Last Monday, Justin forwarded me an email from his branch manager. While they attempted to find him a job in Georgia, it just won’t be possible. He was asked to choose between Fort Jackson and Fort Leonard Wood.
Hurricanes or tornadoes?
Every few years we move, and every few year I’m given a choice. Here or there, left or right, up or down. My answer is always the same: it’s your job–you pick.
This might not be how other military families do it, but honestly, I learned a long time ago that if he’s happy at his job, he’s happy in life. I am not about to be responsible for choosing our location, only to have him stuck in a job he hates.
From the moment I first moved down to Georgia, 12 1/2 years ago, we decided: Justin gets the first 20 years, and I get the next 20. It’s kind of like when we drive 15 hours to visit family: he gets the first chunk, and I get to drive when he gets tired. Lucky me.
The upside? It’s given me nearly 2 decades of extra time to figure out what the heck I want to do when I grow up. I love my job, and I love working in Aquatics, and I am beyond grateful that staying here for 6 years granted me the opportunity to come back to Aquatics, after my time off to have babies. Chances are, my options will most likely be limited the next time around, and honestly, that’s ok. Maybe this will be the duty station I decide to go back to school and get a bachelors degree in……………something?
For the record, he chose hurricanes, which I’m pretty excited about–well, not the hurricanes, but sunshine and warm weather and a relatively close ocean. Now we wait and see if the Army changes its mind and sends us someone completely random.
Two weeks ago, I woke up with a pounding headache. Honestly, I rarely get headaches, and when I do, they’re usually dehydration related. I am terrible about drinking enough water, especially in the winter.
I drank water, I took an Aleve, and it got a little better. But if I moved my head too fast, it came screaming back.
For the next week, I suffered through. Lots of Aleve (that did a whole lot of nothing), and lots of water (by this point, I had accepted that it wasn’t dehydration, but it couldn’t hurt). I even cut back on my workouts, because the up/down movement of a lot of exercises (deadlifts, kettle bell swings, burpees). It was mainly a stabbing shooting pain above my right eye.
Then, it was a tormenting pressure in my eye–my eyeball felt bruised! I’m not a hypochondriac, but I sure do love google searching medical ailments. Four or five articles stated that if there’s eye pressure, you should get your butt to the doctor.
Very well. Even when I called and told them my symptoms, they told me to get there as fast as I could. So, maybe I should take this headache seriously? I opted not to put my contacts in–hey, if my eye socket is about to spit my eyeball out, at least my glasses could kind of catch it, or at least stop it from rolling around on the floor of my car.
My eye stayed put, and after a bunch of tests, and a good amount of that fun yellow dye, I was told it was sinus pressure.
Well, that was anticlimactic.
I added allergy meds to the mix. Still, there was not much change.
Bus driver, bus driver, open the door!
Fast forward to Sunday. When we were kids, my Mom taught my sisters and me all kinds of fun things: pull the skin back on your face and say, “Mommy! Mommy! My ponytail’s too tight!” Pull the skin out on either side of your neck and say, “who left the knife in the peanut butter!? And last of all, smoosh your face and say, “Bus driver, bus driver, open the door!”
I have spent these last too weeks with the combo. Mom, my ponytail’s too tight, and my head is caught in the bus doors!
Self-diagnosis: round 2. Tension headaches, caused by stress. And jaw clenching at night (hence the pounding headaches in the morning).
NNOOOO!!!!! It’s not that I wanted there to be something wrong with me. I just wanted there to be something wrong with me that had a quick and easy fix. Please explain how this temporarily single mom is supposed to reduce stress!?
Then, on our way home from the pool, Shea starts in: “Tell Mom what you did.”
Xander: “No, I don’t want to.”
Me (expecting the worst, by the way, because Xander, and his nickname is often “Mr Destructo): “What did you do??”
“He peed in the trash can!!!…in the gym!!!”
Now Xander is ready to chime back in: “No no! It was in the bathroom!”
Ah yes, because that makes it better.
As we drove back to the pool, so that my son could take the bag o’ pee out to the dumpster, I thought, “hmm. I can’t imagine why I’ve had a never-ending stress headache!”
First of all, Justin is not deployed. He’s just stationed 7,000 miles away from us.
