To My Daughter

I wrote this on Monday morning after I took my children to school. This is my oldest daughter's last year in school before she will head to college.....ever aware of her fear of the future, I did my best to not reveal how I felt inside over her last year of high school.....but after being inspired by this from my friend T, I thought maybe, well....that I would go ahead and publish it.

Baby,

I did not know what I was having when I was pregnant with you....I didn't want to know. The miracle that you were was enough for me, I found comfort in knowing that you were just there, often when I was all alone.......I was overwhelmed when the doctor said "it's a girl." I cried......I still do when I think about it.

I am not sure when you got to be so beautiful....was it when you first cried, back when it was just you and me kid? Were you always so inquisitive? So full of questions? You walked early, talked early, got teeth early....so ready to just get on with it, you began growing up before I realized it was possible. Do you remember when I knew you could read? What the first word you read aloud to me was? It was Donut, we were driving....and you told me you wanted one....I laughed out loud and turned around and got it for you....you were five. Do you remember how you used to repeat everything I would say....often using the same colorful adjectives......I was apalled, but everyone else thought you were so cute.....

Your eyes always took in so much and were always the first thing anyone ever noticed about you.....so blue, so big......so beautiful, they still are, followed by your beautiful smile. You were the wind beneath my wings when I was just discovering how to be an adult.....the one thing that brought me out of the dark days of a war....did I ever tell you that?

How did you get to be almost 18 years old and graduating this year? I look back at photos and videos of you growing up. How proud I have always been of how you gracefully eased through all that life through at you.....the loss you experienced, the pain you went through and even coming close to losing one of your closest family members, not once did you fall......but then I have always been there in case you did.

As I looked at you this morning, my heart filled with so much, I hardly knew where to begin and so I was pretty quiet......you twirled around like you used to when you were little, looked over your shoulder at me and said, "Hey Mom, it's my last first day." It was all I could do to not let you see the tears as they welled up in my eyes.....when did you get to be so grown up, where is my little girl....with the bright inquisitive blue eyes and giggles when I held her....she has been replaced with this stunning creature I sometimes hardly recognize.....did I miss your life? I know I was there.....but being your mother has never once been hard, so maybe that is why you seem to have grown up in the blink of an eye.

Those hard days, the ones that stand out in my mind, the ones you rose above and showed what kind of resolve you had in you......the day I took you and your sister's cell phones away to make sure I was the one to tell you about your friend dying and then you held your little sister, the day the war came home to us, the day your friend at school didn't wake up.....through glasses and braces and disappointments you took life in stride, never once turning away from me. You knew I was there for you and you always sought the solace and safety of my arms, knowing that I'd make everything alright.

But now, I think you know that it's time to spread your wings, to find where your place in the world is, to discover where this last year of high school will find you.....ever knowing that I am always going to be Mommy, even on the day you become a mother yourself. I love you with all my heart, my love, my firstborn, my beautiful grown up daughter. I will always be proud to be you mom, privileged to have you in my life, thanked God every day for you, even before you were officially you, but as you grow up, I am excited about being your friend....

Ironic....

I woke up this morning at 5am to the sounds of my husband dressing for PT. I vaguely remember him kissing me goodbye......then my next recollection was him kissing me hello after PT a few hours later. But before, I finally fell asleep at 3am.......and in between I drempt of my father, who died 14 years ago and of course upon awakening, I now just miss him terribly.

I logged into my blog and checked out my daily reads and Spousebuzz's Gbear had this post up this morning....and here is the irony.....it is also what I am writing about today.....

The dreaded insomnia that we all endure. She referred to it as TDY Insomnia....and while for the most part I would say that it is a fitting title for what we go though as military spouses. But we also endure it during different parts of our lives. As I grew up the problem began in my teens and has only been compounded with more complex issues......the day's events for example, how often do you lie awake and worry about something that happened that is out of your control, it doesn't matter that you can't do anything about it, you still lose sleep. There are the times during extreme stress, hectic schedules, sorrow and worrying that cause us to lose sleep. As adults, as parents, our children keep us up at night worrying over sickness when they are young and dates when they are teens....and all the things in between that cause the Sandman to evade us....

But me, I'm a career insomniac. What do you have to have in order to qualify for such a title, well you simply don't sleep. Sometimes for days, weeks and unfortunately one time, for almost 3 months straight (by the way, you get really really super sick from this). And so I read, I read everything...... during the deployments you could find me cleaning, doing laundry, etc....all the things I did not do during the day because I was so busy with other commitments.......I used to also surf the web but then I was just reading online.........still amazed at the bizarre stuff I would come across....but now, I have given most of that up and gone back to my old habit of reading late (or early into the am). At present reading Les Miserables with my oldest daughter who has to finish it for her senior AP English class.......although, I have been known to be up at 3am sanding walls (that damn foyer).

