IBS. Not being able to eat or drink more than water, because your digestive system is being a punk.  This sucks.

Army housing, which is insulated and air conditioned (or not) depending on what the normal climate for the area is. Alaska housing was well insulated, and warm with the thermostat set to 68 even at -50F. Unfortunately, it wasn’t air conditioned, because it doesn’t get that hot there. Normally. Our first summer there? It hit 90-100 for over a month, AND it was the worst fire season in history (at that point) so we couldn’t have our windows open due to the smoke and ash density. Now we’re in WA, No AC, and we had a freak heat wave this summer, over 100 for about a month. Last winter…freak blizzard, this winter…deep freeze. We haven’t been above freezing in days. Last nights low broke a record set in 1919. I have my thermostat at 72, and it’s still cold to me in this house.

There is no normal climate anymore, so Dear Housing: Please just put max insulation and AC standard everywhere ok? Trust me, I know all about freak weather. Married in the Blizzard of 93 (Northeasterners remember that sucker), first daughter born in record setting heat in PA, second…Blizzard again. We are freak weather magnets. It sucks.

Dog Of Epic Evil. Sucks. Yes, he keeps me warm at night. From the knees down. For about 10 minutes. He’s still on the sucks list. See THIS entry if you have any doubt.

Boredom!!!! (Sucks)

This is a given, but DEPLOYMENT SUCKS!

Any day I don’t get to talk to Hunny sucks. Sometimes this is one day out of 7 that sucks, other times is 14 days straight that suck, there have even been thirty of these sucky days strung together like Christmas lights. When this first started, there were about 90 straight sucktastic days!

The Steelers. Yeah I said it!

Things that don’t Suck:

MY perfectly angelic Dog.

Teddy Bears.

Any day I DO get to talk to Hunny.

A new CSI episode.

Soldiers with Puppies.

Cute animals singing Nomnomnom

How many times a day do you hear "how are you?" and reply "I’m fine thanks, and you?".  But you’re not really fine, you’re stressed, or annoyed, or kind of sad, or all of the above in my case.  Because you know that is what the other person wants to hear.

I think I’ve mentioned it’s part of my "job" to keep my attitude positive, and put on a smile. And that sometimes, I’ll admit, I’m faking it. But why? A random stranger might believe my smile and "I’m fine" but people that KNOW me, they don’t.  Hunny will bust me in a flat second, just by seeing me on webcam from thousands of miles away. Friends and family will catch me just by how I’ve typed something in IM or twitter, even in my blog. And my Mom? Hell, I don’t even TRY to fake it with her.

When he first enlisted, and was set to go to Iraq, alot of the advice I got was to basically "Never let them see you sweat". From FRG meetings to message boards this was the theme. And I bought it for quite a while. I was still subscribed when he left last summer. Part of me still is. I refrain from whining to him, or moaning about how much this sucks alot of the time. Because he knows that. But it’s a load of crap that we should never let them know we’re sad, or lonely, or having a really crappy week. Sometimes, that can backfire right in your face. For example, you do such a good job of faking it, the poor guy thinks it’s easy for you being away from them. That is not good.

But, I found myself faking it here on my blog, on facebook, and at this point, even I don’t buy it anymore. Guess what?? Anyone that knows my husband is deployed, isn’t dumb enough to believe that I never have a bad day, week, month. That led to my post a while back about being honest in this blog and posting about the bad days. You can’t fake happy. You either are or you aren’t. Give yourself and your friends and family some credit. and remember…

It’s OK to be pissed off

It’s ok to be sad

It’s perfectly ok to be in a bad mood.

You can lie to that stranger at the store, and say I’m fine. But don’t lie to yourself. No matter what’s going on in your life. It doesn’t just apply to deployment. And to the Military world, stop encouraging us to fake it, because it doesn’t do anyone any good, and the ones we’re supposed to fake it for….they ain’t buyin it.

There’s also this one…

As if I didn’t love the man enough already! Love is a black hole, and I just keep falling deeper and deeper, and have for the 18 years we’ve been together.

The get together on Christmas eve, the visiting, the eating, the baking the cooking, the church services. All of it. This all came to me while I was struggling with rearranging the living room and pseudo-dining room, hauling the tree out of storage, setting it up, wrestling with the lights, tangling with the tinsel, and cleaning up the aftermath. Alone. My oldest hung the ornaments, and we have no tree topper. Why? Because the only person that could get that thing put up there isn’t here, and neither is the rope he uses to tie it. I have to make a trip to the store later and see if I can find one that just sits on it.

