Girl Time w/ Alexis --- *My 300th Blog Post*

When I was growing up, my mother never spent much quality time with me and as I got older I realized how much it really bothered me. My boys, who are 11 and 12, don't care much to hang out with me. I guess I'm not cool, I don't know lol...but my daughter thinks I'm the best thing ever!

Alexis loves going everywhere with me. She started the whole "girls day out" thing last year when she wanted to go somewhere with me "without the boys", meaning no DeeJay, no Richie, and no Daddy. So sometimes we sneak off to WalMart and get a special treat, or sneak out to eat, just the two of us...or the park or the library... she has a blast...and when she is happy, I'm happy.

Well, last month we did a girls weekend out! That was a blast!! We went up to Fort Benning, just me and her, to meet Rissa, Tasha & Sarah... we went out to eat, jumped on the beds in the hotel room, went to the Circus and sang like nuts during the car ride there and back.

Here she was on the way there...in the back surrounded by all the Scentsy Buddies she wanted to bring. ((She loves those things lol))

Our next "girls day out" that I took some pictures of was on St.Patty's Day when we went down to the Jacksonville Zoo - Jacksonville Zoo FB Page - it was about a 2hr drive for us, but so worth it!! We both loved the Zoo...

We rode on the train, touched Sting Rays at "Sting Ray Bay", saw lots of animals, rode the Carousel, saw Butterfly Hollow & played in a maze... Great day =)

Love my "baby" girl =)

Who Cares About Rank? I do!

Over the past few days while "creepin'" on Facebook, I have seen talk of rank in the military community, including on my page *AWDIWH*....

A few things made me laugh...one thing that made me laugh was spouses who were so adamant that more wasn't expected of them as their service member gained rank. I'm not referring to the way you dress or act reflecting on your service member, that to me, is common sense. I'm referring to attending certain functions, meetings & ceremonies...and no, I'm not saying you are required to do anything with the FRG. However, if your service member is making a career of the military, being social with him at his required social events will make him look better. Image can go a long way and can positively or negatively affect your service member.

Another thing that made me laugh was someone said something to the effect like "having an attitude is wearing your service members rank"... huh? First, let me state that I have NEVER, in person, come across a spouse who has "wore" their service members rank...I see some on the internet try to act high and mighty, but not in person. Frankly, I don't care if a spouse tries to "wear their service members rank". It doesn't effect me at all. And is it really that big of a deal when a woman wears her husbands rank patch on her ACU purse or diaper bag? Really? That doesn't mean she is walking around saying, "I'm Mrs. CPT MyShitDontStink"... I have an ACU purse that I use as my "Scentsy Brag Bag". Yes, it has my husbands rank on it... but guess what? HE WANTED IT ON THERE lol... So, in short, I really don't care if a spouse wants to act all "I'm better than you" b/c their service member is a specific rank. It doesn't affect me or anything I do... The only way it affects me is if I let it.

The last thing that gave me a little chuckle, while I was reading it via my phone, while having lunch with the hubs today was women saying they didn't care about their husbands rank. Really? I don't understand that. Do I care about YOUR service members rank? No, that has nothing to do with me. However, I do care about MY husbands rank. Why would I not care? Me saying I didn't care about his rank would be like a huge slap in the face to him. He joined FOR US, to get us out of the shit-hole town we lived in. He works his ass off FOR US, his family..he is making a career of the Army FOR US... so, yeah, let me just tell him, "Honey, I don't care about your rank...I don't care about all the time and energy you put into your career to earn that rank... I don't care about you being in charge of keeping guys safe during deployment while bullets are flying at your chest...all that you've done to earn your rank means nothing b/c I don't care about it." That would be a stab in the chest to him. He is proud of his rank and how fast he earned it and I'm proud of him too. Being proud of your service members rank doesn't mean you're flaunting it or bragging. And for those who don't care about their husbands rank, I wonder if they would care if he didn't move up in rank...or if he got knocked down. I bet that would change things.

