging for them, I'm jogging for me, so to heck with what they may think. So, we continued on.

At about the time I was starting to wish for death, the podcast announcer guy came on and said we were just over halfway done. I spent the next minute or so (I'm not good at math, lol) figuring out that that means I should have about 12.5 minutes left - easy, right? OK, not so much "easy," but do-able. I kept plodding along, eventually finding myself going on "auto pilot." Make it to that light. OK, great - now make it to the next light. Now make it to my car... keep going... next light... etc.

I was super happy to hear that the twenty-five minutes were over! :) By the time Gypsy & I finished our five-minute cooldown walk, we'd circled the track a total of six & a quarter times - or just a few steps over two miles. Of course, this includes the warmup & cool down laps, so I'm totally not breaking any speed records here. In fact, I may be breaking some SLOWNESS records, come to think about it. ;) But whatever.... as I was doing my after-workout stretches, I saw a friend of mine walk by. :) We were chatting a minute and I was telling her about c25k. I told her how i thought I'd never ever survive the first week, that I couldn't even jog thru a full sixty-second initerval - and now I'd just jogged thru twenty-five minutes straight -- so if fat, out of shape me could do it, then surely absolutely ANYONE can, lol!

Wow. Hadn't really thought of it like that - from not even being able to jog for a full sixty seconds to jogging for a full 25-minuets straight - until I was talking to her. Pretty darn amazing. Who'da thunk it? Certainly not me! Wow!

Week 7, Day 1 down. Just under three weeks -a mere 8 jogging days - to go and I'm a c25k graduate! Keep yer fingers crossed for me! :)

Week 6, Day 1 of Couch to 5k!

2009-08-31T20:10:00.001-05:00

Well, today was the first day of WEEK 6 (C25K is a 9-week program...nearly done!)! Holy cow, how'd i get here this fast???? LOL! Week 6, Day one consists of: 5-minute warmup walk, 5 minute jog, 3 minute walk, 8 minute jog, 3 minute walk (or was it 5? I forget!), 5 minute jog and 5 minute cooldown. Wednesday will be simpler - two ten-minute jogging intervals. Friday will be even simpler, but not easier - a straight 25-minute jog! :-0 Week 7, I believe, is simply three days of 25-minute jogs...but let's not think about that right now, LOL!!!!! ;-)

It was a drizzly morning (ok, POURING, but at the park it was barely even misting, thankfully) but Gypsy & I got out there nonetheless. I'm too exhausted to give a detailed report - came home, barely had time to eat my cereal before taking off for work...and once I landed at work, it was NON.STOP. All day. As in, get there at nine, work straight thru lunch and still working at 6:44 p.m. when you finally clock out. Got home a few minutes before 8:00 P.M. Yeah, that kinda day. ACK! lol! I *still* have final exams to study for, a paper to finish and a paper to start, and several pages of study notes to complete. and then study - for the aforementioned final exam tomorrow night, that I haven't studied for yet, lol. Um, so... my brain is pretty well mush by now, and I've got a long ways to go yet, LOL!

Suffice it to say that both the dog and I survived week six, day 1, yay us! :) Now if I can survive all this studying and the final exam tomorrow, that will REALLY be a miracle! ;)

Couch to 5K - the Dreaded Week 5, Day 3 TWENTY-MINUTE Jog!

2009-08-28T09:35:00.004-05:00

Today was the dreaded W5D3 20-minute jog with NO walking intervals to make it easier - the first "really big run" in the C25K program. And........ Gypsy (the dog) and I survived! Yay!!!! Jogged the whole entire 20 minutes! Woooohoo!!!!! CLICK HERE for the song that was gonig thru my head when I finished. :) **high fives all around** I was sooooo nervous about today, seriously.... I knew I could run for 20 minutes, but wasn't sure if I could do it *yet* LOL!

The first five minutes were the worst... my legs were complaining about being forced to move so quickly, so early, warmup stretches & walk notwithstanding! I remember thinking, again, "People do this for long periods of time and actually have FUN????!?" Ha! But I kept at it and eventually my legs quit their complaining as Gyspy & I got into the jogging more.

It was interesting to notice all the various mind games and thoughts I had to come up with thruout the 20 minutes to keep going! I alternated between focusing on where I was jogging next (next light post, next sign, etc) to mentally calculating approximatley how far along I was, to thinking, "Only XX more minutes to go! easy! piece of cake!" etc. And all along, I just kept plugging along - really slowly, lol - but plugging along nonetheless. :) And before I knew it, the jog was over! Including my five-minute warmup walk, I'd circled the track 5 1/4 times - just shy of two miles. So I tacked on an extra five or so minutes to my cooldown walk (which was at a snail's pace cuz I was TIRED! ha!) to complete that final lap on the track. During the course of about 35 minutes total, Gypsy & I went a grand total of exactly two miles - 20 minutes jogging, about 10-15 minutes of warmup & cooldown walking. Me moving forward on my feet for ANY miles is nothing short of amaziing - ha!

When we got back to the car, I put Gypsy in the backseat and turned on the a/c. Left the front door open so I could hear the radio as I did my after-stretches. Then, in a really neat coincidence, one of my favorite radio devotionals came on: "Christian Working Woman" with Mary Welchel. I positively got chills when I heard the opening verse - and actually, the whole entire message was eerily accurate and very well-timed -- it was on perserverance! Check it out:

Friday, August 28, 2009 - Five Things We Need to Re-Learn

Do you give up too easily? Do you keep wishing for the easy way out of everything you face? It's likely you, like me, could use a lesson or two in how to persevere. Lots of people make good starts; not too many complete the course.

We read in Hebrews 12:1 that we should run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Note that each of us has a unique race marked out. Your race may be different from mine, but the important thing for both of us is to hang in there and cross the finish line.

The night is darkest just before the dawn, and all too often we quit the race when it gets dark and bleak, when the finish line is just around the corner. In the first chapter of James we read that "perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Without perseverance we won't reach spiritual maturity. That's why we need to learn perseverance.

How often do you feel like quitting? I can remember just a few weeks ago saying to the Lord, "What use is it, Lord? I don't see light at the end of the tunnel and I'd just like to walk away from the whole thing." You know, if you have those kinds of thoughts you might as well talk to God about them. He knows what you're thinking anyway. But God reminded me that I'm called to be faithful, to persevere, and I had to learn it all over again.

Hebrews 12:13 says, Don't wander away from the path but forge steadily onward. On the right path the limping foot recovers strength and does not collapse. Therefore, we need to make certain we're on the right path, and then by George, stay on it regardless. Even if you're just limping along, don't stop. As we hang in there, our limps are healed and we're able to cross the finish line.

How often do we quit as soon as we develop a limp? We failed, we weren't able to accomplish something we had planned, the resources we were counting on didn't come through, things didn't go as smoothly as we hoped. We got a "hitch in our get-along," as the cowboy said, and that ended the race for us. We quit! But the Bible says keep going on the right path even with your limp.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful (1 Corinthians 4:2)." Proving faithful is perseverance, and we can learn to be faithful and to persevere. I'm telling you, I'll take a faithful person any day over one with bigger talents or gifts who isn't willing to hang in and get the job done—to stick with it through thick and thin times.

I want to encourage you to learn perseverance. Quitters don't win and winners
don't quit, and God's looking for people with endurance. Let's stick by the stuff and make it to the finish line by his grace.

To order Mary’s book
Think About What You Think About, call us at 1-800-292-1218 or visit our website http://www.christianworkingwoman.org/.

“Keeping Your Heart and Soul at Work” is a one-day seminar on September
26 for the woman who wants to better integrate her work and her faith. Click on
this link to register and for a brochure http://www.christianworkingwoman.org/events_details.php?eventKey=46

I mean, seriously - how amazingly dead-on is that?????????? I about fell over! It seemed to me that this was God's way of letting me know He was smiling with me, and encouraging me to keep going! :) Too darn cool.

So, Week 5 officially done! On to the next!!!!!!! ***big giant grin***

Update: Couch to 5K - Week 5, Day 1

2009-08-24T11:40:00.002-05:00

Weeks 1 thur 4 of Couch to 5k were challenging, no doubt. But Week Five is a whole new ballgame - they start ratcheting up the fun in a whole new way! Previously, each week's workout was the same all three days. Week five is a bit different - three totally different - and more challenging! - workouts. They are as follows:

DAY ONE: Five-minute warmup walk; jog 5 minutes; walk 3 minutes; jog 5 minutes; walk 3 minutes; jog 5 minutes; five-minute cooldown walk.

DAY TWO: Five-minute warmup walk; jog **8** minutes; walk 5 minutes; jog **8** more minutes; five-minute cooldown walk. (Note that is only cumulatively *one* more minute of jogging than Day 1 - just strung together in bigger intervals - helps to realize it's the same amount of time as i've done before, just structured different - so theorectially, no biggie, right? :))

DAY THREE: Five-minute warmup walk; 20-minute jog (no walking intervals); five-minute cooldown walk.

So, as you can see, it gets progressively more challenging each day this week. But the cool thing is, once I survive week five, weeks 6-9 won't seem so scary any more, right? I hope, LOL! Anyway, if you are still awake, read on to hear (or "see" rather) my dramatic tale of surviving yet another day of this crazy exercise stuff.... ;)

* * *

Wooohoo!!!! I survived Day 1 of Week 5!!!!! :) Today was the first genuinely COOL day we've had so far. It was only 62 degrees this morning, and very low humidity. aaahhhh... MUCH better!!!!! :) Gypsy & I got to the park at 6:15 - I slept in some because I had to go by the courthouse today to get my notary public certification renewed, which meant I didn’t have to leave the house at 7:30 in the morning (they don't open till like 8:30 or 9). I knew I could run one or two five-minute intervals (like I did last week), but wasn't so sure about how well I'd do with THREE of them to contend with, LOL!

Much to my surprise, it wasn't bad. When it came time for my third and final jog, I was startled to realize I wasn't panicking and thinking I'd never make it. I just started off and kept going. :) I was feeling so good, I even picked up the pace for a little while (but then slowed down to normal for the rest of the way, by which time I was breathing pretty hard, but not thinking death was imminent lol).

One thing I did during the whole course of today's workout was use a trick they taught us in the Riders' Edge motorcycle safety course: LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO. Don't focus on/stare at the ground or the pothole in the road ("target fixation," I think the term was...something like that), because if you do, that's where the bike will go even if you don't want it to. (Yes, this is actually true... the very last thing I saw before I made myself need knee surgery, was the ground, lol!) Instead, focus on where you WANT to go, and you will go there. Kinda Zen-ish, but true.. So, that's the technique I used to try to survive my 5-minute jogs. I'd focus on a lamp-post or a sign on the fence where I wanted to run to, and kept myself zeroed in on that..and got there. Then focused on my next goal...and got there. Not as fast as I wanted, but I got there nonetheless.

I'm still REALLY slow. Three laps around this track is one mile. I was hoping that during my five-minute jogging intervals, I could complete one full loop (which would give me a time of 15 mins/mile - pathetic, but immensely better than I could do five weeks ago, lol). Well, not quite there yet. I *almost* made it around one full loop in five minutes - another 45 - 60 seconds and it woulda been a full loop. Which is some better than last week, so there's progress! :) If I keep plugging away at the time/distance, the speed will improve over time. Not worried about it particularly much; each day brings improvements of some sort, so it's all good!!! :-)

I did find myself wondering how on earth I was gonna handle day 2's two, eight-minute runs (but still not nearly worried about them as much as I am FRIDAY - the BIG 20-MINUTES-STRAIGHT JOG!) ack! But all I gotta do is show up, and keep pushing forward, and it'll all come together. :-)

So, I survived, and the doggie survived. :) [Which reminds me....When hubby went to the store last night, he bought Gypsy "High Performance" dog food, in keeping with her new athletic status as Jogger Dog, LOL. :) ]

So...week five, day one, DONE. As Jason & Grant say at the end of EVERY "Ghost Hunters" episode.... "ON TO THE NEXT!"

My newest form of insanity.....

2009-08-21T08:42:00.004-05:00

What I've been up to the past four weeks...

I've been posting my progress in the Couch to 5K program on their forums (www.C25K.com)... I'm so relieved to have survived four weeks straight, I figured I'd post today's report here, too. Four weeks down, five to go --- assuming I can live that long! ;) LOL

For the uninitiated - Couch to 5K is exactly what it sounds like... a training program designed to transform us pathetic couch potatoes into actual... *gasp* RUNNERS (or something like it) in nine weeks. Theoretically, assuming I survive, by the end of Week 9, I should be able to jog for 30 minutes staright - or 5k - or ideally, 5k in thirty minutes, LOL. I'll be happy with any of the above. ha! So far I haven't needed to repeat any weeks, but next week, Week 5 (and each week thereafter) is successively more brutal, so that may change. Whatever... will just keep plugging away at it, slowly but surely. They have these nifty lill free podcasts you download that tell you when to walk and when to run (or shuffle slowly, in my case), offering cheery little encouragements like, "Time for your second five-minute run! Ready? You can do it!!!!!!" (To which I mentally reply, "DIE SCUMBAG, DIE!!!! ARRRGH!"). Ahem. ;)

Anyway, week four consisted of three days (done on Mon, Wed & Fri) of the following:

5 minute warmup walk
3 minute jog
90 second walk
5 minute jog
3 minute walk
3 minute jog
90 second walk
5 minute jog
5-minute cooldown walk

Anyway, here's my ramblings from C25K forum re: today:

============

YAY! Week Four is OVER! :) Gypsy [my dog] & I lived thru another one, lol. I woke up late, and, having taken something to help me sleep last night, felt reeeeaaaaallllly groggy and most decidedly did NOT want to crawl outta the bed and drag myself to the park. But I did anyway, LOL.

I got there late - like 6:00 - at least 30 mins later than usual, ugh. Oh well. Gypsy & I started off after a brief stretching session. Actually, it was a bit too brief... Since i had to be at work early and was running late, I only stretched about half the time I usually do. (Don't worry, my legs yelled at me quite thoroughly and advised me of their displeasure!)

Nothing remarkable about this workout, except that I did pick up the pace for the very, very last minute of the very last five-minute jogging interval. Went from excruciatingly slow shuffle to somewhat faster shuffle. Hoped to keep that pace for the whole sixty seconds, but didn't quite make it; had to slow down 15-20 seconds before end of last minute back to my usual turtle-slow shuffle, lol. But hey - it's progress, no matter how tiny, and I'll take it. :)

Managed to get all the way around the track three times, which, according to the signs posted, equals one mile. Woohoo!

I was wondering off & on how I am going to survive next week, when the program kicks it up a notch or twelve...can I really do three five-minute runs on Monday? and really do two eight-minute runs on Wednesday?? And most of all, can I *really* do a whole entire 20-minute run straight thru on Friday? Or will I need to repeat a day or two, or even the whole week???

Stay tuned till next week to find out!!!! [insert dramatic soap opera "cliffhanger" music here...]

*whew***

2009-08-18T11:54:00.002-05:00

....after hearing about the recent violence in A-Stan, and that we've lost more Heroes over there, it was a tremendous relief when I got a Facebook message/email from one of our adopted Heroes/friends.

*Whew!*

I hadn't realized how much breath I'd been holding till just now.

*breathing again*

But, relief is tempered by much sadness for those that fell.... God hold & keep those families.... *cries*

Remembering Sgt. Michael Stokely, KIA 16 August 2009

2009-08-15T21:09:00.004-05:00

I will write much more about this later this weekend (I'm going to try to get a video together & posted, if I can figure out how, and have some pics to post as well), but I wanted to get SOMETHING up here NOW.

On August 16, 2005, our little town of Loganville lost one of our own in the War on Terror, Sgt. Michael J. Stokely. Our family did not know Mike, or his friends, or his family...but his loss - and one so close to home -- hit us hard nonetheless. Over the intervening years, we've had the honor and priviledge of getting to know his family, and many of his friends.

Each year on the anniversary of his death, at the exact hour of his death, Mike's family, friends, and even those of us who never knew him, gather at his gravesite to remember and pay our respects. Tonight was that annual gathering. Two of his friends who served with him in Iraq were not there tonight. They are two of our family's adopted soldiers (and dear friends of ours) and are currently serving in Afghanistan. Their absence was felt, but I know they were with us in spirit, as we are with them.

I will write a more thorough post later, but I just wanted to get something up here now... Please, take a moment to reflect on what our freedom costs. Don't ever, ever take it for granted. Stop now to say a prayer for the families of the fallen, and for all our troops currently serving, wherever they may be. Have you thanked a Soldier or Veteran today? If not.. do. They deserve it.

More to come later, just didn't want to waste any time in getting something up here to honor Mike.

Love & prayers,
Mama Kat & Family.

~FINALLY~

2009-06-28T19:57:00.001-05:00

Last week, I finally, finally, finally GOT A JOB after having lost my job on Halloween. I've been temping at this firm (43 miles from home...ouch!) for six months, never knowing if I'd be hired or not. Finally on Wednesday, I was! Just in the nick of time, too... Friday I had oral surgery to get one severely abscessed tooth removed, and antoher one that was starting to get that way...yay for dental ins., just in the nick of time.

Being thrown off computer now, more later, maybe if I am allowed.

In Honor of Major Kevin M. Jenrette

2009-06-28T09:46:00.000-05:00

Finally...here is the slideshow of pics from the day of Major Jenrette's service. Community support was HUGE. This next week, another Georgia National Guard Hero will be laid to rest in Calhoun, GA. I will be unable to attend due to work, but my prayers are with the family.

Not again... Dear God... RIP 1SG John D. Blair

2009-06-23T08:40:00.003-05:00

Yet another of our Georgia National Guard Heroes has fallen... Any time we lose a hero, it's way "too soon" -- but we just laid to rest the other three we lost less than two weeks ago... and already, here, another hero fallen... No more, please... they need to stay nice and safe and not get so much as a scratch, please... War sucks. It's necessary sometimes, but that doesn't make it suck any less. God wrap yourself around each of these families (from last week, and this week) and give them Your comfort, Your strength, Your peace... walk with them every step of the way and hold them up...their lives have been horrifically shattered, and will never be the same again. I don't know the "right" thing to pray, except to say, "God, help them... please."

I haven't yet had a chance to fill y'all in regarding Major Jenrette's service, nor the amazing "Welcome Home" for a wounded hero last week. I'll get to it later on, hopefully - but for now, I must honor 1SGT Blair... we will never, ever forget his service and sacrifice...never, ever take our freedom for granted... Thank you, sir... you WILL NOT be forgotten.

From a North Georgia news channel, Channel 9, comes this article:

North Georgia Soldier Killed in Action
Richard Simms
June 22, 2009 - 2:34PM

A North Georgia soldier has been killed in combat in Afghanistan.

First Sergeant John D. Blair, 38, of Gordon County, Ga. was killed when
his vehicle was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade on June 20.

First Sergeant Blair was a former deputy sheriff in Gordon County, and was later attached to the Drug Task Force as part of the Georgia Army National Guard's counter-drug operations.

Gordon County Sheriff Mitch Ralston issued the following statement:

"It is with great sadness & regret that the Sheriff's Office received official notice from the Department of Defense that First Sergeant John D. Blair, age 38, of Gordon County, and was killed in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan on June 20th. The Department of Defense has reported that Blair was killed when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle near Mado Zayi.

"John was a former deputy sheriff here in Gordon County, and was later attached to the local Drug Task Force as part of the Georgia Army National Guard's counter-drug operations for several years. John served as a full-time deputy sheriff from June, 1994 until August, 1998 when he left the Sheriff's Office to assume full time duties in the National Guard.

"During his local service with the National Guard's counter-drug operations, John served as a reserve deputy sheriff from October, 2006 until December, 2008, when his National Guard unit was mobilized for duty in Afghanistan. He was an extraordinarily skilled operative, specializing in covert drug-enforcement surveillance.

