Things I Wish I Could Say

I'm trying very hard right now to do what I'm sure my mother would tell me is the right thing.  Problem is, the right thing is nothing.  I must do, and more difficultly, say nothing.  Let me assure you, sometimes, it is very hard for me to do nothing, and nearly impossible for me to say nothing.

I know someone who is going through a situation very, very similar to something i have gone though.  It was a terrible situation.  Heart wrenching.  I would only wish it on my worst enemy, and even then, maybe not.
Now, someone I know is dealing with the same thing, and I can't say a single word.
I'm dying to reach out, but right now, I don't think it would be received well.  I'm dying to offer a hug, but I think it would cause more pain for me to acknowledge everything going on, then just to sit here, and hope for the best.
No.  It just isn't my place to involve myself at this point.  Should I ever get an open invitation of any kind, I will gladly jump in.  I would love to be able to be there, and be the support of someone who has been there.  I want to do that.  I wish I could, but I just can't right now.  The right thing to do is really nothing, and it is the hardest thing ever.

I Know I Have Gone Insane

I'm updating my blog, not really because I want to at the moment.  In fact, I would much, much rather be sleeping, like the rest of the people in my house.  However, in 18 minutes, I can grab more booth slots for my Girl Scouts.  So, even though every little person in currently snoozing away, I'm up.  Here.  For you.  No.  For me.  Whining.
Its moments like these that I realize just how insane I am.  Even though I am currently in this alone, since my co leader had to move quickly thanks to military life, and my husband is still yet deployed, I am going, full throttle, into a cookie season where I am leader, cookie parent, and more.  All of that, along with running my moms group, volunteering at my daughter's school, and simply trying to survive with three kids all by myself isn't easy, in fact, sometimes it feels like I suffocating. I know I'm not though.  I'm going to muddle through each and every bit of this, and ride the tide of crazy that comes along with doing too much sometimes.  I know I can handle this.  I may not do the best job that any one has ever done on all of it, but it will all get done, and that is just going to have to be good enough.  I may not have the time to take long showers and get my hair done, or keep myself looking like I want to, but those things aren't really important in the grand scheme of life.  I can be a little unkempt.  I can wear nothing but jeans and t-shirts, if that is where life takes me.  If I brush my hair as I am walking out the door, and the first mirror I look in is the rear view when I take off each day, so be it.  For the moment, that may be the best I can do.
So, you will have to excuse me as I keep this post short.  I'm about to go pick times to take my kids and stand in front of a whole bunch of stores, trying to sell cookies.  I may go looking like I've been raised by wolves, but I will be there.

Things I Can't Wait for

We are seriously counting down the days until my husband comes back.  I don't know his return time yet, or believe me, I would be counting down the hours, too.  We are that close.  I suppose close is relative, of course.  We do, after all, still have a tiny bit to go.  I'm willing to bet that this last bit is going to fly by.  We have a lot to do.  We have to make a new banner to put in front of the house.  I think we might wrap the door, too.  I need to get the house clean. Yikes!  That's a big one.
In the mean time, I thought I would share all the great things that come with his return, or at least some of them.

Things I am looking forward to when my husband comes home: (In no particular order)

• Sex (let's just be honest)
• Taking a shower with the bathroom door closed, and no one opening it
• Going to the bathroom to potty with the door closed.
• Sex (Come on, its been 7 months.  That deserves two mentions.)
• Having adult conversation without going out of the house to find it.
• Not being the one to do the dishes.
• Being able to go get coffee with my friends.
• Yelling "Not It!" when we both discover The Littlest One has a dirty diaper and actually having someone else do it.
• Sleeping and snuggling with someone taller than me.
• Being able to lay on his chest at night. (Man do I miss this.)
• Sex - What? I mention that already...twice...oh...well...
• Sitting on the couch, drinking a Mike's, and watching The Big Bang Theory together (one of our favorite past times).
• Pizza Sundays, when we all make pizza together. 
• Family time.  Any family time.  
• Co-parenting.  God I miss that.  
• His laugh.
• How much he makes me laugh.
• Seeing him with The Girls, and watching him be the incredible dad he is.
• Hugs

Honestly, I could go on forever.  I would start crying though, if I went on much more.  I miss him.  We all miss him.  It won't be long, though.  Really.  I can almost feel his arms around me now.  I can't wait.

