Lucky Army Wives

Lucky You!

Want to wander around Vegas with us? A trip with girlfriends is always fun; and, this trip is free!

Let the strains of Sinatra’s "Luck be a Lady Tonight" play in your head. Imagine huge, sparkling hotels with beautiful flowing water fountains – perhaps the Bellagio? Can you see the dazzle of incredible night shows and colorful light displays? Survey the gaming rooms filled with people and poker chips. The roar of the winners, the ringing of slot machine bells, the calls of pit bosses, the cheers of the players, the laughter of winners scooping up their rewards – I bet there are some lucky ladies in the crowd!

Let’s survey another scene…… Consider your early morning start. Can you hear "Reveille" playing as our American flag is raised high above the Post headquarters? Do you hear the sound of children waking for play and getting ready to go to school? Whew! Is that the smell of your husband's P.T. clothes? Did he really just track muddy shoes on your kitchen floor?! Glancing at your watch, you notice it’s time to tackle your activities and chores - many having to do with your work and family as well as the needs of others in your FRG (Family Readiness Group). As the day winds down, can you hear the sounds of retreat played at 1700? And the day closing at 2100 hrs with the bugle call Tattoo?

These are the sights and sounds of Army life. They cross all social boundaries. They cross all religions, and races. We are lucky, we are lucky, we are lucky...keep telling yourself that and click your heels three times. Positive thinking is quantifiably proven to take you farther in life. Lucky Army Wives are exactly that - Lucky in their Army life associations and rich experiences.

What do you think?

Coffee or tea in the morning?
Nickel slots, roulette table or no gambling at all?
Live on post or off?

12/2/2009 11:00:00 PM - http://luckyarmywives.com/2008/11/28/lucky-you.aspx?ref=rss

Coffee & Diapers: A Lone Daddy's Fight

The going gets weird, again...

It's been hard, the past year or so, to really think of myself as married to a Naval officer. In January, when we came home to Norfolk from holidays spent in the Midwest, Ruth's ship had already entered a drydock. The next 11 months, there was no activity with the spouse club, no days without email or weeks without telephone and no emergency underways. Sure, she came home late many nights and a few times not at all, but that's true of any job with responsibilities.

Meanwhile, Theo played at the park, made friends with the neighbors, hung out with me at the local pool club and started preschool. I took up running, was pretty good at it for never training in my life and took the logical step of joining the insanely active local running club, in addition to working around the house and being involved in everything Theo was doing. I started talking to local folks on Twitter.

In short, I more or less threw myself into our geographic community, rather than a work or military or online community. It felt comfortable. Suddenly I was thinking in terms of years, rather than months; thinking about spending next summer at the pool, but also about Theo growing up with the kids on the block. Thinking about running races with my local friends and entering a marathon with a good friend and how much I could see my results improve over the next few years.

[Do I sound like a moron to anyone else? Because in hindsight, I sound like a moron to me.]

It's the first time I've done it, and it was so much fun that the motivation to write about anything related to our military life kinda vanished. And in retrospect, I didn't realize that's what I was doing, or how dangerous it could be. I knew I didn't feel like writing, especially not about the military life we weren't really living; but I chalked it up to a need to define myself as something other than "Navy Spouse" or "Stay-at-home-dad" or by any other outside influence.

[Anyone see where this is going yet? Who am i kidding, 90% of my readers already know where this is ending.]

Comfortable is all well and good, but I'd forgotten "comfortable" isn't the life we've chosen.

My wife put in her duty preferences for her next job back in October and as always, I told her to go with the jobs that she really wanted, rather than trying to stay here in Norfolk. I did this in part because her work is a major part of who she is, and I want her to be happy. The other reason I told her to ignore geography is that I really didn't think the Navy would move us out of Norfolk at this point, for a variety of reasons that were all PERFECTLY LOGICAL at the time.

[This is getting more predictable than a horror movie, right?]

The day before Thanksgiving, the detailers released the slate ... and hey, whaddya know, she got her dream department head job, the one she said years and years ago she'd love to have at this point in her career ...

... but instead of on a ship in Norfolk, it's on a ship out of SASEBO, JAPAN. Which just goes to show you, I know jack about the Navy after all these years.

Before some random reader assumes otherwise, Japan has ALWAYS been on our list as the first country outside the USA we'd like to live. We'd asked for jobs in Sasebo several times prior, they just hadn't been available. A month prior to this news, as Ruth was filling out her duty preferences, she told me of a couple perfect jobs available in Sasebo. I told her, at the time, "Heck yeah, Sasebo! Put that down right after the Norfolk jobs you like!" (like I said, I didn't believe this had any chance of happening.)

