Memorial Weekend

I think it was just last week when I said that my weight loss hasn't really slowed down...  I may have to eat my words (I wonder how many calories those have??)!  I weighed in at 135.8 on Sunday, for a loss of 0.4 pounds.  At least I'm consistent--0.4 pounds two weeks in a row.  That's not even a pound in two weeks--so yeah, I'd say that I'm slowing down a bit.  I don't really know what to attribute this deceleration to, since I stuck to my regular healthy eating plan last week and got in all my exercise classes.  I even had a rough, rough night on Friday night with a terrible migraine that caused me to lose my dinner (and maybe some lunch, too)...I thought surely that would have resulted in a few pounds of loss, but no such luck.  It was one of the worst migraines I've ever had--I started getting migraines about 10 years ago, but over the last year, they have gotten worse than ever before...and each one seems worst than the last.  Thankfully, I only get 3 or 4 migraines in a year, but those 3 or 4 are miserable.  Urgh--let me just put out there how unpleasant that whole experience was.  Anyway, at least I'm out of the 136 number--hopefully for good!

This Memorial Day weekend, when our neighbors were out having a blast camping, cooking out, and enjoying themselves, I was here at the house holding two long yard sales on Saturday and Sunday morning.  I'm not a morning person generally, so yard sales require a lot of commitment from me--getting up early and setting up to be ready by 8am is not really my idea of fun.  I managed to sell a lot of things that have been cluttering up our garage, so that was good--although I still have a lot more work to do in the garage, and even more to sell.  I'm still happy with the progress, so even though it wasn't the most-fun long weekend we've ever had, at least it was productive.

Sunday's sale

The last few Memorial Days have been a struggle for my emotions.  I remember being a kid and enjoying the extra day off school, the neighborhood pools opening for the summer, and having water balloon fights in the front yard--and my dad having a big cookout on the back deck.  Even though I grew up in a military family, I don't think I fully understood what Memorial Day was--the blessing of not having been exposed to the kind of losses honored on Memorial Day.  My dad deployed often and fought in the first Desert Storm, but that was a thankfully short-lived conflict and the 6-month deployments were not to places of much danger.  I was fortunate to have been sheltered from the pain of losing someone to war, but now as a military spouse in a time where war is the norm (and so weirdly, my children have never been alive when the US was not at war), being sheltered is not an option.  The meaning of Memorial Day hit home for me the moment I learned that Dan would be deploying to Iraq for the first time in 2003--when the possibility of losing someone I loved so much became a daily reality.  I waited weeks for letters, months for a phone call--never knowing if one day those letters and phone calls would stop.  I planned our wedding while Dan was still in Iraq, with the fear of having to call vendors and explain that there would no longer be a wedding because my fiance was not coming home.  Dan's company commander was killed during that tour, in a mortar attack that hit the base where Dan was living--while Dan was running to seek shelter amid exploding mortar rounds, he dropped his helmet, which rolled away from him...he backtracked to pick it up when a mortar hit just a few feet in front of him--exactly where Dan would have been had his helmet not fallen from his grasp.  We often talk about the guardian angels who must have been looking out for both of us that day--and my heart breaks when I think of the phone call Dan's company commander's fiancee received, and the cancelling of wedding vendors (not to mention all the hopes and dreams she had for their life together) that she had to endure.  Dan had gotten internet access just a few weeks prior to that attack, and when I didn't hear from him for a few days (once he got internet, I was spoiled with almost daily emails), I googled everything I could about the region where he was--and learned of the attack via small blurb buried deep in a news article late one night.  I came down the stairs at my parents' house, feeling absolutely stricken--I just had a feeling that something had gone terribly wrong.  I told my mom that I thought Dan was dead, that I feared the worst, and we cried.  I've never been so relieved to receive an email in my life when I finally heard from him two days later.

one of my very most favorite pictures of Dan and me--we were 16 years old, and he came to support me at a track meet.  The look on my face is so classic, and Dan wearing his hat backwards is so ridiculously improbable!  I just can't help smiling whenever I see this picture.  :)

Memorial Day does mark the unofficial beginning of summer, and it is a fun long weekend with family and friends.  It's also a day that reminds me of how fortunate I've been as I've lived this military life, and reminds me that so many other families are not fortunate.  They don't get the emails from their loved ones to alleviate their fears--they don't get the joyful, tearful homecomings at the end of a long, lonely deployment.  Memorial Day is about honoring the sacrifices of those who give their lives and their families (who give their lives in a different way), and feeling so grateful for everything I still have--my husband, the father of my children, and my best friend right here next to me.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