"During his time in the Sheriff's Office, John served as a jail officer, deputy sheriff, & sheriff's detective. He also served on the Office's honor guard, & SWAT team. His former superiors described him as an exemplary officer. He was officially commended on a number of occasions during his law enforcement service here. John remained very close friends with members of the Sheriff's Office, and officers communicated with him by telephone & email in the days & weeks preceding his death.

"Sheriff's Office employees were shaken at the news of John's death. The flags at the Sheriff's Office complex are being flown at half-staff, and deputies are wearing black ‘mourning' bands over their badges in honor of Blair.

"Sheriff Ralston said, 'John was a patriot, a truly dedicated & excellent peace officer. He met our America's enemies bravely, and laid down his life in the service of his people, his community, and his Country which he loved so much. He will be missed, but he will never be forgotten. Please keep John's family & friends in your thoughts and prayers."

That we most certainly will.. prayers going out for all, continuously.

MamaKat & family

~Heartsick~

2009-06-06T15:02:00.005-05:00

I know, I know, it's been eons since I've blogged here - or blogged anywhere, for that matter, LOL. Life - knee surgery, unemployment, job searching, temp work (43 miles from home, might I add - hopefully should be "really" hired soon, I hope), computer crashes, and once again starting college have kept me busy to the extreme, and my blog has been gathering layers of dust, sprinkled with cobwebs and a downright scary empy echo. But, events from this week have compelled me to brush off the dust, do some spring cleaning, and hit the keyboard once again. Yep, I'm back - expect me to be around much more frequently! (I heard that groan of dismay, lol... sorry, you'll adjust, I promise you will! ;) )

On a very serious note....

You may or may not know, that our Georgia National Guard guys, the 48th Brigade, have deployed to Afghanistan. They deployed in waves, starting in early spring, and I believe they are all over there now. Anyone who's read this blog longer than 2 minutes (LOL) knows that all soldiers & veterans are very important to me, and our local heroes in particular.

Earlier this week, we lost three of our Heroes, in one single incident.

DoD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the death of three soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died June 4 near Kapisa, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device and small arms fire. They were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 108th Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition Squadron, 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Georgia Army National Guard, Calhoun, Ga.

Killed were:

Maj. Kevin M. Jenrette, 37, of Lula, Ga.,

Staff Sgt. John C. Beale, 39, of Riverdale, Ga., and

Spc. Jeffrey W. Jordan, 21, of Rome, Ga.

My heart sank when I read the DOD announcement. The sorrow hasn't abated since I first read it... indeed, it's gotten more profound. I don't know these Heroes or their families, but they are "ours" nonetheless. If the Patriot Guard Riders are invited to participate in their services, I will move heaven and earth to be there, no matter what (as long as it's on a weekend...still only temping at my job and do not have vacation days yet, so I can't miss work, unfortunately). But I'll be there for anything I can be there for.

Our family has friends in the 48th deployed to Afghanistan right now...soldiers we adopted during the 48th's first tour to the Sandbox, who, on their return, got to know our family and we theirs.. friends who grew up with Sgt. Mike Stokely, who was KIA on 16 August, 2005 and is now buried only two miles from our home. I anticipate not sleeping too much, and doing even more-than-usual praying, over the next several months, and I've already got care package stuff and letters ready to go, once I have their addresses (they just got there). Our family's adopted soldiers (whether we actully *know* them "in person" or not) really do become part of our family, and we care for them as if they were our own kin 'for real.' Thanks be to God, in nine years of adopting soldiers (yes, well before the war started), we've never, ever lost one yet. *knocking on wood* But the risk is always there -- that's the reality of war.

So, I grieve for the heroes above who were lost, and pray for the ones left to carry on, and for all our heroes deployed all over the world, wherever they may be.

For those who were lost, and for the veterans who have served, know this: We will NEVER forget. Ever.

Rest in Peace

2009-04-27T08:41:00.002-05:00

Sadly, our friend from church passed away on Monday, April 20, 2009. :( Your prayers are all appreciated for his family! The Patriot Guard Riders came out in full force to honor James, a Vietnam Veteran and All Around Great Guy. The memorial on Friday was amazing. If we could only touch 1/16th of the people he touched in his lifetime, we'd be doing fantastic. He made a huge difference in many lives!!!!! More people were at the church on Friday, than were at church on Easter Sunday. The sanctuary of 400+ seats was 100% filled, and there were about a hundred or so more out in the lobby, watching on tv screens.

Here is an article in the Loganville Tribune about him:

Beloved counselor to be laid to rest

By Sharon Swanepoel
The Loganville Tribune
Published April 24, 2009

WALTON COUNTY — There are many people in Walton County and the surrounding area that credit James Green with helping turn their lives
around. And because of this, The Orchard Church in Loganville is expecting a large turnout for his memorial service this afternoon. Green, 56, of Monroe, died Monday following a motorcycle accident over the weekend while participating in a charitable fund-raising event for the Dreamhouse, a charity for medically fragile children.“There’s a lot of people he’s touched in the area, both in the church and out, and he will be missed,” said Tony Ford, a fellow member of The Orchard Church and also a fellow counselor in a 12-Step recovery program working with people battling addiction. “James was the first person I met when I first became involved in the program more than three years ago.”Ford credits Green with helping him turn his life around, beating his addiction, turning to God and eventually joining Green in his attempts to help others battle the same demons.“I didn’t like him at first — I didn’t like what he had to say,” Ford said. “He told the truth and it stung. But eventually he got through to me and that had a lot to do with where I am at today.”Ford said Green’s testimony was deeply routed in his own problems with drugs many years ago, his subsequent recovery and his profound Christian faith.“He and his wife Rhonda, they were a team and they did so much for the community,” Ford said. “He has sponsored so many children to youth camps when they didn’t have the money and he sponsored people to go to the Promise Keepers conferences too.”Green, who with his wife owned and operated Commercial Electric Inc. in Loganville was a Vietnam veteran and a member of The Orchard Church board of directors. But Ford said it was his work with addicts and “at-risk” teens for which he was most well-known, working through the Walton County Juvenile Center and the Prime for Life Intervention Program.“He also went into jails and institutions and he always had a message of hope,” Ford said. “That man was one of a kind — he will be missed.”Green, who is survived by his wife, Rhonda, his children Nicole, Chelsie and Jimmy, will be memorialized at a ceremony at 4 p.m. today at The Orchard Church on Highway 81 in Loganville. The family has asked that in lieu of flowers, memorial donations be made to the Dreamhouse for Medically Fragile Children, P O Box 1562,
Snellville, 30078 or IEC PAC Fund, 4401 Ford Ave., Suite 1100 Alexandria, Va.
22302.
Save Mail Print

PRAYERS, PLEASE!!!!!!!

2009-04-19T21:30:00.001-05:00

Got word today that a friend of ours from church was injured severely during a fundraising charity motorcycle ride today. They life-flighted him to a hospital in Augusta (GA), where he is stable but unresponsive. Latest word is that his brainstem may be crushed. It is very scary.. please pray for him, his wife and two kids, and our church, which is in shock.

I'm alive! Yes, really!

2009-04-16T13:15:00.002-05:00

sheesh, I haven't posted here since JANUARY???? How lame of me...bad blogger, bad! *puts self in corner*. This is a quickie update post....

…forgive me if you already know some of this.

No, I don’t have a job yet. Not a “real” one. I’ve been temping at a firm since January 5… in about 2-3 weeks, I’ll know if they are going to keep this as a permanent position, or if I’m back to square one. Please keep your fingers crossed!

Yes, we are still in our house, thanks be to God. spoke with the mortgage co yesterday, to let them know I will know “soon” if I have a real job or not. They were very accommodating and have really amazed me at how helpful they have been. They were able to get HUD to pay 7 months of our mortgage for us (which is like a "silent" second loan, they said - will make payments for that loan at end of our mortgage like any other loan). We won't have to make another mortgage payment till July 1 (and then, every month thereafter like normal). IF I don't get this job permanently, we have another five months of HUD loan available, where HUD will pay the mortgage and we'll pay them back at end of mortgage. After our mortgage is a year old (which it isn't quite yet), they may be able to do a loan modification if needed.
But anyway, long story short, we are OK for now. So long as I have a real job by June, so we can make our normal mortgage payment in July, we'll be OK. And if not, we still may have an additional five months in which to find a job for me. I’d rather have a real job NOW, thank you very much, but that remains to be seen. Ack!

I started back to college on March 24 -- I’m going to Shorter College, taking their accellerated adult degree program. In only 33 months, I’ll have my Bachelor’s in Business admin. It’s only one night a week, so it’s very manageable. And only one class at a time, five weeks each, so my brain won’t get cluttered with more than one topic at a time (which is very important! LOL). Next class I’m taking starts Tuesday: Logic and critical thinking. :) Wish me luck!

OK, gotta run, got mounds of work to do. Will blog more, soon, once I have something worth blogging about! :)

VALENTINE'S FOR TROOPS UPDATE - WEEK ONE

2009-01-10T16:18:00.001-05:00

Today, we got our very first batch of Valentine's cards and Hershey's kisses in the mail! So, our grand total so far is 24 Valentine's cards towards our 3,000-card goal. I know there are lots of y'all out there working on getting cards, making cards, writing letters, etc, and for that, I thank you tremendously. Seriously, every single card makes a difference! Remember, they have to be here in Loganville no later than 1/31 -- not much time, but we've done it before, and I know we'll do it again this year!

More updates in the days/weeks to follow! :)

visit www.OperationLoveFromHome.org and click on the link that says "card drives" for more info. :)

* * *

OPERATION LOVE FROM HOME

VALENTINE'S CARD DRIVE FOR DEPLOYED TROOPS

The Mission: To collect at least 3,000 Valentine's Day cards for troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world. We are also collecting Hershey's Kisses and Hershey's Hugs – the more, the better! 

The Reason: Being away from home and living in harsh conditions with combat & constant danger is difficult ~ our troops need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives. It keeps them motivated and focused when they know we care about them!

The Address: Send your signed, unsealed thank-you cards to the following address:

OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME

P.O. Box 1660

Loganville, Georgia, 30052

ALL CARDS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 2009.

The Guidelines:

The cards can be handmade or store-bought. This is a great opportunity to get your Scout troop, school, church/house of worship and other civic organizations involved in doing something to tangibly show support for our troops.

Please do not write the date on your cards.

Keep the cards fun and light-hearted – this is not a dating service! 

Send in Valentine's candy if you are able to! :)

If you have any questions, please contact us at Kat@OperationLoveFromHome.org or info@operationlovefromhome.org

Check out our website: www.OperationLoveFromHome.org for more info, and join our Yahoo Group to stay in the loop - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LoveFromHome!

Postage costs are our biggest expense, and we are also in need of funds to file our 501(c)(3) application with the IRS. Donations towards postage and/or IRS filing fees are most gratefully accepted!

OUCH!

2009-01-10T13:16:00.003-05:00

So, I got my annual registration/tag renewal for my purty, much-loved lill PT Cruiser that we bought in March, and paid it today (had to pay it right away so that my 09 sticker for my license plate would be delivered before my birthday - the expiration date of the old one). $199.01 for my car for annual reg./tag renewal! OUCH! Oh yeah, and another $15 to renew my license for five more years...that also expires on my birthday. Happy 36 to me, a month early. Ack! LOL

Wouldn't have been so bad, except hubby just spent a ton of $ getting stuff he needed to fix the brakes on the thing... yes, a lill over 12,000 miles and already it needed brake work... ack! brake pads, rotors, tools to DO the brake work.... etc) so that really killed us this week. Ack! again!

But... on the bright side... we HAD it to pay today. Even if it does only leave us with *just* enough $$ for gas and absolutely positively nothing else (lol) for the next week, at least we could take care of it. *whew* (And I'm so glad that hubby's van renewal thingy isn't due till JULY, lol!)

Last week, I spent my first week as a temp for Really Big Law Firm In The City for three partners (which means that next Friday (or Monday, depending on if direct deposit is set up yet), I'll have a REAL paycheck! wooohoo!). I have really enjoyed being there! I hope like crazy it becomes permanent, but no gaurantees of that at all. They don't know if they are going to hire someone or not, so we will see. But I hope I stay...working for the practice group I'm in is downright INTERESTING, to say the least! :) And everyone is really nice, too. AND they have something I've always wanted....FILE CLERKS that DO ALL THE FILING! Yes, a virtually FILING-FREE JOB! Since I loathe filing, I'm MOST happy about that. :-) Get the filing, email File Folks, and they come and take it and it magically disappears into the appropriate files. :) So cool. :-)

Yesterday, I got a phone call from a firm (not a headhunter, a REAL firm!) in Monroe, GA - which is SOOOO close to my house (like, 12 miles instead of the 35 miles I'm driving to Really Big Law Firm). I didn't get it till last night, cuz I had my cell phone OFF during the day while I was workinig...but I called them back to leave a message that yes, I am interested in talking with them further, etc. (No guarantees on the temp job with Really Big Firm In The City, you know...and working so close to home would be a dream come true, if the salary is enough for us to live on, etc....). They won't get the message till Monday, of course - so we will see if anything comes of that. They may decide not to bother with me since I'm temping somewhere, but I'd really like to interview with them if I could on an evening or something if possible...see if there's any possibility there. I'd so love a 20-30 minute commute, as opposed to a 90-minute commute. But I'll deal with a 90-min. commute if I have to... life in ATL, it is what it is. Have done it for ten years, so whatever.

Keep your fingers crossed. The big thing is, I want to be where GOD wants me to be. So whatever is His will, that's what I'm happy with.

One day at a time....

VALENTINE'S CARD DRIVE FOR TROOPS - LET'S GIT-R-DONE!

2009-01-03T13:52:00.001-05:00

It's that time again, folks! Christmas is over with, New Year's celebrations are through (and hopefully recovered from!)... so now is the time to chase away those "after-holiday blahs" for our heroes! (Not to mention, the day-to-day "regular" blahs that come from being so far away from home!) Check out the info below to see how you can help -- and please do forward this on to others, post on your blogs, message boards, etc -- we need a lot of people working together to reach our goal by January 31! (We also have a nice, printable flyer that you can hand out to folks - just email us and we'll get it to you!) ~ Thanks for your support of our HEROES!

VALENTINE'S CARD DRIVE FOR DEPLOYED TROOPS

The Mission: To collect at least 3,000 Valentine's Day cards for troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world. We are also collecting Hershey's Kisses and Hershey's Hugs – the more, the better!

The Reason: Being away from home and living in harsh conditions with combat & constant danger is difficult ~ our troops need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives. It keeps them motivated and focused when they know we care about them!

The Address: Send your signed, unsealed thank-you cards to the following address:

OPERATION LOVE FROM HOME

P.O. Box 1660

Loganville, Georgia, 30052

ALL CARDS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 2009.

(Sorry, no exceptions or extensions can be granted due to shipping time!)

The Guidelines:

The cards can be handmade or store-bought. Even regular letters are fine. This is a great opportunity to get your Scout troop, school, church/house of worship and other civic organizations involved in doing something to tangibly show support for our troops.

Please do not write the date on your cards.

Keep the cards fun and light-hearted – this is not a dating service!

Send in Valentine's candy if you are able to!

If you have any questions, please contact us at Kat@OperationLoveFromHome.org or info@operationlovefromhome.org

Check out our website: www.OperationLoveFromHome.org for more info, and join our Yahoo Group to stay in the loop - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LoveFromHome!

2008 WEBLOG AWARDS -- VOTE NOW! (before Jan 5!)

2009-01-03T10:46:00.003-05:00

OK, I'm soooo late in posting this, yikes! I meant to post this like 2 or 3 days ago, but Life got in the way and I couldn't get to it...ack! *puts self in corner with dunce cap on*

Anyway, enough of that. One of the very best new milbloggers has been nominated for the 2008 Weblog Awards! I'm posting this in hopes that you will check out his blog and vote for him -- he's an excellent writer and he surely deserves this award! (I do have to warn you, his blog is DEFINITELY "R" rated in content at times. Or more like NC-17, perhaps - or NC-17 +++? He is an infantryman, after all, lol! Not for the faint of heart, howzat?). His blog is raw and real and gives a great glimpse into life in the Sandbox for a Soldier... a Jewish soldier, at that -- think about it. A Jewish soldier, serving in the Middle East. He's in double danger there -- not only because he's "there" in the first place, but because the bad guys over there hate all Jews with a passion. An American and a Jew - double target if it were known to the enemy (hence his absolute strict anonymity, of course!). BT's post about being the only one celebrating Hanukkah, out in the freezing cold because he wasn't allowed to light a candle inside a building, was heartbreaking.

Anyway, if you haven't already discovered Big Tobacco, check him out! And then VOTE for him in the 2008 Weblog Awards!

CLICK HERE!

Sixteen Random Things

2009-01-02T10:16:00.003-05:00

I was tagged on Facebook with this, thought I'd post it here, too. If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged! :)

Rules:

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a post with sixteen random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

At the end, choose sixteen people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you - if i tagged you, it’s because i want to know more about you!!!! (not in a creepy stalker kinda way, honest! lol)

1. I will be thankful for and in the midst of EVERY situation in my life, no matter what, because God is in control ultimately and no matter how bad it gets, no matter what happens, He always has and will continue to take care of us. The fact that He loves me and forgives me and accepts me, in spite of myself, is more than enough to be thankful for, no matter how bad everything else get. :) ( 1 Thessalonians 5:18; Romans 8:28; Philippians 4:12-13; John 3:16-21; Romans 5:6-11)

2. I am lucky enough to have some of the most FANTASTIC friends in the universe, I am grateful for them everyday! (yes, I stole this answer from the person who tagged me, but she's absolutely right - I'm blessed with the bestest friends in the world - love y'all!)

3. I still need to find a job. Supposed to start a temp job Monday - but the commute is going to be horrible.

4. I'm really very shy and quiet in person - I will email and post like crazy, because I'm far more comfortable with the "written" word than actually having to SAY something, LOL! In crowds I kinda keep to myself, unless I'm real comfortable with the people I'm with. I just never have much to say, really, LOL! On that same note, I'm HORRIBLE about returning phone calls, or making phone calls unless I really, really really HAVE TO, lol! Something to work on this year....!

5. Good grief, I'm only on number 5?! (see #4 above - I just never have much to say, LOL!)

6. I am praying in 2009 for more boldness and wisdom - boldness to be ABLE to speak, lol - and wisdom to know WHAT to say (or what NOT to say)! :)

7. This year, one of my main goals is to get
Operation Love From Home's 501c3 status finalized. Currently working on the application -- need $350 to file the thing once it's complete.

8. Speaking of Operation Love From Home, we are right now collecting Valentine's Cards, Hershey's Hugs & Hershey's Kisses to send to the troops. We need THREE THOUSAND signed cards by JANUARY 31 to ship all over the world for Valentine's Day. C'mon - show our troops you appreciate them! see our website for more details - www.OperationLoveFromhome.org. Every single card truly counts!

9. Holy cow, I'm only on number 9? *sigh*

10. In March, I'm supposed to start classes at Shorter College - just transferred there from Ga. Perimeter College. In 33 months if all goes well, I"ll have my B.S. in either Business Administration or Business Management (that should make me a bit more employable, I'm hoping!)

11. I heart music and love to dance. (Even though I can't dance at ALL!!!)

12. I'm getting back into the swing of things with my letter-writing, slowly but surely. Life Chaos is calming down somewhat (or I'm just getting used to it, lol) and I'm picking back up the things I had to drop over the summer/fall due to knee surgery and all.

13. Being a member of the Patriot Guard Riders is one of the most important parts of my life - not THE most important part, of course (God, family, career come first) but the mission of the PGR is so very close to my heart and means so much to me to be able to do SOMETHING for the families of our heroes, it's up high on the list for sure.

