Commencing countdown 1a

Today starts the last month K. is home full-time before he heads off for training. It’s part 1a because he’ll be home for Thanksgiving. Then starts 1b until he’s home for Christmas, and then Phase 2 starts up after that. Poor K. is just completely bogged down with all the admin stuff that has to happen before he and the other guys leave. The bureaucratic paper piles on his desk keeps him from sleeping well and generally I just want to put him out of his misery. Because he is full-time in the Guard, he works hard before, during, and after a deployment with little break. Vacation time is either not always a possibility, or because he is conscientious, he doesn’t always fully enjoy time off…unless he turns off his cell phone and buries it in the back yard so no one can find him. That aspect of his job–the before and after–are actually more stressful than the during. At least while he is overseas he physically cannot spend time with us. The Army is 24/7, so we expect the unexpected especially during this time. Sadly, there are no comfy chairs involved.

So far I don’t have the anxious feeling I did last time he was leaving for training, although I do have this urge to completely clean and organize the house much like when I was pregnant with R. I don’t remember wanting to nest last deployment, but I had just had a baby so we probably already got it out of our system. The nice thing about this time, should I decide to clean, is that I’m not hauling around a medicine ball on my midsection. Makes dusting out the back of cabinets easier. I don’t know if I’ll act on these cleanliness urges any time soon…even though I did get a lovely package of Clorox Wipes from my Aunt D. for our anniversary… but I suspect I’ll be doing plenty of that stuff after K. leaves and it’s not like I need to practice.

This nudge closer to the deployment is like watching the gears of a clock make a quarter turn. The shift in my brain moves that much closer to “On My Own” and I start to get antsy. Part of me just wants time to speed up so the deployment is done, another part starts making lists in overdrive because I’m a freak that way, and another part of me really just wants us to have fun and not think this way at all. Luckily, I can multi-task. I’ve got babysitter interviews this week so I can find my help now instead of while in crisis mode later. We are getting ready for our weekend away sans kids and pooches (thanks Mom & Dad!) to include our last big shopping spree (tattoos and ipods all around!) before the deployment budget kicks in and spending becomes passé so we can save money and do some big things (mostly upgrades on the house, but a family vacation to WDW too) when K. gets back. I’m looking into a great program that helps pay for activities for military kids while their parent is deployed so I need to gather up all the proper paperwork to make that happen. Lastly, I’m putting together a list of smaller projects around the house that need tending to (like painting back over the pillow sized patch in the front hall that Monkey peeled off thanks to a little scratch that started the whole mess). I don’t know how many of these projects will actually happen, but I’ll never be bored. And honestly, that’s a comfort to me.

We are also figuring out the best way for K. to see people before he heads out. He’s going to make a solo trip to our hometown to visit folks there, and we are figuring out how to manage the holidays so no relative is left unhugged. We lucked out this week and had a surprise visit with K.’s Aunt K. (my late father-in-law’s sister) and Uncle V. We had a nice dinner where the kids showed just how nutty they could be but still managed to squeak in some welcome adult conversation too. K.’s Dad’s family lives farther west than us, so it’s not always easy to visit (right Mike?). We are hoping that when K. gets back that we’ll get around to road tripping with the kids now that they are older but still young enough to not be sullen the whole time. There’s a small window there after all. We hadn’t seen Aunt K. in about 10 years and she had never met either of the rugrats, so it really was the best surprise and I am so glad they caught us between crazy schedules. They could not be nicer people and I’m tickled to have gotten to know them a little better.

So now I’m going to fill our family calendar with all the things we like to do: visiting the Farmer’s & Arts Markets before they end, going to pick apples a couple more times, pumpkin picking, Monkey’s birthday festivities, visiting with good friends, Halloween costume planning, and some movie watching. The cleaning will just have to wait.

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All you have to do is show up

I believe everything happens for a reason, even if it’s not readily apparent, and it takes a whole lot of time and hindsight observations to be able to learn to recognize one of those turning points while it is happening. Catching those moments is like trying to time the stock market: risky and prone to failure. But sometimes you hit it just right and you are rich for the rest of your life.

