Shake it up, baby!

I bet you were all wondering what would bring me back here. So was I, frankly. It’s been a rather busy few months of kids home for summer, a dead-for-the-third-time’s-a-charm computer, school starting, and K coming home on leave, and me trying to nail down regular work. Turns out what it really takes for me to sit down and write again is an earthquake. You heard me right. Earthquake. Nothing major, mind you, and I’m sure my friends on the left coast are laughing behind their hands at the lack of magnitude it takes for my heart to pound and my mind to race, but that’s ok. I laugh at the thought of them driving around during a snow storm…or as I like to call it, a light dusting. I have only ever lived on the east coast and I’m no stranger to hurricanes, blizzards, ice storms, nor’easters, drought (and not just the writing kind), hail, and floods. Not to mention, black flies, mosquitoes, and jellyfish. Mother Nature and I come in to contact fairly often in these parts and I have a healthy respect for the power she wields. She never mentioned the possibility of earthquakes though. Mighty tricky of you, Mother Nature, mighty tricky!

Saturday night, just before 11:30pm, I was laying in bed reading and starting to doze off. All of a sudden I heard a loud boom/crash/extended thud and then the house shook for a couple of seconds. At first I thought I was more asleep than I imagined and perhaps I was about to have a blockbuster movie dream. No such luck. My next thought was that the basement blew up again (yes, I said “again.”), but quickly pushed that aside when I realized that the smoke alarms didn’t go off. Then I thought some idiot finally took the corner in front of our house too fast and hit the gigantic pine tree outside Monkey’s room and hoped that the tree wouldn’t break and crush my house (or my Monkey!) or the animal shelter across the street. There was no other sound though after that initial boom, so it couldn’t be that. Maybe something nearby had exploded in an enormous fireball…All of these thoughts were zipping around in my head at supersonic speeds while I tried to assess my next action which all centered around “Holy crap I might have to get 2 sleeping kids and 2 dogs out of here ASAP.”

Pants went on quickly, and the ridiculously calm dogs (who were my first clue that all was more well than my pounding heart and flight ready brain were able to process) looked at me askance while I shut them in my room to go investigate on my own. Nothing smelled funny, no sirens in the distance, and the kids were both still asleep. I went downstairs and made sure the basement door wasn’t hot and that the barn was still attached and the shop in the side yard was also still in its usual dilapidated state. Everything was right were it should be—unchanged. I suspect even the pantry mouse was undisturbed. Back upstairs I go, to waiting dogs who I’m pretty sure think I’m off my rocker at this point, but are nice enough to not say so out loud. I collar them up and outside we go to investigate the property and look around the neighborhood for signs of the obvious coming apocalypse. Casey and Zoe, amazed at their luck in getting to go out after 9:30pm, immediately go running off to sniff out the wild animal nightlife and I stand at the bottom of my driveway wondering what the hell was going on because nothing seemed to be going on. Surely if there was a rift in the space time continuum (which was the only other option left as far as I could tell), I would be seeing aliens or a passel of long-forgotten farmers making their way back home in a horse and buggy parade. Nope. Nothing. All was quiet on the Great White Northern Front.

I called the dogs back in and we returned to bed. I think my heart finally began to slow to it’s normal pace and the adrenalin rush unlike anything I’ve felt since riding the Mt. Everest roller-coaster at Disney (it goes backwards!) started to dissipate as well. Of course the first thing I did after settling in was get online. I saw my neighbor across the street was also online (Phew!) and she and I instant messaged briefly about the excitement of the night (let me tell you, we do not generally live in an exciting part of town at all), and thanks to Twitter (yup, Twitter) we quickly found out that we were hit with a 3.2 earthquake less than 10 miles from our neighborhood.

For as much upheaval as that tiny earthquake caused in my internal organs, I was actually glad it was that rather than all my other options (especially the Doctor Who-esque scenario). There were far more chances for death and destruction coming out of my brain than what was happening in reality and I could not have felt more relief at that realization. Aside from the novelty of having experienced something that was neither on my bucket list or any other list of mine for that matter, it made me realize that I need to remember to keep a calm head when crazy shit happens (i.e. pay attention to the dogs who were calm the whole time). I am not 100% prepared for a disaster—natural or man-made—but I could be with little effort. I know where all the things I would need are: first aid kit, water, and food (thanks Army for your oh-so-tasty MREs!). I know, though, that our generator is lacking fuel, and I don’t have any wood yet for the fireplace if it were necessary to be stuck at home without electricity or heat. I have a camping stove and fuel for that, and we have blankets and sleeping bags. I don’t have anything that’s particularly grab-n-go, and it’s probably a good idea to consolidate. Soon. You know, just in case.

