Distractions are Good for the Soul... and the Sinuses!

Once Habibi leaves, I'm sure I'm going to cry.

I'm not one to cry in public places or in front of other people. Hell, I try my hardest not to cry in front of Habibi or Chuug- unless they hound me down. But I may cry as soon as we return home after our final goodbyes. I'll definitely cry once it gets dark and the realization that he hasn't come home from work sinks in. I may wake up a few times during the first night to cry, too. And the next night. Maybe even the night after that. And that's okay! Crying is a completely natural response to pain- emotional and physical. But when your sinuses are swollen (as mine always do), your face is sore, your eyes are raw and dry and you've made yourself into as hot a mess as you can get... Then what do you do?

This is where The Game Plan comes in.

If you read my blog, you've seen my entry about how I went crazy while Habibi was away at NTC for a month. Why? Because I had no Game Plan; no list of to-dos, to-trys and/or goals. I came to realize that THIS IS VITAL! EVERY GAL NEEDS A GAME PLAN! Like a mini bucket-list for Deployment. =)

Admittedly, I haven't worked as much on my Game Plan as I wanted. Sure, I've thought about it tons in my head, but I'm also one of those must-write-it-down kind of gals. STILL! I have come up with some plans... a few I've even grabbed from my own bucket list. (Yep. I have a bucket list. Also good for the soul.) Now, I'm not going to list EVERYTHING here- mostly because I can't remember it all off the top of my head (THIS IS WHY YOU WRITE THINGS DOWN!) but also because some of my goals are a little on the private side. -wink- You can wrack your brain on that one!

So here are some of the BIG goals...

GET IN SHAPE. So cliche, I know. But who doesn't want to get into shape? I've learned in the past that when Habibi isn't around, I'm more focused and driven. Yep, my husband is a lazy-drug. When he's around we just want to lay and snuggle all day and- while good for the heart and the marriage- it's bad for the body. Deployment is my prescription of Adderall. My goal here is to either lose 50lbs in the year that he's gone OR get back down to my original size 10 (I'm a 16 now- down from a 22). I say either-or only because women in my family are solid and we tend to lose inches better than pounds. Totally cool, though, because your measurements actually give you a more accurate account of your fitness than your weight does, since muscle weighs more than fat. But I digress... I'd like to have a group of gals to go to the gym and work out with, because I've found working out is easier to do when you have others there to distract you. But if I have to, I'll go it alone. All I know is I've bought myself a piece of "Skinny Clothing" and by the end of this Deployment, that sucker had better fit!

BECOME A DOMESTIC GODDESS. I do not have mad skillz in the kitchen. It makes me sad. It also makes Habibi sad because he comes from a family of crazy Cajun cookers! So my second goal is to gain some good kitchen witchery. I've got your basic Pita Pizza, Macky-Cheese and Paskettis down, but that is the unfortunate extent of my culinary abilities. I'd like to learn a variety of foods- starting with our own home recipes (because oh MAN you have no idea how much we missed gumbo for our first El Paso winter!) and branching outward into vegan/allergy-friendly recipes for myself. A mini-goal inside of this goal is to learn to cook with more meat, because while I may not eat a majority of critters outside of the seafood spectrum (though I cannot deny a good turkey sammich) Habibi and Chuug are blood-thirsty carnivores. So expect my blog to get a little Julie & Julia over the next year.

PAAAINT! No surprise there. It's been almost 10 months since I've painted (and even sold) a painting. Between living out in the middle of nowhere on the far west side of El Paso and juggling our funds, I've been suffering without my biggest outlet. I SHALL SUFFER NO MORE! Aside from painting any requests, I've got a couple of pictures I'd taken that I've been wanting to paint for months, now. You have no idea how badly I'm going to want to go running out to the nearest craft store and stock up the second Habibi's plane takes off.

GET SOME INNER PEACE. Meditating was a favorite of mine up until Chuug turned a year old... and then inner peace was something I could only achieve in my dreams. Four years later this kid is hopefully heading off to Kindergarten and I'll have a few hours of SILENCE! Much like exercise, if you can get 30 minutes a day, 3-4 days a week of zen- IT DOES YOU GOOD!

