I love technology

The last few months have been rough. Trying to adjust to living with my parents, having John gone for training and now officially deployed overseas, and getting to see John during the holidays only to say good-bye again have been challenging. During Thanksgiving John brought an almost life-size cardboard cutout of himself that the military made for promotional purposes. Some mornings I wake up and say hello or even I love you to it. I guess it will have to do for now.

I am so grateful for technology. I mean my husband is currently in Kuwait somewhere and he was able to video chat with me this morning. Not that I love him seeing my hair and face with all it's crazy I haven't gotten out of bed yet going on, but at least he couldn't smell my morning breath. Being able to take my phone into my girls room and have the first voice they hear in the morning be their fathers is pretty amazing if you ask me.

I have read books and talked to women who had to wait weeks and sometimes months for letters (which was their only form of communication). I am so glad that I am spoiled by technology.

Even with the wonderful technology advances it is still hard to have a deployed husband. The physical loss of him is still there. My bed is still ridiculously cold and lonely at night and somehow I kind of miss my butt being slapped all the time.

I just can't let myself think about that or dwell on that too long. Like a lot of other things. I really tried to get pregnant before he left. Part of me really hoped that if I did, then I wouldn't miss him physically. I would be cranky and pregnant and not want to be touched. I guess I felt that would be easier. I was pretty upset when I found out that I wasn't. I buried myself in "The Chemist" by Stephanie Meyer (a good, female smart not physical, Jason Bourne type novel that still has romance sprinkled in it and I would recommend for anyone who likes romance or Jason Bourne type action). I have cried so much the last week or so that it is probably no small wonder that my nose has a huge cold sore that I am trying to recover from. Which thanks to technology and video chats, I have not hidden from my husband.

Life has its hard moments and this last week or two have been very challenging.

Still, I won't stay like this because my girls need to see a strong mother and they need an example of how to get through the difficult times. So I am signing up for and doing a full marathon and I might even be doing an obstacle course run. Anyone want to do it with me?  I have also signed up for weight watchers with my mother and we are going to work on losing weight. I can honestly say that doing that has made me feel so much better. Eating in moderation and eating good foods makes a big impact on how my body feels and how I feel about myself. I like weight watchers because there are no foods you can't eat, you just can't go crazy and eat a whole bag of chocolates (at least not and expect a good result). However, I can have a treat every now and then and still lose weight. Shoot I could have a mini candy bar every day and still loose weight. I just can't have 10 mini candy bars. Once again technology is awesome because I have this little app on my phone that makes it super simple to keep track of what I eat and make sure that I am eating enough, but not too much.

I even use technology to track my runs and other exercise, all while listening to music. #blessedbytechnology

Technology also allows me to talk to and get support from the many other military spouses out there. I have a group of ladies that are sisters of the heart to me. I reached out to them this last week and I knew they could understand what I was feeling. They were awesome and they live all over the place. (Sorry Tammy for your -45 degree weather in Alaska) Thanks to technology I can shoot a message out to them and anyone else I need to and feel so much better. I can be reminded that I am not alone and that deployments can be survived. I watched them survive.

So what is the point of this, I don't know. But I love technology.

Confession

I am 36 and I still sleep with stuffed animals. Well mostly just the one. There it feels good to get that off my chest.

When I was a child, one year for Christmas, my parents got me a beautiful big snow leopard stuffed animal. I loved him. When we moved from California to Georgia when I was 14 years old, snow leopard came with me. When I went away to college and got on that plane all by myself, snow leopard came with me. Having snow leopard to snuggle with the whole flight made it easier for me to leave my home and family for the unknown future ahead. I am sure it looked weird to have an 18 year old girl on a plane with a snow leopard, but thankfully I have a little bit of a baby face and so I think I got away with it. (A creepy young man with a tongue fetish who was going to Vegas tried to hold snow leopard for a minute and I had to quickly swipe it back. That was a low moment for snow leopard.)

Throughout my two years in Utah at Brigham Young University, I slept with and kept snow leopard close by. He is the perfect size body pillow before body pillows were a thing. Over the years he has provided me a lot of comfort and is a constant in my world of change. Whenever I needed to snuggle and was sad, he has been there for me.

