the move

why i’m moving
i can not even begin to tell you how many times i have been asked why i am moving. why i married the man i did...why i'm picking up and moving my family when the rest of my family and my lifelong friends are here. i discovered this today - and i couldn't have put it more eloquently.

What is a MILITARY Wife?

They may look different and each is wonderfully unique, but this what they have in common.


They have THIS IN COMMON!
Lots of moving---
Moving.
Moving.
Moving far from home.
Moving two cars, three kids and one dog----all riding with HER of course.
Moving sofas to basements because they won't go in THIS house.
Moving curtains that won't fit.
Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours.
Moving away from friends, moving toward new friends.
Moving her most important luggage; her trunkful of memories.
Often waiting-
Waiting, waiting, waiting for housing; waiting for orders; waiting for deployment; waiting for reunion; waiting for phones calls; Waiting for the new curtains to arrive; waiting for him to come home for dinner----AGAIN!
They call her 'military dependent', but she knows better.
She can balance a checkbook.
Handle the yard work.
Fix a noisy toilet.
She is intimately familiar with drywall, anchors, and toggle bolts.
She can file the taxes, sell a house, buy a car, or set up a move, -- all with ONE Power of Attorney.
She welcomes neighbors that don't welcome her.
Reinvents her career with every PCS; locates a house in the desert, the arctic, or the deep south and learns to call them all 'home'.
She MAKES them all home.
She is fiercely IN-dependent.
Military Wives are somewhat hasty.
They leap into decorating, leadership, volunteering, career alternatives, churches and friendships.
They don't have 15 years to get to know people.
Their roots are short but flexible.
They plant annuals for themselves and Perennials for those who come after them.
Military Wives quickly learn to value each other.
They connect over coffee, rely on the spouse-network and accept offers of friendship and favors and record addresses in pencil.
Military Wives have a common bond.
The Military Wife has a husband unlike other husbands his commitment is unique. He doesn't have a job, he has a 'mission' he can't just decide to quit he's on-call for his country 24/7 but for you, he's the most unreliable guy in town!
His language is foreign:
TDY
PCS
OPR
ACC
BDU
And so, a Military Wife is a translator for her family and his.
She is the long-distance link to keep them informed the glue that holds them together.
Military Wife has her moments----
She wants to wring his neck, dye his uniform pink, and refuse to move to Siberia.
But she pulls herself together.
Give her a few days, a travel brochure, a long hot bath, a pledge to the flag, and a wedding picture.
And she goes.
She packs.
She moves.
She follows.
Why?
What for?
How come?
You may think it is because she has lost her mind.
But actually it is because she has lost her heart.
It was stolen from her by a man...
Who puts duty first.
Who longs to deploy.
Who salutes the flag.
And whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her Military husband,
She will remain his Military wife.
my love to you all -

mrs.b

the bottle

there is a bottle of cologne buried in my top drawer. i can't bear to have it out on the dresser when you're not here. i had it out the first few days after you went back to iraq, but every time i would look at it, i would ache for you.

i came across it today - as i do most days. and when i see it it makes me sad. it floods my brain with memories of when you were here for 18 days and you belonged only to us. not to your country, not to this war. not to the people who take their freedom for granted, and not to the people who will exercise their ability to change what is wrong with this country. just to your family, the people who love you and want to protect you from the violence and the death and the bloodshed. you are such a good man - a strong man, doing what you do for all of us over here who can't seem to get it right.

and when i take the top off of that bottle and inhale the scent, it makes me weak.

come home soon, and come home safe.

not so bright husband + smart ass wife = funny

i was married before, very very young, to my daughter's father. we got married in 1995, almost right out of high school.

i was, however, a smart ass back then, too. :)

he and i only had one "physical altercation" in our marriage, about a month after we got married. his mother and father bought tickets to the pbr {professional bull riding} finals - in vegas - for them and his sister...and they left me out, knowing he would be married to me. i tried to stop him from going, he pushed me down and out of the way, and proceeded to leave. and i was alone for four days.


so...when he came back, i told him that i had gone to the doctor and gotten on birth control pills. and i carefully explained to him that the seven pills that are a different color are the pills that HE is supposed to take.

not a good idea to marry a smart ass. ;)

addendum

i added an addendum to the 'update' post...scroll down a bit...

love -

the voice of reason

so my bff and i went on an adventure a few weeks ago - we went to sprinkles cupcakes {which is a WHOOOLE 'NOTHER BLOG}. so i live in a small po-dunk town ... and sprinkles cupcakes is in the big city of dallas. my bff drives an envoy...and the envoy is equipped with that beautiful thing known as on-star. she calls and asks for directions...has them downloaded to the vehicle...and it talks us through our route.

so we're driving and the automated man is talking us through it...its just like having the normal gps system that talks to you. but kp knows dallas and she decides to take a short cut that is off of the route that it has decided to take us through. as soon as she veers off of the route, it goes apeshit. telling us we need to turn around...blah blah blah. but - in a WOMAN'S voice. hahahahHAHAHAAHA. i looked at her and i said 'dude...its like driving with a pissed off married couple! you take one wrong turn and the wife starts bitching at you'.

new icon for the hubster's myspace

update

so - obviously blake has gone back to iraq to complete his deployment.

i had my appendix taken out this week and had more adhesions lasered out of my abdomen...damn scar tissue.

so i've been hopped up on drugs for a few days. woot!

senator mccain has picked a woman as his running mate. not a qualified woman - just a woman. a woman that he had previously met ONCE. that has less than two years experience as a governor and, before that, was a mayor of a small town. in ALASKA. had you ever heard of her? yeah...me, either. *sigh*. yes, she's a woman. yes, she has a family. yes, she has a son about to go off to war. yes, she's a christian. yes, there are all of these things that make her a wonderful person. but they don't make her qualified to lead this country. do you really want to vote for a party who's vp candidate was competing in beauty pageants while the other presidential candidate was studying international relations at columbia university?she sued the bush administration for listing polar bears as a threatened species - she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in alaska, and she also feels that humans AREN'T the cause of the climate change. {global warming}. (HUH?!?) she is STRONGLY anti-choice, even in cases of rape and incest. now i am not a big abortion fan, but i don't feel like anyone should be able to tell you what you can and can't do with your body. as a woman, i am insulted that john mccain would pick her instead of a better suited, more experienced woman. he just wanted a female puppett.

*addendum*

i hear all of these women - i.e. elisabeth hasselbeck - getting so excited about her when really they should be pissed off at john mccain for this assinine choice. they should be OFFENDED that john mccain has insulted their intelligence by trying to pass this woman off as a viable choice for that office. when you do the math, its highly unlikely that his age will carry him through the first term. do you really want her answering the red phone at 3am when vladimir putin calls? i sure as hell don't. i see these ads saying how she "took on the big ole boys in the republican party" blah blah blah. do they research. she didn't. what she did was throw some dude under the bus - and then LEAVE the party. and she didn't sell that damn jet on ebay - and she sure as hell didn't make a profit on it. she listed it on ebay, it didn't sell - then it was sold by a private jet agency, and they lost money.

the hype around her - i can't wait for the shine to tarnish. because its a lot of bs. and i'm angry. as a woman, you should be, too - no matter what party you belong to.