Am I strong enough?

One thing that I have learned from Navy Sub life.... You have to be strong.

As a wife of a U.S Sailor and a mother of three, boys mind you. I often find myself being a single-non single parent for months at a clip. Those months apart are most challenging, the car will decide it no longer wants to work right, some household appliance will break down, your house gets torn apart from kids because there is no way you can be in four rooms at the same time to prevent disasters, emails are few and far between and almost always monitored by someone and if you're an unlucky one like some from our boat, the emails will be read and talked about with people who have no reason to know what was in it at all, you're deprived of sex and think about taking up stock in batteries, you learn what deployment insomnia is and you'll mumble and grumble "why does this only happen when he's gone?"

I'm also a person that NEEDS to stay busy, which I think might add to some of my stress. As a 7 1/2 month pregger I decided to re-paint the entire inside of our house....while he was at sea. I picked up armature photography, quilting, scrapbooking, couponing, gardening, baking, pretty much I strive to be a Martha Stewart clone minus the prison time.  I often have about 3 things I'm working on, right now it's a cathedral quilt, canning/baking, prepping to take senior pictures and the most time consuming...starting a business. Although I have my husbands full support and willingness to listen to my never ending talk about vendors, marketing and the future, he still isn't there to be 100% supportive.

Sometimes I get the "uh huh" or "oh cool" monotone response, I get upset but then have to remember that this man is putting in a 12hr shift of craziness known as Navy life. He is the only unfortunate person on his boat to be in 3 divisions and is tasked numerous things beyond the norm. I try to stay positive and supportive all while masking my own frustrations of the days business.

The pressure will build up over weeks and explode into a 'I'm not gonna cook you lil jerks anything to eat, go eat a bowl of cereal and mom is gonna go sit in the shower for 2 hrs, you better not bug me or mommy dearest will come out' mess(you like my run on sentence? good because I did). The kids sit there looking at each other trying to figure out why mommy has gonna coo coo.

I wonder sometimes how strong am I really? Can I really do this? Then I look at all the pictures in my house, I look at my husband, my children and know I not only have to be strong for me I have to do it for all of them......So I suck back all my emotions and frustrations and go through another day of a Navy Sub life.

These are all my knuckle heads :-)

What Navy tales do you have that makes you wonder "am I really strong enough for this?"

Is it Prego or Preggers?

I swear I feel lazier and lazier ever dang day! I'm sure the lil parasite growing inside me isn't helping much these day oh wait before you start saying " what did she just call here baby?" let's be real here people that is what they are right now. they feed off your body's nutrition for themselves.

so lets see my tally of Prego things this week:

wanting to hurl: 20
actually vomiting:0
crying at commercials: 4
snapping at the work who didn't get my order right at Wendy's:1
going back to bed after a shower:5
getting up in the middle of the night to pee:15
looking at my belly and butt to see which is getting bigger faster: 7

I got a "wonderful" [insert sarcastic tone] email from my ex about the boys and other drams fill topics but in midst of all mean and hateful things he said NOTHING bothered me EXCEPT he made a comment of me getting fat...... now first off I have been 119 for many yrs now but the fact that my Pregnant behind is inevitable going to gain weight; that really bothered me. I can't stop thinking about it " I'm going to get fat" DAMN IT!! I don't want to be one of those woman who gain a number of lbs and look like they should have a [WIDE LOAD] sign attached to my back side. This is what is frightening me the most of this pregnancy- not the fact my husband will be at sea for the next 3 months or that I M/S just a few months back but its me gaining weight.

I suppose I will learn to deal

A Milspouses Career...left on hold?

I watched the season finale of Army Wives a lil bit ago. One of the things that came up in the show was the discussion of the fact that careers for milspouses tend to play second fiddle to that of their spouse’s military career. Pamela’s character nailed down the reality in her radio show that our career needs/wants tend to come second to our spouses by default. Sometimes you have to put those dreams aside and other times, you might just have to put them on the back burner for awhile, or you just have be creative about how you can make it happen. It completely depends on your spouse’s job and individual situation. It really resonated with me b/c of my own career aspirations. Now I’ll say first that Gene has been extremely supportive and accommodating to me since we’ve been together. Although he had a choice in his billet about where we would go, we choice Washington to be closer to his children (not the 2 that live with us- Mine). My Career was expected to be put on hold to some degree.
I have many aspirations that I intend to complete, and I know Gene will be very supportive for whatever I choose. I worked for a multi portfolio company in Property Management and was envious of my co workers that were landing better positions within our company or others, which was my goal at that time. However, being a Navy wife, I had to put those needs aside b/c we had to move…. across the country… in a couple of months. There was no way for me to start working in my field for that short duration. Some might resent the situation but not me. I decided when I married him that he was more important than any job I could have. That didn’t mean I’d give up on my dreams, I’d just have to find a way to make them happen a little harder. Now with having the 2 boys, finding a job that makes enough money to pay for daycare is a different story. Back in Georgia (we’re we just moved from) I made more than enough to cover daycare along with many other bills. Not many milspouses get that lucky or have those opportunities. Since we’ve been in our current location, I’ve not been able to find an opportunity like I had in the south. We have been fortunate that my husband has been able to support us all on his meager E-5 salary.
Depending on your spouse’s job and the potential frequencies of moving, it can be very challenging to have a career and work in that career field. It is possible but you have to work at it and be flexible. My specialization narrows those opportunities a bit. We’ve been lucky b/c Gene’s job to this point at least has offered choices of billets to a certain extent and we’ve been able to pick places where he’s likely to be able to remain for longer periods of time. Many others don’t have those options. You are more or less pulled by the puppet strings that our government controls.
Anyway, Pamela pointed out some realities of being a military wife. We often are at the mercy of our husband’s job appointments and schedules and don’t always have the ability to be gainfully employed in our career fields. I’ve been lucky thus far but I may not always be. I do appreciate that he considers my needs, however, as much as he can when choosing orders. He knows I had a life and career aspirations well before he came into my life and he respects that which means the world to me.
For those spouses that wonder how to make it happen, you can make it happen. It just might require some thinking outside the box and diligence. Lord knows I’m doing my far share of legwork.