This habit has increasingly gotten worse every time my husband has had to go away (the dreaded TDY Insomnia Gbear speaks of). When he was with Group, it was bad....and then when he was home I would seem to creep back into some assemblance of sleeping, if it only being 4-5 hours. There have been times in my life where I have slept normally, (whatever that is) but it has been so long, I don't recall exactly when that was....... I do not have a television in my room because it promotes insomnia, even reading in bed does as well, but that I simply do anyway......but there are nights where I refuse to give into it, even if it means laying in bed for hours praying......most nights I eventually fall asleep, but it seems to be 30 minutes before my alarm goes off.

Last night my husband, who in all the time he has been home has never had issue with my late night habit of reading, woke up and rolled over to me at 12:30am and said, "Babe, you gotta get back to a normal sleep schedule." Hm.....and here is where this becomes an issue......I don't have one anymore. This is who I am........I have lost so much sleep in my life, I surely have aged well past my 40 years. Experts say that inconsistent sleep can be a factor in having a shorter life.

A 2007 British study found that people who slept the same amount of time (seven hours) each night lived longer, on average, than people who adjusted their schedules to either add or subtract hours from their nightly slumber. Finding your own ideal sleep/wake cycle—and staying consistent—is key to healthy sleep, agrees Carol Ash, DO, medical director of the Sleep for Life center in Hillsborough, N.J.

I remember a time when we were told that you couldn't make up for lost sleep.....that it was just lost and you had to move past it.......whether that is true or not, I guess is up for discussion....but the following is a good example.

Q: Is it possible to make up for sleep hours lost during the week by sleeping in on the weekends?

A: Sleep can’t be fully made up until you get back into a regular pattern. One of the problems with trying to catch up on lost sleep hours is that it disrupts your natural sleep clock, which requires roughly 16 hours of wakefulness before you’re ready to fall asleep again.

After a night of getting only six hours of sleep, many people try to catch up by sleeping until 9 or 10 a.m. the next day. But when they try to fall asleep the next night at 10 p.m., their sleep clock won’t let them, because they haven’t yet been awake for 16 yours. They may not be able to fall asleep that night until 1 a.m., and if they have to get up early the next day, the whole pattern starts again.

It’s best to try to establish some regularity in your sleep schedule, so that every night you go to bed at a reasonable time, get a good amount of sleep and wake up at roughly the same time each morning. Varying that schedule by an hour or an hour and half isn’t a big deal for people who aren’t having sleep problems. But trying to make up three lost hours of sleep on a Saturday morning is going to be tough on anyone’s sleep clock.

Studies show that people who chronically lose sleep, find a way to adjust themselves to the problem......but they are deficient in their daily tasks, memory becomes a problem as well.......so how do you win with this..... For me, I have come to the conclusion that it is just something I have to live with.....best I can. But I hate that when it's late and I'm up, I feel like I am the only person, it seems in the world, awake........... The issue of the deployment/moving cycle from hell which we have been on has only made matters worse and it's no grand surprise that I don't sleep anymore.

My husband, he can sleep anywhere......he is a sleep magnet. But he also has vivid dreams when he sleeps.....when I told him of my dream of my father, he hugged me and kissed away the tears, but he also told me he had dreamed that he was back in Iraq......life was normal in his dream....but in real life.....it's not. How can it be for him when he has spent more time there then here......more time with soldiers then family......more time fighting and less time living? I mean, come on.....when you go away for years at a time.....why would home feel normal? And then there is my issue....... we have been separated for so long, we often wonder if we really know one another anymore..... Over time I worried about whether I would have a husband who would make it home alive and if so, would he be the same man? Let's face facts, I am far from the same woman.......

And so that just gives me pause to be concerned.....if we are the product of our experiences...... and what I have written is our life......is there a time when we will once again find a harmony in which to live, where his being here is normal for him and my having a husband home is for me? One where I can finally sleep along side of my husband all night long and he no longer dreams of war?

Late night unpacking and thinking......

The past few months have held a lot of things for my family......our soldier returned from a 4th combat tour in a row.....we once again moved (6th time in 8 years) my husband has started a new job, different yet just as challenging as the last, we bought a home, took a vacation (albeit a working one for my husband), set up house and in those late hours of the day I start to think, and think, I guess too much about all that has happened.....

