The Perfect Storm

For those of us on the East Coast, it has been the perfect storm weekend. 
Hurricane Sandy decided to hit the east coast and run into some other systems causing much rain and wind on the east coast. 

For my area, the main pain in the rear is the Flooding. Normally the wind causes power outages, so people are stuck in their houses with no power, and they can't leave because their street is flooded. 
I got a large amount of flooding in my area, but my personal yard flooded less than when we had Irene last year. 
I've lived in Virginia all my life so tropical storms and hurricanes are just another day at the office for me. 
I come home and prep to be without power. We already have plenty of food that I can eat with no power. I have a power pack, so I can charge up phones or whatever when the power is out. I keep a pretty good stock of batteries too, so I can listen to the radio when the power goes out. 

For those of us who have family members in the Navy, it is the customary practice to send the ships out of harms way. Unless the ship is not in a good enough shape to go, typically they go. 
They can't get out of it, so there is no use bitching about it. Yes it sucks, especially when the storm comes up around a time frame when they are already scheduled to go out. 

So basically on Friday, The Navy gave him about 4 hours off to handle their business, and then they had to go back to the ship. Of course, I am stuck at work and I can't get off to see him. 
He comes to work and brings me flowers and cake. He brought me flowers because he said he was sorry he was going out to sea. He really didn't need to apologize, it is not like he did something on purpose. It is a hurricane!
So I didn't get to see him, just long enough to get my flowers. 
I came home from work and make sure that I had what I needed for the storm and I was good. I didn't need to go anywhere Friday. 
I decided that since I am so far behind on my scrapbooking, and I had just got 200 pictures printed all from 2010, I was going to stay home all weekend and scrapbook. 
I have been doing plenty of workshops in 2012, but most of them I am just so busy working, I just have not had any time to sit down and work on my own albums. So having this weekend at home was a blessing. 
Friday night I was able to go through all of my pictures from Medieval Times and then scrpabook four pages. Which was great!
Saturday was my nephew's last baseball game so I went to that and then took my niece and nephew out to lunch after the game. I enjoy being able to do that with them once in awhile. The storm had started moving in, and it had started raining by the time lunch was over. 
After lunch, I headed to the grocery store. The local store had picked this weekend to double coupons up to $2, so I decided to go on a couponing trip. I went and did that and got some stuff to stock up. After that, I was done and just decided to come home. 
Not even 5 minutes after getting home, a friend called and her and her husband ended up coming over for several hours. It was raining and a little windy, but the worst of the storm wasn't here yet. When they left around 8pm or so, I went next store and hung out with my neighbors for a couple hours. 
Sunday, I made up my mind since I did not get any scrapbooking done on Saturday I was going to make up ground!
Which I did. I got about 18 pages done Sunday, I finished Medieval Times completely and I cropped all of the pictures for the next few things. 
My employer rarely closes for anything but for some reason they were closed today for the storm since many roads were flooded. So I just decided that since parts of my street were flooded and closed by the city, I was going to just stay home all day and not run any errands at all. I made up my mind that I was going to enjoy the day. I slept in a bit, I did a few things around the house, but I did get some scrapbooking and organizing done. 

Well unfortuantely, the home bound scrapbook weekend is over and now I have to go to bed and prep to go back to work tomorrow. 

I have no idea if when I will see the sailor. He may come home tomorrow, but with his work schedule, and the fact that I am going out of town Thursday through Sunday. I have no idea what he is doing. It does kind of stink, but I understand it is his job, and I am not mad about it. 

So I guess I need to stop blogging and get my act together for work tomorrow. 

Our Dog

About 2 months ago, our dog started showing signs of her age big time. She would be 12 in November, Chinese Shar Pei's typically do not live past 12. She's been suffering with vision loss for a year, and has been totally blind for at least 6 months.
She got around just fine, she knew where everything was in our house. However, about a good two months ago, she started acting more feeble, acting tired, and acting old.
She no longer wanted to go on walks, she barely ate, no matter what we fed her, and she started having a hard time going in and out of the doggy door. She would have to take a couple steps and get her balance to go out of the door.
Several times from her behavior, I wondered if she was having problems with her hearing. The lawn mower didn't seem to bother her, and she no longer barked at the door bell.
Well, we went away for 2 nights and when we came home, she was having an issue where she was dragging one of her back legs when she walked. She would drag it for a bit and then she would walk fairly normally. We kind of just chalked it up to arthritis. But we started the end of life discussion.
Yesterday, early in the evening she was dragging the leg again, but later in the evening, we noticed that she was trying to walk, but her back 2 legs were not working and she was basically dragging them. She stood up a couple times on her own, but couldn't take more than a step. We could not really determine what it was that started this, but before we went to bed it was clear that she wasn't going to walk normally again.
Apparently the back part of her body lost all feeling. She was peeing on herself because she lost all control of her bladder.
We made the decision that we couldn't wait until we were both available to both be there. We had to do it the next day. So today when I got up this morning, I knew what I had to do.
She seemed ok, that is the weird part. She was up looking around watching me walk around in the morning, but I noticed her back legs were still positioned the same way, she couldn't stand, and she wouldn't move.