14. I would love to take ballroom dance lessons again! I took a brief 8-week introduction course many, many years ago, and loved it. :) (see numbers 3 and 11 above, lol)

15. I NEVER want to get a tattoo - I hate needles and pain! (Of course, I also said I'd NEVER ride a motorcycle... and we all know how THAT turned out! lol! BTW - I'm dying to go for a ride - been way too long need my fix! lol!)

16. I am going continue supporting the soldiers this year, though probably will need to cut it back to only 4 or so at a time. :(

Am I done? Yay!!! finally! LOL! :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

CHRISTMAS DAY, 2008 - A CONTRAST

2008-12-24T22:05:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow morning, my two lill kids (two oldes are with their bio father in PA till 1/4) will wake up at some ungodly early hour, probably only minutes after I finally fall asleep, LOL, and bound into the living room to rip into their presents with unbridled small-child enthusiasm and delight. Laughter, joy and shreiks of excitement will be the order of the day, along with chaos, mess, barking dogs and toys galore.

Tomorrow morning, another family will welcome home their son who has been serving in a far-off desert war. He will be arriving via special charter plane.In a flag-draped casket.On Christmas Day.My heart BREAKS for this family. I keep thinking of the song, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" -- only that's NOT HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE! Dangit.

I have small kids who will be doing the "OMGosh, SANTA CAME WHILE WE SLEPT!!!" deal, so I will not be able to be at the airport to honor and show supportfor this Hero and Family. Thankfully, there are others in the Patriot Guard who CAN be there... even on Christmas Day. ( The dedication and sincerity of this group of Patriots - the Patriot Guard Riders - is truly a humbling and amazing thing to see and be a part of!)

Keep this family in your prayers and remember:

Only two forces have ever offered to die for you:

JESUS CHRIST for the salvation of your soul and forgiveness for ALL sins

*and*

THE AMERICAN G.I. for your freedom and safety.

THANK THEM BOTH TODAY... and do not forget.......

My heart & prayers are with this family........

Bah Humbug!

2008-12-24T20:21:00.003-05:00

Everything turned out great today...EXCEPT the ham. We got a bad ham from Walmart or Kroger or wherever - it was icky, tasted like it had gone bad or something. Luckily, we found out earlier in the afternoon -- hubby took the ham back to where he got it and got a new one. Of course, this one (that was excellent, luckily) had to be cooked, too - that threw in an additional 90 minutes of cooking today. By the time it was done, everyone was already assembled and starving, so I did not have time to bake the brown rice casserole that is ALWAYS served on Christmas Eve, Thus Saith Family Law forever and ever amen. It takes over an hour - nobody wanted to wait another hour to eat, lol. However, by the same token, I heard various grumblings and complainings about Not Having THE RICE. I don't know WHO precisely in the crowd was saying it, but I heard it more than once. Highly pissed off because I spent SO MUCH time baking and cooking and such, I let it be known that if the meal was not acceptable, people were most welcome to eat elsewhere! All grumbling ceased. Score one for me, but hubby was Not Happy With My Uppity-ness. Later, M-I-L was going on about the kids' clothes I had packed for their visit this past week - they don't fit right, they aren't "clean enough" (they don't fit right cuz the kids are in that weird "between sizes" stage); they were JUST WASHED the day before the kids went over there so who knows what she was talking about) and the kids somehow removed and hid their sox and underwear from their backpacks because they had NONE when they got there (funny, there were none laying around the house after they left) and such... I stated that if the clothes the kids had did not meet with their approval, they were certainly welcome to buy them more, since we didn't have the money to do so, with me being out of work. Score another point for me. All griping ceased at that moment, but hubby was Not Happy With My Extreme Uppity-Ness. Rather furious, in fact. But from that point on, all criticism (to my face at least) STOPPED and actually, the rest of the evening was really pleasant. Inlaws were nice and we had good dinner conversations, etc., for the entire rest of the evening. :)

Mayhap I'm truly the Evil, Rude Bitch I've been called for so long - but by God I drew my line in the sand, and all trash-talking/criticizing of me stopped then and there and the rest of the evening was perfect and fun. :)

I'm extraordinarily tired of always being a second-class citizen who can do no right, and tonight, I stood up for myself finally. And it WORKED cuz they STOPPED. At least to my face. Oh, I'll pay dearly for it, no doubt, for a long time to come. But I don't care... I'm tired of Never Being Good Enough. Ever. Take me as I am, or don't. Simple. A friend of mine has a saying -- "Anyone who doesn't have the good sense to like or appreciate me is too stupid for me to worry about!" LOL I kinda like that and just might adopt some variation of it. ;)

Lord help me love my enemies - especially the ones within my own home.

EDITED 12/26 TO ADD: BTW, I was vindicated on Christmas day. One of the things MIL ranted about was that I failed to pack socks and underwear for my son. I did pack sox and underwear - they were in the front pouch of the backpack, and MIL had been told as much. But noooo...they weren't there and they looked "all through" the bag. On xmas day, hubby unzipped the front pouch of the backpack, and pulled out a TON of sox and underwear for my son. "HA!" I said. "Score twenty points for me - it was RIGHT. WHERE. I. SAID. IT. WAS!" Much hemming and hawing on part of inlaws who confessed that THEY hadn't looked themselves, but rather asked the kids to find it, which obviously didn't work well. Looked at hubby and said, "TOLD YOU I was neither stupid nor incompetent!"

"Yeah, well, your definitely not stupid."

grr.

Just checkin' in..BakeFest 2008 Update...1:08 a.m.

2008-12-24T01:08:00.001-05:00

OK, all the cookies (8-10 dozen or so) are finished, as are the apricot-stuffed coffee cake thingies, and of course the one loaf of banana bread (all of the above completely home-made from scratch). The cookies have all be decorated -- the "lemon star" cookies, of course, coated in yellow lemon icing (yes, made from scratch, of course) with white sugar sprinkle things on them; the sugar cookies have been decorated according to what they are - christmas trees (green icing with multi-colored sprinkles), candy canes (white & red icing), stockings (white & red icing) and small presents (they look more like plain ole squares, LOL - red icing with green sprinkles).

Now I'm roasting a variety of vegetables for "roasted vegetable salad" - garlic and veggies roasting in the oven smells REALLY good!

Once that's done - another hour or so - I'm going to get a shower and go to bed! Gotta get up early to cook the turkey, ham, and the other side dishes. Peeps are starting to show up here at 4-ish, dinner is supposed to be done at 5. Hopefully I don't oversleep and screw things up, lol. I also gotta do all my last-minute cleaning and table-setting... something i did the night before Thanksgiving (when I stayed up till 7:30 a.m.) but something I'm NOT staying up for all night tonight, lol! all the various kids are NOT AT HOME, WHOOOHOO! so I don't have to worry about them getting underfoot while I'm getting things finished in the morning. :)

C y'all later..... back to baking I go! :)

CHRISTMAS BAKE-FEST 2008!

2008-12-23T18:38:00.003-05:00

Thanx to the generosity of our church & community, we are able to have a most excellent Christmas feast tomorrow night! Today (and until way late tonight, i'm sure) I've been baking up a storm. :)

Remember on Thanksgiving, how I screwed up the banana bread? Thankfully, this time it came out perfect. Yay! I just took the first of two apricot tea rings out of the oven; the second is baking now. First time I've made these...they LOOK good, the gooey yummy filling TASTES good...now that they are all assembled and baked, I hope they are as good as they look! :)

In the refrigerator chilling is dough for Lemon Star Cookies and dough for traditional, olde-fashioned sugar cookies.

Later on, I'll be assembling a pie or two.

Tomorrow evening, we are having turkey (thanks, next-door neighbor!), ham, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, and a variety of other goodies I can't recall right now. :)

Yay for Christmas! :)

OUR CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

2008-12-23T14:40:00.001-05:00

Well, here is my Christmas miracle --I just heard from my mortgage company, and they are going to give me a special forbearance through March. All I need to do is pay $100 a month, and it will NOT report to the credit agencies, nor will they take any actions to collect/foreclose/etc. So...that gives me three extra months in which to find a job - and a GOOD job at that, lol. Keep the prayers going that a job comes thru SOON. :) And in the meantime, that hubby can get enough hours so that we can do that, lol!

God is good!!!!!

BACK IN DA WIND!!!! YEEEHAW!

2008-12-21T17:05:00.002-05:00

Today marks the EXACT six-month anniversary of my flying leap from a motorcycle during the Rider's Edge course - you know, the flying leap that shredded my knee and got me a new (used) ACL and a significantly repaired meniscus? Yeah, that one. :) January 8 will be a full four months since surgery for all of the above.

Today was an awesome "Help on the Homefront" Christmas mission with the Patriot Guard Riders... we got to play Santa's Elves and deliver a whole mess of gifts to the family of one of our wounded HEROES. What an awesome honor that was! Whether I got to ride or not is really beside the point - the cool thing was being able to be there for this very special moment.

But, the icing on the cake, so to speak, is that FINALLY, after six months of not riding AT ALL (horrors and withdrawal...eek!) I FINALLY GOT TO RIDE! :-) I've been cleared by my doc for riding on the backseat as a passenger... can't do Rider's Edge class again till spring, but I'm good to go as a passenger and that's fine by me. "Sidecar Larry," as his name implies, offered me a deluxe seat in his lovely BMW sidecar (which nicely matched his lovely BMW bike!). Not quite the same as being in the backseat - almost like a low-riding convertible in a way, lol - but riding is riding and I had a BLAST! Also proved to myself what I knew already - my little bounce onto the pavement in June did not lessen or dampen my enthusiasm for riding one little bit. :)

Yep, I was certainly a happy Kat today!!!! :)

OK... wanna go riding again... like, NOW. :) C'mon, let's go! :)

Twenty-Four Hours....

2008-12-20T18:06:00.002-05:00

In a mere TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, I will be mercifully CHILD-FREE!!!!! Two oldest are going to PA with their bio father till 1/4. Two youngest are going to gradma's house till 12/24.

PAR-TAY TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

I can clean my house... and it will STAY CLEAN!

I can go to bed at a decent hour with NO ARGUING AND SCREAMING AND CRASHING IN THE BACKGROUND, from the kids trying to (a) get out of chores or (b) inflict great bodily harm on each other.

I can SLEEP AS LONG AS I WANT without (a) them waking me up in the middle of the night, or (b) them waking me up in the morning!

Yay, I'm so excited! This is awesome. No kids for a few days, kid-free, hallelujah, praise the Lord and THANK YOU JESUS!

Yep, this definitely ranks way up there on my List of Things to Be Thankful for. :)

"Welcome Homes" at Walmart

2008-12-19T22:36:00.006-05:00

Today was an interesting day. The whole focus of my day was my Two O'Clock Job Interview - my first legitimate job interview I've had since being laid off on 10/31/08. Off to Great Clips I went for the El Cheapo Hair Trim Special, then home for lunch. Ran back out to the Wonderful World of Wal-Mart to utilize a recently-acquired gift card in order to find something Interview-Worthy On Sale (the rest of the recently-acquired gift cards went to substantial amounts of food for the family, that we were almost out of!). The idea of fighting my way thru a sea of "Walmartians" less than a week before Christmas was NOT a pleasant one, but... there just wasn't an option, as I literally did NOT have anything suitable to wear to an interview... Not just sayin' that, I'm serious. However, my El Cheapo Shopping Spree turned out to be so worth it! (Before you get all happy, no, the job is a no-go. Oh, I rank high in his top contenders list in every way - I have a feeling I'll almost certainly get a job offer...BUT it only pays $10 an hour. After taxes and whatnot...I'd be bringing home the same, if not less, than what I get for unemployment each week. And if we aren't able to pay the mortgage NOW, no way would we be able to pay it if I had a job making exactly what I'm getting now... which sux, this place was only 4 miles from my home! but whatever... God is in control!)

I was blessed with a ridiculously good, close parking spot, and started to walk towards the entrance. As I got close to the door, I spotted camouflage! There just so happened to be a soldier standing right across from the Salvation Army bell-ringer guy - waiting for his family or friends or whatever to make their way from their car to meet him at the entrance! Home for Christmas leave, I supposed. I had the chance to thank him for his service and wish him a Merry Christmas. :-) OK, cool, trip to Walmartia off to a good start!

I zipped over to the plus-size section (Good grief, WHY are almost all fat clothes SO freakin' UGLY?!) and quickly found an actual DECENT black pantsuit, inexpensive, and in my size. Yes, a Christmas miracle indeed. :)

I wandered by the shoe section (I'm not a shoe-aholic, honest I'm not... er, um, well, OK, maybe I am, but that's beside the point, I needed non-doggie-chewed shoes for The Interview and Future Interviews...) and as I was drooling over a gorgeous (but out-of-price-range) pair of boots, I heard a voice say, "Thank you, ma'am! Thank you very much!"

Startled, I looked up and saw a kindly older gentleman smiling at me. In about half a mili-second, I remembered I was wearing my "WELCOME HOME VIETNAM VETERANS" t-shirt (see picture above - that's the front - the back has a map of Vietnam, along with the years of the war and a big WELCOME HOME! written on the back, as well). I told him, "No, thank YOU for your service, and welcome home!!" He said he truly appreciated it -- they didn't get much by way of Welcome Home back when they came home. I told him that's why I made sure to say it now, every chance I get. And he was just so happy to have gotten a welcome home and a thank you, after all this time...

The whole conversation was maybe 30 seconds or so. I finished my shopping quickly and in order to get on home to change before The Interview.

But it sure was hard to shop when everything was all blurry and my glasses were wet!

I may not have gotten a job today - but I got something far more valuable in the grand scheme of things... the chance to say "Thank You" to two different generations of our Nation's Finest Heroes - one of whom was grossly overdue for his Thank You and Welcome Home. And that made it all worthwhile.

God bless America.

You Are Invited...

2008-12-18T11:14:00.003-05:00

You are cordially invited to

A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION!!!

Guest of Honor: Jesus Christ

Date: Every day.Traditionally, December 25
but He's always around, so the date is flexible...

Time: Whenever you're ready.
(Please don't be late, though, or you'll miss out on all the fun!)

Place: In your heart.... He'll meet you there.
(You'll hear Him knock.)

Attire: Come as you are... grubbies are okay.
He'll be washing our clothes anyway.
He said something about
new white robes and crowns for everyone who stays till the last.

Tickets: Admission is free.
He's already paid for everyone...
He says you wouldn't have been
able to afford it anyway...
it cost Him everything He had.
But you do need to accept the ticket!!

Refreshments: New wine, bread, and a
far-out drink He calls "Living Water,"
followed by a supper that promises to be out of this world!

Gift Suggestions: Your life.
He's one of those
people who already has everything else.
(He's very generous in return though.
Just wait until you see what He has for you!)

Entertainment: Joy, Peace, Truth,
Light, Life, Love, Real Happiness,
Communion with God, Forgiveness, Peace,
Eternity in Paradise, Contentment, and much more!
(All "G" rated, so bring your family and friends.)

R.S.V.P.
Very Important!
He must know ahead so He can
reserve a spot for you at the table.
Also, He's keeping a list of His friends for future
reference. He calls it the "Lamb's Book of Life."

Party being given by: His Kids (that's us!!)!
Hope to see you there! For those of you whom I will
see at the party, share this with someone today!
============
http://www. billygraham. org/SH_StepstoPeace. asp

A Musical Tradition

2008-12-18T10:17:00.002-05:00

In what has become a musical Christmas tradition here at Yikes!, I give you one of the sweetest Christmas songs ever that you'd BETTER have a tissue for. Just sayin...

Remember our Heroes and their families in your prayers, this time of year and always.

(All I Want For Christmas) A Soldier Coming Home - Featuring Monty Lane Allen @ Yahoo! Video

Oh yeah, forgot to mention...

2008-12-17T03:08:00.002-05:00

On the bright side, also - I received word today that I was accepted into Shorter College's Professional Studies Program! Yay! This is a local college - my campus is all of 12.5 miles from my home...CLOSE! - that has a program for working adults. The classes meet ONLY one night per week, for four hours. Instead of 4-month semesters, having to juggle 2, 3, or more subjects two or more nights a week, the semesters here are only five to six weeks long...and only ONE subject at a time! Eleven more months, I'll have finished up my Associate's Degree (you know, the one I've been trying to finish for, oh, I dunno, five or six years now?). A mere 22 months after that, I'll have my bachelor's degree. I know it's gonna be hard, since college IS hard to begin with...but ONE night a week, ONE class per semester, sounds like heaven to me! And even better, i'm not gonna have to take a lot of extraneous classes that aren't pertinent to my degree, either... which makes life even more easier! :)

Anyway, just wanted to share. Class starts on or about March 24 for me. :) Yay!

A Light Bulb Moment!

2008-12-17T01:24:00.003-05:00

So, here I am, on the verge of getting all panicky again about not having a job. After a couple weeks of initial hysteria & depression, I was OK with it...till tonight.

Tonight, we (me and 3 of the 4 kidz) FINALLY got around to putting up the Christmas tree and hanging up the stockings... the extent of our decorating this year. Unhappily, 3 of our 5 strands of lights were dead... and having literally less than zero in the bank at the moment, going out and getting a coupla more strands of lights was out of the question. Luckily, our fake tree (finally unearthed from the depths of the shed in the backyard) seems to be nearly a foot shorter than it's normal six-foot height... looks like a piece of the "trunk" is missing or something... so it needed fewer lights. :) Yay! I kinda tossed the lights on randomly and haphazardly (two totally different varieties of lights, completely mismatched in every way), trying to cover as much of the tree as possible. Got all but the bottom last row of branches (and the back of the tree by the wall that nobody sees anyway)...i figure, no worries, the doggies won't be able to eat the lights if they can't reach 'em, right? (one can only hope, lol). We tossed on some ornaments -- all the important ones, the hand-made kid ornaments - went on first, then a few of the boring usual glass ball ornaments in various colors and styles. Yep, it's definitely a mish-mash, unmatched christmas tree... but I couldn't care less, at least we are fortunate enough to HAVE a tree, and the kid ornaments on it give it charachter. :)

After it was all put together, I went outside in the yard to see how it looked from the street, make sure it was neatly centered in the middle of the window, etc. I remembered last year, how excited we were to finally have a real house to decorate. We went all out - lights on the roof, lights on the porch, lights on the bushes, and those animated deer in the front yard. It was sad to see the yard and everything all dark...so un-Christmassy looking! Then I started thinking that our second Christmas here in our house could quite possibly end up being our last Christmas at our house, unless I land a job within the next couple weeks or so. A mortgage company will only be patient for so long... and after three months of no work? Well.... Right now I'm hoping against hope that my 401K disbursement check arrives in the mail extremely soon... if there's enough left of the eensy-weensy amount that was there to begin with after taxes & penalties, it should cover our January mortgage payment, and hopefully buy us more time. Then I'd have at least 2, 3 more weeks to find a new job again. Hubby is not working AT ALL next week OR the week after...so there's NO hope of using his pay, such as it is, towards the mortgage. Not his fault; his one boss closes down the business for those two weeks (I really wish he worked for a different, larger, and especially better-managed company - not that any are hiring right now...but that's another rant for another day, LOL!) My unemployment check, such as it is, will have to go to the vehicle payments, car insurance (which has been thankfully lowered by nearly a hundred dollars a month)... his checks will have to get us some groceries.

So... I was feeling rather melancholy about the state of things at the moment, but shook it off and went back inside. At least (for present) we HAVE a home and are not living under a bridge somewhere... or worse, living under a bridge in an impoverished, war-torn third-world country where such silly notions as "freedom" and "equality" and whatnot are vehemently discouraged and/or outright illegal. Presently poor, but actually very rich in many ways.