Also, I had intended on writing a post about me getting peer pressured into doing the Reverse Sprint Triathlon. It will start out that way, but then thanks to “Deployment Law,” it will all go terribly wrong.
Thursday at work, I was convinced by a co-worker to do the Reverse Sprint Tri–I did it last year, so why not?! I hired a babysitter, threw my bike rack on the van, put air in my bike tires, and went out for a 4 mile run. I was ready!
Or was I?
This morning I got there, and got everything set up. I went into the pool’s guard room and dropped my stuff off. 5 minutes into the run I thought, “wait–did I bring my bike helmet into the guard room?! Surely not!” Oh, I surely did.
So, after adding a good 2/10 mile onto the already 3.4 mile run, I hopped on my bike and away I went. Biking has never been so hard. No matter what I did, I really felt like I was putting WAY too much effort into it. At 3 miles I realized the back tire was making weird noises. At 4 miles, I hopped off to see what was up.
My tire was flat. Painfully flat. I pulled out my phone and thought about who I could possibly contact. My list of acquaintances is short, consisting mainly of people I work with–people currently working, or racing. But the truck that was bringing up the rear was rapidly approaching. Quick! Act like you’re calling someone!
I panicked, and FaceTimed Justin. The truck pulled over and asked if everything was ok: “Oh, it’s fine. I have a flat tire.”
“Do you have someone coming to pick you up? Are you sure you’re ok?”
I am a big fat liar. I told them it was fine–I just lived down the street. It’s not entirely false. I do live down the street…and then another take a left and go another 2 miles. Either that, or say, “it’s cool, but I don’t actually know people.”
Introvert problems.
I cried a little (ok, I cried a lot) to Justin: “why does this crap have to happen!?” It’s the second race I’ve failed this year. No, this wasn’t a panic attack-induced drop out, but still!
After letting him know what happened, I was offered a ride from Dom, aka the co-worker who talked me into this in the first place. I told him it was no biggie; I was almost home. Also not a lie, but I did still have a 3 mile walk back to work so I could get my car (sorry Dom, I’m a liar).
This is what we in my family call “being a Ballschmieder.”
No no, everything is fine! I am a thousand percent ok with walking my bike home, and then all the way back to work to get my car. I don’t want to be a burden–just don’t wait for me.
So, Deployment Law: basically, if it can go wrong, it will, while your husband is TDY, or deployed, or stationed on the other side of the world. Ask any army wife, and they will tell you a horrible story of something going terribly wrong while their husband was gone. It might be the same in the civilian world too, who knows. I was thinking this morning about the fact that we’ve gone a full week, and it’s been going relatively smoothly. I’m staying positive, because my worry is that it’s all downhill from here.
It’s been a weird day. The even weirder thing about today, is that last Tuesday was also weird. I better start with last Tuesday–you’ll thank me later.
It was a typical day in the life of me. Typical for what my life has been this last 6 weeks: Crazy, work-filled, out of the house the entire time my kids are at school, and then home to play catch-up all evening. Shea had just informed me that our cat, Jessie, had puked in the laundry room, and was trying to cover it up with dirty socks. Obviously. What do you do when you throw up on the laundry room floor?
Ah, the adventures I have. Don’t be jealous. No really, I know it’s hard not to envy this insanity.
Off I go, to clean up regurgitated cat food, because morbidly obese Jessie likes to binge and purge. I was having a serious, one-sided discussion, with her about her need to eat too fast, and then cry about not having food. No, I will not feed you again. Eat slower, and this won’t be an issue.
And then, BAM!!! Or splat. It was super loud, whatever it was. I stood up and started asking, “what was…” There was no point continuing. Goodness, gracious, great explosion of laundry detergent.
This is what happens when a 210oz container of laundry detergent tries to murder you.
Well, that just happened.
I wiped it up with towels, washed the towels, and then our floor drain said, “too much soap,” and started spitting gross drain water all over the floor.
As a Buddhist, I should be willing to accept that these are all signs that I need a karmic boost.
This might have even been the same night that, in an attempt to figure out why we had a world of ants walking two-by-two across the floor, I located a cinnamon-and-sugar bagel Xander had “misplaced.” In his defense, I believe our puppy, Emma, knocked the bagel off the arm of the couch, which is located right up against the back of the computer desk. Xander thinks, lost and gone forever; ants think, THIS IS AMAZING!!!