My dear friend Brynne and I have been friends since we were 4 years old, living on the same military base in California.  Her dad got a job in Maryland after a few years in California, and after a number of moves, my family ended up in Virginia for my dad's final job in the Navy when I was 12 years old.  Brynne and I were so excited to be "near" each other again--a few hours' drive is nothing when you're part of a military family and your friends are flung all over the world!  Brynne's family brought her to my parents' house for week-long sleepovers in the summertime, I danced to country music at her parents' house (Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw were big!)--I even drove to Maryland to see Brynne perform in her high school's staging of Li'l Abner.  We met in Baltimore to see the national tour of Les Miserables (kicking off my love of Les Mis and musical theater in general).  We went on a double date sophomore year of high school to Kings Dominion amusement park in Richmond, VA.  Although we did see each other often in those early years of being in neighboring states, we had our own lives and went through long periods where we weren't in touch.  Imagine my surprise my junior year of high school when I checked in for my event at a track meet (the 200m--ugh...) only to see Brynne competing against me in the same event--we had no idea each other would be there, nor that we both ran sprints!  Ha ha.  She beat me handily (the 100 was about as long as I ever wanted to run), and we spent the rest of the meet on my school's bus, away from the noise, catching up on our lives.  She went to college in North Carolina, I stayed in Virginia--we weren't really in touch for those years, although we reconnected when Dan and I got engaged and I knew she had to be in my wedding--that's the kind of friendship we have.  Two years later, I was honored to be in her wedding.  She came all the way to Ohio for my baby shower when I was pregnant with Abby, and she was one of the first visitors we had at the hospital when Jake was born.  She was a lifeline for me when Dan was deployed in 2010 and I lived at my parents' house--she drove an hour each way with her own two kids to hang out with me when Alex was a newborn and I was a mess.  I feel so fortunate for her lifelong friendship, and for the fact that we only live about an hour away from each other at this time in our lives.  It's pretty amazing to see our kids playing together--it's like Jill and Brynne, Part II when Abby and Brynne's daughter get together.  :)  Brynne is a strong, amazing, beautiful, fun girl with the best laugh on the planet--I'm so glad she lived across the street from me 28 years ago so that we could be in each other's lives.

Brynne and me in kindergarten--gymnastics in the talent show!

With her daughter and Abby in school now, our days are not as flexible as they once were--Brynne and I don't get too see each other too much during the school year, other than to celebrate the kids' birthdays.  We have been making an effort to get out every few months, just the two of us--we met for dinner and a movie last fall, we went out for lunch a few months ago, and then Brynne made an awesome suggestion:  Why not take a whole day away from our husbands and kids and go to Kings Dominion like when we were 15 years old?  We coordinated our calendars and came up with a day that worked for both our families--this past Sunday!  I am a huge amusement park fan, but I was a bit nervous--I hadn't been on adult roller coasters since Dan and I went to one for my 24th birthday in Denver...  I was also nervous about leaving Dan to handle a whole day by himself with the kids--I know that sounds kind of silly, because why would that be an issue?  Well, believe it or not, Dan has not had an entire day (wake up to bedtime) by himself with our kids since we started having kids seven years ago.  Not kidding.  That seems crazy to me, but the only other time I've been gone for a day or more was when I went to Boston to visit Kerry in 2011, and Dan took the kids to his parents' house for that trip--so he had a lot of help in my absence!  I've been gone from the kids a few times, but Dan is usually with me...so this was going to be the first time he would be on his own.  I left him with a pep talk, a few scrawled notes for the day, a refrigerator filled with leftovers to heat up for dinner, and hoped for the best!

I got up early and headed out to meet Brynne as the kids were having their breakfast Sunday morning--I purposefully didn't do anything to help with the morning craziness, other than lift Alex out of his crib when I said goodbye, because I wanted Dan to experience the whole day on his own.  :)  It was my day off!  I had a great drive down to where we were meeting, and then I hopped in Brynne's car for the rest of the drive down to Kings Dominion.  We got to the park around 10:30am, and it was cool and overcast--much better than a hot day, but we were both glad we had worn layers.  Here we are looking fresh and excited upon arrival at the park:

Brynne's smile is contagious!

I was looking forward to the coasters, but mostly, I was just giddy about spending the day with my friend, getting to talk about anything and everything...and not having to deal with any kids all day!  I think we were both a little shocked by our lack of stuff--Brynne carried a small backpack for our few things (keys, phones, glasses, tissues for me and my crazy allergies), but I didn't have anything at all...and it was weird!  I'm so used to having a bag with kid-stuff in it, and at least one kid holding my hand at all times--it felt surreal to have that kind of freedom for an entire day.  It was pretty great, I'm not gonna lie.  :)  We spent a lot of time talking about our kiddos, of course, and we missed them terribly, but I firmly believe that getting away for a day makes us better mothers--just because we have kids doesn't mean we shouldn't carve out some time for ourselves to refresh...even though that is hard!

