Deployment Lessons Learned So Far

So in the very small amount of time that my husband has been away on the big grey ship, I have already learned a few things.

What works for some wives, may not work for others.
There are many women that choose to keep everything that is happening at home to themselves, so not to burden their husbands with more stress than they are already experiencing on deployment. While I WHOLE-HEARTEDLY respect how every wife (minus the cheaters) deals with the stress of handling all the affairs, I've found that this isn't for me. No, I will not tell him every time the dogs make me upset, every time I have a disagreement with a friend, if I have a tummy ache or if I had to call and argue with the cable or phone company. But not disclosing any of the stressful situations I made deal with just isn't realistic for me. And I've learned that that's okay. Some days it may be one thing after another after another. And some days, while you're busy kicking-deployment's ass, it may get in a good punch and land you on your ass for a second. I tried to be strong for my husband, so much that I pretended things on the homefront were nearly smoother than they were when he was here. There wasn't a problem in the world. And that ended up hurting me in the end, and it made me end up being the bad guy, because I was strong and there was nothign wrong, but I was taking something out on him, and that hurt us as a couple. I have also learned, however, that trying to get away with keeping all my stressors from my husband is impossible. He knows. Just when I started to feel the brunt of everything at once, he called. And with a lump in my throat I said "Hello", and without skipping a beat he said "It's not what you expected is it? It's harder than you were prepared for, isn't it?". And it made everything better. :]

Even if you think that everything is squared away before he leaves, power of attourney is vital
All bills not under both of our names were paid off and squared away before my hubbers took off. And then some debt that some company thinks he owes...from 2007....showed up in the mail. On our anniversary. Thankfully we had a few copies of power of attourney drawn up, because it's obvious now that there's not way for hubbers to deal with this on his own, or at all.

Keeping busy is very important, but keeping TOO busy is not a good thing
Being my first deployment, it was already a transition to go from sharing many responsibilities with my husband to having them all on my plate alone. I wanted to keep busy while hubby was gone, but I decided to hold off on taking on too many activities before he left. Thank god. Before he left, work school and housework didn't see like much. Now, suddenly, I'm realizing that he must have helped me more than I ever noticed, because even those things sometime overwhelm me. I did try to take on some other crafty projects and what not, but it sent me into a whirlwind of pressure, deadlines, and just plain stress.


Doing things like this may not make him too happy, they make me feel a lot better about things!::

Getting to Know You #1

Well Sunday is almost over but for the sake of fun I'm going to do the Getting to Know you from the Mannland 5!!

1. If a person has a booger in their nose. and you can see it, do you tell them?

It depends on where our relationship is haha

2. What are you passionate about?

My family and friends!!

3. How long have you been blogging?
8 months

4. What is your favorite "summer" drink?

Strawberry Lemonade

5. What is your favorite type of music?

Oh it depends on the day!

6. Something I do before I go to bed is......?

Check my email and brush my teeth.

7. My Summer vacation plans are...?

Maybe a day trip to LA/Hollywood, and late summer a trip home to Texas

8. My favorite must have, can't live without, beauty product is?

Just face moisturizer...does that count?!

The Anniversary Blog

Well, the day has finally come! Well, in my time zone, it is still only June 4, 2010. However, wherever my loving hubby is, it is officially our one year anniversary.

June 5th, 2009, I woke up in the morning, knowing that that very afternoon I would become Mrs. Voigt. I dressed nervously, met with my bridesmaids, stopped at Sonic, and headed to Lockhart State Park to tie the knot. Absolutely the most wonderful day of my life.

This is Hubbers and I the evening of our first date.

Needless to say, it's been an amazing, crazy, scary, and wonderful year.

In June, we celebrated my 19th birthday, realized as a married couple we needed our own home, and started looking.

In July, we planned a move, and executed it in one day. We now had our very own apartment and all the responsibility that came with.

In August, the military finally caught up with us and awarded us some BAH, and we got our first puppy, Willow Marie.

In September, we had to deal with a new stressor of paying rent on an old lease. We moved from a two bedroom to a one bedroom apartment, and loved it...for a few weeks.

In October, Hubbers began week long underways. With the exception of three seperate weeks, he would now be gone every weekday, and home only on weekends, until mid April. We missed our first Halloween together, and I experienced my first true fear as a military wife when there was a jet collision over the waters Hubbers was doing his training in. He was out for three extra days, leading a search crew trying to recover bodies. This was also the first time I felt such an intense pride for what he did.

In November, I cooked our first Thanksgiving dinner. We had ham, potatos, devilled eggs, scalloped corn, regular corn, green beans and pumpkin pie. We also decided we'd take our first road trip and started saving for the holiday vacation. I sprained my ankle a day before one of hubby's underways and hobbled around on crutches. The following underway, I contracted what I swore was swine flu. Hubby came home to find me in bed, sicker than i'd been in almost a year. He was home for two nights. That first night was his birthday. He spent his birthday in the ER making sure I was okay rather than party with his friends.

In December, we got to actually spend our holidays together, rather than living across the country. We packed up the truck, and drove 19 hours, Willow in tow, to Texas and had an amazing holiday with our families. We met my nephew for the first time, and really bonded with our new in-laws.

January brought more time apart, but a closeness when we were together.

February marked one year from the day Hubbers proposed to me. It was also the first time I hadn't been "alone" on Valentines day. He brought me tiger lillies, roses, the most perfect stuffed giraffe and Carlos, the huge stuffed bear that I snuggle with now that he's deployed.

