Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Military Jobs and At the End Story that moved me!

This is something I have been thinkign about for weeks on end I am so glad that it has finally become a news article. As I practically lecture my ex into staying in the Army for the benfits for my kids. I am now considering it myself to pay off college debts I will build over the next 5 years maybe even 6 as I explore what I want to do in life. Mostly considering it because kids safety, security in having a roof over our heads , food on the table and utilities paid. And well now my rapidly increasign medical bills. I need a way to have security.

Military recruitment surges as jobs disappear
As the U.S. economy continues to shed jobs, recruits swarm to the military, despite wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Aaron Smith, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: February 10, 2009: 2:21 PM ET


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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Fresh recruits keep pouring into the U.S. military, as concerns about serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are eclipsed by the terrible civilian job market.
The Department of Defense said Tuesday that all branches of the armed forces, including the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, met or exceeded their active duty recruiting goals for January, continuing a trend that began with a decline in the U.S. job market.
This is despite more than 4,800 American soldiers, Marines and sailors dying in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
It wasn't always like this. In the past, when the economy was strong, the military struggled to fill its ranks. But since fiscal year 2006, the DOD has consistently met or exceeded its recruitment goals. This occurred even as the Navy, Marines and Air Force raised the bar on their goals.
The military acknowledged that weakness in the U.S. economy, which lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008 and another 598,000 in January, has made the armed services more appealing to potential recruits.
The military isn't necessarily the only hope for the jobless. President Obama intends to create or save up to four million jobs through his stimulus package of more than $800 billion. And some areas - namely health care and education - are currently hiring.
But the dismal civilian job market is not expected to improve any time soon. The Conference Board estimates that the economy could lose two million jobs this year. The military is confident that it will continue to meet its recruitment goals.
"Recruiting is always a challenge, but a tighter job market provides more opportunities to make our case to young men and women," wrote DOD spokeswoman Eileen Lainez, in an email to CNNMoney.com. "The military offers competitive salaries, hefty compensation packages, extraordinary education benefits and valuable job skills and leadership training."
Staff Sgt. Jimmy Spence, a 2006 veteran of the Iraq war and a career planner for the Marines, said, "You're not going to get these kind of benefits out there in the civilian world, with the job security that you're guaranteed."
Spence, who is married with a young daughter, said the health benefits are among the biggest draws for service members with children. He also said that re-enlistment bonuses, as large as $38,500 for a first-term sergeant, have helped to bolster the ranks.
At a Manhattan recruiting center on Monday, a 23-year-old construction worker said he was considering a military career to provide health benefits for his two children.
The construction worker, who would not provide his name, also said he was nervous about the layoffs occurring in his industry. In the military, he intends to study architecture and engineering.
When asked about the possibility of serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, he replied, "I'm not worried about that. I'm just worried about my kids."
First Published: February 10, 2009: 1:01 PM ET

Women and Secrets

One thing I have noticed in the past few years of being a mom and this being my very first weekend without kids since I had them is that I sacrifice allot but I also have gained allot of knowledge. I had to become 30 before I hit 21 when I had my first baby. I gave up working late hours, shopping, hair appointments and manicures. I truly feel like I have let myself go. So right now I am going to start setting up goals to continue in my regain Sascha momentum.

Not only that but this is also to remind us women that men are not physic. I just read in Oprah what women really want for Valentines Day. One lady made something click in my head" For just this once I wish that my husband would hire a cleaning service and make me dinner" that was in my own words she worded it a little more eloquently. But I have decided to put that to an end in my life from the small to the big, cheap to the expensive. So by positing about things I hope to do an accomplish its creating a type of wish list.

This being my very first weekend minus kids and with the man whose captured my heart. We are going to stay up late and sleep in. I plan on getting pics taken. Getting a Sascha update poor guy is going shopping(not at his expense , just time with me while I do this stuff ) lol new eyeglasses cuz I desperately need them, a new pair of jeans I only own 2 pairs from 4 years ago! yikes, getting my brows waxed and a mani-pedi omg I have missed that!. Im calling to get the Internet put into my house and new tires on my car.
To save some money I am cancelling my gym membership :( but I want to get a Wii Fit to replace it. Then we plan on doing a craigslist hunt for a new couch. I need to downgrade lol small spaces need smaller furniture. Oh and definitely fitting in a movie! and a trip to the chocolate factory ooooh yeah! and a fun new shooting game for my Wii. Oh and re purposing my coat closet as a pantry.