It was the perfect day at the park--it didn't rain at all, the weather was pleasant (I kept my light jacket on all day), and most importantly, there were NO LINES for any of the rides!  We rode every roller coaster in the park before 1pm--some of them more than once!  It was a trip down memory lane for me--I had season tickets to Kings Dominion every summer I was in high school, and I had been there so many times...including one important time with Dan shortly before he moved to New York prior to our senior year of high school (we bought cotton candy and shaved ice and I sang "Seasons of Love" from Rent to him as we sat on one of the stone walls--it was a memorable moment as we prepared for our 525,600 minutes apart...oh, the drama of high school love!).  It was also a reminder of how old I am--a lot of the rides have changed theme or disappeared completely since I was last there.  The Days of Thunder car race ride no longer exists, because that movie probably wasn't worthy of a ride devoted to it in the first place!  The Hurler wooden coaster used to be themed around Wayne's World, with a Stan Nikita's Diner replica right next to it, and Bohemian Rhapsody blasted over the speakers while you waited in line--I still remember Garth telling me that the ride was designed "to test the integrity of straps and snaps" on the pre-ride TV reel (and that right there tells you how many times I've been to KD!).  Now The Hurler has a 50's doo-wop theme--no trace of Wayne's World anywhere, and Brynne and I were too chicken to ask the high schoolers working the ride when it had changed theme...we were worried they would not even know what Wayne's World was!  I also didn't tolerate the coasters as well as I used to--I definitely felt queasy after each one, and it took my stomach some time to settle back down.  That part was rough--I love coasters, and I didn't love feeling like I was going to puke!  I think my congestion was making it worse, but still...I'm getting old.  It also put something else in perspective for me--all the times when my brother, sister, and I dragged my parents to amusement parks and forced either my mom or dad to ride a ride with the odd man out of our 3-kid family...my poor parents!  That thought gave me flashes of my future, riding with one of our kids 10 years from now--when the rides do more than make me queasy...ugh.  I appreciated my parents more than ever after those thoughts occurred to me!

getting ready to ride The Intimidator 305--yes, that's the drop!

After our whirlwind of all the coasters, we stopped for lunch--I was shocked to see that Kings Dominion now offers real food, not just standard park crap food (although that's still there, too, if you're nostalgic for greasy hot dogs).  We were able to get lunch at Subway right there in the park--some of my concerns about my calorie intake for the day were alleviated once we saw the Subway!  Brynne did get a bag of Doritos, though, and those things are totally my weakness--I ate a few, and even though we both agreed that they didn't taste as great as we remembered, we polished off that bag together!  We opted to see a show after lunch (so that we didn't lose our lunches on more coasters!), and there was a country song show ending nearby.  We sat down, watched the end of that show, and then watched the karaoke show that came afterward.  Now, you need to know that Brynne and I have a long history of singing together--we used to sit next to each other on the bus to kindergarten and first grade, and our bus driver would hand us the mic for the whole bus, and we would entertain all the other passengers with our vocal stylings (not sure how we didn't have more enemies!).  We also sang together in the school talent show in first grade--although I use the word "sang" loosely, not because we weren't good singers, but because Brynne got the giggles and laughed through our entire a capella rendition of "Tomorrow" from Annie.  Her famous, contagious giggle...the entire audience was in stitches, I was totally mortified, and we almost knocked each other off the stage trying to elbow each other back to seriousness.  I think we were probably the highlight of the whole talent show, although not for the reasons we wanted to be!  When we went to Kings Dominion in high school together, we recorded ourselves singing "That's What Friends are For" in the singing booth there--and we fully intended to record an updated version on Sunday.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find a singing booth--maybe those things are gone now that youtube and webcams are ready to record every embarrassing thing you do?  But there was that karaoke show...hmmm.

Brynne tried to convince me to get up and do a song myself, but I told her there was no way I was singing on stage without her!  She thought it would be terribly embarrassing, but I pointed out that we didn't know anyone at the park, would never see them again, and we could even go by fake names if she felt more comfortable doing that!  Ha ha.  We walked over to the song board after the show and were trying to see if there was a song we could do together when the guy with the sign-up clipboard came by.  I asked if we could do a duet, and he said sure...so Sarah and Jenny signed up for the 6pm show!  For the record, I was Jenny.  :)  It was 3pm at that point, so we walked around the park, got some Rita's Frozen Custard (yum!! and so much for my calorie count!), rode a few coasters again, and then headed back over to the stage.  We got cotton candy to amp us up on sugar before our big debut, and then it was time to go on.  We sang first out of 3 other singers for that show--we did "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" (duh).  Sadly, we got no audio or video of the performance, and I honestly couldn't even hear us singing because the music was so loud and the speakers were facing out to the audience...but we had a great time singing, dancing, and acting like total dorks.  :)  I even told the audience about our 1st grade talent show debacle, and how this was a much-needed chance to redeem ourselves.  Brynne didn't laugh this time--although I almost did when we introduced ourselves as Sarah and Jenny!  It was really stupid fun, and I think it's the only time in my life when I haven't had stage fright.  Seriously, no one knew us--who cares if we made fools of ourselves!

driving the antique cars on the wooded path

We ended our day with a final ride on a few of our favorite coasters (The Grizzly is our old school wooden favorite, and the Intimidator 305 rocked our socks off--wow, that thing was fast!), and then we got dinner and sat at an outside table, talking until the park closed at 8pm.  Yep, we closed down the park!  The whole day flew by so fast--we talked the whole drive back to my car, and then sat in her car talking for at least another hour...we probably could have done two days at the park and still had more to discuss!

