Money Maker?

I have paired up with a few companies about things I'm passionate about:

1) Fun with Dips
2) Sugar Shower
3) Friendship Collar

Fun with Dips

This is just what it sounds like--dips, bread dippers, seasonings, mixes, cheesecake mixes, etc.

A great business for the cook! Many people use the dip mixes for seasoning on meat or different varieties of cooking, not just for a dip.

To purchase Fun with Dips: CLICK HERE

Here's a few examples of items:

Our winter seasonal mixes have been released:

Sugar Shower LLC

Sugar Shower has a variety of bath products including: soap that looks like real food, lotions, body soap, body scrubs, sugar scrubs, bath bombs, lip balm, hair masks, face masks, and MORE!

Recently released their holiday seasonal products as well. 

To purchase from Sugar Shower, go to Sugar Shower, add your items to your cart, and use "britnyc" as a coupon code at checkout. This gets you a discount AND a free sample product!!!!

Here are some items available now:

Chocolate Bar Soap

Fruit Loops and Milk Soap

Lotion

Christmas Slime
not edible

Soap Donuts

Friendship Collar

For my doggie lovers!!! I am a dog lover myself so I thought this would be a perfect one! 

These are precious matching collar and bracelet combos. There are SO many options to choose from!

To order a Friendship Collar for you and your furry friend(s) CLICK HERE and enter BRITNYC as the coupon code!

Fur Mama Squared

Figured I should introduce you to my babies:

Penny Mae

Birthday: 3/3/2014

Breed: Beagle Mix

Size: 25 lbs

Quirks:

• Jumping
• Running
• Picky about food (except human food)

Loves:

• Squeakers
• Pizza Crust
• Balls
• Her Brother (sometimes)
• Giving kisses

Nicknames: Penny, Penn Penn, Mae, Bully (to her brother), Sugey, Sugey Mae, Mae Mae, Mayberry, My Shadow

Briar Lee

Birthday: 2/15/2018

Breed: Pug Mix

Size: 19 lbs

Quirks:

• Barking to wake us up
• Fast

Loves:

• Food
• Mama (me!)
• Bones
• His Sister

Nicknames: Bri Bri, BRIAR LEE!!! (yelled to get his attention), Boogey, Bubba, Bubs, Monkey

They really do love each other!!!!

Concerts as of July 2019

Country:

David Nail

1. Broomcorn
2. Bagelfest
3. Decatur Celebration
4. Decatur Celebration
5. Assembly Hall
6. 8 Seconds
7. City Center (M+G)
8. Indy State Fair

Chris Lane

1. Charleston
2. 8 Seconds (M+G)
3. Sweetcorn Fest
4. Rosemont

Dan + Shay

1. City Center (M+G)
2. St. Louis (Rascal Flatts)
3. State Farm Center
4. Rosemont
5. St. Louis (with FGL)
6. State Fair

FGL

1. With Luke
2. State Fair
3. Halloween (M+G)
4. Moline (M+G)
5. State Farm Center
6. Assembly Hall
7. With Jason Aldean
8. St. Louis

Yes this is them...playing with remote control cars when they opened for Luke Bryan

Luke Bryan

1. With Jason Aldean
2. Peoria w/FGL
3. Indy (VIP)

Steel Magnolia

1. Mahomet
2. Decatur

Justin Moore

1. Champaign Fair
2. State Farm Center

Jason Aldean

1. Assembly Hall
2. Peoria

Dustin Lynch:

1. FGL 
2. Champaign Fair

Chase Rice:

1. Justin Moore
2. Indy Fair

Dylan Scott:

1. Justin Moore Opener
2. 8 Seconds
3. Dustin Lynch Opener

Russell Dickerson:

1. Arthur-Mo Do Fair
2. 8 Seconds

Once:

Gretchen Wilson

Garth Brooks

Brantley Gilbert

Miranda Lambert

Dierks Bentley

Rascal Flatts

Carly Pierce

Parmalee

Lee Brice

Toby Keith

Randy Houser

Brad Paisley

Darius Rucker

Lady Antebellum

Kip Moore

Trace Adkins

Craig Morgan

Kellie Pickler

Kacey Musgraves

Tim McGraw

Faith Hill

Taylor Swift

Shania Twain

Eric Paslay

Eric Church

Lauren Alaina

Tyler Farr
Chris Young
Morgan Wallen
Jordan Davis
Eli Young Band

Lady Antebellum

Rock/Pop/Rap:

