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By Alyssa, January 20, 2010 11:42 am

Blogger:  a person who keeps a Web log (blog) or publishes an online diary

I’m attending an event tonight tailored to mommy bloggers.  When a friend asked me to go, I thought, Sure, girls night at a spa.  Sounds good to me.  It wasn’t until this morning only a few hours before the event that I freaked out.  FRAUD!  I can’t go to a blogging event with women that have dedicated their lives for YEARS to blogging.  Sure I blog, but does writing my opinion about baby diapers and urinals really make me a blogger?

Thinking back to when I started this website a few months ago, I can honestly say I didn’t do it to become a “blogger.”  The idea started when I visited my parent’s farm last summer and happened to run into the daughter of one of their close friends.  She recently graduated from high school and planned to attend Gonzaga University, my ROTC Alma mater.  She told me she was considering the Army ROTC program there and asked if I could give her any information about my experience in ROTC and the Army.  As I studied this sweet seventeen-year-old farm girl and formed my response, I couldn’t help but see myself 15 years prior. How could I tell her in only a few minutes all the ways my life changed since joining the Army?

I can’t remember exactly what I said, but when I returned back home to Colorado that chance meeting still bothered me.  I felt the weight not only of her decision, but every woman that debated joining the Army.  A few weeks later after some soul searching, dreaded computer programming, and my thirtieth birthday, From Military to Mom was born.  Each time I post, a little bit of that weight is relieved and I hope by the time I’ve told all of my stories, I’ll have a better answer for those future Army girls.

Am I a blogger?  I guess so.  I may be a newbie, but I’m glad I started this website.  Twelve plus years in the Army and four years as a mom has given me a thing or two to write about.  Now, to find something to wear as these black yoga pants and Hubby’s Gonzaga sweatshirt don’t exactly scream professional.

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By Alyssa, January 15, 2010 8:37 pm

Now that seed catalogs are on their way in the mail and I’m fully committed to this garden, I decided it was time for a plan.  I’m a planner so I totally geeked out in the process.  I measured every square foot of our southern lawn and bark area.  I printing a grid on the computer and designing my future garden area to scale.  Here’s what the current area looks like:

Looking east from the fence gate

And from the other side:

Looking west from the grass

Yes, there’s still snow on the ground and I know it’s January, but I’ve got a lot to do prior to planting.  I’ve never liked the river rocks by the fence since the bark is constantly blown into them and I’m sick of the monstrous dog house in the middle of nowhere.  I want my final product to look like this:

My Nerdy To-Scale Garden Plan

First thing, find a way to move that dog house to the northwest corner of the garden area. This task sounds simple, but my engineering hubby built it.  The dog’s house is literally a scaled down home completely framed and roofed to withstand WWIII. Don’t get me wrong, Hubby’s an incredible engineer and I’m proud of his workmanship, but it’s over 400lbs. No, I’m not kidding.

Anyway, task one: Move dog mansion.  Task two: build sandbox.  What??  That’s right, before I can even start landscaping and gardening, a sandbox must be built.  The reality is that I have a four-year-old and one-year-old and these boys are not going to entertain themselves while Mommy’s out messing with the vegetables.  Wait, they probably would entertain themselves, but dumping everything out of my dresser drawers and unrolling all of the toilet paper in the bathrooms is not my kind of entertainment.  So with my garden planning, I had to include outdoor boy entertainment and a sandbox surfaced at the top of the list. I’ll leave you with this “before” picture as the area will soon include a sturdy WWIII-ready sandbox.  Have a great weekend… I’ve got river rocks to move.

See that big pile of river rocks? Imagine a sandbox in the middle.

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By Alyssa, January 13, 2010 8:02 pm

Number 2 of this List

If you shy away from potty-talk, be forewarned. Maybe you were blessed to always have a shiny porcelain seat nearby when you had to go, but I haven’t always been so lucky.  I have too many awkward stories to share, so I’ll try to keep this to my top five.

5.  Port-a-pee- I have to immediately pay my respect to the port-a-potty, the porta-john, the lean green-pee keeper, and those are the G-rated nicknames.  From the 130 degree port-a-potty sauna in Baghdad to my baby-wipe porta-john baths during ROTC training exercises, the pee-keeper had many uses.  Fond memories, me and that john.