Brynne has always been an inspiration for me--she has such a positive outlook on life and just a great attitude, and her friendship makes me a better person.  I'm so thankful that we were able to take this day out together--it was a blast, it went by way too fast, and we're already scheming our next escape!  :)  Thanks for such a fantastic idea, a fabulous day, and a priceless friendship, Brynne!  :)

The Waiting Game

When we moved to our current location, Dan was just coming back from his most recent deployment.  We were looking for an assignment that would be family-friendly (or as family-friendly as you can get in the military...), so that Dan could reconnect with the kids and not have crazy hours like he did at our last assignment before the deployment.  His current job has delivered just that--a slower pace, work that Dan loves, no possibility of deployment, and a flexible schedule that allows him to come home at a decent time.  I've gotten so spoiled, because Dan will help me out by taking Abby to the bus a morning or two every week, and he gets her from the bus in the afternoon most days so that we can have some family time and eat dinner at a decent hour together.  With these evening exercise classes, I have really been able to count on Dan being home so that I could have that time for myself to get in shape.  We also have our extended families close enough to spend good quality time with them right now, and we've tried to make the most of this assignment.  We moved here almost 2 years ago for a 2-year assignment, knowing that if Dan got picked up for his promotion (which he did), we would be moving this summer.  I've had bittersweet feelings about the move--bitter because I really hate the process of moving (I have yet to meet anyone who loves it), and because this next move is only for a 1-year assignment...ugh.  Moving twice in 2 years is not at all my idea of fun.  We'll be moving farther from our extended family--not far enough to deter visits (hopefully!), but more time in the car for the trips.  The sweet part is that the 1-year assignment is in my favorite place in the whole world--Charlottesville, VA.  It's where I went to college, where I lived for a few years after college, and where I would have stayed for the rest of my life if I hadn't married into the military.  Even one year there is better than 3 years anywhere else, in my opinion!  I've been really looking forward to our year there--thinking about where we would live, reconnecting with good friends there, and exposing our children to the most beautiful place (and their future alma mater!).  Dan will be in school during our year there, so the hours will be very family friendly again, and I know we will create awesome memories.  It'll be like law school lite--pseudo-civilian life in a college town...and this time, it just happens to be my most favorite college town!

so true...all the stress of a military move falls on the spouse!

That's been the plan for the past two years--assuming Dan is on the promotion list, we move to Charlottesville in the summer of 2013 (i.e., three months from right now!).  Dan and I began the argument over where to live in Charlottesville probably a year ago--there is no military housing there, since there's no military installation in the area, so we'll be living on the economy.  My obvious preference is to live near downtown and the University, because when I think about living there, I envision taking the kids for walks on the Lawn and being close to everything (including my favorite bagel place, Bodo's Bagels).  Dan wants to live about 30 minutes outside of town, in a subdivision that has a Starbucks, pools, and lots of other military families going through the same schooling with Dan.  I see the appeal of his preference, but I just haven't been able to adjust my vision so far away from where my heart wants to be...in the heart of things!

While waiting anxiously for the promotion list to come out and set our move plans in motion, Dan came home from work one day late last year and totally threw me for a loop.  He had received an email at work that day--a random announcement of job postings that gets blasted out to everyone in the service, and I guess he was having a slow day, because he read through all the postings.  One caught his eye--a position with a lot of prestige for which he felt he could possibly be qualified and which piqued his interest, and it would keep us in our current location for one more year.  For the record, I'm totally used to Dan setting his sights on goals out in left field--and normally, I can bring him back down to earth with some reality checks...like when he was still in law school and he informed me that when he was done with that, he really wanted to go back to school and become an architect.  Um, so many issues with that idea (even though architecture is cool!)--his military commitment, his chosen path of lawyer being cemented by law school attendance, and the fact that I was not suffering through law school just to turn around and support him yet again through another school when he already had a perfectly marketable degree.  So yeah, sometimes he has job-related ADD, and I kind of thought his enthusiasm for this random job posting he had just discovered that morning was another symptom of that ADD--something we would laugh about later, but not seriously consider.  I felt that way for about five seconds, until my dear husband informed me that he had started the application process for that prestigious position.  What?  I wasn't sure how he could learn about a job, put out feelers to see if it was even something his bosses would support, get the go-ahead from those higher ups, and contact the personnel people to "throw his name in the hat" for consideration in the span of something like five hours--five hours during which he did not contact me once to see how I would feel about the whole idea.  Maybe that's a sign of his complete trust in my support for him and his career ambitions...or maybe it's a sign that he didn't even think about how this turn of events would affect me and our family.  I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and go with that first one...even though I have a suspicion it was more the latter.  Hmmm...  Granted, I wouldn't have stopped him from applying for the job, but I would have at least appreciated a conversation before we were thrown into this new possibility.