In my long run plan for this spring I am planning on starting a veggie garden and planting some flowers and making my house pretty on the outside (requires locating a lawn mower and tools so maybe we wil hit a flea market), as well as cleaning out my basement and decluttering to our hearts content. May need a bull dozer to get rid of my previous hoarding addiction but it will get done! Minimize minimize minimize is going to be my mantra.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Is this in my head???

Or is there allot of crazy things happening! Planes crashing, NY in the Hudson, PR by Quebradilla, In Brazil and I think I have heard of a couple more! Ummm clubs burning in china, then a big new hotel burns in china.

Am I paranoid??? does anyone else see this?

Friday, February 6, 2009

Gosh Im such a girl!!!

With a New complete and Total Addiction to ireport.com I was reading through all of the romantic valentines how we met stories while trying not to tear up in class lol not an easy feat these days lol especially with the happenings of my morning.

Well in one of those stories which btw where also on how the economy is impacting thier weddings. one lady mention'd vintagevegasweddings.com ha im totally in love with getting married in vegas one day in the far far distant future. So it was a fun afternoon of daydreaming and being a total girl something I dont think I have ever done in my life lol

... back to reality a cancelled date night whichI am pretty damn livid about.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Im only 23 going on 24 in a week

AndI feel like this OMG! am I mentally 40! I have fallen off the rocker lol


By Lisa Kogan




(OPRAH.COM) -- Here's a little fact of life that took me by surprise: Roughly 23 million women in this country are 40 to 49 years of age and about 6,000 of us turn 50 every single day.
We are a thoroughly undefined constituency. Some of us are what the wonderful Wendy Wasserstein used to call "bachelor girls," some of us are married, and a lot of us have had trial separations that seemed to go just fine...at least for the husband (with the struggling rock band), who went on to become the ex-husband (with the thriving law practice).
Many of us have demanding kids or aging parents or a little of each. We juggle jobs, mortgages, student loans, and cancer treatments with low-fat diets, low-impact aerobics, low-grade depressions, a strong sense of irony, a dark sense of humor, and a full-bodied cabernet.
We are tired. We are very tired -- we've thought seriously about penciling in a nervous breakdown for ourselves, but we've been through everything the world has to throw at us so many times that it's damn near impossible to get nervous about much of anything.
Despite (or perhaps because of) all the coulda, woulda, shoulda moments that have come and gone, we've learned how to have a good laugh, an impromptu party, and an impure thought (or two) on a semiregular basis. We consider our options, our alternatives, our exit strategies. We take notes, we plan ahead, but we always leave room for serendipity. We are an entire generation of women who are making up our lives as we go along. Oprah.com: What Oprah has learned though the years
I know that it's human nature to want to glorify the past and preserve it in a delicious, if often inaccurate, cotton-candied haze. But the truth is that part of me (that would be the part of me that now needs an underwire bra and a pair of Spanx) really does miss my 20s. I still had that new car smell. I still thought terrorism would stay confined to the other side of the world.
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On the home front, I still kept standing up for brides (as if they needed my assistance to stand) while waiting politely for it to be my turn. And because it never occurred to me that my turn wouldn't come, I devoted an inordinate amount of time to trying to decide whether my wedding gown should be white or ecru -- by the time I hit 35, I'd have been okay with paisley.
The Web had not gone mainstream when I was in my 20s, so any surfing I did (and coming from Detroit, that wasn't much) was in the ocean. And I grant you, my rearview mirror might be a little bit rose-tinted, but if memory serves, those oceans were fairly clean.
Come to think of it, the glaciers were glacial, the bees were alive and well, a can of tuna didn't require a warning from the surgeon general, and the climate wasn't making any sudden moves. Color me crazy, but I've always been a sucker for a nice solid layer of ozone parking itself between me and a death ray.
