Catching up and other fun things Part II

     Here is an update on my New Year's goals, since we are almost half way through the New Year. (Can I tell you I'm happy we have a whole other half to this year!):

• Return to a healthier lifestyle.

      *snicker, cough, cough* Do I really have to report back on this one?! Oh, alright, here goes...IT DOESN'T! Seriously, I'm a yo-yo with this one. I know it will take time, and I need to allow myself to unlearn and break all the bad habits I've learned/picked up these past 10 years or so. BUT I WANT IT NOW!!!! Don't we all, however, I know just working at it day by day is an improvement to not doing anything. And I have to admit, a couple of weeks ago when I was going through some clothes I was able to put on, zip & button a pair of jeans I couldn't even get up all  the way last year...just don't ask me to breathe!

• Simplify, by removing, reusing or re purposing.

     This is going sorta...again its a new habit I need to try to learn. I have been better about going through & getting rid of stuff...or at least sacking it up to take to the thrift store or good will. I gave up the idea of doing a garage sale.

• Increase my sewing skills.

     This one is on hold for the moment.

• Increase my knitting skills.

     OK, if there is one area I am succeeding in, it is this one. As I noted in my last post I have completed my first big lace project. I have a pair of gloves on the needles for GI Joe, another new knitting technique. I have taught myself several new stitches, well to read & knit the patterns, in an effort to complete a project for a RAL (read-a-long) and swap I signed up for on Ravelry. Another first for me. Also I will be designing my handmade object fo the RAL/swap. I am seriously addicted and loving it. Also I have been working on knitting up some lace weight yellow ribbons for those wonderful women who support me.

     Almost half way through the year and I have had my successes and failures. I have six more months to succeed and as long as I keep moving forward I will succeed.

     In other news, the Diva & Prima Donna are doing great! They just finished the gymnastic team season a couple of weekends ago. They have improved so much over the past few months. Both girls will also be moving up levels on the team. The Diva to level 4 and the Prima Donna to level 3 next month. 

     Over the summer they will be participating in our chruches summer musical and activities...I do not know who is more excited. Them or me! Three hours, two times a week to myself...I'm positively giddy. Do not get me wrong, I love my girls, but when I am with them 24/7, I welcome their activty time that gives me some free time.

    I also have been doing some cleaning at my church on a temporary basis, which I hope will become permanent. It would be perfect. I can take the girls with me, it is part time and will bring in some extra cash. In all honesty, I would be bringing in the same amout I cleared when I worked fulltime, away from my girls 11 - 12 hours a day when GI Joe was deployed last time. After paying childcare, lunches, gas, etc...add the emotional stress of both parents essentially being gone, it wasn't worth it. However, under these circumstances, it would be very much worth it. 

     Finally for a wrap up I'll tell you a bit about a project I am working on for GI Joe. I realize that it's been done before, but I'm pretty excited about doing it. I am going to have some photo's taken for him to have while he's away. Something a little different than the typical family photos. I am going to do something a little more...fun. Think vintage WWII era calender girls type thing.

   

I know it's a NAVY uniform...but it's still inspiration

Catching up and other fun things Part I

     So this is late in coming...yes, I need to work on my scheduling a bit. Would you believe there was a time when I kept track of 3 different schedules and everyone made it to appointments on time and deadlines were met. That was before I had kids though and my husband decided he wanted to be GI Joe. Oh well, its the little things in life that are important.

   GI Joe has mobilized, he's off having fun shooting big guns & blowing up stuff.  He is still stateside for the time being, 

   In February we attended the going away ceremony for the Brigade. It was the first time I had attended one, on his previous overseas deployment the girls were young and we said our good-byes at home. This time the ceremony was held in advance of the Brigade leaving for mobilization stations and the girls are older so we decided to attend. Imagine my surprise the following day while standing in line to check out at Wal-Mart, I glanced at the newspaper and saw GI Joe in a group picture from the ceremony. Very cool.  

Unfortunately, he is not the soldier waving to his family. To be honest, he's up in the right hand corner & kinda blurry. However, it just goes to show how easily we can spot our own in a sea of green.

 

     We experienced the first major family event we were unable to attend. My sister-in-law was married last month. A beautiful wedding from all I have seen and heard so far. The girls were supposed to be flower girls, but unfortunately with the uncertainty of the Government shut down and how it would effect GI Joe's pay, we ended up having to cancel our trip (we were driving out of state), a couple weeks before. Thankfully, she had a third flower girl so she was not left without one.       

