What if?

I am one of the lucky ones this year, my Husband is home at Christmas.   The blizzard conditions made it impossible for us to leave home, and frankly we were ok with that.  We are used to spending Holidays alone as a family.  Far away from our immediate family, and  our families are accustomed to it as well.  We just will do it later, water off a ducks back. 

Yesterday, we had five foot drifts all around us, and SNOW lots of snow.  I couldn't have been happier really....until throughout the morning my left side of my face hurt, sinus's hurt, neck hurt from swollen glands.  (I have been fighting what was an abscessed tooth, disguised as a sinus infection for about 2 weeks or so)  I had a temporary crown put on the other day, as well as a root canal.  My long freakish caveman roots surprised my dentist, and so did the extra curved roots.  It took far longer than we had anticipated.  (root canals, not nearly as frightening or painful as I had heard, and I actually got a nap in, during the procedure)

I took my tongue, and ran it over my temporary crown, and found nothing but a hole.  I must have swallowed it while sleeping, or eaten it along with the 10 pounds of food I consumed the night before....

I felt horrible about having to call the Dentist on Christmas of all days, I also felt terrible after I had to ask DH to retrieve some antibiotics from the drugstore. (btw, Walgreen's I love you for being open when no one else was).   DH had to run the snowblower, and head out on what was dangerous, and streets that we were unsure were cleared. 

He made it home safe with my medicine, some movies from red box, and it suddenly occurred to me, that although my day  was not ideal I needed to suck it up.  What if I had been alone?  What if my knight in shining armor was not here to save the day with his superb 4 WD skills?  Would I have dared to venture out into the abyss alone with the kids, only to get stuck 4 blocks away?  One never knows.

And I know if I would have had to clear my driveway of 5 foot high drifts, well I would still be doing it

Merry Christmas from Afghanistan

I am sure we all spent some time yesterday thinking about deployed servicemembers and hoping they had even a little bit of Christmas.  In ways large and small, we've all wished them a Merry Christmas.

And they wished us Merry Christmas right back.  It's a day late but I think you'll enjoy it.

Oh Starry Night IV

It's windy.  Loads of dust in the air.  The air isn't crisp, it's down right cold.  There are aircraft flying and at times the noise is so all-encompassing, that you can't think straight.  And "we're supposed to sleep under these conditions?" 

It's Christmas Day.  And the newbies, the FNGs in the theater, want everyone to have the day off.  Besides, it's Christmas.  We can't work on Christmas!  Really?  REALLY?   So, incoming shouldn't be met with return actions -- simply because it's Christmas?  Grow up or go away ... besides, I really do have something else on my mind.

Yes, it is Christmas ...

Sometimes, it's the smallest of things ...

A while back she lost her dad, a world-class Air Force test pilot.  Probably due to him flying around and through those elusive neutrons that were plentiful in the late '50's.  Now she's watching her mom disappear to dementia and probably its friend Mr Alzheimer's.  This, the lady who with six kids in-tow, could handle the Paris metro and the Tokyo taxis with aplomb.  Now ... not so.  To deal with it, you become objective in your dealings with your feelings, the world and the doctors -- they're doing what they can as swiftly as they can.  You only let your feelings come out when it's quiet and dark and during the alone times. 

We're away from our home once again -- me helping The Boss, she helping her mom.  We're in another hotel room on another installation, and we're pushing through everything that simply needs to be done.  It's the right thing to do.

Last night, as I always do just before falling onto the pillow in a strange hotel room, I remembered and reached into my briefcase to grab my little pocket maglite.  And I felt it ... 

We Are Amazing

Through each deployment, there are days of despair:  nothing is going well, and you feel like you haven't accomplished anything, and it seems like deployment will never end.

Then there are the Blue Ribbon Days.  The days where you accomplish something that was hard, or everything goes well, or you have the opportunity to sit in a clean house and read a book.  (Ha!)

I've just finished two of those days.  When I woke up yesterday morning, I had a messy house, a pile of unwrapped presents, and a 1000 mile drive ahead of me, with four squabbly children.  Tonight, I'm safely at my in-laws with a car full of wrapped presents and back at home, things are relatively tidy.  I can hardly believe it.  Granted, there was a lot of yelling involved, but we did it.  Chalk this one up as great big deployment success.

That is the upside of deployment - the opportunity to do stuff that seems impossible and occasionally succeed.  I wasn't sure if I could do this trip without my husband, and I wouldn't have tried if I had any other options.  But I didn't have other options, and now I've succeeded at doing something that I thought was too hard.