I'm also a great believer in time off for good behavior. I crave solitude. I like being unreachable once in a while, and in those days it was no big deal if somebody couldn't track you down for half an hour. You see, in the 1980s, we didn't know from e-mail or cell phones or Facebook or GPS, and a BlackBerry was nothing more complicated than a healthy treat that was high in antioxidants -- only guess what? Nobody had ever heard of antioxidants.
I didn't need a baby aspirin every night or a Lipitor every morning. And I swear to God (that's another thing, God was still around when I was in my 20s), the closest anybody seemed to come to a genuine eating disorder was picking at a mixed green salad on a blind date until it was okay to go home and scarf down the contents of your refrigerator.
But before I start turning into my great-uncle Saul, who never fails to tell me how he could've bought the entire Upper East Side of Manhattan for $225 back in 1936 ("when an ear of corn still tasted like an ear of corn"), let me say this: As much as I miss those days, I'm delighted and relieved to be done with being young.
One quick glance in the mirror is all I need to know that time is most definitely a thief. Wait, strike that: One glance and I usually think I'm holding up pretty well -- it's upon closer inspection, that moment when I take a deep breath, put on my glasses, and turn up the dimmer switch, that I'm reminded gravity is not my friend. But if time has robbed me of a little elasticity and a lot of naïveté, it's left a few things in their place.
Thanks to nearly 48 years at the big dance, a million mistakes, and one extraordinary psychiatrist, I've finally achieved the occasional touch of clarity. I'm getting to be resourceful. I'm getting to be resilient, and I hope that on my better days, I'm getting to be a little more calm, a little more contemplative, a little more compassionate. Oprah.com: How to make your midlife matter
Sometimes I think being middle-aged isn't about learning a lot of new lessons so much as learning the same old ones again and again. Here are a few of the lessons I keep learning:
• It is never a good thing when a shrinking portion of the population controls a growing portion of the money. It tends to make incredibly decent, hardworking, middle-class people sort of jumpy, and the next thing you know Kirsten Dunst is playing Marie Antoinette in a Sofia Coppola extravaganza.
• Anyone who looks okay in ochre will look even better not in ochre.
• War and famine bad, James Franco and spaghetti carbonara good.
• What doesn't kill me does not make me stronger. It makes me anxious, bitchy, and vulnerable...but nobody wants to see that embroidered on a pillow.
• This isn't exactly an old lesson I keep learning, but given that I'm lucky enough to have my own column, I'd like to use it to set right an unfortunate mistake.
Remember a few years ago when we all got together and decided that sleep was the new sex? I've come to believe that we were dead wrong. What do you say we make actual ouch-you're-on-my-hair, did-you-hear-the-baby, jeez-that-was-my-eye, messy, intimate, life-affirming, really, really fun sex the new sex?! Because here's the thing: Between the economy, the environment, and the powder keg that is Pakistan, nobody's getting any sleep anyway -- so as long as we're all lying there wide awake...
• Dorothy Parker was a genius. She wrote a gem of a poem called "Indian Summer." It's very short, but I'm low on space, so I'll just cut to the end:
But now I know the things I know,
And do the things I do;
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you!
Bravo, Ms. Parker. And, finally, deep into my 40s, I couldn't agree with you more.
By Lisa Kogan from O, The Oprah Magazine, February 2009
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Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Itch Un-Scratched

Lol so here I am its February and Im begining my search for my perfect summer job...

Ha and while craving coffee I was browsing ktka.com our local news station and as it turns out some Topeka barista won the coffee championship in St Lois. So I strted lookin into the company and it actually seem nice and so i submitted an Application back into the world of being a barista a job I never thought I would love and miss.

New quote to me made my day

Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars" Les Brown

Monday, February 2, 2009

Its like outta spite!

Fort Riley center is more than a babysitter
Friday, Jan. 23, 2009
Fort Riley’s increasing population means an increasing number of children on wait lists for child care. So the base is building six new facilities. 49 News Manhattan Bureau Reporter Lindsey Elliott toured one of the new child development centers and explains how this center prepares children for their future. Watch video.

