Back to Blogging..

WOW! It has been awhile since I've blogged.. I took a blogging break and didn't really know how or when to come back and honestly still didn't know how so here goes nothing!! 

So much has happened... 

Adam got home from deployment. It was seriously amazing! 

He also recently got promoted! 

We got a new dog, her name is Betsy, she's a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. She's bigger now, it's just hard to get a photo of her when she's CONSTANTLY moving :)

Brynna joined a competitive cheer team

We moved! We still live at Fort Drum we just moved into another house..

Brett & Brynna have grown!! They both went to a summer camp for military kids and had a great time. I on the other hand was lost without them and wanted to pick them up the first night. Last year they went to a summer camp but they weren't gone as long.

Oh yea most importantly... WE HAD A BABY! Meet the newest member of the Moreno clan.. BTW that's why we moved houses, we needed more space for the new baby.

What some military spouses may not know..

My husband will tell you I am a researcher. I get as much info as I can about things because I refuse to get myself into a situation that I know nothing about. Some days it drives him absolutely crazy because even though I am ALWAYS right he hates to admit it. Facebook, google, and personal blogs are great ways to get REAL opinions and recommendations. You could learn a lot about the military life or certain installations just by using the internet. Here are the few things you may not know as a military spouse but might want to know :)

PCS/Moving- ANYTIME the military moves you(pcs) you are given DLA. I have read numerous times where people didn't know they received this money when they moved and found out too late so they lost out on the $2,000+. Click here and you can also see what else you receive whenever you move(this is only for a PCS not if you move from one house to another at or near the same base). If ya'll have an upcoming PCS try and go to the levy briefing to write down everything you need to remember. Yes the husbands go but it helps if you go too, that away you aren't clueless when it comes to the move and if he forgets something maybe it will be something you remembered :)

MyCAA- Very few people know about MyCAA and it pretty much turns in to wasted money if not used. MyCAA gives you $4000 to pay for almost any type of schooling. To some $4000 might not be a lot. And truthfully when it comes to school it really isn't. BUT that is $4000 you don't have to spend on school. The only down fall to MyCAA is you have to use it by a certain time. You have to be married to an active duty service member in pay grades E1-E5, O1-O2, or W1-W2. You can use that money to get a certificate in something or you can use the $4000 to help pay for a degree. It won't cover it in full but it will help. So don't let that money go to waste, USE IT! You also need know MyCAA does not cover books so if you take a class through your local junior college you will probably have to pay out of pocket for your books.

FASFA- A lot of military families who qualify for MyCAA also qualify for FASFA and you can use MyCAA and FASFA together. FASFA WILL PAY FOR YOUR BOOKS!

METLIFE- Tricare does not cover dental work. Tricare covers your health and vision but not dental. If you plan on seeing a dentist have your spouse or even yourself enroll you and your children(if you have them) into metlife to cover your dental. ALSO Tricare only covers the eye exam. It DOES NOT cover glasses, contacts, or the contact exam. You will have to pay that out of pocket.

WIC- In the beginning surviving off what little pay ya'll get is hard paying for all the bills, gas, and groceries. And then you are left eating bread and water the last few days before payday. WIC helps military families up until a certain rank. I'm not sure if military families without children qualify but it doesn't hurt to call your local wic office and ask.

Space-A & Patriot Express-  Not many people know about this. Space-A and Patriot Express can be pretty amazing. It is a way for military members and dependents to travel and pay very little for flights. It can be a bit difficult but to pay $4-$50 per person to fly is pretty cheap! For those of yall wanting to know more about space-a click here and it will take you to the FAQ page. I'm not too familiar with it so I don't want to give the wrong information to people, their are many requirements to travel space-a.