I know that lots of you have done things that seemed impossible but needed to be done.  Today is celebration day - share your successes!

30 Minutes

It's amazing how short 30 minutes is.

When my husband calls from Afghanistan, I always feel like we've barely scratched the surface of two or three topics before he has to get off the phone.  I feel like I've just gotten started and it's time to stop.

It makes me wonder how much I run my mouth to him when he's home.  If 30 minutes only covers part of two topics, then I reckon I must do an awful lot of talking when he lives here...

I can't wait until I get more than 30 minutes with him.

Slumber Parties?

Just before my husband came home for mid-tour leave, I went to a charity bull roast/silent auction fundraiser that a very old friend was organizing.  I love silent auctions for charity - it is fun to spend money for a good cause, and there are frequently good deals to be found.  They had all sorts of auctions - silent, live, and the raffle kind where you buy a ticket and drop it in a box/bucket/bag for the item that you want and one ticket is drawn out.

Did You Know?

Housing Rates To Stay Flat For Many
2010 BAH Rates
2010 BAH Impacts New GI Bill
Commissaries Offer Gift Boxes
Get Ready To Track Santa
Navy Offers Hourly Child Care
Free SAT ACT Powerprep Software
2-Hour Christmas Eve Exchange Specials

More Updates 

Militarese to English FAIL

When Air Force Guy came home on R & R it was great.  He came bearing gifts (yay!  early Christmas!) and he came bearing illness. 

AFG always comes home from deployment bearing some kind of illness to pass around the house.  We like to call it "The Crud".  Specifically, we call it the "Wherever-He-Was Crud."  So far we've passed around the Iraq Crud, the Korea Crud, the Afghanistan Crud and some kind of weird sneezing-with-cold-shivers thing we assumed was the Greenland Crud. 

We also all got sick when he got home from an extended training in Georgia.  I assume that was the Georgia version of The Crud.

Me, Me, Me, Me

That's it.  I can't go out until my husband gets home.  Or I need to learn better social skills.  Because lately, everywhere I go, all we ever talk about is me.  How long has he been gone?  When is he coming back?  How do you do it?  When are you moving?  What do the kids think?  I appreciate everyone's interest, and I understand that it sounds odd and different to y'all civilian folks, but aren't you sick of talking about me?  It is sort of like this, but different.

I've tried changing the subject, and that often works for a bit, but then a new person enters the conversation and then we're back to me.  I feel like I'm trying to hog all the attention which is very much not true.  (Not that I don't enjoy being funny, but all the time?  I'm certainly not THAT funny.  It's not like I'm Guard Wife.)  I feel like I'm preventing other people from being the subject of attention, and it seems so rude.  I actually left a party early last night because I was hoping that they'd be able to talk about something else if I left.

I'm wondering if anyone else experiences this, or if you have any suggestions.  I don't want to hide in a box for the next few months but this is ridiculous!

"Listening Sessions" Survey

Officials Seek Feedback on Family Programs

Our Creative Ways

As military spouses, we tend to move around quite a bit and after a while pick up tips along the way as far as the organization and packing of our household goods. I'm no stranger to moving and really have no one but myself to blame for this. So, what happens when a certain someone doesn't label boxes properly or forgets where certain things that might be needed soon after arriving into a new place might be at? 

Certain things such as.. I don't know, let's say, the screws and bolts to all the tables for instance?

We simply get creative. Some see "tat box", I see "temporary dining table". 

 

Blue Christmas

The Dark Prince is deployed now.  We're about 5 weeks into his deployment and things are kind of calming down here.  Kind of.

Even though I'm over the craptacular specialness of the first month of deployment, there's another hurdle I must deal with:  Christmas.

Decorating Envy

My name is She of the Sea, and I have decorating envy.

This is a problem that attacks me every once in a while.  Yesterday, I was at the house of a civilian friend.  They have lived in this house for more than 5 years and intend to be there for a long time.  And it is decorated beautifully.  Not fancy schmancy decorated, but it is obvious that effort has been put into making this a warm and comfortable home.  All the rooms are painted a color that makes sense.  All the windows have proper window treatments.  There is no extraneous furniture, or empty spaces calling out for something to fill them.  It is a home of someone who doesn't move all the time.

