Military.com Spouse Summit 2013

Readers, I am honored to share this information with you all today. A few years ago as a semi new blogger and newlywed I heard about Military.com's Milblog Conference. Even though it was the weekend of my first wedding anniversary my husband understood when I jumped at the chance to attend (at least half of it!).

I had a blast. For the first time I was able to put names and faces in person to the bloggers I had been following for years. To be honest, I was a bit starstruck! 

This is one of the group pictures from the night of the conference... all of these women are amazing bloggers that I could not believe I was fortunate enough to meet!

The networking possibilities were endless, not just for bloggers either. I knew people who attended the conference and left with not just a pocket full of business cards but legitimate job opportunities as well. Now this was in 2011... two years later the conference has evolved. Do you have to be a blogger to attend? Nope! This year they are trying to reach all military spouses who wish to attend. If you can get to the DC area April 11th and 12th I highly encourage it!

Military.com’s Spouse Summit is not your typical conference. First of all it’s free! And they have banned the PowerPoint and 30 minute speeches in favor of interactive sessions with experts you can actually talk to and network with. The summit will focus on the issues that really matter like connecting with other spouses-on and offline, military mental health, what works when raising kids in the military, spouse career options and what you need to know about that looming transition to civilian life that faces every single military family at some point in their lives.

And the speakers this year are truly top notch: they have representatives from the Center for Deployment Psychology, The US Chamber of Commerce, The Warrior and Family Support office of the Chairman of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, University of Southern California's Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans and they are so honored to have as our keynote speaker Sal Giunta, the first living Medal of honor recipient since Vietnam. Amazing stuff, right?

The link to register is: http://spousesummit.com/ and you can follow along on Twitter this year with the hastag #MilSpSum

I am very disappointed I cannot attend this year. Naturally this is the weekend of my play! So I will be in North Carolina, jealous of all the lucky spouses who will have an amazing time. Do you plan on going? Let me know!

Adoption Fundraiser for a Fellow Milspouse

One of my favorite bloggers Ashley from Celebrating Wife as an Army Life contacted me recently for some help. She and her husband Pat are currently in the process of trying to adopt a baby. Ashley battled cancer as a teen which hurt her fertility. This is something both Ashley and Pat were aware of when trying to conceive and after a year of fertility treatments they decided to try for adoption. As I am sure some of you know adoption is not a cheap process. Besides paying the agency there are lots of other fees ranging from classes to home studies that need to be paid for.

The home study is currently something that has become a bit of a speed bump for them. They have hosted a scentsy party in the past to try and raise money and this time they came up with a unique idea I'd like to share with you all. In Ashley's own words:

"It's a puzzle fundraiser! Each puzzle piece is $5. The idea is you purchase a puzzle piece and then we write your name on the back of it. We frame the finished product and hang in our future nursery. :) That way we always have a reminder of the amazing people who helped piece our adoption together. We thought this was such a cute idea and something we can keep forever! We purchased the puzzle and figured we could take status pictures to reveal what the picture is. Keep everyone in suspense!"

I think it is a fabulous idea and I sent in my donation already! If you would like to donate to this wondeful couple you can donate to their Gofundme page: http://www.gofundme.com/ktfgw. Each puzzle piece is $5, a small price to help an amazing military couple become parents. To follow their story feel free to read their adoption blog: http://thegollaschsadoption.blogspot.com/



Ashley, I wish you and your husband the best of luck! I cannot wait to see where this journey takes you!!!

Winning!

I just have to give a major shout out to ! The Crafty Military Wife ! and Skinnie Piggie for this awesome beauty....



Sorry, had to edit for security!

But my husband and I love the sign which is currently hanging in our dining room. We will add duty stations to it as we go and it is definitely something we will treasure. Thank you Skinnie Piggie for hosting the give away for your birthday and thank you Staci for the gorgeous sign! You will be hearing from me again once we know where we are PCSing to exactly. Check out her facebook page or shop to order one for your family.

Thanks again!