So of course, since she got exactly what she wanted and we're going to a place we've wanted to be for years, I promptly FREAKED THE FUCK OUT for a few days. Was completely in shock for the first few hours, which made Thanksgiving prep tougher, but I got it all done.

What went through my head?

Theo isn't going to this preschool next year -- in fact, he probably won't finish the current year. sigh. I'll be declining the pool club membership for next summer. No spring marathon for me, can't commit to that training schedule. The cats? Oh hell, the cats are going to end up in quarantine because their shots aren't up to date. THE HOUSE. We just bought this house and now we have to rent it or sell it. Just bought? SHIT. We have a WEEK OLD car that can't go with us ...

So I've spent the past couple weeks working, planning, purging and talking to people who know a thing or two about Sasebo. The cats are getting their shots, the house is going up for sale (single tear) and the car has a home while we're gone. I've come to realize that there will be a cute little preschool full of Japanese kids for Theo to attend ... if we're not too busy riding bullet trains to places I've only dreamed of visiting.

More than anything, based on my initial reaction to this utterly predictable news, I've realized that I let my priorities get seriously out of whack the past year. We're not the stable semi-urban family of my imagination. I can go ahead and define myself however I'd like, but we ARE a military family, and there are going to be many more moves and separations after this one. I'd best get used to it.

12/9/2009 11:23:00 AM - http://bigdaddyavelis.blogspot.com/2009/12/going-gets-weird-again.html

Do All Things in Love

Photo by Tim Shaffer

My father-in-law sent this picture he took of Blake and me on the beach. It makes me smile.

quick plug: see more of their work at their website and blog.

So I mentioned before I forgot to take pictures while they were here. Luckily, my mother in law, Dana, reads this (get back to work! haha, just kidding). So Tim sent a few; this one, one of Blake by the TH-57, one of Blake, Dana and I by the helicopter when Blake's explaining mind-numbingly complicated things.

It's been busy since they left. Blake's been out every day flying. He gets up before the sun and gets home by dinner. I don't know how he gets up so early. I have a hard time recognizing him when he comes to kiss me goodbye every morning. My eyes half open and I wonder where I am and what's going on. I listen for the front door to lock and go back to sleep. I wake up a few hours later wondering if I dreampt the whole thing.

This week and next week will be busy. I'm working full time, but it's okay because Blake wouldn't be home anyway. And at the end of the two weeks, the house will be a mess, the cat will have clinical depression from so much loneliness and everything will be okay because it will be Valentine's Day. And everyone knows that eating a box of chocolates makes everything better.

1/31/2010 2:23:00 PM - http://allthingsinlove.blogspot.com/2010/01/photo-by-tim-shaffer-my-father-in-law.html

Thoughts of Household Six

Nothing to really say....

So I figured I would share with the blog world what I put as my Facebook status today

Why does everyone get so excited about Valentines Day? I'd much rather my husband stop and get me a card and stuff on any other day but today.. Why you ask? I don't need to get stuff on a day that Society says my loved one has to get me something. We celebrate our love for each other every day.

2/14/2010 9:14:00 AM - http://amazinamie.blogspot.com/2010/02/nothing-to-really-say.html

Ovolina

Children’s bullying drops

A new national survey shows that there has been a sharp drop in children’s bullying in the last five years. Experts believe that anti-bullying programs are having an impact. The study, published this week in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, showed that the percentage of children who reported being bullied went from 22 percent [...]

3/4/2010 1:42:20 PM - http://www.ovolina.com/lang/en/childrens-bullying-drops

HawkersWife

Top 2 Tuesday: Baby Names

Its so funny how personal baby names can be. With the past Top 2's it was easy to say .... "oh yeah I love (insert top two subject here) too" but names are a unique choice unto itself.

I enjoy names that have stories or meaning - and I guess I am picking so many because recently I was told I may not be able to have anymore children. Which depresses me more than I thought it would - to be told you can't do something that seems so natural.

Alas it sends me into a frenzy of prayer that my next appointment on the 16th will yield nothing but stress and a scolding from the doctor to slow down but deep down inside I am preparing for the worst. Unreal to say that at 27.

Thankfully I have one sweet little man (who is now 7). I had no say in the baby naming process. T didn't want to hear anything else so I left it to him to name our child (sometimes I wish I had stood my ground and been part of the process).

Lord who knew this would drive me to be so open on my blog. I should get back to the Top 2....

Here they are.....