Metallica

Avenged Sevenfold

Daughtry

1. Assembly Hall
2. With 3 Doors Down

3 Doors Down

NF

Aaron Lewis

Nelly

Kelly Clarkson

Raven

Everlife

Christian:

Casting Crowns

1. Winter Jam
2. Assembly Hall
3. Effingham

Newsboys

1. Winter Jam
2. Big Church Night Out
3. Winter Jam

LeCrae

1. Bloomington (M+G)
2. Winter Jam

Basic Training Tips

Basic Training 101

This is mainly geared for people with spouses leaving for Army Basic/AIT. 

My name is Britny Chapman. I have been an Army Wife for 1 year and 10 months now. 5 months of those my husband was gone to his combined basic/AIT, also known as OSUT. I sort of ran a basic training FB page where I engaged the family members from my husband's unit in different questions weekly or daily. Just to try to let up some of the sadness we were ALL feeling.

Let's start with the never-ending acronyms of the military.

MOS- the soldier's job in the Army

AIT- training for their specific job

OSUT-one station unit training- completing all of basic and AIT at the same base.

BCT- basic/basic training

BAH-  support for rent/mortgage , is based off of ZIP code

CAC- soldier's military ID

DFAC- dining hall

DEERS- information portal of all spousal, dependent information

OPSEC- security portocal, basically what you can and can't put on social media, or make public

PCS- changing duty stations (or moving bases)

Now that we got that covered let's discuss things to do/know prior to your soldier leaving:

1. His/her social- you'll need to MEMORIZE that. That is your key to using Tricare, the military's insurance and just about everything else.
2. Their MOS or job in the military- this is so you can find FB groups or pages for your future soldier.
3. The obvious--which base they will be going to for training
4. Will they be going to different base for AIT or staying for OSUT?

Here's how the process went for my experience:

July 31- Hubby left from his RSP unit headed to St. Louis airport.

That night at about 8:30 I got a 7 SECOND phone call where he said "I have arrived at ___. I am safe. I will call when I can. Goodbye." There was NOOO time for me to say anything. So I just hung up and cried. I texted his momma and sister and told them he was there.

The next few days were HARD. After living with your husband and then he is "wisked" away for 5 months. It kinda freaks you out. 

August 5th I received my first letter from him. It was just a letter saying how much he missed me. Of course I cried.

August 8th was the day he called with his company, platoon, and address. Make sure to ask for the platoon! Because I had done research and knew between 2 companies he would be with, I already had most of the address written out. In 1 minute, he was able to tell me his whole address. I wasn't able to ask anything during that call unless he could respond "Yes" or "No" to it. I think our call was him just saying the address over and over again. 

Once they are out of reception and move into basic, they will probably not receive mail for 3 weeks or so. Do not be alarmed if you do not receive anything from them for about 4 weeks. The post office is getting used to the new company and getting everything switched and ready. Plus, this is the direct start of basic and they are training. 

I think about week 4, I found out on the Facebook group that their were platoons getting phone calls on Sundays. I believe my husband's platoon missed that Sunday call because they had done something wrong. That next week on Sunday I did receive a call and it was for about a minute. So basically a "Hi" and "Bye" conversation. But MUCH needed for both of us! From there he got his called pretty regularly on Sundays but did miss one other one. The call times varied from 1 minute then once they hit AIT it was up to about 30 minutes. One time the DS lost track of time and I think it was a 45-50 minute phone call. That was nice! They had an "off" day on Veteran's Day so we talked and texted all of that day as well. We were pretty blessed with lots of communication even if it was only once a week (besides letters of course).

We had a graduation date on August 8th. However, they did move his up a couple days so it wasn't so close to Christmas. I booked the hotel on August 8th but luckily I was able to change the date around when we found out the graduation date moved.

My husband was away for Thanksgiving. He did have his phone the whole day so we Facetimed, talked, and texted. 