Thursdayyyy

My husband will be home extremely late Friday night, actually Saturday morning really, and stay for two weeks. I AM SO EXCITED. I cannot wait to see him!!! Tomorrow night cannot come quick enough. Half an hour more at work now, swimming tonight, tv, phone call, sleep, work, bounce around in excitement after work, drive an hour then HUSBAND. (:

This week for the link up with Goodnight Moon I am going to go with a little Coldplay - Viva La Vida. It is the first concert Ryan and I ever went to together because... I won tickets on the radio! I was caller 14 or whatever it was, I was driving home from an audition and could not resist calling in. I was so excited I almost drove off Rhose Island Ave! That's why cell phone hands free laws are important :P



Coldplay is amazing to see in concert. They have tons of energy and each song is just so well done! The singing, the music, the effects... it is pretty sweet! They even had one stage in the audience about half way back on the right and other to the left on the lawn so tons of people got to be close!

Don't forget to enter my give away!!! Quite a few people entered yesterday which made me very excited. I will pick the winner tomorrow before I go to the airport to pick up my husband! GO Enter! Please (:

What have I been up to?

Going to NJ to see Kim in a show:



Reading lots of books:



Being addicted to Pintrest and other random online finds:



Watching Season 7 of The Office on Netflix Instant:



Work:



Swimming twice a week with Carrie:



And hosting give aways no one seems to want to enter:



Really? One person? Come on readers! Don't you want an awesome poster to hang up of anything you want? Baby pictures? Wedding pictures? Go enter! Please? So I don't feel like every give away I do is a dismal failure?


Bragging rights:

My husband graduated from basic electronics school yesterday. With honors. And the second highest GPA in the class! I am so so proud of him. His next school doesn't start until the first week or so in November so he is coming home this week. Probably on Friday or Saturday once his leave gets approved. I miss him so much and I am honestly convinced time is dragging to get me to the end of this week. To have him HOME for a few weeks will be such an enormous blessing and I really just cannot wait!

Fellow Bloggers:

I have read Wife [Window] of Wounded Marine for a long time. Today I signed on to AOL to check my mail and saw her face on the front page for this Huffington Post article. It moved me to tears more than once, and on her blog today she does clarify some things, but it is definitely something you need to read.

Helpin Out

So I met this cool zombie on Sunday named Shane. Shane was another fellow actor actually at the commercial (lots of people were just there for fun or because they were doing the 5k, only a few of us were actually wannabe actors) and he is auditioning for Season 2 of the Glee Project. Please Click HERE and like Shane's video! Help a fellow zombie out so when he gets to be on TV and uber famous you can say "I knew him when..."

And Skinnie Piggie is hosting an awesome series of give aways for her birthday! YAY! I love birthdays, and I totally love today's prize... so go enter! Staci is the sponsor and she makes these amazing "Home is where the "Insert Branch Here" Sends Us" Signs. Ours would be the Marines obviously, but I think it would be a fun thing to have and add to for the next fifteen years....





Not much else going on around here. I have just been working and lazying about. Time has slowed down recently, especially knowing Ryan will have leave in two weeks. Some days I am so absolutely fine, it feels like I have been doing this forever. Other days I miss him so much I almost can't breathe. I am a regular ping pong of emotion which I am sure is enjoyable to those around me! Just two more weeks. I have to get through 2 more weeks and Ryan is home.

Is it October yet??

Run For Your Lives! - Commercial Shoot

Yesterday was exhausting, long, sticky, and full of crazy awesomeness. Two words...



Zombie Commercial. (photo from the Run For Your Lives facebook page)

Holly over at Semper Fi to Apple Pie posted on facebook Friday that she wanted to go do this commercial up in Maryland and wanted someone to go along. My inner theatre/acting nerd jumped for joy and said I would totally do it!! Holly heard about it as she plans on running the Run For Your Lives 5k in October and they were wanting people for this commercial to promote it. This 5k is in Maryland on October 22nd, but next year is the "Outbreak" and Zombie 5ks will take place all across the country!!

So the night before Holly came and crashed on my couch so we could be up bright and early at 6am (ugh. I so do not do mornings...) and on the road by 6:30. We reached the shooting location by 8am or so and were finally awake with excitement!

After waiting around for wardrobe to check out our dresses (as they strongly encouraged not to just wear jeans and tshirts) they were deemed worthy and got shredded. And rolled in the mud. And dunked in fake blood. Sand paper may have been involved. Needless to say my maxi dress (really, I only ever wore it once in the two years it sat in my closet) had seen better days!