I don’t plan on this little shake up making me paranoid about the possibility of future disasters since they are not the norm (and I really prefer the whole “level head” thing to “crazed loony” thing), nor do I plan on making next summer a family Outward Bound extravaganza, but it sure has made me think twice about what I would do if something truly serious happened. As long as K is attached to the Army, and given that the National Guard is called out for any type of local (and some not-so-local as it turns out) disasters, the kids and dogs and I are pretty much on our own during tough times. It does not hurt to believe that all those years I spent hanging out with Boy Scouts (my dad was a Troop Leader and my brother a Scout) showed me preparedness. Even more important, just being a single-parent forces you to manage a degree of planning and logistics I don’t believe can be taught in college. But here I was left at loose ends even for such a short time over something that in reality was small but could have been bad, bad, bad. Thankfully this is not a cautionary tale that will wind up being checked on Snopes because of its unbelievable circumstances, nor will I end up a recipient of the Darwin Award (at least not this week!). However it is a good reminder to tend to basic needs and always have a plan…which I am working on before Winter comes with all its frozen goodness.

In other news, as I mentioned K was home on leave for a couple of weeks earlier this month and a grand time was had by all. He’s back in Afghanistan counting the days until the deployment is over. The kids did really well with the transition (ah, my little adaptable beings!) and they, too, are looking forward to Daddy being home for hours of hikes, faux camping, sparring practice, and Lego building.

I won’t make promises that I’ll be writing regularly again. Those seem to bite me in the ass. So you’ll see me when you see me and thanks for sticking around and caring what I have to say.

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Battle of Midway

Well this is just embarrassing. I wish I could chalk this long lapse in writing up to simply falling off the wagon, but really what happened was that the wagon was nuked. Obliterated. Vaporized. Went supernova. Michael Bay was knocking down my door trying to get the secret to the power behind the explosive destruction of my wagon for use in Transformers 3, it was so spectacular. So, not only did the writing here stop (I was writing elsewhere when I could though), but the weight loss momentum came to an abrupt halt, the exercising habit vanished, and much of the freelance work I had on my plate was piling up at an alarming rate. Amazingly, the only habit I was able to maintain was not biting my nails, which considering I’ve been a nail-biter my whole life is a minor miracle. I like to refer to this time as “The Battle of Midway” and if I had really learned my lesson last time, I should have seen it coming, but I broke my own prime directive: pay attention. I just didn’t realize what time it was.

April & May were roughly the mid-point of this deployment. Last deployment, I had a pretty good meltdown about six months into it which lead to a turn around in short order (I hired a friend to help me out once a week). I can’t claim that I had a breakdown this time because generally I have things in hand and ask for help when I need it, but I definitely hit a wall. Repeatedly and with vigor. There just comes a point when you get mentally burned out from doing the smallest of repetitive tasks like loading and unloading the dishwasher, rotating laundry, making lunches, food shopping. You think, “If I have to do this one more effin’ time, I’m going to toss out my Acme portable hole, jump down, and pull it in after me.” I remember last time being so sick of hearing “Mommy!” a million times a day that I required 4-year-old R to call me by my first name for a week just so I could hear something different. It hasn’t come to that (yet), thankfully, but we have definitely hit our speed bumps along the way. I just wasn’t in the frame of mind to be positive here and resorted to the “if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all” adage.  Plus, I thought sleep might be an important experience to have.

Probably the biggest monkey wrench in my well-oiled machine was the death of my laptop not once, not twice, but three times in 6 weeks until it finally required a logic board replacement (thankfully all covered under a warranty!! Let’s hear it for Apple Care!). And for some inexplicable reason, two of the breakdowns happened while watching my favorite new show, Justified and trying to get some work done. Seriously. The third time happened the night before Justified. Maybe my poor laptop was just jealous of the time I was spending admiring Timothy Olyphant (perhaps I’ll put that re-watch of Deadwood on hold…), or maybe it was protesting the idea of working late at night. Who knows? All I do know is that the only original part of my laptop left is the (slightly dented and dog-hairy) case. I don’t know how many of you have ever had to rebuild a computer the way you like it after a near-catastrophic data loss (luckily, I only lost 6 weeks of files), but it can take a while—especially if you are trying to make it organized in all the ways you couldn’t be bothered to do with your last set up. The first time the hard drive bit it, I approached the situation with the optimism a clean slate can bring, but the two times after? Not an ounce of optimism to be had. Needless to say, all my work fell behind and I’ve been playing catch up while still taking on new work. Doesn’t leave much time for anything else, frankly.