Not just things that have happened in the few months since he returned from Iraq, but on things that have transpired over the years since we married.....how different we are, this man I love and the woman I grew to become.......then from the love sick 20 some year olds we were when we married......40 was old to us then, yet we both have passed that hurdle already in life......our children were much smaller in the early days, going from one to two to three.... just children and now we have a daughter approaching 18 and where has the time gone and what have I done in that time?.....the years get shorter for us as we gain one in age......each year.

I look at myself and try to find the woman who used to live here......she is now but a remembrance of mine......a face I see in pictures, memories of her's now live with me......but I think of all I did not do....all I said I wanted out of life and what I gave up when I traded that in to be a military spouse.....

I would not trade the life I have now......not that it's possible to anyway, but I'd do it all over again, every tear shed, every heartache suffered, ever fear not founded, worry not warranted.....I'd do it all over because to not do it over would be to change those I love more than life.......but the late nights when I am unpacking boxes holding memories of years spent doing what I do, it makes me wonder, was any of it of any help to any one? So many fights wrought on behalf of someone else, usually someone I did not know......was it truly worth what I put into all of it? I'd paid a price, usually you do when you go up against any form of authority to have something changed.......but was it worth it? All I lost for the little that other's gained.

I made enemies, I lost friends and the respect I thought I had earned, I found out quickly was just an orchestrated act of smoke and mirrors.....maybe I just don't understand other people's point of view on things......it's all about how it appears to others and that is just not me, it never was and I never want to find myself in a position where my opinion affected my husband's career so much that I was no longer allowed to have my own voice.......

A couple nights ago I found myself going through all our old pictures, the ones in the box, years and years of them.......chronographing my life down to the moment each was taken......and I wonder, who am I?

I am a mother, a wife, a military spouse, a professional in my own field by trade, but trained in other areas.....I never graduated from college, but many of us finding ourselves choosing to go along with our children......but do I want to? Do I want to go back and try to find where I fit in in life in the new world we have evolved into or is where I fit in, right here? As the spouse of a senior leader in the military, a position that requires me to be part of that life......

I have been asked to stand up again as an advisor, but I have so many reservations about that position.....I guess because of all I endured at our last duty station......but I know deep down that my position is unique, where I sit right now and this is no deployable Division and the spouse of the commander, certainly not like the last......my peers in this life are strong women, women of all nationalities, women, who like me are a face to a family that represents my husband, both personally and professionally.....

And so........what do I reconcile about my life when its all said and done? I guess in the end I am just who I am, trying, like many, to find where I fit in in my own world......do I even still fit, or have I just become a circle trying to fit in a square hole?

~sigh

ASW

Missing In Cyberspace

Me......

Sorry to be gone so long.....it was never my intention. Take it up with Transportation......

I have never been in limbo-land for a month as a result of a move. I blame transportation for it all......they have no ability to deliver our household goods, period, until the 2nd of July, maybe the 1st.......and so I am TDY with my husband......and my children. He had to go away and so we all went with him.

Our internet sucks in lodging here so I am doing my best to let you know I have not abandoned my blog....I am still here, just not here as in here, here. Yes I sound like a bumbling idiot, who wouldn't after 3 weeks of living with your entire family either at the family's house or in a hotel room.....? I mean come on, you can only take so much family togetherness before you are ready to run and hide in the bathroom for sanity purposes.

And so I have no sanity left.....we still face the 11-12 hours worth of driving home in a couple days to face 4 more days in a hotel......so if my blog goes into hibernation for a bit, assume I've been locked up for mental illness due to TOO MUCH FAMILY TOGETHERNESS......never thought when my husband was deployed that we would spend too much time together as a family, but let me tell you, it is possible to wish for some time ALONE.......

:D

ASW ~ currently writing from somewhere in the world, but not at home.

Update......

Okay so 17 crates AND 11 hours later they are still at the house attempting to finish this move. It seems as if every time we move it gets just a little worse. So tonight another truck, we already had two with the crates on them, shows up, this one is for my sofa, because it apparently is too big to fit in a crate and they will have to make a special one for it.....to which I am mumblng just great under my breath, my response to them was that it better be there when it all arrives on the other side of this move. When this happened, I opted out of staying, taking Dennis back to the hotel with me, both he and I are exhausted, today was his last day of school. My youngest daughter and her friend are weathering the remaining part of the move with Dad, the oldest is out with friends for her last evening...... Me, well I have cleaned, spackled and fed 6 movers and my family 75.00 worth of pizza and 50.00 worth of soda and water today. Tomorrow we pack the vehicles, sign out of housing, sign out of post and hit the open road......

