Thanks to my brother and this CNN article, I was informed this morning that some well deserved women were being honored, finally, for their brave acts during World War II.   Many of those women trained and graduated at Avenger Village in Sweetwater, TX…..my hometown.

Can you imagine civilian women learning to fly (with no military benefits mind you) to help aid the US so that the men could be moved upfront to combat in the war.   More than 25,000 women applied for the program but less than 1900 were accepted and 38 ended up dying as pilots. They endured four months of military flight training, with just over 1000 earning their wings.

With the winding down of the war in 1944, the program closed.  At the end of the WASP program there were 916 women pilots on duted air forces in the Continental United States, 11 to the Weather Wing, 9 to the technical commands, and one to the y with the AAF, with 620 assigned to the Training Command, 141 to the Air Transport Command, 133 to the number Troop Carrier Command.

The WASP records have been sealed and classified for 35 years which meant their contributions went unrecognized for way too long.  I’m extremely proud of these women and am ecstatic to see them finally getting that recognition.

If you’re ever in Sweetwater, TX, you really must stop by and visit the WASP Museum and explore the many hidden gems of this small town.  In fact, maybe I need to rediscover the amazing things that have played out over the years here in Sweetwater.

Do you remember the hummingbird shots I got last year?  Let me refresh your memory.  So pretty!  You can see a couple of others on an old post of mine.

I’m hoping to get some great shots this year too so in the meantime, I thought it would be fun to show you my feeder and where I’m hanging it. So here are the supplies.  You’ve the food, the cleaner, the feeder that has the wide mouth top on it, which is fantastic.

See how it works? You screw it on the base, screw the top cap off so that you can easily pour the food in.

Here’s the food.  For ever 2 ounces of water, you use a heaping teaspoon of hummingbird food.  It turns the water red instantly.  Make sure the whole top is pushed down until ready to hang. Stir food well and pour into your feeder, screwing the top cap back on.

It’s read to hang outside!

From our back door, we chose to put it over the right of the house,hanging on the awning.  Right before hanging, we pulled the top half of the feeder up so that the food would flow to the flowers.  It’s a great idea so that you don’t spill it beforehand.

It looks good up there huh!  I think that I’ll be able to capture great photos of the hummingbirds from our back door and we’ll have a great shot of them through our living room window.

Now we just wait!  In the meantime, you can check out the other hummingbird feeders starting at $11..told ya they were budget friendly!  AND, while you’re in hummingbird mode, be sure to play the top-fill challenge and you could win your own feeder.

While walking through a gazillion people at the rodeo, I decided to fall behind a bit and see if I could get a father-son moment.  It’s not easy to get a clear shot while walking through big crowds but I think the one I got is perfect.  Something I realized after taking these shots is that I sorta forgot about a few things that I love….taking photos.  I’ve gotten so wrapped up in things online that I can’t breathe half the time but I’ve realized it and am doing something about it.  This is my passion.  These moments are priceless and I don’t want to miss any of them.

As I struggle through my weight loss journey, I find that eating healthier is clearly my biggest problem.  I’m constantly on the prowl for recipes and snacks that will fill me up and that are tasty.  If you look around all over the internet, you’ll find a billion places that have gobs of information but I try to find sites that are strictly about a subject and are easy to navigate.   One place I’ve been introduced to is www.wellnessdaily.com.  It’s an online community that shares two common things, wellness and healthy living; something I definitely need to learn about and incorporate more into my life.

One of the first things that I did was check out the healthy recipes they had. I found Taco Salad and Turkey Puttanesca and so much more.  All looked delish and all looked healthy.  I think having a place that I can reference back to for ideas and tips really helps me out. I need my hand held sometimes and sites like this make that possible.

While I was there I also found some informational articles about various subjects like how your body handles sodium and bone density issues.  I was instantly intrigued and found myself reading through several articles.  The community seems to be active and full of information. I really like it.