In this iteration of my life, I do not have a ton of interaction with adults. Monkey is pretty much my best friend in the world these days along with CaseyJones and Zoe. They are the Chase, Cameron, and Foreman to my House. I am about as cantankerous as House when left to my own devices–only not quite as rude on the outside, and like him, I probably should consider a long term career change to hermit. In reality, I do have many wonderful friends that I don’t know what I did to deserve. Unfortunately, none of them moved with me even though I did offer some tempting bribes to get them to tag along. I have a couple of friends nearby and we do try to see each other, but scheduling can often be like trying to align the planets by force. The first year or so we lived here, it was very hard for me to get used to being with the rugrats and not my work family. I also clung to email communication like Linus and his blanket because it was the primary way I heard from friends. While I am not necessarily alone, there have been some lonely days behind me. I suspect it is the same for most military wives out there moving from base to base. Being the new kid isn’t easy (just don’t tell R. that because she’s the exception to the rule). I do have acquaintances I’ve made since we’ve moved, other parents I’ve chatted with–some I’ve even liked. But there really hasn’t been anyone I’ve clicked with. Until this weekend that is.

Over the weekend, R. had a birthday party down the street at a classmate’s home. R. is good at making friends and she loves a party. (I know. I am already worried.) I generally dislike kid parties (I’m guessing I’m not alone there), and I was so happy when R. reached the “drop off” age. I felt like Aladdin singing “A Whole New World” the first time I got to ditch out on a themed party without repercussions. I was looking forward to heading home and getting some yard work done before the rain showed up the next day.

I brought R. to her friend’s house and while she ran off squealing with her pack of 9-year-old girlfriends like a school of very loud and glittery fish, I thought I should introduce myself to the party hostess before I ditched my kid for garden work at home. The mom standing in the back yard, B.,  must have noticed the “Who’s sugaring up my kid today?” look because she came over and introduced herself and pointed me to the correct parental unit. Once I promised the birthday girl’s mom I would indeed be back for R. at the appointed time, B. came over and told me that her daughter, E., had been in R.’s class last year but was now being home schooled because of some health issues that kept her out too often last year. I had remembered R. telling me that E. wasn’t in school anymore, but was not given details. They had gotten along well at school, and E. was very excited R. was at the party, so B. wanted to know if I’d be interested in R. & E. having a play date. I am all for R. having a variety of friends, so sure, a play date sounded perfect.

We talked more about the girls and a little bit about our move and then I took off back to the house so I could get in the short bit of gardening I needed to do. When I picked R. back up again at the end of the party, B. was there and we talked for another 40 minutes. As it turns out, B. is also half Greek (which, let me tell you, there are not many of us in this town, so finding each other outside of some Greek event is a minor miracle), and our girls both have Greek middle names, and we both avoid church for the same reason. We grew up knowing life around tough little old Greek ladies, only learning enough Greek to swear and tell someone we love them, and our Dad’s were in the military and not Greek. We both left established careers to take care of our kids and were ready for something more but hadn’t quite nailed down exactly what that was. We were both lacking in adult conversation and the babysitters to go out very often. And in the funniest connection category, we both had made friends with the owner of the Greek restaurant down the road (there’s one in every town, I swear) by asking him about something we each make that he serves. For me, it’s baklava and for B. it’s spanakopita (spinach pie). It took me about a millisecond to ask her if she’d be interested in selling it with me and my baklava at future Farmer’s Markets. And right there, we both knew we were meant to meet. It could not have been more obvious. The more we talked, the more I realized she and I were cut from the same cloth, and for the first time since I moved here, I didn’t need to resign myself to being alone except on holidays and those rare planet alignments. Alka Seltzer could not have brought more relief to my life. The deployment had just gotten even more bearable.

Who knew all I had to do was show up at a kids party? Fate at least has a sense of humor.