Throughout all the computer shenanigans, I was continuing to deal with the daily grind of kid and dog stuff, keep the house clean during shedding season (why Casey and Zoe can’t coordinate their shedding schedules is beyond me—their tandem shedding is hardly efficient), plan and slog through an acre’s worth of yard work (that I’m wholly unqualified to attempt) and garden planning, maintain all my other relationships both long and short distance (with varying degrees of success), and I realized the time had come to start working toward my long-term career goals now that Monkey will be in school full time come Fall. Needless to say, my to do lists had to do lists. I’m not sure “tired” really describes what I have been feeling the last several weeks. Daunted, overwhelmed, weary, all of the above? Mental doggie paddling is now my particular super hero ability, and I would gladly trade in for invisibility or telekinesis.

I can’t say that I’m caught up or remotely ahead, but I’ve made some headway, and now it’s definitely time to shake off the funk of the last couple of months, readjust my thinking, and rebuild all those habits that went up in smoke, which include writing here more often. Tomorrow is the start of a new year for me. For my 39th birthday I’m giving myself a shiny new (hopefully bomb-resistant) wagon with enough space to allow myself some slack now and again when things don’t go as planned. If I’m lucky enough to be several years short of my mid-life, I think now would be the perfect time to put to use what I’ve learned over the last 39 years before the next 39 years go by in another blink.

To quote Betty Friedan:
“Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.”

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Poor Dead Ladybug

Ladybugs have ceased being cute.

They can be cannibals, as a matter of fact. How do I know this? You could credit Google, but you’d be partially wrong. I watched it happen and then I checked Google to make sure I was seeing what I thought I saw (and no, Tweetie, it was not a puddytat). Who knew those benign little beetles were so…Hannibal Lecter?

A few weeks ago I walked into the bathroom, and there on the floor not far from the toilet was a little grouping of ladybugs. That, in and of itself, is not so unusual given the epic numbers of ladybugs we’ve had in the house the past several months. Most of the time there are groups of dead ladybugs near every window like they all died trying to scratch their way out of the house. I would have been happy to let them all out if they had asked, but then they would have frozen anyway. Sometimes there are enough ladybug carcasses to make me wonder if they all died in a cult suicide pact only the little kool-aid cups are too small to be seen. We have a lot of dead ladybugs around the house is what I’m saying. Enough that I have to make a daily habit of cleaning them up or it looks like the outdoors came indoors to die.

Back to the little trio in the bathroom… They weren’t doing lines of coke (or dust, or dog hair given the contents of my bathroom floor which much to my chagrin—in the name of science—you will see. It wasn’t cleaning day, sadly.). I did think, perhaps, I was witnessing something from a Discovery Channel show on ménage à trois in the animal kingdom. Naturally, (and being more pervy than I thought I was) I got down for a closer look. (I figure one of the other ladybugs down there was watching, so what was one more set of eyes?) It took me a little while of watching to figure out that one of the ladybugs was, in fact, dead. It was only slightly mushed and I finally saw a trail of ladybug innards that was keeping the bug stuck to the floor as the ladybug underneath it was gnawing on its exoskeleton. Of course I had to take pictures. And maybe a movie or 4…

I haven’t figured out what the third ladybug was doing beyond working security. It did take a nibble at one point, but really was just standing around while the other ladybug noshed on the all-you-can-eat friend bugfet.

Here’s the best of the videos I took to show the one ladybug moving the dead one around. It’s a little shaky because I was using my regular camera and not a video camera. Still, it’s interesting to see them going at it, so to speak. (If the video doesn’t show below, click the link and it will take you to the YouTube page where it is posted and you can watch it there.)
Ladybug lunch

Once I had my theory, I had to Google it to see if I was right. After all, everything on the internet is true, right? I did find a site to confirm that when food supplies (normally aphids) are low, ladybugs will cannibalize each other. Icky, yet true. And, now, I’ve posted proof to the world on YouTube. I feel so…hip.

I had R come in to see it since she could share with her class (along with a newly shed snakeskin I found in the barn last week) about what she saw, plus she’s not terribly squeamish. I would have invited Monkey, but then he would have squished them all and the educational value would have disappeared in an instant even if the entertainment value would have increased exponentially. Still, it was interesting to learn something new about my roommates and we are not lacking for nature here in the Great White North if you want a lesson in life. For as uncertain as life can be, it is always a fascinating education to watch the natural world adapt around and in spite of us. Aside from the cannibalism, nature often inspires me want to work harder at adapting and adjusting to my own ups and downs better—to remember to work with what I have better and just keep going. Nature may not always be pretty or neat (or even socially acceptable), but since when was real life any of those things?