And Now They are All Crying

Mondays are Girl Scout days around here.  We spend most of the day prepping for Scouts, and then we have meetings at 4pm.  Even dinner revolves on Scouts on Monday, because I generally go for the crock pot so that we are ready to go as soon as the last girl leaves.
Today, was supposed to be just another meeting.  We were to focus on our cookie goals.  The whole cookie process, much as I loathe it, is designed to be a teaching tool for the girls.  The money they earn is to be ear marked for both community service and fun stuff.  So, before the season starts, we pick a community service project that we will be spending our proceeds on.  I take suggestions from the girls, and then see which ones are actually feasible (we physically build houses for people that don't have any, not right now anyway) and then they get to vote on them and decide for themselves what to do.  I love that part of everything, and it is probably one of the only reasons I actually go through with all this.
To get to all those great ideas, though, requires a lot of thought and work from the girls.  They have to identify who they want to help, and how.  Can we do it?  We will we have the money?
The fist thing we do is have a brainstorming session.  I go round and round, asking each girl for a new idea until they just run out.  Then ,we go through the list.  Tonight's idea's were interesting.  We had a huge discussion about buying goats for families in Africa.  The next idea was much more tame.  Someone wanted to do something to help the deployed troops.  Very nice.  One little girl, the only one in my entire troop not from a military family, raised her hand and ask what that meant.  I ask the girls who could explain it to her.  Every other hand shot up.  Since her father is actually deployed at this moment, I let The Big One explain.  She got about one sentence out before she broke down.  I believe all she said was "Sometimes, Dads have to leave to...." That was it.  That was all she could say.  She was sobbing nearly instantly.
The girl who ask looked shocked.  She didn't understand.
Since we were all sitting together on the floor, I schooched over to The Big One, put my arms around her, petting her head, and told the other little girl that sometimes, moms and dads have to leave.  They have to travel around the world to fight for our nation, to keep us safe, and do lots of important jobs.  Its hard when they do, because we miss them so much, but they have to go to keep us all safe.  They will come back as soon as they can, though.  Then, I leaned in and whispered to The Big One that we are almost done.  He will be home soon.  I just repeated that and petted her.
I looked up, and everyone else was in tears.  Her best friend, who's father just came home a few weeks ago, was sitting in her own mother's lap, crying.  Her mom just happened to be the parent there tonight to stay as the second adult.  The mom had tears in her eyes.  I look beside me, and the other two military girls are also about to cry.  The Big One couldn't calm down.
So, I just stopped the meeting.  We were going to try the new flavor of cookie, and a few others just for a refresher, anyway, and that was that. I made them wash hands, line up, and move rooms.
Change the scene and the focus immediately.
Having a troop of little girls who's fathers may leave at any time isn't easy.  They all share the pain.  Being a military child in general is such a hard life.  They didn't choose this life.  We, as parents, chose it for them.  So, we have to be there, and try our best, to comfort them, and help them through the path we chose for them.  I will always do my best to comfort my own, and any of them who are heart broken, with cookies, or hugs, or what ever it takes.
We will hope for a better meeting next week. Hopefully, we can focus on our goals, or start working on our badge, but if we are in need, I know where I can get some more cookies.

I Know You Don't Care, But...