Well why don’t you go home for Christmas? That’s a logical question. The fact is, it’s extremely stressful for me to travel. I hate it. Our trip last spring left me with back spasms, my IBS flaring up beyond control the entire time we were there and for a week after we go back. Add having to Kennel both dogs, get cabs to and from the local airport, get three plane tickets, someone to keep an eye on the house and truck, not have constant access to the internet (my main communication with Hunny), and to not let the girls have Christmas at home and winter break with their friends in a time where they already have enough on their plates is just too much.  Both stress related and financially, and we’re trying to save up for Hubby’s bike and our long awaited vacation. Did I mention we’ve never had a vacation in 17 years???

But it’s not about wanting to go back to PA for Christmas, it’s just a little green monster poking his head in. Wishing we’d have our little family of four together this year. Don’t get me wrong, I wish nothing but the best of Holidays to our families back home. And I’m grateful they have each other, and I know even long distance I have them too.

And trust me, there is ALOT of each others. Man his family on both sides is HUGE it’s unbelievable! I’ve been around them for years and my jaw still drops. My family I can count almost one one hand. There are exactly six of them not counting me. And I’ll get over this eventually. And I’m in no way saying their Christmas won’t be tinged with worry for Hunny. Not at all. It’s just a touch of the Holiday Blues, tinged with a bit of green…A nice aquamarine I guess. I just want some "normal" ya know? And I know I’ll have it next year, I just have to be…what’s the word? Pa…pat…patient?

In the meantime, my tree is up, it’s decorated. I didn’t strangle myself with the lights and tinsel. And It’ll stay up until he comes in for R&R. Then he can unwrap the presents that will be waiting for him underneath it. And, help take the sucker down and put the furniture back! HA!

The girls got together and decided they wanted it for Christmas anyhow. So they got it early. With it, I purchased a Wii Fit Plus for my youngest to use to do her daily workout, the activities are fun, and give her the exercise she isn’t getting in her "We only do PE one quarter" school.  For myself I chose AE Active: More Workouts. I started it up yesterday.

In EA active you can set up a goal, a time frame, and it gives you a daily workout. I’m doing the 30 day challenge at the moment. I underestimated it completely. I did the full cycle on medium intensity yesterday. Thirty minutes, of various exercises, targeting every area. Including warm up and cool down. I was dripping sweat at the end, and I was beat. But I did it. And I didn’t wake up sore today. At least I didn’t think so. Til I did today’s scheduled workout. This time on LOW intensity, I learned my lesson yesterday. It was after that I remembered, as my thighs started shrieking at me, that my muscles NEVER hurt until a full 24 hours after working out. Ow. Ow. Ow.

But, I will keep going. I have a schedule of Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday set up. I just can’t believe a video game system can deliver a real workout. I’m impressed.

nd since my girls both like video games, I am really glad I have chosen a system that encourages moving, and most of the games they get will be chosen based on that idea.

But before I go any further, I’m going to suck it up, and post my before picture of my squishy spots. Don’t let anyone hand you the "Oh you’re skinny, you don’t have problem areas/need to work out" bullcrap. I’m 5′5 and 123 pounds. And I sure as heck have problem areas. Mostly in my midsection, that’s the biggest part of my goal, is to tone that up. But also, everything else could use some too.

So, Week 1 of Operation Get My Ass in Shape:

The before pic.  Love handles on the right, in the circled area, undefined abs in the other circle. Ignore the weird posture, it’s hard taking your own picture, so I’m leaning backwards a bit…lol

That’s huge. Our brigade has been hit, and hit hard since they arrived in country. Back to back to back missions, very little down time, too many injuries and deaths to count. I don’t mind as much as I thought that he gave a timeline for withdrawal. I understand it’s a big risk, and one I always said I didn’t support. But the government, and security forces over there NEED to realize we aren’t going to keep hanging around while that dally about getting it together. But those timelines also give me relief. That’s the part that isn’t mentioned by the detractors. That the soldiers and their families need, and DESERVE to know that we aren’t going to keep saying goodbye to our spouses every other year for an indefinite period of time.

He did a great job of reminding the world why we are in Afghanistan, and reminding them why we need to keep going and do it right. Too many people seem to have forgotten, in the shadow of Iraq. It’s almost like they had nothing left to protest with the Iraq war when it’s timeline was becoming clear, so they moved on to Afghanistan.

Now, I’m not stupid, and I’m not naive. I know even with timelines, situations change. This may not be our last deployment. I’d be crazy to think that, when he has almost 14 years left in the Army. But it gives me HOPE for the near future. That once I have him home, and in my arms again, maybe, just maybe I won’t have to let go for a while.

