Thoughts of the Day
My life has qualified me as "experienced" on such topics as Army life, parenting, mental health, loss and grief, multi-tasking, and adapting to all things new (good, bad, or indifferent). I will share my thoughts on these topics and hopefully you will find some calm in the chaos knowing that others have been where you are.
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Vanity or Sanity?
I have been struggling with the idea that fashion blogging carries a connotation of vanity. I mean, I take great care styling my outfits in the morning and taking photos of myself and then posting them on the internet for strangers to view. I suppose many would consider that vain. As a result, I was hesitant even before I started my blog. And I had to come to grips with that view. But it has been a struggle for me. I’m not one who generally feels the need to justify my actions, but for some reason with this blog, I do feel that need. So I had to look inside…
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Here’s the Thing About Confidence…
I recently discovered this fabulous woman on Instagram…actually I think she may have found me first…and when I checked out her Instagram feed, I was so happy that she did find me. Her name is Rebecca and her feed is filled with words of kindness and an infectious confidence that you can’t help but feel equally great about yourself. This post was actually inspired by words she offered to one of her followers deep within a thread of comments. Yes, I was pulled in her by the beauty of this woman’s soul and could not pull myself away from reading all of the comments on her photographs. If you need…
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My Happy Mother’s Day Paisley Pants
I am definitely feeling happy and inspired today on my 6th Mother’s Day. My kids are healthy and happy. My marriage is strong. We want for nothing. My technological issues are resolved. And I recently purchased the happiest pants ever. What is better than bright coral and a paisley pattern? Seriously, you can’t not smile at my pants. Well, at least I can’t. About a month ago, one of my oldest and dearest friends, J., and I went on a day long outlet shopping excursion at The Crossings Premium Outlets in Tannersville, Pennsylvania. We shopped until 9:00 p.m. and literally shut the place down. One of my favorite acquisitions from…
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Return to the Edge
So it has been a nice long while since I last posted…like months. I found myself in quite the funk with deployment blues, then the reintegration process after my husband returned home from Afghanistan, then getting back into the normal Army wife routine, then searching for my motivation, endlessly searching. Truth be told, I still am not feeling all that motivated, but I figured I might as well just start writing something to get myself going or I may remain stagnant forever. And forever stagnant is not good. Not good at all. While I was taking a break, I did a lot of thinking and brainstorming about where I want…
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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and All That Jazz
I have been absent from blogging the past two week due to illness, laziness, and holiday deployment depression. I always love the holidays and I still do, but there is a bitter sweetness this year. I want my kids to enjoy their Christmas and I absolutely love showering my loved ones with gifts, but I sort want it all to be over because that brings us a few weeks closer to J.’s return home from deployment. I hate that we are celebrating the major holidays without J. My kids are driving me crazy. I can’t wait for the Daddy to return home of relieve me of some of my parental…
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Is it Weird to Tell a Female Stranger that She is Gorgeous?
Yesterday, I was having lunch at my local Applebee’s with my mom-in-law and there was an older couple seated at the booth directly behind my mom-in-law. I would guess they were in their late 70’s or early 80’s. They were very quiet and I didn’t take much notice of them until after about 30 minutes when a woman in her late 40’s or early 50’s entered and sat down next to the woman. My mom-in-law got up to use the rest room so I had a clearer view of these 3 people quietly enjoying their lunch and their conversation. Suddenly, my eyes were drawn to the younger woman and I…
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39 Things I Have Learned on my Journey Out of the Darkness Into My Happiness
Recently, I have been thinking an awful lot about the journey that brought me to this current place in my life. The friends who have come and gone. The friends who have remained or reconnected. The friends who are distant memories. The relationships that I had. The ones that ended amicably. The ones that ended disastrously. The ones that just ended. The paths that I chose. The easy ones and the difficult ones. The decisions that I made. The good ones and the bad. My experiences, each and every one of them, and my perceptions of these events, and the way in which I handled each one at any given…
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The Real Story Behind Deployment
This post is about my military wife friends (and the spouses whom I do not know) who have lived though multiple deployments while starting and raising families, pursuing their own personal development, and nurturing and strengthening their marriages through the long separations. I respect you. I support you. I applaud you. I have already written about this deployment being our first as a family. We are almost half way through and so far it hasn’t been as terrible I thought it would. Certainly, it is true that everything breaks as soon as your husband leaves… …but that’s really not a big deal. We laugh about that. We make jokes and…
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Old Friends are the Best Friends
Do you have that one friend (or a few) whom you have been friends with forever? That friend whom you may not see or talk to for years and pick right up where you left off as if it had been only a few days? That friend whom you know you can always call in a crisis, but never really need to? That friend whom has seen you at your best and your worst but really only sees just you? That friend whom genuinely and sincerely only wishes the best for you without hidden resentment or jealously? That friend whom has always been your friend and always will? Yeah, that…
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Funky Sunday (or Deployments Suck)
Deployment life is definitely not for the faint of heart. In fact, it pretty much downright sucks. Today marks 108 days since J left and we have been in a funk since day 85. And in case you’re wondering, we definitely count the days…Every. Single. One. Which is why I know the exact day when the funk set in. Some days move quicker than others. Some days are easy. Some days are long. Some are really, really long. And some days are completely awful and I think, “How the heck are we going to make it through the next ____ days?” Long holiday weekends, like this one, are difficult because…