I know weight loss blogs are generally about as interesting as watching wall paper peal.  So, sometime ago when I wanted to blog about my weight loss journey, I created a separate blog all about it.  That, though, fell by the wayside.  I have a hard enough time blogging on this one, let alone one that was really just for me.
So, if you will, please, humor me for a moment while go off about my weight loss struggle.  it won't all be a food journal, I swear.
For those who don't know me personally, let me tell you that am obese.  In fact, I was morbidly obese.  I'm talking the biggest person on the Biggest Loser ranch big.  I started working on it, slowly, though.  Over the course of quite a while, I lost about 130 lbs.  Yes.  I'm serious.  I suppose I'm really putting myself out here now, but oh well.  I worked very hard to lose that weight.  I did it all with diet and exercise.  I even gave up coffee because I can only drink coffee by adding calories into it.  I exercised at least 6 times a week.  Started a couch to 5k program and was trying to learn to run.  On the days I didn't go try to run, I worked out at home with DVDs.  Anything I could do to add extra movement in, I did.  I even mowed yards voluntarily, just to exercise more.
Then, I got pregnant.  It was really not expected.  I was losing weight.  Getting my body to finally start to look like a normal person should.  We never got pregnant easily, either.  It took forever to conceive both of the other two.  So, when, after my husband come home off a boat, I suddenly found my self pregnant, I was shocked.  I was also scared because of all my body had been though.  while I survived the pregnancy, I also gained weight.  I gained 40 pounds back.  It really hurt to see that coming back on.  A lot.  I worked so hard to lose it all.
Anyway, now, I'm trying to lose it back again.  I want to start moving back down the scale to not only get back to where i was, but to continue on that journey and do even better.
The problem is I'm stuck.  I can't.  It took all the motivation I had last time to really get rolling an d serious, something I'm not sure I can duplicate.  I got about 10 pounds in, and pretty much quit on myself.  Again.  I will tell you, though, I know what the problem is.  Depression.  I'm eating my feelings away.  Life is so freaking emotionally difficult right now, nearing the end of a long deployment after him being in and out for the last year, dealing with being a physically single mother of three with no help, trying to plan our life after he retires very soon, all that is just too much.  I can't help it.  I don't have the will power to not eat Oreos.  Heck, I'm pretty lucky I haven't gained even more while he was gone.  It is also a million times harder to exercise right now.  Having an infant who isn't on a set schedule, and is super clingy, makes it really hard.  If I could get The Big Little One to agree to be in a double stroller, I could at least walk, but that isn't going to happen.  She refuses.  In all honestly, she is nearly five, and hasn't been in one since she was about three.  So, I can't blame her.  All that together means that there is practically no way to get in a good workout.  Not working out, and not eating right don't make for good weight loss.
I've got to turn this around.  I have got to get over myself, an everything going on, and focus on what I can control.  It's hard, though.  I suppose if it were easy I would have been thin years ago, and there would be be no weight loss industry.  Maybe I should stop feeling so bad that its hard, since the hard way means thousands of jobs.  I'm totally trying to find a bright side, here.
The reality of this all is I know what to do.  I've done it before.
I need to get off my butt, literally, and start moving.
I need to stop stress eating, and start finding a way to channel that into working out.
I can do this again.
I will do this again.
I will rebuild my self...better than before.

I Have a Beef With Cookies

If you read my last post, then you know where this is headed.  Cookie season in Girl Scouts has got to be one of the most stressful things ever.
Cookies haven't even started yet, and already this has been a bumpy roller coaster ride.  From one low, into a loop de loop, straight to a huge, stomach tossing dip.   I found a parent to go.  I am so incredibly thankful for her.  After all the scrambelling and worrying I did over the last 24 hours, trying desperately to find someone to go in my place to the Cookie Lottery, I moved from stressed out to pissed off. I offered childcare to everyone in the troop, but she managed to get it worked out on her own at the last second.  She was going a little late, but she would go.  She is also the newest parent to all of this that I have.  She doesn't have any training in cookies, and has never been part of the process before, but she was able to go.  She did the best she could, and that is all I could ask of her.  What raises my ire is that when she got there, there were children at the event.  I was told specifically that there were to be no children, and we struggled with it, yet people were allowed to come in.  I had to send the only person i could, and our girls were seriously disadvantage by having someone with no experience go, in order to follow the rule.

The women there weren't even all that nice to the parent i sent.  In a fantastic display 0of immaturity, other women were taking up seats with their purses, just so no one could sit beside them and leaving no open seats in the hall for my parent.  The process has become so competitive that people forget we are all supposed to be "a sister to every Girl Scout".  That is something we have our girls say at every meeting. I know that in our troop in particular, we are very focused on that.  I want the girls to learn to be good sports, and compete to the best of their ability, but without a malicious undertone.  It can be done.  We try to focus on how cookies help every girl, and not just our troop.  We want them to see the greater good of the whole process.
The whole process, all of cookies sales, is what I dislike most about Girl Scouts.  So many times, I wish we could skip it, but there are valuable lessons to be learned if we choose to focus on them.  I am going to do my best to do just that.  In fact, I suppose I should make this a learning opportunity for myself.  I really need to learn to ignore all the bad behaviour that I see from other adults, not let it get to me so much, and focus on making this great for my girls.  For those who have lost sight of what cookies should be, well, Bless their Hearts, I hope they do great and get out of it whatever they want, too.