ICE- If you only remember one thing from this blog post PLEASE remember ICE! ICE is a GREAT tool for service members and dependents to use and it can be done anonymously if you'd like. Now don't abuse this tool. It is a website where DoD customers can rate their services provided. I will personally say I have used this a LOT in the past year. A LOT more than I wanted to. But every single time it was necessary. Don't file a complaint just because your husband was smoked for showing up 30 minutes late. Or because he is having to work late all week. Their is a time and place for an ICE complaint. You can't expect someone to fix something they know nothing about and that's where ICE comes in place. Not only can you make complaints on the ICE website but you can also provide positive feedback. My son was bit by a dog and the doctor we saw off post at the hospital also worked on post and followed up with us twice about the dog bite. He did great with my son so we provided positive feedback on ICE about him. It is a great tool for all to use.

CYS- Child and Youth Services is on every military installation where dependents are allowed. It is where you enroll your kids in sports, child care, and many other things. If your spouse is deploying CYS gives you a little more benefits. Here at Fort Drum we get:
- 16 hours free care per month/per child at Hourly Programming.
- $2.00 per hour after 16 hrs of free monthly hourly care
- Free Care for deployment briefings
- Free Care for FRG meetings            
(including one month prior and 3 months after  deployment)
- 20% fee discount for Full Day and Part Day care with a working spouse  
- $300 SKIES Credit (instructional) per Dep.  
- $100 CYSS Sports Credit per Dep.
But your child does have to be enrolled in CYS before you qualify for all this. And all you need is an updated physical, shot records, and certain records. You can call CYS to schedule an appointment and see what all you need to bring.

DISCOUNTS- here is a discount list. Those probably are not all of the discounts you and your spouse can receive with a military ID. Any time we make a big purchase or set up service with someone we make sure to ask about a military discount. We don't ask for it whenever we pay for dinner and if they give it we just add the discount they gave us on to our tip we give. But like we bought furniture a few months back and that was a BIG purchase but we got a small discount that makes it not SO BIG! haha. Our phone, tv, and internet service we have a discount. If you buy a car at the end ask if they do a military discount. Don't ask up front because they will probably act like they gave a military discount but jack up another fee to make it even out. During certain military holidays a lot of the stores near military bases will do sales and then if you show your military id you will get even more of a discount! Last year Kirklands had a HUGE sale. I think it was the weekend of veterans day and if you had your military id you got the extra 10% off. Well I had been eyeing this huge painting that I just loved but it was over $100 and I am cheap when it comes to buying décor.. That weekend I managed to get the painting for $30-$40!!

Military OneSourse- The military life does have it's difficulties. Your spouse could be suffering from PTSD and you may think you have no where to turn but Military OneSourse is confidential and offers a lot of help. You or your children could also be having problems coping with the recent deployment. Give Military OneSourse a call. Don't knock it until you've tried it. Maybe you are new to the military and are clueless when it comes to budgeting. Call Military OneSourse. Their is help out there and all you have to do is make the call.

The military does have a LOT more to offer military spouses these are just some of the things I have seen that most people don't know about.

(you can click on every bold blue word and it will take you to their website to get more information)

New York Snow..

WOW!!!! Nature can do some beautiful things! It's seriously amazing.. GORGEOUS!

We have lived in upstate New York for about 2 months now. Before upstate New York we lived in North Carolina and before North Carolina we lived in Texas. So we haven't really experienced the whole life changing snow thing before. BUT we were so excited to finally get the opportunity to live somewhere where it has snow more than 1 week out of the year. About a month ago whenever my mom was visiting we got a little snow. Nothing too much but it was SO EXCITING! Everyone said we'd hate it but is that even possible??

IS IT????
How can you possibly hate snow?

It's like a winter wonderland!

BUT as I am typing this we currently have NO snow.... AND it's 7 degrees outside!! How is that possible?? It is unethical for it to be THIS cold with NO snow.

