My life while Chris is away

11 May 08-I am going to try to my best (after repeated attempts from friends and family) to share in my daily life while Chris is deployed to Iraq. It's hard to actually think about sitting down and taking the time to type it all out. This is definitely your unusual role reversal. This is Chris' first deployment since Saudi in 98 for 3 months. It's a whole different world now and I'm going to miss him but I'm thankful that he's getting the opportunity to experience what I've experienced on my multiple trips to "the war" as our son calls it.

Life has been a lot busier since Chris left as I am the one to do it all now but we're managing. It wasn't until this weekend that I finally felt the stress of him being gone (after 2 weeks). Miles got sick Thursday night and I took him to urgent care on Friday morning and he was diagnosed with strep. Now I'm pretty sure I have it but I can't do anything about it because I'm too busy taking care of the kids. Harmony is pretty run down and is showing signs of it as well. Her throat doesn't really hurt though so I'm not sure if this is just early signs or if she's got something else. I'm trying to nurse us all back to health and I'm ready to Lysol bomb the house! LOL

Since Chris left, I have found a routine that works well for us. I've been able to manage surprisingly well and I hope that continues. It's not fun having sick children and I have definitely learned a new found respect for single parents (or those that don't get much help from their spouse).

I will try my best to put my daily activities and ramblings here. It hopefully will give me a good outlet to just vent when I need to so I don't do it to him. He has enough on his plate right now and doesn't need to hear when I am down...

13 May 08-Today was a nice day for the most part. It rained and I just love the smell of wet desert although the guys at work would disagree with me. It was so nice to come home and open every window and door in the house and not worry about having the air on. It is a cool 48 degrees here. I don't think I'll have to worry about turning my window fan on tonight. Hopefully I will sleep well. It is much needed. I just feel drained and exhausted. I haven't been sleeping well and I'm not sure why. I am sleeping enough but I just don't feel like it's very restful.

14 May 08-So much for my restful night. Miles was up at 3 a.m. for no apparent reason but he was ready to play and never did go back to sleep. Then, I had an appointment at the vet for the dogs to get their shots. Things were fine until we got right next to the vet. I had to go pick Miles up because he wanted to go with me. Just as I got next to the vet, Scrappy decided to play Superman and jump out the window of my van!!! That was a high drop and he hurt his leg. He's okay but his leg was already injured and it just aggravated it further. While I stopped in the middle of the road to pick up my poor pup, the other two idiots decided that they would burst out the door and run off on me!! Thank goodness there were a couple of contractors working next to the vet that the dogs went to but I had to get in the car, pull in the parking lot of Miles' school and leave Scrappy in there to go wrestle the other 2 back in the car by only their collars. Rascal was not thrilled about that at all and kept choking himself and ended up puking because he was fighting me so hard. I was furious at this point and they're all lucky I didn't really choke them! Thankfully I got Miles and got them to the vet. Scrappy is 48 pounds, Jade is 90 and Rascal is 60. That was definitely an outing I don't care to repeat. So, after a very tired mommy and $83 later, I finally was able to head home with the mutts. Calgon take me away!!!

15 May 08-Today was another day from hell. I went to sleep about 10 p.m. last night and Miles woke up after a nightmare a 10:30. I finally got him settled and back in bed and back to sleep by 11. Then at 1 a.m. the puking marathon started. Miles is congested and it made his poor belly upset. I put him in my bed while I stripped his bed down and started laundry. While I was doing that, he got sick in our bed too so I had to strip our bed down as well. So, needless to say, I have been up since 1 and I am very tired today. I took him to the doctor and they basically said there's nothing they can do. So, I just pray that he feels better tomorrow and that we can all have a restful night.

16 May 08-Thankfully the kids are feeling better and life seems to be getting back to normal. I had a dinner tonight that was put on by the 50 biggest supporters of our base and it was a very nice event. It was completely free and they even had a demonstration from the Desert Museum and they brought hawks with them and that was just the coolest thing. For those that know me well, you know how much I am just fascinated with hawks. They are such beautiful creatures so it was awesome to be able to sit and look at them up close! I had a scary event happen on the way home from there though. They had a DUI checkpoint set up close to where I live and that was the first time I'd ever seen one except on the news. They were not kidding when they said they're set up so they just sneak up on you. I am night blind so it was rough to go from no lights to tons of flashing lights. They stopped everyone that came through and asked if they had anything to drink. I told them that I had a drink at 6. This was at 9:45 p.m. so no worries there. I would never drive after more than 1 or 2 drinks and enough time in between anyway but it was still very scary to me to even be in that situation so that is not something I will ever do again. Even if I was given a sobriety test, I would have passed but just to think of faulty equipment or any other variable was enough to make my career feel like it was flashing in front of my eyes. The guy shined the flashlight in my eyes, saw I was in uniform and obviously not intoxicated, handed me a pamphlet with a survey and sent me on my way. It took a while to unwind after that experience when I got home. My girlfriend Elise was watching the kids for me. She lives 3 houses down so I grabbed the kids and was walking home when I stumbled upon 8 teenagers toilet papering the house across the street! It freaked Harmony out something awful and I had to explain that's just something kids do and they think it's funny. She thought it was really bad and was scared they were going to do something to our house. I assured her they were just stupid kids and all they were doing was pulling a prank so that when they woke up the next day, they would have to clean up a toilet paper mess. I will show her in the morning that's all it was and hope that she doesn't have any nightmares.

