Officially Out of Denial…

It started a few days ago – maybe last week. I can’t be sure now. Husband said something about how soon he would be leaving. Well, it hit me like a lightening bolt. I KNEW this deployment was coming up fast, but I guess my mind hadn’t put it in days until just recently.

Now, it’s just about time. I cannot begin to express how much I’m dreading this.

One of husband’s friends will come pick him up the morning he leaves. On his first trip to the desert, daughter was a baby and we took him to the hangar to say our good-byes. It was very hard to watch all these smiling wives, while I was doing everything I could to hold back the tears. And you know how well that works. Not sure about you all, but it seems like the harder I try not to cry, the more I need to cry. I sobbed the entire way home, which thankfully wasn’t very far.

This last trip to Iraq from 2003 to 2004, husband had a buddy pick him up. After our first experience with deployment good-byes, we both knew we didn’t enjoy saying our good-byes in public. So, this time we’ll once again say our good-byes in the privacy of our own home, where I can sob like a fool for as long as I want to after he leaves.

I can remember being the new Mommy, the not so experienced Army wife and fairly young to boot and thinking, surely this good-bye thing will get easier through the years. It can’t possibly be this hard and scary EVERY time. Goodness, was I ever wrong. Instead, we both agree that it gets harder and harder. You have more years behind you, more memories, more time together, you’re closer emotionally…it all combines to make the good-byes harder each and every time.

So, I’m officially out of denial. I know this because I came home from dropping off the babies at school this morning and had that all too familiar feeling when getting out of the car. That feeling of not wanting to go inside where the life we’ve built together is everywhere, not wanting to be in our home without him here, not wanting to be a single mom… All the usual things I feel those first few weeks after he leaves, only he hasn’t left yet.

Before I could pour my coffee, the tears began. After all these years, the fact that I cry before and after he leaves no longer embarrasses me. It’s just the way I handle it. Some folks don’t cry – some do. I’ve learned there is no “right” way to handle deployments, only what works best for each person.

I’ll give myself a good week or so to cry whenever I get the urge. After that, it’s time to get busy…start a new project on our old house, learn something new, find a new hobby. Anything that will get me moving forward and out of the pity party for one mindset. It usually works – and hopefully it will this time too. My only problem is finding that thing to do…the project, the hobby or whatever it is I decide on. Guess I need to paint the kitchen cabinets, but gosh I don’t wanna .

Reality has set in though and it made for a crappy day. The tears continued off and on all day. I needed to go to the commissary and instead, I stayed home and cried whenever I got the urge. The hard part was picking up the babies from school. I’d done good this afternoon until I got in the car. The harder I tried not to cry, the more the tears streamed. So, just as I did two years ago when daughter went to this school, I sat in the car outside the school as long as I could trying to get the tears to stop. Then, I wore my sunglasses into the lobby to wait for son to make his way down the hall. The entire time hoping none of the other parents noticed the red faced, all stuffed up Mom. Sheesh.

I sure wish I was able to turn off the tears at will, but apparently I just don’t work that way. Yep, out of denial…

My Books Arrived…

Husband and I ordered several books last weekend. He ordered two on flipping houses. A business he and a buddy are considering starting when they get back from Iraq and retire. Husband is excellent with numbers and budgets and his buddy is a genius when it comes to fixing up houses. They’d be a good match for sure. We’re talking about me looking into getting a real estate license while they are gone and we’ll have another base covered.

I ordered Boortz’s The Fair Tax Book and The Blog of War by Matthew Currier Burden.

Figure I’ll start them both next week. Election season is coming up. Find out who supports the Fair Tax and then find out if they also share your politics. If so, then, vote for ‘em.

Purse-Analysis

Sue over at Suzy Snapper tagged me the other day. I’ve been slow on my blog rounds and missed the tag unfortunately. So, without further delay, here are the contents of my purse. Yep, about as unexciting as I am .

I will say that I have a problem when it comes to purses and shoes…although I can’t stand to shop in general, I LOVE shoes and purses. I really enjoy looking for something new and different. I can spend a good hour browsing through the shoe department and the purse section of stores even if I don’t find anything I really like or that is on sale .

The purse itself – it’s one I’ve had for awhile. I’d just switched back to this one last week from a new purse I bought a few months ago. We had a pre-deployment ceremony last week and this purse matched what I was wearing.

Inside, there’s a side pocket. All its contents are pretty much in the middle of the purse handle on the table. Four or five things of lip-gloss and two pens. The business cards and my military ID also live in the side pocket. The ID I just had updated a few weeks ago. Husband was promoted almost two years ago and I finally went to get it updated. Honestly, I wouldn’t have gone then, but the darn thing was set to expire before he’d get back from this deployment, so it was easier to go take care of it while he was on leave.

Lets see, there’s a receipt from Lowes next to the checkbook. My wallet that has my drivers license, credit cards, video store rental card and more business cards. The bulk of stuff in there I think are receipts from last Christmas that I keep meaning to put in the filing cabinet. Nothing like a bit of procrastination huh? There’s a roll of film I need to get developed that has the babies first day of school on it and lastly, Big Red gum.

Like I said, nothing too exciting…

Maybe Homefront Six and CaliValleyGirl will share what’s in their purses . I’m sure their purses will be more interesting than mine.

The New Car

I mentioned that husband and I had been looking at cars. I had my heart set on the new Jeep Unlimited. After sitting in one though, I knew there was no way I could own one with my health issues. It’d bounce me too much. The Explorer was a pretty smooth ride, but even in it, the 35 minute drive to post gets to me. Long trips…well, there’s no vehicle that can make that easy. The Jeep would have killed me there was no doubt.

