Are you a military wife or a military husband?
Is your spouse currently deployed?
Do you have young children at home?
Would you like to have a life-size cut-out of your military spouse to incorporate into your daily life with your children?

...Flat Mommies and Flat Daddies to the rescue!

I've shared some tips for sending military care packages before.

...Tis the season! Time to start thinking of what you'll be sending your friends & loved ones again this year.

Here are some more fun ideas...

Happy Veteran's Day!

In honor of our U.S. military men and women -- from yesterday and today -- I spent the day reading through military blogs.

I've done this before, but I felt especially patriotic reading through them again on Veterans Day.

Melinda from Most Certainly Not suggests, "Why not visit some of your favorite military bloggers and leave them some love in the comments?"

Agreed.

Some of the most heart-felt blogs I've ever read were written by service men and women in the U.S. Military. I've been keeping a list of my favorites. Now it's time to share...

We went to South Carolina last weekend to watch Jim's nephew graduate from Marine Boot Camp at Parris Island.

I learned SO much in the short time I was there!

Parris Island is the Marine Corps Recruit Depot for all male Marines east of the Mississippi River and all female Marines nationwide.

About 19,000 recruits are trained at Parris Island each year. On this day, 566 graduated from Marine BootCamp -- companies "M" and "N", 3rd and 4th Battalions.

They say Parris Island is where America's young men & women are transformed into Marines. (Or, as our nephew says: "They're programmed here.")

Here are just a few interesting things I've learned from having a nephew in the Marines...

Most of these came from listening to the radio program "Ryan & Gretchen" in the morning on Q108 (107.9 FM in Nashville). I've never tuned into this station before, but after hearing them compile this growing list of items "live" on the air -- with listeners calling in and adding their own -- I was impressed by their creativity and "positive news" approach on the radio.

I may just have to give up my Bob & Tom station temporarily while I check out these guys on my way to work the rest of this week. Can't wait to see if this is the way most of their shows go.

Interesting...

When I was surfing the Net, I came across an interesting project called One Soldier's Story. It's an effort to collect first-person writings from current and former U.S. soldiers and present them in one collaborative hard-bound book.

I've always been intrigued by first-hand accounts of soldiers' personal experiences in the U.S. military. And I'm a fan of such movies as Blackhawk Down and Saving Private Ryan, among others. So this project appeals to me a great deal, since it is fact-based and includes the personal stories of our servicemen and women.