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Our living room has become a staging area for Soldiers’ Angels care packages. Olivia is my angel in training….we packaged up 200 goody bags and she was such a good helper. By the way, her car was standing by in case she needed to go to “Tah-get” to get some more “sholdier” stuff.
Well, it’s been a week and a half since I’ve started my quest for getting letters for our troops. All 50 states have had their superintendents or commissioners of education contacted via email or fax. One state flat out told me no because, “we support our own.” Okay, whatever. A couple of other states said I need to take it to the district level and gave me a link for email addresses. No problemo. I’ve had commitments from 93 schools/teachers in North Carolina, Texas, Indiana, Nebraska and Tennessee. Not bad considering my original email went out 9/10! Pennsylvania modified my request and deleted my email contact information so who knows how many will come in from PA; I guess I’ll just have to be surprised, right?
I also hit up some people in my personal address book for Christmas cards for the troops. This is to those who have responded so far: YOU GUYS ROCK and so do your friends! I can’t wait to see how many we get.
Happy Wednesday!
Susan
Got an email from Shanny about these shoes. Yes, you can order them from N0rdstrom’s.
Grey
Natural
Who will be the first to sport some of this de-lite on your feet?
Since I have nothing else going on in my life, I’ve decided to add another layer…
First, thanks to all of you who participated in my “Applauding You” project in the spring. I have received all the hands and I’ll be posting pictures soon. I ended up with close to 3,000! and almost 300 units will receive them as they will be strung together in sections of 10.
I’ve decided to take it 50 states farther….
Last Sunday I received notice through Soldiers’ Angels about a chaplain who is over 1,100 Army and National Guard soldiers whose morale is really low right now. Since there is no way I could write 1,100 letters by myself, I started spinning my wheels and I’ve started emailing every principal in North Carolina asking their schools to participate in a letter writing campaign with me. In case anyone wonders, schools have kick azz spam filters. I’m having to do it in spells b/c getting emails kicked back for one reason or another dampens one’s spirit so by next week all 3000 email addresses on the list will have my request sent to it. I also emailed every state’s superintendent or commissioner of education in hopes that they would pass along through their email system. SC has told me they are going to send it, TX sent it and I ended up emailing to all the individual schools in TN. Some states have statewide email capability from that high up and others don’t. I’m counting success since two states have already done the footwork for me. We’ll see over the next couple of weeks how it goes. If I don’t get much more response from the state level, I’ll start pleading on the district level. It’s very time consuming but so worth it.
I have received commitments from 40 teachers/schools and I’m sure more to come. I’ve already received two batches of letters in the mail and my original request went out Monday (9/10). PLUS several of the schools are collecting items for me to send and have asked how they can adopt soldiers! Keep your fingers crossed for me! If there’s anyone who may want to do it again (cough, cough) email me. This time it’s simply letters on regular paper or artwork. Those in NC public schools *hopefully* you’ll be receiving the request through your principal.
Last night I signed 250 halloween cards I’m sending out with goody bags this week and I’m starting to work on Christmas cards because I’ll need bunches of them. If anyone else wants to help, I’m collecting signed Christmas cards to send with packages in December. The Dollar Store is a fantastic place to pick up 20 for a buck and it doesn’t cost much to send them to me.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.
A while back I posted I had started golf lessons. Well, before the July 4 holiday I successfully completed 2 lessons. Holiday came and went and 100* plus temps rolled in and I didn’t make it back for another lesson or even the driving range. My company was a sponsor in a golf tournament and I was signed up to play. I thought I had until the end of September to “get ready,” if there’s such a thing. Nope. It was TODAY. This past Tuesday I managed to squeeze in a third lesson and I made it to the driving range yesterday. I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was going to be. I’m not ready for the LPGA but I did okay. It was captain’s choice and my partners liked me because on the par 5 holes, my tee box was waaay up there and I typically drive 150-175 yards. So, all I had to do on those was drive decent and the rest of the time we played the best ball. Surprisingly, my ball was the “best” more times than I thought it would be.
I had a great time and can’t wait to play again. Yay!
Before moving on to sleep stuff….Potty training appears to be a success. I’ve hesitated posting this (and I probably still shouldn’t) but we are 99% done. Just an occasional accident now and again. What has finally sealed the deal is Olivia is telling us; we had just been taking her at regular intervals but now she will tell us when she has to go. She has also been waking up dry in the mornings, hallelujah! However, I’m not brave enough to fore go Pull Ups at night yet.
We are having sleep issues…again and still. Just when it seems I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, something blocks my view. Olivia is back to only letting me put her down at night and it takes eons to get her to sleep. We’ve started early…we’ve started late…we stick to the same routine…we’ve tried adding an extra book in there…you name it, I’ve tried it. The biggest problem is she won’t sleep all night without me there with her. If she wakes up and I’m gone it’s all out screaming. We’ve offered prizes (including a swimming pool since she loves to swim), shopping trips, treats, etc. all to no avail. I’ve read every book I can find with the last one being “Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child” by Marc Weissbluth. A lot of it we’ve already tried and it failed. Olivia gets really bad nosebleeds and they start for no reason so sometimes she cries because her nose is bleeding and she’s scared of the blood. Other times (most of the time) I’m not there. When I put her down, she wakes up at midnight/12:30. We’re up for an hour or more, which kills my sleep. She goes back to sleep and I move back to my room. An hour or so later, she’s up again screaming at the top of her lungs. I don’t know what to do. We don’t like having her in our bed because it’s, well, our bed. And she’s such a bad bed partner anyway.
I’ve tried talking to her and she’ll say she’s scared. I’ll say of what and she responds with, “monsters.” It’s hard to explain to a 2 1/2 year old there are no monsters and I’m sure she picked up on monsters from a kid at school. We’ve tried the bedroom door open, lamp on, “special” blankets, Teddy to watch over her, etc. Not working. I’ve tried telling her daddy needs her to share me because she understands sharing and letting others have their turn. Not working. Last night I thought we had a breakthrough when she let Will put her down. After their nighttime routine she sat up, looked at him and said, “Mommy’s turn” and it began again.
I’m open to suggestions (but no criticism). Those who have been there, done that PLEASE tell me what you did. Did it eventually just go away on its own or will I be tucking her in when she leaves for college?
We knew Teddy hasn’t been acting like himself…Come to find out it was hormonal.
At first Olivia was upset our “gift” from K0tex wasn’t a sticker but her frown turned upside down when she realized she had a “diaper.” Poor Teddy. However, I give him props for handling the wings like a champ. The things our bears do for love. Sorry for the poor quality…Will’s phone was the closest camera would could get before Teddy had to “go.”
