In My Own Words

Saturday afternoon, after Savanna’s 5th birthday party, Jack and I went to Sam’s Club to pick up a few things. As we always do when I’ve got money to spend on our Warriors, he got a cart for household stuff, and I got one for Soldier stuff, then it was off to the races… LOL! With the bake sale proceeds, my longevity pay, and my monthly allowance, I actually had a little over $400 in the Troop Support account, and intended to spend about half of it on “stuff” and save the other half for postage.

Some of you reading this know that I hate shopping. I know, that’s just not normal…women are supposed to love going shopping and spending money. I even know some who like to go shopping and not even buy anything; just look at everything in the store. But if I have funds available for care package items, I LOVE wandering up and down the aisles with my shopping cart and picking things out for our Warriors. I tally everything up as I go, and when I reach the limit I set for myself before we even got to the store, well, I just stop putting stuff in the cart and head for the checkout. This trip I got quite a variety – Slim Jims, Beef Jerky, sunflower seeds, trail mix, several varieties of granola bars, Easy Mac cups, ramen noodle cups, Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee cups, crackers and cookies in individual serving packs, Twizzlers, Oreo cookies, Rice Krispy treats…I can’t even remember what all; I just know I spent a little over $200 including sales tax, and it looked like a mountain of “stuff” when I got it carried into the house.

Last night I got two boxes packed and put them in the mail today for two of our latest adopted troops. You know how people say it’s a small world…well, I’ve discovered that it really IS a small world. One of our latest adopted troops is 744th EOD; their request said “anything that they can eat, read, or play with is welcome.” I’d already decided the first package to them would be filled with a variety of “anything they can eat,” which is exactly what one of the boxes going in the mail today consisted of.  I was talking to  our oldest son Paul one day last week, and he said something about Jennifer’s cousin Andy, who is an EOD tech, having just left for Afghanistan a couple of days earlier. I didn’t put two and two together until he said Andy had not deployed with the rest of his unit; he’d been sick or something and had to catch up with them; they were already boots on ground in A’stan. Well, guess what? Andy is with the 744th EOD…so I indirectly adopted an indirect family member and didn’t even know it… You know that group is going to get a little extra “spoiling”…LOL!!

I sent out an e-mail this morning to everyone at the Board of Ed asking for donations of summer items for care packages. The list included sunscreen, lip balm, eye drops, saline nasal spray, baby wipes, flavor packets for bottled water, squirt guns, water balloons, anything to help cool off our Warriors, protect them from the elements, and help them relax a little bit. Only one person mentioned the e-mail – at lunch time, Kinny told me he has two packs of water balloons he had bought for his grandkids to use at the pool, then thought better of it when he imagined little bits of broken balloons getting jammed in the pool filter. He was wondering what to do with them, so when he got my e-mail request a light bulb went on over his head – send ‘em to the sandbox! So even if nobody else donates anything, there are two packs of water balloons that I didn’t have before. Every little bit helps.

I’ve got enough funds left to pay postage on 8 more large FRB’s, and probably have more “stuff” than will fit into 8 boxes… That’s the way it always goes, though, as every AnySoldier Support Junkie can attest to. So I’ll send what I can, and God will provide for the rest; He always does!

Our Soldier, SPC Dana Atkinson is now Cpl Dana Atkinson – go Dana!! She’s taking two of her Soldiers before the Soldier of the Month board tomorrow (or today, since they are 8 hours ahead of us, so it’s already tomorrow where they are…) so we’re all wishing them the best of luck – Go “Q” and Andy!! Hooah! Sounds like I need to make these troops some more cookies; they’ve obviously been working hard and definitely deserve a treat.

I have clothes in the dryer that I need to put on hangers before they get all frinkled and wrinkled, then it’s time to think about hitting the hay. Thanks for reading my ramblings, and as always, feel free to comment. That’s the only way I know if anybody is reading my blog or not. I don’t suppose it would matter either way, since I’ll keep on writing regardless, but it sure is nice to get a little feedback. Hugs {{{{{{y’all}}}}}}