The Explorer’s warranty had ran and with husband deploying, the last thing I needed was a vehicle that I couldn’t depend on. The transmission had been repaired three times, but thankfully it all was prior to the warranty running. The entire instrument panel had to be replaced after the gas gauge crapped out. Two windows – both had to have the power window motors replaced. All this before it even had 30,000 miles on it. As you can see, it didn’t have a good track record. As that odometer crept over 40,000, we couldn’t help but worry what would go next on it and how much it would cost us.

The problem was, I’d done a lot of research on the Jeep and hadn’t seen anything else that I was remotely interested in that was also in my price range. Husband was on leave, so it was the perfect time to look. One afternoon after we picked up the babies from school, husband said we should ride up to the dealership here in town again and look around. We’d purchased the Explorer from them and husband’s Mustang. They’ve always been more than fair on trade-in values and coming off prices of their vehicles to work us a good deal.

We get there and find out that Ford is offering 0% interest. And, I don’t care who you are, you just can’t beat that lol. The problem was, I’m not a fan of the Escape and the only Explorer they had sported this horrible baby-poop brown interior.

Several months back, they’d gotten in this red Mustang GT that was just gorgeous. With husband having the regular Mustang and both of us loving the new, old take on this classic, when we saw the red one, we had stopped in to drool.

So, husband says I should test drive the red GT. I say no. If I drive it I’ll want it and there’s no point in that. We already have one…he says no, we don’t have a GT. I say we have two dogs, he says we board them, so it’s not like they take trips with us. I say when we move…he says he’s retiring when he gets back and we’re not moving. I say…and he says, just drive the damn thing!

And I did…

And here she is, sitting outside my house.

And yes, I’m now officially in my mid-life crisis

The Five a.m. Phone Call

September 11th, 2001 started off like any other day. Husband got up for work at 4:30, started the coffee and then came back upstairs to wake me before he left. At the time, I had a wonderful job that I truly loved. The best part? I was able to work from home.

Due to the time difference, my workday started around 5 am, since things started picking up online around 9 am eastern. People would get their children off to school and have their morning coffee while talking online with other military spouses. It was a lot of fun and one of the happiest and most fulfilling times of my entire life.

Our youngest was eleven months old. Daughter had slept through the night from the time she was three weeks old. Son never slept. An hour here, two hours there…husband and I were exhausted.

That morning was like all mornings, I needed a gallon of coffee and fast. I tipped toed down the stairs as to not wake little guy. I usually could get 45 minutes to myself if I was careful and quiet upstairs. This way, I could wake up and be pleasant Mommy instead of Mommy who doesn’t want to talk heh heh. So not a morning person, but multiplied by the lack of sleep for almost a year.

I turn on the computer and head to the kitchen to get my mug of Jumpstart (as GuyK calls it). I sat down at my desk and literally jumped when the phone rang a few minutes before five. No one calls this early, so I automatically thought someone was sick or worse…

It was my father-in-law calling from Jersey. He asked where husband was – well, he’s at work of course. He asked if I’d turned on the TV and I told him no, I’d just gotten sat down to start work and the TV stays off until the little ones wake up. He said, “Well, turn it on…a plane has hit the World Trade Tower. They are saying it must have been an accident, but I don’t by it. That hole is too big for some small plane.”

As we’re talking, I am walking over to turn on the TV. He tells me to call husband and ask him to call him. About that time, I see a plane hit the other tower and say, “Oh my gosh, another plane has hit!” FIL asks if I’m sure, maybe it’s video of the first plane hitting…I tell him no, it’s a second plane. He says he knew it hadn’t been an accident. Asks me again to have husband call him.

I call husband and he’s already well aware of what’s going on. Says he won’t be able to call his Dad, so call him back and tell him he’ll have to call him tonight or whenever he gets off work. Husband would be in meetings in a secure area – no cell phones, so he’d be out of touch until they got done. He’d call me when he could.

And with that, life on an Army installation changed forever. People who lived off post would sit for hours waiting to get on. Many ran out of gas those first few days the wait was so long. No longer could you drive on during the day with no gate guards. Now, there were numerous guards, mirrors to look for bombs, cars pulled off to the side to be thoroughly searched. I was thankful we’d decided to move on post for our last two years in the frozen tundra. Husband would have had a horrible time trying to get to work.

The rest of my day was spent doing my job while listening to the news, fielding phone calls from nervous relatives who just assumed husband would be on a plane within hours to somewhere lol. I love our extended family, but they have no clue. “Well, when will he deploy?” Umm, well, our personal line to President Bush is down, so we’re just not sure. Sheesh – who says he’s going anywhere? At the time, his BN was doing that transformation thing or they were about to start it…they weren’t a good candidate for deployment. That would come a few years later for that group, quite a few years later and we’d be in another state and husband would have not only already done one tour in Iraq, but gearing up for the second one before those folks would be heading home.

Mostly, as sad I was for those who died and their families, I was more angry than I’d ever been in my life. I stayed angry…and I won’t be satified until the last terrorist is dead. They deserve no mercy as they have none for others…

My prayers are with those who were killed and all who loved them. May God hold them gently as they face another year without their loved ones.

What a Landing…

My Dad sent me this photo. Truly amazing…

And for any doubters out there, this rooftop landing is the real deal.