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WAG that Tale

Gainfully Deployed has earned some new fans (via the Facebook group) this week and for that I’m very appreciative. Thanks for being curious/interested/bored enough to check in. I know many of the new readers are wives, moms, and/or girlfriends from K’s unit, so I thought this would be a good time to explain a few things about why most of  you will probably never meet me in person.

Long before the guys received their orders for this deployment (years before, actually), I decided that if K deployed again I would not participate in any Family Support activities. I know that the structure of things has changed somewhat this deployment as far as how the group works, but I had such a bad experience last deployment, that I not only decided, but vowed (with the dog as my witness!) I would never get involved again. K wholeheartedly supported that decision even though traditionally, through some unspoken and ridiculous rule, the wives of the soldiers of higher rank (both enlisted and officer) join or run the Family Support Group (now with help and input from the state, Guard-run Family Support Office). I was never fond of that “rule,” but when K joined this company originally (probably 2-3 years before their first deployment), I was one of the few (literally few) women who helped with fundraisers and family day and other events through Family Support.

Before 9/11, Family Support was a low-key, relatively fun thing to do, and only required work a few times throughout the year. When the deployment came up, I had no problem continuing my role or stepping up my involvement. I wanted to help. I thought that being with others who were going to understand what I was going through would be a huge help and I looked forward to getting to know other family members. I did make some important friendships during that time (I am still quite close to and talk regularly with a few of the wives from that time—they are among my best friends and I love them dearly), but for the most part, the stress of the deployment seemed to bring out the worst in people, and what I saw in others just turned me off completely to ever helping in that capacity again, not to mention making me wary of new people in my life as a general rule. The experience was brutal and taught me to hate people, which is something I’m not proud of at all and working very hard to rectify. After all the time that has passed since that first deployment ended, I’m just getting back to feeling like I can be a positive person again and I don’t care to change direction. I don’t intend to discourage people from participating in Family Support activities, nor will I badmouth anyone involved (which will be easy since I’m not involved!). Rehashing the past experience makes my stomach hurt, to be honest, and I don’t want to bring that back or to this blog. Ever.

So, while I’m sure you are all wonderful people, I’m sorry I won’t get to know you as well as you will know me if you read this blog. I just cannot open myself up to some of the insanity that goes along with a deployment. People are just not themselves. Basically I’m punishing (which is far too strong a word) everyone for the actions of a few which I know is unfair, but I value my sanity and mental well-being. Please don’t take it personally, and please don’t try to convince me that I should change my mind. I have chosen my own family’s support and it is working out splendidly (which, in my opinion, is the way it should be). I am happy, my kids are happy. I am able to manage the stress that goes along with this situation without feeling extra angst or pressure to be something I’m not. I know where to find the services I may need and that’s enough. I’m good with being a bit of a recluse.

Having been through this before, I definitely welcome any questions first-timers may have regarding things deployment-related. I do, however, reserve the right not to answer questions I think inappropriate to the blog or my life, and I may not answer you here on the blog either. Just be warned that comments are screened before they are published at my discretion, and also take note that this is my personal blog which means it is not a democracy. It’s my own little tyrannical kingdom. I am generally a benevolent leader, but I have been known to lop off the occasional head when I’m pushed.  I do hope you’ll stick around, though, and let me know what you think and how you are doing and maybe share something different (and positive, please) that others might find useful.

What I hope you get out of coming here? The realization you aren’t alone, for one. Secondly, I hope my collective experience will alert you to certain pitfalls and issues that always arise during the time apart, as well as the time coming back together, and how to meet the challenges with a (mostly) positive attitude and a modicum of humor. While we all share this event, we will all have different experiences, and come out of it changed people (some more than others). We will all get something different out of it, and a good experience, I believe, is one of choice. This is just my personal journey that I’ve decided to share as a means to show the public as truthfully as I can what life is like for families left behind, and nothing more. Thanks for reading.

On to a K update: I chatted with K the other afternoon and he is doing well and where he will be for the rest of the deployment. He is happy with how things have been going thus far, but says the accommodations are lacking and they are working hard to improve living conditions. He informs me he may even write some letters so be on the lookout! K sounded good if not already tired of being away from home. Ah, such is the life of a soldier…always wanting to be somewhere he’s not.

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Anger management deployment style

First of all, I’d like to wish K a very happy 45th birthday. With luck, this time next year I’ll be making him some sort of ridiculous birthday cake like I always do. We got to sing Happy Birthday to him last night via web cam, so it wasn’t a total loss. The kids loved being able to sing on camera, and fun was had all around.

