The Curse of the MilSpouse

Well, John is gone. He actually left on 20 March, but I haven't posted about it. Not sure why. Perhaps the thought of actually typing out the letters would mean he was really gone. Or perhaps I'm just lazy. Yeah, probably the lazy one is more fitting. Anyway, he's been gone about 4 weeks now, which has gone by fairly quickly. He is supposed to be home sometime early August but we shall see. Many people ask me what he does over there. I will have to ask him to give me a break down. It's not that I don't care, it's just the acronyms, there's so many letters, they're just so confusing.....I'll get back to you on that. **Update since posting: John wrote me with a brief synopsis of what he does. Here goes: He's the LNO (liason officer) for the Program Executive Office Intelligence, Elecronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO IEW&S). He is BG Cole's representative. He works with the units there to ensure the systems are performing as advertised. If not, he gathers the information to send back to the program managers who fall under PEO IEW&S, so they can resolve it. He also keeps BG Cole informed so he's not caught off guard by any issues. *whew* Any questions? No? Good, because I doubt I could answer them anyway.

The curse of the military spouse has reared its ugly head already as well. The first thing was the water leak due to not enough caulking around the chimney. Thank goodness it's a new house (can you say builders warranty?!). Sean managed to severely bruise my nose/possibly break it with his head (accidentally, I think....). I broke my pinkie toe. Yes, it is broken, I can't move it. Ironically, I broke it when I accidentally kicked the step aerobics step I just bought while walking through the room. So now I can't even put on shoes to use the darn step. On that same day at about 11:30 pm, I had a strange dude looking for his cousin "Skip" show up at the door. He rang the doorbell and when I came around the corner into the entry, he was looking through the sidelight (little window on either side of the door). Hell no, I didn't even go near the door. I told him I was calling the cops, he left, didn't come back. Needless to say, I'm now armed and alarmed (that rhymed! how clever of me!).

The kiddos seem to be doing ok with John gone. Sean's not having any issues out of the ordinary for his persistant, stubborn self. Addie is a clown and is becoming a food thief. She says Mama, Dada and Uh-Oh. Too cute. She did just break a piece of my china. Not so cute. Layla's been doing well but has been dealing with some chest crud lately that just won't go away. Poor baby. She's been doing better the past couple of days, which is nice. If anyone deserves to be peaceful and happy, she does.

Despite the fact that it was the Army that sent my husband away, I have gotten the most excellent support from everyone in his office. They had a farewell luncheon for John the Friday before he left. It was so nice to feel such genuine, sincere offers of support and assistance from everyone I met that day. These are people who haven't been working with him that long and who didn't know me at all, yet they offered anything and everything to help us. I left there with an envelope full of business cards with all kinds of contact information. I told John that I would feel guilty choosing one person over another for assistance as I would feel like I was hurting someone's feelings. Not only do they call and check on me, but LTC Pickering has gathered a group of guys who are going to mow the lawn as often as it needs. A good KY boy from Madisonville, and an MSU grad, helped me get armed, and an absolutely wonderful woman helps me with watching the kiddos weekly so I can go run errands. When John deployed the first time around, I was just one of many 1st CAV wives who were pretty much left with only the FRG (Family Readiness Group), which isnt' always great since all of the other wives are in the same boat as you are. Not the case this time around! What an exceptional group of people they all are; I knew God would bless us again. And He has.

A pic of John at Bagram