The Hackworths

My bad.  Again.  Moving on.

So, here in the land of Iwakuni we have limited American shopping options.  And when I say limited, I mean we have The Exchange.  The Exchange hates me.  I want some tiki torches, so of course, there are none at The Exchange.  I proceed to my default second option, Target.com.  It can never be as good as stepping in to a brick and mortar Target and getting smacked in the face by the smell of popcorn and seeing all of that shiny, pretty red, but you take what you can get.

So, I find some tiki torches online.  I like them.  I put them in my virtual shopping cart.  I go to check out, but no.  There will be no shipping of the tiki torches to APO/FPO addresses.  WHAT?!  So, frantically, I check Amazon, Lowe’s, and Home Depot only to be shot down again and again.

I thought about taking my neighbors’, but it’s an awfully small base and I’m sure I’d get caught.  I could ask The Exchange if they’ll be getting any more tiki torches this summer, but I’d have to talk to 95 people before one of them would finally give me the wrong answer, so I’m stuck checking in every few days to see if some miracle has occurred and they actually have something people want to buy.  Besides Roxy purses, because they usually have an awesome collection of those.  Until I see them anyway…

I’ve got the archives back in place finally.  I had to go through and delete tons of duplicate posts even though WP is supposed to be “smart” enough to not do that.  I also lost a TON of comments.  C’est la vie.  I sure wasn’t going to enter them by hand.

I’ve been putting off working on the site because I’ve got a ton of things going on right now.  I just started work on my BS last week, I’m still watching the baby down the street every day, and we’re still getting Justin ready for his deployment.  This blog was a lifeline back in 2000 when he went to Japan and again when he was in Iraq in 2004.  I’ll be at it again soon, but right now spending time with Justin (and doing homework) is the priority.  Expect everything back in full swing at the beginning of February.  I’ll still be here sporadically, of course and you can always see what’s going on in pictures over at Flickr.  And even though I don’t comment, I’m still checking on all of you guys.

Due to the unbelievable amounts of obscene comment spam I’m getting, comments will have to be approved before they post. This will be in effect until I can get home and figure out some other means of controlling this nasty stuff.

I’ve switched to WordPress. The installation was simple, the MT import was idiot proof, and now I’m trying to figure out all of the fun things that WP can do. I’ve got a ton of pictures to share from the trip including a 25 week belly that I never got around to posting. I’ll get those up here ASAP!

Yeah, new design! I’m super excited and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. I got the spiffy pregnancy script installed with minimal issues. It told me at one point that I was 1774 weeks pregnant and that my due date was in 1970. I wasn’t even a twinkle in my dad’s eye in 1970.

My kiddos are driving me batty today. I fed them lunch and put them down for a nap at 11:30. Here it is after 3:30 and the monsters never did go to sleep. I so wanted to take a nap, too.

I have drawn yet another unsuspecting victim into my web. Go on over to Lori’s new website and give her a big ol’ howdy. She’s the wonderful lady that was our neighbor the first time we lived in NC. She’s also the one who is housing us until we get in to base housing. (We’re up to 28 on the list!) Her hubs is off to Iraq for the second time in February.

I’ve caught my first bandwidth thief. This person decided to direct link to one of my blinkies, so I replaced it with another graphic befitting the person. Click here to see a screen shot. And it’s not bad enough that she’s stealing lots of others’ bandwidth, she’s encouraging other people to take them, too.

I didn’t actually sign up for the May Day Project, but I probably should have. I’ve got tons of pictures to share with you. Sorry if it’s painfully slow loading.

12:03 am – We’re leaving Wal-Mart after the tornado scare.

11:59 am – I’m on my way to my father-in-law’s graduation from the University of Oklahoma and took a picture of the Love’s sign at I-240 and Sooner Rd. that was damaged in the tornado on the 8th.

12:00 pm – Another photo of the damage at I-240 and Sooner Rd. This is the GM plant in the distance.

12:00 pm – Last photo of the damage at I-240 and Sooner Rd. This is, or rather was, the bank on the south west side of 240.

2:41 pm – My newly graduated father-in-law with my sisters-in-law, Carla and Jaime. Way to go!

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2:42 pm – Me with my father-in-law. Did I mention how proud we all are?

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2:45 pm – This is the clock tower outside the OU library. Sure brings back lots of good memories.

4:22 pm – This is a building on I-35 at 12th St. in Moore. We’re on our way to a birthday party over near Yukon. Happy 1st Birthday, Megan!

5:04 pm – Lou at the birthday party. She’s finally beginning to understand that you have to hold still when getting your picture taken.

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5:05 pm – Little Miss at the birthday party. I don’t know, I thought the cake was fine…

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7:37 pm – Larissa, Carla and I are going to see X2.

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10:53 pm – We’re finally headed home. Little Miss was worn out!

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10:53 pm – Lou was wide awake, though!

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We had a blast at the zoo today. We finally got home around 2:30 this afternoon and everyone napped until 5.

Lou has been such a big girl today. She woke up this morning with a dry diaper, so I put her on the potty and she tinkled in the potty! She’s tinkled in the potty three times today. Once at the zoo, even. I’m so very proud of her.

I was wondering why I had so many visitors lately. I’m on MSNBC along with several other military family bloggers. Very neat! Go check out the article here. Hi to all of my visitors from MSNBC!