It's Over

Well, Hurricane Gustav moved through our immediate area without much damage, but just over the line into Rapides Parish most residents are out of electricity. We got lucky and the storm went more north of us which put us on the western side of the storm, which is the better side of it.

Our electricity is not out (obviously) and it did flicker a few times, but thankfully stayed on. It rained most of last night into today and just recently stopped to a drizzle.

Hopefully I'll be back to work tomorrow and the residents of the coast will be back to their homes quickly.

Voting Will Close Tonight at 7p.m. CST...oh yeah and an update on us!

Ok everyone, if you haven't already voted for the name for our new recipe blog be sure to get your vote in before tonight at 7p.m. CST. I will be closing the voting then and annoucing the winner. Thank you to all who have voted so far.

An update on us here in Louisiana. It's cloudy here, some rain sprinkles, but nothing too major yet. They are predicting it to hit here tonight at 1 a.m. In fact I was watching the national news earlier and Bobby Jindal mentioned the storm was going a little further south then expected and would be cutting across Vernon Parish and Fort Polk. Kind of eerie to hear that, but we expected it.

We are just relaxing today. I'm watching some Sex and the City and Sean is watching re-runs of some of Saturday's football games. Thank you again to everyone who has been sending well wishes and concern. I will try to let you all know as soon as possible once the storm has passed.

Bracing Ourselves

Well, it appears Gustav is well on his way to hitting us. Thank goodness we aren't closer to the coast, I don't know how I would handle 145+ winds. Oh that's right, I wouldn't because I'd be gone. From the maps it appears we are going to experience Gustav as a Catergory 1 hurricane in our area, which still comes with winds of 73-96 mph. No walk in the park folks! Sean and I have been preparing the best we can for what it looks to be a rough ride.

We've stocked up on water, food, car is full of gas, although we still need to get a few extra cans of gas, all our clothes are washed, extra ice for the cooler, our devices like my camera are charged or charging. My grandma is frantic I get out of here, but I told her I'm not leaving now and having to deal with the traffic. I'm just not going to do it.

The news has been running alerts at the bottom since last night advising us schools will be shut down in 30 parishes for Tuesday and Wednesday and basically telling us all to brace ourselves for the upcoming storm. It's so sunny and warm here right now you'd never guess there is a hurricane lurking on the horizon.

Having done what we need to do, Sean and I will be going out for Chinese today and then taking in a movie. I'm sure that's the last of the fun times we'll be having for awhile if the electricity goes out for as long around here as it did with Rita.

I'll be posting the poll for the names of the recipe blog later today so everyone can begin voting. I think with the upcoming storm I might be getting a later start on this blog, but I'm hoping not.

I'll keep you girls updated!

Friday Fun Questions, Volume 4

Well, things around here are getting pretty crazy. Yesterday on-post there were long lines at the gas pumps and after going to Wal-Mart last night with my friend Lauren I realized people around here are pretty much already in panic mode.

I just got some canned items, a few candles and chips, granola bars, etc.

There were hardly any batteries left, no flashlights, no lanterns and no bottled water to be found. I've never seen anything like this in my life!

As of today this is where they are predicting the storm to go:



If it follows that path then we are in for a rough week next week.

Now down to the fun part of the day. Fun Friday Questions!

1. Most unusual job you have had?

2. Describe yourself in three words

3. What's your signature scent?

4. What's a fun family tradition you have?

5. Anything special your hometown is known for?

My answers:

1. I picked grapes for a vineyard one summer. It was hot, tiring work, but it was fun and taste-testing the different kinds of grapes was really fun.

2. Intelligent, bubbly, funny

3. I love to wear Armani Code, I think it's my favorite and I guess that would make it my signature scent.

4. One tradition I love is on Christmas Eve we make all kinds of snacks at my parents home. Bacon wrapped water chestnuts, Mexican pinwheels, Carmel Bars, boiled shrimp, sauteed mushrooms and eat them while we watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. We've done this for a really long time and I love it!

5. My hometown of Bartlesville, OK is where Phillips 66 was headquartered for a long time. We also have the only skyscraper designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It's called Price Tower.



I can't wait to hear your answers and if anyone wants to suggest questions for Friday Fun Questions then just email them to me.

