Thursday, June 9, 2011

"I Love Me" Book

I was asked what an "I Love Me" Book was... Let me educate you young grasshopper so you can spread the word. An "I Love Me" book is a binder of everything about you. It's your army life in a nutshell.
This is my "I Love Me" Book

It is a combination of civilian, military, and post military things. I have one, the hubby has one and I made one for my son. My son is mainly birth certificate, social security card and shot records/growth charts but it will expand once school starts. Ok This is whats in my "I Love Me" Book. I use dividers to make organization easier. I keep each section in chronological order with most recent first.
1st Divider: Civilian
In this divider I have:
  • Marriage Certificate
  • Birth Certificate
  • Social Security Card
 Some people choose to have their familes birth certificates or other important paperwork in this section(i.e EFMP, daycare info, Emergency Contacts)

2nd Divider: Orders
I keep all of my orders (PCS, TDY, Deployment and discharge) under this category. I keep them in chronological order from most recent to oldest. In my husbands book I put a sticky note with the date and location of all his orders. Just something to make things easier.

3rd divider: Certificates/Training

This section you put every certificate of training you have ever recieved. Certificates of Completion, DA 1059, Drivers Training, Licenses, AIT, Basic, whatever class/computer course you have taken put proof in this section. It makes things very easy when updating promotion points worksheet. I like to keep the DA 1059 behind the certificate for easy sorting.

4th divider: Awards
I like to put the DA 638 behind the certificate. It helps keep things together and easier to sort through. I also keep my promotion orders in this section or you can put them in the "Orders" section. My husbands book has a "Promotions" section.

5th divider:???

This divider can be anything you want. In my book I have all my college info, transcripts, VA approval, separation checklists, DD214, GI Bill info, Power of Attorneys my husband has given me, and paperwork turning me from a sponsor into a dependent (:( sniff: sniff)

In my husbands book this is for his enlistment paperwork. His reserve, active, and re enlistments. This would be very helpful to keep, to make sure pay and years in service is kept straight.

So these are our "I Love Me" books. I hope this was helpful. I know there are more elaborate ways to organize things but I think this is a simple and easy way. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions please feel free to comment below. Also leave suggestions for upcoming entries.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Boring...

So these past few weeks have been pretty boring. My husbands truck has been out of order for a while. His fuel tank was leaking. We looked at every pick-n-pull/salvage yard we could find and every tank was punctured. Why do they do that? Don't they think someone might want the fuel tank. Any way, we called dodge just to see how much it would be and they wanted to charge us $885. WTF! my husbands truck is a '99. WOW. I finally convinced him to check San Antonio because I knew they would have one and of course we found one. Thankfully I can have my car back now.

Memorial Day weekend we went to Ikea. I bought a few things but the best thing I could was some flatware for my son. It looks so grown up. He still can't handle standard size flatware and the plastic toddler junk doen't let him pick up any food. This set is perfect. I bought 4 sets.
Fabler 3-piece flatware 601.375.71 $4.99
My P90X workout has been going great. I haven't really gained but 3 pounds but I can see my body changing. I just started phase 2 yesterday. I love this program. I feel great.

Oh yeah so my husband turned in his awards and certificates to get his ERB and promotion point worksheet updated before he went to the field. That was on May 6th. Well here we are and they just updated his awards which is better than nothing I guess but they told him they don't know how to do the rest. ??? S1, S1, S1....  wtf! Why does his S1 suck so bad? I was lucky to always have a good S1 and so was my husband until this unit. 1 person knows what is going on in that shop. Why don't we educate the others. Hell I will go in there and work for free just so you stop screwing over soldiers. My husband's friend didn't make cutoff last month because they didn't update his weapons qual. So because of that he didn't get promoted. He raised hell which is exactly what I would have done. Especially since he asked them several times to do it because that's what he needed to get promoted. I don't know whats happening everyone in this unit is so jacked. They even told the hubby when he got there if your high speed you better get over that because no one here is. lol That' great advise.
Well a few up coming events are "O" day, and a couples retreat. The couples retreat was suppose to be at the Great Wolf Lodge but I figured that got too expensive so we are going to San Antonio. oh yay. Well it's a whole weekend with just me and the hubby so I am not going to complain. They dropped the "D" word too so lets hope S1 can get this man's ERB fixed so he can send his NCI packet in and get him promoted before he leaves. Ugh what a miserable boring time thats going to be.