I hate the open road, I prefer the closed air of a plane and a stewardess......I don't even mind paying for the extra bag......at least I don't have to hear "are we there yet" for 2000 miles.......

And so it shall begin............Move 2008. The only positive thing about it is leaving here......but still, I think I'd rather go to the dentist then ride in my car with two newly licensed (permits only) teens arguing over who gets to drive next, fearing for my life the entire way there AND hearing "are we there yet?" :D

Memorial Day

On a holiday when most of our Country looks at our Nation's flag and fails to see what she stands for and those of us who know what is lost and all that is gained, let none of us forget those who are still fighting the good fight and their families who remain at home praying for their safe return.

As we wish one another Happy Memorial Day, we, the living breathing souls that truly know what it feels like to be a Nation at War, we remember that it is not about sales or a day off from work, it is about those who have laid down their lives and given the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our Great Nation and the freedom of others......it is about their loved ones who have grieved that great loss. So on this National Day of Remembering, I wish you all a safe Memorial Day.....no matter where you are and who you are sharing it with. May God bless each of you and may God bless America.

~ASW

Happy Mothers Day.....

Mother's Day brought in a wonderful new addition to our family. My niece had her baby this morning weighing in at 6lbs 8oz. Making my mother-in-law a great grandmother and my husband a great uncle and I guess me a great aunt. This has been a very hard pregnancy for her, having been in labor since her forth month and having had other issues throughout, we all feel very blessed to have this small miracle in our lives today.

Another welcome was the sound of sirens and off and on tornado warnings all morning. Nothing like the blaring sounds of the emergency broadcasting service across the installation accompanied by those sirens. My husband commented to me that they give off more of a "boy who cried wolf" syndrome because they use them when nothing happens and I agree with him. I think more and more people just blow it off.....the weather service errs on the side of caution and throws out the warnings and watches because of the conditions and while we heed them, having a room set up for our family should anything happen, I think most people don't really pay attention to it......sad, because when and if something happens, it will be bad.

And so as the afternoon rolls along, I am spending it with my family getting ready for another set of storms to move in, once again with the ever impending threat of tornatic activity. You know, I'd say I was happy to be leaving an area where tornado's happen, but where we are going, they are just as prevalent.

So Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers out there! Motherhood is the greatest experience and accomplishment of my life.

When do you stop worrying?

Our oldest is out with friends tonight....it's her farewell party.

Yeah, I know I'm supposed to be able to try to let go and not worry so much about my child who is pushing her way closer and closer to 18, but I can't. I am worried about her. While she is funny and beautiful and beyond smart, she also trusts everyone. She has this great network of friends that range in age from 16 to 19, sophomores to graduating seniors, placing her in the middle. They are all going to miss one another a lot.....but when I sit here and know that they are all out together, I worry.

My husband tells me to leave her alone, let her have fun. But I just had to text message her and make sure they found the restaurant they had planned to go to. It is kind of confusing to get there, but she and I are cool about my making sure she is okay. She always texts me to make sure we know she is okay, so alright, this time Mom initiated the text because I was worried, and wanted to make sure she was fine.....AND I am sure I will do it again before the night is over, because the mom in MOMMY just can't know that her baby is out with friends without worrying over her......am I just being too overprotective?

I wonder, did my mother feel the same way? I had my own car and was gone all the time, did she just get so used to it that it did not phase her, or was it just a different era?

Welp, what do you say about that?

So while I was at the doctor's being told how lucky I was to be alive, my 15 year old who has (or I should say HAD) the most beautiful long hair in the world was getting a hair cut at the PX. I was quite proud of her actually.

See she is the quiet one, her older sister is like a one teen tornado, she walks in the room and sucks the air out of it. She is outgoing, in the honors program, she was in the band, but SHE WAS NO BAND GEEK, she has huge blue eyes, that look to her that has all the guys chasing her and she just laughs them off, she doesn't want a boyfriend because as soon as she captures their interest, her interest fades FAST like icicle in the oven FAST.........so back to my younger daughter, she has very striking features, very brilliant green eyes, she is not meek but she does stand in her sister's shadow.........what younger sister doesn't, I did, until I grew into myself........

Anyway, so she called and made the appointment, she did ask her sister to walk with her over there (we live really close to it) Now I saw the photo of what she wanted, but you know, I figured she would bale in the end and just have her hair layered like she usually did......

