Riding the Storm Out

Well, all is well here at Fort Polk. I say that and the tornado sirens just went off a few minutes ago. ::rolls eyes::

Actually, the tornado sirens have gone off 3 times since last night. 4:00 in the morning and waking up to sirens is not my idea of a good night, but after Sean checking the radar on TV and seeing no meteorologist in sight we went back to sleep and amazingly weren't blown away.

Let me just say this. As a native Oklahoman I've experienced my fair share of storms and tornadoes. I've been very, very scared in many situations and when I was about 12, after a particularly bad storm season, I was convinced I was going to die in a tornado. I'm no rookie when it comes to bad weather. No offense to all Louisiana people, but the tornado watch/warning system in this state sucks. I don't think tornado warnings here and tornado warnings back home mean the same thing. Thus, I've pretty much begun to ignore the sirens around here.

I'm sure hurricanes are much worst in the coastal areas. I never want to experience a hurricane while living on the coast, but honestly? Up here the effects haven't been that bad and I've seen worse storms in Oklahoma. I guess I'm just used to a different type of storm. Again, not knocking hurricanes, I know they cause destruction and damage, but I think tornadoes back home have me a bit more scared than these hurricanes.

We weren't completely unscathed from the storm. Our electricity went out this morning and stayed off about an hour and then went off again later in the day and finally came back on about an hour ago. There are some limbs down and the Fort Polk website says there were some electric poles down, but otherwise it looks like we escaped so far with minimal damage.

I elected not to go to Alexandria today and decided instead to wait until the end of the month and the next payday. Hobby Lobby wouldn't have done too much damage on my account, but I know Forever 21 and the Limited would have. Instead I'm typing up some recipes on MRE's: Not for Me and catching up on some reading. Later tonight for supper Sean is going to make pancakes, sausage, hash browns and eggs. I'm more than ready! Breakfast for supper is one of my favorite things!

I hope all my fellow Louisiana people are all right and I hope the rest of you have a great weekend!

My Day Off

Fun Friday Questions are taking a hiatus this week folks, sorry about that! I've just been busy doing other things today and it sort of slipped my mind.

As I mentioned, I'm off work today and remarkebly Sean is too, which is quite unexpected. We used this day off to do some boring adult errands. You know the type: bank, grocery shopping, getting the car's oil changed. The commissary today was INSANE. I think the combo of hurricane panic and it being payday didn't help. Also the commissary was closing early due to the hurricane, as many places around here are so that didn't help either. Personally, I'm not too concerned about the effects around here, but I guess others are.

What amazes me is the people that have yet to evacuate from Galveston. Hello people? It's an ISLAND! WTH are you thinking? I'd be out of there in a heartbeat!

I'm really thinking about going to Alexandria tomorrow and shopping at Hobby Lobby and Forever 21. I know Sean will be busy with watching the college football games tomorrow and I have a need to do some shopping.

I got paid yesterday and let me just say what a wonderful employer I have. I missed quite a bit of time due to the hurricane and our server being down, but I was still paid as if none of that happened. It was so nice to get a normal check and a really big suprise. I do love working there!

That's about it for me today folks, I'm thinking about getting back to cleaning. How unfun is being an adult sometimes? Cleaning the bathroom and doing laundry on a day off? Sometimes I yearn for the carefree days of childhood!

Heroes At Home

Spread the word on this! I got an email from my FRG leader regarding Sears Heroes at Home Program. If you know some families that might not otherwise have a good Christmas I suggest you pass this on to them.

Go to www.sears.com/wish to check it out.

In other news, it looks as if I'll be off work tomorrow to "prepare" for the hurricane. It looks like Sara will be getting the brunt of the storm. Events are being canceled around here and once again Wal-Mart is packed with people getting ready for the storm. This time I don't know if we'll be so lucky not to feel some effects of the storm since we will definetly be on the east side of the storm. Guess we shall see how it pans out. At any rate it's not going to affect us like it will the Houston/Galveston area.

My Husband Wouldn't Be Caught Dead In This

Ok...so I know I already posted once today, read my post below if you want to read weird gym experiences I've had recently.

However, I was looking through the Lily Pulitzer catalogue and ran across this:

It won't let me post a pic..so please follow this link

Note the pants, yes I do mean the clownesque pants.

So I do like Lily Pulitzer stuff, but seriously, what man would wear this? I mean come on! My husband would rather go naked then wear pants of that coloring.

I just can't help but laugh!

Odd Happenings at the Gym

Well, we are up to 12 recipes on MRE's: Not for Me! and all look delish. So, keep those recipes coming everyone! I can't wait to try a few out.

I'm back working full-days at work. Actually I have been since Monday, since our server was back up late Monday morning. I'm grateful, because although this will be a smaller check than usual, it should at least be a somewhat decent one.

Can I just say that the gym has the freakiest people? Has anyone else noticed this? Or I am alone in the odd people flocking to the gym here on-post?

Let me give you some examples. I go to the gym alot, therefore I see the same people almost everyday and everyday there's something odd that makes me laugh and I have to tell Sean about.

1. There is a young woman who comes to work out who wears jeans, tight jeans mind you to work out in. Last time I saw her she had her hair braided into a Mohawk. Didn't think that was possible? Neither did I! She had Apple bottom, skin-tight jeans on, a midriff shirt, silver sandals, and lots of jewelry on. This girl is probably about 20. However, how is that outfit to work out in comfortable? I mean jeans and sandals? Not any sandals either. These things were platforms! That's not the only time she's showed up in an odd outfit. It's so bad that people literally stare at her when she's there. I'm not talking the good type of staring either!