I mentioned a few days ago not having the greatest of weeks, and I was crossing my fingers it would end better, but I think I broke even by the time Friday night ended (thanks to the fun I had doing the Dave and Dave Show). Friday afternoon I had a meeting with Monkey’s team (behavior specialist, teacher, and therapy coordinator) so we could all get on the same page with where he is and what we are doing for him. I’m pretty sure somewhere on this blog I’ve said that Monkey has some developmental and speech delays which wreak havoc on academics for him (he is six but sounds like he’s around 3-4). He’s s-l-o-w-l-y making progress between all the work he does here at home, at school, and at an outside occupational/speech therapy provider. But the last few weeks have seen him backslide a bit and show off some behaviors that are really not like him. He’s not a particularly physically aggressive kid (he’s more of a lover not a fighter), but he’s started acting out his frustrations and protesting doing his work in a more physical fashion. He’s shown restraint, but the intent is there. We’ve all also had to go back to using picture schedules and breaking tasks down more so he can be successful. It’s like one step forward, two steps back. In trying to pinpoint just what could be causing this change in him, the one major event (apart from the end of Christmas which he was very very unhappy about) is K being gone.

The more we sat there talking about taking steps back to get him moving on the right road again, the more angry I became at this situation. I feel bad for Monkey already that it is so difficult for him to get through school work (and honestly, many times it’s not hard. He gets plenty of things and retains them just fine. There’s just a lack of consistency as to what he’s retaining when) and then to have him forced into a life that interferes with how far he had already come and his future progress…I wanted to hit something. His team is doing a fantastic job with him and they love him and understand what’s going on. They’ve been beyond helpful to me so that I can help him too. Seeing all our work coming undone just raises my bile to levels I didn’t know I had. But who do I aim that anger toward? Isn’t that the complicated question?

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t mad at K for deploying. I am and I’ve said as much after Monkey’s meeting. It would be one thing if we didn’t have kids, because I can handle this just fine on my own. It’s painful sometimes to see how this all affects the kids—even if they don’t show it in obvious ways every day—no matter how “normal” I try to keep our life. And I try so very hard. Generally they handle things very well. I doubt anyone would even notice a change in them if they didn’t see them daily, but the changes are there and I can see them clearly and all I can do is damage control. That makes me mad too. That there needs to be damage control. But how long can I be mad at K for doing his job? It’s what he signed up for and what he is required to do. I know this quite well. His job pays our bills and puts a roof over our head. It’s more than I’m doing right now.

So do I shift that anger over to something greater? Do I get mad at the government for sending our troops to these places? Or do I get mad at the terrorists for hating us enough to want to kill us? I can’t see what good that would do. Obviously any anger I possess will just be hanging out there with nothing to do if that’s where I take it—much like a teenager at the mall. The more I consider my anger, the more I realize that it’s not helping and having it sit out in the open will only affect the kids in a less than positive way. It is up to me to be the better example.

Oddly enough, yesterday I came across a couple of articles on cnn.com about studies done on children of the military during deployments. The most recent was about how adolescents handle deployments (here’s that study) and the other was more about families in general (and this study). The first article talked about anxiety levels in pre-teens and teens who are going through multiple deployments and how they compare to teens not going through deployments. I don’t think anyone would be surprised to know that kids of deployment have more anxiety. Seems obvious. What the article also says though is that the kids manage and adjust better when their non-deployed caretaker is doing better. I can’t say I’m surprised there either. I didn’t do such a hot job last time and it definitely made a difference in R. I learned that lesson before anyone wrote about it and that is why I’m not working in an office anymore. The less juggling on my part means more time to help the kids, and hopefully a calmer and more consistent me.

So I’m working on letting go of the anger (again/still/some more) and concentrating on helping Monkey instead. Maybe this week I’ll do a couple more kickboxing routines followed by a whole lot of yoga. Today starts a new week and I can leave last week’s disappointment behind. I’ve got a full to-do list this week and it’s time to make this new routine I’ve concocted work. My new meal plans are underway, as is my work out routine and writing schedule. I’m making better progress than I have in a long time on some freelance design work, and so far the household sniffles seem to be abating. It’s time to go break out Monkey’s moon sand, get R on the bus, feed the doggies, and get moving in the right direction because that is what I do.

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Speedbump

I can’t say I’m having a bad week, per se, but something is definitely off. Even the weather has been all over the place. It was warm enough to melt the driveway ice (finally) and our poor two-faced snowman. I enjoyed the warmer weather (and the sight of grass in January), I won’t lie. But today it’s back to below freezing and the gains I had been making this week froze as well.