4. Command-directed Urinalysis-  Sounds harmless, right?  On the contrary, it was never fun having someone stand right over the top of me watching as I tried to hover over a toilet seat, Army shorts around my ankles, attempting to pee into a tiny plastic cup.  Whose idea was it to require the drug test include a raised seat for females, and then, to add to the humiliation, require carrying that cup-o-pee above my head down a hallway of onlookers to the turn-in point?  Not fun.

3.  Using the landscape-  The Army allowed me to perfect peeing behind trees, small shrubs, and sand dunes. I always tried to be discreet, but at some point gave up being embarrassed about someone seeing my butt cheeks.  When you gotta go, you gotta go.  I recently found out there is an actual device, I think it’s called a “Female Funnel,” that allows women to pee standing up.  Where was that 10 years ago??

2.  The Iraqi Toilet- I used this toilet during my first deployment.  Luckily, one of our soldiers hand made stalls for privacy, but he couldn’t find a solution for the flies.  This five-gallon oil can was the worst toilet I’ve used to date and I will spare you the gritty details.  Let’s just say, the remains were burnt every morning and that smell will stick with me forever.

1.  The Creeping Pee Puddle.  So there I was, on the side of the Kuwaiti highway trying to find a place to pee. I had been holding it for hours during our convoy… no, F.O.R.E.V.E.R., and it was the first safe stop in the middle of nowhere.  Without vegetation to squat behind and getting a little desperate, the missile launcher in front of my vehicle looked like a possibility. So I, uhhh, grabbed some hand holds, lodged my feet on a cross bar and… sweet relief.  Hard to describe balancing five feet off of the ground on the back of a PATRIOT missile launcher to pee, but I bet it’s a little like peeing off the end of a fire truck ladder.  I thought I was pretty innovative until I noticed the creeping puddle that spread from under my feet heading directly for a group of my soldiers and, of course, my crusty platoon sergeant.  I’m pretty sure they all knew what it was seeping under their boots, but to this day, not a single one of them has said a word.

So last bit of advice, peeing in weird places makes for funny stories, but please…  watch out for inclines.

Our Convoy

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By Alyssa, January 11, 2010 5:23 pm

I’m going to go through with it this year.  I’m becoming a gardener. The concept of going into my backyard and picking green beans for dinner sounds delicious, but the whole “gardening” thing has me a bit overwhelmed.  I’ve decided to share my trials here as I try to get things to grow.  Here’s my super geeky gardening profile:

Name: Alyssa Aarhaus

Location: Denver, Colorado

Gardening Zone (wow, I already sound professional): between 5 and 6

Prior Experience:  Despite three moves and leaving it in the car for a few days, kept a house plant alive for seven years (Plant name: Epipremnum aureum… oh yeah, I just threw Latin out there).  Continues to keep basil, parsley, and oregano alive in planters on the kitchen window sill.  O.K., honestly, the basil’s looking a little weak sauce lately.

Gardening Goals: Grow a small raised bed garden in the back yard to teach the boys about vegetables. Hopefully grow enough cucumbers and tomatoes to can relish and stewed tomatoes in the fall.

Resources:  1. My Internet researching addiction 2. All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew and The Backyard Homestead edited by Carleen Madigan 3. Gardening friends that are patient enough to answer a barrage of ridiculous questions

Yes.  I’m a nerd, but I’m NOT a gardening nerd so we’ll see how it goes.  My first gardening discovery was the importance of seeds.  You can buy seeds from the supermarket, but better seeds produce better veggies. I went a little nuts and ordered the following recommended seed catalogs that should arrive in the mail within the next few weeks:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Burpee Seeds
Johnny’s Seeds
Park Seed Co.
Seeds of Change
Seed Savers
Stokes
Thompson and Morgan Seeds
Vesey’s Seeds

I told you I went overboard!  I also found Botanical Interests, a Colorado company, on Twitter and I’ve been reviewing their online catalog.  I haven’t decided if I will be purchasing hybrid seeds or heirloom seeds yet.  Hybrid seeds are professionally cultivated seeds, while heirloom seeds are from plants that have been passed down many generations.  You can’t save your hybrid plant’s seeds, but there are certain heirloom plants that provide seeds worth saving for the next gardening year.  I’ll report back when seed shopping begins.

Until then, I’ve got to convince Hubby of our essential need for a outdoor 55-gallon drum composter.  I mean, I’ve got to convince Hubby to buy the drum, build the composter, and, oh by the way, build the wood frame for my garden bed.  Wish me luck!