Anyway, I was writing a letter tonight (yes, FINALLY i'm slowly getting back into my weekly correspondence mode!) and mentioned that no matter what, everything is A-OK because God is ultimately in control. I said, "Romans 8:28 is still in effect, even when we can't see it just now! God is up to something behind the scenes that we don't know about yet!" To save you a trip to Google or what have you, Romans 8:28 says:

"And we know that ALL THINGS work together FOR GOOD to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purposes."

(Emphasis mine)

Then, a thought popped into my head, completely unbidden: "Don't forget about the verse in 1 Thessalonians 5 about being thankful in EVERY situation!"...followed by the verse, word-for-word, reciting itself in my memory.

Huh? Where did THAT come from?! Yes, that was a rhetorical question, of course it was the Holy Spirit, He's just cool that way. :) Anyway, I flipped on over to 1 Thessalonians 5:18. This was a verse that I had literally, completely and totally forgotten even existed. Seriously. So for it to "randomly" pop into my head like that, in full quotation, lol - well, I know that didn't come from ME! God must be trying to tell me something, methinks. :) To save you a Google, here it is:

In EVERYTHING give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

(Emphasis mine again)

Give thanks in EVERYTHING. Not "some" things. Not just "good" things. But in the middle of the most lousy, rotten, horrific, terrible situation you can think of... Give thanks. The situation I'm in (or you...or you... or you...) is not by accident... for whatever reason, God has permitted it to be so. And if He has allowed it to be so, it is for a reason...and if it is for a reason, then He is hard at work behind the scenes, preparing the way for something we can't even remotely begin to picture just yet. (see also Ephesians 5:20)

Sure, it may suck for a while. Heck, things may continue to suck for a very long while, for all I know. But. It is not without plan or purpose. Whatever is going on right now? He's in control, ultimately. He's going to bring us through this.

I pray like crazy that we are able to keep our beloved home that means so much to us, because of the love & hard work of so many in the community that was poured into it before we even moved in... but if not? Well. Devestating, yes. But. God. Has. A. Plan. He sees the end from the beginning, and everything in between. And really...that's what matters. He is faithful and will take care of us throughout every situation, somehow. We can't see it yet - or at least, I sure can't - but HE can.

S0. It's all good. It sucks right now - but it's all good. Because GOD is good - and He will ultimately turn things around to something wonderful in the long run, and it will be a fabulous testimony of His great love and faithfulness! Seen it a buncha times before, will see it again... God is up to something!

The last verse that "randomly" popped into my mind was one I'd read a few hours earlier just in my casual evening reading, Mark 5:36. Jesus said,

...Be not afraid, only believe.

Aye, aye Captain! And, thank You.

Our Family Pic, December, 2008

2008-12-13T16:46:00.001-05:00

Get your own Family Sticker Maker & MySpace Layouts.

Just venting....

2008-12-12T21:52:00.001-05:00

What’s UP with this???

I've been sending out resumes since OCTOBER. Actually, to be more accurate, since late SEPTEMBER while recovering from my knee surgery, knowing that I was going to be laid off in October. I continue to send out resumes diligently, every day (my family thinks I'm just goofing off at the computer, but I'm really not... I'm scrounging all through the internet to find work). I'm registered with FIVE employment agencies... all of whom have told me that it's very bad out there right now... I know of two agencies that have gone out of business, it's so bad!

The only potential interviews I've been contacted about are for commission-only sales jobs. I'm. Not. A. Salesperson. Not by any stretch of the imagination. It's just not what I'm good at, not where my talents lie. Hubby? He's a great sales person. Me? Not even a little bit. Seriously. (Not to mention, in a lousy economy, nobody is buying whatever salespeople are selling, unless you are uber-good at it...which, I am NOT, lol).

So. I keep sending out resumes... legal secretary, executive secretary, administrative assistant, office assistant.... and hope to God I find something before we lose our house or a vehicle.

Anytime, now God, would be an awesome time for that miracle to show up! :)

No Christmas Tree This Year

2008-12-12T00:49:00.001-05:00

Apparently, lights on a Christmas tree run up the power bill too much, so I've been banned/forbidden from getting one (or even having the fake tree taken down off the highest shelf in the shed, where I can't reach/climb etc). No lights on the house and outside shrubs, I could live with. No tree?

That's just WRONG. And depressing. What's christmas, without a freakin' tree?!

Ack!

OPERATION LOVE FROM HOME - PRESS RELEASE & FINAL TALLY!

2008-12-04T16:26:00.001-05:00

Holiday Greetings Sent With Love To The Troops

Loganville, GA, December 4, 2008 — Operation Love From Home, Inc., paid an early morning visit to the Loganville Post Office on December 3, 2008. The board members wheeled in two carts full of boxes and packages. The organization had successfully collected 17,637 cards for the holiday card drive. The cards have been shipped to troops stationed overseas in all branches of our military. The board members of the organization are driven knowing they have helped bring smiles to, not only the deployed troops, but also to the wonderful American people who took time to express their love in their holiday cards. Cards have been collected from all over the country for the past several months. The cards collected for the deployed troops express support and gratitude, along with holiday cheer. Operation Love From Home, Inc. appreciates all the love poured into the cards.

This year's drive brought cards from many schools, organizations and clubs. The card readers had the pleasure of proofing cards from a wide variety of groups such as sororities, quilt clubs, cub scouts, BETA clubs, school classes, girl scouts, etc. Many cards were also received from Athens, GA and its surrounding area this year. There were many inquiries from the residents of Athens requesting details.

The support for Operation Love From Home, Inc. has also assisted in the shipping costs. Monies raised throughout the most recent card drive covered the $736.12 postage charge for the holiday cards. They also received a generous donation from Loganville Mini Storage. This year the board members and volunteers were able to operate out of a large storage unit. This allowed them to store their cards in a centralized location as well as utilize a large area for packing their boxes.

Two Georgia-based Internet radio stations have supported Operation Love From Home, Inc. quite a bit this past year. Hounddogradio.net has had the board members in the station on several occasions. The owners, Frank and Cat, have hosted the organization and spoken about their mission throughout their entire broadcast. They continually pushed for the organization's cause. AFBRadio.us has also dedicated a lot of time to the card drives. Its owner and founder, Gilda, has volunteered with Operation Love From Home, Inc. and conducted card drives resulting in thousands of cards. She has also dedicated air time to interviews with various board members. Operation Love From Home, Inc. has been featured several times on BlogTalk Radio's YouServed podcast. MSgt CJ Grisham has referred many people to the organization's website. He has sponsored the organization several times with interviews as well. All these stations deserve great accolades for their effort and support.

Operation Love From Home, Inc. is in the process of becoming a non-profit, 501(c)3 corporation. In order to fulfill this status they must raise at least $350 for their filing fee. Donations can be sent via their website at www.operationlovefromhome.org under the Volunteer/Donation button or mailed to P.O. Box 1660, Loganville, GA 30052. Funds can also be used to purchase items at their online shop. Sale items can be viewed at their website. All monies received thus far have been used for shipping costs for the card drives. The organization is seeking donations for upcoming card drives as well as banking some for the filing fee. For any questions please contact the organization's Treasurer, Patty Burgess at patty@operationlovefromhome.org.

The board members wish to thank everyone who gave their time and efforts with each card drive. Volunteers conduct their own card drives resulting in a handful of greetings to thousands of cards. Every card counts and most of all each card brings love and comfort to a member of the Armed Forces. There is also a strong support from various businesses. Their generosity has assisted Operation Love From Home, Inc. with their efforts to support the troops.

whew All done!

2008-12-03T01:03:00.002-05:00

Yep, the FINAL box of Christmas/Holiday cards has been packed...wooohoo!!!!! At 8:30 tomorrow morning, me & my friends will descend upon the post office (with it's whole THREE service windows, lol) and back the line up for a good long while (sorry Loganville...!).

Now I can go to bed!

After I find my little kids' outfits for tomorrow.

And take a shower.

Aw, who needs sleep? It's over-rated, right? No? Oh well - after the Great Postal Adventure tomorrow, I'm comin home and taking a nice, long NAP!

Brrrr! Cold!!!! But what a good day to pack....

2008-12-02T22:16:00.003-05:00

Today, we (the Op. Love From Home Board members) spent the day packing up all the Christmas/holiday cards we've received for our heroes. A local self-storage facility real near my house was kind enough to donate use of a large storage area (about the size of my garage, but without all our junk in it, haha) to us for a couple months for our Christmas card drive. I don't have the final count of how many cards we took in this year (will have that tomorrow), but we estimate we are somewhere in the neighborhood of 18,000-ish, give or take. Will give y'all the final tally tomorrow! It was such a relief to have somewhere else to store all the cards this year... for once, we could move thru my living room, hahaha! Last year we shipped even more than 18000 cards, and what a challenge that was to negotiate our living room/dining room, while weaving thru stacks and stacks of tens of thousands of Christmas cards, haha! Yeah...thank GOD for the local storage owner guy and his most marvelous donation! The only downside to having a storage unit was that in December, it gets COLD. Like, in the 30s today. We had a small space heater in the unit with us, but it didn't do much if you weren't standing practically on top of the thing. By the time we were done, I think we were life-sized popsicles, haha! :)

I have a few hundred left here at my house (my nice, heated, WARM house!) that I'm in the process of boxing up now. :-) Tomorrow morning, December 3, at 0830, we'll be first in line at the post office with about a gazillion boxes. :-) Yeeehaw!

In spite of a very slow start, we've done alright this time around! I'm most happy about this...approximately 18,000 (that's eighteen THOUSAND - just think on how many people that is!) troops scattered all over the world, in all branches of the service, will receive a Christmas/Holiday card from YOU, yes YOU who sent them in...and YOU will have made a tremendous difference to each and every one of those 18,000 heroes out there. That's approximately 18,000 smiles, because of each of you!

Awesome job, folks! You have our eternal gratitude.

But don't get too comfy...starting in January, I'll be pestering the heck out of you for Valentine's cards and chocolate.... ;-) (Not for me, silly - for the troops!)

Anyway, stand by for the final tally of Christmas Card Drive 2008! I just know you are waiting with bated breath!

Preparing for The Feast!

2008-11-26T22:44:00.002-05:00

Yep, here I am, trying to get as much stuff done for tomorrow (Thanksgiving) as humanly possible (so that tomorrow, in theory, I won't have "that much" to do). Menu for tomorrow:

Bannan-nut bread
Pecan Pies
Yellow cake with chocolate icing and fall-leaf-shaped sprinkles
Deviled eggs
Roasted Pecans (old Southern snack- sugar-coated and roasted...yum)
Sweet Potato casserole, with marshmallows on top, of course
Green bean casserole
Corn on the cob
Turkey
Salad
Homemade Dinner rolls
Mashed potatoes (from scratch of course)
Turkey

So far, I completely screwed up the bannana bread, so that's out. Darn it. However, the first of two pecan pies looks pretty darn good. Hopefully, the next one turns out just as well. The roasted pecans are almost done, too. Then I can get to making the dough for the dinner rolls, and after the last pie is done, can put the cake into the oven. :)

Oops, there goes the timer... back in a while.

Christmas/Holiday Card Drive for Troops! Goal: 50,000!

2008-11-23T13:52:00.000-05:00

OK folks, here we go again, collecting Christmas/Holiday cards for our deployed Heroes!!! This year the goal is the biggest ever: we would like to get at least 50,000 holiday cards to our Heroes in harm's way! We can't accomplish this awesome goal without YOU! Please forward this info on to others you think would be interested in this project, and if you have a blog, please consider posting about it. This is a team effort...together, we can make a real difference to our troops who are missing home during the holidays! Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions. We have a printable flyer we are happy to send you (can also be downloaded from our Yahoo! group), as well as a letter that you can send to local schools/organizations to seek their support. Just drop us a line and we'll be happy to send those items to you. Thank you for your support of our heroes! Info re: Love From Home 2008 is below! Most sincerely, "Mama Kat" Orr, President, Operation Love From Home.

The Mission: To collect at least 50,000 Christmas/Holiday cards for troops stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and all over the world.

The Reason: Being away from home and living in harsh conditions with combat & constant danger is difficult ~ our troops need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives. It keeps them motivated and focused when they know we care about them!

The Address: Send your signed, unsealed thank-you cards to the following address:

Mrs. Kathy Orr
OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME
P.O. Box 1660
Loganville, Georgia, 30052

ALL CARDS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2008.

The Guidelines:

The cards can be handmade or store-bought. This is a great opportunity to get your Scout troop, school, church and other civic organizations involved in doing something to show support for our troops.

Please, no glitter on the cards. Because of the intended destinations of the cards, nothing "shiny" should be sent for safety & security reasons.

*IMPORTANT: This is not a "dating service." Please do not send suggestive or otherwise inappropriate cards or materials. Please also refrain from making political statements of any nature. We will be reading and screening every card received to ensure that the above guidelines are adhered to. Remember: This is strictly to let the troops know that we love them, we are proud of them and that we HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN them! If you have any questions, please contact us at Kat@OperationLoveFromHome.org or info@operationlovefromhome.org

Check out our website: www.OperationLoveFromHome.org for more info!

Life, or Something Like It

2008-11-23T02:35:00.001-05:00

OK, this will be a mishmash of completely random updates, cuz it's 2:35 a.m. EST and I can't sleep, but I'm really tired, so therefore... I'm not at my most eloquent or coherent, LOL! Anyway, here's a general update:

I am still unemployed. Still have not even gotten an INTERVIEW yet with a real employer... Still registered with five headhunters, who are all telling me to be patient, something will come along. Still sending out oodles of resumes daily... and networking, schmoozing, etc. Friday I had to go to a mandatory "Unemployment Orientation" thingy... it was essentially a two-hour lecture on How To Find a Job. Most stuff I already knew, but I did glean some really good tips on jazzing up my resume and making it more loveable to employers, LOL. A bit of a format change, highlighting accomplishments a bit more, weeding out some extranneous information, yadda yadda yadda. So, I'm working on revamping the res. a bit and see if that helps any. I'm also seriously considering trying to find some form of training for a career change ~ being a legal secretary can pay great, and there's tons of lawyers in the universe...but it seems that right now in the ATL area, the market is glutted with out-of-work secretaries and paralegals. But there isn't anything I could get training for fast enough, that would even come close to what I theoretically could make as a secretary... once I find a job again, lol.

Hubby was working two part-time, low-wage jobs, 7 days a week between the two of them. With my unemployment, and his two jobs... we were just over the limit to get food stamps or medicaid. Seriously. How sucky is that??? Esp. considering, I'm not gonna be unemployed FOREVER....SOMEWHERE in ATL or surrounding area, there's a lawyer or two that needs a secretary! I'm starting to think that it might really be true that nothing will open up before New Year's. But we'll see. Anyway, the point is, we'd only need the help for a couple months, maybe 3 at most... but even unemployed, we make too much...even tho we make almost nothing. To make things even more cheerful... the day I got home from the unemployment seminar, hubby advised me that his two jobs have cut his hours... Lowe's, he's only allowed to work up to ten hours (cuz they cut ALL employee's hours by like half), and the pest control company he's working for, well, this is their slow season, and so hubby is only needed for the occasional sales call, one, maybe two days a week. So while I was feeling ok about possibly being able to pay the mortgage next month (or most of it, at least ), between his two jobs, my unemployment, and eating realllly cheap...now, not so much, since those checks are gonna be almost nothing. Even more of nothing than they were before.. or should that be, less of nothing? LOL! I was able to pay the car payments this month (before his hours were cut, as murphy's law would dictate), which is good, they wont' get repoed now, lol.

Fun times, huh? Oh well... us and 999,000 or so other Americans are in this same boat at the moment.. This Too Shall Pass!

Enough whining - on to the bright side! Saturday was the last day of Operation Love From Home's annual Christmas Card Drive for the Troops (see www.OperationLoveFromHome.org). While we fell short of the 50,000-card goal this year (thanx in large part, I believe, to the economy...folks just plain don't have the $$ to buy and ship cards to us), we have raised at least 10,000 cards for sure -- and I think by the time we ship on December 1, we'll hit 15,000 or even more. Cards always pour in during the days following the deadline... that's just the way it goes, lol. That 15,000 or more just a guess on my part... final totals will be announced once we know what they are. :) Last year we shipped well over 27,000 holiday cards in December... so while the 10-15,000 mark is disappointing, still, though - that's 10,000 to 15,000 more SMILES on our Troops' faces than if we had done nothing at all. And THAT'S the important thing. :) Next year will be better... and if things still suck next year, well, no biggie...we'll just carry on and send as many smiles to as many deployed Heroes as possible. We'll just press on and keep on workin' to make our troops' days a bit brighter, however we can.

Anyway, today we (me and the other Board members and some volunteers extraordinaire) set up a table outside the door of our local Walmart to get folks to sign cards for the troops. (And OMG it was freaking FREEZING out there today!!!) I don't know what our final total from today was, they are still being read and counted, but we got a LOT. And also a good bit of postage donations. (This is one thing that is a huge relief to me about becoming a non-profit corporation... the other years, I did this as an individual with community support...so guess whose pocket the postage (or any postage shortfalls) came out of? This year (the year I am literally broke), I don't have to worry about that... the corp. should have enough in the the account to ship our cards and candy canes and such (knock on wood) without me having to stress over it this year. :-) Cuz if it depended on me this year? Um, yeah... we'd have a warehouse fulla cards going nowhere.) So, God is good...it all worked out just fine, becoming a non-profit just a few months prior to everything in my world going downhill, LOL. And truthfully, if it wasn't for three of my dearest friends who are on the Board of Directors with me, I don't know how successful this year woulda been. Between my knee surgery, bronchitis, job searching, and various and sundry crises, LOL - I could NOT have done anything this year, not by myself, on my own. They were (and are) a huge GODSEND, attending events when I couldn't, doing radio interviews, seeking out donations, putting out card-collection boxes around the local community, the works! Heck, they even arranged weeks of dinners for me and the family when I had my knee surgery and couldn't walk or stand for a month following! Yep, God is good, and His blessings are many. :)

Hmmmm.... I guess that's about it for now. I'm really tired and should probably at least try to sleep, LOL! Y'all have a great sunday, and remember to give thanks for everything... 'tis the season, and we have MUCH to be grateful for. :)

Hugs and love to y'all!

OK, so on to plan C...what ever that is...

2008-11-20T12:55:00.002-05:00

OK, Plan B is out the window now. I'm getting unemployment, and hubby WAS working two jobs, six to seven days a week. Between that and unemp., we were getting by at least, though there are several things not being paid, but oh well, all the necessities are being paid for, mostly.

BUT. Now his one job (at Lowe's) has cut back ALL their staff. Full-timers are down to 30 hours a week. The part-timers, no more than TEN hours a week. His pest control job? His boss hired someone else to fill in the gap of hubby working part time at the other place, and now only needs him for "an occaisional sales call" - which means maybe one or two days a week?

Yep, we're screwed!

OPERATION LOVE FROM HOME UPDATE 11-19-08

2008-11-19T16:27:00.004-05:00

Today, we mailed out the Thanksgiving cards we received for the troops. We sent out 449 Thanksgiving cards to troops scattered all over the place - Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Phillippines. Total postage costs were $39.25 for our Thanksgiving shipment. WAY TO GO, Y'ALL!

Just a few days left of our Christmas/Holiday card drive - if you haven't sent in a card or twenty (LOL - every single bit helps!) NOW is definitely the time to do it! We are shipping everything no later than December 1 - so drop everything, sign some holiday cards, and get them in the mail *NOW* -- if not sooner! :-)

Currently, our total stands at 6,200. We have several boxes that are in the process of being read and counted, so that is not our "final" figure by any means.Christmas and holiday cards should be sent to the following address:

Mama Kat Orr
Operation Love From Home
Post Office Box 1660
Loganville, GA 30052

If you need a physical address for overnight shipping, please contact me at Kat@OperationLoveFromHome.org and I will give it to you. :)

For more details and further information about Operation Love From Home, please check out our website at: www.OperationLoveFromHome.org .