A few weeks ago we had our first snow storm, a lake effect snow storm. It was CRAZY! We were SLAMMED with snow! It was like nothing I had ever seen before. The kids were so excited to go play in it. And we tried... But we quickly realized this was not the type of snow storm you want to play in. It HURT! The snow was coming down sideways and piercing your skin. You couldn't even open you eyes. The whole base shut down for 3 days. Schools were closed. HIGHWAYS SHUT DOWN! The snow plows just couldn't keep up. But once the snow storm was finally over the fun began. The shoveling, snow plowing, salting, sledding, and just so much more. We shoveled some during the storm but finally had to just give up and wait for it to pass. The next morning we woke up and the kids were so excited to shovel snow and go sledding. Yes they like to shovel snow. We have a little wooded area right out our front door that's in between our house and the house across from us. No cross street.. Well the snow plows made 2 huge hills in that area and all of the neighborhood kids LOVED IT!

I can't lie though I seriously expected the snow to be at least 2 feet tall by now. I didn't expect to see any grass. But that's not at all what is going on. All the snow we got in the past month is gone. Completely GONE! And guess what tomorrow is supposed to bring..... SNOW!!!

...Do you wanna build a snowman??

The hill in our front yard haha

Another hill in our front yard :)

Another snow storm was rolling in..

Boidoe loved the snow just as much as the kids :)

 

DO NOT ATTEMPT!!

I want to repeat the title DO NOT ATTEMPT!!

You can't say I didn't warn you.

Okay here goes. So a few weeks ago I got this bright idea to paint our bedroom. My ORIGINAL plan was to move out of this house in exactly a year. But my plan, the military's plan for Adam, and Adams plan for his military career kind of collided. So I decided hmm... why don't I just paint to give this place more of a homely feeling and not just a temporary white walls apartment feel that on post housing has..

I was pinterest inspired and decided in our room I would paint chevron stripes. Now again I will warn you chevron stripes are NOT... I repeat NOT as easy as it looks or sounds. It is not a quick project. It is a full day maybe even 2 day project. I did 2 different walls in our bedroom. A short wall that is the wall you see whenever you open our bedroom door and then the long wall that our dresser will be on. That wall you have to be in our bedroom to see it. I did the chevron walls and Adam did the solid walls. It took me about 12 hours(I didn't do all 12 hours at once) to do the long chevron wall and probably 4 hours to do the short chevron wall. It took him probably 4 hours TOTAL to do 3 solid walls.

Now IF you would like to know how to paint a chevron wall I will tell you what I used and did to paint my chevron wall.. I looked on pinterest to find a few different ways I could do it and then decided how I would do it.

What I used to paint my chevron wall:
- Paint(Olympic Teal Zeal)
- An Angled Paint Brush I'm pretty sure it was a 2inch
- A 9inch paint roller
- Tape(I just bought the cheap tape at lowes)
- A Paint pan
- Level
- Pencil

What next?? Now this is the hard part. Probably the hardest part you will have to do. If you are a perfectionist or extremely OCD I recommend you just hire someone. Or at least set aside a FULL weekend, I'm talking about all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. BTW for those of yall like me and think levels are like $100+, they are not. I bought our level for $4.99 so don't think you have to go out and buy this expensive level. Even though next time I need a level I will probably buy a small one too.. The one I bought was a long level so when it came time to do the chevron lines near the ceiling and floor it was a little difficult.

First, figure out what wall or walls you want to do. I wanted to do a smaller wall in my room first and I decided to measure the wall and see how small or big I wanted the chevrons to be. Since it was a small wall I divided the width of my wall by 4 because I knew I wanted 4 lines to make 2 chevrons. So I decided to make each line about 8 1/2 inches apart. You will use your level to draw straight vertical lines up your wall. And then again to draw straight horizontal lines on your wall. Use your level each time to make sure your lines don't start to leave. By the time I finished this wall completely and started preparing for the second wall(the much larger wall) I realized why don't I just put dots (you will put the dots where all the corners meet and instead of drawing horizontal and vertical lines you will just draw the chevron pattern from dot to dot instead of corner to corner.) I recommend drawing the lines from dot to dot or corner to corner because just putting tape down it can go off track and the lines help you make sure the tape is perfectly straight.