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Garden Victories

Today is a welcome rainy day. Welcome to me so that I have an excuse to be somewhat lazy, and welcome to my poor garden because I haven’t watered it in…let’s just say a very long time. I admit that most gardening is well out of my skill set. I am not a natural by a long shot. If the green thing can’t survive on little water and even less attention, it really shouldn’t be near me. I have a sheffalera (“Mr. Plant”) that has been around longer than I have. I think I’m its 3rd or 4th home and we get along great. He seems to like the kids well enough and generally the dogs ignore him. Monkey does like to do the drive-by defoliating trick every now and again, but Mr. Plant seems to see that as a reason to sprout a new leaf. He’s so optimistic–maybe I should pay more attention to him. Beyond Mr. Plant, though, I probably have one or two other leafy beings that have figured out life as a plant in my house and do just fine. But gardening…

There are many gardeners in my family. I am not one of them, but I’m trying. We live in the country and our back yard is more than big enough for a good size kitchen garden. Once grocery prices went way up and seemed to stay there, it seemed to make sense to start building my gardening muscles. As I am wont to do with every new thing I try, I picked up a book. I don’t think I could function without reference material handy even if I don’t read every page. Next thing was to pick a spot. It couldn’t be so far away that the hose wouldn’t reach, but in a nice sunny spot. Behind our screen house attached the the back of the barn was the perfect location. It wouldn’t make mowing the grass too tough and it was close to a door to make getting supplies and veggies back and forth reasonable. Plus, I could put the composter right near it too. Next we took the railroad ties that were used to border a deathtrap swing set we finally pitched and moved the whole rectangle over to the garden site. Over the next few weeks I worked at de-sodding the area for about an hour a day. I broke it up into 3 plots of 4 feet x 8 feet with 2 1-foot wide aisles in between to be able to work easily inside. I put new soil down in each of the plots and mulch down in between then. While all of this was going on, I thought about what I would want to eat and had a pretty long list of veggies to choose from.

Sadly, I got to the nursery somewhat late in the season, so my choices were limited. I ended up with eggplant, zucchini, roma and cherry tomatoes, cukes, sweet basil, pumpkin, cantaloupe, and jalapeno seedlings that the woman gave me for free because they looked rather droopy and forlorn. When I got everything into the ground, this is what it looked like:

Tomatoes, basil, zucchini and cukes on the left. Eggplant and chilies (and cherry tomatoes once I found them) in the middle, and melon and pumpkins (and later spinach from seeds) on the right. Here is another view:

You can see our little red shed over there where K. cleaned the whole thing out and made it a garden tool shed with lots of room for lawn furniture storage too. There are raspberries that grow on the long wall of the red shed, but the dogs destroyed them this year trying to hunt something that was living under the shed. Silly dogs. I would have shared the berries with them too!

We ended up putting up a makeshift chicken wire fence around the whole thing to keep the dogs from running through it and the deer from eating it. I also planted some marigolds to keep something or other away. I’m dubious they did anything besides look pretty, but in they went. I added some organic fertilizer and was pretty good about watering when it needed to be watered although we had a pretty rainy stretch. After a while I was pretty happy with how things were going. Here are some pictures from sometime in July–about a month after planting.

The whole shebang

Zucchini, Roma tomatoes, sweet basil, and cukes that I had planted without any sort of sprouted seeds even though they had probably germinated a bit.

Eggplants, jalapeno peppers, and cherry tomatoes way in the back. I lost the tomato plant for a couple of weeks near the shed while it hid behind a hosta I hadn’t planted yet, but when I found it, I had to make room for it because I had planted the whole rest of the garden already thinking I had left the plant behind at the nursery.

Pumpkins and cantaloupe and the spinach seeds I had tossed in there too. Amazingly they took hold.

And finally some pictures of the start of our modest haul.

Zucchinis

Look! It’s edible!

Not fried green tomatoes.

I’d be rather embarrassed to show pictures of what the garden looks like right now if I had any. It’s not pretty anymore. A month or so ago we lost our outside water spigots when our well water pump shorted out our hot water heater for the rest of the house and we had to disconnect the pump so we could do crazy things like bathe in hot water. We are on city water but also have a well which is great for yard work and filling kiddie pools. So at some point I stopped watering and hoped for rain because watering a garden of that size with pitchers is no fun. Once was enough to convince me that hard work gardening was not my thing. At some point the Roma tomatoes ended up with blight and I didn’t get more than say 10 tomatoes total from both plants and they were not terribly juicy or appetizing. The pumpkins never pumpkined although they did flower beautifully and spread like crazy–especially outside of the garden fence. The cantaloupe just didn’t want to do anything. So, this weekend I pulled all those veggies out.

