THANKS

Over the next week I will be posting about things I am thankful for - starting by thanking YOU, my followers, for your input about my last post - especially those who took time to email me directly! 

I decided to go ahead and try monetizing my blog - so please pardon the ads in my sidebar and in the bottom of my posts (ads coming SOON, after google adsense approves my account).

Hopefully the ads will be helpful/useful, and not a nuisance.  I would like to ask for your help, though; if the ads DO become bothersome, will you please TELL me this?  THANK YOU!

Aside from being grateful for your feedback, I am SO thankful that this deployment is almost O-V-E-R!  Seriously, this has been such a crappy year in so many ways, and pretty much everything that went wrong would have been easily fixed (or would not have even GONE wrong to begin with!) if hubby could have been home with us.

But I don't even care about all that crap now!  With less than 15% remaining on my Donut of Misery, all I can think about is the homecoming (and all the things I thought I would have DONE by now).

your opinion, please....

I have been thinking for quite some time now about MONETIZING my blog. 

All this means for you, my readers, is that you will see ads on my posts, customized based on the content of my blog.  You won't have to DO anything different (though if you decide to click on one of those ads, I will get PAID for the additional web traffic I sent to that advertiser).

What it means for me, is, well, probably nothing - other than a tiny amount of money earned.

I have waited on this decision for two reasons:

1) I did not have enough followers for this to be worth ANYTHING at all

and

2) I feel like this is kind of "selling out". I've always wanted to to get paid for writing, but I imagined, you know, getting PUBLISHED.  So this self-published blog, which has always been mine and only mine, is just an outlet for me, and it feels kind of wrong to make money from it.  Does that even make sense?

Anyway, now I have 100 followers (YAY!) and am getting WAY more web traffic than I used to from non-followers, so it seems a little more worthwhile to monetize now. I am also more BROKE than I used to be, after having to walk away from my part-time job when I learned that they would not allow me to bring my baby to work with me.

So, I am to a point of being willing to make this change, but wanted to first ask you, my readers, for your opinion:

Should I monetize my blog?

Happy Birthday Marines!

This is my 14th year celebrating the Marine Corps Birthday, and my tenth time in those years NOT going to a Birthday Ball.

Last year's ball kind of sucked, especially the part where they started THREE HOURS LATE - so I am not all that upset about missing this year's ball.  Just wish I wasn't missing it due to deployment.  Missing the ball because hubby is working at his other job, or is away training would be better.  Or because I just had a baby.  Oh, wait, I DID just have a baby!  Ha ha ha.  So, if hubby was not deployed this year, I probably wouldn't be going to the ball, anyway.

I do wish my hubby was here, but knowing he is ALMOST DONE with this deployment is cheering me up considerably.

And looking at pictures from him all dressed up for last year's ball just makes me laugh - he got to be part of the ceremony, and we could NOT get his belt to fit right with the saber (or is it a sword?)

I joke with him about this kind of thing, but in the end I have SO MUCH respect for the traditions and the history behind the Corps.  After all the stress of getting there on time, and getting that darned belt figured out, I really was so proud to be there for the ceremony - I was literally moved to tears.

And now I'm all weepy again - time to cut this short.

What I am trying to say is,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARINES! 

Semper Fidelis

Verseo Warm Feet sweepstakes

Wouldn't it be cool if there were heating pads you could wear in your shoes to keep your feet warm?

Actually, THERE ARE!  They are even rechargeable.  They're from Verseo, who is giving away 50 pair of them in honor of military members and their families. 

Can you imagine serving in the military in Afghanistan in the dead of winter?  There are cold tootsies in every pair of combat boots over there already, and temperatures are only going to get lower over the next few months.

I have embedded the video here on my  blog (top right) and will keep it there until the sweepstakes ends November 29.  You can also go to the website for more info, by clicking HERE.

I only found out about this cool sweepstakes because my blog was featured in the video made to promote it.  Cool, huh?  :)

I love our milspouse blog community!

long list

My list of things to complete BEFORE hubby's return is just getting longer, not shorter.  Meanwhile, the days I'm pretending not to count are getting shorter, and there are so few of them left!  I feel like I will never get everything done.

Who am I kidding?  I feel like I will never get ANYTHING done!

I'm sure the last few days before homecoming I will be rushing around in an all-out manic episode trying to do too much in too little time, but in the meantime, I feel like I am spinning my wheels.

Lists normally help me feel more productive, because I can check off whatever I actually FINISH.

But these days, It seems I never really FINISH anything, so nothing gets checked off, and then I keep finding more things to add to the list!  At this point, I think I have to take "redecorate bedroom" completely off of the list, because there simply isn't time.  Or money, for that matter, though it was supposed to be a very inexpensive project.  Paint, curtains, and a couple of bathroom rugs.  *sigh* Oh well, some other time.