Mud was a popular choice to drag costumes around in! People got waaay down and dirty with that puddle!

And my shredded costume. I figured I was on a date with the hubby and we were walking back to the car when I got jumped and zombiefied.







There were zombie cowboys, nurses, doctors, brides, grooms, and even a zombie Marine. We had a nice variety! Some were in jeans and tshirts, others in full formal wear. We ranged from pretty young, like our cub scout or karate zombie, to older gentlemen in distinguised business suits.







In other words, we were an awesome Zombie Horde!

Make up was next, we had four lovely artists who made up a good 80-100 people! I think I turned out pretty darn scary (but my husband disagrees... he thinks I look cute regardless. Sigh.) in the end!









I had quite a bit of fake blood, both liquid and hair gel with red food coloring to look congealed as well gel in my hair.



Next was a pep talk from our director with instructions on what the heck we were actually doing and other information.



We then made it to the field. 2 hours of running down the hill, walking back up the hill, and running down and walking up trying to catch our hero we took a small break. I got to meet some pretty amazing, fun people (you expect anything less from a Zombie Horde??) and thoroughly enjoyed myself. We then filmed the end scene as well as a smaller segment of zombies smashing through the woods (me included!).





Filming was finished around 4:30pm and a whole lot of zombies slowly scrubbed off their make up and fake blood... I still had a fair bit on my arms and legs to take home though. Poor Holly cut her foot on one of our last shots running down the hill, I felt so bad for her, but luckily there was a zombie who was an EMT in his other job (you know besides being a zombie) and he was able to wrap that up for her. One tetnus shot later and I think Holly was good to go!

I helped clean up a bit after we changed, and of course I promised to write a glowing blog write up of my day. Glowing enough? I had a blast working with everyone, from the extras to the lead actors to the crew to our director Chilibear (aka Brian), they made the day fun and I am so excited to see the finish product!

Check out Run for Your Lives here, or Like it on Facebook.





Watch for our NATIONALLY BROADCAST commercial (hellooooooo 30 million viewers!) on October 16th during AMC's season premiere of The Walking Dead. It will also most likely be on youtube at that point and I will be sure to post it here.




Zombie Allie, over and out!

Photo Book

Man I love me some Shutterfly! I got an email with a coupon code (just because?) for a free photo book! I only had to pay shipping and handling, not a bad deal at all. And it is hte perfect thing for all our Vegas Pictures. I love how easy and efficiant their photo book editor is... I can make it as simple or complex as I want. I went simple this time and had Shutterfly place all my pictures in a book for me, then just moved them around to my liking. Thank you Shutterfly!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Sweet Shutterfly Spring Stuff!

(Don't mind me... I am a sucker for alliteration!)

Now from my baseball post I am sure you gathered that I love spring time. I love the warm weather, being able to go for walks with Ryan (had a long one Saturday and a semi long one Sunday!), eating outside, bbqs, flowers... just the general happy feeling that winter is finally done and everything is just lighter. People are shedding their winter coats (as are cats and dogs :P), trees are blooming, flowers are ... flowering... you get the idea!

Now fast approaching is graduation season! I know I have been graduated two years now (Hooooly cannoli! Has it been that long!?) but my little brother is graduating 8th grade this year! Where has the time gone? I may just have to make some of these fun announcement/graduation cards for Stefan. A nice classy, masculine card of course!



I can just see my brother's goofy adorable smiling face on this one! It caught my eye immediately. I do love getting cards from Shutterfly. In fact Ryan and I got our Christmas Cards from Shutterfly this past year. I actually did two orders, because after sending out the first batch I realized we were horribly short! Both orders came in fast and looked terrific. I will definitely use them again this Christmas!

Or how about a cute, personalized Father's Day Card?



Sometimes going to Hallmark is more convenient, but I just reminded you in plenty of time if you want to get Dad (or your husband for the kids or your grandfather or uncle or godfather or whoever) a nice personal Father's Day Card. This one seemed appropriate for all the Dads out there that are heroes, and not just to their own families!

Now anyone who went to the Milbog conference with me can tell you I was quite dismayed to not have my own business cards!!! They even got you free drinks! They are a great way to network with some influencial people, exchange information with a friend, and of course promote your blog.