NOPE, her hair is gone......not gone like 3 inches long gone, but up to her shoulders then razor layered gone........I sat there and watched 10 years of her life fly by me and I almost cried, but if I cried then I knew she would, so I held it together........and so instead I told her a story of when I was in 8th grade I cut my hair off and got a perm and tried to style it myself and I looked like I belonged, well I had an afro, she understood this concept, I'm not sure if she would have understood Soul Train. We laughed as I told her I had to ask my sister for some help as she told me I needed to use a round brush and a curling iron......a curling WHAT? Yeah I'd never used one of those, but a few burned fingers and marks on my neck and head later I had it down.....crisis overted.

Then my daughter says, are you going to highlighted tonight, Um.....yeah, I did say I'd do that huh? So I had highlight my older daughter's hair many times using the pull through the cap proceedure (I sound so surgeon like) But my younger daughter's hair is darker then her sister's, whose hair only takes like 8 minutes to process, but my younger daughter's hair took 35 minutes, I was kind of worried, but as we rinsed, then washed and conditioned that worry lifted and she wrapped her hair (what was left of it :( ) and ran off to blow dry it to see the results.

The Results..........yeah that was when she came back out and we all sat there with absolutely nothing to say.......because the other 5 years that were left of her life, that was when they flashed by me without a sound, it was like a quiet passing of my daughter's last years of childhood into becoming a young woman with likes and dislikes and choices of what she wanted.......see I fought her cutting her hair for the last year, I kept telling her she would regret it, but I think it was about me holding on to my little girl, the last time she had short hair, she was 3, now she has the will and want to change her look, I had to go hug her and tell her how great she looked, she was so beautiful and then I excused myself with some lame excuse because I had to go cry.......she was no longer a child......

I guess with all things considered

I was lucky. I'm alive.....

Pretty ominous post, huh?

I met with my internal medicine doctor today. After I had somehow gotten the appointment all messed up, my appointment had been at 10:30 and I thought it was at 1:30, anyway, he and I have this relationship, he's a great doctor and knows when I need to see him, so he fit me in after his last patient....

So my husband and I met with him and we went over all of my results which turned up pretty much nil in the way of trying to figure out what is causing all my issues, but he said something that really made me think.....he said "You know you were dying" and I think I missed what ever else he said after that.....and I began to think to myself for the first time, my God, I did almost die, they did everything they could do and I lived and I am still alive. I have problems, some I may never quite recover from completely, but I am still alive.

We all forget that on days when we are feeling our worst and often wondering why God has dealt us the hand he has, when we are hurting still many months later, that there is another story we sometimes fail to consider, the side that was fighting to keep us alive.....

So I guess with all things considered, I'm one of the lucky ones.

Goodnight......

I Believe Lyrics

I read a blog post by Butterfly Wife tonight that had me thinking about some things.......the troubles that we endure during deployments, the almosts on the highway, the child that was rushed to the emergency room, you wait wondering, scared......alone.

I could write a book about the tragedies that have befallen my family, but what I started to think about was the fact that we as military wives, we are able to do almost anything. I don't mean in a professional way, I mean we soar over and above these troubling times......is it our strength, our independence, or our endurance.......maybe a little of all, but today I looked up into a puffy cloud and saw something miraculous.....I saw me, and 40 years of overcoming and realized that I grew from it..........and then for the first time in months, I cried.

These deployment angels as she called them.....they are here if you know where to look....or to listen......today I heard three songs on different stations, and no they were not Christian stations, but Country stations and one in particular stuck in my mind.

Call it serendipity, call it what ever you will......but I believe...thank you BW for reminding us all of these ANGELS.........

~Goodnight, may God watch over you as you dream...........

~ASW

A yearly ritual

The Mountains of Europe taken from Eagles Nest

I lay here in bed once again watching "The Sound of Music" and think back about how many years I have watched this movie. It also reminds me so much of when we visited the area where it was filmed. We drove in areas around Austria but never had the chance to go and take the tour but I did manage to take some beautiful pictures from "Eagles Nest" that will forever remind me of this movie..... I of course have wonderful photos of my family taken of the area surrounding this wonderful place in Germany. Berchtesgaden is wonderful, I suggest if you live in Germany, that you go.....it is so wonderful to visit this area.....

Eagles Nest itself.


The entrance to the cave where you take the elevator
up to Eagle's Nest. The temperature really takes a dive
the further in you go, but once you emerge from it, you
are inside of the building, which is now a restaurant.

Amazing ........

So I had to have CT scan done today because of all the issues I am having. I went last week and scheduled the appt., they gave me two big (now I use the words big because they seemed huge, so downsizing for arguments sake) bottles of Berrie Smoothie Barium Sulfate to drink. Now I care not how you label it or mask it, this stuff is gross. I am not a sipper so last night before bed I downed the first BIG bottle (450ml) now that is 15.22 ounces, disgusting. Then this morning 2 hours before I had to be there, I drink another BIG bottle of this stuff......okay got it down and head to the hospital.