One Of THOSE Nights

Tonight sucks.  Totally sucks.  It really sucks to have my husband gone right now.  This time, it isn't because my children were off the wall today.  Actually, considering everything we had to do they were pretty good.  It isn't because, yet again, he missed a really special moment.
This time, its because sometimes day to day life is hard, and you need a partner to be there for you.  When you are married or in a committed relationship, you expect to have that, and when you don't it hurts sometimes.

I know that being a military spouse, we usually don't say a lot.  We just suffer in silence, or relate our sadness to those who are in the same situation.  We don't complain  about how absolutely horrible it can be at times, and it is.  At least, I can tell you that I usually don't say much.  I tell people "Its fine", "We will make it", or some other very white washed expression of how I feel.  I know that I will make it.  I don't have a choice.  I have to continue on, but sometimes, like tonight, I just want to cry myself to sleep.  Unfortunately, I can't because I have too much to do to even sleep.

Girl Scout Cookie sales start at the end of this month.  Thanks to military downsizing, I lost our troop leader very suddenly over the Christmas break.  My world was instantly screwed.  Her world much more so, I'm sure, but still.  She and I worked together on everything last year.  We make a great team.  Our husbands are fantastic Girl Scout dads, and they pitch in every where they can.  So, I went from a team of four to get cookies done, to me.  Just me.  Saying that I feel overwhelmed doesn't even begin to cover it.
I have had to beg and plead to get my training.  Though I managed cookies last year, I was still required to go though the multiple hour cookie training again this year.  Problem is, this year, I have an infant.  Cookies are in general a no children allowed process.  No children at training.  No children at the Booth Sale Lottery.  No children at cookie pickup.  You get the idea.  The only times we can have any children with us are when we are selling the cookies, and it is supposed to be just the Girl Scout selling, no siblings, or tag-a-longs as they call them, at all.  This includes infants strapped to your chest in carriers.
I managed to beg a parent into going to the training for us, just so that we could sell.  Now, I have to get the rest done.
My husband is gone.  My co leader is gone.  I have no family here.  I can't leave my breast fed, straight up clingy 8 month old with a sitter.  I'm screwed.
No one gets that, either.

You would think that most people in charge who work with the scouts have children themselves, and would be more understanding.  Not so.
Tomorrow morning is the big Booth Sale Lottery.  This is a huge deal in the cookie world.  This is when we get to select our locations for selling cookies.  If you don't go, you don't get booths.  If you do, you get the crap left over at the places that don't sell that no one wants.  Some of them even come with notes about which way to face to avoid the loads of indigent people that will be around.  Really, I don't want girls there.  So, going to this lottery is vital to each troop.
However, again, I can't take the baby.  I can't leave her with any one.  So, I can't go.The parent that helped me before has no child care for tomorrow.  He can't go.  I have a small troop.  Most of my parents are in the same situation I am, mostly military families with no one here to help out.
So, were all screwed.
What really upsets me is that this year, my parents are willing to put in the work because they all want their children to earn camp, but we are all hurt by a system that isn't understanding of our situations.  If we don't get these booths tomorrow, no one will earn camp.  We won't be able to sell enough cookies to do it.  There is no way.  None of us have childcare.  None of us can go.
I need my husband.  Not just tomorrow, but for this whole process.   I need someone here tonight to tell me just to breath, and that we will figure it out.  I need someone to have my back.
I don't though. Not right now. Not for a little while longer.
This is a hard life.  Nights like tonight, when you just need a hug, are the hardest.

So, its back to stressing out about what to do, and trying to find someone, anyone, to help out.

Yes, I look forward to his retirement.  I look forward to having him home, and being able to get that hug anytime I need it.  No matter what, though, for the rest of my life, I will always be understanding of those who are in the same situation I am in right now.  I will always extend my hand, or do anything I can, to help those who don't have the support they want and need because they are military families.
Tonight, I'm sending out lots of love and virtual hugs to all the military spouses sitting a home while their spouses are gone.  Much love to you all, and speedy return so that you too can get a hug, and maybe even a kiss.