Week 6 - Day 5

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.  I'm sure many of you have some varied opinions on this holiday, both good and bad.  I would like to share some of my thoughts about why I have always, in times of heartbreak and heart full, enjoyed Valentine's Day.

First and foremost, I truly believe and try to exude the idea that Valentine's Day is a sort of alternate Thanksgiving, only more specific to being thankful for the people in our lives who love us.  I don't mean spouses, girlfriends, boyfriends, lovers, crushes, exclusively, but also friends, family, mentors, all of those people who you may not share a romantic meal and red roses with, but who are every bit as deserving to know that you love them and they are important in your life.

In today's world where communicating is active yet some how cheapened in it's deliveries, I think Valentine's Day is needed as a reminder to remind those in your life that they make your life meaningful.  That's what all holidays should really be about in mind my.  Celebrating life and love.  In a world where we are all so busy trying to tread water, February 14th should be the day that you call your parents and say you love them, call a friend you haven't spoken to in years and tell them you miss the wonderful times your shared.  Should this behavior be restricted for one day, no, but sometimes our priorities get a little shifted in the chaos in life.  It's nice to have a day to kick start a year of good habits.

Finally, as a girl who won't be spending Valentine's Day with the love of her life, I plan to indulge in a little single girl behavior.  I will be spending the evening cuddled with my blankets, drinking wine, eating chocolates, and watching romantic movies.  I'm not bummed about it, I'm kind of excited.  I celebrated my couples version Valentine's with my husband back in January, and I haven't had a single girl Valentine's day in awhile.  Now anyone single here reading this might be annoyed with me but as someone who is a hopeless romantic, there is something wonderful about fantasizing about your next crush or imaginary romantic interludes with your favorite literary characters.  Valentine's Day for the single girl (or boy) should be a day to dream and maybe a day to be a little bolder about asking out someone you like.

It looks like the "surprise" my husband says he sent was delayed due to weather, but I did enjoy some surprises on the day:

Yummy chocolates

From my Dad!

Wine, chocolates, and Parade's End = Awesome Valentine's Day

Week 6 - Day 3

I've had an ability since I was a child to wake up from a wonderful dream, shut my eyes, and will myself back in to the fantasy world.  It works, I can get myself back to the dream, but it only usually works once, so if by chance you wake me up after the second attempt, I will be on the wrong side of the bed for the rest of the day.  I've always had a very vivid imagination, especially as a child.  A vivid imagination results in the best daydreams but the worst nightmares.

Two nights ago was the first time in awhile I had such a wonderful dream that I felt compelled to return.  I won't bore you with the details... even though they probably wouldn't bore you at all, but this return resulted in me sleeping until noon!  Sometimes one needs to commit to their fantasy world and let the imagination muscle work out a little bit.  Where am I going with this?  Today, reality disappoints and I allowed myself to retreat into the beautiful imagination.

It's hard to do this for any prolonged period of time during the work week being plagued with so many annoying adult things like, working, doctor appointments, and deciding how early you should leave your rehearsal tonight so you can get groceries before the impending snowpocalypse.

In loyalty to one of the missions of my blog, I will say that I got a text from my husband today, a "secret text."  He still hasn't been cleared by the surgeon, he was supposed to see him/her Monday, and then today, but both times got cancelled.  So, he remains annoyingly in limbo.  I was so pleased for a little dose of happy today in between my adult and imagination moments.

Snow snow snow.  Ugh.  That is all.

Week 6 - Day 2

My morning began... after a frigid walk to the train in teen temperatures... with a perfect cup of coffee.  Perfect temperature, perfect cream to coffee ratio, perfect.  I find Tuesdays worse than Mondays so this was a nice start to the day.

I did something a bit impulsive yesterday, I submitted myself for a musical theater program based in Germany.  I'm now scheduled for an audition.  I really don't know how I get myself in to these things... the best part is the audition is the same day as a long choral rehearsal.  My logic is that after singing for several hours I will be super warmed up.  Oh and I have a concert the next day.  Ladies and gentlemen, I am a crazy girl.

With such a lovely start to the day, it would seem only karmatically appropriate, if you'll excuse the non-word, that the end of my day went critically awry.  My car got stuck in my Mom's driveway.  Yes.  Stuck in a patch of black ice rendering it impossible for me to go to a doctor's appointment.  (I'm vitamin B-12 deficient and have to start getting shots of it, yippee!)  After some rather comedic antics trying to get the car out, we called AAA.

An incredible kind man showed up with his giant tow trucked and towed me out perfectly.  He was so jovial about it and was so genuinely patient.  I was envious at his calm under the situation; his behavior was so contagious that my Mom and I were both smiling at the end of our speed bump.

I want to be more like that guy.  I want to be contagiously kind and patient.

Week 6 - Day 1

Good day, internet folks.  The husband has trekked back to army life and thus my life as a solo married lady blog personality may continue.  Yay?  Wait, sorry, that was a little lugubrious, let's try that again... YAY!  That level of enthusiasm is so hard to commit to on a Monday morning after my moping weekend.  This has now become a tradition, every time my soldier leaves. and has been on a Friday or Saturday, I have spent the rest of that weekend moping in my own special ways.  Moping includes:

1) Bad food decision, such as eating Nutella out of the jar for dinner
2) Computer/iPad game binges (my new one is Fruit Ninja)
3) Sappy mini series experiences that my husband would never watch (currently watching Parade's End)
4) Bag lady clothing attire
5) Cloistering myself in the apartment (I didn't even leave to get Girl Scout cookies, that was a tough commitment, but I will be attempting this later this month)

So, yeah, I allow myself this kind of anti-social and "poor me" behavior for that duration and then... done.  Not too say that I won't be finishing Parade's End this week, because AH it's so good, highly recommend, but I will space out these activities and with them try to include some healthier lifestyle choices.  Going to work counts as one of those lucky for me!

