The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done: A Series of Screw-Ups and Lessons Learned

I've been absent from blogging lately because of a series of unexpected events. Events which turned out to be overwhelming, and almost did me in. In January, on the day my husband deployed, I received a phone call informing me that we would have to move while my husband was deployed. It's a long story, and has nothing to do with orders, or the Army. Basically, the house we were renting was sold.  

I had to find a house, buy a house, pack a house and move a house. Without my husband. Pronto. I knew this would be challenging of course, but I also thought it was fairly doable. Bwahahahahaha.

Feather Weight - Late Weight

Actually, I weighed in on time this week (and am down another two pounds, which brings my total lost to 19 pounds in 6 weeks) but I haven't had a chance to post about it because I dashed off after personal training on Friday so I could go see the newest addition to the SpouseBUZZ family. 

And since I was visiting my brother and playing non-stop with my triplet nephews the rest of the time I was in the area, I didn't have a chance to post my Feather Weight Challenge update.  But that's okay, too, because I spent all weekend whining about the fact that I only lost two pounds this week.

I don't know about you all, but the most frustrating thing about fitness for me is that the process often seems to defy all the laws of physics.  For instance,

Welcome Home, Marines and Sailors...Again

The 22nd MEU deployed to Haiti to extend humanitarian aid just a month after returning home from a 7-month float (deployment).  10 weeks later, they are heading home.

"For many, it is their second homecoming in three months. In December, the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit returned from a seven-month deployment to Europe. Many of the Marines were still on post-deployment leave when they were told they would be loading up again and heading to the Caribbean to help the people of Haiti, a region devastated by a massive earthquake Jan. 12."

Read the rest of the story here.

Around the Spouse-O-Sphere

I was over at Tucker & Swiss and found this the other day.  It's a serious, thought-provoking post and, I believe, worth the read.

Along the same lines, I found a new blog (H/T to Sis B) written by a recently wounded warrior's wife.  Stop over at Thoughts from a WWW and get a glimpse into her life.  It was a little overwhelming for me, but I was quickly inspired by her positive attitude and her incredible faith.  This is one I'll continue to follow.

On a lighter note, Household Sapper hits it right on the head.

For a good chuckle, check out this post at The Lemon Stand. 

Finally, for a great idea, visit Army Blogger Wife.

"18 Days is All About Separation" Saving Abel Live Tonight!

Rockers Saving Abel explain the meaning of their song "18 Days," from the set of an aircraft carrier. Pretty cool stuff. 

Now here's something fun.... Saving Abel will be performing in the Persian Gulf tonight at 10:00 EST, as part of their USO tour. The concert will be streamed live over the internet. You can click here to view the performance as it's happening. Those of you with spouses there, who knows, might catch a glimpse of him/her.

Not Avon, but Special Agent lady calling...

The phone rang.  It was the guard from one of the gates of our gated community here in Civilian Land.  I wasn't expecting a visitor so I was only half listening, waiting for the pause so I could say that I wasn't expecting anyone.  Suddenly, he had my attention with, "Special Agent Lisa* is here about your husband's background check."  (*not her real name)

I managed to mumble something resembling, "Oh, okay," while frantically thinking of what a disaster the house was.  That's what I get for procrastinating!  Thanks a lot, Murphy!

Then I looked at the clock and realized I had to leave in 5 minutes to get my kids from school.  

I'm outside by my car when I see her pull up.  Before she has a chance to get out of the car, I'm explaining about the school pick-up.  Instead, she takes down my phone numbers and agrees to call me later to get the information she needs.  Whew! 

I'm guessing my civilian friends have never had this particular surprise in their day.

SpouseBUZZ LIVE 2010 Tour: Registration Now Open!

The SpouseBUZZ crew is getting ready to hit the road for our 2010 tour, and we couldn't be more excited about it! Tour dates and locations are as follows:

March 20:  Fort Hood, Texas

May 1:  Nellis AFB (Las Vegas, Nevada)

October 2:  Mountain Home AFB (Idaho)

November 8:  Ft. Shafter (Honolulu, Hawaii)

The SpouseBUZZ LIVE program has been revamped and includes some fun, new surprises yet it will still retain its famous interactive format. We hope to see you and all of your friends at one of the above locations this year.

Click here to register for any event. 

Hawaii in November sounds pretty fantastic, no?