Zucchini’s did fantastic and I was never without–in fact I’m waiting for 3 more to finish growing. Eggplants are still growing like crazy and I’m hoping they’ll survive the frosts which have begun. I love eggplant and can’t wait to make up a few batches of eggplant parm to freeze for the winter. The cukes did really well (in spite of my Dad’s threats of banishing them from the Earth) and we got several pretty good sized ones and a few that grew through the chicken wire. The underdog jalapenos that I got for free from the nursery did amazingly well. I ended up with a couple dozen of them and we used them all summer in our Mexican dishes. Maybe they just needed the proper incentive. What could be better than steak fajitas, I ask?!

I’m pretty satisfied with my first foray into veggie gardening. I’ve learned quite a bit and am already revising plans for next year. I think next time I’m going to pass on the three sections and do one big garden. I’m going to get to the nursery earlier so I can have red and yellow peppers and maybe a little strawberry patch. I’m going to toss this year’s Halloween pumpkins someplace to rot and start its own patch like we accidentally did at our old house with great neglectful success. I think I’ll do more variety and fewer plants and try some different tomatoes. I’ll always have cherry tomatoes though because they are my favorites. I’m also going to try my hand at green beans since we enjoyed the ones from the Farmer’s Market so much all summer. But the item at the top of the list is to call an electrician and have the water pump rewired to its own circuit. I can’t maintain a garden without being able to water it with ease. I know next year I’m not going to have time to be running back and forth from the kitchen. And if all else fails, I’ll be starting a Marigold farm, because that was my best crop of all this year. They liked my yard and survived the dogs’ wrestling through them better than I expected.

Once I finish harvesting the last of the zucchini, eggplants, jalepenos, and cherry tomatoes, I’ve got to prep to close it up for the winter. I think that’s going to mean some compost at the very least, if not a chance to turn the soil over before it freezes. For Christmas last year, I got a Power Plant and attempted to grow some cilantro in it. It grew well, but I didn’t replant it fast enough and the roots all intertwined with the sponge and I was screwed when I went to replant into little pots. I killed all the nice seedlings pretty much immediately. So, my Winter experiment is going to be to work on my timing. I have the perfect window that gets sun all day , so I should be able to grow something. Just need to watch what I’m doing.

And there you have it. My own little “Let’s-Hope-for-A-Victory Garden.”

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Monkey and the Masked Allergist

Today was one of those crazy days that was all over the place with me trailing behind like a vocal track that’s a few beats behind its movie. Monkey had an appointment this afternoon with a new pediatric allergist an hour north of us at the same hospital as his pediatric dermatologist. We had to book the appointment several months in advance and I was on top of things enough to have put it in my calendar a while ago, so when the confirmation letter came from the hospital, I didn’t bother opening it. I get them monthly for the dermatologist, so I knew it was just a notice of date and location. Right? Not so much. I decided to dig through my “Don’t want to deal with this today” pile of paper to double check the location and was actually able to find the letter. Good thing I opened it, because it told me the appointment was going to take over an hour and that I needed to fill out extra paperwork to bring along. There would be no goofing around this morning.

A quick background on Monkey-man. Monkey has chronic moderate to severe eczema and has been allergic to just about everything since he was a baby. The various allergies are tied loosely to the eczema, but are not the entire cause of it. They are sort of kissing cousins, if you will. It’s only been within the last few months that we’ve got the eczema cleared up enough for him to look normal and function like “a real boy.”  The eczema has been the cause of the majority of all his issues culminating in a general developmental delay putting him a couple years behind where he should be. When you are itchy all the time, it’s tough to sleep which makes it impossible to focus and learn. He’s about to turn six, but is more like a four-year-old speech-wise, and he also has some trouble with auditory processing which makes following directions and sequences tough. Monkey has been getting a ton of help at school and outside of school with speech and occupational therapy–it’s been doing wonders in conjunction with not being itchy 24/7. He’s not caught up by a long shot, but he’s a totally different kid than he was even a few months ago, and for the first time in a very long time, I have hope that he’ll catch up with the other kids his age even if it does take a while to get there. Because pre-teaching is key with our little visual learner, I spend a good deal of my time pretending to be a teacher…well, more like a teaching intern who has never taken an education course…for him and doing his school activities with him before he goes to school to help him understand things and help him with transitions which haven’t been one of his stronger suits and quite often send him into a scratching jag. Monkey is a sweet, character of a boy and truly a full time job.