Fast forward 3 months, his application is complete for that position, and his name comes out on the promotion list.  The get-the-ball-rolling event for our move to Charlottesville had happened, and our ball was firmly stuck--while other families on the promotion list snatched up the desirable Charlottesville rentals, we were still waiting to hear whether Dan was selected for the position that would keep us here another year.  Did I mention that we were supposed to be moving in 3 months?  My stress level was starting to go through the roof--I'm a planner, and I had no idea what to plan for.  The kids' gymnastics center questioned me about our plans for their summer session, and I couldn't commit...because we might be moving.  People asked if I was looking into putting Jake in preschool, and I couldn't even research preschool options...because I didn't know where we would be living next school year.  Our garage is a total disaster of things I need to sell before we move...but were we moving?  The kids pestered me incessantly about the move--they wanted to know why something for which we had spent two years mentally prepping was now up in the air (I wondered the same thing, too, kids).  Dan was selected for the interview phase of the new job, which was a good sign...but with so few slots and so many candidates, it was still a long shot that he would get the position.  The interviews came and went, as did the deadline on which we were supposed to learn our fate, and I thought I would lose my mind with all the waiting and waiting--I just wanted to know what we were doing, one way or another.  Dan had off on Thursday and Friday of last week to spend some family time with us during Abby's spring break, but he had to go into the office on Friday to take care of some business--he went during naptime, and my phone buzzed with a text shortly after he got to his office and checked his email:

"I'm in!!  no packing yet!"

He got the job.  No moving van in three months.  One more year here.  I'm relieved to know what we are doing, and so proud of my husband for knocking it out of the park, aiming high, and achieving his goals.  I'm also extremely nervous--the new job starts in just a few months, and it will be a total change of pace for our family.  Gone are the family-friendly hours, the 5-minute commute, the help at the bus stop...and Dan's ability to get home in time for my exercise classes.  I'm going to be on my own a lot more in managing our kids, and while that's something I'm used to and can handle, I've been spoiled the last two years with him working just down the street, and I know the adjustment is going to be hard.  We also have to shell out a decent chunk of change because the attire for this position is not his military uniform--the only suit Dan owns is one he bought for our honeymoon, and it no longer fits him.  Oh, and I don't iron...  So many feelings bubbling over--I'm excited for Dan, happy to not be prepping for a move and to be staying close to family, but overwhelmed with the changes and the worry over what this new path means for our future.  At the very least, I can bank on our move to Charlottesville next summer--unless my husband gets an email with job openings...kidding...I think?

Our First Home

I do have a life outside the Challenge, but balance is hard to find for me right now!  Paying such close attention to what I eat and also adding quality exercise to my days takes a lot of effort and time, so I'm working to make sure I don't neglect everything else in my life on this quest to become healthier.  As I become more familiar with what's good for me, it shouldn't take up so much time, so I'm just plugging along until I reach that point.  It's hard to make time for my husband, and it's really hard to keep up with this house when I have a lot going on--fortunately, the kids all seem to finally be feeling much better and life is getting a little more back to normal around here.

just for laughs today!

 
Aside from the Challenge the last two weeks, I've been crazy busy dealing with some interesting developments with the house we own in Ohio--we still own our very first home purchased together in 2005.  Dan went to law school in Ohio, and being a military family, we felt like buying a home there was the right move for us--there was no military housing since we weren't near any military installations, and we were guaranteed to be in one place for three years (a long time for us!).  We bought our first home, an adorable 3-bedroom house full of character that was built in 1920, and had our first baby while we lived there--it was a wonderful existence for those three years.  It was hard to leave when Dan graduated in 2008, and even harder to sell the house--I was very emotional about the idea of letting go of the house we had loved so much and in which we started our family.  Despite late nights up painting the bathroom and touching up trim, we endured months of showings that never resulted in an offer, and ended up having to put the house up for rent.  We've been fortunate to have good renters in the house since then (in that they have taken good care of the house and haven't trashed it!), but the period between renters has been rough--before our current renters moved in, the house sat empty for 5 months.  Even with renters in the house, we don't entirely cover our mortgage, so we lose money every month--and we pay a property management company since we don't live in Ohio to manage the day-to-day issues at the house.  It's not a money pit, per se, but it is a big part of our financial considerations every month.

Our current renters just let us know that they will be moving out of our house in early March--we had really been hoping that they would buy the house from us, since they had expressed interest and really treated the house as their own, but it wasn't meant to be.  The bright spot is that a friend of theirs may be interested in buying the house--he's a single guy and a first-time homebuyer, and we are thrilled at the prospect of being able to sell without having to put the house on the market (and all the expenses that come with hiring a realtor, sprucing the place up, and repairs needed after years of rental tenants).  I've spent the last 2 weeks on countless phone calls to our bank, realtors in Ohio, and real estate attorneys, as well as emailing our hopeful buyer and Googling "how to sell a house by owner" so that we can figure out the best way to move forward should this potential sale come to fruition--it's been a full-time job some days, on top of everything else I have going on!  As it stands right now, we are just waiting--the buyer is still looking at other properties and hasn't made up his mind, so we wait until he does.  While I'm hoping that we are able to sell the house (we'll still take a loss on the sale after considering all the closing costs, but at least it won't be a monthly budget consideration and we won't have the unexpected expenses that come with home ownership...especially with an older home), I'm a little sad that we may be closing that chapter of our lives.  I love that old house and all our cherished memories it holds, and I love the excuse to go back to Ohio--we have such great friends there, and checking on the house is a convenient rationale for our repeated trips back there!