Starting with just One Step

When I was a teenager I use to jog every night. Then I had kids and got lazy lol... I let myself go and before long I didn't know where to start to pick up the pieces and put myself back together again. Then I thought, "I'll start with one step."

I've been going through some personal things and I needed a way to get out some of my aggression...my anger..my hurt... I know I need to get healthy and lose weight so I decided to work on myself mentally & physically.. walking does both!

I grabbed my walking shoes, my iPOD Touch & my bottle of water and got my ass out the door. In the mornings I'll walk my daughter to school and then just keep going. For now, I'm aiming for at least 2 miles a day and I want to work up to at least 5 miles a day. I use http://www.jogtracker.com/ to track my walking. I have the app on my phone and the gps tracks it for me and directly uploads it to the site when I save it. It figures how far you walked, speed and calories burned. You can even add friends for support on JogTracker - look me up! My username is "jamielynn1027".

I like JogTracker because it is good to see my progress and you can earn nifty little "medals" lol I know it's only the internet, but it's cute =)

Walking helps me clear my mind and on the days I walk, I actually feel more energetic the rest of the day.

I have also been spending less time on Facebook b/c of my walking and it's wonderful!! As much as I love Facebook, I don't log seeing the negativity all the time...and sadly, as much as I want to, I can't control what other people post LOL Not reading all the negativity has positively affected me =) When you read and see all negative stuff, you slowly start feeling negative about things... and right now, I don't need it... I need positivity!! Facebook was poisoning my thoughts lol...

You can google all the benefits of walking and read about it, OR you can just get out there and do it and feel the benefits for yourself =)

BTW, I've lost 5 pounds in less than 2wks from adding walking to my (almost) daily routine. =)

AJ Fuller - My Heart Goes Out To You...

I received an email about a young child who is fighting terminal cancer. This is something that is extremely close to my heart...my mother died from cancer.

AJ's mother is an Army Wife and a member of my page - AWDIWH ... Upon learning about this and reading more about AJ, I have decided to share this everyone.

There is a hospital in Houston, TX where they can take AJ for a "last ditch" type of treatment... However, insurance won't cover it. AJ's mom and some of her friends decided to bring awareness to this to try and raise the funds.

Can you imagine if everyone on my page donated $3.00?

To read more about AJ's story visit - http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/ajfuller

Show your support by joining the Support Page on FB for AJ - Praying for AJ

Here is the link for the online fundraiser - https://www.wepay.com/donations/12022

Even if you can't donate, Please share for others to have the chance to help if they want to. Thanks =)

My Morning Smoothie - delish!

Yesterday I bought a new blender so that I could start making my smoothies again. I find it to be cheaper this way than buying expensive meal replacement shakes. When I went to the commissary yesterday I stocked up on fruit (fresh & frozen), organic soy milk, protein powder and nonfat yogurt.

In my blender I used:
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup unsweetened organic soy milk (45 cals)
1/2 scoop 100% Whey Protein powder (70 cals)
1/2 cup nonfat plain yogurt (50 cals)
1 Tbsp chia seed gel (10 cals)
1/2 banana (53 cals)
2/3 cup frozen strawberries (50 cals)
*you can add an artificial sweetner if you want, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't..

Follow the links to see the health benefits of the items I used (you can also just google yourself to find our more than what I provide):
Soy Milk
Whey Protein
Yogurt
Chia Seeds
Bananas
Strawberries

Here are my pics =)

It's yummy =)

Hearts & Stripes - Give-a-way Winner is *SARA BITTLE*

We had 72 ladies participate in the give-a-way contest!! Thank you all for participating and helping another site grow.

Our winner is *SARA BITTLE*!!

Here is everyone's name written down in the order they posted on Hearts & Stripes wall:

And here are the pics from Random.org where I chose the winner:

I will notify the owner of Hearts & Stripes and Sara =) Congrats Sara!!