So my plans for this insane morning included a bath for him, making myself presentable, going food shopping, and getting home in time to leave early enough to get to his appointment and only be a few minutes late instead of my usual too many minutes late. Thanks to reading the letter that informed me first appointments can take up to two hours, I realized I had way more to do than I had originally thought and not enough time to do it. Pulling a “Bewitched” wasn’t an option, so I had to rush to put together today’s “school games” to bring along, grab some other distractions just in case, make us lunches for the road, gather up all his medications, fill out the extra paperwork, make the food shopping list and then food shop at the speed of light with a boy who likes to stop and smell the cakes. Not the most relaxing morning. I managed to get it all done and get us on the road only five minutes later than I had planned. Monkey got a donut for his cooperation and I got to fight off the desire for a nap.

It is a testament to his dermatologist, Dr. D., that Monkey no longer hates going to the doctor. I’m hoping it wasn’t all ruined today with our new allergist, Dr. S. I know I found it somewhat trying and I’m not the one who had blood drawn as a reward for showing up. Dr. S. was nice enough, but it was somewhat disconcerting to be dealing with someone wearing a surgical mask even though I appreciate not being infected with the plague. We talked about Monkey’s history and we looked over his previous test results from 2 years ago. My problem with his previous results is that his skin was a mess, his eczema at its worst and we think the results are skewed. I have no doubt he has allergies, but as to the severity? I have no idea. He has grown out of some so far as we can tell, and others (like his peanut allergy) we are not willing to test. I have no doubt that he has light asthma too, but it’s not his primary issue, nor is it how his allergies present. He wheezes when we incite him to raucous laughter, but that’s it. I don’t see the point in talking about the asthma or testing his breathing when that’s not the big problem, nor even a real consistent problem. The big problem is why no one can tell us how the eczema and the allergies are all connected with him. How do they effect each other and Monkey? Yes, I see his results for many things are crazy high, but the dogs don’t bother him, and he seems to not be having trouble with dairy or wheat which were problematic before. Or is that just the immuno suppressant he’s on to break the eczema cycle? It would be great to know the answers, but I’m finding that the doctors just don’t really know most of the time either.  We’ve been told peanuts are right out forever, and we’re fine with that. But until I see the results of the new blood test with him “clean” so to speak, I’m dubious of all of his previous tests.

Probably the most frustrating thing at the appointment was watching the nurses try to administer a breathing test to Monkey and giving him instructions like he was an adult. Or even just a “normal” kid. It was actually really irritating that the doctor even ordered the tests given that Monkey certainly was not behaving like a regular 6 year old. He was acting his emotional age of about 4, which I have no doubt would have excluded him from doing if he were actually 4. The kid is just now starting to follow directions with a few steps, never mind conditional requests with concepts I’d have to teach him first for him to have a clue what they were talking about. It’s sort of like playing Twister and not knowing your colors or your left from right. You can touch everything, but that doesn’t mean you’re even playing the game. To his credit, Monkey tried as best he could, but at one point he just go tired of the instructions and turned around to read his book. I can’t blame him. I wanted to check out too.

I don’t really want to get into a debate about healthcare here. But what I do want is for doctors to be able to take the time to get to know a patient, listen to him/her and not just throw tests and drugs at them as if they were some sort of carnival game where you win a over-sized fluorescent pink bunny for filling the clown’s mouth with water and popping a balloon. There seem to be so few doctors who actually give a shit…well doctors who give a shit that are in our network. And I don’t mean to say that this new doctor doesn’t care about Monkey–he was congenial enough and seemed to not be put off by Monkey’s shines, but I could tell that he was just trying to get to the next appointment and prove what he knows in general but not really see Monkey. When you have a kid with issues of any kind, you just want the best and not a textbook answer or the drug of the week. I’m going to put away the frustration though and wait on the blood test results, and, in the meantime, write down questions for our appointment with Dr. D. on Monday morning. He may throw drugs at us, but he’s also been great about figuring Monkey out and listening to me. Maybe with this newest component to add to the picture he can help me make more sense of it. I trust him to at least try.

