Tag: deployment 2013

Today was one of those awful, deployment sucks sort of days. It started with me crying anytime someone asked how it was going at church and ended with me getting into a huge fight with him via Facebook chat.

I don’t have much else to say about today other than I’m glad it is over.

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.

We got a fun surprise in the mail today.

My friend Lynn sent an entire box of homemade candy. I’ve been off sugar for a while, but promptly put myself into a sugar coma with these delightful treats including homemade mounds and three musketeers!

Really there isn’t much else about the day that can compare to a box of homemade candy at Christmas. I think some of the recipes are on her website, so if you want to bless a family (or just yourself) head over to Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures for all her homemade candy recipes.

It’s crazy- but that’s pretty much all I can remember about the day.

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 I met one of my blog readers for the first time. She’s been a long time reader and recently moved to the area with her family. She offered to make us dinner a few weeks ago.

I’m typically one who declines these types of offers, but I’m learning to accept help, because we do need it.

I’m so glad I said yes to Amanda. She cooked my family a delicious meal that my children devoured.

I spent the evening wrapping presents with the “help” of my thirteen year old. He didn’t actually do a lot of helping, he really just wanted to see what his siblings were getting for Christmas.

We wrapped late into the night, and after we were done I could hear him and his brother downstairs.

I check on them before I went to bed, and found this.

 

It’s hard to see, but they are sleeping “under” the Christmas tree. This has been a tradition in our family for many years, but it is a dad tradition. It made me smile (and a little sad) to see them carrying on the tradition without him tonight.

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 started out terribly. I won’t got into details, but let’s just say we’ve all had better days around here.

I finally gave up around 4pm and decided we were headed to the library. A room full of free books makes everything better, right?

The library definitely turned things around for everyone. We had a great time and the kids checked out almost 100 books!

I can only hope this will make up for all the science lessons we haven’t been completing lately.

For the past two years I haven’t slept much every night. The good thing is that I don’t really need a lot of sleep, but lately I haven’t been able to fall asleep until after 2am. Since I like to get up before 6am, this is not a good thing. Waking up later puts me behind for the entire day.

My mind just doesn’t want to turn off at night. At some point I’ll probably reset due to exhaustion, and I’m hoping that time comes soon!

The girls had fun messaging their dad on Facebook today. They love all those silly smiley faces you can send via chat.

We decided to send some real life smiley faces over chat too.

All this randomness to say, if your day stinks- get out of the house. Sometimes you just need a change of scenery!

 

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 we went Christmas shopping for dad. I’m trying to get a box sent to him for Christmas but of course it’s already late in the month and I doubt it will get there before Christmas because the mail is really slow.

My kids who usually love to pick out gifts and shop in general, were noticeably sad as we put items in the cart.

I think for them, it hit home that dad wouldn’t be there on Christmas morning. Honestly, things have been so busy around here that I haven’t thought much about it, but seeing their faces as we shopped made it very real.

My kids love Christmas. They love everything about it. Tonight at dinner my four year old prayed…

Dear Jesus,

Thank you for our food and for Santa, even though he won’t make it snow. Please don’t let dad get killed.

Amen

Deployment life is strange. I don’t want my kids to forget the sacrifice their dad is making, but I also want them to be kids and enjoy this time of year. I think they all struggle not wanting to be either too happy or too sad. Today was definitely a sad day, so I’ve planned some fun distractions for tomorrow.

I can’t figure out if routine or distractions are a better way to make it through the holidays. When I was younger- and thought I knew it all, I would have preached the benefits of routine, but today I’m just not sure. Routine can end up being reminders when a big part of it is missing.

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.

Yep- this about sums it up for today.

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 I headed to the Geography Bee with my son. All the kids displayed their projects and then participated in a Geography Bee. I really don’t know why we don’t just hold these things for parents, since clearly the parents did  A LOT of work on the displays. ( I did too- I’m not hatin’)

I realized a few things at this event.

Homeschool parents, for the most part, are overachievers. This isn’t a bad thing, but clearly we think we still have something to prove.

We put a lot of pressure on our kids to succeed in front of others. While those kids sat for the Bee you could see them looking at their parents continually for approval. I’m not saying non-homeschool parents don’t do the same, but it seemed stronger here.

All of us think we are not doing a great job. Why is this? The kids at this event seemed nice, well adjusted, and pretty darn smart. They answered some questions that would have stumped me and I like Geography!

I wish I had some insightful commentary for homeschool families but I don’t. I showed up with my plate of desserts purchased 30 minutes earlier from the grocery store. I felt guilty that I hadn’t whipped up a Pinterest worthy dessert to show off my baking skills.

My son had his shoes untied, possibly no socks, and a pair of pants that fit him better last year.

Part of this is that he only had five minutes to get ready, but part of it is that he’s 13 and just doesn’t care.

He’s a nice kid and he loves his family. My favorite part of the evening was our 20 minute late night dinner at Five Guys after the event was over. Just the two of us. It made the rest of the night worth it.

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.

Being a single parent is hard.

I was stuck at the airport today. With the crazy winter storm blasting the East coast they weren’t sure if we were going to be able to land. They came over the intercom to announce that if they couldn’t land in DC they would just continue on to Boston.

Say what?

That didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. If there is a winter storm, I think you should head south not north, but I digress.

I scrambled to find sitters for my kids if I wasn’t able to make it home.

Not only was I stressed about being stuck in Boston I also had to figure out everything at home. After getting things figured out, we were able to land in DC, crisis averted.

I think that is one of the hardest things about deployment.

Every problem is your problem. Every crisis is yours to handle. There is no rest.

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.

We are not in this alone.

I cannot tell you how much your prayers, emails, Facebook messages, and in person words mean to our family.

I’ve tried to respond to all your emails, but sometimes I just don’t have any extra minutes in the day. Please know that it is only through your prayers and encouragement that we are making it through this.

There are good days and bad days but I feel at peace about all of it.

Deployment is not easy but it is an opportunity to grow in grace and faith.

Thank you all for walking through this with 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.

One of my husband’s coworkers stopped by last week to bring us a cake for Thanksgiving. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him when he stopped by so we connected via email.

In his email he said something interesting and very true. He said when we was deployed his wife would never ask for help, but was always disappointed when people didn’t stop by.

It was like a lightbulb went off when I read those words.

Military spouses are strong. We are independent. We don’t want people to feel sorry for us. We don’t reach out for help, not because we don’t want or need it, but because we are so use to bearing the burden we don’t want to place that on anyone else.

This week my friend who lives in Florida had dinner delivered to my kids while I was away. I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t even complain about the fact that my kids live on cereal when I’m gone. A few weeks ago my editor stopped by with dinner.

They didn’t ask if I needed help, they just did it.

I share this because many people have relationships with military families. My advice, don’t ask how you can help, just help. Don’t ask if you can bring dinner, just bring it. Don’t ask to babysit, just give them a date.

Military families serve, that’s what they do. They have a hard time being served, but they need it and it means so much to them when people do it.

Last week we didn’t need a chocolate cake for Thanksgiving.

But we needed the feeling of being cared for, thought of, and not forgotten.

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.