Geez almost likw outta spite when I needed them they had no room when im in Topeka struggling it out they open 6!!!


OHHHH and AGAIN! Like outta spite Fort Riley strikes again...

PX Grand Opening Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
2/13/2009
The 1st Infantry Division and Fort Riley will celebrate the grand opening of the Army Air Force Exchange Service Post Exchange with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 9 a.m. Feb. 13 at the facility's new location on Trooper Drive in Camp Forsyth.
The ceremony will highlight the $24 million facility, which will offer clothing and electronics, as well as five restaurants, a Starbucks, pharmacy, barber shop and spa with massage therapy.
In addition to the ceremony, the 1st Infantry Division Band's Brass Quintet will perform and Soldiers with the Commanding General's Mounted Color Guard, 97th Military Police Battalion's K-9 Unit and 1st Brigade 1st Inf. Div. will provide static displays from 8:30 - 11 a.m. in the PX parking lot.

Only

Only when can my ex make me realize over and over why I love the man that I do!!!!

He tried to destroy my self esteem and made me realize a what a jerk he always was.

He tried to say that my kids are just baggage! And that Nic would leave me because of them... lol Nope I dont think so. The girls are not baggage to me or him, babysitting might occasionally be an obstacle but he loves those girls! and that makes them not baggage.... Take me as I am attitude always has been and always will be me.

Not only that when my ex further attempted to destroy me name calling trying to make me think that Nic sees me as baggage and while I wonder where in the world he comes up with that crap he doesn't even know him. But with all of the fighting over child support and how little he wants to pay. I decided to let him know a thing or two! When Nic is here we take the kids to the park once a week, when I have to study or take a test, he watches them, anything and everything for my little girls he does. When I have to get the radioactive stuff he would watch them to protect them. In my mind he in these 6 months has been more of a father to those girls that thier sperm donor ever has and ever will be.

"my ex's comment... " you must be exxagerating, but thats nice" or the"oh so he does what you can't handle" LMAO AHEM What I can't handle! this comming from a man who has taken his daughters to the park 2 thats right 2 times in thier entire lives. and to the zoo twice because I had to twist his arm to go! The man who can't let go of one weekend to watch his children, whom refuses to take them when I get my treatment to protect them from harm!

Gosh I really hate to say it but DAMN WHAT a DOUCHEBAG!!!!

America & Obama

Thanyou President Obama ! I can't thankyou enough so far in my mind you kick ass! This weekend a close friend and Anti- Obama'er informed me she had been havign a battle with her childs daddy about whom would clain thier child on thier taxes... well that was until president Obama signed somethign saying only the custodial parent could do this! Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou!!!!! Finally what one less stress on single mothers.


Second The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, as a woman and a Single Mother thankyou!

Third, Schip! Thankyou president Obama this just may help my children have health insurance coverage! Thankyou.

No doubt in my mind the Economic Stimulus package will help our families as well as banks! Including a potential increase of food stamps. Something I dont hide I recieve hell I am a single mother of 2 and for my family of 3 I only recieve $135! and a single male reporter for cnn struggled on $176!!!! Ha thats $135 a month for 3 of us!

Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou So far.

Friday, January 30, 2009

Long Day

Omg how sad is this.... I have spent one looong day at work. I feel bored and while yes I love my job I found myself reminicing about my days as a barista. My days where never boring especially in the heart of NYC. All my regular customers I miss so much , the compliments, the special requests to have me be the one to make thier annoying drinks lol

So many days while worked in Starbucks where after it got dull with the new machines I hated going to work. I still miss the interactions everyday, it was never monotonous. Not to mention free coffee.

So I miss it soo much maybe I will do it as a summer job lol It was fun afterall gone a few years and I miss it.

LOL

Ha someone has is kinda right lol According to this guys standard I should be 105 lbs! that would mean losing 13 lbs!!! Geez!

"It's simple to determine what she should weigh. A woman 5 ft tall should weigh 100 pounds. Add 5 pounds for each additional inch. (Guys start at 106 for 5 ft tall and add 6 pounds per extra inch). "

That was a guys comment on Jessica Simpson lol So much for falling in love and beign fat and happy !