I check in with radiology and that is when SPC whoever he was comes out with another, I looked at him from my wheelchair, all frail and tired (lol) and said to him "You are kidding right?" nope! SPC whoever he was says, you need to drink atleast half........so I down half of the BIG bottle.......now I'm like ready to gag....he says, "Your awesome", hey he thinks I''m awesome (like I care).........

So here we are, me and my Mother in law waiting. I then looked down the front of my very cute Tommy Hilfiger blouse and I realize the buttons are on the inside of the top, I thought to myself, I don't remember these buttons being inside, HA because they aren't......... I am wearing it inside out.....now you could barely tell because of the way it was made, but once I got up, my hair would not cover the tags, so I go to the ladies room and turn it right, look in the mirror and shake my head at my dumbass self.

So the Emergency room now needs my CT time.....and I sit and wait an hour......but I'm okay with it, because this CAT scan I need must be done, it's important, so I am not upset. Besides with all the junk they have me drinking, this is going to be a big deal, this CAT scan. So finally SPC whoever he was, who is being very nice to me wheels me back....... so now I'm gowned (which it then occurs to me that I could have fixed my top then, but whatever). I get all comfy on the CT bed, (yeah right, all 11 inches of it) SPC whoever he was did manage to find some blankets to cushion it for my back, being I am only a couple months post fusion surgery.......then the DYE guy comes in, not sure if he was a contractor or not, but soldier he wasn't, hair definitely civilian.......so I'm laying there and our fine SPC begins to read over my paperwork. He gets to the part about where I had had this done before and asks what year, I answered 1988 when I was in the Army, he laughs and says wow, I was born in 1988........Okay, this kid, (I no longer see him as a soldier) could be my child, OUCH!

So the DYE guys rags on me a bit because he graduated a year after I did and too is younger then I am, gets around to where he sticks the cath in my arm for the DYE and it begins....THE SCAN....the whole 30 second thing. I was like HUH? What do you mean that's it. You made me drink tons of what I know is toxic crap, then you gave me more, then you light up my blood stream with radioactive DYE and then you do one tiny little 30 second scan.........

They find this all amusing, I on the other hand only find it ironic, considering...... only after I was dressed did it occur to me how young our service members really are and how old I AM!!!!

Amazing......I'm still shaking my head

Letter to my Love

Babe,

I am using my blog to write this to you so that the whole world would know how proud I am of you and to be your wife. You have continued to support me throughout this whole ordeal. You are the love of my life, everything to me. We have spent a lifetime going through so many changes that the world has forced upon us, you took it all in stride while I was the one who was a bit freaked out......

In just a few weeks we will be together and we will begin our wonderful new life away from deployments and the stress of division life. I know we will face other uphill challenges and separations, but with what we have endured thus far, I know that we can pretty much survive anything.....

Each of the poems I have placed on this blog, with the exception of one, have come from the bottom of my heart. I am glad that you really liked the last one........when I read it with some of my favorite music playing in the background, I could almost feel you reading it.

So with this open letter to you my love I also send it out with our song..........hoping you can feel the love coming from my heart to yours.........I am forever yours.....

MTLI
your wife

So today is the day..........

TO ME!!!!!!

And I get to have an EMG and Nerve Study done today find out if they can locate the source of my pain......I pray that this test reveals it to be what I think it is, and the fix as simple as what my Physician and I discussed because I can no longer walk.......the pain so severe I can not place any weight on my foot, to do so hurts so bad that I just can not stand it any longer......so keep up the prayers, maybe for my birthday God will give me an answer.........

My Sister sent this to me....in honor of my pending Birthday

In light of the fact that in just days I will turn 40....and I seem to be having a hard time with it. She is a couple years older then I and I have been dreading this day for a long time. When my husband deployed last year and missed my 39th one, he said, "Babe, I will spend my 40th over here, but you will be in my arms on yours".....hm......Army had other plans, instead, I shall be spending it alone drinking a toast to the next 40, may they be as blessed as the last ones have been.........so in light of those out there who share my age and above, I like Andy Rooney and this makes me like him even more!