So what was the upshot for today? While waiting for the doctor to come back, Monkey “read” The Hungry Caterpillar to me. It was awesome and made up for so much of the day’s ridiculousness. It was nice to know that something we’ve been doing is working for Monkey in a permanent way. To cap the day off,  I did not have to cook tonight, and I got to talk about my dream of driving in a Demolition Derby on the Dave and Dave Show. Because smashing cars safely and legally after a day like today can only be a good thing.

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No doze

Ah the quiet of night after the kids go to bed! It’s one of my favorite times of the day. The dogs snuggle next to me on the couch, and best of all, I can listen to the sound of my own head and complete thoughts. It is usually the time I sit down to write (the other time being the 3 hours each afternoon when both kids are at school if I don’t have other paid work to do) or get organized for the next day. Sometimes I get caught up in doing silly stuff. And damn, if there isn’t a whole lot of tv on at night I can brainlessly “watch.” No matter what I choose to do, inevitably I stay up too late.

I have always been a nightowl–staying up late to read when I should have been at the very least been doing homework. Problem is, with the birth of the kids, the morning person in me also…woke up. So getting up early, even after my worst night’s sleep, is doable. As I said in my first post, during K.’s previous deployment I was lucky to get 4 hours of sleep a night between trying to talk to K. when we were both awake and available and having an infant who didn’t sleep through the night. I did that for a year with very little napping and no real catching up on it. My body got used to working on crappy sleep. Even now, I can go for days with just a handful of hours of sleep. I’m certainly not performing at my best, but I get by well enough. I’ll sneak in the occasional cat nap to take the edge off, but generally (and here comes my Type A rationale…wait for it…) I have a lot to do and my time is packed.

I know this particular habit of mine is not the best one to indulge in…but it surely is more entertaining than biting my nails. I have “fixed” this schedule every now and again, but it never lasts long. I’ll go to bed by 10pm, and get up by 530am to do yoga for a half hour, then write a few pages, and by then it’s time for the kids to get ready for school. I’m happiest with this schedule, really. The day goes well with this routine. Still, like the lure of the Oreo, I can’t seem to keep away from the quiet of late nights. But starting next week, I’m back on the wagon. It has taken me a few years to work my way up to sleeping 6 hours a night, and I don’t need to keep this up just to have it get worse in a few months.

Time to fire up the dvr and slack off on the slacking off for the good of mankind since I’ll never be a coffee drinker and I’m definitely not in college anymore. It’s officially after midnight, so it must be time for bed…or breakfast. Anyone have any spare Oreos?

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Into The Woods

I had Things To Do yesterday. K. had a day off so I wanted to try to get some of my things done even after the kids got home from school. I had finished up a good portion of said things when K. said he was going to take the kids for a hike. Monkey didn’t want to go unless I was going too, and I waffled for a couple of minutes because a little extra kid-free time was nice to have when I could get it. It was a beautiful day though and the call of the trail was tough to resist. So in an uncharacteristic move, I went for the hike. I also brought my camera.

There are many trails not far from our house (not including some light tresspassing in the woods behind our yard) and the one we walked was a new one for me, but not for the kids and K. I love hiking this time of year when the colors are so vivid and the mosquitoes are practically non-existent. Normally I would have brought the dogs, but I wanted to get a lay of the land first and see what shenanigans they might get into for future reference. No doubt if they had come, I’d have been shooing them away from frogs (or maybe toads?) the majority of the time. But since I didn’t have to fend off CaseyJones the great hunter, and the frogs were happy to pose for portraits (you know, when they weren’t being poked with a stick by small boys and their Daddies…), I took what I like to call “The Frog Series.”

Some are easier to see than others, and there were more frogs than this out there, but these were the ones who froze for us. The Army should think about Frogflage…it seems to work.

It was fun to “spot the toad” as we traipsed around the woods and fields and watched them hop across the trail. When we weren’t doing that, Monkey was scouting out rocks to throw off the little bridge into the brook (his absolute favorite thing to do) and R. was practicing walking with her eyes closed to learn how to listen. Sometimes they ran ahead, and sometimes we chased them. Here’s a little sample of a typical afternoon in the woods.

