What is a MILITARY Wife?  They may look different and each is wonderfully unique, but this they have in common:

-Lots of moving

-Moving some more

-Moving even more

-Moving far from her hometown

-Often moving two cars, three kids and one dog—-all riding with HER of course

-Moving sofas to basements because they won’t go in THIS house

-Moving curtains that won’t fit

-Moving jobs and certifications and professional development hours

-Moving away from friends, moving toward new friends

-Moving her most important luggage; her trunk full of memories

-Often waiting-Waiting, waiting, waiting for housing; waiting for orders; waiting
for deployment; waiting for reunion; waiting for the precious 5 or 10 minute phone call; waiting for that 3 sentence email; waiting for the new curtains to arrive; waiting for him to come home for dinner—-AGAIN!

-They call her ‘military dependent,’ but she knows better

-She can balance a checkbook

-Handle the yard work

-Fix a noisy or overflowing toilet

-She is intimately familiar with drywall, anchors, and toggle bolts

-She can file the taxes, sell a house, buy a car, or set up a move, and all with one Power of Attorney

-She welcomes neighbors that don’t welcome her

-Reinvents her career with every PCS; locates a house in the desert, the arctic, or the deep south and learns to call them all ‘home’

-She MAKES them all home

-She is fiercely IN-dependent

-Military wives are somewhat hasty

-They leap into decorating, leadership, volunteering, career alternatives, churches and friendships

-They don’t have 15 years to get to know people, often just two or three

-Their roots are short but flexible

-They plant annuals for themselves and perennials for those who come after them

-Military wives quickly learn to value each other

-They connect over coffee, rely on the spouse-network, accept offers of friendship and favors and record addresses in pencil

-Military wives have a common bond

-The military wife has a husband unlike other husbands his commitment is unique.
-He doesn’t have a job, he has a ‘mission’ he can’t just decide to quit he’s on-call for his country 24/7 but for you, he’s the most unreliable guy in town!

-His language is foreign
TDY, PCS, OPR, LDO, PSD, ACC, BDU, TAD, EDO

-A military wife is a translator for her family and his.
-She is the long-distance link to keep them informed the glue that holds them together

Military Wife has her moments—-

-She wants to wring his neck, dye his uniform pink, and refuse to move to Siberia, but she pulls herself together.

-Give her a few days, a travel brochure, a long hot bath, a pledge to the flag, and a wedding picture. And she goes. She packs. She moves. She follows.
Why? What for? How come? You may think it is because she has lost her mind. But actually it is because she has lost her heart. It was stolen from her by a man, a man who puts duty first and country first, longs to deploy, who salutes the flag, and whose boots in the doorway remind her that as long as he is her Military Husband, and she will remain his Military Wife.

Today, we went to the commissary like we do on every Sunday.  Only today, it was different.  We went to eat at Popeye’s, which we almost never do. The food there is SO greasy.  But we had a different meal.  Then, we went shopping for groceries.

It took us 2 hours to do!  So, then, we headed home.  And it took us 2 hours to get home–and we have a GPS.  Yes, we’ve lived in this house long enough to know how to get home without the GPS, but there was something going on, on our street and it was completely shut down in all routes coming back to our house except for one and it took us all afternoon to find our way home!  It was unbelievable.

Rob is outside cleaning the inside of the car and there are big, angry storm clouds on the horizon.  I have to finish up cleaning this house, which shouldn’t be too much trouble.  The living room still needs to be finished and a few boxes still need to go upstairs for storage.  Laundry still needs to get finished, but thankfully, there are only 4 or 5 loads left to do.  My washer is so small that I can only do a half a load at a time.  It’s a bit annoying.  Not to mention the fact that it takes over an hour to do one load.  If I used hot or warm water at all to wash clothes, it would take about 3 hours to do a load.  I just don’t have that kind of time, if you know what I mean!

It’s getting there, slowly, but surely.  Tomorrow is most certainly going to be a busy day for me!  ACK!

My poor hubby, he’s been so tolerant with me.  I’ve been a bit moody all day long and he’s handled me surprisingly well today.  I can barely tolerate me right now, I don’t know how he does it!

Well, that’s all I got for now.  I think he wants to go to the little restaurant at the top of the hill for dinner tonight, but I don’t know since it’s already 8:30.  Seems kinda late to go out to eat, especially since we both have to get up incredibly early tomorrow morning.  No rest for the weary, right?

Today has been utterly exhausting, all in preparation to having houseguests.

It started out as any typical Saturday starts.  We got out of bed and immediately checked our email.  Then, we headed out to check the mail.

We ended up getting a brand new set of table clothes, silverware, towels, bed, chest of drawers, desk and chair for “Chateau Farrell”.  It was quite the adventure getting a moving van so that we could get our new treasures home, but we were able to do it with minimal problems, albeit trying to find the place that was still open AND had a moving van available.

It was hard work getting the furniture upstairs, but we were able to do it.

Anyway, it’s time for bed.  More later.