We are taking a vacation.
We are taking a vacation.
Well, its garage-sale season around here.
Which normally brings a little bit of joy to my Type-A heart because I get to sticker and label and color-code things.
I get rid of several bins of crap crowding my garage. I get to sort through too-small baby clothes, toys, and books we no longer need. I get to bring out my big jar of spare change and haggle with my neighbors over a dime.
It’s great times.
With my baby now 13-months-old, I should have seen it coming.
Heck, I’m surprised it took this long.
But it hit me like a wallop when I was checking out at Costco with the whole family in tow.
“Oh, they are so cute!” the cashier said. “When are you going to have another one?”
I was at a playdate with “mixed company.”
That’s the running joke we have here in our small military town when you have a gathering that involves military and non-military families together.
My husband received an award during his last deployment.
I was, apparently, not nearly as excited about it as I should have been because upon his return, I overhead a voicemail from his chief explaining that he hoped that my children and I would be at the presentation of the award, as it was “such a big deal.”
Granted, this voicemail was left the evening before the award ceremony.
I am a native Floridian.
I know how to wear SPF 100+ sunscreen and weather a hurricane with nothing more than a mattress and some ice blocks.
Lord help me if we ever get stationed above the Mason-Dixon Line, though.
Groton, Conn. is one such option in our fairly near future. I quake at the thought of it. Not because I actually loathe the idea of living in New England. I’m not even afraid of the cold.
Every Navy wife I know has it printed somewhere in her house.
On a refrigerator magnet. On a picture frame. On a Pinterest board.
Me? It’s saved as my laptop background. It’s a photo of a diving submarine with the words, “Sometimes I blow kisses to the bottom of the ocean.”
It’s trite, I know. But every submariner’s wife loves it, especially for moments like this past New Year’s Eve.
We bought a house.
Sometimes, I’m still in shock that we did such a crazy thing.
It’s funny, owning a home while we're in the military. We got puzzled looks from strangers when we told them we were house shopping. When we told one acquaintance we were buying, we got the immediate, “So, your time is up in the Navy then?”
I watched my friend’s husband return home last week after a year at sea, stationed aboard a carrier.
As I cheered on sailor after sailor as they re-united with their family, I thought, “I could never do that.”
Another friend's Army husband faces bullets whizzing by and land mines when he deploys.
I have said to her before, “I could never do that.”
Sometimes, I get the rare opportunity to send something to my sailor.
A “mail-drop,” we call it.
But basically, it’s just a ton of stuff shoved into a Ziploc bag labeled with his name.
I always add pictures of our girls, gum, snacks and lots of other silly things you grow to appreciate when you’re stuck underwater for months on end.