Recipes, Hurricanes and Movies

First of all this morning I'd like to thank everyone who weighed in on my makeup dilemmas. All the advice was much appreciated and I'm going to be looking into buying some of the products you mentioned soon. What would I do without you ladies?

Ok, as far as an update on the recipe blog. I've had several people volunteer to help in one way or another, so I really appreciate you ladies doing that! As soon as we get a name chosen I'll be making the account and then Emily has volunteered to do a template for us, so that will help out a lot. I'll also be setting up an email account so that if you don't want to put the recipes in the blog yourself, you can email them to us and we'll put them in for you. I'm still trying to decide the best way to catergorize the recipes. I wasn't sure whether to do it traditionally as in appetizer, main course, dessert, etc. Or do it by the author's blogger name. What do you ladies think?

Other than that I just need a few more suggestions for names and then I'll be putting up a poll for that. I think it's safe to say we should have this blog up and running in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully....

In other news, everyone it seems in Louisiana is watching Gustav and just where it plans on going. The news around here is filled with predictions of where it will track to and New Orleans news is abuzz with evacuation plans. Sean told me last night there is word that if it hits somewhere near here and is bad enough that his unit will be sent out. For some reason during Rita and Katrina units from Ft. Polk weren't sent. Odd is it not? They were 5 hours away from New Orleans, yet the 82nd was sent in. I'll never understand our government and how it works. However, I'm actually glad that we decided not to go on that Elvis cruise that I tried to convince Sean to go on. Looks like now with this hurricane it would have been cancelled anyway.

Anyway, not much else on the agenda today. Sean has CQ duty tonight from 5:30 until 6:30 tomorrow morning, so it will just be another quiet night for Boomer and I. I am going to the gym tonight since I've neglected to go the past few evenings. I've been bad about going lately, I'm not sure what my problem is. I'm never going to lose those 10 more lbs by the end of October if I don't get with the program ASAP! I say that and then I go and eat a mini-country ice cream cone for a mid-morning snack. Guess I'm hopeless!

Anyone have any good suggestions for movies they've seen lately? It doesn't have to be a new release, but I'd like some more movies to add to my Netflix list. I have a bout 20 some on there right now, but I'd like some more good suggestions. I prefer comedies and I'm not really a fan of horror, if that helps any!

Gustav on his way?

I've already posted once today, so see the next post down if you haven't already read my important annoucement regarding the military recipe blog that I'm going to attempt to start.

It appears as if Hurricane Gustav might be headed in my direction. I'm not too worried about it since I'm so far inland, but I of course don't really want it to hit Louisiana at all. I told Sean that if it hits New Orleans that I'm going to be really mad because I've only been there once and didn't get to experience everything I wanted to see. My boss and co-worker already informed me that if heads this way they are leaving. I guess Hurricane Rita had some nasty effects around here last time and the parish was out of electricity for about a week. I told my mom today that I'm going to stay here no matter what, since I'm not concerned about my safety being way up here.

That's probably the most exciting thing going on around here right now. Sean and I went to the steakhouse last night, but there was no chicken fried steak to be found! How is that possible? So, instead I settled for a grilled chicken salad and some of their heavenly rolls. I think I ate about 2.5 rolls. You can't understand just how good they are until you bite into one. Makes my mouth water just thinking about them.

Sean has a jump today. He's jumped a lot in the last few months. Last year he only jumped maybe four times. I told him to text me as soon as he landed to tell me he's safe. The last few times he's jumped it's been in full combat gear and his gun came up and hit him in the head knocking him unconcious. I consider that to be lucky though since almost everytime they jump at least one person ends up with a concussion or with something broken. They are having a family day next Friday when spouses can watch them jump, but I don't think Sean is doing that one. I'm kind of disappointed, I've never seen him jump and I think it would be a neat experience.

Ok, I've got a few questions for all you make-up gurus out there.

Question 1: Is there a good concealer you've found to combat under eye-circles? I've tried a ton of things. Foundation with powder on top. A few different concealers, so far nothing really hides my under-eye circles.

Question 2: How do you keep your eyeliner from running and creating raccoon eyes? No matter what I do I always end up with this in the mid-morning. I've tried putting powder under my lower lids to keep my eyeliner from running, I've tried different kinds of eyeliner and so far nothing has worked. I prefer to use a pencil, as I've tried liquid eyeliner and not had good results.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!