I recommend you check it out for yourself.  Right now they are having a contest where you have the chance to win a WellnessDaily.com prize package which include coupons for a year-long supply of Jennie-O Turkey Store product and a one-year gym membership, valued at $1,250. WOOT! And to really make it easy, I’m including the tweet here for you so all you have to do is copy and paste into your tweet!

Enter to win $ towards a gym membership & JENNIE-O turkey products. Just follow @wellness_daily & RT this! http://bit.ly/9WAM8X

Twitter promotion runs 2/24 through 3/10

What do you look for in a site that’s about healthy living and wellness?

I took over a 200 photos while at the rodeo but these are my faves for different reasons. I don’t have the equipment to take great indoor action photos some there are some blurry ones.

What did you guys do this weekend?

Opening ceremony of course, honoring the Red, White, and Blue.

Six-time Wrangler National Finals Bareback Rider, Chris Harris

YEEEHAAAAW!

This Charro, Tomas Garcilazo,  is an icon at the Wrangler Nationals Final Rodeo.  He performs every single year and we enjoyed him a great deal.  Not only is his horse absolutely beautiful, he’s very very talented.  He ended the show by creating one HUGE loop with his rope while him and his horse were inside of it, loping around the arena.  Pretty fabulous!

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I spoke at last year’s conference and was quite happy to NOT speak this year.  I don’t do well speaking in front of folks and of course it was very relaxing to not have any obligations from sponsors.  The location, Opryland (Gaylord) Hotel, was perfect. PLENTY of space, beautiful scenery, and full of helpful employees.  My advice for bloggers next year (if held at the same place) would be to take a roller bag.  It’s a decent little walk from many of the rooms to where the sessions were held.  And that’s not a complaint at all. I LOVED the space in fact.  I felt like  I could breathe, like I could get away if need be.

Wednesday Workshops

The only workshop I attended was the writing one where my girl Arianne was speaking.  I loved the small groups and the personal attention that was given because it was a small group.  I loved the conversation and of course, the writing assignment.  Something so simple even showed me that I had emotion in the simplest of sentences once I investigated. My only complaint was price which is why I didn’t get into other workshops.  I’d really like to see it go down per workshop next year but the concept should absolutely stay.

Opening Speaker

The opening speaker was Kevin Carroll.  Oh.my.gosh.  THIS was the highlight of the conference for me.  Kevin brought out more emotion in me with his story that it literally took me a good 30 minutes to quit crying.  His story is phenomenal and he himself is an absolute delight.  I can honestly say that I was truly jealous of those women who got the boxes filled with his goodies and of those who got a red ball.  If you don’t know his story, you should absolutely take the time to get his books or better yet, find out where he’ll be speaking at and go there and listen to his amazing journey through life.  When I met him later on that day, he was so kind.  I started to cry when we started talking about an emotional subject and he was comforting, encouraging, and made me feel deserving of things I  often push away from that feeling of unworthiness.  What a special man he is.

Sessions

I attended several sessions.  They all went well in my opinion.  As a seasoned blogger(gawd I feel old), I don’t know that I actually took anything new away from the sessions I attended because I can honestly say that I had the thoughts “I could be on that panel”.  I do think they were very informative for many bloggers though and all the speakers I witnessed did an outstanding job on their panel.

The “nightlife”, food, and swag

The evenings were very enjoyable.  The cocktail party, Harry and casual Saturday evening were wonderful with the Saturday evening being my favorite. I LOVED that they had a movie to watch, a CANDY BAR, plenty of snacks and drinks, karaoke and of course the cool Hanes swag.  Speaking of swag…..I thought the swag was great. Not too much, not too little.  It was all great stuff in great bags of course.  I really loved getting the little package before blissdom with coupons, etc.  What a nice surprise!  The food was great in my opinion.  No complaints at all.

Overall, I had such a grand time with my girlfriends (something I truly needed) and thoroughly enjoyed the conference. I networked, I danced, I laughed, I cried……..all were blissful emotions.

