Baby update

No, not mine. Baby as in tiny. I'm currently nannying for a few families, which involves often juggling 2 three-month olds while they cry and judging their needs. It's a little nuts, but it's something.

More later. Ciao.

15 minutes

I shouldn't leave for the airport for another 15 minutes or I'll just get there and pace and then have to pay for parking, but that's how close he is. After a year of separation, a year of skyping and gchat and facebook messages that cut off midsentence, after a year of buying a house, moving to a new city, a year of triumphs and heartbreak and loneliness and growth, he'll be back.

I thought the last two weeks should be a constant cotton candy cloud of elation but they've been far more complex than I expected- joy, excitement, anxiety that we will have changed significantly, nervousness that he won't like the house, a million billion buzzing worries from not remembering how to cook for two to him suddenly being disappointed that my career hasn't taken off in his absence ..  and yet tonight I'm just excited. Thrilled. Overjoyed. Ready for the clutching in my chest to be released. Ready to cede half the bed, half the closet space, half the bathroom counter. So very ready to be together. Which means I've packed tissues to spare.

Two more minutes.... ok, I'll go pace.

Scratchy New Year

Good riddance. Yesterday pretty much my entire family was hit with a rough bout of what appears to have been food poisoning. Today was better but most of us were still weak and wobbly, though sadly my sister and her family had to travel home yesterday and my brother had to get on a plane today. I mostly laid in bed pathetically trying to reserve strength for the nearly decade-long tradition of high school friends' party, the reason I book my Christmas flights to extend through the new year.

Ewwww hives- even my ear is swollen!

Well, after a day of resting up, planning how to skype the hubs in from Kuwait (he's en route home for real!!) and watching the snow pour down all day and hoping it wouldn't prevent driving.... I woke up from my "nap" at 2 am scratching newly erupted hives to a phoneful of "where are you?" messages.

2012, I am done with you. Although I learned some valuable lessons about independence and the like, I feel like tonight was an appropriate cap to a rough year.

I'll definitely keep these lessons and remember what this year has done to shape me and all that, but I'm ready to be done with it. Hubs returns in less than a week, and I'm optimistic for what may be ahead.

Waiting and watching

pickle photo from cooksbooksblog.com

I was sad to discover that I wasn't the first to think of "procrastineater," because it dawned on me that's exactly what happens when productivity wanes. Because of course a rice cake and a pickle were crucial to finishing this job application...  

Urban Dictionary- procrastineating: Avoiding being productive by consuming food even when one is not hungry.

In other news, job news is a revolving door of not quite yet, but maybe again for the summer.

In much better news: the journeyman returns to the US in 17 days!!! He has all the mandatory debriefing in Georgia, but we should be reunited in roughly three weeks. Very, very, ready for this.

Phone Fun vol. II

This is what a pretty typical Skype attempt looks like when you're talking to a servicemember in Afghanistan. I don't think we've yet had an uninterrupted conversation- the wind blows, it rains, one of our computers panic or hubs' neighbors all start Skyping or doing whatever causes the internet to crash. This particular conversation even started on another text chat site and went on for several more connections and disconnections- something like 13 mini-calls in all, and probably 30 minutes of actual conversation over the hour and a half of calling, dropping, waiting, calling again.

But in about a month, I'll just have to get used to having one conversation in person without interruptions. So ready.


Vocab of the day: 
Military: T&C= tracking and communication

Work soothes the soul

I'm in the middle of a brilliantly satisfying and beyond exhaustive (90+ hours/week) summer job working to help train new teachers. It's fantastic. Nothing like hard, meaningful work to keep the focus clear. Not to mention that in California, it seems that the sun always shines and the temperature is perfect. LOVE IT.

The one thing I could use less of is what seems to be a constant stream of "surprise homecoming videos" and jubilant, rambling daily posts on Facebook about each way you enjoy having your deployed spouse back. Listen friends, some of us are still waiting. I am really very very happy for you. And I will be happy for me when I'm there, but please consider your audience... like the folks who supported you when your person was far away.

Now back to the work- see what I mean? It's great to not be able to dwell.=) Hugs and happy from California!

Countdown: 187

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day.

Freedom to Serve, Freedom to Marry

I want to take a break from my reflections on my personal military spousehood for today and highlight something far more important: those who are denied the right to be full partners to their military spouses due to their gender. From my very limited experience, I've seen what a challenge it is merely to be a male spouse of a female soldier. Anything that doesn't fit the "army wife" mold takes extra work, and when I think of the barriers same-sex partners face to being a welcome, active part of the military community I worry about what "freedom" it is we fight for.

The campaign Freedom to Serve, Freedom to Marry offers this heart-wrenching look at what can STILL happen to same-gendered partners of military members:

I don't know a single military spouse who finds it easy to cope with the challenges of having a partner in the military, and that is from those who do have access to the benefits of being a recognized military family member. Although the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy that required secrecy of gay service members, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) still bars same-gendered military families from the sliver of access that make being a spouse workable.

Without health care, the access military IDs bring, support from morale and welfare programs, surviving spouse benefits and other benefits denied by DOMA, these spouses suffer unfairly even after we've taken the huge step forward of removing DADT. Regardless of anyone's personal beliefs around what constitutes marriage, I can't think of a single reason that legally married couples should be able to fight and die for their country but not have the right to be treated as family. For decades the military has created structures to support spouses and children precisely because they know how crucial family input is to whether a soldier, sailor or airman continues their work in the military or moves on. Then why ostracize the partners of good service members due to their gender?

The Servicemember Legal Defense Network has more information here: http://www.sldn.org/ if you'd like to help.

Vocab of the day: 
Military: FSC = Family Support Center

Acronym overload

This- totally normal.

Email Inbox:  "Have you signed up for DHSS Connect?"

Opening this email tells me this means something about notifications for Defense Health Services System. I assume this has something to do with military health care (which I know as Tricare), but although the two page email explains in depth that the included link will let me sign up for DHSS notifications I never really find out what DHSS or notifications are, or what they mean to me. I follow the link and find this:

Not only this, but there are two more pages of mysterious letters and checkboxes following this one.

C'mon guys. How are we supposed to sign up for anything without knowing what the heck it is? I can google all day but googling "ESSENCE" or "TOL" will probably not get me the answer I want. Sigh.



Vocab of the day: 
Military: SSDD= Same "stuff," different day (From Military Acronym slang)

MacGyver to the rescue

I'm throwing a housewarming party in 4 days. YIKES! Good incentive to get everything up and functioning... but I may not sleep much this week.

So what do you do when you find an awesome living room set at Goodwill for $50 and have an appointment in an hour? Not to mention, when you drive a sedan-style car and have neither blankets nor bungees but only disintegrating jumper cables with you? MacGyver to the rescue. That was probably the least safe 10 miles I've ever driven- the coffee table and end table in the car blocked all the mirrors and the end table in the trunk bounced perilously with each bump. But I got them back and in the house myself with no major damage to anyone or anything. Yay!

New phrase: deployment annoyment. If it's not trademarked, I call it.

Vocab of the day: 
Military: AAA = Assign Alternate Area
PNW: "tourists and transplants"= as can be identified by their use of umbrellas, while natives ignore the drizzle