My new life??

Well we were among the lucky ones to get orders out of Hood!! We recently moved to Fort Carson about 2 months ago. I love it here, its so beautiful!! I am continuing my education at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs(UCCS). I and the FRG Leader again for our new unit, our whole battalion is just getting started here at Carson so we have starting the FRGs from scratch...but I can handle that! We got a cute little 3 bedroom house here, didnt want to live on post this time! Started to talk about starting our family, however I think we are still holding off, untill my degree is done. So we'll see. Hubby seems to be doing good, loves it here also, just had to get used to the elevation. This place has helped me see that it wasnt me being a terrible gardener...it was the texas weather(thats my story and Im stickin to it)I have been able to grow several different flowers in my front yard and I have many more in the back. Well thats all for today, I just wanted to get back on here since its been so long and I hope I can get back on track here!

Update--7 mos later

Wow it has been too long since my last post. I was in a crazy state of mind at that time. My hubby finally made it home December 1st, and everyone was so right about so many things! First of all, I was making too big a deal of many things that were really not that important. I had taken our dog to the groomers the day before he arrived, I had my nails done for the first time since our wedding, and of course I could not get the damn house clean enough! The night of their welcome home ceremony at the gym I had two other ladies at my house trying to get ready, I was acting calm as I do so well, they were freaking out about their hair and all that, I just went into my bedroom, closed the door, and had my own quiet, freaking out session while trying to put on my dress....yes I got a dress just for the ceremony. I did get the flags to put along our sidewalk, a big banner with balloons tied to it in our front yard and then inside I had red/white/blue streamers with posters i had the family make him, and more balloons.
The moments leading up to him and the others running into that gym were nerve racking! Of course I kept going over and over if I had done everything I needed to get done before he came home, and if he was going to like everything....including me still!! Plus all that PTSD talk had me so worked up! It was funny, i didnt really cry at the ceremony, I wasnt smiling either I guess because one of the other FRG leaders reminded me to do so, I just had so much going on in my head. The couple weeks before our ceremony I would see the other ceremonies going on while I would be driving past the gym on my way home, once I even saw the guys running into the gym. I could not stop crying that whole day, but here I was at our ceremony, and I could not shed a single tear. Weird. Once I saw his face and we hugged, I think I was still figuring it was all a dream.
Anyway, its been 7months now, I think the transition went pretty well. I know I was so worked up over nothing. He could have come home to a dirty dog and house and he would have been ok. He was just glad to have me, our bed, and the dog there when he got home. At least I can say I survived my first deployment and even though it sucks, I can handle another one. I learned so much from it.

Calm?

I am oddly calm right now.....not sure what to make of this. I will be visiting family for Thanksgiving, and when I come home I will only have a couple days left before it is time for me to go to the gym and hold up my welcome home sign. I have decided to go to my mom's a day earlier than planned, I just felt like I needed some down time. I can have days here where I do practically nothing, which some would call downtime, but for me its not, my mind is always too busy. At mom's I get to actually relax and stop my brain for awhile. I just felt that I needed this before he gets home. When I get back I will go crazy cleaning and thinking its still not clean, I will take the pup to the groomers, I will put all the decorations up, and probably not sleep. This is good though, because it means there are only about 2 days for me to act like a last minute crazy woman.

Me the FRG leader....

So today me and a few of "my" ladies got together today to paint our welcome home banners for the gym and barracks. I had sort of been trying to put this off I think, but we needed to get it done this month! It wasnt so bad, except for the damn wind. We brought bricks to hold the sheets down, but that didn't help all that much! At least they are done and they turned out pretty well! I know the next couple weeks I will be so busy with all this homecoming stuff. I guess I will be happy once this part is over! Yesterday I was driving home from the PX and as i came around the corner I suddenly saw a huge group of soldiers rushing into the gym with their bags. I immediately started crying like a crazy person! As I continued to drive, I saw the white buses, and the rest of the guys in formation waiting for their turn to start running. I was having a "good" day, I wasn't expecting that, I wasn't ready for that. I was happy for those families inside the gym, and a part of me thought, "I still have __ days before he's home" and the other side of me thought "I ONLY have __ days before he's home" I was crying for awhile, but I could not tell if it was happy or sad tears. I mean all year while I have seen those white buses I knew it was them taking more of our guys away, later in teh year I know that they meant the other division is now leaving, but that didnt make me happy, it just made me feel those feelings of the day I watched him get on that bus! I hate those white buses!!!! John told me that I will soon get over my dislike for those things once I am in the gym and aware that the white buses brought him to me. We'll see.