2. It never fails that the he-man, macho types are in the gym when I'm there. Since I like to alternate weights with my cardio, they're usually all over in the weights. What kills me is the men who sit there and flex in front of the huge mirrors. It's one thing to look at yourself when you are doing free weights, but I'm talking walk over to the mirror, full on flexing going on. The oddest occurrence was when a 40-something man was at the gym working out with his young son. After every single exercise he did he walked over to the mirror and flexed. The funniest part was when he took off his shirt and proceeded to admire himself for about 2 minutes. It was all I could do not to laugh out loud. I kept looking around to see if anyone else was catching the show that I was.

3. Then you have your fully-decked out girls, similar to number one mentioned above. You know the type, they have full-makeup on, smell heavily of perfume and are wearing the shortest shorts known to man. I ask this, how is that comfortable? I much prefer comfy Nike shorts, a sleeveless t-shirt and no heavy makeup or perfume.

4. The array of awesomely bad gym fashion never ceases to amaze me. Hey, I'm just in a t-shirt and shorts, but I've seen swim trunks sported, really, really short shorts on men that were actually really obscene and an amusing array of spandex. Remember the outfits from Jane Fonda's workouts in the 80's? They've actually made an appearance in present time.

You gotta love the gym and the crazy shenanigans that go one there!

We Finally Got Them!

So yesterday we FINALLY got Sean's official orders. He re-enlisted for Italy, but at the time they told us we were only guaranteed Europe, we could be going to Germany. Honestly either was fine with me, but our official orders do say Italy and also tell us what company, etc. Sean will be with.

I'm so excited! The only blip on my radar is this stupid PT test, but I have faith that it will be taken care of and in a few short months we will be on our way to Italy. I'm so excited, but also a bit nervous at the same time. I know it's going to be a wonderful experience though.

I have to say I really hate election years. I hate the us vs. them mentality and I hate sweeping generalizations that people make. I was reading a blog yesterday where a woman was talking about why she was voting for X candidate and her husband was deployed and he was voting for X candidate and in fact where he was deployed there was a large to small ratio of men voting for X candidate. First of all, how do you know the exact number of men who are deployed that are voting for the same candidate you are? Pulling a ratio like that simply because some of your husband's friends or people in his unit that he knows are voting the same way he is doesn't mean X number of people in his same situation are voting the same way. I just hate when people do that. Like they can positively prove that? Just irritating to me.

I talked to my mom the other day and she informed me that she and my dad and my brother might be coming down here to visit during their Fall Break. I'm so excited about this. Last time they were here I didn't really get the chance to explore with them and I'm hoping this time we can go down to Baton Rouge and also visit Oak Alley plantation, which has been a must-see on my list for sometime now. I feel bad though because I told her I might not be coming home for the actual Thanksgiving holiday. I can tell she was a little sad about it, but I'm not sure if Sean does have that weekend off and if he does, all those from his unit that have to stay because of rotation asked if we could put together a Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. How can I say no to that? I tried to make my mom feel better by explaining we would probably be staying with them for most of December, but I think she was still sad.

In other news, our gym on-post now has a belly-dancing class. How fun is that? I really want to go and the best part is that it's free! It's on Monday evenings from 7-9. I didn't go last night since I had other plans and had also already been at the gym for an hour prior to that, but I think I'm going to start going next week!

Weekend Report

I kept meaning to get on this weekend and blog a bit, but I guess some laziness overtook me and it just never happened.

I had a good weekend though, I hope everyone did too!

For starters I had my very first massage. It was heavenly and oh so relaxing. I enjoyed every minute of it and the lady who did it was wonderful. My only complaint was the greasy condition my skin was left in from the massage oils. I would have liked to have washed that off before putting my clothes back on, but maybe I'm just being overly picky!

I also got my new camera on Saturday night! The Fed-Ex guy dropped it off around 7:30 that night and boy was I suprised! I didn't really expect the camera to get here until Monday since some of the routes have been messed up due to the hurricane aftermath. I've been messing around with the past few days and taken a few pictures, but nothing worthy of sharing on here. Once I get some good pictures with it I'll share them on here. I'm already amazed by the low-light pictures it's taken though. That's one beef I had with my last camera, but this one is already amazing me!

I'm only working half days at work right now because our main server, which is housed in Baton Rouge, still isn't up and running. That means the program we use for 90% of our work here isn't running and thus we aren't able to put any claims in. I'm hoping it gets fixed soon because my paycheck is going to be crap unless I start working full days soon. We're also abuzz here at work because of Hurricane Ike. It's looking like it might possibly take a Rita type path, which would put us on the east side of it. I'm hoping it dissipates, but it's a little early to tell where it's definetly going for right now. I'm just glad we are still well-stocked just in case.

I've been working on my college scrapbook in the last week since I have all these half-days with nothing to do. I've been meaning to do this for several years, since I've been out of college for two years and quite honestly a fun project has become tedious! I'm only in the winter of my freshman year and already I'm overwhelmed. This thing is going to take awhile to complete, but I want to get it done so I can start on other scrapbooks. If only the nearest Hobby Lobby wasn't an hour away.....

I also need to get in gear and start putting my recipes on MRE's: Not for Me! I've been meaning to do that the last couple of days. Lindsay put up a few recipes we had emailed to us and she did a pheonemal job. It looks really good! I can't wait until we have a huge collection on there!

Everyone enjoy your Monday!