It Is A Miracle We Survived

I love being a two parent household.  When my husband returned, I put away my super-mom cape and started behaving as if the world would continue functioning if I didn't take care of every single last thing.  Other than a snowpocalypse, nothing spectacular has happened.  Things in our house are pretty much the same as they were when he was gone.  At first, I was a little disappointed.  Surely an extra 24 parenting hours, each and every day, would result in a clean kitchen at all times, or we wouldn't forget appointments, or we would always have the right food when we needed it.  The reality is that things are moving along at basically the same rate of organization vs. chaos.

Then I realized it:  If we were doing this well (or not well, whatever) when it was just me, that was an amazing accomplishment.  Somehow the kids and I managed to get through a year, with only half the parenting, and we all survived. Social services never visited, and no one staged an intervention.

I guess maybe that cape had powers after all.

Did You Know?

American Legion Debuts Video For Younger Generation
Anti-terrorism Family Awareness
Air Force Video Competition Begins
Interstate Compact Eases Transitions For Military Children
Dot Mil Docs Episode Available - Heart Disease, Stress, Depression
Free Tax Assistance
Prior Authorizations and TRICARE

More Updates

Fighting Murphy

We’ve all been there. The days when Murphy decides to poke his head around and suddenly it seems like everything that can, is and will be going wrong. He especially likes to make his presence known during a deployment or PCS, because hey it’s not like we’re not going through a tough time already, right? Of course, once that is over he still shows up randomly just to keep us on our toes.

Well Murphy, I’ve decided I’m not going to go down without a fight. The way I see it, the best way to fight him is to just focus on the positive thoughts and victories, both big and small. They can vary from receiving that special phone call out of the blue, a letter in the mail, or a friend being there at the right time.

My small victory? Little Man has finally decided to become one with the potty training urinal. Granted, he refuses to acknowledge the potty’s existence during the day but as soon as the afternoon and night come, his huggie is always dry. And right now, that’s one heck of a victory.

Take that Murphy!  What is something good or happy that’s happened to you today or recently?

Feather Weight Challenge - Weigh In Six

I need a new scale.

Get Out Your Boards - It's PCS Bingo

Now that we've gotten through that little deployment thing, it is time for something that we all known and love:  preparing to PCS.  We are going overseas this summer and my mind is consumed with the million things that we must do before we go:  overseas medical screenings, dealing with cars, clearing out stuff, and preparing our house to be rented.  Just so this doesn't seem boring or scary, we're going to dig out our old friend, deployment bingo, and come up with a PCS version.

The idea is simple:  imagine a bingo card, and mentally fill in all the blocks with crazy stuff that could happen.  I like to add a few happy blocks amongst the variety of negative things that immediately come to mind.  Missing boxes, changed orders, and transportation mishaps are the first things I think of, but I bet that our readers have lots of ideas to fill in those squares.

I'm pretty sure that we filled in a square today, when we decided, three months before an overseas PCS, that our dryer really wasn't working any more.  Perhaps the fact that we've been drying the same load for a week would have been a clue, but I didn't want to admit the truth.  No one likes losing an important household appliance right before a PCS, and particularly not when that appliance won't be useful in your new home.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, the game is on.  Start suggesting those squares now!

Confessions of a Milspouse #820

When my husband returns from deployment, one of the first things I do is look in his toiletry kit.  There is usually dirt in there.  There's dirt caked into the cap of the toothpaste and sometimes in the crevices of the handle of his toothbrush.  I immediately toss the toothbrush and try to clean out his toothpaste.

And sometimes when I start to feel like I'm a bad housewife, that our baseboards are dirty and there's a spot on the kitchen floor that's a clear indicator that I need to get the mop out, I like to remind myself that no matter how infrequently I dust or vacuum, our house will never be dirty enough to find caked-in dirt on our toothbrushes.

It makes me feel better about my housekeeping that our house will always be the cleanest place my husband lives.  Spot on the floor and all.

No! Don't Come!

(This is actually old, but I couldn't quite finish it when it was current.  I'm sure you'll understand.)

Today's the day!  My husband is coming home!  Of course, I hopped out of bed as soon as the alarm went off.  I made the day's to do list, and started packing, and doing chores, and trying to get ready.