     I also finished my first major lace knitting project. A shawl for said sister-in-law's wedding present.  It took me several months to work on and finish. I did not begin it until after the first of the year and then was only able to knit on it a couple hours a week on average. The first picture is of the shawl still on the needles. The second of the Diva laying next to it as it is blocking and finally, a corner draped over my shoulder to give perspective of design size.

     Through out this time the girls and I have begun to play the "silver lining" game. We try to come up with things that are "good" about GI Joe being gone. So far #1 on the list: eating cereal for dinner! My girls LOVE that and the only time they are allowed to do so is when Dad's not home. There is also the fact that I am able to pick the movies for the Netflix que, we do not have cable. The amount of toilet paper I buy actually lasts until next shopping day, telling you its the little things. The left overs I put in the fridge for my lunch the next day, are still there when I go to eat them.  I can set my schedule according to my plans and be shelfish in not considering him...if I want to stay late at church talking with friends,I won't feel rushed. Finally, I can knit in bed, bwahahahaha. I'll share more as we rock along day by day.

Osama bin Laden is dead...so why the mixed emotions?

Osama bin Laden is dead.  As I do not have cable or any type of television service, I might not have known about this,well as long as it took me to check my facebook account, had there not been a breaking news banner on the Yahoo homepage. I have to tell you I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with mixed emotions.

My first reaction: "Why are we not in the streets celebrating the victory this is?" Ya know, the type that will leave us with iconal images of sailors kissing random women. Flags waving, etc. We cut off the head of the snake. Then reality set in. (*WARNING* DO NOT continue to read if you do not want to think about anything but the positive).

While this is a major victory, we must not lose sight of the fact that if he were as good a leader as we all believe him to be, he has other's trained & primed to take his place. We have increased their motivation of vengeance and retaliation, we have given them a martyr.

Do not get me wrong, I wholly support our military and their mission. This needed to be done, the man is evil. However, I am unable to ignore the trepidation I have for our service members overseas. Especially those in Afghanistan and those preparing to go. The realist in me sees an increase in not only attacks but also an a feuling of the fervor of the estimated 36,000 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan , and other Taliban around the world. I am not alone in this assessment, our government feels the same way. Warnings have been issued to all service members overseas for increased awareness and security.

I am not the only wife feeling this way either, over at SpouseBuzz wives are experiencing many of the same emotions and fear for their spouses, friends and loved ones. So we will do what we always do, take a deep breath, process the emotions, thoughts and fears and continue with our lives. To do otherwise would be giving victory to our enemies. I need the peace of God that surpasses all understanding at times like this...His strength is what keeps me going, on my own I would be a nervous wreck of tears going down many dark paths in my mind. "Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say on the Lord." Psalm 27:14(NKJ)


*Edit* Is it any surprise that within a week of their leader being killed the Taliban release a two-page report stateing on May 1 they will launch a spring offensive? A day before we as a nation knew bin Laden was dead, they show an need to prove that they are still a very real threat.

MIA and life in general

Yes, I know, I know. I promised to be better about blogging, that was um....ages ago! Seriously, though I do apologize as it has been CRAZY here at AGW HQ, (headquarters for all non-military personnel.) To be honest part of it is my paranoia for Op-Sec, the other is well, it really is hard to think about how my life could possibly be interesting for any other person, really it is not even interesting for me most days.

I will give you a quick rundown on the last couple of months with more detailed post's to follow. In the time between my last post and this one we have had:

• One Brigade going away ceremony
• I have achieved part of my new years goals
• 1 knitted lace shawl complete
• 15 pounds lost...then gained back
• 8 pounds back off again
• 2 date nights, including an overnight trip
• 3 gymnastic meets
• Several softball practices and 1 game
• 1 two week A.T.
• 1 four day pass
• 2 trips to get I.D's done with another one coming up
• 2 extra round trips to the Armory or surrounding area
• 1 birthday apart
• 1 major holiday apart
• 1 Sister-in-law's wedding, which kiddos & I were unable to attend
• At least 3 pity-parties/missing hubby
• 1 angry child
• 1 child doing okay (at least she's embracing the suckiness)
• Countless replays of Kathi Tracoli's "Psalm 23" on iPod
• 1 WONDERFUL group of ladies who may not be military wives are there for me anyway...they even listen to me whine!
• An average of 3-5 hours sleep a night
• 2.5 weeks with less
• 1.5 weeks without internet access
• 2 laptops, but only one WITH internet access
• 1 broken power cord
• Mobilization
• 1 "Crap, that was a do not tell the wife topic" in a phone conversation
• The beginning of what appears to be a great friendship with another wife
• 1 lost voice (GI Joe isn't even here to enjoy it!)
• Picking up some part time work
• Over a dozen links in our countdown chain
• Just as many pennies in our deployment pig
• 2 dings in the hood from hail damage
• 1 trip to the storm shelter
• and a partridge in a pear tree! (Okay, the last did not happen, but it sounded good.)

