Flat Jason hits the blogosphere again!

Just the other day I was approached by journalist Christine Hofmann-Bourque, an Army wife herself, who was interested in doing a story about Flat Daddies and my experience with Flat Jason. Check out the story at The Strength Behind the Strong.

Love and Theft

The last couple of weeks a group called Love and Theft has been getting some significant air play on the country stations that I listen to with their first single, "Runaway." I'm pretty excited for them because I like their music AND they were super-nice to me and Flat Jason when they played Columbia around my birthday last year.
Check out their blog from the road.

Flat Jason and the Dissertation

For those fans who were missing Flat Jason and were happy to see him in the short post about the Meneely Reunion, I have some exciting news. Flat Jason is now in a dissertation!

Recently alerted by my Google Alerts, I found that Rebecca A. Adelman included my flat husband and his activities in her discussion, "The Shadow Rules of Engagement: Visual Practices, Citizen-Subjectivity, and America's Global War on Terror." While I haven't read all of Ms. Adelman's work, the chapter including Flat Jason does bring up some interesting points. Mentioning of Flat Jason and the blog begin on page 141:

"The blog 'A Year Together...Apart,' maintained by a FlatDaddy wife named Amanda Stapp, is a public exploration of the vexed dynamics of life with a Flat."

She goes on to say, "Although similar content appears in still photos on the SFC website and sites like YouTube host a handful of comparable videos, 'A Year Together...Apart' is by far the most detailed chronicle of life with a Flat, and is unique because there are no children to excuse Amanda's imaginative play."

"It is hard to tell if she is just being playful; or if she is expressing the moderate craziness of long-distance lovesickness more candidly than others might; or if she is really not...okay."

Eventually she admits that, a compulsive blog reader, she dismissed the idea of my craziness. Interesting to hear an outsider's perspective...

Meneely Reunion

Even though Jason is back from deployment, he still seems to have a lot of Army obligations. He missed the Meneely Reunion, for the second year in a row, because he had to attend a commander conference. So, Flat Jason went with me to Chillicothe.

We stopped in to see Grandpa, who is recovering from a broken leg. He should be out of the nursing home by the end of October. We got to see the extended family, eat good food and win neat door prizes. I got some body spray and Flat Jason won a cute pink ceramic elephant. Later, we put some roses on Grandma's grave before we headed home.

Back to school

As all the kiddos go back to school, my big kid went back to school, too! That's right. Jason is picking up some classes at a local community college and online. His first day of class was Aug. 18. I wish I had a photo to share of his first day, but I was working at the state fair and missed it.

Jason recently found out that his first test grade was an A. Unfortunately, the teacher didn't hand back the test, so I couldn't hang it on the fridge. Do you have any ideas to encourage Jason to keep his grades up?

Flat Jason is famous

Many of you know that, for most of 2008, I carried around Flat Jason, a lifesize cardboard cutout of my real Jason while he was deployed to Kosovo. Flat Jason received recognition in the Columbia Missourian and the Columbia Tribune, but now he's gotten some TV air-time, too. To see the clip, click on the video player beside the written story.

I hope all this fuss over him doesn't go to his head!