My “to do” list for the week was one of the smaller one’s I’d made in recent history and I was on my way to completing it when things just sort of derailed somewhere around Tuesday night. I think my inadvertent acceleration of a design job I’m working on was the culprit along with a few nights in a row of going to bed way too late (thanks to streaming video of one of my favorite shows Wire In The Blood on Netflix), but now I’m behind with everything. The cleaning didn’t get done, the laundry has piled up, K’s birthday present didn’t get made or shipped, and the work I was doing on our reward system has come to a screeching halt. My sitter for Wednesday night had to cancel so R and I didn’t get to start our girl’s night. My friend, H, had to cancel our weekly Thursday night dinner due to illness, and a meeting I had with Monkey’s teacher and Behavior Specialist got postponed to today. Of course, today, R may be home with her turn having a cold that started with Monkey last week, so I may have to change the meeting time again if I can’t get a sitter for the hour. I’m hoping R will be feeling better and want to go to school by the time I have to leave for the meeting. If she doesn’t go to school, I’m also going to have to figure out when I can go food shopping and run errands which is what I was going to do today while they were at school. Luckily, we’ve got plenty to eat still, so it’s not like we will starve and some of the errands can be run this weekend. I just hate when the threads of my tightly woven schedule start snapping.

Now, it’s not a-typical for my weeks to get blown off-course even when K is around. That part is normal. If K were here though, I probably wouldn’t be giving a second thought to the laundry, house cleaning, food shopping, or trying to find a sitter so I can go to a meeting. I would have built-in back up and someone to share the household  chore load. So what am I doing about it besides make a slew of contingency plans? Well, I’m doing my best to stick with some of my new habits so I don’t completely fall off the wagon quite so quickly. I’m still writing every day, working out for a half an hour each morning, I’m doing extra academic work with Monkey before school, and I give myself some time to try to figure out how to improve the next day. Basically, I manage—just like every other single parent. I’m also trying to cut myself some slack, recognize where I’ve gone astray and try to correct when I can. And I look forward to the end of the day and the start of the next with more enthusiasm than I probably should. Nothing like a cleanish slate.

Probably the hardest part of all this isn’t the fact that I can’t rely on K or can’t talk to him about it (we do chat when we can, but those times are short and infrequent as you might imagine), but reminding myself to not get so wound up about snafu’s that are inevitable. Generally I can roll with it, but I can tell by the number of trips to the kitchen just how stressed these things make me even if I pretend they aren’t bothering me. It’s catching myself and altering my thinking before I undo all these new good habits that is the hard part. With all the mental acrobatics I’m doing to keep on track, my brain ought to be about 10 times larger by the deployment is over. And won’t that be a sight! I’ll look like a bobble-head. I’ll probably feel like one too. But, I’ll be a mostly stress-free bobble-head with her shit together and that’s fine by me.

It’s time to get moving and quit yapping. My vacuum awaits and the laundry won’t do itself. Here’s to the weekend and the ability to start fresh.

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Standing on Ceremony

Tonight is the official leaving ceremony for K’s unit even though they are not leaving right away. After a short discussion (because we were in agreement), K and I both decided it would be better for the kids and me not to go this time around. I have already been to one of these affairs and it was a lot of speeches—some heartfelt, some political— a fair amount of crying and trying not to cry, and a spectacular sense of dread for the coming months. The men were leaving the next day for their mobilization station and the last place I wanted to be was surrounded by people who looked as lost as I did. That night I managed to get physically ill from the pressure of it all. That hasn’t happened since, and I have no intention of it ever happening again.

One of the several reasons we decided to forgo this event (beyond too late at night and too far away) was that we both felt it would just upset R. Maybe we are wrong, but right now, she is doing well with everything and neither of us want to change that. If she were older, I might consider it so she could have the experience of going through the event, but I prefer that we stick to coming home ceremonies which are by far more joyous. Monkey could never sit for all the talking that goes on and I don’t want to chase him around telling him he needs to be quiet and that would be reason number 2 for not going. Monkey was an infant the first time around and he had to come with me, but he was so tiny and quiet and accommodating then. He kept me as focused as I could be that day. We had a small baptism at the armory after the ceremony proper because Uncle P (aka Uncle Fungus) was also deploying then and we wanted him to be Monkey’s godfather. It was a nice little non-denominational service where they used a helmet as the baptismal font. K was pleased even though neither of us is particularly religious and the Army is certainly such a large part of our lives, it seemed fitting.

I suppose there may be those who think I’m not being supportive or that I’m just shoving my head in the sand, but I don’t really care what anyone else thinks. This is one small event in the grand scheme of things and not even the most important one. I will do whatever it takes to stay sane and make sure my kids feel like their lives are, for the most part, normal. Speeches about the bravery of men, the point of their mission, and the sacrifices of family do not play into either of those goals. K knows that even though I may find parts of this Army life distasteful, I still support him in his career because he is happiest being a soldier. I would, and do, expect the same in return. As for the ostrich tricks, I know what his deployment means and don’t need a general to brief me on it. I’m good.