I went to work and came home at noon to take her to the vet. I chose an emergency place that would not require and appointment and would do it without questioning me. I came home and changed clothes. She had moved some. She was trying to slide with her 2 front paws, but she just couldn't get very far.
I wrapped her up in a towel, because she had no control of her bladder and I did not want urine all over my car, and then I put her in the back of my SUV.

She was never a "pick me up" kind of dog. But today when I wrapped her up in the towel and picked her up, I felt her really hug into me, as if to say, "Its OK". She knew where she was going, I got to the place and went in and filled out the paperwork before bringing her in. She has never liked other dogs, and since she could not stand, I just left her in my truck while I filled out the paper work. All she could do was lay there so I was afraid of her getting out.

It took a few minutes to fill out the paper work and discuss what I wanted. Then the vet staff went out with me to get her. She was so skinny I had no problems carrying her, but they carried her for me.
They put me in a room and explained what would happen. I of course was crying my eyes out. I got through the paper work with out crying, until the very end.

They took Tyra and put a catheter in her in another room. The doc explained what the procedure is. Then they brought her in to me. They had covered her with a towel from the vet and they let me be with her alone for a few minutes. She knew what was coming. I could tell, she was letting me know she was ready.
I however, was not ready.

The vets came back in and I held her. She kind of looked in the general direction of her leg, like she knew something was going on, then looked back at me, and then fell asleep.
It was quick and I felt the relief from her that it was over.

Why is it that my dog was ready to die, but I was not ready to let her go?

After the vet office, I went to my car and just cried and cried. I went back to work because I really did not want to go home and see an empty bed, or her food bowls.

After work, I came home and took care of getting rid of her bed, blanket, leashes, etc. We have some unopened food that I will donate to a shelter.

She had been there for me, through thick and thin, morning noon and night, whenever I needed her.
I felt so bad for her to loose her ability to walk or move. But I was still not ready to let her go.

I have no idea how I am supposed to sleep tonight. I am used to getting up in the night 2-3 times with her to let her out. I am sure I will hear her scratching at the door.

Of course, today was duty day and I have had to deal with loosing our dog, all by myself. He was not able to leave the ship at all. I have talked to him, so he does know what happened.

I really wish that she could have lasted one more day, I wish that he could have been there to say goodbye. I can't even imagine how he is dealing with her loss, knowing that he wasn't there.

I am going to bed now. Hopefully, her scratching at the door in my mind won't wake me up.

Such Is Life

I haven't been updating much because I really feel like I haven't had anything to update about. 
My life got increasingly better as I was working out and changing the way that I was eating. However, 6 weeks into it, I have been struck with ridiculous headache pain. It has been constant and chronic. 
I haven't been able to do anything that I would normally do. I haven't been able to exercise, bend forward, be in the extreme heat or cold. I haven't been able to do much of anything at all without screaming headache pain. 
I have seen my regular doctor, the neurologist and I am working on some other specialists, just waiting for insurance to approve it. 
Unfortunately, I have an HMO that approves very little, so the fact that my brain feels like it is going to explode 24/7 is not that big of a deal to them. I worry I may have something that is causing permanent damage, but my insurance doesn't care. 

On top of the fact that my brain is exploding, it has been a trying time for my sailor and I. He is under a large amount of stress, his work is crazy. So needless to say, he is not in the best mood all of the time. I try to just realize that it is not that he is mad at me, but just deal with it the best that I can. 
We are at a weird point in our relationship. We have been together for over 4 yrs, but we are not at the point where we are talking about marriage or planning a wedding. I think we are at a point to where we need to decide if that is actually what we want or not. 
The problem is, that with my head non stop hurting and his job totally stressing him out, we are not remotely in a normal situation. We are not just living our regular life. Things are way different. 
I hope that here pretty soon the doctors can get to the bottom of what is causing my head pain and his craziness will slow down for a couple months. 
Hopefully then we can get back to what we need to talk about. 
For now, we are both just sort of treading water. 