In a weird place

So I live in a duplex on post, the wall that connects us is the kitchen wall and the master bedroom wall...fun. As mentioned before, I dont talk to any of my neighbors, I think I saw this specific neighbor like once or twice. I usually dont go to bed till real late anyway, but if I happen to go in early and "hear" them I always end up in the living room for a little while. i would often hear them laughing and joking around, it made me miss john so much, because that's how we are most of the time, At first it just simply made me sad, but then I got to where it felt sort of comforting to hear them over there laughing and being happy, it was nice to know that I wasn't alone in the duplex, and they reminded me of us, so it helped me to drift in to thoughts of me and john. Well her husband just deployed a couple weeks ago, and I noticed that she sleeps with the TV on now...very loud! I don't want to say anything because I don't even talk to her, and plus I feel like I know where she is right now, she is trying to adjust to her life without him, she is alone over there, and just the silence can drive you crazy, so I try to zone out the TV. I noticed last night she was watching some war movie, I did that also when john first left, I felt like even the movies that were about vietnam or WWII could still help me feel close to him, or to maybe understand what he is going through over there. I know it doesnt really, but at that time I thought it did, and I was trying to latch onto anything I could. I have actually thought about moving my bed to the opposite wall when john gets home, just in case we are loud :) I don't want to make it worse for her because I know when john gets home she will still be in a transitional stage. I don't know if that is all just weird or not, I mean I don't really even know her, but I did start to think about that stuff.

People and their Comments

I was just reading a blog from a fellow Army Wife. She was talking about how she is sick of hearing people say things about the deployment almost being over now and that she should be so excited now that she is at the 6 month mark. I remember that mark....it doesn't feel like some magical place, it didn't make me feel any different, it just made me see that there were still at least 6 more months to go....."stop rubbing it in my face" I felt like saying so many times! The first month or two was pretty hard, trying to find my place, adjust to this new lifestyle as a army wife without her soldier, now that I am in the last month, I have realized that this is also a very hard time, if not harder. The middle was so easy, I got through it all. I was asked what I did to help the time go by faster, and I really don't remember, I just lived life, found things occasionally to make a day here and there go fast. As much as I wanted to just sleep the year away, I didn't do that. I totally understand what she was saying though, the only difference is that I am in a different stage of the deployment so I get the "wow less than a month, you must be so excited!" those are the people I would like to smack around, those comments tend to stress me out more. I am usually a happy and friendly person, but I totally fake it during those comments, even when my husband tries to talk about how he can't wait to get home. I give him the support the best I can from here, I tell him I am excited also, I just leave out the details! One thing though, I think I would rather be wanting to scream throughout the day from the stress of the homecoming than to be coming home to that empty house for the first night, realizing I have about 350 more nights of that.

Homecoming Sign

My husband counts down his days with so much happiness in his voice. I try to ignore the fact that its already almost here. Its crazy to think I am down to a couple of short weeks now! I made a homecoming sign to hold at the ceremony. I took so much time to add the blue and gold glitter. I almost went to bed that night leaving it on the table to dry, but as I made my last check around the house, I looked at the sign, pretty happy with it, and then I got this terrible feeling. I was suddenly worried that I could jinx myself by already having a sign made. So I ended up folding the sign up and putting it in the trash. I just dont want to take that chance, I know that's silly. I have the poster board, markers, glitter, streamers, and a banner for outside, but I have decided that I will not decorate anything here untill I get that call from Rear D...then I will have 48 hours. I mean I know that's cutting it close I guess, but I already know I will be going crazy during those two days, so I might as well have something to keep me busy.