Y'all totally ROCK! Thanks for ALL you do to REALLY support our troops!

"...The Feast of My Dreams!"

2008-11-14T18:15:00.002-05:00

Tonight's dinner consisted of:

Meatloaf
Mashed Potatoes (instant, of course, lol) and
Homemade Soup

Eldest son is in a snit (what else is new); eldest daughter not feeling well and ate just a little bit of potatoes and some soup.

Youngest daughter sick with the same stomach bug her father has, so she just ate a bit of soup and back to bed. Hubby sick; ate some soup, went back to bed.

Just when I thought all my efforts were in vain, my youngest son (5) declares out of nowhere:

"In FIVE delicious colors, this is THE FEAST OF MY DREAMS!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Dunno where he got 'five delicious colors" from, but at least I know how to cook the feast of SOMEBODY'S dreams, ROFLOL!!!!!!!

I thought it was all pretty good, if I do say so myself. :)

Keep on Keepin' on....

2008-11-13T01:08:00.003-05:00

When you get to the end of your rope....
...tie a knot and HANG ON!

I'm SO good at tying knots, now, LOL! Things here are the same. Well, worse in some ways. There's way too much going on for me to be able to get into. Suffice it to say, tho, I need your prayers HUGELY. I'm very, very scared for my future...and in the days to come and right this second, I am going to need a TREMENDOUS amout of courage and strength to get thru what is coming our way. And you know what? Courage and strength are two things I really don't have a lot of. I've always been a wuss, LOL... and by now, I'm about tapped out on the whole courage/strength thing. I'm trusting God minute-by-minute, second-by-second, because He is the only one who can get me thru this situation we are facing. It's all out of my hands; there's nothing I can do but keep on doing what I know is right, and trusting God to work it out for the BEST. I've cried out to Him for years, asking for Him to help me...and I know He will, because He always does. But in the process of it all... there are some extraordiniarily rough waters ahead... my whole life will either be completely shattered and absolutely everything stripped away from me (wherein God would then help me to start over and rebuild my life from scratch... again), OR the rough ride ahead will see us come thru it intact, in one piece, and A-OK, with just a few bumps and bruises. Either way... my future is more unknown than ever. All I know, the ONLY thing I know, is that God is good, and even right now, is working all things out for the best for me, for the kids, for all of us. (see also Romans 8:28). I know God is Truth, and He will see to it that Truth prevails in the end. And He will take care of me, no matter what. He always has... and for sure He won't start abandoning me now!

Unemployment hasn't kicked in yet. I've signed up with yet ANOTHER employment agency, my fifth one (this one out in the Athens area - much easier drive than going to ATL, tho it's literally the same distance from my house). I'm still sending out resumes every day, to everywhere I can find. So far, not one interview. Not a one. Thanksgiving is only a coupla weeks away... and Christmas, what? six weeks away? Ack. Somehow both those holidays seem SO far away, even though they are ridiculously imminent! I can't even think or worry about how we are gonna manage the holidays right now. I'm just not going to worry about it - surely within six weeks, I'll get me a job somewhere, LOL! Again, God has ALWAYS taken care of us, no matter what the situation... and I know he'll do it again, somehow! :-)

There's no real point to this post, other than to ask for many prayers.... I need them, badly. I don't handle uncertainty and conflict well, and it seems that uncertainty and conflict are the constants in my life, in one form/fashion or another.

But I know God is with me, and all will be well.

The Endless Search

2008-11-10T19:05:00.001-05:00

The Great Job Search of 2008 continues along relentlessly. I spent the majority of the day on Sunday (you know, when all the new ads pop up in the paper) sending out resumes. Like a million of them! OK, maybe not a million, but by now it feels like it!

My 98 million emailed resumes (this is like a fish story..the amount of resumes sent out just gets bigger each time I tell it, LOL! ) yeilded ONE phone call today. Yay! It was unfortunately from yet ANOTHER staffing agency (which is really the main way law firms here do their hiring, so it's all good, I suppose).

But the thing that made me really happy was...this agency is NOT in Atlanta! This one is in Athens, Ga. (Yes, Dawg Country! Woof!) Athens is the same distance from my home as Atlanta is...but in the OPPOSITE direction. This is important! Going 33 miles to Atlanta each day took me about an hour and a half ONE WAY due to the traffic. The awful, awful mass migration of every single person who lives in the suburbs creeping slowly towards Atlanta each day... a daily ritual I loathe. God forbid if it RAINS or there's some kind of accident. That turns a commute to 2 hours or even more, depending on situation. Did I mention the ever-prsent construction thataway that fouls things up further?

WHEREAS, on the other hand... wandering to and from Athens today took me no longer than 45 minutes (one way).. because, you see, I was moving AWAY FROM ATLANTA. This made me rather happy. While I will, of course, go to Atlanta to work if I must (they pay fabulous salaries in Atlanta... i figure it's hazard pay due to the evil traffic horrors...the seven levels of traffic hell...), but if I can snag a decent-paying job in a less-traffic-y area... I'd be a very happy Kat indeed.

So... anyway, where was i? Oh yeah. Went to Staffing Agency Number 5 (would have been Number 6, but one of the other agencies I was with went outta business... ugh) and did the typing test (to my annoyance, I only scored 68 wpm on the typing test... just last week, I scored 77 wpm on the same 5 minute typing test... my usual is 75-80 wpm..WTH is up with that???) and MS Word test and Excell test and my interview with Madame Headhunter, who was very likeable and nice. She seemed confident that something would come up... they don't have all the hiring freezes and such going on out there... it's still rough in that area, she said, but nowhere near as bad as Atlanta. So something should pop up for me. My measly 68 wpm (seriously...i'm SO annoyed at that) seemed to impress her, actually. Things must go a bit slower out there in the country, lol. ;)

If I can snag a job in or near Athens, that would also be beneficial to my college career. Only a few more credits and I'll have my AA in English.... Then I can transfer to a four-year college, and well, there just so happens to be one in Athens! ;) Or, maybe I could go ahead and transfer, etc. But all that is just "extra" that's floating around my head. I've taken the past 12 months off college and would have to wait until AT LEAST spring, most likely Fall, if I were to go back in 2009 to finish my AA and go forward. But there's a lot of "unknowns" that I have to work thru first... I can't possibly even THINK of going back to college till I have a crapload of other stuff in my personal life worked out first. That all has to be taken care of /worked out and on an even keel, then my job situation, before I'll be able to devote time to that. But... the idea of "just happening" to work so close to a college institution is appealing to me, for "somewhere down the road" when I get back into the swing of academia.. :)

So, anyway, here I am... still unemployed, but blanketing all of Georgia (LOL) with my resumes and trying my darndest to find SOMETHING soon!

SPECIAL REQUEST - Sad News

2008-11-05T21:50:00.003-05:00

(As cross-posted from the Georgia PGR forum)

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been around much. Things here are OK, but still kinda crazy... Much better from my knee surgery, mostly don't need the cane anymore and all is well... next week should be cleared to jump back into the backseat again, LOL! Yay! I'm just about recovered from the bronchitis that seriously clobbered me for a coupla weeks, and I'm turning back into a human being again, LOL! Still job-searching but I got the unemployment office visit outta the way today, so that's a relief at least.

But anyway, this post isn't about me. It's about a very very special family out in Kansas City, Missouri. In 2004, our family adopted a soldier serving his first tour in Iraq. We REALLY adopted this kid, and his whole family. His parents call me "their other daughter" and his mom refers to me as her son's "other mother" (Never mind he's only nine or ten years younger than me, but so's my oldest stepdaughter, so it's all normal to me, lol!). In 2006, his parents flew me up to MO to surprise their son on the first anniversary of his being home from Iraq - and to meet his dear daddy and momma, because his daddy had just been diagnosed with lung cancer. (There's a pic/story about it here... http://crazynightinga.blogspot.com/2006/01/kat-is-back.html and here - http://crazynightinga.blogspot.com/2006/02/war-pen-pals-united-walton-tribune.html - now that I'm wandering down memory lane again, I can't help but re-read this stuff and wish I'd managed to put the pics from my visit on photobucket - the hard copies (in my pre-digital camera days) are in a box "somewhere" to my great sorrow now.

During that trip to MO, the family was awesome - my two favorite memories (aside from surprising my "soldier-baby") are: the "family sing-a-long" that happened on one of the last nights of my visit. Pa Byrd, as I called him, was a lifelong musician and had a local band for decades that sang the country gold classics I so love. His love of music was passed to his children. Me? I adore music but can't carry a tune in a bucket, lol. So, just like in a scene from a holiday film, one night we were all sitting around the kitchen table - Ma Byrd, Pa Byrd, my Soldier, his fiance, his cousin (or nephew, I never can remember) - and they proceeded to pick those guitars and sing the country classics for several hours. I can picture the scene in my mind clearly, and know i have tons of pics from those moments that I can't find right now. It was a moment to remember!

The other thing I remember is Ma and Pa Byrd cheerfully and willingly driving me all over Missouri to visit as many "Jesse James" historical places as humanly possible in one day. As it so happened, our family at this time had adopted a Georgia soldier, a guy who adored "the wild west" and the exploits of Jesse James. So, they happily indulged me in helping to assemble a "Jesse James" themed care package - pics of all the major sites, souvenirs, the works. Care package was a big success when it was received. :) And what a fun day it was, too!!!

Then, in April 2007, our Soldier flew down to Georgia to visit us! That was really cool, too. He'd wanted to be here to work on our house when the whole tv production thing was going on and be there to surprise us when we learned we'd won the house in Feb. 07 (from a now-off-air reality show, for those who may not know the story). That didn't work out, though, and he and his family were greatly distressed to not have been here then. But, it did work out for him to fly down just a couple months later. I DO have a couple pics from that visit, at least! :)

Below: our Soldier, me, and PGR’s very own Scoutdoc! (wonder what he’s up to these days? Anyoene ever hear from him?) We were at a local banquet along with my hubby & kidz, and a Vietnam Veteran neighbor and a Gold Star dad friend of ours.

Sorry for dragging y’all down Memory Lane with me – especially since I have NO sense of direction!

On November 4, 2008 – yesterday – my Missouri Pa lost his battle with lung cancer and heart issues. I found out late last night. It wasn’t until I started writing this post that the full impact really hit me. In my own tiny bubble of life, where so much has diverted my attention from “others” to “surviving right this second and getting thru the current dire crisis of the moment,” I haven’t had time to stop till now and think on it. Maybe I haven’t wanted to, maybe if I didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t be so. Life doesn’t work that way tho, as we all know.

My request, the point of this whole post? If you can, please, please take a minute and post – or email to me at Jeffskat@gmail.com - a message of condolence and support for my Adopted Kid Brother and my Adopted Ma & Family up there in KC. I hope it’s ok to ask this… I’m not online much these days, and it was just far easier to post about this than send out and manage a zillion emails of request. This is a very, very tight-knit, close family, and Pa Byrd was and always will be adored by his family – those related by blood and simply by heart. I worry about how this will affect Kid Bro, who’s had a hard hard time since his return from the Sandbox, from the aftereffects of war.. something I know many of y’all understand all too well. I know in time they’ll be just fine – but the Mama in me worries about my brood… and my heart grieves with theirs… deeply.

Update On My Missing Kids!

2008-11-03T21:37:00.003-05:00

Too tired to go into detail, so y'all get the "in a nutshell" version (all two of y'all out there... *listening to crickets chirp*):

Called cops, said, "Hey, my kids didn't make it to school even tho they left at six to get on the bus like always and they aren't home - HELP!"

Three cop cars arrived in minutes in my driveway. After saying, "Hey, we were here when y'all got this house [from the now-defunct reality show, HomeTeam], cool!" (Great..... Local Semi-Former-Celebrity-Drama, ripe for the picking....shoot me please, I don't wanna be in the police blotter part of the local paper.....) Said they had SEEN the varmints earlier in the day, hollered at them (via the P.A. system on the cop car) to "GET YOUR BUTTS IN SCHOOL!!! NOW!!!" at which time they ran. Advised cops that kids were being exceptionally rebellious lately, blah blah blah, at wits' end, blah blah blah...they said not to worry, kids would most likely be home at their normal time and pretend like they'd been at school the whole time. They told me to act like nothing was wrong, but to sneak out and call them when they arrived home and they'd come assist in inflicting The Wrath of God (which I specifically told them I wanted - fire, brimstone, tar, feathers, you name it... I told the cops that I wanted them to SCARE THE LIVING CRAP outta the kids for doing such a stupid stunt).

Kids come home about 15 mins. before their bus would normally arrive. I cheerily said, "Welcome home, guys - how was school?"

"Interesting"

"Really? Interesting how?"

*shrug*

Uh-huh.... off I went to call cops, on pretense of "checking the mail."

At this time, a neighbor came up to me - "OMG, have you found your kids yet????? I heard it on our police scanner... I'm [name] and I know who you are cuz I saw you on TV last year and..." (here's where I wanted to crawl under a rock and die, LOL... figured (hoped!) everyone forgot about that by now, LOL!). Anyway, she was really nice and was also having problems with HER 14 year old. She actually told the cops, "Hey, when you are done with them, can you come have a nice chat with MY kid, too??" LOL Told her as we were going on the house, LOL - "glad we could help ya!" ;-)

Anyway - cops proceed to very thoroughly ream children and scare the living CRAP out of them. Well, not so much my son. He continued to have BAD ATTITUDE with a captial B and mouth off to the cops, very UNrepentant, just bad. Cops were NOT amused. Neither was I. My daughter seemed legitimately terrified and sorry. Good. They didn't really MEAN to skip school, it was all an ACCIDENT cuz they missed the bus and didn't wanna get in trouble. Um, might I say (and the cop DID say) Bravo Sierra! (Only, of course, he used the actual words and not the more polite abbreviation, hehe.) For not wanting to get in trouble, they sure did manage to get in a world of it!

After cops left, suddenly daughter was REMARKABLY helpful and obedient for the first time in a looonggg time. Funny how that happens, huh? Son...not so much. Still very defiant, refusing to do anything he's told, etc... Highly PO'd.

That varmint is a stubborn one...but guess who he inhereted his stubbornness from?! *evil grin* Nope, that's just NOT gonna go in my house....a lead balloon would fly better than that crap. Fed up - they're gonna learn A Very Big Lesson now.

So - tomorrow will be more "chats" with the school resource officers at their various schools along with the school's implementation of Very Severe Disciplinary Measures (in addition to whatever we are concocting... so far, "grounded for life" is on the list.....So far as I know, this is the first time they've done this. By God, I'm going to do everything in my power to see that it's the LAST! No "kids will be kids" here - they are SO gonna learn that this is NOT freakin' acceptable, and Mama Kat don't play that.. Notta chance. Grrr!

On the bright side, they are home SAFELY in one piece (now fully immersed in Very Hot Water and Deep Doo-Doo!).

Tomorrow's list of Things to Do: Vote, Unemployment, whatever the school needs us to do.

At least being so mad/scared/worried/furious gave me the extra energy I needed today to get my other room clean. I now have a clean living room, clean dining room, and a 90% clean kitchen. yay...my house is getting back to livable and pleasant again. Well, except for the drama. But at least, it's nearly clean again. Yay!

Nighty-night, y'all... have a good one. And for God's sake, BEHAVE! I have enough trouble to worry about at the moment, lol.

Just great....

2008-11-03T12:33:00.004-05:00

Well, I DID get a call from the school today (see previous post). Only problem was, it wasn't the elementary school calling about a puking 5 year old. It was the middle school where my 13 y/o goes. They wanted to know if he was OK, since he's almost NEVER absent from school. Excuse me, but...

WTF?!

*ahem* Absent? Gee, golly - he and his sister both LEFT THE HOUSE this morning shortly after 6 a.m. to catch their bus as they do every morning. I was AWAKE and even SPOKE to the varmint before he left - so I KNOW he left...he sure as heck isn't HERE... I searched around (thank God for small houses, lol) - so where the ^&(^&*(&*( is he?!

AAAAACCCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Edited to Add:

WTF?! I called the high school...charming eldest daughter is not there, either!!!

OMG!

*panics*

Well, ok then...

2008-11-03T09:11:00.002-05:00

Called the local unemployment office to find out if I needed an appt, what their hours were, what I needed to bring, etc. (I know, all dumb questions, but I've never done this before, so...!) They told me that Monday is their WORST day, and that they are already (at not even 9:00 a.m. yet) EXTREMELY backed up - as in, wait times of several hours - and that I really should come in on another day, not today. ARGH! I really wanted to get there today and get this done. I didn't realize they opened at 7:30 in the a.m. - I thought it was like 8:30 or 9:00 a.m. Had I known that.... I woulda been there right at 7:30 and at the front of the line.

Between my lingering bronchitis and my knee (which is in a lot of pain because I've been busting my butt trying to make my house livable again... it got downright NASTY during the several weeks I was down from my knee surgery. Food was cooked and laundry was done, but NOTHING, and I do mean NOTHING, else was. So all weekend I worked on trying to get it livable again, at least so it's not a health-code violation - a very slow process, cuz i still can't get down on the floor and such to reach under things and still can't lift heavy stuff or climb to reach high stuff and... but I digress), sitting there for several hours today is a BAD idea. Plus, my 5 yr-old was throwing up last night and felt like he was running a low fever... he seemed OK this morning and wanted to go to school, but I'm still half-expecting to get a call from the school today saying he's sick.

I'm thinking my best bet will be to go tomorrow. Election Day... I wonder if that will make the crowds lesser?? Voting is going to be a nightmare. No, I didn't early vote or vote-by-mail, being somewhat occupied with recouping from surgery and then working and re-learning to walk and all..... so I have to do it "in person" tomorrow. Ugh, not gonna be fun. But maybe if I'm early enough... No WAY am I going to miss voting tomorrow, nu=uh, not gonna happen. If the wrong one wins and I didn't vote, I'd sooo never be able to forgive myself. And besides that, regardless of who wins, countless thousands of heroes have died thru the past 200+ years so that I'd have the FREEDOM to be ABLE to Vote. Spit on their sacrifice by not doing it, when I can? Nope, not gonna happen! So... tomorrow - vote, then go immediately to the unemp office. If I get stuck there tomorrow for hours, well then, whatever. I'll get some cough drops today to take with me tomorrow, lol. (I need 'em anyway.) I kinda wanna go to the unemp. office first, really, BUT looking at it practically, the unemp. office has chairs; voting lines do not. If I'm going to be stuck for hours somewhere tomorrow, darn it, it will be somewhere with chairs. LOL!

This makes me mad! I wanted to get my unemp. done TODAY. Cuz it takes FOREVER (3 weeks) to get your first check. Ack! But whatever. I have a feeling that if I push myself too much today after practically killing myself all weekend, I wont' be able to move tomorrow hardly. Can't afford a relapse when I'm just starting to get well, cuz I'm insurance-less now. So, I'll chill today (sort of.... got dishes, laundry and another room to tackle today....trying to do one room a day if I can - thank God our house is small, lol - but it sure is a horrible mess), plan on being gone all day tomorrow; then on Wednesday, vegetate and recouperate and hibernate. :-)

TWENTY BUCKS!

2008-11-01T16:28:00.002-05:00

Yay! It only cost me TWENTY BUCKS to fill up my car today! Gas was $2.08 - down 17 cents from just yesterday! My car had just under a quarter of a tank. When I went out to the bank and library to return some books, I couldn't believe the prices. I was even more thrilled to have it only cost $20 to fill up my car! Not too long ago, it was $40-$50.