In case you missed it on 60 Minutes, this is what Andy Rooney thinks about women over 40:



60 Minutes Correspondent Andy Rooney (CBS)

As I grow in age, I value women over 40 most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:
A woman over 40 will never wake you in the middle of the night and ask, 'What are you thinking?' She doesn't care what you think. If a woman over 40 doesn't want to watch the game, she doesn't sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do, and it's usually more interesting. Women over 40 are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won't hesitate to shoot you if they think they can get away with it. Older women are generous with praise , often undeserved. They know what it's like to be unappreciated. Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over 40. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over 40 is far sexier than her younger counterpart. Older women are forthright and honest. They'll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one. You don't ever have to wonder where you stand with her! .. Yes, we praise women over 40 for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it's not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed, hot woman over 40, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some 22-year old waitress. Ladies, I apologize. For all those men who say, 'Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?', here's an update for you. Nowadays 80% of women are against marriage. Why? Because women realize it's not worth buying an entire pig just to get a little sausage!

Andy Rooney is a really smart guy!

Hard decisions.....

So I have made a super hard decision. I have decided to have a pretty significant surgical procedure done while my husband is deployed......yeah I know what was I thinking?

I'm not dying or anything like that......and I'm not having a baby...lol, but I have decided to go under the knife.....it would be one thing if it were a plastic procedure but, nope, not that either.....this is something I actually have to have done, much to my chagrin. If I don't have it done, I run the risk of having long term affects that I do not want to face later on in life and so off to the hospital I go.....in 5 days. Yeah, I know, WHAT WAS I THINKING........okay so here is what I was thinking.....

If I have this done....recovery at a minimum is MONTHS......so I figured I will be somewhat healed by the time my husband returns....I won't have him to nurse me back to health but I feel fortunate to have my deployment wife to do that for me.......my sister is going to come help too (only way I can get her here....drastic measures for a visit, I know :D) I was thinking I have let this War force me to prolong this surgery for too many years and thus my condition is much worse now then it was years ago and had I had it fixed then, maybe it would not be as bad now.......and now there is the chance if I wait any longer it may make me no longer able to have it at all..... .....and so hi ho, hi ho it's to the hospital I go.....did I mention that I go in 5 days? UGH.......so I am not sure how my kids are going to deal with this.....they are pretty freaked about it too....

My oldest is.....well the mother hen.....the "don't worry mom, we will be fine, you go get this done and everything will be fine", but I can hear the uncertainty in her words and see it in her eyes......her sister, my middle child, she refuses to acknowledge the fact that I am going to be gone and so she just avoids the topic and my youngest, Dennis......he just kind of looks at me and asks....."Mom, can I come and stay with you?" To that I have to tell him that I would not be much fun and he would be happier at home, but he can come and visit me if he wants......

I know this is hard for them, each is trying in their own way to come to terms with the fact that I am going to be gone for a while.....hell I'm trying to come to terms with it......I have been as honest with each of them as I can about what I am having done and the risks involved......the older two know more then my son.....they can understand it......so I know it plays harder on them, on me.......but we all know that God will wrap his arms around us as we undertake this hurdle we must jump and He will continue to be with us as we continue to work through the recovery period......

My husband on the other hand, I know is very concerned......he is 7000 miles away and to know what I am going through all by myself......well it has to be very hard on him. Unless there is a complication he will continue to Soldier on and since I trust my surgeon 150%, there will be no reason for my husband to even think about coming home. I can and will do this alone, his soldiers need him there more then I do.......there are just some things I can and will do alone........and this will be one of them God Willing........

I know that after my surgery my posts may be either frequent or very infrequent, depending.......they may be upbeat or filled with pain and the struggles as I work toward recovery.....I can not predict anything at this point.....I can pray that God helps me find the courage to endure what I must and that I am able to recover fully and quickly and that my family is able to deal with my ravings as I do.........

So please if you could, please keep This Soldier's Wife and her family in your prayers over the next week or so, it will be a very trying time for us.......

De-Christmasing

I have about finished the chore of taking down the decorations from Christmas......I have one remaining tree left.....but I sit here looking at it and kind of feel a bit sad thinking about taking it down......I love Christmas and when it's over, I'm sad.......the house looks drab and unfestive with all of the decor put away.......but it has to come down......and then there is the other reasons I don't want to take this last and final tree down...... I no longer have the box it goes in, so I have to put it in two separate boxes and that is a pain, it does not fit well in them and it also has an extra set of lights on it. It is a prelit tree I bought in Europe and when one part went out I just weaved this extra set in because I'm too lazy to cut out the set that is burned out and too cheap to buy a new tree ......I am quite sure that they will fall off the tree when I take it down......it is ALSO the tree that has all the hand made ornaments on it......so they have to be wrapped up individually and it takes FOREVER to put them away......and so I procrastinate in just doing it. Until recently it used to be the only tree I put up but now I put up two main trees and a bunch of little ones.....this one is in the family room and so it sits as the last remaining remnant of the holiday.

