I am Not Good at Making Friends

You might not agree with that statement, but it's true.

Yes, I do have an amazing village of mamas whom I love more than I could ever put into words. BUT it took me years and years to get them.

Now I will be leaving them all. *tears*

I am happy to be moving with my husband and so excited to be in a new place, but I am very sad to leave behind the women that have, at times literally, kept me going.

I want to tell you all how I feel about you, but that will have to come another time.

Just know that no matter how far away I might be, I am always loving on you. Call me. Text me. Facebook me. KEEP IN TOUCH!!!

I love you all!!!

I am 31

I almost titled this post wrong.

I had to look at it again and think . . . hey! I'm not 32 yet!!!

This forgetfulness of my age is all Michael's fault.

Yes I am blaming him. What of it?

You see I met Michael when I was 23. He started my life over. He made me breathe different. Since meeting him, I have been alive.

So, in my head I have stopped at 23.

No I am serious. If someone asks me how old I am, I really struggle to not say "23". I have to think about it.

So, today on my birthday I may actually be turned 31 . . . but I just think of it as anothr day to spend with my precious husband and my family. This will be my 8th birthday spent with Michael and I hope to have 88 more to spend with him.

Thank you God for my family.

Happy birthday to me.

Moving Forward

I am very happy my husband is home. Believe me I am. I am also, however, very stressed with everything going on with the move.

Some is Army stuff. A lot is Army stuff. But I will not go down that road right now, because that isn't why I sat down to write.

I sat down to write about the stress and how it, well, stresses our marriage.

My husband and I have a wonderful marriage. I am proud of the way we are, most of the time. We aren't perfect, but we ARE perfect for each other.

I love that one of my closest friends said something like "I don't know two people who were more made for each other than the two of you".

Wow. She's been married a good while ya'll. She's been through it and seen it and SHE thinks we were made for each other.

Warms my heart right up.

We are not always nice to each other. I am not good at handling stress and he struggles with handling me when I am stressed. ;)

These things didn't just pop up over night though. He knew I was this way and I knew he was the way he is. We fell in love with each other like this and although we may change slightly we still love each other very much.

We fight. We are not always nice. We are human. BUT we really love each other.

He is my perfect man. I strive to be his perfect woman. There is, always has been and always will be love. No matter the stress.

So I will take each day, hour, minute and second as it comes and pray with each breath that we will keep the love and try to be more kind.

I will NOT however pray for patience.

I don't have a deathwish ya know. ;)

Fort Drum . . . Here We Come

Hey, I'm a poet and didn't know it. hahaha *snort*

A'hem . . back to being a tad bit more serious. :)

Most everyone knows that we got our orders from the Army and we will be stationed at Fort Drum, New York. We are excited even though the general information from people is that because of the snow we will hate it. We are staying positive.

Michael and I thought that a place totally different from Texas would be fun. I guess we will see.

The main concern right now is finding housing and keeping us all warm when we get there. Which will be in about 3 weeks. Wow . . . that is crazy to say.

I have lived outside of Texas before, for a short while, but Michael hasn't until he went to BCT. This will be very new to him and the kiddos.

With everything new there are moments of fear and anxiety, but I believe it will all work out to be the best thing ever. I am thrilled at the thought of having four seasons . . . even if winter dominates most of the year. ;)

There are other fears as well. This duty station seems to deploy a lot. That is a whole other ball of wax in my anxiety department. God will watch over us. I know this. So I will try to have peace.

Here are some links to info on Fort Drum. Enjoy!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Drum,_New_York
http://www.drum.army.mil/Pages/index.aspx

http://maps.yahoo.com/#mvt=m&lat=38.586385&lon=-85.930535&zoom=6&q1=Greenville%2C%20tx%2075402&q2=Fort%20Drum%2C%20NY%2C%2013603 Hoping this one works. :)

Blessings,

Heather

Army Friends

I am a new Army wife. We are a new Army family. Really new.

I say that because all I know, right now, of my Army life to come is what I hear about. We are in limbo, and so are all the other wonderful loved ones that I have met since Michael started Basic. Good thing.

What is it good you ask? It is good because I am not alone.

That is something I am seeing more and more in this life. The other Army wives/girlfriends know how I feel.

Now they may not know exactly, because our situations might differ some, but they know what it is like to be in limbo.

Hurry up and wait is something we joke about a lot in Army life, but it is the truth. We are waiting.

Waiting to find out where we will be stationed, when our soldiers will be deployed, and it seems we are always waiting to see them.

What has made this bearable for me is the people I have met. Thank God for Facebook right now. This social network has been my life saver over the past few months. I have met and become very close to some of these amazing women who are going through the same thing I am going through.

The thing I love about the women I have met so far is that they are their to pick me up when needed and I can do the same (although I usually need to be picked up more than them lol). I see amazing love coming from these other families that inspires me to love my husband more. I am becoming a better person by knowing these women.

So, thank you all for your friendship so far. I hope to know you all for a long, long time.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

I remember being asked that question by all of my friends growing up. How did I answer? Well I always said that I wanted to be a mother, but I usually had something else that I also wanted to be .

Ballerina. Lawyer. Singer. All things that would really be out of reach . . . especially for a ten year old with horrible stage fright. I always loved photography, and I have played around with it, but it took a backseat to my life usually.

When I was about fourteen, I met a midwife who changed how I answered that question forever. Wanting to be a mother was always first, but after that I wanted to be a midwife.