our very first home, where Abby was born

As part of a military family my whole life, I'm used to saying goodbyes--a lot.  I've never really gotten attached to homes that I moved in and out of as a kid--some I liked more than others, but I guess as a child, I wasn't as invested in the houses themselves and was more up for the adventure of a new place.  As an adult who specifically picked that little house to call our own, it's a lot harder for me to separate my emotions.  I think I will handle it better than I would have in 2008, now that I have years of distance between when we last lived there and have a harder time conjuring up the spaces as they looked when we were there, but it will still be sad to let it go.  There is something special about the house, and there always will be in my heart.  We will get through this next goodbye if that's where life takes us this time, and we will build new memories where we are now, and wherever we head next--as good military families always do.  :)

Challenge #1

One of my main reasons for starting The Good Housewife Project involves my relationship with my husband.  We have known each other for 17 years, and we've definitely had our ups and downs over all those years.  The last few years have been particularly rough on our relationship--I was really unhappy in Texas three years ago, and that unhappiness spilled over into everything for me.  I tried to make the best of a less-than-ideal situation (I didn't know anyone/have many friends in TX, I was really far away from all our friends and family, the weather was disgustingly hot, and we lived in a really crappy town), but I wasn't a great sport about it all the time...  Dan was very stressed in his job in Texas, and it was a really demanding job, so that also took a toll on our couple time and family time.  It felt like Dan and I were at odds a lot, and then I got pregnant unexpectedly and he left for Iraq...  The deployment actually helped us mend some of those frayed edges--we were forced to communicate (via email and via Skype) instead of just go through the motions side by side.  The deployment also contributed to other frays--being apart for a year while raising children is very stressful.  Since Dan got back 1.5 years ago, we've been working hard on our relationship--we've availed ourselves of as many tools to strengthen our marriage as I can think of, and I still feel like we aren't on the same page a lot of the time...and that's hard for both of us.

with my handsome husband on his 30th birthday in 2010

Dan is my husband, and we love each other--always, period.  He and I are a family, and I chose him because he is my best friend and my partner in life.  I still choose him.  Marriage can be wonderful (and our marriage has been), but it's not a cake walk--Dan and I try our best to keep our heads together when things aren't quite clicking...like right now.

So I started The Good Housewife Project--for me, so that I can channel some of my frustration into something fun and positive for myself, but also for us.  I have high hopes that this Project will help my relationship with Dan--by helping me change my point of view, and by giving me something to focus on besides all the daily pressures.

This week, I'm giving myself a Good Housewife Challenge:  spend the next 7 days being the best wife that I can be for Dan.  I want to embody the newlywed mentality this week, when everything was fresh and easy and light.  Be happy and greet him with a smile when he comes home instead of waving distractedly from the floor while I'm changing a diaper.  Be supportive, listen, and knock off the sarcasm (the #1 hardest thing for me to do...it's ingrained in my personality!).  The house is my domain, so I know I get bossy with him...I'm going to try to back off on the bossiness as well.  I want to just generally make more of an effort--put more of my energy into my relationship with my husband.  I'm hoping that my 7 days of concerted effort will forge the way for a more-permanent shift--something we really need to help us find our way back to wonderful.  :)

Suggested reading for this Challenge--ha ha!

A Case of the Mondays

Mondays are my absolute least favorite day.  There's the usual back-to-the-grind funk that settles over the house when Dan has to go back to work and Abby has to go back to school, but my Mondays are so much uglier than that.  Our weekends seem to pass by in a blur, and I never can quite remember what we spent 2 days doing...other than whatever it was, it did not involve my usual chores at the house.  I barely keep up with the clutter, mess, stink, dirt, and junk during the week--all hope is lost on the weekends.  We usually spend one day with my in-laws every weekend--Dan's parents live about an hour from us, and while we love seeing them and having the kids spend time with their grandparents, that one day does a number on the house and our collective psyches (mostly mine).  Maybe other people are way better at packing up for a day than I am, but for me, it usually involves throwing clean laundry out of laundry baskets onto the floor, digging through the pile for spare underwear, pants, and shirts for the kids, rummaging through the pantry and fridge for whatever snacks and drinks I need to take with us, and packing about 8.6 bags of various sizes full of all the stuff we travel with for the day...all while screaming at the kids to cooperate and at Dan to help in any way that doesn't involve reading the paper at the table while chaos breaks out around him.  So yeah, after that one day at my in-laws' (usually Sunday), it looks like a hurricane hit my house.  Welcome to the scene of destruction come Monday morning:

This photo doesn't do the mess justice because you can't see into the kitchen!