Dennis and I even went outside and have taken everything down already, which to some people would not be such a huge thing, except if you go back and read this post, you would know that we are definitely related to Clark Griswald and that in doing this it required a trip up on the roof and many zip ties to keep everything from tangling up for next years installation of the light fiasco (on our new house). At least the de-lighting of the house did not end with anyone falling off the roof of the house, although Dennis tried his best to attempt it on multiple occasions. Including taking the box off the house that had all the lights in it and the rooftop river dance he did over his sister's room to wake her and her friend up that almost bought him a oneway trip down as well......I thought I'd have heart failure before we were done.



He then chose to jump down off roof via the fence wall instead of using the ladder which threw me into the 20 minute lecture on how dangerous that was......we stood there mother and son, he on the ground me on the roof with my hands on my hips at a stand off before I just turned around and walked away........he will be lucky to make it to a double digit age at this rate, either he will kill himself with his antics or his mother will take him out.

In the midst of all of the de-Christmasing outside my husband calls and after speaking to both the girls and myself he asked to speak to Dennis, so I call to him and low and behold he has scaled the huge magnolia tree on the far end of our yard....and instead of using the branches to descend, he simply lets go and drops through the branches, giving me a heart attack.....coming out of the trees yelling "I'm alright, I'm alright" like the scene from "It's a Wonderful Life"....meanwhile I'm ready to once again kill superboy........who luckily this time, has not broken anything.

So here I sit contemplating taking down the final tree knowing that it just needs to be done....one less thing hanging over my head.....if I just do it I can move on to the other 1 billion nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand other things I need to be doing.......it just never ends.

Kids need to go back to school, dammit!

Poem written by a Mother to her Son

The following poem was written by Shelly who authors "Can I borrow your life?" A Blog that she defined as one where......"I am searching for a new life due to the fact my old life no longer fits. Stay tuned to see how this new life shapes up and if I can borrow, steal, or even rent a new one...." She is also the mother of a young man who has recently joined the Navy and begun training for a Special Naval Warfare Team.....and posted the following poem about him.....I have included this poem in my poetry labels because it is poignant and beautiful. It not only speaks from her heart of her son, but it speaks from the heart of all mothers of how they see their children's futures and how they differ from how that child sees their own.

Shelly thank you for letting me borrow your words and place them here to share with others who find my blog in search of these poems, which is the number one reason people locate it......her words, bring this Soldier's Wife, mother of three to tears as she thinks of the future of her own children and knows that one of them will most likely take the same steps that her son has and don the uniform of our United States Military.......Be safe, son of this poetic mother.....she writes of your life, of your training and of how proud she is of you, but she also writes of her underlying fear, if not in actual words, but in what is not in those words........

September 10, 2007, a post by Shelly of "Can I borrow your life?"

A Mother's Confession

My dreams for you were not your dreams
you dreamed of a different kind of team
how hard your worked to make me see
my eyes finally open it's clearer to me

how did I not know what was inside my boy

a silent warrior waiting to escape
the sea and duty calling your fate
combat boots in place of soccer cleats
Honor, Courage, Commitment you now seek

who is this man that replaced my boy

your quiet ambition will take you far
strength has made you who you are
my worries and fear they are very real
I won't let them overshadow the pride I feel

I now see the man who replaced my boy

Missing so much.....

I had to tell my husband today on the phone that our younger daughter got her first kiss.....

and then there was silence.

All things that they miss because of being gone. So many firsts that are missed because of the War. First births, first smiles, first teeth, first steps, first days of school, first kisses, graduations, weddings, deaths.......

How do you, as a defender of our Nation, reconcile what you cannot get back?

I have missed a lot over the years by the life I chose to live. But what I missed, I did so because of various things........timing, location, monetary consideration, but when you do what they do, it is not a matter of choice. In the end you are left with the thoughts and sadness of all you have missed in a life that moves along without you while you are away defending your country and it's rights. Things, that once upon a time, you never dreamed you would ever miss.......

Like your 14 yo daughter's first kiss......or your wife telling you about it in person......and so 6500 miles away, on the other end of the line............ there is silence.

I am sure tonight as his busy day ends, he is taking a quiet moment of his own to reflect on what this means.....his baby is growing up without him here to guide her, to be a part of it ......that he has lost a part of his life he can't get back.

God Bless you tonight sweetheart and may He help you find peace at a time when I know things are anything but...............God Bless you all........be safe and may all of you know that even with all that is missed.......nothing is missed more then YOU!