Yay!

OK, A Little Better.....

2008-11-01T12:39:00.001-05:00

Finally, today I feel a little bit more human. The antibiotics must be working! I'm still achey-feeling, my throat is still sore a bit, but I'm not coughing up a lung every five minutes like I was before. More like every 20-30 mins, lol. Still coughing, still very phlegm-y, but my chest isn't aching quite as badly as it was yesterday, my pulse isn't racing today, and I'm not feeling so much like I'm breathing under water. I'm definitely not anywhere close to 100% yet, BUT I do feel significantly more human today than I have for a week. This makes me VERY happy! Maybe I'll eat something today - and maybe even it'll have flavor??? LOL! Dontcha love how when you're sick, everything tastes like cardboard??? I've been making myself eat soup, soft pasta, etc, because it makes my sore throat feel better, but it's all tasted like old cardboard. Not that I know exactly what old carboard would taste like, exactly, but still.

I spent the day so far today making a million calls. Financial/credit counselling people. Mortgage company. Car finance places. Over and over repeating the pitiful spiel - I was out of work for six weeks due to knee surgery, didn't get a paycheck on 10/15 (well, $200 but with six people to feed in the house, that barely counts), got laid off yesterday, can't buy groceries, yadda yadda yadda. I've been in tight spots before, but NEVER this bad. Hubby is working two part-time jobs (the idea being that the one new part-time job will turn into a real full-time job - the other job is very unreliable and he's almost ALWAYS paid several days LATE...infuriating) but that only would pay for groceries, one or two small bills, gas for the cars. Very vital, of course- but not enough for us to live on. My check carried everything else - mortgage, car payment, utilities, student loans, the works. Now my check is gone, poof... and there's NOTHING, no backup, no safety net, blah blah blah (see prior post, lol). Scary. Very scary. Never, ever been in a spot like this before. The car payment folks most likely can put my Oct. car payment (that was due on 10/23) to the end of the loan (pending upper management approval, but never been late so it should be ok), BUT I'll HAVE to make the 11/23 car payment ON TIME. Three weeks. No job. Yikes. Hopefully, in three weeks I'll have a job, etc. :) But whatever - I'll do what I can do and God will work it out somehow.

I feel a LOT better since I broke down and called the mortgage company and explained the situation. I had EXACTLY enough to pay the mortgage - but if I paid the mortgage, that would completely and totally wipe us out. Literally to the last dime. And we seriously have NO groceries. And the car insurance payment comes out of the bank account next week automatically. Did I mention, NO groceries???? Anyway, since I've never ever ever been late before, and I called them before this payment was late, it's all good. I filled out the paperwork to request hardship assistance. This should get me a two-or-three-month forbearance, during which payments would be put "on hold," OR it will put a couple months of payments at the end of the mortgage loan and help that way. I guess that's kinda like the same thing two different ways, lol, but whatever. Of course, it takes like a MONTH for someone to contact you after you send in the paperwork, but since I called them, it's all good for the moment. They were very reassuring and very helpful. So, i feel better now. Hopefully, by the time they finally contact me to work out the deferment/forbearance, I'll have a job. Course, I've been looking for weeks already, but I'm just not going to think about that right now. Somewhere in Atlanta, some lawyer needs a darn good secretary, so I won't be unemployed much longer. I just hope I can find something that will pay enough...that's the scary part. With my recent knee surgeryand the problems I have with my feet, I can't stand long periods of time - taking a part-time waitressing job or Walmart job to supplement my income is OUT. Physically, I just can't do it. That's very frustrating, having that option closed to me, but luckily I LOATHE waitressing and retail work - do NOT have the personality or patience (or speed and coordination, lol) for it. But still, if I had to and could do it, I would. But again, whatever. I can only do what I can do at the moment.
Anyway, now I've got to figure out one more bill and figure out groceries (Angel Food Ministries, St. Vincent de Paul Society, etc), and I'm done for the day. Monday is the Journey to the Unemployment Office - another scary first!!!!! From my research, I've found the Georgia is woefully inefficient with processing claims - it will be about a MONTH before I get my first payment. And that will be a small pitance each week. But it's better than ZERO each week! :) Oh, and I'll have to see about getting insurance for the kids. Three of the four are on expensive medications each month that they need...and what if they get sick???

I hope on Monday I'm fully recovered from this bronchitis thing... just sitting here in one spot making phone calls has done me in. Ack!

But, it was worth it... things are OK-ish for right this second. One step at a time, one minute at a time. And God is good - ALL the time!

Scared Spitless

2008-10-28T19:34:00.004-05:00

This is the scariest Halloween ever: It's my last day of work.

Final paycheck - do I pay the car payments and utility bills (ALL of which were due on the 14th) and buy food? Or do I pay the mortgage and lose the cars? And wonder about food?

I'm so scared I can't even see straight.

NO - repeat NO family support WHATSOEVER. Emotionally or otherwise. Exact opposite, in fact, to the extreme.

NO credit. (thanx, ten billion co-pays since June for my "sprained" knee, surgery and extended recovery period beyond what my disability coverage was for....)

NO savings (thanx, ten billion co-pays since June, surgery and extended recovery period.....)

NO anything at all.

And though I've been sending out my resume for WEEKS, even before I had my surgery, I've had NO job leads - NONE. My firm is not the only one laying off in the ATL - many others are, too.

I just want to go to sleep and not wake up.

EVER.

Operation Love From Home Update 10-19-08

2008-10-19T13:06:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Operation Love From Home participated in the annual "Loganfest" community festival. It was a resoundingly HUMONGOUS success! We collected 1,194 cards for our heroes in that ONE DAY alone, and between selling t-shirts/bracelets/hats and getting outright donations from folks, we raised $305 towards postage and supplies!!!! (that's huge...last year, mailing 27,000 cards cost us about $800 -- since we are doubling the goal this year, postage will be more expensive, as well. More cards = more shipping!).

Will finish counting the cards picked up at the post office over the weekend soon, and post our grand total so far ASAP. (Note: the totals reflect the number of cards we actually have in our possession - not including the number of folks who "have xx amount of cards and will send soon.")

We still have a long, long way to go to get to our goal of 50,000 cards, though... but we can do it! :)

Walking, Working & Wondering....

2008-10-13T12:45:00.003-05:00

Well, I've got good news, good news, and bad news.

Good news: NO MORE WHEELCHAIR! (I'm up and walking around again (with my trusty cane, of course) and healing well. 2 more months of physical therapy, and i'm good to go. Woohoo! I've been walking since Wednesday the 8th. My leg is still weak and shakey, but is getting stronger every day. I can't bend or straighten my leg all the way just yet, but it's getting there. Pain isn't too bad, but at the end of the day, my knee is swollen up quite a bit. Thank God for ice packs and pain killers, lol. ;)

Good news: Today, I am back at work in my office, happy to be feeling like a normal human being again (Hey, I heard that! Normal for "me" anyway, lol). Things here are really, really, really slowwwww........ slow to the extreme. Hence why I'm able to pop in here and remind everyone I'm still alive, LOL... I'm not busy even a little bit. Which leads to...

Bad news: I'm back at work this week, but Friday is my last day. [Edit - thank God, they extended my last day to 10/31, so that helps some!] See aforementioned slowness of work, which leads to layoffs, of which I am one of the unlucky ones. More layoffs will be coming down in the weeks to come. Have been sending out my resume and meeting with headhunters and such since I was granted permission by the doc to walk last Wednesday, but it's ugly out there and while I know I'll find something, it may take a minute or two. Honestly, right now we are in a really, really bad way... we won't have our car payments this month, only able to pay one utility bill and buy groceries, even with hubby's check. I'm definitely applying for unemployment this week, so that will be something, but, never having gotten unemployment before, I don't know how long it all takes to process, etc. Ugh. But, God will provide and see us thru, of that I have no doubt. Just keep us in your prayers, y'all...we sure do need 'em.

So, that's my lill update from our corner of the world. My laptop is still dead, so my internet access is sporadic when I'm home...so if I'm not posting, it doesn't mean I don't care, just means I can't get online, LOL!

"Here's your sign!"

2008-09-21T19:07:00.002-05:00

And in today's Stupid Quote of the Day:

*Woman peering closely at my knee brace, very, very visible stitches that are still there, and scars*

"OMG, did you have STITCHES?!"

"Surgery usually necessitates having stitches afterwards."

Argh.

Best shower ever

2008-09-16T22:22:00.001-05:00

I feel human again!

--
======================
Send a deployed soldiers some Love from home!
www.OperationLoveFromHome.org

Be a Hero's Hero! Adopt a deployed servicemember today!

www.AnySoldier.com
www.adoptaplatoon.org
www.webofsupport.com

HONOR THE FALLEN: WWW.PATRIOTGUARD.ORG

^j^ Remembering SGT Michael Stokely ^j^
Hometown: Loganville, GA
KIA 16 August 2005: Iraq

^j^ Remembering PFC Kenneth "Aaron" Kincaid^j^
Hometown: Lilburn, GA
KIA 23 September, 2006: Iraq

^j^ Remembering SPC Cristian Rojas-Gallego ^j^
Hometown: Loganville, GA
KIA 02 August 2007: Iraq

^j^ Remembering PFC Edgar Cardenas ^j^
Hometown: Lilburn, GA
KIA 22 August 2007: Iraq

^j^ Remembering Cpl. Jonathan R. Ayers ^j^
Hometown: Snellville, GA
KIA 13 July, 2008: Afghanistan

--WE WILL NEVER FORGET--

PostOp Doc Appt!

2008-09-16T15:43:00.001-05:00

Just got back from my official post-op doc appt. He took off my bandages ('cept for a couple new bandaids), got rid of the ace wrap, etc, leaving me with just my leg brace (which still has to stay on 24/7). My knee/lower leg is several glamourous shades of blue, green, black. yellow, etc... very sexy coloring there!!!!

He also losened the brace so it's not locked in a straight position anymore... I'm bendy again! OK, so it's not VERY bendy yet, LOL - but it sure is easier to get around now, whether on my walker or in my wheelchair. It's still COMPLETELY non-weightbearing for three more weeks, so I'm still confined to wheelchair or walker for the time being. I go back again on Oct. 8 to my ortho doc for another checkup, but start physical torture, er, therapy, tomorrow. Best of all, I can FINALLY get an actual SHOWER again, THANK GOD!!!

The first stop on the way home was to Great Clips to get my hair SHAMPOOED finally...yay. I'm suddenly MUCH happier and feel MUCH more human now, lol!

Doc appt tues

2008-09-15T23:14:00.001-05:00

My post/op dr appt is at 1:45. Hopefully stitches come out and i can
shower... Nobody should EVER go 8 days w/out having their hair washed
...that is beyond gross and i am NOT a happy kat!
2night was a very bad night. I continue 2
need yer prayers tho i cant say y.

--
======================
Send a deployed soldiers some Love from home!
www.OperationLoveFromHome.org

Be a Hero's Hero! Adopt a deployed servicemember today!

www.AnySoldier.com
www.adoptaplatoon.org
www.webofsupport.com

HONOR THE FALLEN: WWW.PATRIOTGUARD.ORG

^j^ Remembering SGT Michael Stokely ^j^
Hometown: Loganville, GA
KIA 16 August 2005: Iraq

^j^ Remembering PFC Kenneth "Aaron" Kincaid^j^
Hometown: Lilburn, GA
KIA 23 September, 2006: Iraq

^j^ Remembering SPC Cristian Rojas-Gallego ^j^
Hometown: Loganville, GA
KIA 02 August 2007: Iraq

^j^ Remembering PFC Edgar Cardenas ^j^
Hometown: Lilburn, GA
KIA 22 August 2007: Iraq

^j^ Remembering Cpl. Jonathan R. Ayers ^j^
Hometown: Snellville, GA
KIA 13 July, 2008: Afghanistan

--WE WILL NEVER FORGET--

Still alive

2008-09-13T23:47:00.001-05:00

Surgery went well. Damage far worse than thought: nonweightbearing for
several weeks. Things here rough but managing. no internet: laptop
dead. Can get email on phone so keep em comin.

--
======================
Send a deployed soldiers some Love from home!
www.OperationLoveFromHome.org

Be a Hero's Hero! Adopt a deployed servicemember today!

www.AnySoldier.com
www.adoptaplatoon.org
www.webofsupport.com

HONOR THE FALLEN: WWW.PATRIOTGUARD.ORG

^j^ Remembering SGT Michael Stokely ^j^
Hometown: Loganville, GA
KIA 16 August 2005: Iraq

^j^ Remembering PFC Kenneth "Aaron" Kincaid^j^
Hometown: Lilburn, GA
KIA 23 September, 2006: Iraq

^j^ Remembering SPC Cristian Rojas-Gallego ^j^
Hometown: Loganville, GA
KIA 02 August 2007: Iraq

^j^ Remembering PFC Edgar Cardenas ^j^
Hometown: Lilburn, GA
KIA 22 August 2007: Iraq

^j^ Remembering Cpl. Jonathan R. Ayers ^j^
Hometown: Snellville, GA
KIA 13 July, 2008: Afghanistan

--WE WILL NEVER FORGET--

Stupid Ways to Hurt Yourself...

2008-09-06T19:23:00.002-05:00

If there is a Really Stupid Way To Hurt Myself, I can garantee that I WILL find it.

So... in doing laundry today, a washcloth got stuck in the dryer somehow. I yanked on it, but it was really stuck. I bent down as much as I could (not easy given the un-bendiness of my injured, pre-surgery knee) and yanked on that washcloth more. It finally jerked free suddenly, making me snap back & up with less than wonderful balance. Somewhere along the way, my face connected with a pair of large BBQ tongs on top of the dryer that were conveniently poking out just enough to be detrimental.

Now I have four scratches on my face, shaped exactly like the ridges of that stupid pair of tongs. One is about an inch long, the next a lill shorter, and so on till the last one is barely there.

Just call me ScarFace.

Operation Love From Home, Inc. - UPDATE!

2008-09-03T14:42:00.001-05:00

Great news! Operation Love From Home, Inc., is now officially incorporated with the Georgia Secretary of State's Office! (Just in time, too.... we'll be collecting Christmas/Holiday cards for the troops starting very soon...Oct. 1, to be exact... our first big card drive as an "official organization!")

The next move is to apply for our 501(c)(3) non-profit tax-exempt status with the IRS. Our attorneys will be getting that started as soon as possible ~ stay tuned for more details!

In other news....

We have several groups of troops who have signed up through our website to receive holiday cards & goodies, some of whom have requested Halloween cards/goodies, etc. for their platoons. So if you are looking for a quick little project for your kids or scout troops or what have you... here's your chance! (yes, we'll take donations of candy, but no chocolate or melty stuff just yet..still too freakin' hot in the desert for melty stuff!).

Thanks everyone for all your hard work in making this group such a success...our Heroes thank you, and we thank you as well!

One (Limping) Step Closer!

2008-09-02T14:48:00.001-05:00

Today was my pre-op visit with my surgeon's physician's assistant... you know, the one where they tell you all the dos and don'ts and give you the prescriptions for your painkillers and whatnot prior to surgery, lol... so all that went well. They are gonna replace the ACL thingy with one from a cadaver (insert "walking dead" joke here), which I knew already, and take care of a couple of meniscus tears (one on each side). He did tell me one thing I hadn't known before... they couldn't quite tell "exactly" where the meniscus tear is. Depending on the location of the tears, they will either (a) be able to trim away the torn-up part, which would be preferable and a considerably faster recovery, or (b) they will have to repair the tears, which will, according to the phys. assistant, be a bit of a longer recovery before I can use that leg fully. They really won't know the full extent and precise location of the meniscus tears until they are actually "inside." Oh joy.

I will be SO glad to get this over with and return to Life As Normal again!

Vietnam War Facts

2008-09-01T09:55:00.003-05:00

While randomly surfing the internet today (yes, procrastinating cleaning the house... LOL!) I stumbled across the information posted below. Since I was born in 1973 and missed the whole thing, my knowledge of this war is somewhat limited...though since I am honored to have so very many friends who were there, I try to learn up on it when I can. So, for your reading enlightenment, here you go...

Vietnam War: Facts, Stats & Myths
Credit: Capt. Marshal Hanson, USNR (Ret.)and Capt. Scott Beaton,
Statistical Source

9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the official
Vietnam era from August 5, 1964 to May 7, 1975.

2,709,918 Americans served in uniform in Vietnam.

Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation.

240 men were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War.

The first man to die in Vietnam was James Davis, in 1958. He was with the
509th Radio Research Station. Davis Station in Saigon was named for him.

58,148 were killed in Vietnam.

75,000 were severely disabled.

23,214 were 100% disabled.

5,283 lost limbs.

1,081 sustained multiple amputations.

Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21.

11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old.

Of those killed, 17,539 were married.

Average age of men killed: 23.1 years.

Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old.

The oldest man killed was 62 years old.

As of January 15, 2004, there are 1,875 Americans still unaccounted for
from the Vietnam War.

97% of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged.

91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served.

74% say they would serve again, even knowing the outcome.

Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age
groups.

Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group
by more than 18 percent.

87% of Americans hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.

There is no difference in drug usage between Vietnam Veterans and
non-Vietnam Veterans of the same age group (Source: Veterans Administration
Study).

Vietnam Veterans are less likely to be in prison - only one-half of one
percent of Vietnam Veterans have been jailed for crimes.

85% of Vietnam Veterans made successful transitions to civilian life.

There's more, but I did not post it all. So click HERE and read on. :) And while you are at it, buy some of THIS "Welcome Home" stuff...even to this day, there are those who have never been welcomed home! :( And that just ain't right. I ordered a few bumper stickers (one for my Kat-mobile, and some to keep handy to give out as needed) and a T-shirt. A portion of the proceeds goes to this charity.

Here's a pic of the bumper stickers:

And a closeup of the front of the t-shirt I ordered. The back has a map of Vietnam, with the years the war was fought underneath. Not sure if I'll keep it for myself and wear it as a mobile "welcome home billboard," so to speak, (in order to convey my gratitude and my belated "welcome home" to veterans I may not know as I run around on my errands) or give it to someone who was actually there. I'll know when the time is right what do to with it, and when. :)

Have YOU thanked a Veteran today??? If not... hop to it!

Sad but true!

2008-08-30T10:07:00.001-05:00

OK, so the below isn't exactly a true story, probably, but I could see it happening.....

A biker is riding by the zoo, when he sees a little girl's leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull Her inside to eat her, under the eyes of her screaming parents. The biker jumps off his bike; runs to the cage; and hits the lion squarely on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain, the lion jumps back.... Letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.

A New York Times reporter has watched the whole event. The reporter addressing the biker says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I ever saw a man do.'

The biker replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really..... The lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger, and acted as I felt right.'

The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist from the New York Times, you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page. So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?''

The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine.... And a Republican.'

The journalist leaves.

The following morning, the biker buys The New York Times to see if it indeed brings news of his actions, and reads, on front page:

U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH!

FINALLY....

2008-08-28T12:55:00.002-05:00

....it cost me less than $53 to fill up my car! $45.00 even, to be exact. That's with gas at $3.37 per gallon down thisaway. ;) (OK, technically it was $3.47 a gallon, but with my "Kroger Plus Savings Card" it knocked off an additional ten cents). Yippee! :)

Eight Days till surgery!

2008-08-28T09:44:00.002-05:00

Okee dokee, we are on the final countdown till I get anesthetized, cut up, and put back together again. How fun. Not. LOL! But on the bright side... I'll have a functional knee again...eventually! :)

This weekend, a friend of mine is driving down (a 90-minute drive for her), along with her kidz, to help me get rid of the clutter in my bedroom (a/k/a, main recovery area and make things more maneuverable for me.