Not only do I have to uncover the house from the storm of the weekend every Monday, I also have to resume my normal day-to-day stuff...and I'm already way behind.  Today, the "normal stuff" includes tackling laundry--I had to strip the boys' bed sheets because they are both getting over some form of illness and could probably benefit from germ-free sheets, and one of them had an unfortunate diaper leak on their sheets last night...so the laundry was a first-thing kind of emergency project.  After stripping the sheets and getting that load started, I discovered that most of the laundry hampers in the house were full...I'm never quite sure how that happened, since as you could see, I haven't yet finished putting away the laundry I just did.  I'm certain I just finished the laundry--how could there be more already?

Here's the kicker to my Mondays, though--Abby has a short day at school every Monday.  Her classes let out at 1:30pm, and she gets off the bus close to 2pm.  Why is this a big deal?  Because both of my boys still take naps.  Every afternoon, from about 1pm to 4pm, those boys are snoozing.  So on Monday afternoons, I have to magically be in two places at the same time--home with my sweet sleeping boys, and at the bus stop picking up my big girl.  The bus stop is at the top of my street--it takes about 4 minutes to walk up there, and I can still see my front door from the bus stop...but it's too far for the monitor in the boys' rooms to still receive a signal, and too far for me to feel comfortable (or legal) leaving my kids unattended.  Abby is only 6 years old, so the bus driver isn't allowed to let her walk home by herself--if no one is there to get here at the bus stop, Abby must get back on the bus and be driven back to school until I can come pick her up.  Thankfully, that has never happened (my fellow bus stop parents have pity on me if I'm not there in time and someone has always vouched for her off the bus)...yet.  My neighbor will usually watch the boys' on the monitor for me (I have a video monitor) while I run up to the bus stop, but I still feel a constant source of anxiety about the Monday afternoon juggling act.  Sometimes my neighbor has things to do and isn't home at 2pm...what then?  I have had to run up to the bus stop before with no one watching the monitor, but I just really, really don't like to do that.  So I get anxious about how it's all going to work out as soon as I get up Monday morning.  I hate Mondays.

the ballerina with her welcoming committee  :)

In addition to this early-out day of school, Abby also has dance class at 4pm on Mondays.  This means that while trying to uncover the house from the weekend, catch back up on my day-to-day chores, and work out the bus stop run, I also have to manage to feed the boys lunch about 30 minutes earlier than every other weekday, so that they can get down for naps at an earlier time and therefore wake up at an earlier time...so that we can all pile in the car and get Abby to dance class by 4pm.  Her class is literally 4 minutes from our house by car, so it's not a really big deal, but I'm always the totally disheveled Mom dragging two reluctant boys in their pjs across the parking lot at the dance place while trying to put her daughter's hair in a bun...five minutes after the class has started.  Ugh.  The boys are still in their pjs, by the way, because Jake refuses to sleep in anything other than pjs (including at naptime), and I never seem to have enough time to get them back in their regular clothes in the mad rush out the door.  It's just kind of a miracle that I'm not still in pjs in the parking lot.  Abby's class is an hour long, but there's no real waiting area for siblings to wait during the class--her class is in an office building on the military installation, not in a dance studio.  There's a waiting area down the hall (meant for people waiting to be called back for appointments in the offices), but it doesn't have a door--and if you've met my boys, you know that a room without a door does nothing to deter them from running, screaming, into the offices of people working nearby...so it's not really an option for us to wait there.  When the weather is nice, I take the boys to a nearby playground and let them burn off some energy for 45 minutes--something we all enjoy.  When the weather isn't nice (like today), I let the boys watch a DVD in the car for 45 minutes--something I don't enjoy at all.  It's all over at 5pm, when I drag the boys across the parking lot again to collect our beautiful ballerina and head home...where I then have to figure out dinner and explain the still-disastrous state of the house to my husband when he gets home from work.  Between the bus stop run and the dance class prep, I lose my naptime quiet in the house to get anything done...so it's going to have to wait until Tuesday...when Jake has gymnastics and I'm not home to get anything done.  Maybe Wednesday, then?

Meet the Housewife

My name is Jill, and I'm 32 years old.  I'm short, about 30 pounds overweight (thanks, kids...ha ha!), and I have blondish hair that never does what I want it to do.  I have a degree in psychology from the University of Virginia (one of my most favorite places in the world!), and I previously worked as an intern at a national non-profit, at a small environmental consulting firm, at Hewlett-Packard, and at Hallmark.  :)  My full-time job now is staying at home with my three outstanding kiddos--Abby, Jake, and Alex.  I'm married to Dan, a military JAG officer (aka, military lawyer), and we are working together to build a really great life.  Sounds like I've got it all together, right?

I read a lot of blogs about folks who knock my socks off with their crafts, their togetherness, their energy, their ability to get everything done and still have time for baking cookies...this will not be one of those blogs!  I strongly dislike crafting, I don't like to shop (especially for clothes!), I don't do much baking (pies are my forte/only thing I can bake, weirdly), I don't enjoy cooking in the slightest, I love to go out to eat (this goes along well with not cooking), I don't go to church, I'm liberal, and I'm kind of a mess on a daily basis.  :)

My husband tells me that I have an unfortunate habit of providing ridiculous amounts of detail when asked a simple question, like when I attempt to write an "About Me" blog.  :)  I just wrote a very detailed chronicle for this blog entry about my first 32 years of life, then deleted it and decided that bullets are the best way to go...trust me, I would have bored you to sleep (and may still...even with bullets!): 

• I grew up in a military family as the youngest of three kids, and my mom was the best stay-at-home mom who ever existed (still is!).
• I wanted to be a famous singer when I was little (okay, even now...but at least now, I don't harbor illusions that I'll be randomly discovered on the street and rocketed to stardom like I hoped I would be when I was 7 years old). 