I know there are military spouses who pull into a new home, paint, sew and do their magic instantaneously.  I'm not one of them.  We've been here for 18 months and I still have those disposable paper blinds on most of my windows.  (Courtesy of the previous occupants, even.)  And with orders expected soon, I'm poorly motivated to start sewing now.  There are rooms that need painting.  There is senseless furniture stuck in odd places.

I long to live in a home that looks nice.  I'm sure I could do it, but it seems a poor use of both time and money to knock myself out making this house just so when next year is going to bring another house, and a few years later, who knows?  I don't know if it is realism or a defeatist attitude, but I know I'm not alone.

(And if any of you are studying interior design and/or curtain making, I live in Maryland.  And I cook.)

Did You Know?

Be Safe Buying Online
Debt Proofing the Holidays
Military Spouse Scholarships
New Exchange Book Available
Use MyPay to get 2009 Tax Statements

More Updates  

No Good Deed Goes Unfreakedoutabout

I take back what I just said about my husband: it seems he did indeed get me a Christmas gift this year.  And he was so stealthy about it that I thought it was credit card fraud.

We had an Amazon purchase show up on our credit card today that I did not make.  It wasn't listed on our Amazon account either.  I was moments away from contacting the credit card and Amazon to report fraud when I thought I'd better ask my husband just in case he bought something.

Normally, the turnaround on something like that can be long: emailing downrange, waiting for the reply, and then taking action.  But luckily I must've caught him right before he used a computer.  He said that the purchase was his, and that he'd even opened a new Amazon account so I couldn't see his paper trail and figure out that he'd bought me something.

So my husband did get me a present this year!  And nearly caused me to cancel our credit card too :)

Out Of Ideas

My husband's company deploys the second half of every year.  That means I have to do the Christmas shopping for everyone without any input from him.  And truthfully, even the years he has been here, he's not that much help.  After seven years, I am desperately running out of ideas for his side of the family.  (My mom said, "Wait until you've used up 34 years of ideas for your in-laws...")

I had the thought today, while freaking out that I still didn't have anything for my father-in-law, that it might be nice to deploy somewhere and completely set aside any responsibility for thinking about anyone else but myself.  I mean, he doesn't even get me birthday or Christmas presents while he's deployed.  I'd like to see what would happen if I left my husband at home to have to do the holiday shopping for the whole family, his side and mine.  I'd love to see what he'd come up with to get for everyone...

'The Art of Being a Military Child'

The Military Child Education Coalition has put out information regarding the 2010 Call for the Arts.

Military children pre-k to 12th grade are eligible to participate.

It's that time of year again......

 

It is time to join the countdown and get geared up for tracking Santa.

The NORAD tracks Santa site is now live and features fun holiday games and activities that change daily. 

It's All Blocked

Dear Army,

You are on my list these days.  Just so you know.

First you take my husband for my entire pregnancy.  Fine.  I can handle that, because I am a big girl.

Then you send him somewhere where umpteenjillion soldiers share one computer.  Not good.

Then you block Facebook and all blogs on that computer.  And now we have to have words...

He can't be here for any of the growth of his child and the wild weight gain of his wife.  The only way he can participate is if you allow me to take photos and videos and upload them somehow.  But you took away all the platforms for him to be able to see these videos and photos.

Seriously, I get OPSEC and all, but please don't take these soldiers away from their families for long periods of time and then deny them access to any way to keep in touch with their families.  That's just wrong.

You need to shape up, Army.

Sincerely,
Sarah

Fit Club: The Stuck Edition

Hmm, it has been a long time since my last Fit Club post.  A really long time.  I'm sure you will understand that there are a hundred million good reasons for that.  Well, not good reasons, but reasons.  The biggest reason is that I am stuck.  I am stuck at exercising and I am stuck at losing weight.  I'm not happy about it and I don't want to write about it.

I started this little voyage in April and was doing great until about August, when things came to a stand-still.  I've lost and regained the same 5 pounds for the last four months.  It is boring and frustrating.  Now that the really cold weather has arrived, I'm not sure how I will be able to continue during the winter.  I'm seriously considering joining a gym for a few months until this place thaws out.  I can not motivate myself to run when it is 30 degrees outside.

To those of you who are still working, great job.  To the people who are stuck like me, what are we going to do?  There must be a solution that will work.

We Have a Winner

OK, military poker game?  Bonnie Hoagland wins.  She just flat-out wins.  Period.