17 May 08-Today was a busy, busy day for me. The base has a program called Hearts Apart. It was designed so that families who have a deployed member have a chance to get out once a month and meet with other families in the same situations. This month, the outing was to a place called Celebrate. It's a bunch of jumping castles indoors. The kids bounced for an hour, then had lunch and did some crafts. It was nice and short but they had a good time. I decided since we were out already that we would go grocery shopping. Thankfully it wasn't extremely crowded as it usually is on payday weekend. It was nice to get in and out of there in 45 minutes. I also got to use my reusable shopping bags for my big grocery shopping and it was the highlight of my day. Sad, I know! I felt like such a dork to be so excited to do that but seeing all my own bags lined up in the trunk of my car just made me smile. No, this is not because I'm a lonely woman with a deployed husband. I'm getting older and I'm changing some of my ways and it just makes me feel good to feel like I'm making a difference in my environment. :)

22 May 08-So much for updating this every day but at least I have a good excuse. I got what the kids had but worse. I spent the past couple of days sick. I am still a little dehydrated but thankfully I was feeling well enough to do stuff around the house. It was horrible being sick and being on my own, that's for sure. I have found out some bad news that Chris will not be coming home between training and Iraq as expected. He has more training to do in the AOR so he goes straight from Wisconsin to there. :( I will write more as my busy 4 day weekend continues with the kids...

24 May 08-Today was one of the busiest days I've had. They had an event at Purple Heart Park today where they had all kinds of vendors giving away lots of cool free stuff so we went to check that out. After we got done there, I dropped Scrappy off at Petco for his yearly hair cut, took the kids to Arby's for lunch, went to Home Depot to get a tree cutter so I could cut a bunch of tree branches that are hanging too low since they're doing bulk pick up and then I attempted to meet with our property manager to sign some paperwork to be sent to the sellers so we can get the ball rolling on buying this house! :) Poor thing, his car broke down on the way here so I went to meet him and we signed the paperwork on the back of his broken down car. It was nice to get the process started. We close on 25 June so just one month away and we will own our first house!! After we got done with that, I went to Fry's to pick up a few things and then headed to get a mouse for my snake, fish food and to pick up Scrappy. Boy was I glad when I finally made it home. The kids were absolute monsters today to the point of almost making me lose my cool with them but thankfully I know when it's time to distance myself. LOL They are definitely testing the waters with me.

31 May 08-So it's been a week since my last entry simply because it's not easy finding time for myself. I don't know if I had mentioned yet but Chris will not be coming home for 10 days as originally planned. :( That really sucks but I guess that's just how things go for us sometimes. He just graduated yesterday and he is living in more of a hotel room style now and is able to wear civilian clothes. Yesterday we got a trunk and a box in the mail from Chris. He sent a bunch of stuff that he does not need and some MREs for the kids to see/try. I don't know if they will try them but it was cool explaining them as Chris and I have both had to eat them at multiple times throughout of careers. The difference is that Chris really likes them and I don't! LOL Yesterday I had the most wonderful day I could have asked for other than him to be home. I received my very first commendation medal and it was read by the Lieutenant that they joke about me being his "mom". That's a long story but it was a nice ceremony. Then, I was called up to receive my 3 day pass from winning the squadron NCO of the quarter, then to receive my plaque for winning that as well. Then, the coolest thing happened. I was put in for another very prestigious award. So prestigious, in fact, that I had forgotten all about it because I figured it would never happen for me. Well... I won!! It's the Lance P. Sijan leadership award (for those that know what it is or want to look it up) and I was beyond thrilled to know that I had won at the squadron level. My squadron commander commented that she was not surprised to see that the name on her paper was me! She is so awesome. With that, I received another 3 day pass. I need to get going on some of these things. With 7 days off total that I have earned and my use or lose leave, it feels like I could take the rest of the year off! Too bad it doesn't work that way! Today was another busy one for me; laundry, grocery shopping, Petco, BX, Walgreens, etc. I am enjoying just being busy in air conditioning because last week, I was doing yard work and burned myself to the point of blisters and I'm still recovering from it!