Next weekend, a whole swarm of other folks are coming over to do stuff like clean out the gutters and my garage, so's I can get in the house again after surgery.

Then the 8th is my surgery, and I'll be all ready to go. :)

Otherwise I'm doing well, just very sleepy, lol.

Useless Quiz Thing... What Time of Day are you?

2008-08-15T22:02:00.001-05:00

You Are Sunset

Even though you still may be young, you already feel like you've accomplished a lot in life.

And you feel free to pave your own path now, and you're not even sure where it will take you.

Maybe you'll pursue higher education in a subject you enjoy - or travel the world for a few years.

Either way, you approach life with a relaxed, open attitude. And that will take you far!

What Time Of Day Are You?

Thanks to LL for getting me trapped in the Blogthings quiz website for the past several minutes, ROFLOL!

Fun fun fun....

2008-08-14T13:36:00.002-05:00

Getting things ready for surgery is just oh so much fun... not! ha. Today, faxed FMLA paperwork to doc, and hope it makes its way back to me before HR's deadline (it should, of course, but I'm paranoid about that and will be following up for sure!). Next, I had to call our firm's short-term disability carrier to submit my short-term disability claim. For employees who've been around less than 5 years but more than 1 year, they give you 28 days of paid short-term disability. Doc says I'll be out of work only 3 or 4 weeks at most, so that's just perfect. Anything more than that, I have to use whatever leave time I have left... which by this time is precious little for sure. :( Then, I had to fax to the doc the paperwork authorizing them to release info to the disability insurance carrier.

I'll be so glad to get this over with... I've been in a pain-med-induced fog since my injury (even at work, when I don't take anything stronger than advil, I'm still in a residual fog from the stronger stuff I take at night before bed). It will be a wonderful thing when I can (A) stop hurting and (B) think clearly again! :-)

My knee hurts... and now that I know that there "really is" something bad wrong with it, I don't feel "guilty" or totallly like a wuss for saying so, like I did before when I was told it was "just" a simple sprain!!

I'm trying to line up folks to help out the day of and the day(s) following the surgery, as hubby may not be able to take off work. And even if he can, he'll still be busy taking care of four kids and housework and homework and laundry and.... etc... so I'm trying to line up some folks who can come help take care of me, LOL! Obviously, I'll be severely mobility-limited for at least a few days. Tonight I'm going HERE and am pre-assembling 12 meals that will remain frozen till needed, and I'm going back on the 4th to get 12 more put together. That way, after my surgery on the 8th, we'll have somewhere between 12 and 24 dinners (not lunches or breakfasts) ready to go...depending on how many we eat beforehand because I'm not cooking even now... still avoiding the whole standing/walking thing as much as possible, lol.

Am mentally thinking of things that need to be done by the 8th, to try to figure out how to get them done. On the 7th, hubby (or someone) will need to move the motorcycle OUT of our garage (eeek... I hate that!) so that I have room to move thru the garage into the house. Either that, or more stuff from the garage needs to be moved to the shed (which i think is actually FULL) so I can get AROUND the motorcycle into the house... there is no way can I climb the front porch stairs after major outpatient knee surgery, lol. Come to think of it, it would be a lovely thing if we could come up with some kind of "ramp" or something to make it easier for me to get into the house from the garage...there is that ONE step up from the garage into my (hubby's) office. It's no big deal right now, but immediately following surgery???? Uh, yeah...that one step will be a big deal. Must clean up my room to make it more presentable and easier to navigate (my room has become the "catch-all junk-room" somehow, lol -- complicated and exacerbated by the fact that I can't get bend/lift because of my knee, so stuff ends up where it ends up - and stays there. ::sigh::

Lessee...what else? Food, garage, room.... I think that's about it for my "list of things I need to do" at the moment.

Calgon, take me AWAY!

Back again, asking for prayers....

2008-08-13T08:42:00.002-05:00

OK, so..... way back in JUNE, I was taking a motorcycle safety course so I could get my license and graduate from "passenger" to "not having to beg friends for rides and wait till they are available and feel like toting me around" LOL. Well, I was doing good up till about 2/3 of the way thru day 3 of the class, when I had a tiny bit of a mishap and ended up on the pavement. Ooops. At the time, I was diagnosed with "just a severe sprain."All was apparently going well with physical therapy and my overall recovery,except that from time-to-time, I'd end up on the ground because of my knee collapsing suddenly. Realizing that "somthin' aint' right with this" (i'm agenius, huh?! argh....) I *finally* insisted on getting an MRI. So, a couple weeks back, I went to the orthopedic doc recommended by my primary care doc, and got my MRI. Yesterday (one week after the MRI, ugh) I went back to the doc to find out the results.

The verdict is that my ACL is*completely* torn (which explains why it randomly throws me to the ground like it does),and the miniscus (to a lesser degree) is torn on both sides. Yep, I messed my whole knee up good! Ugh. But the bright side is, they have FINALLY got aREAL diagnosis and are going to FIX IT! I'm so releived to know (a) WHAT iswrong (I'd *suspected* both conditions) and (b) that it can and will be FIXED.

So, I'm having outpatient surgery on Monday, September 8. They are going to replace my ACL with a cadaver ACL, and fix the meniscus. I'll be out of work for three or four weeks (doc said 3 weeks most likely, but it depends on howthe knee is healing and such,so that's kind of a question mark). Will be offcrutches in 1-2 weeks if all goes well. And yes, I will make a ful lrecovery and (several months from now) will be back to riding!!!! :-)

Just thought I'd update you all on what is up with me, and ask for prayers.... I'm a total wimp, and am very, very thankful in advance for all the prayers you can muster up for me!!!!

Drained...

2008-08-02T21:47:00.001-05:00

Long, but amazing day.

The emotions and the heat have left me drained. I have cooled down from the heat, but now the emotions are catching up to me.

I'm gonna crash.

More tomorrow, maybe.

THANK YOU FROM THE MARINES

2008-08-02T15:52:00.001-05:00

I arrived home after a funeral today to find a special treat (and much needed smile) in my mailbox. Seeing that "free mail" always does the trick! This letter was received in response to our recent Operation Love From Home 4th of July card drive. Y'all truly made a great difference for this bunch of Marines (and several others, as well!).

Dear MamaKat,

We would like to take some time to thank you for sending us thank you cards. It means a lot to all of us over here when we receive thank you cards; it lets us know that people are still supporting us. Once again we would like to thank you for all your support.

Sincerely,

The Marines
(and each Marine in the platoon signed the letter)

How cool is that?! Great job y'all.... you did good. Remember, thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner, so start thinking of ways to gather up bunches of holiday cards and goodies for our heroes!!! Stay tuned to our website for more details re: our upcoming holiday card drives. You rock, each and every one of y'all!

In Honor of My Hero

2008-07-28T21:16:00.005-05:00

WARNING: TISSUE ALERT.

This weekend, I lost a friend and hero. He was the living embodiment of all a hero should be, and was strong till the end. In an attempt to process & work through everything that has happened from Thursday to Sunday, and so that I always remember, I've written this below. Originally, I was not going to post this -- it seems far too personal somehow. But on the other hand, this was and is a true hero. I want you to know him, I want you to remember him, I want you to honor him by remembering him and living your life to the fullest - and by always, always, always honoring our veterans and currently-serving troops. There were many others who knew him far better than I, and were able to visit him more often than I was before he left us. But I must pay tribute to him as best I can, for I loved him and his precious wife and family. Please accept this for what it is - a tribute to a real hero, and may your heart be touched by his courageous example, as mine was.

SSG Norman H. Currin went to be with the Lord shortly after 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 27, 2008. Exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War messed him up. For thirteen years, he fought serious physical problems all the time. Six of those years, he got dialysis 3 times a week and for many years was also confined to a wheelchair.

The last six months were a whirlwind of hospital stays back-to-back-to-back - strokes, pnumonia, complications from being a dialysis patient, infection of his dialysis port & bedsores, and lastly, a massive heart attack on Tuesday. Nothing the docs could have done would have saved him, the treatments would have killed him.

Norman bravely made the decision on Wednesday to accept hospice care. Despite massive amounts of morphine and being in a medically-induced coma when I first got to the hospital on Thursday, he still communicated. He'd squeeze our hands when we said certain things (any of his friends' names or anything about motorcyles, fthe military, or especially his dear family, for example).

The day before he died, while on "enough morphine to choke a horse" (said the nurse), he fully and completely woke up and looked at each one of us - plain as day told each of us one by one, "I love you." He was holding my hand so tightly, my hand fell asleep. He held my hand and the hands of his family and friends strongly off and on for hours all weekend- always his squeezes were in response to something that was said to him, not simply random.

About 3 hours before he left us, he woke up again. He couldn't open his eyes or talk, tho he was obviously trying. He would turn in the direction of our voices and smile - SMILE!! - at us. Then he slipped back into his deep sleep once more...

Shortly thereafter, his lungs were completely filled with fluid as a result of no dialysis for the past week --- a few more brave (but ineffective) breaths, and he was gone.

A phone call was made as planned upon his passing, and others from from the Patriot Guard Riders, together with some riders from the Wingmen and Sons of Thunder who were his dearest, dearest friends, came to the hospital and escorted him and his family to the funeral home in the middle of the night. Talk about an amazing and humbling honor.

This man, who walked out of a POW camp after two weeks of torture (the scars were still on his arms), fought on Hamburger Hill and lived to tell about it, stayed strong to the very, very end. It was an amazing thing to see -- if ever there was a true hero, Norman Currin is it.

He was treated cruelly upon his return from Vietnam, as so many of our veterans were. But I have not the slightest doubt that in Heaven, God made it up to him hugely with the biggest, best welcome home parade and celebration EVER.

Freedom is not free. Those who fight for it - now and in past conflicts - deserve our utmost honor and respect. We will never fully know or understand all they sacrificed on our behalf. To those who served in Vietnam and were unappreciated, I offer my genuine and heartfelt gratitude. Know that you made a difference - know that we are proud of you, know that you are dearly and truly loved. And for those who never once have heard it said in all this time: Welcome home. You did us proud.

I want!

2008-07-28T18:20:00.000-05:00

But, of course, can't have. :( But that is the best painting I've ever stumbled across in many years... What are the chances I can talk hubby into getting this for me for Christmas?

Uh, yeah.

Computer wallpaper background it is, then!

Mission Accomplished

2008-07-20T19:24:00.003-05:00

After two days of brutal heat in the very high 90s and astounding patriotism and support from the community, Cpl. Jonathan Ayers has now been laid to rest.

Will post more later, once I cool off and process all that happened. I will say, though, for anyone who stumbles across this blog post, that you can rest assured that Cpl. Ayers was most definitely given the hero's tribute that he so deserved.

In the meantime:

...... click link below for news report

http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=7023317&version=1&locale=EN-US

And an article from the Fox 5 website:

Fallen Georgia Soldier Killed in Afghanistan Laid to Rest
Last Edited: Sunday, 20 Jul 2008, 9:43 PM EDT Created: Sunday, 20 Jul 2008, 6:23 PM Reported By: Charles Molineaux
Edited By: Leigha Baugham

SNELLVILLE, Ga. (MyFOX Atlanta) - A Georgia soldier who was killed while fighting in Afghanistan was laid to rest Sunday at a Snellville church. Corporal Jon Ayers was killed when Taliban forces attacked a U.S. base in Wanat on July 13.

The service was held at Zoar United Methodist Church in Snellville. Burial with full military honors followed at Eternal Hills Memory Gardens on Stone Mountain Highway.

Grieving relatives and hundreds of people from the community gathered in a sea of red, white and blue to say tight-lipped goodbyes to 24-year-old Corporal Jonathan Ayers.

Jonathan Dechko grew up with Ayers.

"A lot of summer days being outside school spending time with him and his brother. It's really sad to see him go," said Dechko.

Ayers was killed last Sunday in an intense firefight with Taliban guerillas. Eight other American soldiers died in the battle, making it the deadliest attack for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in three years.

Army reports state Ayers went down shooting, defending his outpost and his comrades.

"It's hard to say that what happened was a good thing but he died honorably for our country. I'm proud of the United States," said family friend Henry Dean.

The scorching hot weather turned the observances into a grueling test for well wishers. Four people were overcome and collapsed here at the cemetery. Gwinnett emergency workers said they suffered heat exhaustion as they tried to offer their support for Ayers and his family.

"I think its great, seeing all these people here showing their support for Jon. I'm here to show support too," said Dechko.

"It just touched my heart and I felt like I needed to be here," said well wisher Barbara Green.

Green's children went to Shiloh High School with Ayers. Green waved a sign Sunday along the funeral procession route, hoping Ayers' family saw how many people gathered to offer their support and honor Ayers' sacrifice.

"He was one of those honorable kinds of guys, always stand-up," said Dean.

"He became special to me because I just know he did some thing wonderful," said Green.

Georgia native Cpl. Matthew B. Phillips, 27, from Jasper was also killed in the attack that killed Ayers.

The other seven killed were 1st Lt. Jonathan P. Brostrom, 24, of Hawaii; Sgt. Israel Garcia, 24, of Long Beach, Calif.; Cpl. Jason M. Bogar, 25, of Seattle, Wash.; Cpl. Jason D. Hovater, 24, of Clinton, Tenn.; Cpl. Pruitt A. Rainey, 22, of Haw River, N.C.; Cpl. Gunnar W. Zwilling, 20, of Florissant, Mo. and Pfc. Sergio S. Abad, 21, of Morganfield, Ky.

This story content provided by FOX 5 Atlanta WAGA

Rough weekend ahead...

2008-07-18T21:58:00.002-05:00

This is going to be an extremely difficult weekend. Those nine soldiers you heard about on the news last week who were KIA in Afghanistan? Three or four of them were from Georgia... this weekend, the Patriot Guard will be standing in honor of two of them. One is in Columbus Georgia; the other was from Snellville, which is right next to us here in Loganville.. another local hero fallen. :(

Tomorrow morning, the airplane bearing Cpl. Jonathan Ayers will land... and the Patriot Guard will be there to honor him, lining up, holding flags, providing an escort from airport to funeral home.... I think I've written about it before, but the airport escorts are the most difficult part of any mission... at least, for me personally. It is the very first time the family sees the reality of what they have been told...that their boy is NOT going to jump off the plane and come running to Mom, and that reality hits hard, devestating...... Anyone who reads this, pray for this precious family, and for those who will be present to honor him in the morning...

His visitation at the funeral home is tomorrow night... Sunday afternoon is his funeral.

I will be attending all three, since each event is during the weekend... this is one of the very rare times when I can be there for everything, start to finish.. most often, I am able to be at the airport, but not the funeral, or the funeral, but not the visitation, etc.

It is with a heavy heart that I now go to lay down and get some sleep, but am thankful to have the opportunity to be of service, in some small way, to the family of CPL. Ayers.

He will NEVER be forgotten, nor will his sacrifice and service be forgotten.

Now that it's mid-July and ten million degress

2008-07-16T21:56:00.002-05:00

...with humidity at about a million percent, our air conditioner DIED.

ACK!

...Or not...

2008-07-15T19:18:00.002-05:00

Well, a lill more than three weeks post-sprain, as of yesterday, I was able to start walking almost NORMALLY again - with no (or very little) limping. Woohoo! I thought, "Surely, the end is near and I'll be ready to ride again REAL SOON!"

Eh, maybe not.

Today at physical therapy, they had me do (or attempt) this one hamstring stretch exercise where you put one leg on a bar, stretch, bring it down, and repeat with the other leg. When I put my right leg - that would be the one that's not sprained - on the bar (thusly putting my full weight on my injured leg) the knee did exactly what it's done before -- absolutely COLLAPSED.

So, that version of "hamstring stretches" went out the window and I did a more modified version that involves not standing, lol. Worked MUCH better that way.

Every day I see very obvious improvement, literally on a daily basis. But apparently, there's still much healing to be done in there. :::sigh:::

C'mon knee... I need my motorcycle-ride fix sooooon! :-)~

So....

2008-07-15T08:03:00.003-05:00

Two days in a row now, I've woken up at 3:30 in the morning for absolutely NO reason whatsoever. Eyes just popped open, wide awake. Luckily, last night I was able to get back to sleep again; the night before, I just laid there till 6:15 and dragged myself into work... ugh.

More coffee, please!

A MOST EXTRAORDINARY 4th OF JULY

2008-07-04T16:46:00.006-05:00

Well, today began bright & early, as I woke up before 7:00 (ick) to get ready to go to the third Loganville Annual 4th of July Parade & Festival. The first year, I was working as a volunteer for the parade committee. The second year (which was last year), I was actually in the parade itself. This year, finally, we were able to get a booth set up for Operation Love From Home! :) Throughout the day, folks came by and signed cards for our deployed heroes all over the world. [Altogether, the final tally was 103 cards signed, and $132 raised for postage! Woohoo! Thank you, Loganville! :) ]

The parade itself was absolutely spectacular! Hmmm..come to think of it, this is the first time I've actually gotten to SEE the parade, haha! It was great, somewhere close to 100 entries, I think. :) Not bad for a little ole town! ;)

After the parade was over, one of our buddies came down to where our booth was located, and said, "Hey Kat, someone is looking for you over by the stage area!" Uh, OK... so I grabbed my crutches and started hobbling along in the general direction of the stage. I heard a lady call my name, waving and grinning at me, along with her hubby & kids. Hmmm.....OK, I don't recognize her, but she obviously knows me, so I must've met her somewhere before at some point, maybe another festival or something.....

Well, I hobbled over there, and they greeted me. I figured out who it was very, very quickly.... the man was holding a bag, from which he pulled out this:

(Edit - if the pic is "cut off" a bit (like it is in my browser), click HERE to see a pic of it)

Surprise, surprise... it was my very own adopted local special forces soldier, who just (within the past few weeks) came home from some undisclosed location somewhere!!!!! Heck, just meeting one of my "babies" is enough to make me cry immediately...but there was more. That flag there? He brought that flag back from Undisclosed Location for me. Starting way back around Christmas time, this was a project he worked on... he had the flag flown over our capitol here in Washington, DC, and then sent to him where he was, and it was flown over the U.S. Embassy there in Undisclosed Location... after which, it was folded and put in this beautiful case you see here, to be given to me. But wait, there's more! It also came with a Certificate of Authenticity from each location the Flag was flown over, and a Cert. of Appreciation from his Team. And in case I wasn't crying enough, I got my very own Special Forces Team T-shirt... this design is being discontinued following this mission, so he said it was a "special edition." I'm not sure whether to wear it or frame it! Here's a pic:

To say I was crying would be an understatement... I was bawling... All I could do is cry and hug him and tell him thank you and welcome home, and hug his wife (who videotaped the whole thing).

I'm going to go to Home Depot and get a special shelf for my living room to display our Flag on. It is a treasure that I value more than any piece of jewelry or anything else I own. I am humbled, and in awe that he went to so much trouble and months of planning to surprise me. Really, I don't know what to say.. I'm speechless, honestly.

And now, I'm going to wake hubby from his impromptu nap on the couch so we can go eat dinner, and watch some fireworks.

Have a stupendously happy Independence Day, y'all... don't forget to thank each and every soldier and veteran you see today, because THEY are the ones who made today possible!

PS -- OK, OK, one more edit.... My friend Michelle, who worked the parade with me, put together this photo montage of pics from the day. Hope you enjoy our parade as much as we did!

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Random Updates

2008-07-04T16:34:00.003-05:00

OK, OK, I've been a bad, bad blogger lately... so much going on, and writer's block on top of it all... let's see...to catch you up on stuff:

1. Hubby's daughter graduated basic training at Ft. Jackson, SC, on June 13 - we took a trip up there for that, and it was awesome! You can see pics from our trip HERE.

1a. (edited to add): Oh yeah, also, on June 16, 2008, Operation Love From Home sent 5,916 "Thank You" cards to the Sandbox and other locations around the world in honor of the 4th of July! WTG y'all!