This deployment I’m going to change things up a bit. I’m going to pass on the mainly military moral support and stick with a mostly civilian pack. I don’t feel that I need to cling to some arbitrary requirement that the people surrounding me should understand what I’m going through. I have those people too, though, should I need a different ear, but I think most people understand what it is like to miss someone else or to feel lonely which are probably the most prominent feelings. Those are pretty universal. The only difference is that the odds of my situation becoming permanent are higher than others for about 10 months. No matter how many times or how confidently you say “when,” in relation to your soldier coming home, the voice in your head replaces it with “if” just loud enough for you to hear it. Of course anyone can have their life change in an instant, but rarely are people so aware of it the way they are when a loved one is in a war zone. That knowledge is like the constant hum of electronics in the background until the deployment ends one way or another. There are days when you can block it out with ease and there are days when that is all you can hear and you wish there was an annoying song you could be singing over and over instead.

I know that there are families who will be grateful for the send-off of their soldier and will enjoy the pomp and circumstance and the special attention the generals, politicians, and public will give them tonight. I hope they find comfort in the sentiments and strength in the words they will hear to last them for the next year. I’ll be happy to read about it in the paper and find my own strength and comfort my own way.

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What’s knocking around my noggin

I wish I could bottle whatever it was that made me so productive the last few days because it was a beautiful thing. Not only did I get several tasks accomplished and crossed off my list that normally would sit there undone for days, but I was able to think—and finish—several thoughts which is damn near unheard of around here in the land of chatty children. On Sunday, R. and I cleaned the house. I cleaned things I haven’t looked at since we moved in almost 2 years ago. Cleaning that much is not my normal routine. I do function better in a clean house so I try to keep it that way, but Sunday’s cleaning was a bit excessive even for me. I guess I needed to keep my hands busy so my brain could do its thing. I don’t think I’ve ever been more grateful for Clorox Wipes and orange cleaner.

Many things worked their way through my noggin as I scrubbed the stove and oven—some short story ideas that my never see the light of day, design ideas for a couple of jobs I’m doing—but chief among them was how to approach things here at Gainfully Deployed as we get deeper into this journey. My goals for writing this are to be honest about what goes on at home during a deployment and find the positive at the end of the day. While I have no intention of lying, I am not sure how forthcoming I want to be in a public forum like this either. Every life has its ups and downs and every relationship has one issue or another, but I think those problems are exacerbated and a whole set of new problems arise by being part of the military. It’s that part I want to get across to people who may not really understand or have even thought about it, plus I want to get past them myself with a fair amount of grace, and writing is what helps me work through problems. I think finding the balance between enlightening and TMI is going to be tricky though.  I value my privacy very much, but I also want to dissuade people of the notion that everything is right with the world again when a soldier returns home. If that were the case, I would not bother writing this blog because there would be nothing to learn.

Some days I resent this life attached to the military and other days I’m grateful for it. Nothing is purely good or evil and this is no different. I, personally, don’t enjoy living contradictions, but it seems that this time in my life is chock full of them, and reconciling everything in a positive light takes work and a whole lot of diligence. Being apart during a deployment changes everyone involved and when you come back together you have to hope that the new people you have become can at the very least peacefully co-exist with the intent to grow together in the future. I can tell you from past experience that the coming back together is the hardest part of any deployment, and I would be lying if I didn’t say it is the part that concerns me the most in all this. We still haven’t finished adjusting from K’s return from Iraq 4 years ago, and from talking to my friends from that time, I know we are not the only ones.

So why is all of this on my mind now when the deployment is just starting? K. is due home later this week and even though he’s only been gone a few weeks, there is still a mini-adjustment we have to go through on top of keeping the momentum of our new routine for when he is gone. He’ll only be home for a short time before leaving again and as much as I’m glad he gets to be with us even for a little while, I find these stops and starts difficult. If he were going to be home on leave and not have to work, or even if he were coming home and not leaving again, I might feel differently, but he’s going to be very busy with final preparations for his unit and not really available to help the way he normally would. It’s tougher on the kids than it is for me because I can control my expectations somewhat better, but these in-between times are just not normal. I know all of this leans on the negative side of things, but it’s really just background information. Putting life in context, so to speak.

Today is today though, and I’m going to enjoy the sunny, crisp, Fall day. I’m going to take Monkey to his OT session and have a chai at the cafe downstairs and relax for a change. I might work on those short stories or I might bring my colored pencils and do some drawing. When Monkey heads to school this afternoon, I’m going to focus and plow through some work that’s been on my plate for a while and then I’m going to help the kids with their homework when they get home and then I’m going to enjoy a quiet night with my dogs and sleep well. You really can’t ask for more than that.

