Some time ago I read in the paper that the United States Navy was planning on commissioning a new guided missile destroyer here in Seal Beach, the first commissioning at Seal Beach ever. I clicked the link for more info and sent in my name. I thought it would be really neat to take my Dad to see this piece of history, then I sort of forgot about it. Well, some time in January or early February, I got the official invitation and up to 6 RSVPs. Well, you know me, I sent in for all 6 tickets, called my family, and we made plans to go!

Fast forward to the week before the commissioning. John has been working like a dog lately and really wanted a day off - totally understandable. My sister thought her friend Dianna might enjoy it, so I invited her in John's place. Our party would consist of Gramma and Papa, Auntie, Dianna, Mom and Melody. Gramma and Papa were staying with us that week and we made our plans in eager anticipation. Then the weather forecast predicted rain. Lots of rain. If it rained, not only would it be uncomfortable and unfortunate, my parents felt they could not go and sit in the rain. I can't say as I blamed them. We watched the weather almost hourly and on Friday night they said if it wasn't raining in the morning, they would go.

We all went and were prepared for a downpour with 5 umbrellas for the six of us and two of those umbrellas were large sized ones. There was a bit of rain, nothing heavier than a shower, which lasted on and off for about an hour. The Dewey was beautiful in her bunting and flags. The Navy band serenaded us when it wasn't raining, and the crowd was robust in spite of the weather. Melody was fascinated with everything, from the flags they handed out to the big ship in front of us! 

Right before the speeches started, at about 10:58, the sky cleared and there was no more rain for the rest of the day. We could not have asked for more! The various speakers were not long winded and in fact gave interesting and inspirational speeches. Most impressive was the moment the ship sponsor called the crew to "bring her to life" and take all operations on line. Seeming from out of no where, sharply dressed sailors in their black uniforms, white hats and gloves, ran past the audience and onto the ship. They lined the rails, outlined against the blue-gray sky, like sentinels guarding the castle. When they were called to attention, every man and woman snapped sharply to salute as one person. It was a display of military precision I had never before had the honor to witness, and I was proud to be present for it.

Of course, it occurred to me that any one of those sailors could one day be a recipient of one of my care packages. The most recent recipient was from DDG 93, and most people don't know that many of the early forces in Afghanistan and Iraq were Navy men and women. The moment of commissioning was for me, a validation of all we are fighting for and all I do to let our troops know we wish them a safe and speedy return home.

There are photos in the gallery, courtesy of Auntie Kat, and here's another little clip of Melody being cute.

While browsing the news today, I discovered there is a big controversy that has reached a boiling point in New York City. People either want to include or exclude children from bars.

Wait, what?

How is this even a question? Last time I checked, the law limited the age of individuals who could enter bars to 21 and older, and I don't think "under 21 night" is intended for 21 months and under. That's the first thing that came to mind. As I read further into the article, I began to wonder if these are bar & grill type places, and then I regained my senses. Why are parents aggressively fighting for their right to drink with their children? Aren't parents, by definition, supposed to be putting their children's needs first? The arguement is that parents need to socialize with other adults and some parents want to bring along their children to the places they socialize, e.g. bars. And, by children, the article was specific, it's the under 5 crowd.

Now, I'm all for being able to go out to dinner with your family and have a glass of wine or a beer with your dinner if that is your desire. A drink, or even two, with dinner is reasonable. Bellying up to the bar while Junior watches, a captive audience, in his stroller just smacks of irresponsible parenting. Am I wrong here?

Granted, there isn't anything wrong with drinking responsibly while your children are present, and frankly there are plenty of parents who drink irresponsibly no matter who is present. I just keep getting stuck on the "fighting for their rights" aspect of this issue. Is it truly a matter of their rights or just that Mom or Dad doesn't want to drop $50 on a babysitter/beg their parents to watch the wee ones. Or is it that they are among those parents who's identity revolves around their child and they are unable to do anything without their kids?