And even if that wasn’t part of the plan with this speech, that was the result. I said when he was elected I had no opinion, and I’d form one for myself while he was in office. So far, it’s a good one. I have never gotten tears  in my eyes during a speech either. but last night, I did. Tears of joy, and of hope.

Clothes:

For years now I’ve been burying myself under baggy hoodies. Rare is the day you see me in anything else since moving to WA in 2007. It’s always just chilly enough to make me think I need one. So the first thing I did on Black Friday was try and find tops that both were warm, but not baggy and sloppy. Wait, that wasn’t the first. The FIRST was hitting Victoria’s Secret and getting some bras, I had them fit me earlier in the week. All I can say is I wish I’d learned the Secret years ago. I’ve been running around in bras that weren’t the right size and had little to no support. I’m not big busted by any means, just your average B or C depending on the style. But I had my band size wrong. Since buying new Vickie’s bras however, Hello Bombshell is right. Well, maybe a Mortar  Shell, but still.  So shirts were the second thing.

I hit JC Penney’s Junior clearance racks and found a few cute tshirts, both short and long sleeved. And Fitted, not baggy. Then I grabbed a couple of their Early Birds, one a nice warm fitted vneck sweater, the other a long sleeved fitted shirt. Shirts were really hard to find this year, very frustrating.

Then, Jeans…My cousin, who was with me, told me Aeropastale jeans last forever. So I tried some on, and instantly loved them. Aside from the fact that I have no butt. I now have two brands of Jeans that fit perfectly, the first being Levi’s. I had great timing, Aero was having an everything 50% off sale.

All that’s left to my  "quit hiding under my clothes resolution" now are some nice shoes that aren’t sneakers, and a non bulky but warm enough for WA jacket.

This way of dressing may be high cost, but you do get what you pay for. If I don’t buy in bulk and spread my purchases throughout the year, and look for sales and specials, it should be quite manageable.

Fitness:

This is where I have been slacking off. I just keep procrastinating. However, I have found my motivation, thanks to my 14 year old daughter. She was blessed with My great grandmother’s and my mother’s weight issues. She’ll likely fight it her whole life. See our family is strange. traits skip generations of women. My Great Grammy, Mom, and daughter have the weight struggle. My Grandmother, and myself have the skinny genes, bipolar, and digestive problems. Anyhow, thanks to her school not having Gym year round, and the quality of their school lunches (burgers, pizzas, nachos, etc) she’s gained around 10 pounds since school started. So I’ve decided to make her my workout buddy. We’ll go to the gym mon/wed/fri and walk on tue/thurs. Weekends we’ll take off. This way, we’re doing something together, and it benefits us both. I’m also going to start packing her lunches, and teach her as best I can about portion control and heallthier eating, so she can still have foods she enjoys.

Ever try telling a fourteen year old girl that she needs to watch her weight, without her thinking you’re calling her fat???

Social:

This is going to be the hardest part. Getting out and trying to be social. I’ve never had an easy time making friends. It was something that was so easy as a kid and now so hard as an adult. So I’m going to start attending our FRG meetings regularly, and whatever activities they have that aren’t off post. I’ve isolated myself for so long I’m just not sure where to go from here. But I’m trying.

All that being said, Hunny left an antisocial, out of shape wife with a decent body shape buried under baggy hoodies…when he comes back I want him to see a bombshell wife, that leaves the house and can be social without being scared and awkward.

I am thankful, that even though my husband can’t be here, that I have a great marriage. One strong enough to handle this and any other deployments that come our way. Having the kind of security we have is something that only comes with time, and alot of couples aren’t as lucky as we are. They are still learning to be married (it doesn’t come with instructions) at the same time they are learning to deal with the Army, and deployment.

I’m thankful that my kids are old enough to understand everything that comes with Hunny’s job. It makes dealing with everything so much easier. They understand his job comes first, and that he can’t always be there for the concerts and plays, birthdays and first dates. And they never complain.

I’m thankful to have company this week. It makes the time pass faster.

I’m most thankful for my Husband. He’s stood by me through thick and thin. He’s always worked his ass off at any job he could find to take care of us. He joined the Army to partly give us a better life, but he also enlisted to fight for our country, because he felt it was right after we were attacked, knowing full well the sacrifices he’d be asked to make, and trusting me to be able to handle things at home. 

It’s a brave act to put that kind of faith in your spouse, while putting your life on the line at the same time. So I’m thankful he has that kind of faith in me, even if I don’t always have it in myself.

I’m thankful that next year, he’ll be here with us.

129 days down! and more scrap pages done too.

Click smaller ones to enlarge