As soon as I got married, my husband replaced snow leopard in the bed. Still, I never got rid of him and would occasionally snuggle with snow leopard when I read. Then I started to have kids and they started to grow up. They sometimes play with snow leopard. Every once in a while they even want to sleep with him and as long as John is home, I have no problem sharing. It is a lot harder to share snow leopard when John is not home, though.

This last year our family was able to go to Disney World and have a wonderful vacation. Reese and John picked out a baby snow leopard for me at Animal Kingdom so that my big snow leopard would have a friend. Baby snow leopard is soft and perfect and I am very grateful for the gift.

Now that John is deploying, I curl up with both my snow leopards every night. One for a body pillow and the other for my arms. Somehow it is less lonely in the bed and I am always reminded of the beautiful people in my life. So thank you mom and dad for that wonderful Christmas gift. I don't think either one of us knew how important it would be in my life. Thank you Reese and my love, John.

Thumbs Up

A month before we moved from Pennsylvania to Georgia, my friend, Tera Gibb, asked me if I wanted to do a 10K beat the bus run with her. Since I absolutely love to run with Tera, I agreed. Unfortunately, it happened to be the last Saturday before we left. Leading up the race we got runs in when we could and I continued packing our house. Most of it was loaded into storage with help from my husband and oldest daughter, Celia. I didn't stress the 10k because "I have done half-marathons before, a 10k is no problem" right? Oh silly, silly me.

The last few weeks before we moved we were trying to get rid of food. There were few to no home cooked meals and we kept our house supplied with treats. So now you are beginning to see that I did not really train or prepare myself physically for this 10k. Still I was excited to do this beat the bus run and see if we could indeed beat the bus or if we were going to be too slow and need to be picked up.  

The morning of the race, I got my girls in the car and we headed out.  It was a cool and mildly foggy Autumn day in September. Since we love hanging out with the Gibb family, we were all excited.  Reese was able to do her first fun run with her friend Josie and earned her first medal (which ended up being bigger than ours).  Josie's older brother Tanner had been training for his run and easily took first place even though one girl was initially faster. 

Then it was me and Tera's turn. There was also a 5k going on that day and most of the runners were there for that one. We got to the starting line and I could tell that our crowd was mostly seasoned runners. Still it was discouraging when the race began and we were at the back of this pack of runners. I brushed it off and instead just focused on not being the absolute last ones to the finish line.

Tera and I were enjoying the splendid views of the lake and the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside during the not too difficult and flatter first half. Even though these views were spectacular, I was sad that there were not many spectators along the course. Some of my favorite memories from half marathons are the people who are on the sidelines either ringing their cowbells or cheering us on.  Even better are the silly signs that they hold up like: "Smile if you peed a little," "Why do all the cute ones run away," "Run fast, I just farted," "This is a lot of work for a free banana," or "Chuck Norris never ran a marathon." These signs make me laugh and I just love them.

Not one sign was on this course though. Then to make matters worse, as we got closer to the halfway point, I was struggling. My hips and right ankle hurt and I could feel all that horrible food I had been eating like a lead weight in my stomach. I don't think I had enough water in my system and I was just plain exhausted from the mental and physical stresses of a move. 

That was when the first 10k runners passed the turning point and started going the opposite direction; toward us and eventually the finish line. I am not sure who started it, but I think it was Tera. We started to shout words of encouragement to those runners and I would do a thumbs up or two. With each thumbs up or "Way to go" I started to forget the pains I was experiencing and my struggles. Instead I would make eye contact with runners and offer them support, often receiving support back. After passing the halfway point, we started to come across the 5K runners and Tera and I continued to offer encouragement to them. There was a large hill where I could no longer breath enough air to offer words, but I tried to offer thumbs up still. 