I’m headed to Nashville today for the Blissdom Conference. I’m so excited to see everyone but mostly excited to just be out of the house.  I come back on Sunday and then leave Monday to Orlando to Disney World with all three of my boys.   I’m so excited about the trip and I have Hanes to thank!  Yep, I am now part of the Hanes Comfort Crew and they extended my invitation to Disney World to my family.  Sooo awesome of them!  We are truly a Hanes family here.  Each boy gets there own type of socks..like gray underneath for one and just white for the other so that they dont’ get them confused.  Tyler LOVES the tank top under shirts and Toby’s T-shirts are hanes of course.  I’m just so honored to be part of the Comfort Crew because it’s a product that we use every.single.day.

I’ve been writing a few articles over at the SCJohnson Family Economics under Food for Thought and would love for you to go read some that have been published already.  There will be a total of 13 posts by me going through March so bookmark if you would and stop by and visit.

If you don’t already know, I’ve moved my posts about my weight loss over to Operation Fatty.  I’ve also started a couple of blogs, not launched yet but you can check them out and subscribe so you’ll be the first to know when it launches.  Best Bloggy Giveaways and Mom Blogging 101.  Both are still under construction and I wouldn’t normally start telling folks about them but I have no plans to make some grand announcement later….so you can subscribe now if you like. I have some awesome stuff to giveaway at BBG when it launches..wooohoo!

Are you going to Blogher?  Would you like to know more about working with brands without losing yourself? If so, vote for our panel!  Read more about the MB2.0 Hybrid Mommy over at Resourceful Mommy. She’s got all the goods:)

If you’re looking for an online organizer, a way to share moments with loved ones, or just want a simple way to remind yourself of appointments or what day it is, you need to check out Cozi.  I wrote about them in 2008 and still love them.  I love everything about them and my review of them 2yrs ago doesn’t even cover a 1/4 of what you can do with them.  The shopping lists are fantastic and my latest thing is the family journal. You can jot down daily things that you found interesting, funny, or even sad. It’s a great way to share certain things quickly or privately with those you want to see it. You can mine, The Falcon Bunch, and all of my latest shared moments. Some are just photos, a couple are stories. Either way, I hope they make you smile.

Have a great week, weekend, and February!

What’s even more sad, is seeing people who I fell in love with online, go to hell.  People who made me laugh, people who I respected, people who I thought would always stay true to their words.

I am so sick of people stepping on their friends to reach high places, secretly plotting with other bloggers to take down or beat that person.  I’m sick of all the hypocritical, back stabbing liars that I’ve been seeing more of lately.  I’m sick of people contradicting themselves and stupidly thinking we don’t see behind it.  YOU ARE THE IDIOT, not us!

YOU ARE NOT HER.  BE YOURSELF AND QUIT TRYING TO BE HER!  CREATE YOUR OWN FREAKIN’ IDEAS INSTEAD OF STEALING OTHERS.

I’m also finding it amusing that fairly new bloggers are defining themselves as experts too.  Wow, you go from asking everyone around you how to do this, how to do that, blah blah blah and yet, you turn around and dish advice acting like you know it all, not even recognizing WHERE YOU LEARNED IT!!!!

You say you don’t want to be that kind of person and you say you’re gonna change, you say you’re gonna be a better blog but do you do it?  Do you actually follow through and be the better person, the better blogger or are the reasons that motivate you come from jealousy of what others are, what they’ve accomplished, where they are going and where you are not?

If I sound pissed, I am.  I am sick of all of it, and you make me want to quit!  And if you think this is about you, then you’re probably right and maybe you outta change a few things.

It’s easy to do on the ranch but I can imagine how hard it would be for town folk.  I’ve been in Houston and seen the sun rise and fall and it sure would be a pretty site if there weren’t airplanes, lights, and buildings obstructing the view.

I just can’t imagine not ever being here one day and seeing these beautiful works of nature, life.  I sure hope you’re taking a few minutes to soak in the morning, afternoon, and evening of every day.

Within the last couple of weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of watching the moon rise, the sun set, and the fog lay.  How ’bout you?

I don’t know what’s prettier, the weeping willow or the moon.

Flying South……..

The Fog Lays Low

Texas Sunset