In March, we added Bailey Rae to the family. Bailey was infested with fleas and had worms, but Willow welcomed her to the family as warmly as she could.

April was finally the end of underways, and the begining of the deployment countdown. Hubby started a special school and was home every night with me. We got tattoos together and got to lotion eachother's new ink. We also finally had the means to move into a two bedroom apartment again.

In May the real stress began. We relished in our final weeks together, becoming closer than I thought possible. We made final arrangments, and when Hubbers was on leave, he spent the days with me and the baby girl I watch, making me eager more for the days that he'll be with our own child, years down the line. He's going to be an amazing father.

Eventually, hubby got on that big grey boat and left. The remainder of our first year together has been lived together via emails and facebook. Now hubby's dog-tags hang around my neck, and that is how I kiss him goodnight before I turn to sleep every night.

I put a lot of work into this post. Actually more so in the video to follow this paragraph. This is because to me, this post is my celebration of the past year. I haven't decided yet if I'll spend the day quietly lounging around watching movies and ignoring what it is, or if I'll try my best to make it an amazing day, go out to the beach, celebrate with friends, and rejoice in my anniversary. But what I do know is that inevitably, these photos will be playing in my head, as will every little conversation, every night we fell asleep in eachother's arms, every time he wiped my tears away, and every single memory we will make when he returns to me. So I want to share these beautiful memories with all of you, and I hope that you all have the happiness that I have in my life, with this man, in this world.

Thursday Five

It's time again for the Thursday Five!!

I love this time every week too look at the good in life.

5. Boy Meets World on ABC Family in the mornings

4. Netflix on the X-box 360 to get me through the weekends!!

3. Zumba!!

2. Getting to hubby's soft side via email

1. Passing Political Science with an 87!!!!

A Great List for the Week- Why I love My Husband

This week is week two into my first deployment, my hubby's third. So perhaps it's not super great timing for our first wedding anniversarry. We knew he'd miss it when we picked the date, but it was more important to get married than to celebrate an anniversarry together. None the less, I'm very excited and also kinda sad that we aren't together to really celebrate an amazing first year, full of ups and downs, and a billion first-times.

So when I hopped on over to Riding the Roller Coaster, I thought it was funny that her top ten list was "Top Ten Reasons I Love My Husband". Okay, that's not the funny part. The funny part is that she chalks up her mushiness to the fact that her tenth wedding anniversarry is this week, and her husband isn't here to share it with her. I'm not sure if it makes me happy to hear I'm not going through it alone, or sad that even after ten years, the same thing will probably be happening to me. Regardless, Happy anniversary to that wonderful couple!! And here's my list.

Why I Love Ya Baby!

10- At any given moment he can quote one stand-up comedian or another, word for word, even when it's least appropriate.

9- He can sense when something isn't right, and won't let me go on until he knows what it is and tries to fix it.

8- He is a proud member of the U.S. Navy and sacrifices much  to do what he actually loves- serving his country.

7- Though his methods may be off sometimes, he is still insanely encouraging to anything I want to do. Or things I don't want to do, like homework.

6- He is great with children.

5- He puts family above all else.

4- He loves that I play cook every meal and clean up ever mess- but he never stops thanking me or showing me his appreciation.

3. Some intuition of his allows him to always say the right thing at the right time- even if I'm having a bad day, I will probably receive and email that says "Smile, it makes your butt tingle".

2. He simply holds my whole heart.

1. He is nothing but himself. Himself happens to be a loving, passionate, hard working, thoughtful man with a very handsom inside and out.

Cooking for One:: Basil Ranch Chicken and Pasta

Basil Rach Chicken and Pasta
Use::
Two boneless skinless chicken breasts
Two servings worth of uncooked penne pasta
1 diced roma tomato
1/4 cup ranch dressing
1/4 cup parmesian cheese
1/2 cup mozerella cheese
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs basil
1tbs oregano
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

Do it!!

Wash and dry chicken (As Julie and Julia says, meat never browns evenly unless it's dry!)

Dice chicken into half inch cubes, or strips. Toss in small mixing bowl. Season with basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in skillet. While heating oil, begin to boil water and cook the penne while preparing rest of recipe.

Toss the chicken in the skillet and stir until no longer pink on the outside. Stir in tomato, 1/4 cup ranch dressing and the parmesian. Continute to stir until chicken is browned evenly and ranch and parmesian are cooked into meat. Use rest of ranch and simmer.

Drain pasta and put into large mixing bowl. Stir in chicken. Add more ranch and parmesian if desired, and sprinkle with mozerella. Stir until cheese melts and serve.

Sometimes old friends do stick around

Today, my good old friend Amanda Nicole and I had a girls day...plus one little man. We had a very succesfull day at the mall, each spending under fifty dollars (woohoo). Something I forgot we have in common is that, aside from grocery shopping and household necessities, we ONLY shop clearance. I discovered stores she loved and got shirts for TWO DOLLARS! Love it.

But afterwards, we started talking about how great of a time we had together, doing our girl thing like we used to when we lived fifteen minutes from eachother. We pratically lived together before I got married. And we came to the realization that it had been a year or more since we had a girls day. I am SO glad to have her back. Have you ever had a friend become absent from your life for one reason or another, and you didn't know there was a void there until that void was filled back up? it's a wonderful feeling. Anyways, here are pictures from the past, and from now. Memories.

June 4, 2009

May 15, 2010