Then as we started to get within a couple miles of the 10k finish line, there were no longer any other runners to offer encouragement to. So Tera and I started to tell each other we got this and we could do it. It was a definite sigh of relief when we passed the point where the bus would no longer pick us up. Though honestly, I never doubted for a second that Tera wouldn't make it past that point and finish the race.  Those last few miles were definitely the hardest part of the run. Then with just a few hundred yards to go uphill to the finish line Tera started to go faster and even passed another lady to finish strong. I came up after Tera and the other lady, struggling to catch my breath. Still I finished.

This run was a hard one for me and I am so glad I did it. Especially because I learned a valuable lesson that day. Those experiences during the run have stayed with me and sunk deep inside. I felt better when I was cheering other people on. Now I am not a cheerleader by any stretch of the imagination, but I think I need to become more of one now. When we really try to help others out and support them, our trials lesson because our mind is no longer wrapped solely around our own struggles. Instead our minds have so many other things to think about. When we look for ways to encourage and lift others up, we become elevated as well.  It is not always easy.  Sometimes we are struggling to breath and all we can muster is a small thumbs up or nod hello.  It doesn't matter how big or how little it is. What matters is that we do it.  So if you are having a hard time right now, look for ways to help encourage and cheer others on during their struggle.  I promise it will change your life.  

But If Not

In April of 2004, just after I had found out that I was finally pregnant with my first daughter, Elder Simmons of the Seventy gave an inspiring talk about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. They were threatened with death by fire and their response was that their God would save them, BUT IF NOT they would still hold true to their testimony and knowledge of God.

Here is the talk:

 https://www.lds.org/ensign/2004/05/but-if-not.p1?lang=eng

(Side note on what a Seventy is: A leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The prophet leads our church under the direction of Jesus Christ, then he has apostles that help him and seventies who help after that in the various locations of the church worldwide.)

I have to admit that just before this time, in 2002 and 2003, I struggled to stay close to my Heavenly Father. I was so angry with him that He was not allowing me to get pregnant. After all, it was a righteous desire and it should be easy. I was even more frustrated when I did all of the testing for infertility and they came back saying we were a picture perfect couple. There was no reason we should not be getting pregnant. Still I was not getting pregnant. I even tried Clomid to help speed up the process of getting pregnant. After two months, I ended up getting a kidney stone and a cyst on my ovaries. Not to mention the hormones that I subjected my body to and the mood swings that made life difficult. However, I did eventually end up pregnant. Twice in fact. 

So why am I bringing up all this ancient history when I have two beautiful girls. Well, I am saying this because of my last post. In it I had expressed how I was trying to get pregnant and we once again used Clomid. Which frankly was a horrible time to use that medicine. Here we are in the midst of so many preparations for deployment and a move down South and I am barely hanging on emotionally. That sounds like a great time for extra hormones right? NO, no it wasn't. There was one day in particular that everything and everyone was bothering me. I could feel this need to scream and vent frustration out on anyone in sight. I expressed my struggle to my daughters and they tried to give me plenty of space that day. They are smart like that. Still it took all my self control not to blow up and act like a start raving lunatic. 

In taking this medicine, I pleaded with the Lord that I would get pregnant and all of those struggles would be worth it. I also added the BUT IF NOT phrase in my prayer, but really hoped it wouldn't come to that. 

In case you are curious, I did indeed need the BUT IF NOT phrase. I am not pregnant and there is not really any chance I will be for a year. My BUT IF NOT was that I would be OK if it did not happen. That I would be able to accept God's will for my family and find what He wants us to do. I have not felt like I am done with children and so I have kept baby clothes, furniture and various other things that would have long since been disposed of. In the last 6 years we have moved into 6 separate houses in four states. I have hated hauling that stuff around over the years. Still we are not done and when I came close to getting rid of some things, my daughter questioned me. "Didn't you say you weren't done having kids? Why would you get rid of that?" She had pointed out my lack of faith. Didn't I believe that God answered my prayer?

So I have kept all that stuff. When I initially realized I was not pregnant, I kind of shut my emotions of. Then I immersed myself into a book to forget. Unfortunately, I happened to be reading a drama that centered around a baby. The good thing about this book was that it allowed me to release all my pent up emotions and cry. So I allowed myself a day to mourn the loss and then I got on with my life. Back to work doing all the things that needed doing around the house. I could not have and did not do this in 2002. It was all so much harder then. When I was angry at God for not giving me what I wanted. 

