My Middlest Child

So, I wasn’t going to blog it until I had actual news, but. . .

We’ve been at this base for over five years. It will be six years next April. This is a very long time for a military family to be anywhere. We have requested orders many times. We have begged to be sent overseas, we have volunteered for odd assignments that very few people want. We’ve prayed. And here we sit.

So, after being here we have earned what is known as Base of Preference or BOP. This means that we select our top 8 bases (stateside, nothing outside of the lower 48), and we say, “look, we’re done here. We’ve paid our dues and then some. Please send us to one of these preferred locations.”

The Air Force looks it over and is supposed to do its darnedest to get us to one of these places. They figure out which of these places has the highest need for a person of my husband’s skills and rank, and they make a spot for us there. Or, if they can’t do that they say, “Tough luck, loser, you’re stuck where you are because we just need you here so badly.” They are supposed to not use the Tough Luck, Loser option very often.

So, we submitted BOP in January.

And they lost the paperwork.

Yeah. I know.

So, we had a baby, adapted to that and then on September 29th, submitted BOP again through their new electronic system where, in theory, our paperwork can’t get lost.

I read the official release on this new system and it said SIX WEEKS to get back to us.

So I tried not to think about it. It didn’t work very well.

And then today after not hearing and not hearing. . .I did the math.

49 days exactly.

Which is SEVEN WEEKS EXACTLY.

I facebooked:

7 WEEKS!!!! SEVEN WEEKS!!!! 7! 7! 7! I NEED TO KNOW NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This excessive use of the exclamation point brought to you today by the US Air Force and their not getting back to us about Base Of Preference and whether or not I’m MOVING and WHERE to. I’M GOING INSANE!!!!!!! CAN’T TAKE THE SUSPENSE ANY LONGER!!!!!

And I am. Going crazy that is.

I hate not knowing if I’m coming or going. At this point I just want to know. If I’m staying- I’ll buy curtains for my dining room and make it look like a real room. I’ll switch the kids and the bedroom around. If I’m going I’ll start hyperventilating and making uncertain plans and cleaning out the house in a HUGE way. Either way, furniture will be moved. Either way, I will cry about it at some point.

So, I texted Chris today and begged him to make a phone call to investigate this. It doesn’t look like the papers are lost because the website has us listed as pending.

Gahhhhhhh.

So- lets play a game.

We’ll call it. . .Which Way Is Up. You can all guess where we are going, or if we are not going or if Chris will get some totally random, crazy assignment we don’t expect. Whenever we find out, I will draw a winner from the group of persons guessing correct, and send them a present.

If my memory serves me, we requested South Dakota as our #1 spot. North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Utah- all on the list. there were others, hmmmm. I know we stayed mostly Midwest. No Southern bases were requested at all. I think Washington state and Ohio might be on the list- they are on our “we like those places” lists, but I really can’t remember what we put when we entered this crap shoot.

So - go ahead. Make a guess. Maybe you’ll win a prize.

My Scrapbook Nook October Kit.

Peek!

Where’s Gabe?

A-Boo!!!!!

Drum roll Please!

Congrats to Becky Williams, the lovely Number Six!

You’ve won yourself a Ribbon Box or ScrapMaBob - and a chance for the big prize- a full sized Work Box!

Good luck!

And get Ready to see the final winner over at Rachelle’s Writing Spot on October 12th!

(An oldie, but it makes me smile).

Hi there,

I am going through my collection of Quickutz dies and need to do some cleaning out. I have the following for sale at prices that are reduced from 30-65% off. Many are retired and very hard to find! If you are interested, please drop me an e-mail at everydaylou (AT) yahoo (DOT) com. These prices do not include shipping.

Alphabets:

Sugar Sweet $90
Biography: $130
Strawberry: $90
Chopsticks: $65-pending
Mademoiselle:$65
Finale Grand: $80
Abigail Grand: $80
Blossom Grand: $60
Miss Muffet: $35

Country Die Sets $15 each:

Netherlands
Canada
Sweden
Germany
Australia
France

All dies can be viewed at Quickutz.com .

Also, if you know anyone who scrapbooks who might be interested, please point them over here!

Thanks!

Also- we’re reaching the last days to enter the Workbox contest in my sidebar! Good luck!

The duck pond.

A quilt.

A blue eyed baby.

And two wild big kids.

A beautiful evening.

I finally manged to scrap my Disney photos. I have issues when it comes to events, vacations, holidays, birthdays, anything falling outside the everyday moment photographs. (You know, all of those things people make an effort to scrapbook, to keep in chronological order, to commemorate all those events, etc- I don’t bother. I scrap what I feel like scrapping. There is no order whatsoever to my albums. There you go, my dirty, little scrap secret laid bare). I like pictures that share a feeling - not so much a story. So things like this tend to get put off, and frequently don’t even happen.

And when it comes to Disney photos, I’m not much of a character paper person.

I like to find papers that match and work with the photos- the Princess and Mickey Mouse papers are cute- but they tend to overwhelm photos.

So I was really pleased to find that this Audrey line from Lily Bee (where this album is being featured today) was such a great match. The black and whites with the bold and rich primary tones really do it for the Disneyland color palette.

Good for a Princess, good for a Mouse. No cheesy characters aside from the people photographed.

I also used a BoBunny acrylic edgy album, Jenni Bowlin letter circles, American Crafts thickers, various ribbons, Zva Creative pearls. The tulle is all from Lily Bee flowers.

Thanks for looking!