I am DONE DONE DONE with Stats! Made an 83 on the final exam and an 85 in the class. In the world of grad school that's a B, and I will so freakin' TAKE IT!  All of you are cordially invited to the Stats textbook burning that will take place after Bill gets home from NG annual training.  You may bring your own hated text books to burn, as well as ( Read more... )

Well, crap.  I tried to voice post and it didn't work for some reason, so now I actually have to type and stuff.  Bleh.  BUT I have GOOD NEWS!!  "And it's about frickin' time she wrote something good,"  I hear the peanut gallery say.  Bill is IN the system!  He is officially a member of the TN National Guard.  They even back-dated it to March 3, ( Read more... )

"Hurry up and wait" is the unofficial phrase of the Army (along with BOHICA).  It's in full effect where Bill is concerned.  Last Tues., Bill was told that the waiver for his hearing loss had arrived, and he could go and do paperwork and swear in at the armory in Kingsport.  He did all of that and left Friday at 5:30 a.m. for Smyrna, TN for JAG ( Read more... )

The past 3 weeks have not been fabulous for The Headbanger or her family.  C has been struggling and crying, I have been worrying, and poor Bill hs been watching from afar (Charlottesville) and coming home to an exhausted wife.  C began her small dose of Prozac about two and a half weeks ago, and we are beginning to see some benefit in the past few ( Read more... )

Bill is going to go back into the National Guard if he can.  He was to take a physical this weekend, but that got cancelled -- most likely due to weather -- and now the next one may not be until Feb.  That is very close to the time his troop deploys, so it is unsure whether he will make it in time to go with them, be sent at a later time, or go ( Read more... )

I was going to save this post for tomorrow, Veterans Day, but that post needs to be about them, not my feeling.  And so today I talk about how I feel about two events:  The Fort Hood Terrorist Attack (don't even try to change my mind on that one) and the upcoming deployment of Bill's regiment (278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, TN ARNG).  We'll begin ( Read more... )

Hey gang!  Been here since Thursday, but have been busy.  Late Thursday afternoon Bill met us here in Kingsport, and we all went to our friends Tara and John's house.  John and Bill were in Iraq together, and several troop members gathered at John's house to have a cookout and celebrate the memory of SSG Maddies, who was killed in action a year ago ( Read more... )

Freakin' A!!  Where did all this laundry come from?  The clothes are mating in the hamper!  Clearly they have not been taught abstinence.  And the socks are the worst...they are little laundry whores.

This weekend is Bill's last drill in the Guard.  I think there are mixed emotions there.  On the one hand, he'll enjoy not having to drill every ( Read more... )

A few months ago, Bill made a very difficult decision to get out of the Army National Guard.  Bill has been a soldier in some capacity (active in the 82nd Airborne for 4 years, SSG Cav Scout in the Guard for 12) for most of his adult life, so the decision was not made without some serious thought.  His ETS date is June 6.  Yesterday it was ( Read more... )

The memorial service this weekend was moving, but exhausting both mentally and physcially.  Mentally, it was exhausting due to the emotion (both laughter and tears) and the fear that all of us felt who are about to go through another deployment.  Physically, it was exhausting due to the fact that it was over 90 degrees in an armory that is ( Read more... )