On the "say no to kids in a bar" side, I just cannot imagine some of the nights I spent out with my friends, kicking up our heels and knocking back our shots, with a little kid sitting there staring at us. Going out to a bar for many, is their release, their time to let down their hair and get crazy, their escape from the pressures of work, family, kids.

I will remember, if I ever find myself in New York with a small child, that if I want to get smashed in a bar and said bar is prohibiting my child's presence, I'll just cry foul that my civil rights, nay, my inalienable right to intoxication, is being impinged!

If you have ever seen any of my home repairs, you are laughing at the idea that I will start a handyman business. I'm capable of very minor repairs, but installing baby gates resulted in major damage to two walls and the newell post of our stairs. You could say I know just enough to be dangerous.

Unfortunately, the yahoo who built the additions on our house only knew a little bit more than me, it seems. My dad and I built shelves in Melody's bedroom, but the recess is SO out of square we practically have trapezoid shaped shelves. I had a new bifold door installed on our linen closet with a similar reaction from the installer - it's very out of square. While that is normal everything seems a bit more out of square in our house than any other house I've lived in.  How hard is it to use a plumb bob and a level in construction? Everything seems to be a little more wonky that it ought to be. As another example, all the outlets were installed upside down and in different colors - black, beige and white. It was just lazy construction work I think.

Our upstairs bathroom was decked out in hideous simply gorgeous pink tile and oak accents, including the toilet. Very 80s. We have long thought that we would like to change out the wooden toilet seat, but it recently became a requirement as the toilet seat broke. Keep your snarky comments to yourself, people. Now I'm all for recreating the past, but splinters in my patoot just isn't something I want to experience! My friend suggested these toilet seats that have a child seat that folds down onto the regular seat, so I went and got one. It eliminates the padded seat thingy for Melody. I've changed out the toilet seat on other toilets. I'm a capable woman. Piece of cake, right?

Please refer to paragraph two here. Oh, and just for those of you who don't know, a toilet seat is attached to your toilet with a couple plastic or nylon nuts that screw up against the underside of the base of the bowl. Not too difficult.

These little buggers were screwed on so tightly the plastic had actually conformed to the shape of the bowl underside AND was sealed ad infenitum in perpetuity world without end with a dab of silicon caulk. I was afraid, very afraid, that I would have to run for the downstairs every morning if I could not get that seat off there. I even called my dad because of course the screws themselves were rusted to the fixture. What a mess.

Well, it took me two days of dogged determination, motivated by a desire not to sit down on the seatless bowl in the middle of the night, but I got that yucky old wooden toilet seat removed. I actually had to take a safety cutter, cut away the sides of the plastic nut, all while turned upside down with my head wedged between the bowl and the wall, and then using sheer will and brute force pull the screw/nut combo up through the hole.

My new toilet seat is lovely.

...I wanted to share it none the less. I don't think my pictures are good enough yet for SkyWatch Friday, which is a global link-up every Friday featuring the skies of the world. If you like pretty skylines, check them out here.

Thursday last week, a storm was rolling in to bring us some more rain. As I drove home, the first clouds were making their way across Orange County, and the sun was obscured, yet still shining brightly. I took a couple photos with my phone - we were in the "stop" phase of stop-and-go traffic, don't worry - and here is the best shot.

Last week was eventful and the upcoming week is shaping up to be busy as well. It's the way life speeds by that gets me every time!

In the last week, we celebrated Auntie's birthday, she and I went to a Victorian tea (as the Victorians), we found out our dog is fat, John and Melody finished watching all the back episodes of Kimba, we finalized the details for Melody's birthday party, I cooked a delicious Cheddar Chicken Soup, Nano had 3 teeth pulled, Melody is increasingly stubborn about potty training, John worked about a million hours, we cleaned the spare room enough that it will soon be a guest room, and I baked for our latest soldier through Baking Gals.  Whew!

