My iPhone wasn’t playing nicely with my external speakers. So I stuck the thing in a glass bowl. It was much louder! To complete the geekery, I made a holder out of duct tape. Of course.

I downloaded the Wordpress iPhone app. It wouldn’t work with my theme though. So I’m trying it out with the default theme. If it works, I’ll try to fix the old theme or make a new one.

Here’s a photo to test that feature.

http://ping.fm/p/CuoyI – I’m trying out a new Wordpress plugin that will let me post here via ping.fm and the pingle app on my iPhone. Hmmm…. I wonder if it will post a photo too? I’ll try.

Intent on passing the blame for today’s bad behavior on someone else, Sarah is mumbling and grumbling to herself.  She sounds angry.  She just said, “We could have been good all of our lives and not ever gotten spankings if it weren’t for Adam and Eve letting sin into the world!”

We’re having an exciting adventure in rural Missouri.  The power steering pump went out and stranded us in Van Buren last night.  We’re waiting for a part.  I have a lot to write about.  Until then, you can read about all of the excitement in bite sized posts at twitter.com/gentlewhisper.

Don’t want to be too dramatic… but we’re homeless and neither of our cars are driveable.  Ahhh but I have free wifi. No worries.

Attentive readers might have noticed that Sarah got here ears pierced in Knoxville, TN on Saturday… but wait I told you we were at Ft. Leonard Wood!  What’s going on with this crazy globe trotting family?

There wasn’t any housing available on post and we couldn’t find any temporary housing either.  Not knowing how long it would take for a house to be read on post, we fell back to our plan B.  We decided to get a temporary place at Springfield and send the kids to their old school until something became available on post.  Joel’s active duty orders don’t begin until the end of October so we don’t HAVE to live near Ft. Wood until then.

So, after spending almost a week together in a hotel at St. Robert, Joel flew to Austin and the kids and I drove back to Tennessee.  Springfield schools starts next week so there was no reason to waste money on a hotel until then.  Of course we could have stayed with random friends at Springfield… but this feels like home.

Right now, the plan is to drive to Springfield on Saturday or Sunday.  Meet the Teacher is on Monday morning and the elementary school starts on Tuesday.  Classes at AGTS start next week too.

That’s the plan… but Joel is also looking for a house off post that we can rent.  We found a beautiful one listed that is available on September 1st.  He’s going to call about it today.  There are lots of other ifs and maybes that complicate the process.  No worries.  I’ll let you know when we find a place to unpack our stuff.

Meanwhile, I’ve enjoyed spending the summer with my best friend.  I look forward to seeing everyone in Springfield and I can’t wait to see Joel! (He’s in Kansas right now, I’m not sure when we’ll see eachother again.)

I am generally opposed to piercings. Yes, yes even the ubiquitous and completely socially acceptable earlobe piercings. I just think it is silly to poke unnecessary holes into a person’s head… belly button… or anything else. Beyond that, I think it’s silly to spend money on shiny bits of metal to stick in these unnecessary holes in your head. I realize that few people agree with me on this… and I don’t sit around judging people who disagree. You can take an industrial sized hole puncher to your face if you want. I’ll still love you. But generally speaking… I’m not a big supporter of the body piercing industry.

Ah but I have a daughter. She has never asked to get her ears pierced. She often looked longingly at earrings but worried about the potential pain of piercing. I appreciated that fear, it meant I didn’t have to tell her “no” if she asked.

Holding Sarah’s hand, I walked through the Knoxville mall on Saturday. We passed the kind of store that I never take Sarah into… the girly earring and cheap jewelry kind of store… my nightmare and Sarah’s dream come true. Pink frilly aliens must have taken control of my mouth at that moment. Spontaneously, I asked if Sarah would like to get her ears pierced. Surprised, she said, “Yes!” We called her daddy to make sure it was OK with him then went to get it done before either of us changed our mind.

Sarah must have given me a thousand hugs and thank you’s that day. She woke up on Sunday morning and once again overwhelmed me with her thanksgiving.

She turns seven on September 9th. Send earrings.

Here’s a slide show of me compromising my piercing principles for my little princess.