Now this part had me stumped. I was so confused haha but quickly realized how it needed to be taped. Let me see if I can put this in words. The spots where you want the chevron to be painted you will need to put the tape on the OUTSIDE of your line. So the chevrons you don't want to paint the tape will be on the inside. If you look at my picture to the left you will see some chevrons look skinnier than the others, the skinny ones are the ones that wont be painted the others will be. BTW all my chevrons are the same size the tape just covers more of the chevron that wont be painted. I also put tape inside of the chevron that wont be painted so I don't accidentally start painting the wrong chevron. I did 2 layers of paint and it turned out great with very little touching up. And then the moment of truth. It was time for the tape to come off.. I was terrified. Even though my small wall turned out great. This wall was so intimidating. I just knew it was going to look like crap! I knew I was going to end up laughing at myself and saying screw it paint it all one color haha. BUT I took the tape of and I was pretty impressed. I am freaking talented!

BUT I wasn't satisfied just yet :-\ in this picture you can't really tell but the walls are very yellow-ish or an ugly white. Plus my blue paint kind of bled through the tape to the white paint. Plus they were very dirty and also I had some blue spots that I needed to touch up. Well when I went to buy primer the primer and the paint didn't match!! AT ALL! So I decided hmmm... why don't I just paint the "white" chevrons WHITE! And make the lines cleaner in the process.. So I did just that. WHAT WAS I THINKING??? For future references those of yall that are like me and have no idea what your original wall color is. If you want the wall to be white and then one color chevron stripe. Do yourself a favor a paint a quick coat of white over the wall so that away you know the exact color white you are starting with. THEN do the chevrons. And if you need to touch up later you wont be in the same situation I was in. I did it the long way and had to tape all over again. But like I said it helped with making my lines much cleaner.

This time around I painted a little differently. This time I put the tape on the blue paint(I let it dry a full 24 hours before I even attempted this). You have to place the tape perfectly straight along the chevron lines you already painted. You will first paint over the tape the color your paint is under the tape. So say your tape is on the blue paint like mine is you will first paint a little blue on the tape like I did at the top left. Let it dry COMPLETELY and THEN paint the whole area the second color(my second color was white look at the bottom part of the picture that is my first coat of white, I painted 2 or 3 coats of white to get it to completely cover all of the blue). While the paint is still fresh and wet take off the tape. This prevents the paint from drying and coming off with the tape.

NOW if you are smart and have learned ANYTHING from this blog post this is what you will do.. Say you want your wall to be grey and pink. You will paint your WHOLE wall grey. You will let it dry over night and then you will come back the following day. Take a DEEP breath. AND! Use your level. Plot your points and tape away. BEFORE you paint your pink chevrons you will paint a little grey over all of the tape and let that dry(if you do a light coat of grey like I did with my blue and don't cake it on it will dry by the time you start with the pink.) I would do at least 2 coats of pink and once you do the second coat take the tape off as you are painting. TA DA! Then pour yourself a glass of wine... Learn from my mistakes! Then you can go back the following day and you can do touch ups.

We had a few minor accidents along the way. The first one was ALL Adams fault!! haha. He called while I was painting the blue chevron stripes and this happened. The paint can was FULL and as I got up my leg hit is and it ALMOST fell over. Thankfully it only got a little on the carpet and didn't COMPLETELY fall over. Brynna decided she would try cleaning it up with paper towels. And that evening as Adam watching youtube I explained to him in great detail what happened. As he was walking into the bedroom to take a shower he see's the paint spill and yells down the stairs "WHAT HAPPENED". I knew as I was explaining the paint spill to him earlier he wasn't
listening.

Men.
I swear..

The following day as I was painting the white stripes close to the ceiling I look down from the ladder and the darn primer paint can falls over! ALL THE WAY OVER! I guess its a good thing we have crappy cheap carpet in on post housing. After all the paint spills Adam thought it'd be a good idea to get in a paint fight. Thankfully though we didn't get anything on the carpet or my chevron walls! I would have killed him if he messed up my walls!

Even though this painting project took forever and a day and I decided to do it the most complicated way possible I'm pretty proud of our bedroom. I love the color I picked and I LOVE the chevrons. Now I can't wait for my furniture to get here and to get our bedding.