I will post more in detail over the next week.

Finally a foot in the door

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend a yellow ribbon workshop with GI Joe and his unit. Besides, the night away without the munchkins, the briefings were very informative. (These are open to not only to spouses and children but other family members of soldiers, so if you have a child, sibling, boy/girlfriend, fiance who will be deploying, I would encourage you to try to attend the one put on for their unit.) I have never been able to attend one of these before. The first deployment did not offer such an opportunity until reintegration and by then GI Joe was leaving on TDY orders. We are in a semi-unique situation, I say semi because it really is not that uncommon in the ANG; however, I believe he is the only man in his unit in this position...but I could be wrong. He is on loan to a unit that is not his home unit. Therefore, I know even less than usual, no names, no faces, notta.

However, last weekend changed all this. While there was a bit of information overload, there was more than enough useful resources to make up for it. Saturday was a general briefing and overview of different services available. Sunday was made up of break away sessions where you could choose which topics you really wanted to know more about.  I was able to meet not only my fearless FRG leader, (that would be family readiness group, again, open to anyone who has a loved one serving, not just spouses.), but also several of our state family support operatives. (No, that really is not their title, but should be.) I am excited, and my anxiety levels have already dropped. This group seems to not only have it together, but I also have other resources available to me if for some reason the FRG fails in its mission.

I AM NOT ALONE!!! I cannot begin to explain the waves of giddiness that engulfed me. One of the most difficult things for me in the first deployment was lack of information and lack of connectedness, since we were in a similar situation. I expected the loneliness of missing GI Joe, but was not anticipating the "alone-ness" of not having a support system in place, something I touched on with my introductory post. I was determined to do everything in my power not to experience that again. I refused to leave after general session until I was able to meet our FRG leader and offer my support, I hooked up with several of the family support operatives and am even going to attend some training. In general I have made a nuisance of myself and will continue to do so.  In short, I shoved my foot in the door and I am not going anywhere.

GI Joe was laughing at me on the way home as I excitedly talked about the information we learned and tried to sort it all out. Needless to say, he got "the look" during the following conversation:
GI Joe: "I don't know what you are excited about I have heard all this before."
Me:     "Um, really? You know my need for information and you didn't think it was necessary to pass it on?"
GI Joe: "Honey, I said I heard it, not necessarily retained it. Anyways, I don't know which parts of the information you want to know"
Me: "mmmm, try ALL OF IT!"
Yeah, I know, after 8 years of marriage we still have to work out this communication thing. However, another thing I learned was that I am not the only spouse who has to deal with lack of information. At least I am not alone.

I do not want your pity or your sympathy....but a little empathy might be nice.

As you know if you have been following, I am in the "reality has struck, give me a few weeks to be crazy before he goes" stage of deployment. I'm over emotional, highly sensitive, selfish, and totally lacking grace at the moment...so while most comments I get are of the "I don't know how you do it" variety, I have already gotten the "you knew what you were getting into, deal with it and get over yourself" type. (Insert what GI Joe affectionately calls "the look"...ya know, the one with the one raised eyebrow.) REALLY, you are seriously going to say that to me? (Which means you have probably already said it to some other military family member who might actually care about your opinion.) Everyone is entitled to their opinion, however, try to have a bit of sensitivity, I by no means want your pity, or even your sympathy, but a little empathy would be nice. I'm not perfect, I don't expect you to be, nor do I expect you to understand when you have never experienced this, nor will you, but if you ask how I am doing and I am honest with you just nod your head and pat my arm rather than berate me.

Let me clarify something; Yes, GI Joe did not join until after 9/11, therefore I "knew" he would deploy, probably multiple times before the end of his enlistment. I did a brief stint, before a knee injury took me out of the game, with the US Navy, my sister is retired Army, my father was a bubble head (Navy submariner)...while not a military brat, I am not completely naive to the military either. But you know something, it still sucks.

