The good times.

     I am trying to better organize my photos since I am really trying to take at least one picture everyday the whole time my husband is gone and today I found these beauties.  It made me teary eyed and melty hearted to see these pictures.  A little girl, her dad, a park, and a beautiful day make for great memories.

     This was one of the first times we had taken Maggie to the park and she loved just running around in the open areas used for dog walking and picnics.  She loves chasing her daddy.  And she loved running up to him for a drink out of her big girl McDonald's cup that daddy had.  

     It was a great way to spend one of the last days Scott had with his daughter and I am so glad that he did.  The pictures are something I will cherish forever and the memories are ones that will always make me smile.  

Thursday Purgeday. Volume 1 of 1.

     See there is the awesome mom/blogger/so-much-more over at the818.com and she is pretty much one of the most awesome women I have found on the internet.  She is doing a segment on her blog called Thursday Purgeday and I thought i would join in for a week to explain a purging/organizing journey I have been on for the last 3 weeks.
     Most of you know that my husband deployed a few years ago and will be gone well into next year.  SO I decided about the second I learned of the deployment that my daughter and I would move back in with my parents.  So a journey to pack and store and organize and pack some more ensued.
     So here we are months later.  All of my stuff is unpacked.  And I have moved myself into a room that was originally my parents office/craft room.  It has not been used as a bedroom is about 8 years.  Now I not only had to make this my bedroom and my office and my craft room, I had to share it with my parents as there office and craft room.  I wish I had pictures of where this room really started.  But I don't.  (It would be too horrible to share anyway.)
     But I cleaned it out.  I threw stuff away (with my parents' permission of course).  I painted.  I built.  I moved around.  I unpacked.  And I bought containers.  And the room looked like this...

     And I just couldn't stand it.  These pictures don't really do it justice either.  But I showed you some of it (I just can't own up to the rest of the room).  So I organized.  I rearranged a little.  I finished the building projects.  I filed away paper work.  And I am now happy with my room.  I can live here for the next year.  I promise I can.  And I promise I will keep it as clean as I can, so that the room can look like this most of the time...

     You can see the separate areas of the room: where I sleep, where I scrapbook, where I work, and where my TV is.  Much better, right?

     Can I keep it up?  Do you believe in me?

     And don't forget to check out Morgan as she goes through a much longer and larger journey to organization and purging.  

No changes.

This week was weird.  I had not desire to track my points or even care for that matter.  I do not know why, but I just wasn't.  Oh well though, there is always this week.
Saturday I went to a new unit in Daytona Beach for drill and ran a PT test.  I did 46 sit-ups y'all.  That's only 4 away from passing!!!  And I have about a month until I MUST pass my PT test.  I need the tuition assistance from my unit to start graduate school in May.  (EEK- did I really just say GRADUATE SCHOOL?)   So I started out strong on Saturday, running and pushing up and all that jazz.  But then came the drive home and I saw HOT fresh donuts.  That means I just had to stop.  So this weekend, I enjoyed 4 donuts over the course of Saturday and Sunday.  But I ate well otherwise.
And Saturday during my weigh in, taken after a PT test, I weighed in at exactly 164.8.  The same thing I weighed in at last week.  So no change, and I am okay with that.  That means that if I have a funky week when I don't want to count points and whatnot, I am making smart enough decisions to NOT gain.  That means I am eating healthier and better and that IS a breakthrough.  The next 5 days I am going to track and I am going to track well.  I am even going to post what I eat everyday (I will post one big post on Saturday morning, my weigh in day, with the break down).
So YAY for breakthroughs and NAY for funks that cause you to not lose weight.  Next week will be better.

My heart is feeling heavy.

Two weeks doesn't seem so long in the grand scheme of life.  But when it is the first two weeks of a deployment, it seems to last an eternity.  Or longer.  Its the transition period.  From being a pair to being a singleton.  From being just a mommy to being a mom and a dad.  From living in North Carolina in my own home with my husband to living in Florida with my parents in my parents home.  Plus this deployment will be the longest Scott and I have ever been apart from each other.  We have never been apart more than 4 months while I was away from Basic Training and AIT.

