It figures. As soon as Dan leaves to go anywhere I end up with a ton of problems at home. Our dishwasher isn't working anymore. I push the button to turn it on and I get nothing; no lights or sounds. To make matters worse there's 2" of water in the bottom of the thing, and I have to leave Friday night. I washed all the dishes by hand nd poured a bottle of vinegar into the bottom to make sure nothing grows in there until I can get back in town and fix it or buy a new one.
We had a bad hail storm last night and there were branches and leaves all over the front lawn. Luckily Elanna and I got it cleaned up this morning. Then, I got a call from MHN. They want me to start working at Cannon as a Financial Counselor. It's a pilot program, so they're going to see how working from home works out (I'll work one or two half days a week and some evenings), and I'm seriously thinking of doing it. The pay is good, and it gets better as soon as I get certified.
I'm also working on cleaning the house and packing up. I don't even have the laundry done, yet, and I can't find any travel toys for Elanna. I might try Big Lots after Elanna wakes up.

My cable is fixed! Dan and I were getting worried after it had been out all weekend that we might have to start spending time together as a family, but luckily that crisis has been avoided.

Today, Elanna got tested by the occupational therapist. While she's above average in all of her cognitive skills (problem solving, understanding language, pointing at pictures of ducks when asked) she has a tendency to favor her right side. I just figured she was going to be right-handed, but apparently people don't pick a side until they're 4 or 5 years old. She can do everything that she's supposed to at this age, just not with her left hand. Since no one wants the problem to get worse, she's going to start occupational therapy once a week. Supposedly if we address it now she won't have the problems learning to write that I did. We'll see.

The pediatrician said that Elanna is still in the upper five percent of kids her age for height and weight, but she thinks that's just where she's going to be on the growth curve. Dan is getting all excited; he thinks she can become a lacrosse player. If she gets really good that means she (and therefore Dan also) could get to meet Chuck Norris someday (he owns the American Lacrosse Association).

Everything is Broken

Everything fun is broken. My cable has been out for two days (it's not like there's any competition out here, so Suddenlink isn't in any hurry to fix it), I need to change the oil in my car (no one is open on the weekends, so I have to wait until tomorrow), and Elanna decided to decorate the steps to the jacuzzi last night with colored pencils. Luckily, they were erasable colored pencils, so it only took me half an hour to clean it up. Of course, I still have to figure out how to replace the filter in the jacuzzi, so I can't even use that right now.

I'm Back

I'm back from being sick. I got a really nasty head cold Thursday night, so I spent all of Elanna's nap time yesterday zonked out on the couch. Luckily, I'm feeling much better today, which is good because Dan and I are going to spend all weekend packing and getting ready to go visit Larry and Corrie. Actually, Dan is going to go to Billy and Leah's wedding in Vermont first, meaning I'll be left alone with Elanna for the week. Our airline tickets are crazy; Dan got three one-way tickets and I have to leave at 6AM from Lubbock.

Flies

I have had it with the bugs in this town. It's bad enought that this whole town has to smell like cow poop, but the flies are everywhere. I kill about three or four a day with spray, I have fly paper near my garage door, and I do nothing but keep everything in my house spotless (they're not coming in for the food). Nonetheless, the flies are everywhere. The produce section at Wal-Mart was so bad yesterday that I'm not going to shop there until the season is over. Teri just e-mailed all of us a reminder to individually wrap all the bake sale stuff because the flies at the squadron are horrible.
Any ideas on how to get rid of them?

Mondays

Bad news, everyone. The Air Force just announced that they're no longer making a lot of staff slots available to rated officers. Apparently, they want to keep the people they've trained to fly flying and the people they haven't trained to fly sitting at desks. What it means for us is that Dan's chances of getting us out of here in 4-6 years just got a lot worse. Unless he can figure out something creative, I'm going to be stuck here until the end of his career. That means Elanna might have to go to Clovis High School. Needless to say, I think it's time I start researching homeschooling.
I don't even know what I'm going to do about a job for me. The plan was to wait until the kids were all in school, then I'd go back to work full-time, or at least get a job with some steady hours. Now I need to figure out what I want to do in 4-6 years. I think my choices out here are cattle rustling, Wal-Mart cashier, and stay-at-home-mom. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that I'm able to stay home with Elanna, but I have to do something once the kids go to school. Ideally, that something will earn me some real money, too. So far this freelance writing thing has earned me $.33; getting paid a portion of the advertising revenue of a site no one has ever heard of isn't really the path to my ultimate dream: a money pool like Scrooge McDuck.

My First Blog

I'm not sure how many awesome points I lose because I have a blog, but I can't take facebook anymore. It never uploads my pictures right, and I hate to think of everyone who friended me having to read about stuff they don't care about just because I wrote it. This way, you get to pick and choose how much of me you want. Also, I get a portion of the ad revenue from those annoying side bar ads. I figure if I'm hitting my friends and relatives up for money, I might as well get some of the money.
Every Sunday I'll try to post our family schedule. That way anyone who wants to call us will know who they can reach and at what time. Also, I'll try to update the survey on a weekly basis. Finally, please feel free to browse my list of published articles. So far I've just got a few basic things published, but I'd love to get a few more things out there. As always, let me know what you think!
This week, Dan's having a bake sale at his squadron. I have to send something in with him, and I can't decide what to make. I came up with four ideas by staring blankly into my pantry, but I'm open to other suggestions.