The Military Wife

Got this from someone and thought it was very true....I actually miss being a military wife.....

Average Age of a Military Wife

The average age of the military wife is 20 years old.

She isn't old enough to buy a beer, but is old enough to manage a whole household on her own, and maybe, has a kid or two.

She probably never saw herself loving a man who was in the military, but she loves him regardless.

Her penmanship has improved over the last few months or years, due to the excessive letter writing she has been doing.

She cries alot, because she misses the man she swore to love. Her life isn't complete without him.

She looks very tired, because of her many nights without sleep, due to a
late night phone call that never came or a call that came and kept her
up all night, just because she heard his voice and is too overjoyed to
sleep.

As a wife, she is classified as a dependent, but she is
totally independent. She tends to her household, her kids, her school
work, and her job, all without her husband.

She manages to wear a smile, even though inside she's crying.

She understands that the man she loves has to go far away and is proud of him but also scared for him.

She understands that he can be taken away from her in a moment.

She feels a great sense of pride and gets teary eyed whenever she hears the
National Anthem, sees a flag blowing in the breeze, or watches the news
and hears about another soldier dying.

She goes weeks without a call or a letter, but she writes him every second she gets.

She knows how to convert civilian time into military time.

She knows how to iron his clothes and how to get the creases just right.

She gets annoyed when she hears someone complaining about not seeing their boyfriend for a few hours or a few days.

She may not have see him for months but she remembers everything about him,
every scar he has, the way he smells, whether or not he snores, the
look in his eyes and the way he feels when she holds him.

She has every picture of him and them out, and in frames, and she stares at them for hours on end

She has read every letter and e-mail over and over again.

Even though her man is half a world away, she still manages to go on with her life, as he would want her to.

She has at least one Support our Troops pen and a magnet on her car.

Half her wardrobe is based on his military branch. She never knew that she could love camouflage.


Next time you see her, you'll know her, thank her for what the man she loves
is doing. She will greatly appreciate it and she will smile and thank
you. Just because you thanked her she will smile the rest of the day

Did Brian get married?

So in the mail I had something from the department of defense, big surprise. Sometimes I get sick of mail from them it's never anything I really want and most of the time just seeing that return address makes me cringe. So I open it and just scan it over oh right I think, it's that time of year they want to make sure I didn't remarry in the last year. So I'm glancing over the form that needs to be filled out and mailed back in when I notice it looks a little different so my eyes go up to the top corner and I see Brian's name. That's right the department of defense wants to make sure that my 7 year old didn't get married in the last year. Are you kidding me? They should know better, I mean they had to address it to me because he's just a kid so shouldn't that tell them that he's not old enough to get married? It's not like they don't have his date of birth and it doesn't take a math wize to know that if you were born in 2001 and it's only 2009 your not old enough to get married! Brian overheard me on the phone with my mom telling her about it and he chimes in that I need to write them a letter and let them know he's only 7!

Spring break

I know I haven't been on here in awhile, but honestly nothing has really been going on worth talking about. Brian has, however been on spring break since last Monday so we left last Wednesday for our usual Spring break trip to Oregon to visit Thomas' parents and we just got home last night. It was a nice relaxing trip as usual the first night there I slept 13 hours! It's so nice to have someone else take care of Brian in the morning. Thomas' half brother Gary came down, his wife died of cancer almost 6 months ago so we went out on the four wheeler and had some alone time to talk. He also taught me how to shoot a 38, it was my first time! Thomas' niece came down with from Washington with her family, you have to remember Thomas was the oops baby so he grew up with his niece's and nephews. Brian usually plays with her daughters outside, but you can tell all the kids are growing up, no one wanted to go outside and play and all 3 of them sat around playing their DS, so much for outdoor fun! Anyway here are some pics from the trip:
Brian and I killed some time with our 3 hour layover in Portland


Brian was happy to finally make our way out of Portland and on to Redmond

Me and Gary, he's so silly!

Brian with Grandma and Grandpa

On the plane back home

It's always right there....

It's been nearly 4 years since Thomas died. Sometimes I can do days, or even weeks without thinking about the details of his death, without it being thrown in my face what made me a widow. But other times it's put right in my face for me to remember I guess. And it doesn't just affect me, it affects others too. Today I found out that my dad was offered a job, one that he could probably use seeing as how my dad does contracting work and the contract is running out later this year and you never can tell if another company will bid on the contract. My dad, however isn't taking the job, he says it would cost to much to live the state the job is in. My mom says he's not taking cause he knows I'd never come visit them. The job is at the National Ground Intelligence Center in Charlottesville, VA...... the exact same place Thomas was TDY training at to go to Iraq when he died.