I graduated from high school and started looking for how to become a midwife. I spent a year trying to find out how the process would work. I finally spoke to a midwife (different that the one that had known) and she, in a not very nice tone, told me that "You are too young and no one will EVER want a midwife who hasn't had babies"

Those words shook me. I had already been told by one doctor that babies might not be in my future and then a few years later another doctor made a very bold statement that I "would never have a baby".

So, I went into banking. Ugh. That wasn't all that fun, but it paid the bills. I shouldn't complain though. Working in a bank helped me meet my husband. That makes it all ok. :)

Anyway . . back to the original reason I am writing . . .

Michael is very supportive of me following my dreams, so I started looking into college. I figured if nothing else I could be a Labor & Delivery nurse. I would be around laboring women and see babies born. Things didn't pan out for me to start that year and then we got pregnant, married, lost a baby, got pregnant again and had Johnathon. Whew that was a busy year.

Michael was also very, very supportive of my want to be a stay at home mama. I quit my job about 3 months before Johnathon was due and started staying at home. It is a very hard job but totally worth it. I love my children and taking care of them and their daddy.

After Gabriel's birth, I felt the need to become a Birth Doula. For those who don't know, Birth Doulas support women in labor. Well, they do a lot more than that, but explaining it all would be another post. :) Michael was supportive and with his help and the help of family, I was able to not only get my certification for being a Birth Doula but also to be a childbirth educator. I learned so much, and met some of my very closest friends throughout that process.

After having Bella, being a Doula didn't have the appeal it used to. As a Doula, my role was to support the laboring mom and dad (or partner), not to make decisions or give too much opinion on what they should do if they didn't ask. At least that is how I felt I should be. I saw too many laboring moms be pulled all different directions by their doctors and decisions being made that could hurt the outcome of their births. After Bella, I just couldn't do that anymore.

So I stopped. I loved it and now I don't. That was an amazing season in my life that is now over. Bella's birth brought out something else in me that had been asleep a long, long time. I wanted to become a midwife again. *gasp*

I know, right?!?! How crazy would that be? I mulled over it for months while Michael was unemployed. I tried to figure out how I could do it. I couldn't. I had a four year old, and three year old and a newborn. My plate was crazy full.

Now, I am not saying that I couldn't have done it if I wanted to. I have amazing, wonderful, precious, amazing, smart, did I say amazing? friends who are going through midwifery programs right now and they have children. And I am not talking about your average 2.3 children. I am talking 5+ children people! See they are amazing!!!!

They do it all. They are learning to do what they love, taking care of the families, and one of them is still working a full time job! A-maz-ing!!!!!!!! Maybe one day I will be able to get them to post on here about their experiences. hmmmm?? Anyone???

Man I am rambling today. Back to my post AGAIN!!

I chose not to try that and it is a great thing that I didn't because Michael felt led to enlist in the Army. He is gone for training normally right now, and I wouldn't have any way to do my training without him to help me with the kids. You know, babies don't wait for anybody let alone baby sitters for the midwife.

Michael being in the Army has brought up my fear of being a real, full time single mom. God forbid something happens to my husband, I don't really have anything to fall back on. I haven't really worked in almost six years. I had a panic moment recently that went something like this. -

I need to go to school. I need to have a skill. I can't go to school. no one to watch the kids. How would I do it? Who would watch them? I don't want to go to school. I want to be a midwife. Well THAT isn't going to happen right now. What am I going to do???

I am crazy at times, I know, but that isn't the point. I know God will provide, but I can't be sitting on my bottom waiting for that to happen. I feel like I NEED to have a skill to fall back on if . . . .

I hate that "if" but that will also be another post.

I think I have decided to save up for a great camera, and learn the art of photography. I don't want to be working all the time right now. I just want to learn everything I can and play around. Maybe make some fun money here and there and certainly take pictures for my loved ones for free. (Thank you again to my great friend Amy for taking our family pics!!!)

So, I ask you . . . . what do YOU want to be when you grow up?

Time Wasted

Let me start off by saying I won't take anything away from what people who have been together for less time have, and I am respectful of the people who have been together for longer. Michael and I have made a life together. Love is love no matter the time.

Michael and I have been together for seven years. Seven wonderful, hard, trying, loving years. We have made life and seen death. We have gone through the ugliest you can imagine and been in the most wonderful of moments together. Together is the key word here.

We were always together, but not always in the same place. We would just be going through the motions of life and not thinking of the other's feelings or needs. One of the hardest lessons that Michael and I are learning right now is that we wasted time with each other. We always assumed that the other would be right beside us if we needed them. We would always have the other there to say I love you, kiss, hold, say sorry to and appreciate. That isn't the case now.

I think a lot of our anxiety and stress is from all of this wasted time.

Michael and I have the stuff of legend. We have not always treated our relationship and each other as that is the case, but we are a rare thing. We are meant for each other. We compliment each other and hold the other up when needed. We are the real deal.

In the past few weeks this wasted time has been on both of our minds. The stuff that we should have done, the time that should have been taken, the emotions that should have been shared . . . it is a heavy burden for both of us. The weight of the limited time we have together and the unknown that is our life right now magnifies the fact that we wasted time.

I know most people will say, well just forget about that now and start over. Well I am all for the whole "do better when you know better" thing, but I don't want to forget this. Forgetting the wasted time might lead us back down that path.

So I don't want to forget that I should have

rubbed his back and feet more.
left him alone when he was having a hard day.
left him alone when he wanted to play video games.
kissed him more.
hugged him more.
shut my mouth more often.
appreciated him for who he is.
followed his lead.
loved him more.

I could go on and on, but you get the point. I should've done a lot. So this Army lesson has hit home, and I pray we have time together to actually be together.

Have you loved on your loved one today???