I am Very Loved!

Do you ever have one of moments when you realize that you are very loved?

I realized today that I am one of the most loved people on the planet. When you can be comfortable telling your partner anything and know that in the end they will not love you any less, it is an incredible feeling.

I have never been more grateful to have my husband in my life and I have never loved him more. I wish that I could have climbed through the phone line to give him a big kiss. I have the greatest husband in the world.

Iowa is good for something.

So I guess Iowa is good for something. I am stuck here for a few days for work. For those of you in the know yes I am here to make the donuts. Cresco has been surprisingly good so far. It has gone by really really fast. We leave tomorrow and then I will be gone camping for a few days before my next donut adventure. The last month has been a difficult one. I have been more stressed and it has come out in what I have accomplished and how much I have been drinking. This is not a good way to deal with stress and I know that. It will be nice to get away from that for a few days.

The one thing that I am annoyed with is that the Minnesota media is making a big deal of the 2,600 member deployment that is coming how in the next couple months. Literally the are to leave with in weeks of when my husband is supposed to leave country. It is hard because I see so many happy families welcoming their soldiers home but I am yet at the beginning of this experience. There are days when it feels like it will be years before I am the one welcoming my soldier home. I know that I will get by by taking one day at a time but, some days are really tough.

Anyway this is Maggi live from Cresco, Iowa signing off. Hope you are all well. I will update you after I return from the woods.

Been A While

So it has been a long time since I posted here. It is hard to believe how exhausted doing donuts makes me. It seems like after a weekend of work it takes me until Wednesday to recover. Anyway, life has been going good here. I have been seeing friends quite a bit and staying busy for the most part.

I am so grateful to the Ladies Workout Express. I found out a few weeks ago that they offer free memberships for wives of deployed soldiers. I joined, why not, I just feel like I am so much more in control after I workout. Exercise is really the best stress relief, and I cannot thank the woman who runs the gym enough.

Anyway, since I have now recovered from the weekend I need to start cleaning.

(I will start posting more regularly again I promise.)

A Little Bit of a Vent

I have been trying not to be a political person since the husband deployed. I have always tried to base my political views on reasoning and my core beliefs, rather than my own personal feelings. Right now politics is so focused on the war in Iraq that I have really tried to stop paying attention. The key word in all of this is tried. My big problem is that I am a news junkie. If I am sitting around cleaning or working on my computer I will almost always have the TV on CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC (I find that switching it up provides a more even picture of what is really happening in the world.).

Lately I have been failing at this goal. Every time that I hear about more troops being deployed to Iraq, tours being extended, or fights on capitol hill over our goals for this war (disguised as discussions over spending) I just get more and more angry. It is not that I particularly think one side is right or wrong. I think that hating Bush for getting us into this war is a waste of energy, we are in it whether it is for the right reasons or the wrong reasons. We need to look forward, I don't know what that forward should be, but we need to not only look but begin to move in that direction.

Every time that I see footage from the beginning of the war and realize that it was taken over four years ago, I just get angry. Every time I start to solidify my opinion one way or the other I see, hear or read some thing that makes me think about it even more. I know that I feel our troops are over extended. I may be wrong in this assumption and I do not claim to be an expert, however from what I have read and from my understanding of the mission and purpose of our reserve and national guard troops I truly believe that if there are National Guard and Reserve Units who are now being called up to serve a second tour in this war, we are too extended.

If there were a clear end in sight I don't think that this would be a problem in my mind, however as it sits right now I don't see us having a significantly decreased military presence in this region for a very long time. We all know that something needs to change. We cannot continue this strategy indefinitely. As for what needs to change I will be the first to admit that I don't know what that is. I am simply praying that our country's leaders are able to discern where we need to go from here.

I know that many do not believe that there is a God and that the phrase "In God We Trust" has become rather controversial. I believe with my whole self that there has to be something out there greater that ourselves, we may all understand it differently; for some it is the Christian/Jewish/Muslim God, for others it is just the belief in the collective human spirit. Whatever "God" it is that you believe in I think we all agree that now is when we need to put our trust in "god" more that ever. We need to trust that this higher power will guide us and our leaders to a solution that brings our troops home safe and brings some sense to stability to the middle east (or at least what stability can be created in a region that has been fighting literally since it was first inhabited by humans).

Thanks for putting up with my venting and only 73 more Tuesdays to go.

So Busy

Ok so I have been very bad at keeping this thing up to date. The mini-donut season has officially begun and I have been insanely busy. It is amazing what working upwards of 25 hours in one weekend does to you; Monday comes and I am totally wiped out. This has been a good warm-up because later on in the season I will be working those kinds of hours on a daily basis.

It has been a great distraction working so much. I really have not had much time to think. I am definitely still counting the days until I can see him next. I felt kind of bad but I got the schedule for the rest of the summer for donuts and right off the bat I told them, ok this week not good for me. They then tried to convince me that if they got us a hotel room it would be a good bounding experience to work together. They might not have been sober, but regardless you could not make me work that week.

Anyway I must be getting to my project of the week, cleaning. Yippee!

I promise I will be better about writing this thing.

Looking Ahead

It is crazy that Tuesday is almost over. It seems that this week is absolutely flying by.