Now that I have made peace with God and realized that He has a reason for all things, I can truly say that even if things don't work out the way I want (BUT IF NOT) they do work out the way God intends.

I am sorry that I am not announcing a pregnancy, but we are considering fostering or adopting in a year. Whatever we do, I know the Lord will have led us to this point for a reason. In the end, the path will make sense. 

Getting Personal

Even though I enjoy writing, especially inspirational tidbits that make people feel good, I struggle to really get too personal. I don't like to give too much information about me, myself and my family. Lately, I have been feeling that I need to and I guess I will work on that. I am sure that I will still find ways of sharing inspiration and hope to uplift others and help them grow closer to our Heavenly Father. So for the personal:

My house has been an utter mess for the last month and a half;boxes everywhere, chores not being done and me feeling crazy. We have been trying to figure out what we can live without for a year and what we need to take with us. Slowly the stuff in my house is disappearing and the storage unit is filling. You see; My girls and I are moving in with my parents while my husband continues to inspire us from a far by deploying to the Middle East. I am a military wife and I have been for a while. However, this is the first time we have done a real deployment. There have been many long separations and two other possible deployments. The first deployment my husband was unable to go on due to an injury to his leg that required surgery, a plate and ten screws. The second deployment was cancelled last minute. Both of those experiences were so stressful. Life in many ways is stressful. We all have stuff to deal with.

Our family has known that this deployment was coming and for a long time we thought about moving in July so that the girls would only have one school to go to this year. In April, I was called into our Bishops office (a local church congregation leader) and asked if I would serve as the Relief Society President (in charge of the women of the local congregation and their needs). I did not want the calling and was at that time thinking of moving in July. So it took prayer and fasting before I could answer our Bishop. We decided that I would accept the calling and we would put off our move until John got official orders for the deployment. Which are due in a couple weeks, ironically the same day we pack up to move. We debated moving in November, but training schedules changed and we decided to move at the end of September.

So while I have been working on moving the stuff into storage that we won't take and packing the rest up, I have also been attempting to help the women at church. Sometimes it is just a phone call or a visit to the hospital, at other times I help the ward provide food for a family in need. Whatever the Lord or Bishop feel needs to be done, is done. Thankfully I have lots of amazing helpers. Still, it feels like a lot some days and I am extremely overwhelmed. At other times I am grateful for so much keeping me busy because it gives me less time to worry and stress.

Additionally, there are so many emotions involved when you know a loved one is going to leave you for an extended period of time. There is anger and a desire to push them away. Almost as if you are trying to prepare yourself mentally to not need them around. "How dare he leave us" is a thought I have on occasion. Then there is pride in him and his willingness to serve. I know it will be even harder for him to be away from his girls and he will miss things, but he does it because he wants to help people and save lives. He wants to do his job. Most of the time I want to be around John every possible minute that I can and that makes me feel clingy. Which I do not like.

That part of the emotions is hard, but there are also good things. I am so excited to be around my family and my newest little nephew, who is just a week old. I love them so much and really look forward to being able to spend time with them. Sadly, it has been hard to allow myself to feel this excitement too much and I need to work on that.  I just keep thinking how can I be excited when the biggest piece of my heart with be thousands of miles away. I can't be excited for that. I can't be excited for the worry and fear I will have to battle everyday over him. I think I might pray for world peace with an added fervor now. I will also pray that he has a boring deployment and stay out of harms way.

In the midst of all of this and so much more, I have been taking fertility medicine to get pregnant. Do I want to be pregnant while my husband is gone and possibly have the baby without him? excuse my language, but Hell NO. I don't want any of this, but life is like that and you just have to adjust. I have been trying for years to get pregnant and because of all the training trips my husband has gone on this year there have only been two chances to get pregnant.This last month may very well be our last chance for over a year. I am not getting younger and I am sick of trying to get pregnant. I have literally spent well over a decade of my life in that pursuit (which would be less frustrating, if I had better results). Unfortunately taking this medicine, has meant that most of this month I have felt the desire to cry over nothing. I have had to work extra hard at keeping my anger and frustrations under check. I know I am extra tired and working out has been a horrible chore that exhausts me more than I want to admit. It has been an exercise in self-control and some moments I have succeeded more than others.