On this week's agenda, I am going to be spending some girl time with my mom.  I'm excited to spend the first few days of my "alone time" with family.  It helps ease the transition into being alone.

I want to make some new goals for myself in this second phase... we shall see.

Medical Leave - Day 27

Hello? Internet? Yes, I'm still here.  Sorry for the little break, but it doesn't seem very necessary to blog about your husband being away, when he is, in fact, nearby in the next room.  My solider has been on medical leave from basic training after having his appendix removed not three days after leaving for part 2.  The procedure was easy, laparoscopic, no complications, but as a result he has not been able to do a whole lot since returning home. Per doctor's orders no heavy lifting, including push-ups, pull-up, and sit-ups.  Light running only after a few weeks of R&R.

It hasn't been easy, he's anxious to get back and finish what he's started and I'm just so happy to have him home, although it was hard having someone home who couldn't really help with some of the household functions.  It's an odd adjustment, but now, as we are toward the end of the leave time, I feel like we did okay.  Between the two of us, and our families, we have been dealing with a lot of health issues, it's just been an odd new year.

My husband's recovery has been pretty typical and I have to say he's really be coping well with the whole, doing nothing all day thing.  I've done my best to try and keep his spirits up but again, being a newly married couple in such an odd state constant transition, it does take its toll.  Before he left, it takes time to prepare for the idea of being alone again, it's just emotionally odd.

It's very difficult being in transition.  Your home is your holding pattern, your job is your placeholder, and the life you try to create for yourself ends up feeling temporary.  It's hard to create meaningful moments and live in an expiring present.  In college, and Sex and the City, we call this "Expiration Dating" when it applies to relationships with a known end date.  I guess this is "Expiration Mating?"  I may need to work on that one...

Week 5 - Day 2

I hate to quote myself, but, really, truly, my life... our life, is never dull.  For those of you that don't already know, I received a phone call last night from my husband.  He got appendicitis.  Yes.  As in inflamed appendix, as in needs surgery now.  He received surgery at the military hospital last night and as per the doctor's phone call, the surgery went very well.  Minimal scarring, definitely an inflamed appendix, no complications.

I would like to state that my Grey's Anatomy marathons may have caused this, sooo many appys...

I would also like to point out that gastro-issues are supposed to my thing.  I was actually hoping for appendicitis when I went in to the ER since once the appendix is removed, it's one and done with bad symptoms.

I also called the hospital and was connected to his room this morning.  He's doing well, tired and sore, but to be expected after surgery.  Unfortunately, this means that he has a month of recovery before he can return to basic training.  Silver lining, he will be coming home in about a week or so, I'm still not sure on those details.  The laparoscopic surgery should mean a speedier and easier recovery, but he still has to avoid physical activity (i.e. pushups, pullups, etc...) for the month.  There is no guarantee at what point he will be able to re-enter training.  That's the worst part, he could end up having to make-up duplicate weeks of work, which will make this process even longer.

It's very frustrating.  I feel badly, this is not how I wanted to get more time with my husband.  He can't seem to catch a break.  Silver lining again, at least he had really good medical coverage to cover this kind of surgery.  I'm worried about my husband's morale when he gets home, he was so excited and determined to go back to training and finish and move on to his true MOS.  Singing.

He will need a lot of support when he gets home, friends, family, singing, love, and delicious home cooking.  I'm even thinking about a long weekend somewhere warm... with an ocean... and palm trees....

Please send any support to him you can think of, I know he's been away and focused on this journey, but he really needs to know he has people around him.  Physically he will have a perfectly fine recovery, but I know his spirit will be a little tricky.  No one likes lying around.

More updates coming soon, I hope!

Week 5 - Day 1

This rainy Monday is very apt in reflecting my current mood.  After two blissful weeks of holiday joy and having my soldier home with me, he left to continue his journey with basic training.  I got extremely lucky and even had an extra day with him due to a cancelled flight from weather, but the whole thing still feels like crap.  For lack of a better word.  In retrospect, I feel very blessed that the timing worked as such that I even got to see him in the middle of his training.  Typically, he would go straight through for 10+ weeks, so I'm so happy I got this time with him.

It was hard saying goodbye, we eased back in to our life so quickly, our separation almost felt like a dream.  Now, our time together feels a bit imaginary... 

It's so icky this morning, I'm very cranky.  To add fuel to this, last night at midnight-thirty, the fire alarms went off in my building prompting me to have to get out of bed, and wait outside in the drizzling, disgusting rain, until the fire department showed up to alert us that it was, in fact, a false alarm.  Which means there was probably some flooding due to the rain on top of snow.  This is the second time since we moved in to this building that this has happened.  Sucks.  Especially for someone who is now having a little bit of a harder time sleeping.

I feel like this half of the time apart will be the most difficult since it's longer and I don't have the holidays to distract me.  No fun holiday bucket list of joyful things... just the looming responsibility of having to take down all of my Christmas decorations, plus, I have to finish changing my name, get a military ID.  Ugh, so much ick.  I'm pretty terrified of my mail 

On the positive side of distractions, I have three auditions coming up, one for a prestigious choral group in my area and two for local musicals.  I'm excited and nervous, I have a lot of prep to do before these auditions.

Much to do... naps to take... *yawn*