And the time has started wearing on me.  Two weeks doesn't sound like a lot, but this is when my husband would normally be coming home from the field.  He was be calling me telling me he would be home in 30 minutes.  But instead he is asking me to send him gum and coffee, because he is in his new home now.  He is deployed.  And that is starting to sink in.  

My heart is getting heavier by the day.  My nights are getting longer and lonelier.  My heart is beginning to break when I see Maggie do something new without her Daddy being able to watch, ever.  He gets to hear about her new words.  He gets to hear about her new Cozy Coupe.  And then, he might get to watch a video days later IF I am able to get to the video camera or phone before she decides she is bored with her activity.
I find myself struggling at this moment to focus on the tasks at hand.  Finally get everything put away in my room, my bills filed, and my floors cleaned.  Because I find myself consumed with thoughts of what my dear husband is doing at this moment.  I try to stay busy to keep the thoughts of him at bay, even the good ones.  But I am finding it harder and harder to keep the thoughts of him out and the motivation to do SOMETHING in.
And your eyes may have bulged when I said I didn't even want the good thoughts.  But the good thoughts in turn lead me to thinking that he is indeed in a war zone and that he is not safe in the same way we are.  And that his life is held in a gentle balance of staying in the "safe zone".  And I hate the thoughts of war and I really, really hate the thoughts of my husband being at war.
So with a heavy heart and a head held high, I am going to continue washing my laundry and filing my bills and living my life, while my husband is far away in a land I cannot imagine.  I will see him soon and we will continue our life together.  But for now, we love each other from afar and through the communication of our finger tips.
He is after all the love of my life no matter how far away his is or how heavy my heart becomes.  We will be together again soon.  In 11.5 months.

Remember when?

A few days ago, I was talking to my teenage mentor and a retired USMC Colonel.  He is a great man and always has been somewhat like a grandfather to me.  And now as he guides my 18-year-old niece to her time in the Marine Corps and high school graduation, I have remembered just how special this man is.  

He has fought wars where he didn't have a room to sleep in or a chow hall to eat at.  Where if it rained, it poured.  And he too had a family.  A family he went weeks without talking to.  And even then it was an old fashioned letter or maybe a cassette tape.  Because he fought in wars that I cannot imagine, I cannot imagine the sacrifice military families made then.  

Because of this eye widening discussion with the Colonel, I try not to take for granted that I have spoken to my Marine everyday except for 1 since he left 17 days ago.  I have had 3 phone calls and numerous emails from him.  I know everyday that he is safe.  I know everyday that he is eating and sleeping and that he is living well (as well as can be to be living in a foreign, war ridden land on a military installation).

I try not to take this peace of mind for granted.  Because I know 10, 20, or 30 years ago, the communication we enjoy now did not exist.  And if the Colonel and his young wife and family could survive without hearing each others voices for months and years at a time, I can survive this deployment.  I can survive the talking to each other daily.  I can survive the weekly or bi-weekly phone calls.  I can survive it.  And I can survive it with my head held high.  And with dignity.  And with daily thoughts of those who have served when these luxuries did not exist and of those that have fought and died for my freedom.  

I will never take for granted the simple email saying "happy midnight.  I love you."  Because that "I Love You" didn't exist years ago.  And the military family has always gone on.  We have survived.  And we have strived.  And I will carry on the tradition of holding down the home front while my husband is gone.

John 15:13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

(The Colonel I am talking about is the Senior Naval Science Instructor of my graduating high school.  I was in NJROTC all four years under his command.  He served 30 years in the USMC.  And he continues to serve the young students at the high school with his support and firm molding.  He is a real life hero.  I did not disclose his name or the high school because I do not have his permission to release his information.  But I want his legacy to live on no matter what.) 

Sometimes I wish money grew on trees.