Still if it works out it might just be worth it and if not....BUT IF NOT...I will still trust in the Lord and find what he wants me to do. I am praying for strength either way because I need it.  Mostly I need help with mental strength because that is where I am dealing with most of my struggles anyways. So that is my little bit of personal.

Whatever you are dealing with, you can do it. I know that this too will pass and soon I will be welcoming my husband home with open arms and fighting for his attention from his daughters. Then we will be moving to another new place; maybe California, Colorado, Florida or possibly back to Kentucky. Of course, we never know and I have to just take a deep breath and remember "One step is Enough for Me" - The line comes from a church hymn and I often say it to myself during these times. I don't need to know what will happen in a year and where we will be, one step is all I need. That one step is moving to Georgia and being around so many wonderful friends and family.

He Speaks To Us

As I sat in church a few weeks ago, one line from a country song kept replaying in my mind. "This is my temporary home, not where I belong." ("Temporary Home" by Carrie Underwood https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LraOiHUltak) As that line was on repeat in my mind, I thought of so many times where I have had a glimpse of what my permanent home will be like. These glimpses are such a treasure to me. Most of these glimpses have taken place in the temple. The temple is such a beautiful and sacred place where members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints go for instruction and to seal families together for eternity. When I go to the temple I feel like the living and the dead dwell in that building together. Not in a creepy, dead body way. No, so many of the spirits of those I love, who have passed on, are in that building. They are there cheering me on and filling my heart with love.

Washington D.C. temple

A few months ago I had the great pleasure of going to a sealing (when you marry for time and all eternity in the temple) in the Atlanta, Georgia temple. I had the pleasure of teaching the bride, Meighan, when she was a teenager and over the years have watched her grow into the beautiful woman that she is. As I looked around the ornate room I saw the faces of so many friends that in many ways are family for me. They were my ward family and I still love them. However, there was also some of our family missing . Meighan's grandparents passed away and I was blessed to get to know them as well before we moved from the area. There were also others there who were missing a spouse or other loved one.

As the sealer (the person that performs the ceremony) spoke he mentioned how there were some who were there that we could not see, but could only feel. So many eyes teared up at that comment, including my own. There in that indescribably beautiful room I had a glimpse of the sweet reunion that our permanent home will have. Where we will embrace those we have lost in this life and we will not have to be separated from them ever again. That is my permanent home.

Which is a very good thing because once again my family is starting our preparations to move. Thankfully we are moving close by family and friends this time, but unfortunately we will be sending a very important part of our home to the "sand pit" as he calls it.

When I asked a friend how she was able to deal with deployment, she told me that the only way is to pray and stay close to the Lord. So that is what I will do.  This move is still one of the hardest I have had because I don't even want to consider what my life will be like without him around. He is my light and my laughter and my better half in many ways.

Years ago, just after we had bought our first and only home we have owned my husband talked about moving. I was so mad at him because I loved our little home and I wanted to stay there. I remember sitting in sacrament when the Lord spoke to me through a quiet thought placed in my head. "Home is where the Heart is."  (Which is a little saying my mom always had around the house growing up - thanks mom) That was years before my husband joined the military and years before I really realized its full impact. Yet, it has stuck with me. My home is where the people I love are. It is not a physical place.
So part of home is still in Monroe, Georgia with all of those amazing friends.  Part of it is in Germany with another beautiful friend and her family. Part of it is in Hawaii. Part of it is in Winder Georgia, Utah, Hoschton Georgia, Fort Bragg, California, Alaska, and many more places. My home is spread out all over the world. A piece of my heart is all over. I wish the biggest piece of my heart with stay with me, but I know it is always with him wherever he goes.

