The Military Spouse

She is a woman who never plans anything, rolls with punches well, smiles excessively, has a rough exterior and a loving center. Someone who can take an idea and run with it, and also be ok when it falls apart due to a midnight phone call. Someone who loves people, but is perfectly fine on their own. Usually managing life together from multiple countries, and likes a pet to keep them company, this is of course before being a single mother half the year (if she has kids). Its a tough job, and they do not get nearly enough thanks, so this is my thanks to all the other military spouses who hopefully keep their sanity much better than I.

I have a tendancy to lose it. Sometimes I cry randomly, yell over nothing, or sleep all day lacking the motivation to get out of bed. But you should thank Greggles, for he puts up with all of it with minimal complaining and usually a smile on his face. Oh I love my wonderful husband for loving me and being so understanding. Its not the easiest thing in the world moving 1300 miles away from Mommy and Daddy. I would say friends, but there are very few left there that I even care to keep in touch with, so mostly its the family aspect. But you know what, it makes us a stronger couple. When I have a problem, I talk to Greg. He cheers me up, buys me a bigmac, and life goes on. It truly can be a perfectly wonderful life.

Lately I've been focusing on school and keeping the house clean. You'd think it'd be easy only being the two of us. I blame the cats. They must tear through here every night because for some reason it never stays picked up. I quit my job. Yup. I haven't told anyone but the people that I work with, but it was making me unbelievably miserable and I could not stand it. Right now I'm going to finish my semester and start another one. If I get this one done by Nov 1st, I will possibly try and find another job. It depends though. I only have so many hours a day with Greg so many days out of the year, and I hate not being able to spend that time together when he is actually here in Abilene. I know people will say "wow must be nice to be able to stay home." All it is, is budgeting. And I am a master budgeter. Even without my pathetic income, we should have 3 credit cards paid off by January. BEFORE he even deploys again. Which means for the next deployment there will be lots of money going into savings, and money going towards our car. Once the car is paid off... well then we'll basically owe nothing aside from student loans. And lets face it, student loans will always be there. Hopefully not but I think we're a few more deployments away from paying those off.

So thanks for everyone who taught me about the "Snowball effect" of paying off debt. You have helped us trememdously. We also just got a gym membership. One nice and close to home, where its mostly women, not meatheads. A place I actually like going, and I may even start to enjoy working out. Who knows. This is in an effort to carry out the goals we've set for ourselves recently. Mine is to read at least one chapter a day, drink 6 glasses of water a day, and do yoga 6 days a week. Gregs are to study for a half hour every day (either loadmaster stuff or for staff sergeant) to go to the gym 6 days a week, and to eat breakfast every morning. For everyday I complete my goals, I get a star, he gets a stick giraffe. 10 *s = A big mac! Talk about motivation. I cant have any until I get 10 stars, so you can garuntee that every 10 days I want my big mac. :)

Thats about all thats going on right now. Lots of love to all the family we're missing!

Like Someone Took a Brush and Painted Their Hearts

The wedding was more beautiful than I could have ever hoped it could be. The ceremony was simple and heartfelt, and everyone did a wonderful job. The reception was fun, easy, and dancing together for the first real time was a feeling I cant even begin to describe. I loved every minute of that day.

Being home was nice, but its nice to get back to Texas as well. Time to look for a new place to live, finish up some schoolwork and get ready for the next deployment. I know there will be lots of challanges in life, but I also know we'll be just fine. I'm super excited for all thats to come~