And finally my favorite image of the day…I like to call it “Angry Tree.” You better not get too close at night.

He had a bad day

I’m glad I skipped the rest of my To Do list to hang with the family in the woods. I really need to remember to do that more often.

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Admin note on Comments

Just wanted to let people know I changed the setting on having to register to comment. You should now be able to leave a comment without registering. Hopefully that will encourage people to participate when they feel the need, and I’m crossing my fingers WordPress has a handle on spam comments from the Russian contingent. I still will have to ok comments before they post, but I don’t usually let them sit, nor do I plan on editing any of them. Like I said, it’s more to keep the spam out than censor anyone. Also, I have set things up so you can rate posts. At the bottom of each individual post, you will see some stars. Click on them as a means to let me know you agree, disagree, love it, hate it, or whatever. While I don’t expect every entry I write to warrant a comment, if you feel like something has moved you to speak, please do. If you have questions, please ask them. I will answer them as honestly as I can.

Thanks so much for reading. I hope you continue to stop by often. There is a new post below, so don’t miss it!

xo
m.

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Silk Anniversary

…or as I like to call it, our Tween anniversary. I thought maybe we should celebrate by watching all those wretched kid shows I won’t let R. watch, but I couldn’t even do it for a joke. All I remember about being a Tween myself, was really digging The Outsiders and watching Star Blazers as often as it was on UHF. I guess for kids today it’s digging Twilight and watching Naruto. The more things change…

So for our 12th anniversary we went to dinner at our favorite local Irish Pub and then the next day we ate a lovely french toast breakfast compliments of Uncle P. who is staying with us off and on until he and K. ship out, and then we cleaned the house. I know, terribly exciting and romantic. Maybe we should have called this one the Hoover anniversary. Still, we did have a nice day with beautiful early Fall weather very reminiscent of our wedding day. Sunny but not hot, breezy, but not cold. Sort of like room temperature outside. I cleaned out our “supply” closet, and K. started working on straightening up the barn and sorting his gear he needs to pack. We didn’t clean all day though–I finished the first Sookie Stackhouse book while basking in the sun out on our deck, and K. and the kiddos all took naps in various places. After dinner we watched a documentary about swords called Reclaiming the Blade. All in all, a nice quiet day and typically us. Those are my favorite days.

Right now we are sort of in an odd situation which makes celebrating our anniversary off-kilter for me. K. has been in the Guard since we started dating all those years ago, and each year he would leave for various schools or Annual Training (AT). At some point along the way, I learned to…I guess disengage would be the right word. I would start preparing to deal with things on my own and so would wander off into my own world. It’s such a habit at this point, I sometimes fail to recognize when I’ve started doing it. I don’t know that K. goes through the same thing entirely or on the same schedule that I do, but I am guessing it’s something similar. We still do things together and help each other out, but the closer it gets to him leaving the more I start taking on myself. With the deployment, I start much earlier because of all the time he needs to prepare both at home and at work. I suspect it’s also somewhat of a defense mechanism on my part too, in the case of a major deployment in case I’m on my own permanently, but once I get into it, it’s tough to switch gears back to “normal” living even for special occasions. Makes for a weird life together sometimes. At least from my perspective.

The Army has already taught me that the only person I can really rely on is myself (which plays nicely into my type A, perfectionist personality). Through no fault of K.’s I’ve just learned that I can’t count on him for everything. There have been too many canceled plans due to Army intervention in our history for me to think otherwise. Duty generally comes first with few exceptions. My mantra over the years has become: “It’s part of the [Army] life.”  It’s the price we pay for a steady paycheck and decent benefits. I don’t blame him, but it certainly puts a strain on us. While people who work in civilian jobs ultimately have a choice about who they put first, K. really does not. It’s no doubt, one of the reasons many military marriages don’t always last. I don’t know if it’s because people don’t understand that part or if they just can’t accept it or both. I understand it, but I struggle with accepting it sometimes. I suppose I’ve learned to adapt to it as best I can though. We’ve made it this far.

I am grateful, though, that although we are close to his leaving, this anniversary wasn’t fraught with angst and that frantic feeling that can take over. It was just a good day like the happy day we had twelve years ago only without the fancy clothes or bagpiper. Ultimately, I’m thankful to mark one more peaceful day together and look forward to the day when we can celebrate without my self-induced mental interference.