He had Family Day the day before graduation where family could come take him out to eat and just hang out that day. We spent our family day in the barber shop waiting on a haircut for him haha. We also went and saw the new Star Wars movie a little ways away from the base. 

Graduation Day finally came and I finally got to bring my husband home!! 

My Tips:

• THE BIG ONE-My soldier only wrote mostly me. So what I did was send him a BUNCH of peel and stick envelopes with my address, his LONG address, and a stamp on them. I sent that in a "report card" size manila envelope. He got them with no problem. He would tell me when his supply was low and I'd send him more. I did about 30-50 at a time. We were able to write just about daily. I'd send out a letter each day on my lunch. My soldier said this helped him out greatly because he didn't have to write anything but the letter and press and send!
• WRITE! They need to hear from home and what's going on. It may seem weird to say just the simple things but it's worth it. A tip I always saw was "Never write bad things". It was hard to write "bad things" when all we thought about was missing each other.
• PHONES-The moment they are shipped out, never let your phone out of your sight. Sounds silly but it's so true. Your soldier may call needing additional paperwork like mine did. I had to email over a copy of our marriage license to the personnel at reception.
• RESEARCH- The moment my husband left I googled his base and searched for their graduation dates. At that point I was able to guess that he was either going to be in Delta or Echo Company. It turned out I was right, DELTA!
• WAIT- Approximately, 5 days after getting to reception I got my first letter UNADDRESSED from my husband. They can write while they are in reception just they will NOT have an address for you to send mail back yet. So just read the mail, write back, and keep the letter until you get their address. I kept about 6 days worth of mail until I got his address. Once they are accepted by a company you should be notified either by a phone call or a letter with their new address and where you will send mail for the remainder of basic training.
• PACKAGES- Each company and commander is different with how they accept packages and what they will and will not accept. The biggest package I sent my husband was I think just envelopes, an extra cell phone charger, ear buds, and he asked for me to send his razor blades. NO FOOD, NO CHEW, NO MAGAZINES! Many people in my husband's company were sending care packages of like shaving cream, lotion, band aids, laundry pods, etc. My husband told me not to bother because everything at the PX was way cheaper than me buying it and shipping it there. I did send pictures and I don't think there ever was an issue of him getting those either. 
• FACEBOOK- Check to see if his company has a FB Page. They will post live videos of the training they do. My husband was gone during Thanksgiving so they went around to all the tables with the soldiers eating their nice dinner. Most said hey to their family back home. It was pretty cool. My husband's company also had a private FB group we could join which was family (moms, dads, sisters, brothers, spouses, cousins, etc.) of the SAME company as your husband. So you could see if they were getting phone calls or which platoon wasn't and you could see when people got letters. Thank God for technology!
• USPS INFORMED DELIVERY- Sign up your address for Informed Delivery. Every morning you will get an email if you have any mail/packages coming to your house that day. It was helpful because I would run home on lunch if I had letters waiting on me :) 
• COUNTDOWN- I posted this tip on the Army Wives group and many said they hate counting down. I personally loved it. It showed me just how many days we had left. It was nice seeing when the "Days Left" jar had less than the "Days Down". I also loved when we had only 100 days left too. Here's the start of the jars I made: 

Any questions, just comment! :)

People Pleaser

I'm going to be honest today. I struggle with anxiety and I attended counseling.

The moment I mentioned that I stress about stressing ~haha~ my counselor decided to do an assessment on me. 

It was an assessment with about 100 questions. 

She would read them to me, then WITHOUT thinking, I needed to answer true or false to the statement.

At the end, she asked me if I noticed a pattern in my results.

I told her I noticed I felt strongly about:

1) Other people's opinions

2) Criticism

She said our goal what to find out WHY.

So I sit here today wondering...

WHY do I care what other people think?

WHY do I feel the need to impress people?

WHY do I stress about everything under the sun, even if there's NO possible way it could happen?

WHY do I stress so much?

WHY do I hate being criticized?

I can remember my first job. Denny's in Tuscola. My one year job evaluation was due. I was scared. SO scared. But why? I did my job to the best of my ability. I had trained more than one hostess that year. Doesn't make any sense to be scared or anxious for something like this. But I was.

