Deployment

In 2017, my husband and I, recently newlyweds, faced his third deployment together. When we walk through season of times apart, we establish goals to work towards that help to find purpose and unity in hard circumstances. I recently...

Deployment is hard. It's messy. It's unnerving and overwhelming. It's chaos and calamity wrapped up in the ever changing emotions of kids and parents alike. It's not for the faint of heart. Or maybe it is. We don't have...

I walked into her room to find her sitting up happily. With poop in each hand, she smiled a big toothy grin at me. Considering that I could have caught her "decorating" her crib or walls, I feel I...

Let me start off by saying, any spouse who supports his or her service member in any branch of service - I salute you (Wait, can I do that?)! If you are one of the lovely women or men who...

“Everyone thinks they have the best dog. And none of them are wrong.” — W.R. Purche I did have the best dog. His name was Astro, and he died a few weeks ago at the (best guess) age of 18. He...

You've been dreaming about his or her homecoming for so long, but now that it's almost here, what should you do during the final week? Enter: The Final Days of Deployment: A Spouse's Checklist Woman-scape or man-scape. You owe it to...

On December 6, 2018, my husband burst through our front door much earlier than I was expecting him. He had been on duty all night, and I had not seen or heard from him since the day before. He...

To my many beautiful friends I have met along the way: You know who you are. We held tight to one another through a season. You were my neighbor, we sat next to each other in church, we played games on...

Last Thanksgiving I felt that a boulder sat on my chest as we gathered with friends to share what we were thankful for. We had recently learned that my husband would deploy very last minute, and I had little...

"See you laters" are an integral part of this military lifestyle that we've chosen. I made peace with that long ago, when I said "I do" and then "see you later" as my husband left for a six-month deployment. We...

I met one of my new neighbors while out for a walk one morning. Well into her nineties, she was out working in her garden. I introduced myself and told her how much I admired her beautiful flowers, particularly...