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Pick a peck

The leaves are already turning here in the Great White North and part of me loves it and the other part laments that there will be no leaves on those trees for a very long time after. Winter here is as long as the other three seasons combined sometimes. But I do love Fall very much. I relish the chill in the air and everything smells wonderful. Death, is, after all, pungent. Plus, it’s just about pumpkin muffin/donut/bread/pie time! My favorite! I tend to want to hold on to Fall as long as I can, but there’s no stopping Old Man Winter around here. He’s a rather pushy guy.

But I’m getting ahead of myself and I should not be rushing time along right now. The number of weekends we have left together before K. starts his time away can be counted on one hand. Those weekends will go by quickly too. We are trying to spend as much time together as we can as a family and as a couple. Today we did the Farmer’s Market circuit, buying homemade donuts, the last of the tomatoes, peaches, and blueberries, and picking apples with the kids. Picking apples is an activity we all think of fondly in this family. The day I gave birth to Monkey (2 months prematurely), K. and R. had gone apple picking so that I could rest away those pesky contractions that kept breaking through the medication I was on to keep them at bay. It was a fun morning for R. and now it’s the harbinger of Monkey’s birthday which we are all so grateful to be celebrating. Today we came home with a peck and a half of perfect Macintosh apples and a pint of plump blueberries as well as another pleasant family memory with pictures to go with it.

I’m sure we are not the only family to have made some nice memories doing a perfectly ordinary Fall activity. There were many families out at the orchard picking apples and laughing and enjoying a hayride. The difference for me was that in the back of my mind was the thought that this could be one of the last happy family moments we have either for a while or ever. It’s not something that sticks in the front of my brain, nor do I speak the words or throw myself to the ground sobbing about it, but it’s there sort of standing behind a tree peeking out every now and again waving “Hello.”

When you know your time is limited–even if it’s just temporary in the grand scheme of things–you tend to think of activities in terms of “the last time.” The last time I’m going to have to turn in homework, the last time I’m going to have to change a diaper, the last time I’m going to have to sit in on a meeting, the last time I’m going to get to go to my favorite restaurant. It’s natural…but at the same time it’s not. Thinking like that is just a small shift in perspective, but it can make you notice details you might not have otherwise. Like how the small hand holding yours isn’t nearly as small as you think it is, or the tart smell of the occasional crushed apple at your feet, or how refreshing that breeze is while standing in the sun, or how wonderfully warm the sun is after coming out of a cool, shady, grove. Little details to help you recall how nice it was to just be together like normal people even if the circumstances weren’t particularly normal.

Last year when we picked apples, the thought that we could be on our last family outing absolutely did not cross my mind even though any of us could have died the next day. And even now, I hate to acknowledge that line of thinking when the odds are pretty good we’ll be out as a family in 2 more seasons enjoying the sun and smell of apples on another crisp day like today. But there’s always that chance–no matter how small– that the odds will not favor us. That’s the niggling thought that adds a different dimension to the day and makes me remember to bring my camera…just in case. While I find it more relaxing to not have to think about life and death every time I walk out the door, I do appreciate the depth that perspective can bring even to the most mundane moments in life turning them into something worth remembering.

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The plan, Stan

Writing here so much lately has truly been a joy for me. It’s been so long since I’ve wanted to write–even been excited to sit down in front of a blank screen. For eight long years, I found the thought of writing just painful. The words were here, lurking about like a bunch of crusty hermits but refusing to come out. But now! Now the cave door is open and I feel so much less…verbally constipated. I’m so giddy about writing again that I’m getting back into my other blog attached to my business where I write about some of my projects and the art that I’m learning to do. The blogs are entwined in that they both record my journey in new areas of my life. I am using these blogs to hold myself accountable for my goals in each part of my life and stay on task especially when I seem to be letting stupid things get in the way. That being the case, I’m going to try to alternate more between the two rather than burn myself out on both at the same time. If you don’t see me here, it’s because I’m over there. It’s still early in my plans and routines are still being made and tweaked, so I’m sure some things will change as circumstance dictates. But for now, that’s the plan.

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