While most people believe that finances are boring, I am enthralled by money and it consumes a lot of my thoughts through out the day.  Over a year ago, Scott and I decided we would get out of debt.  We used Dave Ramsey's 7 baby steps to get us started.  Once we found out Scott was deploying we stopped focusing on getting out of debt and just enjoying our family.  We obviously still paid all of our bills and everything but we used our extra money to go out to dinner, buy deployment stuff, move, et cetera.  But I am proud to say that in 14 or so months, we have paid off almost $15,000 in debt.  We have refinanced two credit cards into a loan to get a lower interest rate.  I hate saying it, but we still have a long way to go.  Over double that.  And I do not include my student loans in those figures.
But I have decided that I am going to become serious about paying off debt again.  So I have decided that from now until the end of April.  I am going to go on a shopping/money spending purge.  I am going to cut way back.  I am going to stay away from Target and IKEA and every other store that I spend money out.  While my spending recently is not "normal" I am afraid that if I don't do a purge, it will become my new normal.  That is will compensate for my husband's absence through an affair with my debit/credit card.
Included in this movement is to go back to a cash only spending system.  And right now I have $12 to spend until April 1st.  Because I spend too much random money recently that I am not going to withdraw the rest of my "allowance".  And on April 1st, I am going to take out less money than I originally budgeted for my allowance.
Because I have hit a point where I really want to focus on becoming debt free, I have made a decision on the job front.  I am going to take any job that is offered, which means that sometime in April I am employed because I received a job offer from the job interview I went to last Thursday.  I hope to find a different job, but a job is a job and it will equal financial freedom down the road (and not to mention a sure fire way to save up money to enjoy Scott's R&R at lovely restaurants, spas, and Disney World).
I hope that a purge will help me get back in the habit of not spending.  Or not whipping out my card for everything.  And I hope that I can get in a better habit of tracking everything that I spend, not tracking well has gotten me in trouble more times than I like to admit.  And so this is going to be a lifestyle change.  I am going to be shedding the bad habits and gaining the good ones.
I will answer to you.  I will answer to this blog.  I will post how I am doing over the next 6 weeks or so.  I will tell you how much I spend and how much I pay off and how much we make.  I will tell you all of this.  Because then I will have the accountability that I need to stay on track.  And I WILL STAY ON TRACK. Because I want to be free from the weight of $32,000 in debt.

So you will see me on two journeys as the same time.  My weight loss journey and my financial freedom  (or the financial freedom of my family really).  And I know I have tried to do this before.  But I am going to stick to this.  I want to go on a really nice vacation when my husband comes home after a year.  CAN WE SAY HAWAII?

Nice to see you again, McFatty Monday.

So it has been 12 days since my husband left (I promise this will not become a deployment post) and I was really scared that I would come back today with a weight gain.  But I am proud to say that I did not emotionally eat.  I did not sit and pout.  I did not watch too much t.v.  I stayed active chasing Maggie around.  I stayed active organizing and cleaning and unpacking and moving into my parents' house.  And so I am proud to announce that I lost 1.6 pounds in the last week.  I weighed in at 166.4 on March 5 and weighed in at 164.8 on March 12.)  My weigh-in days are Saturday as that is the day that I go to a Weight Watchers Meeting.
So if you are paying attention at all, that means I have lost almost 8.2 pounds since starting Weight Watchers on January 15, 2011.  And it is only going to get better from here.
Why is it going to get better?  Because I went and got my YMCA membership card.  So I now have no excuse not go to the gym and not to stay active and not to loose more weight.  Because I will be at my goal weight when my husband comes home.  So I have about 233 days to lose 20-25 pounds.  I will be perfectly happy at 145, but my ultimate goal is 140.

Now to answer BA's question from over at Heir to Blair.  I do not like the idea of recommitting myself everyday.  While most people are a "I just need to survive this day", I am a deadline person & 24 hours just isn't going to cut it here.  Taking it one day at a time leaves open the opportunity that I can cheat because it is JUST one day and then those "just one days" become weeks and months.  And while I do have months to lose this weight, I do have a hero of a husband coming home to spend two glorious weeks with his wife and daughter.  And I want to look the part.  I want to look like a hero's wife.  I want to look like a million bucks when I walk into Orlando International Airport (or whatever airport it is) and hug my husband for the first time in 8 months.  And that is what drives me to get up at 5am to take a 6am class at the YMCA.  My husband.  He is the only motivation I need right now.  I would just fail miserably using the "recommit everyday thing".