Military Wife Prepares to Send Three Sons, Husband to Afghanistan

Three of her four sons and her husband will soon deploy to war-torn Afghanistan while her fourth and oldest son recuperates at home from injuries he suffered during his last tour of duty.

(link via Blackfive)

He Walked in Our Shoes.

I was introduced to Paul Bennett via a Facebook group I belong to.  Paul was in the Marine Corps, deployed to Iraq, then got out and started up a photography studio.

Paul's old unit was having a pre-deployment Family Day in October and he went down to wish his old friends "Godspeed". 

His post is one I think we'll all identify with on several levels.        

 Just go and read it.  You won't be sorry you did.  Also, check out his professional photography site..  He has some wonderful pictures from Iraq.  (And yeah...I'm back.  Blogging hiatus over.)

A Holiday Is Not a Date On the Calendar

By the time Christmas rolls around, I will be too pregnant to travel.  My family is trying to decide how to make sure I'm not alone.  Both my father and brother will have to work on Christmas.  My father suggested to my mother that she could come see me by herself so I'd have someone to spend Christmas with.

My mother was telling me this suggestion on the phone when she wistfully said, "But that would mean I would spend the first Christmas apart from your father in 34 years..."

And then she trailed off, because she obviously realized what she had just said to her pregnant daughter whose husband is deployed for the second year in a row.

She continued, "But I suppose if you can celebrate multiple holidays over the years without your husband, then I can manage one time without mine."

My husband and I have been married seven and a half years.  We have a decent track record as far as the military goes: We've been apart for two Christmases, three Thanksgivings, three of his birthdays, three of my birthdays, two anniversaries, and at least one of everything else like Valentine's Day and 4th of July.

So for me, those dates aren't really that important.  The fourth Thursday of November or the actual 14th of February are less important than being a complete family whenever you can manage it.  I know many military families who have put up a Christmas tree in October or waited to take it down until February, just so the family could all be together to celebrate.  We give thanks for physically and mentally healthy spouses all year round, not just in November.  And Valentine's Day is any and every day when you and your spouse want it to be; our love gets rekindled several times a year, not just in February.

We make do with what we can get, and sometimes that means celebrating holidays whenever you're lucky enough to be together.  Because a holiday isn't just a date on the calendar; it's a celebration of being a family.

And sometimes for military families, Christmas has to come in August.

Did You Know?

'Let's Say Thanks' to Deployed Servicemembers
Free Fishing in Alaska in 2010 for Separated Veterans
Holiday Slideshow
Holiday Traditions for Your Military Family
Holiday Greetings Available for Online Viewing
Toolkit for Supporting Military Children
Online Counseling Available
Free Life Coaching for Wounded Warriors

More Updates

Drowning in Homework

Calling all moms with school-aged kids--how do you handle all this homework?!

I'm sure having a deployed spouse does not help at all, but I'm needing some encouragement, tips, strategies, ideas on how to organize, keep track of, and help the kids benefit from homework.

If you're willing to spill it, meet me after the jump.

I went to Disney World...

...and it just might be the happiest place on Earth.  I know I was particularly happy when I realized how much we saved due to Disney's Armed Forces Salute.  As far as I'm aware, this is the first time Disney has offered something like this to the military and it ends December 23.  I sincerely hope they will offer this again. 

Making the Funnies

I spend enough time online and know enough about communication to understand that many things, when written, do not end up being translated properly by the receiver.  Usually, I am apt to point this out to the receiver (usually my deployed husband) and remind him to ask for clarification if my written words do not make sense.

Guess I should take my own advice?

Call Both Phones

Dear Husband,

We have been over this a thousand times.  If you call the cell phone and there's no answer, either call back in two minutes or call the house phone.  But if you leave another message on my cell that you're sad you missed me and will try back in a few days, I will strangle you.  Because the only reason I didn't answer is that the cell phone was upstairs, I was downstairs, and I am too pregnant to go running up flights of stairs to dive for the phone.  I was right here, in the house, and there's no reason at all that you couldn't have reached me.

Seriously.  I will choke you if you don't call both phones next time.

Love,
Sarah

All Those Moments Are Gone

I took a trip three weeks ago to visit my husband's parents.  Even though he's deployed, I wanted them to share in the pregnancy excitement and get to feel like grandparents-to-be for a few days.  We had a nice visit, and on the way home I started thinking of the letter I could write to my husband about everything we did that week.

And then I got busy, and then I didn't feel so well, and then...the urgency passed.  And I never wrote the letter.

This, to me, is the saddest part of deployment.