At first, I tried to ignore the nagging feeling that I wasn't ready.  But as the morning progressed, and the time to leave came closer, it got harder to ignore.  This house is a mess!  I'm a mess!  His half of the closet is still full of my stuff!

Then came the bad thought:  "Maybe their flight will be delayed."  A bad thought, because that isn't supposed to make you feel good.  But for a moment, it did.  Imagine what I could do with another 24 hours.  (Just ignore the fact that I've had 12 months.)

Of course, I don't want him to be delayed - I want him to be home.  But I can't imagine that I'm the only person who has ever had that thought.  As the day went on, the dream got bigger.  "Maybe I'll get two days."

Let's face it.  Another day, or two, isn't going to make me ready for him to come home.  I need to just let it go, get to terminal, and enjoy having my husband home.

So we are not accompanying, now what?

As it happens, the needs of the Navy do not include a sea tour this time around.  I won't lie. I am relieved. I have a bit more time to acclimate myself to the idea now. 

For a few reasons, Seadaddy's best move was an overseas tour.  We were lucky enough the location has recently been reclassified so we did have the option to go accompanied for two years or unaccompanied for one.  While we did weigh this decision heavily and I imagine we will both feel some regret about our choice along the way, the boys and I are staying stateside.

Seadaddy  and I have done pretty well through our deployments and we are hoping his internet connection will be even better in a non war zone.  So long as the boys get to see and hear their dad on a regular basis, I  think we will do alright.

But it is the pre-game strategizing that has me flustered.

The Definition of Insanity

The same scenario happens every deployment.  My husband leaves town in a rush, leaving his gear strewn all about the house and car.  I clean said gear up and put it in a box or garbage bag.  I proceed to trip over it and shuffle it around for months until I finally break down and put it away for good.  For "safe keeping."  Then my husband returns from deployment and we want to spend time hugging and snuggling.  And the night before he has to return to work in garrison, we end up cranky with each other because neither of us can remember where his boots, beret, uniforms, reflective belts, etc are.  Seven months later, I've forgotten what I stowed away in that bag and where I finally put it "for safe keeping."  He can't even remember what kitchen cabinet our glasses are in, much less where his beret would be.  And so it's 11 PM and he's digging through boxes in the garage looking for the uniform he needs for the next morning.

They say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Maybe next time we need a better system for gear storage.  But somehow I think we'll probably just replay this scenario again..

Feather Weight Challenge - Weigh In 5

I have news and a treat this week!

The Hours In Between

My husband's first deployment spoiled me for how things ought to work.  As the deployment neared its end, we got word when they'd be returning.  We got frequent updates.  Then on that day, we got a call saying they had landed and were home, and that families could report to the gym in two hours.  We all showed up with signs and balloons, they marched the soldiers in, the commander gave a quick speech, and they released the soldiers into their families' loving arms.

That went like clockwork.

I have never repeated the experience.

Around the Spouse-O-Sphere

I like to visit and read other milspouse blogs in my free time, as I'm sure many of you do, too.  So, I thought it might be a good idea to have a 'round-up' every other week or so of some of the posts that I read and find interesting.  If I like it, I'll link to it.  That's it.  That simple.  :)  If you have a favorite blog, leave a link in the comment section and I'll be sure to check it out! 

We all know that deployment has it's stages and they aren't always pretty.  These three ladies are all in the thick of it right now.

Awful, Beautiful Life

She Who Waits

Hellcat Betty

Three-peat

I promise my next post will not contain any references to facebook.  Pinky swear!  I know three in a row is a bit much...

But we (not just me - I again pinky swear!) are excited to say we have gone live with a SpouseBUZZ fan page!

facebook.com/spousebuzz

In addition to letting you know when a new post is up, we will be digging into our archives to highlight some of our favorite comments, themes, and posts.  Please check it out to see what else will be going on there!

Tick Tock

The end of a deployment is always excruciating.  You do anything you can to keep yourself busy and to stop from watching the clock.  And the last few days are the worst, the days when you're pretty sure your spouse has left the country of origin and is on the long, circuitous journey home.

And that's where I'm at...but I'm doing it while on bed rest.

Jumping the Deployment Shark

We have discussed Deployment's relationship with Murphy quite a bit.  And, even when everything that can go wrong does, there may come a time in deployment where we are lucid enough to realize that we have Jumped the Deployment Shark.

