St Patricks Day, deployment style

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

So apparently my hubby had fun on St Patricks Day. Before he left we bought this stupid hat at WalMart and he claimed he would wear it all day. I rolled my eyes but it was only $3 so I bought it for him expecting him to forget it was even in his rack or leave it at home. Yesterday I got this picture from him. Apparently he really did wear it all day Sorry for the poor quality, since his name showed and some other guys were in it i had to open it in paint brush from my work computer to edit slightly don’t want to be posting peoples pics on my blog without their permission!

Love letters

Do you write real true to goodness letters? Not emails, not cards, REAL pen to paper, pour out your heart, letters?

I actually do from time to time. My grandma has email but who doesn’t love getting a letter in the mail every now and then? So sometimes—even though my handwriting is horrible-I will sit down and send her a letter. She has never mentioned them to me directly but apparently every time she gets a letter she calls my mom and goes on and on about how much they enjoy getting letters from me. I don’t send them nearly enough but about 3-4 times a year I sit down and for no reason other than because I know they will appreciate it, I write my grandparents a letter.

But what about love letters, I have no idea how to write a proper love letter but I do love my husband very much, and I do send him letters on a regular basis.

Let me start at the beginning:

When my husband went to boot camp I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know how often he would have access to email, and I knew how many spam emails he received so I didn’t want to risk him missing my quick notes to him buried in the spam. So instead I started writing him letters. I knew he would get mail on a regular basis so I wrote him a letter every day (almost) and mailed them at least 3X per week. He said between me and a few old ladies from the church he received some sort of letter or card almost every day at mail call. These notes and letters helped keep him from getting as homesick and made the time pass a little faster.

My husband also sent me letters while he was in boot camp, and boy oh boy did I LIVE for those letters. He usually mailed them once a week(ish) and if I hadn’t received one by the time the mail man came on Thursday I was pretty antsy at work on Friday knowing there should be a letter waiting on me when I got home. There was something about seeing his handwriting that just made the separation a little easier. I carried the letters around with me in my purse and would read them over and over again.

After my husband graduated from boot camp I took all of the letters from boot camp and created three binders full of letters, notes and cards in page protectors so that in 20 years we can look back on that time and remember (or in 100 years our great-great grandkids can talk about how funny cursive handwriting looks!) One binder is letters from me to hubby, one is letters from him to me and the third is all of the other notes and cards and letters he received from friends and family. I did my best to arrange the binders in chronological order but of course not everyone dates ever card/letter so the third binder is arranged more by person than time line.

Now my husband is gone on his first deployment. We are lucky because his job gives him constant access to internet (as long as they aren’t in River City) and therefore we can send and receive emails throughout the day. However there is still something special about a written letter, so I have once again started the practice of writing a letter every day. I hope that they mean as much to him as they do to me and he keeps them again so that I can add them to the collection. I’m also anxious to see if he sends me real letters again, I hope so because I did love them so much during boot camp.

But the question still stands…How does one write a proper love letter? In my head I envision myself writing flowery prose about how my heart flutters at the sound of his name like something from Jane Austen, in practice I when I reread my letters they sound more like a note passed across a kindergarten classroom, do you like me check yes or no. In reality I am sure I fall somewhere in the middle…so how about you? Do you write love letters to your significant other? Any tips on how I can make my letters something that would make Jane Austen proud and a Nora Roberts blush without being embarrassing? I promise to share any secrets I come up with over the next XX months while hubby is gone.

It has begun

Hubby is gone...I have set some goals for myself for deployment since we have no idea how long he will be gone, well some idea--though if the rumors are true he is scheduled to be home roughly 10 months sooner than he will be, I don't put much weight in the rumors though.
I took some awesome pics of his ship pulling out, I will post them soon, once I have time to recover from everything and work up the nerve to look at them all.
So here are my deployment goals, what do you think--are they realistic?
Stop biting my nails
Reach a healthy body fat %
Do 100 sit ups (at once)
Do 5 push ups (at once)
Define Abs
Run a 5k
Read the Old Testament
Read "A Tale of Two Cities"
Finish my MBA
Pass at least 2 parts of the CPA exam
Pick a career path
Finish my wedding scrapbook
Help Hubby's sister sort through all of the crap we have to get rid of
Visit friends/Family
Finish unpacking & decorating the house
Plant a garden
Become a vegetarian for 1 month

Some of these are on my 30 before 30, some aren't what do you think? Doable?

Weary Worker

As I type this I am sitting at my desk at work, part of me is simply refusing to work—the other part, doesn’t want to.  Don’t get me wrong, I like my job and I for the most part like what I do, but lately it just hasn’t felt right. 

Deployment is looming in the very near future, in fact my husband should have left already but due to some weather issues and other things their pull-out date has changed, which I am happy to say gives us a few more days together but at the same time completely throws a wrench in my weekend plans of sleeping, doing homework and spending money J  oh well, guess I will have to catch up on two of those three things (the homework is kind of non-negotiable as it is due before he will leave) when he does actually leave. 

How are these two things related?   Well as deployment kept creeping closer and closer I started loosing more and more motivation at work.  My performance is fine, I am getting things done but I also am not doing anything extra.  The 800 special projects on my to-do list on January 1 are now 803 because I just keep adding to them not making time to get any actually done.  My willingness to offer my help when I have a little extra time is completely gone.  I just don’t want to be here.  I can only assume that I don’t want to be here because I want to be at home either snuggled in bed with my hubby or hiding from the world in my blanket fort waiting on deployment to swoop in and turn my life upside down. 

I’m nervous, I’m stressed, these are normal feelings and nothing I am going through is strange—but it is strange to me.  I don’t normally shut down when I get stressed, instead I get amped up, run off the adrenaline and get not only my have-to finish stuff done but also accomplish tons more from running on the adrenaline.  This time, there is no adrenaline…there is only … I don’t know what it is but I’m sure some of you can relate.

I’m not depressed, but I’m a little sad

I’m not scared, but I’m a little anxious

I’m not nervous, but I’m a little hesitant

I don’t want hubby to leave, but I’m excited that he gets to go

I am a walking basket case of contradictions and I think these contradictions have made me a little apathetic at work.  Hopefully once hubby leaves and I get the hang of life without him once again (I was totally in a groove 3 weeks ago when he was underway, why didn’t they just stay gone???) I will get back to normal.  But for now at least I guess I’ll keep being a bit of a stick in the mud.

And here’s hoping my employer doesn’t check my search history on my phone…because I’ve totally looked up new-careers from my personal smart phone 27 million times in the past week…at least I’m smart enough not to use my work computer! J