Still, I am so glad that God told me what I needed to hear and that He continues to speak to me as I seek Him in prayer. I know that He has helped me overcome and understand so many of the hurdles that have been placed in my life. My greatest wish is that anyone else who is struggling to find their way or to understand why they are going through something would remember that they have a loving Heavenly Father that is just waiting for them to turn to Him in prayer. He wants to speak to us and He has not stopped. Just as He spoke to that sealer so that he would say exactly what we needed to hear at that moment. He wants us to see that this is not our temporary home and He has prepared something so much greater than this one. A world without the loss of our loved ones.

Character Flaws

I was at school talking to one of the teachers and he was very excited about a new comic book for Captain America. Apparently (spoiler alert) Captain America was a deep undercover spy for the bad guy. When I asked him why he liked this so much, he said that Captain America had always been too perfect and too good in his opinion. He liked that he had a character flaw.

After that I thought about my own flaws. Maybe our flaws are not always bad. Maybe they make us more real and relatable for other people. With that in mind, I am going to share one of my major character flaws with some examples. (spoiler alert) I don't always think things through all the way. Unfortunately, both my examples have to do with the same garage.

I dropped my daughter off at school and had a few minutes before I had to be back at the middle school for work. Since I had forgotten my gum at home and I love chewing gum, I ran home to get it. I pulled into the driveway and stopped. I got a text message at that moment and looked at it and responded. Since the garage door was no longer working, I had to get out of the car and run to the front to get inside. I got out of the car and ran around to go to the front. Only then did I remember that I forgot to put the car in park. I watched as the car rolled forward and rammed into the garage door. I ran back to the car and put it in reverse and parked it. However, the damage was already done. The hardest part of this incident was having to go the real estate company we rent from and telling them what happened. I don't think the gum was worth all that.

Then yesterday happened. The power was out. Which prevented me from finishing my exercise video and was ruining my whole chicken in the crock pot. We had planned to go clean the church and I figured we would take the crock pot with us and finish cooking it there. (The garage has since been fixed and replaced and works beautifully now.) We were running late to meet my husband, John and I was stressed about the chicken. We ran out to the car and it was pouring rain. I got my girls and the chicken in the car and went to close the garage. Since the power was out, I had to close it manually. Now our garage door is flat with no handles to pull on. So I put my fingers in the grooves between panels so I could grab the door and pull it down. Down it went and the grooves shut on the three middle fingers of my right hand. I yelped  "Ouch" and stared at my fingers being pinched. (Another flaw I have is that I process things very slowly and do not have quick reactions.) I could see Celia in the car with her hands covering her mouth starting to freak out. After a half a minute, I realized that I would have to push the door up with my other hand to let my fingers out. So I did that and then I finished shutting the garage door and got into the car.

The pain was mind numbing and I was wet from the rain. My daughters were screaming and crying in the car asking what happened and was I ok. I threw the keys at my oldest and told her to call her father. When he asked to speak to me I simply said, "I feel nauseous." I broke out in a sweat and my head was spinning with nausea and pain. Celia turned on the car for me and some music and turned up the air conditioning. I was so hot and nauseous. The fingernail on the middle finger of my right hand had a blue line on it and the back was dented in. I sat there with my head slumped over the steering wheel unable to calm my very upset children and waited. 

John, ever the clear thinker in an emergency, called Celia and told her to get me an ice pack. She returned with one of those home made rice packs we keep in the freezer. The sheer weight of it caused me more pain than I care to remember, but I knew it was necessary. Shortly after that, John arrived and I was still so unclear about what to do.  John grabbed the crock pot and set it outside of our garage (the ruined chicken still haunts me). I got into the front passenger seat and Celia called a friend to go over their house. John drove the girls there and me to the emergency room. In the end, I broke the top part of my middle finger on my right hand. Much of the time when I could react at all, I was laughing at my own stupidity, but I did cry when the PA squeezed it to figure out where the pain was.

So if my character flaws have now endeared me to you, then think about that next time you notice a flaw in yourself. It keeps you real and gives you something to work on. Flaws can truly be good things.