Maybe you remember the scene in Happy Days that spawned the phrase "jumping the shark", but if not, good old You Tube can refresh our memories: 

Join me after this post's jump (pun intended) to see if you, too, have jumped Deployment's Shark.

What Is Going On With MyCAA?

Everyone is asking - few answers are available.

Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway...

A few weeks ago, our gypsy family finally found out where we're moving to this summer.  By all accounts, it will be a great duty station with good family time.  Yes, I've heard all that before so I won't hold my breath but it really does sound like it will be a good place for all of us.  The kicker?  We'll only be there for a year.

The Bra in Review

A few weeks ago Andi asked me if I'd be willing to try out a new sports bra and review it for a fit club post.

Um,  YES!  The quest for the perfect sports bra has been a top priority in my fitness journey since,  well, since I needed a sports bra for the first time.  I've been... blessed, you see.  And after breastfeeding four kids and weight yo-yo'ing like an Olympic Sport, I've become very sensitive to possibly developing the dreaded "envelope boob syndrome".  Especially with Air Force Guy gone so often, I don't want him to come home and exclaim in shock, "What happened THERE?"  I have my answer ready - "Gravity!", but it's still something that I'm not ready to contend with.

Add in a sport that's fairly high impact and you can see how finding the perfect sports bra becomes a full on quest.

Did You Know?

Free Tax Filing Available
Filing State Income Taxes When You Are In The Military
Turbo Tax Freedom Edition
Operation Comfort Needs Your Vote
Navy Spirit of Hope Nominations
2010 Voting Law Update

More Updates 

Traditions..

 Traditionally, growing up in my household, Valentines Day was not just a celebration of love for a couple. It was also known as "Día del Amor y la Amistad" (Day of Love and Friendship). I've been through my share of major holidays without my significant other, the ones where I silently wish the day goes by faster so a new day arrives and I can look forward to happier times that await me.

 One of the new traditions I did during the last deployment was to send Valentine cards to all of my friends and their kids, ages ranging from newborn to Grandparents. I had a blast doing it and decided to continue with that tradition this year. If I have learned anything as a military spouse, it's that having strong friendships can help me through the toughest times of my life. Plus hearing the stories from friends on how excited their kids were to receive a card in the mail with a little candy inside, brightened up my day instantly.

 In honor of  traditions, both old and new, I would like to wish a Happy "Día del Amor y la Amistad" to all of our Spousebuzz readers! If that special person in your life is not with you today, I hope you know that we're all thinking of you and wishing them a safe and speedy return. On the bright side, everything will be 50% off tomorrow and there are some heart shaped cookie cutters with my name on them..

"I Won't Have to See that Damn Commercial Again."

I was talking to a fellow Army wife this weekend. Both of our husbands are currently deployed. Her husband is on the tail end of his deployment and will be home in a couple of months. While we were talking, that Pajama Gram Valentine's Day commercial came on and she said, "Best thing about February 15? I won't have to see that damn commercial again." We had a good laugh. She also said, "And did you notice on the Teddy Bear commercial, they included a soldier bear this year?"

Valentine's Day has never really been that important of a day for me, but I got where she was coming from. She doesn't begrudge all the happy couples their celebration of love this year, but the commercial saturation just reminded her -- over and over again --  that her other half isn't around.

So, anyone else happy to wake up tomorrow morning and not see commercials featuring bears, hearts, candy, flowers, candles, lingerie and blissfully happy couples?  

As for me, I'm always happy to see commercials featuring chocolate. I have my stash of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Dove Dark Chocolate in the refrigerator. And for all the benefits of having your partner home, and there are many, there are also benefits to not having them home. Like having the chocolate all to yourself.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the chocolate is calling....

Just tell me where we're going...

For the past two weeks I have had more anxiety and anger with the Army than I have experienced in a looooong time.  No, my husband is not deployed. 

The Feather Weight Challenge Week 3 - The Weigh In That Didn't Happen

I now realize that I hate snow. 

Thanks to the back to back Storms of the Snowpocalypse in our area, I missed personal training last Friday, this Monday, and this Friday.  I only made three workouts this week (Monday, Tuesday, and Friday), and neither my trainer nor the gym owner was available to weight me today (because I am *NOT* going to parade that extra-large number in front of everyone and anyone.  I have my limits).

On the bright side...