Make Yourself Happy With What You Have

There comes many times in Military life when you encounter people who know it all, and know everything about military life and they chastise you for your choices. 

Not every marriage or relationship works the same, we do not question this when both parties are civilian, but we do not hesitate to judge when one part of the couple is military. 

Make yourself happy with what you have. Whatever works for you in your relationship, let that work. Do not feel like you have to change your life or how you do things just to be like someone else. 
This is especially true with finances. Figure out a way to handle the money that makes sense for both of you. If it works, then let it work. The important thing is that everything is being handled. 

The hardest thing for me to deal with is the military wives who are different from me, and yet insist on shoving their shit down my throat. I'm not you lady. 
The military IS HIS JOB. It does nothing for me. It provides me with nothing but headaches. 
My situation is completely different than most and I realize that complete independence is rare. I refuse to be lumped in and meshed with this ideal that I am a military wife and this is my life. Blah Blah Blah. 
My life is what I make it. With or without his job. 
The military is his job and it has nothing to do with me. It does not change my political opinions, it does not change the person I am, it is just his job. 

The day will come when he is no longer in the military and this craziness will be over. 

I'm tired of being lumped with a bunch of crazy drama rama mamas who clearly need help. 

Turn About Is Fair Play

I totally have been out of the loop of blogging here lately. My life has been a literal shit storm in the middle of a tornado. I haven't had time to think about anything funny or witty that sucks or is great about military life, because I have just been too busy living it. 

The sailor is on one of those rotations where they are working like crazy to get prepped for inspections. Everything has to be in perfect working, safety condition and pass inspection, so they can deploy. 

I am sure there are a handful who want something to break, so they dont have to go, but that is not really how it works. If something breaks, they will bust ass until it gets fixed. 

So this means that he is working an extremely unreasonable schedule. He goes in at the same time everyday, but he has no idea what time he is getting off. It could be 4pm, it could be 6pm or it could be 10pm. Apparently they Navy does not give a shit that we have plans. 

So the number one thing I have learned by going through other fun times like this is that to not buy any tickets to anything, do not spend any money on anything fun that cannot be refunded. Too many times the Navy has cancelled leave, changed schedules and we are left holding the financial bag because we can't get refunds for whatever we spent money on. 

Not only has my life been a shit storm because of his crazy schedule, but weird things have been going on at work and I have had weird odd things that I am working on in the evenings when I am at home. I have a hard time writing documentation at work because I cannot concentrate. So I try to do it when I am not in the office. 

This week, something is happening that has not happened in over 4 years, he is at home, all alone for a WHOLE WEEK!

My employer sent me to another state for a week long training class. He took me to airport on Sunday. 

Of course the entire time we are walking down the hallway, he is making this "I'm going to cry" puppy face. I've traveled for business before, he has either been out to sea, or it was only 2 days. 

He leaves me at home all alone for weeks on end, but this is the first time that the shoe is on the other foot. 

He is not a messy person, so if anything the house will be cleaner when I get home than when I left. But I do worry about  little details like taking the trash out, and feeding the dog. He hasn't had to worry about that in so long. He just comes home eats and sleeps. Thats about all he has time to do. 

Turn about is fair play, I finally got the chance to leave him at home, and he is not liking it. He was missing me before I even got off the airplane. 

Many times in this relationship I have gone to the airport and waited patiently to pick him up after his flight, Friday night, Turn about becomes fair play and he gets to wait on me. 

Its a small revenge, but I will take it!

Top 10 Lessons Learned

Today's Blog Post is not mine. It was well written by a friend and Army Wife. My friend Lauren has experienced the ups and downs of life with an active duty spouse and reserve spouse, and dealing with our arch nemesis, the Deployment.
This post is dedicated to all of us family members who have to joy of staying home and watching everything fall to shit.

Thanks for the post Lauren!

Since the deployment is officially over I decided to share the top 10 lessons I learned over the last year. Most were expensive and frustrating at the time but are now amusing to look back on and know even though I had plenty of "Army Wife Fail" moments I got through it and came out much stronger on the other end.

1. Your husband typically mows the grass once a week, not once a month. If you wait

 a month and run over a pole because you didn’t see it through the jungle of grass, you WILL break your lawn mower.

2. When you break the lawn mower, you ignore the shed in the backyard. Ignoring the shed in the backyard will result in rat infestations that will ruin the shed. Rats are pretty nasty.

3. When your husband tells you to change the air filter in the HVAC unit every 3 months you should ignore him and read the package. Or, you can pay an emergency repair man to tell you you’re supposed to change it once a month when the motor goes out in the middle of the night when it's 100 degrees outside.