I also got reprimanded for serving pasta and meat sauce on Taco Tuesday. I am not winning any Mother of the Year awards in this house. Of course, in all of my extra work hours, I have once again forgotten about the ever-important Taco Tuesday. I was reminded by Xander, on the walk home from the bus. He’s probably going to ask to trade me in for a better model–the version who remembers Taco Tuesday.
Fast forward to today. Honestly, when 23 May rolls around, if you can’t find me, I’m hiding. I’ll see you on the 24th, mmkay?
Eligible, and ineligible, all at once.
The day started moderately well. I forgot to ask my doctor to for a new prescription for birth control, but other than that, it was just another day. Until I read my email, and found out that I am not eligible for the Assistant Aquatics Manager position. Yes, I applied. And yes, I am not “qualified” for a job I have actually had. You might as well tell me I’m not qualified to breathe–wait. Maybe I’m not.
Let the record show that it doesn’t bother me.
Just kidding, it’s crushing.
Fast forward, fast forward, fast forward. Home from work, hanging out, trying to figure out what smells like…shit?
Well now, that would be the shit that Emma is playing with. Human shit, no less.
Knowing I will probably regret my actions, I walk toward the bathroom. Wouldn’t you know that one of my children, at some point in the day, took a giant poo, left the toilet open, and didn’t flush. If you were ever contemplating motherhood, let me tell you, it’s a glorious life. A gloriously shit-filled, stinky, dirty life.
Emma reached her poopie face into the toilet, grabbed a turd, and then played with it from there, to here. 30-so feet of poo smear. My gosh, I’m a lucky lady.
Also, the dish-washing fairy did not visit while I was at work. Crap.
Literal crap. Here, there, and everywhere. See why I stared with last Tuesday?! It was much more sanitary.
Every now and then, Justin has to take work trips. Boo. Currently, he’s in California, staying somewhere within walking distance of the beach. He sends me pictures of the fancy meals he eats each night, just to really rub it in that he’s vacationing someplace.
Yeah yeah yeah, it’s not vacation. He gets to sit in meetings all day doing stuff he thoroughly dislikes (he would say “hates,” but we’re trying to re-classify hate as a bad word–along with stupid–so Xander stops telling everyone he hates his sister, or rain, or our pug). Justin’s current job is not the running, jumping, climbing trees employment he prefers. I like to refer to it as the “planning committee.” He plans stuff. He’s really good at it, and I’m not just saying that because I’m married to him and I have to brag about him. Nah, I have about 10% knowledge of what the man does on a day-to-day basis, but I’ve seen his NCOERs. That and, you know, he got promoted, even after being told moving to this unit would kill his career.
He STILL refuses to let me go in his place on any of these TDY trips. To which I say, “boo.”
This is all beside the point.
I can’t really adult. Yes, I feed my kids. Yes, I continue on with life as usual. But today, I had ice cream for lunch. Ice cream! FOR LUNCH!!! Don’t tell Justin.
I also have an impossible time going to bed. I become like my kids on the weekends–staying up way too late, watching tv. Mainly because no one is telling me to go to bed. Which is super silly, since I’m usually the one telling Justin we have to go to bed at a decent hour, because I require sleep to function.
Justin leaves, and it’s Sammi No Rules over here. When I left work today, I had a mini arguement with myself, because I wanted to get fast food. Adult Sam told me to be an adult and go home and eat leftovers. I compromised by eating ice cream. Obviously.
There is absolutely no reason why I couldn’t go get fast food after work on a day Justin wasn’t in California. Unless I went to Burger King and decided to drive by his building, honking and screaming, “I’m eating a cheeseburger!!!” Or if I sent him a selfie with a mouthful of fries. So how is it any different because he’s on the other side of the country!?
Of course, the weather has also been crappy since he left. See, even Kentucky is sad that Justin isn’t here.
I really suck at being an Army Wife. Or an adult who eats healthy and goes to bed when her husband isn’t here to say, “I’m judging you,” or, “SAM! You’re falling asleep on the couch–go to bed.” Worst adult ever. How have I been one for nearly half of my life!?
From the moment I first moved down to Georgia, 12 1/2 years ago, we decided: Justin gets the first 20 years, and I get the next 20. It’s kind of like when we drive 15 hours to visit family: he gets the first chunk, and I get to drive when he gets tired. Lucky me.
