“Thank You For Your Service”
If you were to say, “Thank you for your service” to me, a military spouse, I would say “you’re welcome.” My husband, personally, doesn’t care much for being thanked, probably because he joined the Army for himself. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t have chosen it in a million years. Some women have strong feelings about saying they didn’t serve or that they are not a part of the military as a spouse unless they were active duty or National Guard themselves. They say they aren’t out there risking their lives, and they don’t go to work every day and train. That’s fair. We are still “civilians” because we didn’t…
New Mom, New Me
I have a terrible haircut right now thanks to postpartum breakage. My baby is 7 months old and I still can’t fit into any of my old, regular-sized clothes. I quit my job, but my house isn’t always clean, dinner isn’t always done. Who am I right now? Racked with anxiety and reclusive tendencies, I can clearly see I am not the same person. I used to be so shiny and ambitious. I used to be mad at my husband because he wasn’t as eager to please me as I was him. Now going above and beyond on anything doesn’t cross my mind. Instead, I exist in the relentless cycle…
4 Easy Steps to Learning to Cook
When asked if you can cook is your answer “yes?”? That was me three and a half years ago! Now I am comfortable cooking for guests. If you can’t confidently say “yes,” you can’t really cook, by the way, but you can learn! A better question is, “Do you have skill in cooking?” Before teaching myself to cook, I was insecure about the process of learning. For many this stops them from trying, but I have outlined the basic steps for improving your proficiency in the kitchen. If I knew what it took to be confident in cooking, I would have been more eager to teach myself before I spent…
Budget Hacks
One of the side effects of quitting a job is having less income. Surprise, surprise. Prior to obtaining the job I just left, we were living on E-4 (specialist) pay. I didn’t like it. As soon as I started working I commenced the bougie behaviors I had been forced to deny myself. Now we will be living on E-5 (sergeant) pay but with extra expenditures like diapers. Could be a recipe for disaster. Never to be outdone, I have spent some time hacking our spending in hopes of finding money in our pockets as is. It is not a secret that people tend to increase their standard of living to…
So You’re Pregnant!
Oh my gosh, you’re pregnant! Wow! Congratulations! There are so many of you. Even though a small part of me is salty none of you bothered to be pregnant at the same time as me, I’m sooo happy for you. You will all make great moms because you aren’t narcissists. There is a special journey ahead of you and I have so much to say… The first trimester is such a weird time, isn’t it? On TV they don’t show you the part where the woman takes six pregnancy tests over the course of a few weeks and still isn’t convinced there is real life in there. The unspoken rule…
7 Ways to Be a Good Spouse (At Bad Times)
In November Spencer and I celebrated our two-year anniversary, and the retrospective portion of that was a lot different than the year prior. They can have 2016, it was rough for us. I had sat down then and tried to write a reflective post, but it just was not coming together. It was hard to sort through everything and make it interesting and upbeat. Right now I’m in a unicorn phase where I am obsessed with my husband and what he’s doing and wearing and he can’t get in a fight with me, so I wouldn’t want to convey otherwise. I decided that better than describing what BS we went…
Married Men
“We’re both married,” I said to you. You blinked in recognition and said “Yeah,” as if I had said “We’re both over 5 feet tall.” Obviously you did not feel that being married was any sort of contingency piece to inhibit you from letting me know you want to be more than friends. I blinked back in confusion and astonishment because you were the second person to come to me with this. I’m not going to act like you never piqued my interest. I’m human. I like attention. Many of us wives aren’t getting enough of it thanks to deployments, *TDY, and schools; not to mention the fact that you…
More Money, More Problems
The obvious result of my having a job is my having an income. That was basically the end goal, so I shouldn’t have anything to complain about. But I do- of course. And most of the complaints have been directed at my husband. Why? Because despite what my application said, I don’t perform well under stress. Before I knew it, there were dishes piled in the sink, dirt collecting under the cabinets, and I was eating carbs for breakfast, which really isn’t me. I was tired and drained coming home from work those first couple months and the last thing I wanted to do was 1. talk about someone else’s problems.…