Yep, I dressed up as Debbie Gibson in 4th grade...totally wanted to be her!

• I went to the University of Virginia, where I majored in psychology and wanted to focus my career after college on substance abuse issues.  I spent a lot of time volunteering with Mothers Against Drunk Driving after my brother was hit by a drunk driver when I was 15 years old--and I also worked at MADD's National office while I was in college.
• I met Dan, the guy who would eventually become my husband, when we were 15 years old in the same sophomore gym and English classes--we dated off and on for years (mostly off!), but have been best friends since day one.
• After college graduation, I got jobs that paid bills...not ones that utilized my passion and degree.  I figured there would be time for that later?
• Dan and I were married in July 2004, on one of the happiest days I've ever had--he had just returned from a year-long deployment in Iraq, and our wedding felt like a fairy tale come true for me after all the stops and starts our relationship endured, and after the really scary year of his deployment.  We spent our first year of married life in Colorado, where Dan was stationed at the time.

Our wedding day

• Our first child, a daughter we named Abby, was born in 2006, while Dan was in law school in Ohio.  I always wanted to be a mom, and am fortunate to have been able to stay at home since Abby was born--she's now 6 years old and an amazing little girl in first grade.  I discovered with her birth that being a mom is a lot more isolating than I ever would have imagined, especially with a hard-studying husband in law school, so I joined a moms' group and really found my niche as a parent...until we moved after Dan graduated in 2008.

We are parents!

• Our second child, a son we named Jake, was born in 2009--sweetest, most chill baby ever, which totally lulled us into a false sense of security because he is now the wildest, orneriest 3-year-old with the biggest heart...his saving grace that helps us forgive him for all his craziness!  We lived in Texas for 1.5 years, and even though I really didn't like it there (okay, that's an understatement--I hated it there), those sweet days with my happy baby and my super helpful big girl were really great ones.  We lived in Texas until Dan deployed for the second time to Iraq.

Our family of four

• During Dan's 2nd deployment, I gave birth to our 3rd child, a son we named Alex...one of the most difficult experiences of my life.  Alex was a surprise (only 17 months after Jake), and knowing that Dan was going to be deployed for the last three months of what was probably my last pregnancy, Alex's birth, and most of his first year of life broke my heart and threw me into a pretty dark place.  I moved to Virginia and lived at my parents' house with the kids for the duration of the deployment, which was a tremendous help--I couldn't have made it through that year without them.  Alex was also The Worst Baby in History--absolutely adorable, but constantly screaming!  Even my mother, the best mom and grandma ever, was totally at her wits end with that baby.  Thankfully, he has mostly outgrown the screaming, and is a very sweet, still adorable 2-year-old.

Family of Five, together on Daddy's R&R from Iraq

• The deployment was hard on everyone--watching our kids miss their Daddy was the worst feeling for me, even worse than feeling so lonely myself.  Dan missed out on a lot of bonding with our sons (Jake was only 14 months old when he deployed, and Dan didn't even meet Alex in person until Alex was 4 months old...and then didn't live with us full time again until Alex was almost 1), and Abby was old enough to really hurt over his absence.  Maintaining a marriage via Skype while living at my parents' house with a screaming, exhausting newborn was also quite difficult--Dan and I did the best we could, but it was just plain hard.  He came home after a year with no kids and no family responsibilities to a life with three needy kids and an equally needy wife...the adjustment for all of us was monumental (and still ongoing, 1.5 years after his return).
• We were very fortunate to get stationed in Virginia near both our families after Dan's deployment, in a job that won't deploy Dan and that has very family-friendly hours...hard to come by in the military.  That's where we are today, living on the military installation five minutes from Dan's office.

It's not lost on me that this was supposed to be an "About Me" post, and I eventually fell into describing life events and my kids...my role as a mom is my most cherished role, and clearly it defines me and makes it hard for me to distinguish who I am apart from my husband and kids and our family.  I had goals and dreams before embarking on this military life, and yes, one of those dreams was to be a stay-at-home mom...so I'm living my dream!  It just doesn't always feel that way when I find myself at a loss to describe who I am as a person, what I like to do in my non-existent free time (of which I will have tons more and need to find ways to fill it once all the kids are in school full-time in 3 short years...), and what I want for me out of my life.  I could rattle on and on about what I want for my husband and my kids, but it's much harder when I try to think about what I want for me--the dilemma of most moms, I think.  So my current existential crisis that spurred my creation of The Good Housewife Project is hardly unique to me, nor is it catastrophic...it's just where I am right now in what has been an extraordinarily blessed life.