Sonny(the dog) seems to be doing well. He made me kind of sad today because he heard someone come in the front door and he ran to the door thinking it was Bob. Other than that it has been a good week for him.

I have been really busy as I said earlier. I worked a lot last weekend. The most exciting thing for me is that I am able to drop my classes without withdrawing entirely from the University. I am very glad that this semester shouldn't screw up my law school plans. I also found out that I wouldn't have been able to graduate this semester anyway, which makes me feel a little bit better.

This weekend should be interesting. I work during the summers for a mini-donut company. We have our first event this weekend. It will be nice to get a little bit extra cash. It is also my dad's fiftieth birthday so we will be celebrating that. It will be busy but busy, but busy is what I need right now.

Tomorrow I will work my normal day, but afterward I have a job interview for part time receptionist position. I definitely think that this would be a good job for me to have, but I am not sure that I am ready for a real job. I will be able to get my job back in the fall and if I take a "real job" I would not be able to work mini-donuts as much. Regardless I would love to have this job as an option.

Wish me luck!

(Oh and by the way only 75 Tuesdays left.)

Long Night

It seems that I will have a long night to reflect on all that has happened in the last two weeks. My dog was in the bedroom all day while I was at work and most of the evening while I was at a family function. It seems that he occupied his time finding and eating something that he wasn't supposed to. He has runny gross stuff coming out both ends and I need to be sure that he is ok. I just hope that a trip to the animal emergency room is not in my near future.

This week has been insanely busy. I have gone out with friends, quit my current job and applied for about two dozen more. I also worked a normal week, spent time with family, cleaned the apartment and am now dealing with a pet emergency. I had my first kind of emergency when the pilot light on my stove went out. I had to get the landlord to fix it because I know nothing of gas stoves. I also had my very first experience doing taxes, and they weren't even mine. It wasn't as bad as I thought, but I am still not looking forward to doing them next year.

I can definitely see a change to last week though. I know that part of it is due to the natural drifting apart that happens with physical separation, but I don't feel as close to him as I did last week. We just don't get to talk about anything accept what we did each day and how the dog has been. It is frustrating to me not to have the goofy conversations we have when he is here. I guess it is likely just that by the time I get to talk to him he is too tired to be goofy. It is just something that I miss and likely will continue to miss until he returns for good.

The other big thing this week is that I started trying to deal with our financial situation. I never really realized how bad it was until recently. I was so worried as to whether we could ever catch up and I prayed a lot about what to do. I finally decided to contact the FAC and see if they knew of anything that could help. I will probably go in next week and apply for some aid there. Beyond that God has answered my prayers in other ways as well. It was interesting to me that when I finally said to God in prayer that I was willing to sell me computer, car and engagement ring if that was what it took that he really seemed to start to open doors for me.

Well my dear puppy is up and playing again so he can't be feeling that bad. I hope that what ever "splodda butt" ate has gone through his system and we can get some sleep. (Of course I will have to find some clean sheets first to replace the ones he "sploded" on [I know that my dog's butt problems are exactly what you were looking to read on this blog, but hey its the big news in this house.])

76 Tuesdays

Numbers are a very funny thing. I was realizing today that 76 weeks doesn't seem like a time, but the same amount of time is day, months or years seems like forever. So I have decided that I will count how long before this deployment is over in terms of Tuesdays. Just my thought of the day. Enjoy

First Week

Well Bob has been on orders for one full week as of today. That means eight days of orders down and only something on of the order of 534 days to go, on the bright side that is only like 76 weeks and 17.8 months. All numbers aside I am glad it has begun.

I was driving home yesterday and I was thinking about getting back to my apartment and relaxing. This got me thinking to when the last time Bob and I had the ability to just relax together. It is calming to know that at least now the countdown to when we can relax again has begun.

So far it has kind of been like ripping of a band-aid. Bob and I were together when he went to Basic Training, and I think that in my mind I was imagining his pre-deployment training would offer us a similar level of communication. (For those not in the know, that means next to no communication.) It took until Bob and I really got to talk for the last few nights for me to realize that this was going to be a lot different.

This whole thing still sucks but I think I can handle it if it continues like this. Though perhaps I will revise that statement after tonights adventure with tax returns.

So It Begins

So it has begun. At about 8:05am today we said out goodbyes and he got into his helicopter.

It has been a whirlwind. We moved into our new apartment, and tried to cram as much into a few days as possible. We had a huge family dinner at our place on Easter. We went to all our favorite restaurants and bars. You get the picture. On Monday his orders began and he was at the hanger. Tuesday was the going away ceremony. It was pure chaos. We drove all the way to Fort Snelling trying to find a patch for his uniform and get me a dependent ID. We found out that in DEERS he wasn't on active duty orders. This wouldn't be a problem except that neither of us would be eligible for health care. Anyway we grabbed a copy of his orders and faxed them to the office that needed them. After that the big ceremony and family bowling and pizza with the whole crew. Finally we spent a quiet sad night at home. We got up early on Wednesday and prepared to say goodbye only to see snow and know that we had another day together. We got to go back to bed, play video games and most of all just relax. We both needed this and it made today so much easier.

It was sad to see him go but I know that the days until this deployment are over will only get smaller now and that soon the tears and sadness will be replaced by a resolve to not only carry on with my day to day life, but to thrive.