Short Cuts

   Some people ask me how I do the life of a military wife? There really are a lot of different answers to that and depends on the day and my mood sometimes. However, there are a few shortcuts I've built into my life for this season to make things just a little bit easier on me. The first one is that I gave up mowing and weed eating. I now pay a professional to come do it and I have no guilt in admitting it. I will also have no difficulty giving that job back to my hubby when he comes back home. The second thing that I do to make my life easier is to take the boys monthly to get their haircuts. Adam is usually in charge of their hair when he is here. The last deployment I did the boys haircuts. However, I really didn't care for haircutting so once more I defer to the professionals. Those are just two of the shortcuts that I take. I'm sure there are more but these are the ones I can think of right now. The advise I've given to many military spouses during deployments is to take care of yourself.  One of the most important parts of knowing yourself is knowing when to say no or to let things go. You are no good to your children, hubby, and others when you don't have any thing left to offer. I think I've always been pretty good at boundaries but I've sharpened these skills too through the experience of being an army wife. Maybe tomorrow I'll share about what things I've put into place in my life to relief some of the stress of being an army wife, having a demanding career, and taking care of my two active boys (which other than my husband are my world, but all the same can be exhausting, especially being both Mommy and Daddy 24/7 ).  

Sometimes You Just Need a Break

   Today was a full day at work and then I ended up taking my oldest son to the urgent care for a rash that he has. Thankfully we got medicine to take care of it but he thought it was horrible that we were there for an hour and a half. I thought that was pretty good time considering. So tonight after everything was figured out I let the boys play their games and I read my book. I thought some relaxing was in order.

Scrapbooking

   It's been awhile but I enjoy to scrapbook and am trying to finish up our Iraq deployment scrapbook. So I'm just under three years behind. I'm finishing this one by hand and then my plan is to move to digital after our move back to Oklahoma. So yes, we are on our third deployment and I'm working on our 2nd deployment scrapbook. I need motivation to keep on going. I get in a good pattern and get a bunch done and then I take a break. It's probably been almost six months since I've really done much on this scrapbook. However, my sister and I are going to try and scrapbook Tuesday evenings together via Skype so hopefully that will help. I just went through the last several months of my pictures for this scrapbook and ordered the rest that I need so that felt good. Now I just have to get them and start the finishing up product.  I'm hoping once I go digital I'll have more motivation to do it more often since it's at my fingertips on my laptop. Right now with doing it by hand I have to pull everything out and that is a little overwhelming. Although I still have lots of paper and stickers to use so we shall see but that is the plan for now. I want to be caught up on scrapbooking when he gets back but I'm thinking that is probably a far reaching goal however I can aim for the stars and hopefully I'll get a good majority done. My hubby could careless how much I get done but it's another goal for me to focus on for the next nine months or so.

Work Week

   Today was back to work once more. I'm also tearing my house (room) apart trying to find my passports. I know we have the passports here but am not sure they are current and am freaking out a bit because I have every intention of going to Canada with my mother-in-law in a month to visit family. I also talked to my Mom about my parents coming to hang out with my family over our fall break. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll make it back to Pennsylvania for Christmas again this year. I've set up a little more traveling this year to give me more breaks for life and work while we are going through this deployment. I've got to take care of me and my boys and it's always great to spend extra time with family and friends.

Redo

   Church was great this morning. After that though, I could just take a rewind on the day. The boys spent the night with Grandma last night and were grumpy when I picked them up. I ended up putting their phones, leapsters, and wii games up on the fridge for the week and told them they have to earn them back. It didn't helped that I stayed up late last night myself. Hoping everyone gets a goodnight sleep here at our house. Tomorrow is another day, thankfully.

Date Night With The Girls

   My hubby and I were pretty good about having regular date nights, about once a month (which I typically plan and set up babysitting). However, now that we are into this deployment, I've started an army support group for some of the army wives that I know (well there is a Mom and fiance too). We are doing monthly activities, ladies night out once a month, and kid activities once a month. This way we get to do fun things with our kids, get some time without the kiddos, and time time to socialize with others that "just get it".
   Tonight we went to see the play "Oklahoma". Fun times! And I know Adam wouldn't have appreciated it as much as my girlfriends. There are some pros to this deployment.

Errand Day

   It's been a productive day. I got a lot of errands done. I also had lunch with a friend. And now I'm ready for another busy day tomorrow. This evening I relaxed with the boys.