The one thing I absolutely MUST do before he comes home, is dig out the mess I've made in his man-cave/office.  I have stacked so much JUNK in there in the past 6 months, it is literally hard to even walk through the room.  OOPS.  And now, the day of reckoning looms....if I hurry, and bust my butt, I can at least get that ONE room ship-shape before my hubby comes back and is traumatised for life by the sight of his 'office' in such disarray.

Oh, and of course I had planned to lose a lot of weight before his return...I am thinking that's just not going to happen in the very few weeks we have left.

Bummer.

As panicked as I feel the closer we get to that day, I really am just getting SO EXCITED that this deployment is nearly over!

O-V-E-R.....soon.

my "Devil Pup"

I don't technically have time to blog right now, but just HAD to show you all this adorable outfit that my father-in-law picked up for Bobblehead.

HOW CUTE IS THIS????

OOOH  RAH!

Take this job and.....love it?

My education and experience is pretty much all in child development, with some retail experience thrown in for good measure. I've done just about every preschool job imaginable over the years - T.A., teacher, director, assistant director, and I even subbed as a preschool cook for awhile. I love them all, and when I lost my Preschool Director job in April 2009, I would have been thrilled to find a job in ANY of those positions.

Instead, after a year of unemployment, I was finally offered a part-time job with my local school district - as a CROSSING GUARD.

I know I sound stuck up when I say this, but I initially thought this job was really 'beneath me'. I mean, I was told by countless potential employers that I was overqualified for preschool teaching jobs, and then suddenly I am not overqualified for a crossing guard job? A job that requires NO secondary or post-secondary education.....and my degree, credential, and experience don't overqualify me for this menial job?

Anyway, I came to really enjoy my 'menial' job with its ridiculously humble paycheck. It kept me active throughout my pregnancy. It gave me a little extra money to work with in hubby's absence.  It kept me on a SCHEDULE, which we all know is crucial during deployment, right?


Knucklehead took this picture of me on my last day at work before I started my Maternity Leave:

When I went on maternity leave, I was not entirely sure that I would return....but by the 6th week, I was actually EXCITED to get back to 'my' crosswalk. I strapped Baby Bobblehead to me in a sling carrier, and happily thanked all the parents and students who welcomed me back and congratulated me.

The shifts are short, only an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon, so I knew I could handle this even with all the new demands on my time. However, yesterday I got a phone call from someone in the HR department - he was calling me to 'clarify' that district policy prohibits bringing children to work with you.

I was seriously not surprised that this was the case, but thought there must be some exceptions...after all, my own supervisor, who is the Director of Transportation, had specifically TOLD me when I was hired that Knucklehead could be there with me at the corner, (which makes sense because he attends that school). I was, however, surprised to realize that someone had taken time to CALL the district office to complain about me having my baby there with me. REALLY? Get a freaking LIFE, people!

So, I called my supervisor today to clear this up, and he dodged my calls all day. I didn't want to violate policy, so while I awaited an answer, I went to work WITHOUT Bobblehead.

This was E-X-C-R-U-C-I-A-T-I-N-G for me. I was checking my watch every 30 seconds, waiting for my hour to be up so I could race home to hold my sweet baby.

I realized my boss just wasn't going to return my calls, so I drove over to his office to meet with him in person. Before leaving my house I composed a short letter requesting a Leave Of Absence, in case his answer was NO.

Of course, when I got there he had 'just stepped out' but his seceretary informed me that she had given him all of my messages in detail, and he denied that he ever said that I could have my older son there with me.

Nice.  Way to take the high road, huh?  He could have said, "well if I said that I was wrong to say so" or even actually outright say , "Yes I said that before, but now I'm changing my mind".  Instead he's just going to lie to cover his own a$$.

I know I am not crazy, and I KNOW what I heard.  In fact I was not the only crossing guard to ASK if my child could be there with me - we had an orientation with about a dozen new crossing guards, and two other women put their hands down as soon as I asked my question, because they were going to ask the same thing.  They, like me, expressed relief that their children could be there with them. 

Rather than argue with the secretary, I explained that there had been some misunderstanding, and I turned in my letter at that point.  I simply CAN'T leave Bobblehead with a sitter. I NEED to be with him!

This L.O.A. Is really just prolonging the process, delaying the inevitable - I will have to quit as soon as my leave expires, because I won't be any more ready to leave Bobblehead at that point than I am today. But Hubby insisted that I at least try to prolong it.

So now I am feeling inexplicably...SAD. I'm basically mourning the loss of a job that I supposedly never even wanted. And I haven't officially lost the job yet!

Is that pathetic, or what?

homecoming banner

It's that time already......

I ordered this banner today, because if I wait I will have to pay for rush shipping.  No, thank you! (have I ever mentioned what a cheapskate I am? I'm all counting pennies on the shipping, even though the banner is FREE!)

If you want to order a free homecoming banner, go HERE.

I'm counting down, and wondering why I am not feeling happier about the "20%" Donut Of Misery right now....maybe because I am already stressing about everything I need to get done before he gets back?