MAKE A TEMPORARILY PERMANENT HOME. Haha. Yeah, that does sound funny. But if you're a military wife, then you know what I mean! Our life is a never-ending cycle of impermanence... but I'm tired of living in a home like we're going to move out the next month. We never completely unpack, never hang anything on the walls and I always leave my pictures and books and candles and little knick knacks in their boxes. A majority of the things we own are also really old and broken, too. We've always taken hand-me-downs and shopped at Goodwill because we believed in function over fashion. But GEEZE... It's gotten to the point where I just want to have plates that match and buy a couch to own from the BEGINNING of it's lifespan and not halfway or three quarters through! I'd like to be able to sit in a chair and look around my livingroom at all of the beautiful photographs I've taken or my paintings hanging on the walls or sitting on shelves... I'd like for my son to have a totally themed out bedroom (I know, I know, cliche- but when you've never had it?) that he's proud of and wants to live in to the point I have to drag him out of it. I'd like to actually pull out that old rubbermaid container and decorate for the holidays and have people over... I've begun to wonder if the reason I never get attached to (or want to even live in) my homes is because they don't feel like they're mine. So I'd like to do that. Even if we're not going to live here forever, at least make it look like it.

GET LEGIT! Along with painting, I've been missing attending births like crazy. Back home in NOLA, I started on my certification, only to find that being certified wasn't an issue as long as you had the experience and did the doula do! If you were a good doula, then you were a good doula. Word of mouth was all that mattered. Unfortunately I've found that out here in El Paso- even though certification is a personal choice and not a requirement- it seems to matter a whole lot more to people. I wish all I had to do was take a test. Give me an exam for my certification- I'd test right through! But instead I have to work my way through the long process just to get a piece of paper that says "Yep, this gal knows her shit." -Sigh- On the plus side, along with finally getting my certification, I'm going to go ahead and also go for my Childbirth Educator's Dip so that I can teach Alternative Birth classes out here for the gals who want it. As irritating as the whole certification thing is... it'll look good on my Midwifery school application. That's a big plus.

KEEP IT GREEN! Saving money is always a priority with deployment. My goal here is to have AT LEAST $10k in savings by the time Habibi comes home. Simple, but VERY important!

Those are some of the major goals off the top of my head that I wanted to share. I've got some smaller ones, too; simple things like learning to play an instrument, knit a blanket for the kiddo's bed for winter, finally start a series of scrapbooks I've been putting off for the last six years... Things that I'd like to do, but won't kick myself over if they don't get done (Well... the scrapbooking goal is more like a medium-sized goal. I probably WILL kick myself if I don't get that started...)

The biggest positive I've found with making my goal list is that when I read over it all... it seems like SO MUCH to do in just one year. It's amazing how our perception of time changes when you throw things into the mix. When I think about an entire year without my husband, it seems like forever and I just want to cry (cue the sinuses clogging)! But then I think about all the goals I have that I want to accomplish... and now it seems like it's not long enough!

...and then I exploded.

I used to love Sundays when I was younger; waking up to the sunshine beaming through the windows- making warm strips of light across the carpet where we'd stretch out to play or draw, listening to the radio or a collection of my Momma's cassette tapes... usually followed by a wonderfully pointless but perfect afternoon nap. Those Sundays were best described by the Italian guys in Eat. Pray. Love. as Dolce Far Niente- or "The sweetness of doing nothing".

Sorry, I couldn't help but add the clip- I love that book/movie. =) But they're right, aren't they? The perfect Sunday involves Dolce Far Niente. That Sunday is today. 

We spent the morning sleeping in, snuggled together in our bed... and then the afternoon... and still now. Why? Why haven't we gotten up and done something yet? It's a beautiful Sunday (as evident by the warm sunlight beaming in through the windows)!

Because this Sunday is the last Sunday we'll get to spend together as our little family for a while, I realized when Habibi curled up and threw his arm over me to pull me in close for a snuggle.

...and then I exploded. 

Oh my god. This is really the last Sunday I'm going to spend with my husband for a long time...

Hello, emotional breakdown, I was wondering when you'd get here. 

So here we lay, in each other's arms, the moments dragging... Sure, we could be out and about, doing something memorable and fun together for this last, and very special, Sunday... but it seems when you get out and do, the faster time flies by. We'd rather just be here... enjoying the sweetness of doing nothing together.