Why can't I just take my accomplishments in life and be happy? Why do I feel like I need people to be okay with MY life? It's my life. I've done a lot to be proud of.

Now I just have to find my WHY!

October 6, 2017

Army Wife Life

Like most days while Kelly was gone, this day was no exception.

I stalked the family Facebook group and the companies Facebook page. Daily, hourly, non-stop.

I can't remember if he wrote and told me a guess of which day it would be or not. I just knew to watch closely that week.

The company commander would go live and show the future soldier's training. It was pretty cool. I can't imagine being in times where there was no technology and having a husband go through basic.

7:00 or 8:00 that night the Company went live to show the future soldiers becoming soldiers and officially graduating from basic. Kelly was in OSUT so he would stay at FLW after Basic. Most other Army jobs have a different basic training location and job school location. Kelly stayed at one the whole time.

Here's a video of the video of Kelly shaking the commander's hand via FB live.

Tears flowed that night!

Then about a week later, his letter signature changed to this:

Meet Britny

Welcome

Hey Guys! Just wanted to introduce myself. 

My name is Britny Marie Chapman, maiden name Donaldson. I am 24 years old. 

I was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1994. A few years later my parents divorced and we moved to Illinois (closer to both families). I recall living in Hillsboro for a short time, then moving to Shelbyville, Arthur, then to Tuscola. Tuscola is where we stayed until I graduated high school there in 2012. 

Growing up I was a shy kid, you could say, unless I was close with someone, then I could make you laugh and talk your ear off. 

I never played sports in school. I was in extra curriculars in junior high and high school. I was the secretary of FCCLA my senior year. I was also involved in Clickers, a safe driving club and a branch of Kiwanas called Key Club.  Best part of being part of the clubs was Monical's Pizza at meetings and going to state for FCCLA.

My sister and I
High school graduation, 2012

Growing up education was always a big part of my life. I loved learning except for social studies. Hated that subject! I was always on honor roll in grade school, junior high hit and classes got harder. I struggled to maintain good grades.

Then high school hit and I was super scared for that once Freshman year hit. I had just always seen the bullying happening. I never experienced that luckily. I literally took every computer class that TCHS offered. I learned to love the Microsoft programs and even took dual credit classes. During those, I would complete the class about a month in and then have 4 months remaining where I would help the rest of the class.

Graduation came and I knew I wanted to attend college. I decided on Lake Land College where I got my associate's in Office Management and a certificate in Office Technology Skills (I wasn't trying for the certificate, but the classes I took for the associate's landed me the certificate too 😁)

Lake Land Graduation 2014

Junior year of high school I started working at Denny's in town. Long story short, I met my husband there. I was a hostess and he was a dishwasher.

September 2013 we started dating.
April 2014 we were engaged.
May 2015 we were married. 

June 2016, we bought a house.
September 2016 we rescued my girl, Penny Mae.
May 2018, we rescued our boy, Briar Lee.

In November, one of my friends told me about Rover. I made a profile and started watching dogs in our home. It was some extra money but also something I thoroughly enjoyed. In January 2018, I decided to take my business private and started Brit's Furry Friends (BFF). I'm sure there will be many posts about dogs, my dogs, and my boarding dogs. I love them all so much!

Penny and I

Our puppy Briar Lee

January 25, 2017, hubby enlisted in the Army National Guard as an MP. July 31, he headed off to basic until December 18 when he got to come back home. 

That was tough to be apart from your husband for so long. 5 months surviving on HAND WRITTEN, STAMPED, MAILED letters and MAYBE weekly phone calls, and sometimes even a Facetime. I'm sure there will be lots of posts about Army Wife life too.

December 18, 2017-Basic/AIT Graduation

I work full time as a secretary and accounts payable and have my dog boarding business.

I enjoy marketing my dog boarding business, going to concerts, watching movies, NASCAR, petting dogs, and shooting guns.

I think that's enough of my life.

This blog will be things like:

• my thoughts
• animal tips/tricks
• my favorite thing posts
• boarding dog spotlight
• maybe some info about my business
• food reviews
• concert diaries
• Army wife chat

Thanks for reading!!

XOXO