Category Archives: Army
Ask the Wife: How do you fill the “Void”
Picture from: http://randijasmine.com
Marie,
Thank you for writing this blog and sharing so much with the world. I wanted to ask, how do you fill the void when your husband is away? Thank you for your answer and time. Respectfully, “A Sub Wife”
Dear Sub Wife,
Thank you for the kind words and heartfelt question.
At first I thought since I am a Sub wife, this would be an easy one, yet I find myself a little too close to see the answers at times. This is a very broad question. There are so many “voids” when my husband is away. There is a void in my marriage, friendship, parenting, and family. In addition, my children have their own “voids” needing filled. I can give you the standard issue of “keep busy,” but that is a broad answer. Only a wife that has been there, done that, can truly explain what that “void” is. And even if you know what it is, most of us don’t know how to fill it. We just keep busy and try desperately to distract ourselves from the reality that it sucks. Don’t be misled by my statement. Staying busy is key, but it won’t fill the void. It fills your time. Continue reading
Got Questions?
I’ve been getting a lot of duplicate questions by email, so I will start posting them (without the use of names/commands/etc) on my Facebook Page with my responses so others can have the answers too and chime in on advice! Just remember to read my “Disclaimer Page” where I make it very, very clear I am not a doctor and in no way is this site like WebMD. I will give you my best answer (not the standard military one) or point you in the direction of someone who can answer it. All questions welcome, only select ones will be posted on Facebook. And no, I do not know the Muffin Man.
Thanks,
Marie
This may work, or end badly. . .we shall see.
The Military Wife Prayer
I needed this today as I pulled out my Christmas decorations knowing that I would be without him.
I’m sure there is a spouse that needs it as much as I do right now.
A Military Wife’s Prayer
Author Unknown
Give me greatness of heart to see,
The difference between duty and his love for me.
Give me understanding so that I may know,
When duty calls him, he must go.
Give me a task to do each day,
To fill the time while he is away.
When he’s in a foreign land,
Keep him safe in your loving hand.
And Lord, when duty is in the field,
Please protect him and be his shield.
And Lord, when deployment is so long,
Please stay with me and keep me strong.
2009 = More or Less $$
Most of you know about our annual increase in Base Pay (3.9% for 2009), but BAH has also been reevaluated and you need to check it out!
Your BAH will either go up, down or stay the same. You can CLICK HERE and put in you Zip Code to find out what you will be getting on your next pay check!
Don’t get all upset if you have a mortgage or pay rent and your BAH shows that it is going down. You are grandfathered in, which means you keep your current BAH.
But, if you are just moving off base, or looking into buying, beware, you will be receiving whatever the new BAH is.
It’s good to know what you are supposed to be receiving so that if it is ever wrong you can catch it and not end up owing the Military for getting “over paid”.
Where did the time go?
Wow. I can’t believe it’s 2009. With the husband deployed over half of 2008, it went by faster than it should. Which is good during a deployment, but when I looked at my children today and realized how big they are getting it was a bitter sweet feeling. When we are missing our spouses, we want the time to go by as quickly as possible. We’d be OK with blinking and months passing by. I guess it’s a fine line of wanting to be with our loved ones, but living a full life. Sometimes we are in such a rush that we forget that we won’t get this time back. One day, I am going to wake up and my kids will be grown and gone. I have a feeling that I will regret the thoughts of wanting the days to be shorter. It’s hard. I want my husband home, but at the same time I don’t want my life to pass me by. I guess the only way to deal with both is to take it one day at a time. Don’t look at it as weeks or months. They will go by without you counting them. Just live each day to it’s fullest. Which is hard for a wife thinking, “The faster I go to bed, the faster tomorrow comes.” Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
It’s 6AM Thanksgiving morning and the 24lb turkey is in the oven! I did the touch down hand signals once it was in and cooking. Normally I take pictures of my turkey conquest, this year, Tom the Turkey ate a little too much grain and was a handful!! I do have to say that my hands are super soft after T.T.T (Tom The Turkey) got his olive oil rub down. I threw all my favorite spices together and put T.T.T in an oven bag. Let’s all take a moment of silence to say a prayer that T.T.T turns out well. Ok, so I don’t want “well”, I want freakin awesome! I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
I wish there were pictures of me shaking the flour around in the oven bag. . .I didn’t hold it closed tight enough and I was quickly covered in a fine mist of flour. Ahhh, a moment my husband lives for. He would get that smirk and kiss my fore head. I’m sure it would be merely for the fact that he is entertained every day in our marriage by my grace. Sigh. : ) Continue reading
Deployment Gremlins
***This and the prior post were written during our last deployment. This is a continuation of “Deployment Successes” which was posted the day prior. : )
Deployment Gremlins
So, one of my recent articles was about staying positive and focusing on the successes during deployments. Now I promise you I have been through a number of deployments where Murphy’s Law and the Deployment Gremlins tested me, but what happened in less than a week really got me thinking that I upset the Deployment Gremlins.
My deployment started off like anyone else’s. I was in denial thinking that my husband isn’t really leaving. I asked my husband the same question I ask him every deployment, “Do you think anyone would notice if you just didn’t go!?” He just gives me “the look” and kisses my forehead. I’ve been asking this question for years. I’d like to think it is a completely logical question. By the look he gives me, apparently not.
That night before my husband left, he accidently dropped my Mac Book. It is broken, really broken. It had everything on it. My appointments, calendar, address book, contact list for work and emails. It was my planner. On top of all that I had dozens of articles and columns saved on it. My husband just a few days prior was looking at hard drives and said I needed one. I told him I would wait and look around when I went into the city after he left. He told me I needed to keep my computer backed up. Yeah, Foreshadowing stinks. I have to say that I was freaking out on the inside, but told myself that it will be fine. I quickly wrote a new article talking about deployment successes because my original column was in my Mac. I wrote this incident off as an accident and didn’t think twice about it.
Uh huh. . .
From Wikipedia:
The word “Deployment” isn’t any where in here!? But it did originate at a MILITARY BASE! I knew it!! : )
Murphy’s law is a popular adage in Western culture that most likely originated at Edwards Air Force Base in 1948. The Law broadly states that things will go wrong in any given situation, if you give them a chance. “If there’s more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way.” It is most often cited as “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong” (or, alternately, “Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time,” or, “Anything that can go wrong, will”).
My Spouse Column, “Anything But Dependent”
Anything But Dependent is the title I chose for my weekly spouse column. I came up with this title because of the stereotype we are given. Our civilian counterparts have labeled us as dependent, needy, and whiney. I am normally pretty reserved when someone has views different from my own. I respect them, keep an open mind, and try to gain perspective from listening to others. But this is something that I can’t keep quiet about. I even caught myself snapping at a very rude woman in line behind me at the store once. She was talking about living in “this town” and how she was tired of “these lazy military wives” to a friend on the phone.
She was referring to an exhausted looking woman in pajama pants who was in front of us holding her credit card and a Military ID. While I waited for her to end her conversation, thoughts flew through my mind. Who was the woman in the pajama pants? I wonder what would bring her to the store at 7:45AM. Was she sick with no one to help her? Was she getting something for her child that couldn’t wait until later?
I then started thinking of all the times that I have gone to the store in sweat pants and my hair tied in a knotty mess just to get the much needed medicine for my children or myself. So many thoughts were rushing through my brain that it made my face heat up. The women hung up her phone and I turned to her and said, “I couldn’t help but over hear your comment about military wives, I just wanted to let you know that you are putting a very negative stereotype on a large and amazing group of women.” She replied, “There’s nothing amazing about women that sit around waiting on their husbands and having babies!” Continue reading