2. The following weekend, hubby and I took the Rider's Edge new rider's course... the idea being to get our motorcycle licenses. Hubby finished the course, but just barely did not pass the skills test. Me? Well...not so lucky. About 2/3 of the way thru the third day, I sorta kinda crashed. I discovered that concrete really is HARD, but also that I bounce! See pics HERE. I was extremely lucky in that the worst of my injuries was only a severely sprained knee and a few scrapes and bruises. I've been bedridden for most of the past two weeks, unable to put weight on my leg...but it's shown drastic improvement over the past few days, and my physical therapist says all will be well in another 3 weeks or so. :) So no worries!

3. The above is a good thing, because we are retaking the class in October.... Undeterred, we bought THIS so we can practice in an empty parking lot near us in the meantime. Once I heal. :) Isn't she purty!?! :)

And that's all I can think of. I just HAVE to tell you about our 4th of July, but it looks like it needs to be a separate post to do it justice.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED RE: 4TH OF JULY CARDS!

2008-06-17T10:33:00.001-05:00

Total cards gathered and shipped: 5,916 (this number includes 330 cards that were shipped early, on June 2, to a remotely-stationed group of troops with very slow mail delivery times!)

Total Cost of Shipping Supplies: $60.33

Total Cost of actual shipping: $10.95 from early shipment on June 2 of 330 cards; today's shipping cost $241.19, for a combined total shipping cost of $252.14

Grand total of Supplies & Postage: $312.47

GREAT JOB EVERYONE!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!! Pictures of packing party, etc., will be posted very soon on our website (once some technical difficulties have been resolved). Thank you all so much for your help and participation!!! YOU ROCK!!!!!!!!

Kat PS - we received three huge mail tubs full of still more cards in the mail this morning. We will hold onto those cards for the next time! :-) Remember, we accept cards year-round, for all holidays, so never hesitate to send stuff!

Operation Love From Home: 4th of July Card Drive for Troops!

2008-06-08T11:16:00.001-05:00

4TH OF JULY CARD DRIVE FOR DEPLOYED TROOPS

The Mission: To collect at least 5,000 "thank you" cards for troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The majority of the cards collected will go to a unit currently stationed in an extremely harsh and remote area of Afghanistan.

The Reason: Being away from home and living in harsh conditions with combat & constant danger is difficult ~ our troops need to know we have not forgotten them!!! Mail from home helps to keep our troops' morale strong, making a very real difference in their lives. It keeps them motivated and focused when they know we care about them!

The Address: Send your signed, unsealed thank-you cards to the following address:

Mrs. Kathy Orr
OPERATION: LOVE FROM HOME
P.O. Box 1660
Loganville, Georgia, 30052

ALL CARDS MUST BE RECEIVED NO LATER THAN SATURDAY, JUNE 14, 2008.

The Guidelines

The cards can be handmade or store-bought (letters are just fine, too). This is a great opportunity to get your Scout troop, school, church and other civic organizations involved in doing something to show support for our troops.

Please do not write the date on your cards
Please, no glitter on the cards. Because of the intended destination of the cards, nothing "shiny" should be sent for safety & security reasons.

*IMPORTANT: This is not a "dating service." Please do not send suggestive or otherwise inappropriate cards or materials. Please also refrain from making political statements of any nature. We will be reading and screening every card received to ensure that the above guidelines are adhered to. Remember: This is strictly to let the troops know that we love them, we are proud of them and that we HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN them! If you have any questions, please contact us at LoveFromHome@Gmail.com or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LoveFromHome/.

PLEASE CHECK OUT OUR BRAND-NEW WEBSITE!

WWW.OPERATIONLOVEFROMHOME.ORG

Radio Interview June 5, 2008 at 7:00 EST

2008-06-04T14:35:00.001-05:00

Good afternoon everyone! Today, I pre-recorded a very short (just under five minutes) interview with a major atlanta radio station, "104.7 The Fish FM," about Operation Love From Home and our Fourth of July card drive for the troops. I just learned that the interview will air TOMORROW, JUNE 5, shortly after 7:00 a.m., EST on 104.7 FM. If you are out of the listening area, you can tune in via www.TheFishAtlanta.com . If you still miss it, just email me -- I will have an MP3 of the interview I can send to you (we plan on linking it on our website, too).

Keep your fingers crossed...we still need 3,000 or more cards to reach our goal for the 4th of July! :)

Hugs to all,

MamaKat
President, Operation Love From Home

Radio Appearance Friday, May 16 ~ 2:00 PM EST

2008-05-15T14:12:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow (Friday, May 16), I will have the honor of appearing on America's Freedom Broadcast Radio (an online station dedicated to supporting our troops! - tune in at www.AFBRadio.us ). My new friend Gilda (who somehow heard about the 4th of July card drive and contacted me out of the blue last week!) is "DJ CajunLady" and will be interviewing me about Operation Love From Home. I'll be on the air from shortly after 2:00 pm EST to 3:00 EST.

So, please listen to www.afbradio.us tomorrow between 2 and 3 to hear the interview!

Love From Home - UPDATE MAY 13 2008

2008-05-13T10:31:00.004-05:00

Sorry I've been M.I.A. lately...things have been crazy here! This is a press release I sent out earlier today - thought I'd share with y'all, as well! (I modified it a bit for this blog). Spread the word if you so desire! ~ Kat

Good morning, y'all! Just wanted to make y'all aware of a few "troop support" events coming soon to Loganville and a big announcement, as well! :)

First and foremost -- over the next few months, we will be seeking to make "Operation Love From Home" an actual non-profit entity. For many years, I've conducted nation-wide card-and-care package drives for our deployed troops as an individual effort, working together with many friends from our community. Recently, the law firm I work for has offered to do the work of getting us set up as a 501(c)(3) corporation pro bono. It will be several weeks yet before the paperwork is started and filed due to the fact that this is a pro bono case (freebie!) and I have to wait until the attorney has time to work on the matter. However, that is in the works! Our Board of Directors will be as follows:

President - me (Kathy "Kat" Orr)
Vice-President -
Mellissa Slocum
Secretary - Michelle Lynch
Treasurer - Patty
Burgess
Media Relations - Tammy Osier

We have developed a new website, as well: www.OperationLoveFromHome.org . Feel free to check it out - Melissa and Michelle did a GREAT job putting it together!

A couple upcoming events you might wish to know about:

SUNDAY, MAY 25, 2008: There will be an "Operation Love From Home" table set up at the Orchard Church here in Loganville, so that people can sign cards for the soldiers. This is Memorial Day weekend ~ great time to remember and take a moment to appreciate our soldiers! Our table will be set up for BOTH services and folks can sign cards (or drop cards off) before & after the 9:00 service and the 10:45 service.

SATURDAY, MAY 31, 2008: Operation Love From Home will have a bake sale fundraiser at the American Legion in Loganville (Email me at Jeffskat@gmail.com for more info!). There will be a bounce house, face painting, hot dogs, lots of yummy goodies for sale, cake walks, and of course - lots of cards to sign for the troops! :) Soldiers' Connection, another local troop support organization, will also have a table set up there, as well. It will be a fun "troop support extravaganza!" :) Several local business are contributing to the event.

So far the number of cards for the troops we've received for this particular card drive is very low - I'd venture to say we have less than 500 (and the goal is 5,000). Will have a more firm number later on this week for you.
Several local area business are allowing folks to drop off cards for us -- Rey's Cuban Grill - Partyland - Three Sweet Peas Resale Boutique - Legacy State Bank .

Thank you everyone for your support!!!! Our mission is to support our military - and we couldn't do it without YOU!

In the Interest of Starting Conversation...

2008-04-11T11:25:00.002-05:00

What three things would you like to learn how to do, that you don't know how to do right now? Answer in comments! :)

My three:

1. Get my motorcycle license ~ and a bike! :)
2. Ballroom dancing (took lessons years ago - wanna do it again)
3. Learn how to sew (not just cross-stich).

The Taste of Summer...

2008-04-01T12:55:00.002-05:00

My office takes up several floors of a skyscraper here in ATL - something like 12 floors, more or less. So, when a department has a big meeting and they order food, oftentimes there are a lot of leftovers, which are put in the breakroom for General Consumption By The Employees. :)

Foday's fare was salad and grilled vegetables. I took one bite of the veggies, and OMG they were SOOOOOOOO good. Tasted just like summer..... I'm ready for hubby to start grilling stuff now! LOL!

Thank you for calling 911...please hold!

2008-03-31T18:46:00.000-05:00

So, on my way home today, I witnessed a "charming" automobile accident immediately before the Stone Mountain Park exit. So, I pulled over by the shoulder of the road to call 911 and hang around to give the police my witness satement (yes, I stayed IN the car, I didn't wanna be road kill... Vehicle #2 was on the opposite side of the4-lane highway, the front end attached to the guardrail).

I called 911.

Got a RECORDED MESSAGE.

"Thank you for calling DeKalb Emergency Services. Please stay on the line, and do not hang..."

[click]... call disconnects.

Checked my cell connection -- yep, had plenty of "bars" so it wasn't me.

So I called 911 again.

and again

and again

and again - probably 6-10 times altogetehr.

Same thing each time. I was thinking, "You have GOT to be freakin' KIDDING ME!!!!?! ARGH!"

So finally I dialed "o" to get them to connect me to the police in some way or another.

Was on hold forever.

Operator comes on, "I'm sorry - nobody is answering the two numbers I'm dialing..."

Luckily, at this point, I see ambulances and firetrucks and such coming, so obviously SOMEONE got thru, thank God.

After a while, a police officer (who was very nice) came over to make sure i was ok, not involved in the accident or broke down or whatever. Told him I was a witness, etc, gave him my info and told him what I saw. Luckily, as I said, he was very nice and EXTREMELY appreciative of the fact that I stayed around to give my statement, so that offset the "annoyance factor" a little bit.

But good grief.. 911, voice mail, disconnected... multiple times?! Holy crud!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay!!!! Done!!!! :)

2008-03-16T01:27:00.000-05:00

Wooohooo!!!! Spring Bake-a-Thon 2008 is now over!!! The final tally:

10 doz for the veterans
12 1/2 doz for my platoon
3 doz for the family

total: Way more calories than I should even think of being near! HAHAHAHA!

For my platoon: I put one dozen cookies in a plastic ziplock baggie. Then, I attached a "Thank you" card to each bag, with each soldier's name on the envelope. So, each one will receive a personalized thank you card and a dozen cookies (except for our officially-adopted soldier, he gets more, haha).

All I have to do now is find a nice, sturdy tuperware/plastic container to pack all those baggies of cookies in, and a bit of bubble-wrap. When I get home from Milledgeville tomorrow, I'll stop by Walmart... all will be packed up & ready to go tomorrow night (or rather, tonight!). I'll mail the box from work on Monday.

Yay! I'm excited... I just LUV these bake-a-thons... and imagining all the smiles on the soldiers' faces!!!! :)

Have a good sunday... see y'all later!

2008 Spring Bake-a-thon!

2008-03-15T21:34:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow afternoon, the Patriot Guard Riders are going down to visit the residents of the War Veterans' Home in Milledgeville, Georgia. There are about 400+ residents there... about 100 or so will be able to wander on down to the rec center where we will be to visit with us. How cool is this gonna be?! Being able to speak with so many of our Heroes -- the folks who helped secure the freedoms we enjoy today. Way cool! :) Soooo.... hence, the cookies. :) A bunch of us women are baking stuff to take tomorrow. I made about 10 doz chocolate chip cookies ~others have made plenty more, I'm sure!

I have an adopted soldier who mentioned to me that his favorite cookies in the world are peanut butter cookies... so once the Veterans' cookies were done & packed up, on to baking for my soldiers' platoon. :) I got 2 1/2 doz peanut butter cookies done for him... 3 doz sugar cookies are baking as I speak, and then I'll do a whole slew of regular ole chocolate chip cookies. The idea is to give each guy in his platoon a dozen cookies of their very own (except for my officially-adopted soldier - as always, "my" soldier gets DOUBLE...blatant favoritism, I know, but I guess it's just a "mom" thing, lol!).

Ooops, there goes the timer again... later gator!

::sigh::

2008-03-11T20:34:00.002-05:00

At the risk of sounding like a sissified WIMP or a wussy whiner.....

I am so. so. SO. depressed!!!!!

:( :( :( :( :(

Just shoot me now.. please.

2008-03-11T13:31:00.002-05:00

wahh... *crying* OK, now I'm really upset... really, really, really upset. Last night hubby & I took the non-running Taurus to **** Automotive to figure out why it's a non-running Taurus. We hoped that it would be something kinda minor, or moderate, like, i dunno, something only $300 or less. But NOOO, no such luck. turns out we have "at least" a blown head gasket, at least - possibly other problems as well, but that's the biggie. Tearing the engine down to fix it? Easily $900, could go up to over $1000 because there are other things wrong with it as well. Needless to say - I don't have $1,000 laying around ANYWHERE to fix it. And even if i did, would it be worth to spend that much on a car with over 130,000 miles?! Nope, not really...the logical thing would be to just go ahead and get another car... except we already have one car payment, can't do two! And the van needs a new CV joint, another $200 repair, rather urgently, too. WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

SNOWING?! and The Return of The Marines!!

2008-03-08T10:04:00.003-05:00

Great... it's March 8, and it's snowing. ack! that just isn't Georgia weather! Ack!

Well, a planeful of Marines returning from Iraq is landing today, and the Patriot Guard is going to be there to greet them!!! Woohoo!!! How fun is that gonna be?! Of course, they are coming back on a day when the high is going to be in the mid-thirties...ack! So of course, I'll be stopping by Ye Olde Chicke Filet to grab a couple boxes of HOT coffee for all of us, lol! Man we are gonna freeze! but it's worth it to give these Marines a real heroes' welcome!

OOOHRAH!

NEED YOUR HELP!!! An Opportunity to Honor a VietNam Veteran

2008-03-02T13:33:00.003-05:00

Hey everyone, I'm back again. Will post later about the memorial service for our PGR friend, Deltoid. It was amazing but I just can't put it down on paper (or computer screen) just yet. IN THE MEANTIME.... I need your help.

A very special Vietnam Veteran who lives not far from me is in need of some serious cheer & encouragement. So yes, I'm asking all of you to send cards to me, for him. Let's really surround him with love and prayers, OK? Here's some info:

He was Army...101st Airborne, Ranger, was at "Hamburger Hill" in VietNam. Got exposed to agent orange. This is what they think caused his kidneys to go bad. Two years ago, went into a coma and when he finally cameout of it he was [permanently] paralyzed from the waist down. Now he is on dialysis either two or three days a week.

Then, I learned yesterday that this dear man had a stroke Friday night and is currently in the hospital!!! It appears to be a mild stroke, but they are not sure yet what long-term damage there may be. We are waiting for more information.

Please send a note or two to perk up this Hero's day... it would just mean so much to him and his wife!!! Cards may be sent to me at:

Mama Kat Orr
"FOR VETERAN N.C."
Post Office Box 1660
Loganville GA 30052

I'll forward them on to him. This is a project I'd like to see on-going for a while, not necessarily a one-time shot. You can send individual cards, or if you'd like to have your kids color pictures or get a whole bunch together, that's cool also. But just one card from each person is fine, too. Know that ANYTHING you send for him will be GREATLY appreciated. Lord knows they need plenty of TLC right now....

Thank you in advance, and God bless you.

A Rum & Coke...

2008-02-28T22:38:00.003-05:00

I've got a rum & Coke...

Heavy on the rum, a bit lighter on the Coke.

Tonight was hard... so very hard.

I did good till I sat there and watched the slideshow of pics of his life.... and then.....

I lost it.

Not completely, as in "in hysterics on the floor wailing" or anything like that - but I was doing some serious crying for a lill while, till my friend C practcially carried me out (um, she's about 5'2" and weighs at least 100 lbs less than I do, if not more). OK, so off to the bathroom, cold water on face, back outside to stand in the flagline.

Later on, the family requested that ALL of us come in together. Deep breath... don't. look. at. slideshow. So I went in...made my way to the front of the room... looked at hte pictures on display.... looked at his riding vest, helmet & ballcap on display, and last of all, at his motorcycle, all shiny & perfect... but empty, riderless.

Ouch.

Managed to get the pics I wanted (click HERE for the pics) and made it back outside without falling apart.

Tomorrow... that will be hard. That is the funeral. I don't do well at funerals, or at least, at funerals of people I knew & loved.

So... here I am... I ate my TV dinner I heated up, and am fixin to get a shower and crash for the night... as soon as I finish this rum & coke. Heavy on the rum. Please.

YIKES!

Op. Love From Home: Holiday Card Drive for Deployed Troops

Couch to 5k - FINISHED!!!!!

Couch to 5K: WEEK 8 IS DONE! ONE MORE WEEK TO GO!

COUCH TO 5K: WEEK 8 UPDATE (yes, very late, I know!)

Better Late Than Never: Couch to 5k, Week 7, Day 2 Report

Couch to 5K: Week 7, Day 1 update!

Week 6, Day 1 of Couch to 5k!

Couch to 5K - the Dreaded Week 5, Day 3 TWENTY-MINUTE Jog!

Update: Couch to 5K - Week 5, Day 1

My newest form of insanity.....

***whew*****

Remembering Sgt. Michael Stokely, KIA 16 August 2009

~FINALLY~

In Honor of Major Kevin M. Jenrette

Not again... Dear God... RIP 1SG John D. Blair

~Heartsick~

Rest in Peace

PRAYERS, PLEASE!!!!!!!

I'm alive! Yes, really!

VALENTINE'S FOR TROOPS UPDATE - WEEK ONE

OUCH!

VALENTINE'S CARD DRIVE FOR TROOPS - LET'S GIT-R-DONE!

2008 WEBLOG AWARDS -- VOTE NOW! (before Jan 5!)

Sixteen Random Things

CHRISTMAS DAY, 2008 - A CONTRAST

Bah Humbug!

Just checkin' in..BakeFest 2008 Update...1:08 a.m.

CHRISTMAS BAKE-FEST 2008!

OUR CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!

BACK IN DA WIND!!!! YEEEHAW!

Twenty-Four Hours....

"Welcome Homes" at Walmart

You Are Invited...

A Musical Tradition

Oh yeah, forgot to mention...

A *Light Bulb* Moment!

Our Family Pic, December, 2008

Just venting....

No Christmas Tree This Year

OPERATION LOVE FROM HOME - PRESS RELEASE & FINAL TALLY!

*whew* All done!

Brrrr! Cold!!!! But what a good day to pack....

Preparing for The Feast!

Christmas/Holiday Card Drive for Troops! Goal: 50,000!

Life, or Something Like It

OK, so on to plan C...what ever that is...

OPERATION LOVE FROM HOME UPDATE 11-19-08

"...The Feast of My Dreams!"

Keep on Keepin' on....

The Endless Search

SPECIAL REQUEST - Sad News

Update On My Missing Kids!

Just great....

Well, ok then...

TWENTY BUCKS!

OK, A Little Better.....

Scared Spitless

Operation Love From Home Update 10-19-08

Walking, Working & Wondering....

"Here's your sign!"

Best shower ever

PostOp Doc Appt!

Doc appt tues

Still alive

Stupid Ways to Hurt Yourself...

Operation Love From Home, Inc. - UPDATE!

One (Limping) Step Closer!

Vietnam War Facts

Sad but true!

FINALLY....

Eight Days till surgery!

Useless Quiz Thing... What Time of Day are you?

Fun fun fun....

Back again, asking for prayers....

Drained...

THANK YOU FROM THE MARINES

In Honor of My Hero

I want!

Mission Accomplished

*whew***

A Light Bulb Moment!

whew All done!