TV

I'm not sure I want to say this....I don't want to spoil this...or have him suddenly change his mind......but it might finally be happening for real......
For the last 3 days Brian has decided he likes time alone in his room!!!! Yes that means finally after years and years of Sponge Bob Square Pants, and what seems likes endless days of the Suite life of Zack and Cody, and Hannah Montana. Yes he won't admit if you ask him, although he's already asked to see the movie, he does watch Hannah Montana. I finally get the living room to myself, sure he runs in every once in awhile to tell me something and that's fine by me cause I can watch what I want to watch on TV. I've always been thankful for my DVR because it allows to me watch my shows after he's gone to bed, but for the first time ever I'm actually watching them while they are on. It's different, I find myself reaching for the remote during commercials so that I can fast forward through them, only to remember I'm watching live TV, cause I can, cause I watch whatever I want now. I'm so excited I don't know what to do with myself. I'm loving having the living room to myself......Now I only hope this sticks....

School stuff

Fist off I want to start by saying I'm out of school this week!! YAY!!! I had finals last week so I get a week off in between before I start with all next classes next Monday. I managed an A in both my Macro economics and Business Finance class my environmental science class hasn't posted a final grade yet, but in other words I'M TIRED!!!!! Those classes kicked my butt and I have a feeling it's not going to get any easier. To top things off I am going between the school and VA right now, as m VA checks have been on the short side and they are telling me the school told them I was only enrolled in 4.5 credit hours which was not the case it is in fact 13.5. I'm currently awaiting a call from my school to find out what is going on....I'll probably spend the next month dealing with it, as that's what happened last time they had my hours wrong.

In other news I don't understand the way kids are taught now days is so much different then when I was a kid. Sure they learn things at a younger age now then they did when I was kid, Brian currently has Geometry for math right now I don't think I learned that until oh high school. But I had parent teacher conferences last week and the teacher was showing me the way the kids learn to write sentences and it was way beyond anything I ever learned. First off they start in the middle of the paper. They start with a simple sentence like: The dog barked. then have them do what they call stretching the sentence out so now above the sentence they write out nouns and adjectives to describe the dog. From that they pick 2 or 3 that they will use in the sentence then they add verbs or adverbs, similes, metaphors and ideas like who, what, where, when, why and how. They also use sight, sound, smell, taste, touch to add more to the sentence. So after all this is added the sentence that was once The dog barked. Has now been stretched out to be Loudly the tiny, frightened Dalmatian puppy barked like a car horn because a stranger approached.
I'm totally lost when it comes to Brian's school, the teacher also said he's having problems with spelling words, doesn't surprise me I'm by no means the worlds best speller and I rely on spell check for everything! So she gave me a card with 5 words on it that Brian really needs to work on are you ready for those 5 words? They are:
Ocean
Young
Animal
Earth
and Government..... are you kidding me you want my 7 year old to know how to spell government?? Most adults can't spell that!
She tells me that since spelling is such a problem with him that they did an intervention! Yes that's right my kid had an intervention to bring to his attention the problems with spelling. I don't know what's going to happen next year, but I'm not sure I'm ready for it!

There's a first for everything

Yesterday since Brian didn't have school and I didn't want to sit around the house all day I decided we would go to Denver. We haven't been to the aquarium in awhile so I figure we'd go there.....and so did everyone else! That place was packed!! He really wanted to go so we fought the crowds to see the fish. After we left Brian was ready for lunch while I wanted to just hit up the mall for something easy, he wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. We don't go there often enough for me to know my way from where we were so I told him if the GPS could find it we could go. If you've never been to the Hard Rock in Denver then you should know that it's located in the downtown area.....I've always hated downtown Denver! I've pricey to park, we paid $10 to park the car for an hour! And it's always confusing, a one way street here and there to throw you off. We enjoyed our food and we were ready to get out of Denver. And I was figuring my way out of the confusing area when I finally saw the street I needed to be on. The two cars in front of me make the turn onto the street, and then I do the same. And then it happened...for the first time ever...I got pulled over by the police!
The lady cop comes up and asked me if I knew why she pulled me over....nope not a clue. She tells me there was a sign that said no right on red, which is exactly what I did and the 2 cars in front of me did to. I wasn't looking at the signs since the cars in front of me were turning. The cop tells me that she knows the other 2 cars did the same thing and if she could have pulled over all 3 of us she would have.....yes but I'm the one who got pulled over! It's a fine of $100 and3 points off your license. They are however kind enough to offer a discount if you pay your fine in the first 20 days that would bring my fine would be $86 and only 1 point on my license. I'll take the $14 discount and I mailed in my payment today!
So always look for signs when your driving in a confusing area!