4. The Police don’t care if you just talked to your husband that you haven’t talked to in FOREVER and are so excited that you completely forget to watch your speed. Speeding will result in a ticket. VA takes speeding very seriously. Don’t speed in VA.

5. When the Army says your husband will be home for R&R on March 10th you should use the following equation to determine when he will really be home: Date the Army said + 2x + #the Army is full of crap= nobody knows when the hell he will actually be home. Keep calm and drink some rum.

6. It does not matter when your husband leaves or how long he is gone for. As soon as he leaves something major will go wrong. For example, there is a hurricane that you are completely unprepared for on the day he boards a plane for Afghanistan. This means taking down the 10 foot canopy, disassembling the swing, emptying the water barrels, evacuating yourself and the animals and then coming home to throw out all the food in 2 refrigerators and a freezer, and finding someone to repair the fence and water barrels by yourself. By the way, if you choose the cheapest repair guy your fence will end up totally jacked up.

7. It is frowned upon by the DMV to let the registration on your vehicle expire because you totally forgot you had to take care of your husband’s vehicle.

8. Speaking of forgetting your husband's car, if you forget to start said car the battery will die. You will realize the battery is dead on a rainy Saturday when you need that car and will need to jump the car in the rain after googling "will you get shocked if you jump a car in the rain?"

9. A year spent dreaming about the "perfect" reunion where your husband (in uniform) scoops you up, spins you around and kisses you for the first time in months while the photographer captures the perfect photo is laughable. LAUGHABLE! Driving 10 hours (unexpectedly with about 1 hour notice) round-trip to see him for less than 24 hours and pulling in to a dark parking lot in the rain is more like it.

10. Good friends and amazingly supportive family will get you through it all….the days you literally ache from the pain of missing him, when you hate him for leaving you, during the emotional meltdowns, in the moments of anticipation, excitement and frustration waiting for him to return and all the insane times in between. Thank you to all the wonderful people that have been there for me during the last year. You're the only reason I made it through this and stayed semi-sane.

The Deployment Blues

Deployments Suck ... Period. End of statement. They are the worst part of any military career. The worst part of the deployment is not what everyone thinks. 

Yes, deployments separate our sailors from home, family, their favorite food, their dog, their life, their favorite truck, regular TV, and many many other things, but the separation is NOT the worst part. It is the togetherness. 
Whenever underways, cruises, workups, or deployments are scheduled, I thank God out loud that it is NOT ME going on that. 
Wives tend to moan and groan, "Oh feel sorry for me, he's gone" ... "He's gone, I am all alone, I have to do everything by myself" ... "He is so lucky, he is visiting foreign countries"

Uh, NO

The hardest part of the deployment is NOT sitting at home and waiting for him, it is not having to deal with the house, the dog and the kids by yourself, the hardest part of the deployment is what HE is going through. 

If you work full time, you go to work, you work 8 hours a day, you come home. End of story. Unfortunately, on deployment you are trapped 24/7 with 300 plus assholes you can't stand. 

Seriously? Me being at home is supposed to be WORSE than him trapped on the ship? No way. 
There is NO WAY that I could handle being stuck at work 24/7 for a WEEK let alone 7 months straight. At the end of an 8 hour day, I HAVE to go home or I am going to seriously hurt myself or someone else. 
When they are underway, and when they are in port, there is no such thing as an 8 hour day. They normally work 12-18 hour days. They get very few hours off in which they still have to deal with the people they work with, eat the crappy food on the ship, (if they are lucky enough to not be working during meal time), find time to go workout with the coworkers that annoy them, then go shower and sleep, still surrounded by people they work with. 

When they finally pull in to some cool port and they get to take a tour and see someplace new, Guess What? You can't leave the ship by yourself, pick one of the assholes you work with that you are the least likely to choke the shit out of, and take him with you. 

Sure, I would love to see all of these foreign countries and wonderful destinations, but there is no way in hell I am going on a field trip with my coworkers. 

I complain he is gone, I hate having to deal with the house, the dog, the yard, and all the household stuff by myself, while he is gone, It Sucks. 
But what he is going through Sucks 1,000 times more. So I just put on my happy face, watch the clock, and Thank GOD that at 5pm I get to go home and sleep in MY BED, and I do not have to spend 24/7 with coworkers. 
I pray every night that he is OK, he gets enough to eat, he gets enough sleep and he gets a few hours off to relax or exercise. 
I'm thankful for what I have. I am VERY thankful for him in my life. I love him more and more each day. I'm also very thankful he is a much stronger person than I am.