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Doggone it

I always forget how much the weather affects me and my mood. Yesterday was chilly and rainy and I just did not want to move from the couch or my nice warm blanket. The fire and snuggly dogs didn’t help (or hurt) in keeping me right where I was either. I berated myself all day for not doing more–I picked at some chores around the house, did some cooking, and worked on a job for a little while, but my heart was definitely not in it. I should have just been happy for my warm dry house and some quiet time while I could get it and I need to remember that. Sadly the weather was just part of my general malaise. I am sure some of it had to do with K. leaving soon. No matter how prepared I am, or think I am, the idea of single parenting just makes me tired. It’s just that simple.

Luckily, I have the dogs to thank for rousing me from my doldrums… at 5:30am. Zoe’s Spidey senses alerted her to something and I was under the mistaken impression that perhaps she had eaten one too many apples and was now about to have some intestinal distress that I was not interested in cleaning up after. So, I let her out with CaseyJones in tow. As it turns out, there was a bedraggled orange tabby cat taking shelter under our back deck. And much to Zoe’s chagrin, it bested her in the race to get out from under the deck. We have many stray cats in our neighborhood due to living close to the local animal shelter where they are habitually dumped and then get free only to have no place to go. I realized what had happened and ran out to get my two hooligans back in the house and after sliding through some mud, managed to find the cat and my dogs in a Mexican stand off right near the garden. Somehow Zoe had popped off her electric fence collar which I found not too far away, and I had just enough time to clip it back on her as she let Casey take the lead while she took a quick potty break. I dragged her as far as the porch steps to get her back in the house at that point, but then she managed to sneak out of my grip and high tail it back to the party.

Needless to say, having the dogs barking at this stupid cat who had plenty of room to escape but chose to torment me and the dogs was unacceptable that early on a Sunday morning. However, I was not going to be doing any cajoling and distracting of animals barefoot in my jammies. I was infinitely grateful it wasn’t raining at least. So, I went inside, trying not to wake anyone and probably doing a piss-poor job of it and cleaned off my feet, put on a sweatshirt and my shoes, grabbed some ground beef from the fridge and headed back out. Casey, who likes to slowly assess a situation to find out whether or not the other animal will want to play fetch with him, was the easiest of the two to wrangle back into the house, so I did just that. He has experience with cats, and apart from trying to get them to play–which never works out well–he was not so involved that he couldn’t be drawn away with some meat. One down. Zoe, on the other paw, has absolutely no experience with cats and just wants to chase and wrestle them. That plan never works out well either. What was unfortunate for me, was that she refused to stop barking at the damn cat, and wouldn’t stand still and could not be bothered with burger when there was Something New and Exciting nearby. *sigh*

I tried not to get mad at her because after a couple of years doing dog training, I know this never works. Ever. And I knew that she was not going to let me get close enough again to grab her collar. I tried doing a trail of meat toward the house, but it was of no use. The cat had ensconced itself under Uncle Fungus’ (K’s brother, P., who is also deploying with K.) truck and was not leaving the safety of it. Zoe tried every angle to bark it out. I wished that P. drove something a touch smaller…like Prius that I could hop over and catch my dog. Finally K. took pity on me and came out to help. I was pretty pissed off at the dogs and myself at that point, so while his help was more than welcome, you couldn’t have told by my attitude. Between the two of us, we were able to cut off her paths to the cat and she pretty quickly ran up to the front door to be let in. Oh, she was a smiley puppy when she got in the house. Very proud of herself for shooing that cat from under the deck. Wish I was as proud of myself for my handling of the situation.

What made me most irritated was that I didn’t manage this on my own. I could have left her out there to bark at the damn cat all morning, but I really don’t want to piss off my neighbors. I wondered what I was going to do next time she did something silly and I couldn’t disengage her by myself. It was one of those irritating situations that happens before K. leaves to remind me that he’s leaving. The result is that I’ll be spending some quality time working with the dogs so that they will be a help and not a pain in my butt at 5:30 am on a Sunday. There are worse projects. I do love dog training.

After those shenanigans, I was able to pull myself together for the day and get several things done including matting the finished watercolor I had painted, assessing my financial picture for the next year, tidying the house and cleaning up the screen room, starting some organization of our barn storage, and making my plans for the upcoming week. K. packed up the rest of his things, leaving little gaps where I could usually find him throughout the house. The weather was beautiful and we opened some windows to change the air. By the end of the day I felt much better and far more in control than I had before the sun came up. Plus, I have learned that I will not be trained by the dogs. Again. It’s a good thing they are cute.

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