I've mentioned a military spouse blog I read, one of the contributing authors is a ANG wife also, she has a post that is a pretty good explanation of where I am right now. I am extremely proud of my hubby, I am not 'angry' he is going, but it still makes it difficult. The only reference point I have is a horrible first deployment which the girls & I 'survived' and a '1 year TDY' we tolerated. I want more than than that, I want to do more than just survive, I want to thrive. I know God will give me the strength to do what needs to be done, to be superwoman if necessary; however, the fact remains, my best friend, partner in crime, my confidant and lover will be leaving for over a year. He is the only adult interaction I have some days. I have to watch little hearts break as their daddy leaves, worry when they hear the news that we will have to have one of "those discussions" about daddy's safety. Its not easy. 

I know there are millions of single parents out there who do it everyday, who did not have a choice in the matter. Those parents are awesome, and I envy the ones who seem to have it down...I will never get there, I will always have chaos, no matter how many plans and back up plans I have in place. We will have to resettle our lives without GI Joe, knowing that whatever routine we get down will only be completely dismantled upon his return home as said routine will not click until just before end of deployment. There is always the fear of injury or worse lingering, and a new one this time around since both girls are a bit older: "what if daddy forgets us?" Tell me you know how to handle that one?

There are many things in our lives we think we"know" what we are getting into: marriage, kids, etc. We plan, we prepare, none the less, when reality hits we struggle. We have to readjust our perceptions, we reevaluate our plans and aspirations. Even when we have 'gone through it' before, every child, every deployment, every experience is entirely new. We may be going through it with others, yet it will be uniquely our own experience affected by our individual circumstances.

So in response to that wonderfully supportive comment: Yes, I 'knew' what I was getting into, no I am not whining about it, okay, maybe a little but then I'll be ok. I'll deal, just like I always deal, God will give me strength and wisdom and Lord willing, grace to keep my sarcasm to myself. I did not ask for, nor do I want your pity and I will try to be there for you if you ever need me, even when you 'knew' what you were getting yourself into. 

Marshmallows and other things with gooey insides.

Okay let me state this...I am not emotional (exception being my temper.), I am not a crier, I do not get PMS, I am one heartless, merciless, (seriously, 'Mercy' was my second lowest scored item on my spiritual gift assessment.), tough girl. I am the strong one, the one who has been known to laugh at someone crying in a movie. Yet somehow I have become a marshmallow! Maybe its having kids, maybe its getting older & hormones, maybe its having something worth fighting for with someone worth fighting with. Whatever it may be, I have become a marshmallow none the less. I share this with you for several reasons.

Today I experienced my first couple of 'emotional...situations' deployment related. The first being earlier in the day. You see the Prima Donna is in gymnastics, she is on the team and competes in recreational meets. After all the teams parade in and are introduced the National Anthem is sung or played. I teared up, I choked up, I HAD TO BITE MY LIP TO KEEP FROM ALL OUT BAWLING!!!!!!!! I did manage to pass my sniffles off as my head cold, the only time I have ever been grateful for one. Oh my gosh!!! I know I am not the only spouse who does this, especially while the service member is away. BUT good grief, he hasn't even left yet, pull it together girl!!!!

The second was the first of what will probably be several...spats, before he goes. This one still catches me by surprise. You see GI Joe's first overseas deployment happened so rapidly, we didn't really experience this, however, in preperation for year long TDY orders in another state after his return, we had this...the emotional distancing to make it easier to let go. Let me tell you, IT SUCKS! First there's the whole bickering/arguing over stupid crap and the guilt thing for getting upset/letting it get to me, but the worse for me is the "driving to the grocery store b/c its the only way to be alone to cry my eyes out then have everyone stare at you in the store or car next you" thing. A whole new level of suckiness, especially for someone who is not into public displays of 'emotional weakness.' Yeah, I know, get over myself, and I will...but it is this "I am strong" attitude that is the only thing that will hold me together some days in the not so distant future. What's worse, GI Joe proceeds to come up hug me, apologize and ask my forgiveness for being a jerk when I get home. What do I do?! Give him a salt water bath, all the while thinking, I am such a dork, (O.K. this is nothing new, I own up to being 'adorkable'). This is not the way to be a supportive wife...can we say "LOSER" with that big 'L' on our forehead. *Sigh* So if you happen to know me/live near me & see me crying in my car while driving down the road, really I am okay, its just the marshmallow in me getting out.