My company has announced a "get fit" program and a bunch of us at work have been walking during our lunch breaks. It's great and I really felt it the days we didn't walk due to rain. It's also fortuitous for Nano because he needs to lose 2 pounds. He's only 11 pounds but he should be 9. My little doggy is fat, lol. However, it's more serious than that. He has heart disease and something called a collapsing trachea, which causes him to cough a lot. The doctor thinks that the extra fat around his neck is pressing on his trachea and causing breathing troubles. Nothing to joke about, the dog gets less food and more walks. On top of that, poor guy had to have three molars pulled. Ouchie!

Melody's birthday is coming up next weekend, and pretty much every day, she asks "is it my birthday today!?" with such a look of excitement and eager joy that I almost want to tell her that it is her birthday, lol. I really can't wait until Saturday to be able to tell her "yes, Melody, today is your birthday!" We are planning a bouce house (weather forecast is sunny), friends, food, and a Tinkerbell cake. Thursday I will be taking her and some of her daycare buddies to the Santa Ana Zoo, along with Rhonda our babysitter. I'm really looking forward to it!

This morning, she was tired and did not want to get out of bed. She lay there watching as I was gathering clothes for her. She then told me "Mommy, I have a headache. When someone has a headache they have to rest and stay in bed." I am so not looking forward to her trying to get out of going to school! I can only conclude she got this idea of staying in bed from me, since a couple weekends ago I had a terrible migraine and stayed in bed half the day..

During some of our cleaning of our spare room, I was forced to deal with my old records. You remember those things...vinyl, big pictures on the jackets, lyrics on the inside sleeve? Yeah, so back in the late 80s and early 90s, I collected Depeche Mode records. Specifically I was addicted to British and West German imports. I'd play them once (maybe) to record the music onto a tape and then never play them again. The West German ones were all colored vinyl, beautiful royal blue, neon orange, lemon yellow. I carefully stored them in plastic sleeves to protect the jackets, and never stored them in a garage or attic. Well, this paid off - figuratively and hopefully literally! I was about to send them to Goodwill when I decided to Google "who buys Depeche Mode records" and found a dealer in England. They have made me an offer for some of these records, and that should help out a bit toward my trip to Tennessee in April.

Yowza, how could I have forgotten to mention that I booked our trip to Knoxville?? Melody and I will be visiting the Hall family at the end of April! It will be Melody's first trip on an airplane; in fact, her first trip anywhere. John of course offered to pay to have Tara come here, but I really want to go there, ha ha. I will even get the chance to see a real Civil War battlefield, AND go to Dollywood! Melody tells me "Mommy, we are going to Hollywood with Cassidy!"

This past weekend we baked for our latest soldier, CPT Steven Wisniewski. CPT Wisniewski is an Army pilot flying Apache helicopters in northern Iraq. He's young, having graduated from high school in 2001, where he participated in football, wrestling and track. He also loved the arts, participating in the school choir and drama group, National Honor Society, Latin and Spanish clubs. To balance that, he earned his Eagle Scout in Troop 101 in Ohio. CPT Wisniewski went on to Ohio State University where he earned his degree in Engineering with an emphasis on Industrial Design & Systems Engineering. Wow. For this very worthy soldier, we made Cinnabon cookies, merengues, and heart shaped oreos. I hope to get in one more batch of white chocolate chip cranberry cookies and ship this all before the weekend. It won't reach him by Valentine's Day, but I hope he will know we are thinking of him and wishing him and his buddies a safe and happy Valentine's Day.

CPL Wisniewski reminds me a little bit of my cousin George. He has the same zest for life, a few of the same interests - choir, flying, sports - and was also from Ohio. Every part of my being asks that George watch out over this young soldier and keep him safe.

We have been doing a lot of cleaning, getting rid of, donating. One group that has gotten all of our gently used baby gear is a support group for the families of deployed Marines out of Camp Pendleton. I recently received a sweet thank you note from a young lady who took a bus from Corona to Irvine in order to collect my old Pack N Play and high chair. The families of our deployed military suffer so much, it makes my heart break. Having seen some of my friends go through the struggles of being wives of deployed military, I am happy to give up the things we don't need to someone who needs them so much. The support group is like a Goodwill, but the family pays nothing. If you find it in your heart to make a donation to any organization that helps out like this, please consider it. It makes a big difference!