Category: Military

My son says I have an addiction.

An addiction to painting, remodeling, and moving my Craig’s List furniture around the house.

It’s better than drugs, right?

My husband’s friend told me today that I have this habit – as soon as he deploys or goes TDY I break out the paint and the ladder and start tearing my house apart.

Maybe I do.

This week I re-started my stair makeover. I’m painting all the stair trim and spindles white, and the banister dark gray. The problem? I have 147 spindles.

If I painted a spindle a day this deployment would be more than halfway over by the time I finished.

I started thinking over the past 20 years and realized I’ve done a lot of painting and re-doing. And most of it while he’s gone.

Maybe I just need to pass the time.

Maybe painting in my deployment coping strategy.

Who knows?

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Conflict.

We had our first  deployment “fight” today, via text.

I was upset about something else and he took the brunt of my frustration.

I wish I could say that I quickly realized I was overreacting and apologized, but I didn’t.

I wish I could write some insightful story about working through conflict while separated, but I can’t.

It’s lonely here. I’m never actually alone, yet the person on earth who knows me best, loves me the most, and would do anything for me is halfway across the world.

I’ve written this post 100 times in my head, and deleted most of what I typed. I don’t want to discourage people and definitely don’t want people to feel sorry for me.

There is joy in all of this. There is laughter, there is growth. Sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper to find it. But really isn’t that true for all of us?

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Uncomfortable.

I haven’t been able to put my finger on it until now, but that’s what it is.

After the initial flow of tears and sadness, comforting the kids, and living through the first few days, things just become uncomfortable.

He’s been gone before. While this is only our second deployment he’s traveled a lot over the past 20 years. We’ve had several moves where we’ve left early and he’s stayed behind for several months. So this isn’t new for us. But it feels different.

Uncomfortable.

It’s uncomfortable to be obsessed with life insurance plans.

It’s uncomfortable to talk to your children about whether their dad will live or die.

It’s uncomfortable to avoid the news because it’s just easier to not know what’s going on.

It’s uncomfortable to be the single person in a group of married friends.

It’s uncomfortable to think that for the next nine months any problem, big or small must be handled by me.

I found a bit of comfort today. I had a “date” with my nineteen year old. We went to dinner and a basketball game. We laughed, joked, caught a flying muffin, and had a fabulous time. For a few hours things were comfortable.

I am grateful.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

I knew this would happen and I’m surprised it took two weeks.

“Mom.”

“Mom!”

“MOM!!!”

“I’m sick.”

My kids like to get sick when I’m the only parent. In fact I think they plan it. Whether it’s the stomach flu, regular flu, strep throat, ear infections, general unnamed illnesses that cause them to wake me up in the middle of the night, they get it.

Maybe it is because I’ve been a single parent a lot of the time or maybe my kids just get sick a lot, I’m not really sure.

The problem is, even after seven kids I’m not really good with the middle of the night, “I’m sick” routine.

I either get up, stumble into the bathroom, grab random medicines, and then fall back into bed only to wake up and not remember anything.

Or I get up, stumble into the bathroom, grab random medicines, and then fall back into bed only to then become wide awake.

My initial response to “I’m sick” is always,

“Get a drink of water and go back to bed, you’re fine.”

Then they usually cough, snot, or vomit on me and I’m forced to act.

Since their dad use to be a nurse my kids have grown accustom to the pharmacy we have in the bathroom and usually insist on some kind of medicine. Since I pay absolutely no attention to medicine, because I only take it if I’m dying- I am not the best person to be dosing it out around here.

Tonight it was the 13 year old and I am now wide awake, way before acceptable waking hours. I should be doing something productive with this time, but the house is freezing and I don’t want to get out of bed. I’ve spent the past hour watching Disney covers on youtube and pinning blue and silver Christmas decorations, pretending my house is is going to be put back together before Christmas.

On a happier note we went to the pet store to buy dog food and a bird feeder today. I was able to successfully fend off the pleas for several rodents, a kitten, and fish.

Victory.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Today was a really hard day. I’m not sure why today was so much harder than all the other days but it was.

I’m not sad, depressed, or overly tired. I’m just done.

It’s a strange mix of emotions and I never know exactly how I should be feeling. I just want things to be normal. And if normal means we’re a one parent family for the next nine months I’m okay with that. I just want it to be how it is.

It’s really hard to explain, but I’m sure many of you understand.

Tomorrow will be better.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

So this happened today.

That is my brother-in-law, defying the laws of physics and possibly gravity, so he could hang the new light fixture my sister and I found on sale at Lowes. We will probably be banned from Lowes for the next five years.

Then this happened.

Note to self, don’t leave the ladder out after a project is finished. And yes, that is Cora on the ledge.

Since the day they saw the house for the first time they’ve wanted to make the ledge into a reading nook, with books, treehouse type of ladder, and of course a railing.

I’ve been against that idea until this happened. I was actually a little proud of them for being brave enough to get up there and thought it would be kind of cool to have a little space to read and escape.

My dad is coming in a few weeks – I just might have a project for him to work on while he is here.

I didn’t follow through on my commitment to myself to NOT be checking co-op homework on Sunday night. Once again I was irritated at 7:30pm as I checked for simple subjects and names of glaciers.

Maybe next week.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Busy.

My sister and her family came down to help for the weekend. We worked from sun up to way past sun down.

My brother-in-law tackled every project on my to do list and more. He also was a great guy for my boys to hang around with today.

My sister and I spent way too long in Lowes. We bought lights, paint, hardware, and a window shade. It seemed like  a good idea at the time.

Until we realized, after the shade had been cut, it had deep creases running through the middle. So we had to get another one cut.

Then we got it home and it was cut too short. (Their mistake not ours)

My brother-in-law made it work.

Then it was crooked. We discussed a plan to de-crook-i-fy it.

Then we couldn’t get it to roll up.

When we finally got it to roll up, it rolled with such force that it shot off the brackets and almost hit one of the kids.

The shade is going back tomorrow.

We skyped. I realized that while we are sad and busy he is lonely.

For the first time in a while I felt sorry for him instead of myself.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

Today seemed normal. We picked up, raked leaves, got haircuts, ran errands and got ready for my sister to visit.

I thought it would be fun to go out so we headed to our favorite Italian spot.

Today was so normal I almost forgot.

Until I got my salad.

I hate tomatoes. But I usually don’t change my order because he’ll eat them.

I picked them out and pushed them around my plate thinking sometimes it really is the little things.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.

While making dinner I had this conversation with my four year old.

“Daddy’s going to die.”

“Who told you that?”

“Big sister.”

“That’s not true, he’s not going to die.”

“Yes he is, he’s going to fight a war and die.”

Deployment sucks.

My husband has been deployed to the Middle East for 274 days.  These are my real thoughts expressing my heart during his absence.  I appreciate your prayers and kind words as we cope, adapt, and carry on without him until August 2014.  To read from the beginning, click here.