Day 85 - Monday - Bleergh!

Well, things have been sort of mundane here lately - without much to say, I haven't wanted to bore y'all with the hum drum that I call life!! LOL! We are at 85 days in - Al is having a hard time with the long days lately. I am cheerleading him on - but please pray for him. He never gets 'down' very often - and I know that it's getting to him. It's getting to me too - but I am in the happy land of denial - ha! I refuse to let myself get low again - there's no point to it - it does neither one of us any good -- I used to be on drama team in high school - and I got the Senior Acting award - so, even when I don't feel like it - I am going to "act happy" --- it hurts too much to be any other way, kwim?

Let's see - let me fill you in on my big exciting weekend!! Em and I took a three hour nap on Friday afternoon (shhh, don't tell!) - I worked my part time job on Saturday and Em went to her dad's house - then I came home and went to bed at 1800 -- I had a really long week at work - and a couple of nights during the week where I got less than three hours of sleep - so I was burned out by the weekend.

I was very bad and skipped church on Sunday to do housecleaning before Emelia came home. Things are much better now. It had all snowballed - and I can't stand to be disorganized. I said extra prayers last night - I know this week will be hard though because church helps me so much - it's like spiritual Xanax :o) God rocks!

Okay, I have a fun game! My National Guard board started a fun post called, "You Know You're a Military Wife/Girlfriend/Fiancée Of a Deployed Soldier When . . ." - so, I thought that I would post my own realizations of when I knew that I was full throttle into this military thing!

1. When I realized that I had enough spare MRE's at my house to feed myself and most of my neighbors for a month in the event of a national disaster!!
2. When I began to look forward to getting woken up in the dead of night just for short "Hey Baby!"
3. When my car developed into a "Pridemobile" - and I started to envy other people's magnetic support ribbons!
4. When shaving became optional!! LOL!
5. When I started to dread the words "How long has be been gone" - and even worse, "When is he coming home?"
6. When my best friends in the whole world started to become other military wives on Army message boards that I had never met "in real life" - simply because they understood what I was going through!!
7. When a two sentence email from Al will make me grin from ear to ear.
8. When the word "convoy" became a dirty word - almost as bad as "outside the wire".
9. When the American flag became a major focal point for my home's interior decorating!!
10. When I started to openly bawl whenever I heard the National Anthem because I had personally experienced the sacrifice that the words were originally written for.
11. When I realized that I had several military acronym websites saved into my Internet favorites just so I could understand what the heck Al was talking about!
12. When I started cuddling with clothes that Al left behind simply because they smelled like him (in a good way :o)!
13. When I started to get violently upset over such a small thing as a missed phone call.
14. When my dining room became a miniature post office/shipping station.
15. When I developed the uncanny ability to be able to fit just about anything into a USPS flat rate priority mail box.
16. When I realized that I couldn't go shopping anymore without looking for something neat for Al's care packages.
17. When I got a special notebook just for writing down care package ideas and stuff to remember to tell Al.
18. When I realized that I automatically know what time it is in Iraq without having to do the math anymore.
19. When civilians started to look stupid to me.
20. When I started reciting trite phrases to myself, "No news is good news", "God never gives us more than we can handle", "Just one day closer to him", "a year isn't forever".
21. When I started attending Family Readiness Group meetings - it's AA for people with deployed soldiers - lol!
22. When I realized that I would rather be at home by myself than around a bunch of people who don't understand what this feels like.
23. When I started to miss his smelly underarms, dirty clothes, unbrushed teeth and farting.
24. When I started shopping for a really good Arabic/English lexicon.
25. When life became measured in "now" - and "when he comes home".
26. When putting the phone next to my bed became part of my nightly routine.
27. When emailing Al every night also became part of my nightly routine.
28. When reading my email from Al became part of my morning routine.
29. When Al calling at lunch became part of my work routine (see a pattern here, lol!).
30. When I realized that I could give a crap less if I wore make up again - who do I have to impress?
31. When I started glaring at guys who flirt with me when I am out. I am NOT cheating on my man, thank you very much!
32. When I realized that I would sacrifice almost anything in my life except Emelia to get to see Al for even a day.
33. When I started going up to random strangers wearing a military uniform and thanking them (and then crying) for their service to our country.
34. When I started doing the same thing in parking lots to retirees who have military license plates!
35. When Beyonce's song "Soldier" ticked me off because she was comparing street "gangstas" to my patriotic man - grrrrr!
36. When I was willing to go out in the cold and the rain last Friday just to get Al the right watch batteries for his watch so I could mail them the next day.
37. When a two hour phone call was the very best thing to happen to me all month.
38. When I learned computer programming (more than I already knew) so I could add on all the cool extras to this blog - countdown calendar - clocks - weather - our blog has "bling"!!
39. When "Milblogs" became one of the first places that I go everyday on the Internet.
40. When I started saving his voicemails just so I could listen to them over and over.
41. When I got sad when I thought of all the times that I was able to just pick up the phone and call him when he was stateside.
42. When I got used to things always being up in the air - and when I could fully appreciate that oxymoron known as "military planning".
43. When I started watching the Army movies that he has me order him off of Netflix just so I could marinate in the military way of doing things.
44. When I started re-reading his old letters just because.
45. When I started memorizing the names of the guys that he is with in Iraq and referring to them by rank.
46. When I made this blog.
47. When someone "dissing" the military will make every hair on my head stand up on end!
48. When the word "Hooah" became part of my daily vocabulary.
49. When I realized that I have come up with almost 50 ways of how deployment has taken over my life!!

Have a happy week everyone!! I have new pics to post tomorrow!