Pre-Deployment Leave and When He Leaves for Deployment

Hello, Hellooooo! I'm aliiiiive! Nothing like pre-deployment leave to knock my blogging out of whack, huh? But I'm back, I'm back! At least it wasn't as long of a lull as the last one.

Habibi, the Kiddo and I at City Park

So we went back home to New Orleans for pre-deployment leave to see our friends and family, visit old familiar places and eat long-missed foods you couldn't find in El Paso if you tried... 


We had family parties with aunts and uncles and cousins and siblings, group outings to the French Quarter, the Riverwalk, the Aquarium and an ENTIRE DAY at Blue Bayou Waterpark, complete with second degree sunburn (I looked like a Gremlin thrown into sunlight- awful burns and blisters)! We were also blessed with a couple of thunder storms and some rain! (I had to laugh because my Momma's wish- that our visit would end the drought conditions in NOLA- came true after all!)

Habibi with a crawdad!

Admittedly, there were still some lulls during leave where I was frustrated and just wanted to hurry up and be back in EP. Yes, really. A couple of times we found ourselves camped out on my Momma's couch with nothing to do and nobody to see because, well... There seems to be this unwritten rule somewhere that says when your friends fly 1,150 miles home to visit- you have to be unavailable and then write them a Facebook message about how hurt you are that they made no effort to see you when they flew in. Because, you know, 1,150 miles wasn't far enough. It turns out, we're not the only family to deal with this during leave. It's a pretty common problem, particularly among military families. Friends (and family, even!), if you KNOW your friends are coming in to visit and you want to see them- MAKE TIME! It won't kill you to take ONE DAY off of work to spend with them, considering you probably won't see them again for a year or more. Ugh. 

Habibi and the Kiddo, taking a swim!

Still, all in all, it was a pleasant visit and by the very end the three of us were ready to be back home in El Paso and back to our normal routine.


BY THE WAY, I would like to mention that Habibi totally teased me because TSA grabbed me out of line both TO and FROM New Orleans and put me in the box for additional screening. To say the X-Ray machine freaked me out was an understatement. I was ready to scream. Habibi said I follow the terrorist description. At first, I was offended... Until he said "You've got such gorgeous curves, you must be packin'!" HA! Still, it was either coincidence or I really set off some kind of crazy flag. It's like they can tell which people will have a meltdown if you put them in the box. Mental note for future flights: Try not to look like a psycho.

Relaxing on a swing at City Park

After our flight was delayed TWICE and the entire concourse got held up because some crazy person literally RAN through the security checkpoint and was being hunted down- at which point nobody was allowed to move (try THAT with a five year old) or go to their terminals while they shut down the exits- we were compensated with free food at the terminal and free liquor on the flight (Can you guess who had three mini-bottles of wine?) and we made it home just in time for Habibi to check in. Phew! We went home and collapsed in our clothes- best night's sleep EVER. I don't know what it is about flights, but they make me EXHAUSTED because, you know, all of that SITTING we do.

Habibi and the Kiddo being silly!

Habibi ended up having to go right back to work the next morning- but he came home with a surprise. A piece of paper with lots of jumble Army jargon on it. Orders. I wasn't sure how to react. I read through them, put them down, picked them up, read through them again... and again... and again. I'd expected myself to have some sort of snap or something... cry or whatever. But it just didn't feel real. That's a big deal with me; nothing is ever real until it happens. I suppose it's my inner cynic to keep me from freaking out. So after a while I handed him his papers back and just... continued on as usual.


Over the next week, I started to see posts from my friends in our group; sad, upset, terrified, heartbroken posts about their husbands receiving their orders and how everything was "becoming real for them." I started to wonder... Why didn't it hit ME like that? Is it going to just sneak up on me and explode a-la Dane Cook's Mental Terrorist? Or am I just not going to crack until the day my husband is really gone? Will it be when we're alone in the car, on our way home from our Battalion Ball? Will it be on post, when we're making arrangements and signing forms for Living Wills and Power of Attorney? Maybe I won't break down until 5 o' clock passes and he doesn't walk through the door that first night. I don't know. I tried to force myself to get upset, discussing the deployment with Habibi so that maybe the floodgates will just open wide and everything will come out. But even that doesn't seem to work for me. I guess I'll just have to wait and see when the other shoe drops.