I think something nice and simple like that would be nice, don't you? I love the color blue, I would just need to add my info, my blog URL, and I'd be a high flying blogger in no time at all.

It doesn't stop there. You can get photobooks, mugs, tote bags, wooden boxes, awesomely priced prints, and just about anything else you can stick a picture on. Head on over to Shutterfly and enjoy some Spring Savings now!

Fellow bloggers: If you haven't already, sign up for a chance at a free photo book from Shutterfly!

Almost 200....

So I am only two followers away from 200 (oh my God!!!) and I am pretty excited!

I would really love to do a give away! Would anyone be interested in partnering up with me? I don't really know what to give away and I would love to help promote someone's business/work/anything! So if you are interested please send me an email at imyewneek@yahoo.com or just leave a comment. And I will not let this give away turn out like my last one, I promise. *grumble*

Now with so many new followers I have two more things I want to do!

One: A Question/Answer Post

Do any of you have any questions for me? Some of you are pretty new so I would love to fill you in on anything you may be curious about! I know going back to the beginning of a blog and catching up can be pretty time consuming, especially when you have to go back to June 2009 or so to do it! So ask away! Anything about me, the hubs, the Corps, the blog... I'll gather them up and do a big answer post soon. I mean, if people ask anything!

Two: I wanna know about you!

I try and comment on all the blogs I read as much as I can. Am I not reading your blog? Let me know! Have a button you want to add? Link it to me! Now I have a few questions for you.... leave answers in the comments below!

1. Are you a military spouse? Spouse to be? If so what branch is your significant other in?
2. What are two of your favorite blogs to read?
3. Who would play you in the movie of your life?
4. What is your dream job?
5. *POOF!* Your turned into an animal by an evil genie (for a day...). What are you?

Thanks for reading everyone. I am so glad I have stuck with this blog for so long and all the great things and relationships it has given me!

New Layout

Isn't it stunning? Brea is amazing. I am absolutely in love with the new layout and she was a star to work with. Any questions or changes I needed she worked with me on and was very accomodating. I know I won her give away so her professionalism and promptness even without full pay was super. I highly recommend Brea's services to all of you wishing to vamp up your blog with some extra oomph! You won't regret it!



Brea has no idea I am doing this post, I just wanted to thank her for her amazing work and praise her talents! So thank you!!!

Also, don't forget to grab my new, gorgeous button! And check out the new pages at the top. I am still working on some of them, like the recipes and helpful link list for military spouses, but I am getting there!

Drained

Sorry, I usually blog better than this, but with the events of the past weekend I just haven't had the blogging spark.

That kind of makes me sad.

Anyone else play Words with Friends? I am addicted. Add a game with me if you want to play, the screen name thing I use is imyewneek.

We had our holiday party at the office yesterday (which was different from the corporate party last Friday!) and I ate SO much. Ugh. I literally had a rock in my stomach. The party was from 2pm on and I was there maybe an hour before going back to the phones and I did not eat a single thing the rest of the night. Poor hubs was stuck with left over tuna! Sorry but it happens.

As you can see this post has no direction whatsoever. I am so scatterbrained at the moment I just don't know where to start so I am jumping all over the place.

In lighter news....

One of the blogs I just started following (utterly chaotic) is having an AWESOME giveaway for reaching 100 followers. You can win what she is calling the Utterly Chaotic Package, it includes her fabulous graphic work, header, sidebars, signature, new button.... amazing. I have had this layout for awhile now so with the new year approaching a new layout would rock my socks off!

Shutterfly Deal!

If you are going to get one of our Christmas cards (AHEM MOM) don't look!


But here they are! My 50 free Christmas Cards. We used a picture from Great Falls this past weekend to make a gorgeous card to send to our family and friends. Such a good deal. I saved $120 by using this promotion and my husband was quite thrilled. The process of making the card was wonderful too. I just uploaded pictures from my computer to the site and then got to play with them. I did a few in black and white and a whole variety of different pictures.

I tried five or six different cards before settling on this one, and of course asking Ryan's opinion along the way. I think he got a little tired of it but he chose this one in the end (I liked it too!) and was super excited about how much money we saved on them. Thank you Shutterfly! We'll be ordering something else very soon.... (:

All Wrapped Up Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Link to the stationary here