Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Julie

10 Reasons Why I Love Fall

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Fall photos

 

Fall has always been my favorite season. September and October have always been my favorite months. I just love this time of year. Here are 10 reasons why.

1) Leaves I love when the leaves fall. They cover my yard and I can look out the window and know it is fall. Leaves can also be a bit of a pain because you have to pick them up. When you get as many as we do, it is really annoying. However, I still love that they fall and make for a fun place to play and take pictures.download (12)

2) Halloween  One of my favorite holidays. I love that my kids dress up and we love to go out and attend a few different events around the area. The candy is nice too but my favorite part is walking around with your community and looking at all the cute costumes. And I still have the best memories of celebrating Halloween at school which sadly they don’t do here. We used to have a parade around the campus. So much fun!

3) Hoodies and sweaters I love hoodies. I love them so much. It drives me nuts that I can’t wear them when it is hot. Something about them makes me feel good. And when I can wear just a hoodie and no jacket, it is perfect.

4) Pumpkins Pumpkin drinks, pumpkin treats, pumpkin patches, pumpkins everywhere. I love to see it. Something about a pumpkin makes me smile. I am not even that big of a fan of pumpkin drinks but I love the time of year they come out.download (11)

5) Cooler weather I know I keep saying I want to go back to California but I really am a four seasons type of girl. I love each season at first but then I get ready for the next. As summer likes to hang on a little too long for my taste, the cooler weather is such a welcoming change.

6) The scents Even before I sold Scentsy I loved the fall scents. I used to get pumpkin candles. Now I warm fall Scentsy bars. Love to have my house smell like fall.

7) Jeans I love wearing jeans. I don’t like shorts very much. So around the middle of September I am so ready to move on to jeans, all of the time.

download (10)8) Colors This is something I would really miss if we moved back to California. Fall colors. Just watching the trees change. It makes me want to take pictures of every single tree! It is really amazing to me how colorful things can get around here.

9) Hot drinks Hot mochas, hot chocolate, hot tea…hot drinks are the best when it is cool outside, the wind is going and you want a little something to warm you up.

10) The holidays Fall means the holidays are right around the corner. Before we know it we will be carving our turkeys and making our Christmas lists. Just thinking about that makes me happy. I enjoy the fall so much but I do love the holidays as well.

 

What is your favorite thing about fall?

 

 

Don’t forget to enter my giveaway 🙂

Coming Home By Greg Ruth Review and Giveaway

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I wanted to share a book review of the book Coming Home by Greg Ruth. I was sent a copy to review and I have really enjoyed it. It’s a simple, poignant book about a boy and his dog waiting at the airport for a military parent to come home. How many of us can relate to that?

There are not too many words in this book but that is okay. The pictures tell the story more than anything. The book made me tear up a little and it also made me laugh. Super cute. It reminded me of all the times my own kids had to wait for Daddy and what it felt like to get him back. I also love how the parent he was waiting for was not his Dad but his Mom. It was great to see because sometimes it is the Mom that is away, not the Dad.

The book will be for sale starting November 4, 2014.

How would you like to win a copy of this book for your own personal library? Just enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned below for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

How To Stick To OPSEC When You Are A Military Spouse

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OPSEC

There has been a lot of talk about Isis and blogging and PERSEC and OPSEC and what we military spouse bloggers need to do about it.

Some of us have decided to keep on blogging like normal. We are not too worried about it and although we are safe with our personal information, we don’t think that we need to stop blogging like we have been.

PERSEC and OPSEC are very important for all military spouses, not just us bloggers. If you have a spouse in the military, you have to be very aware of what you post on social media. There are certain things you can’t say like the return date of your loved one or how many days you have left and other information like that. You also can’t talk about the day they’re going to leave until after the fact.

Different bloggers have different comfort levels when it comes to what they share with the public.  Some don’t want anyone to know that they are a military spouse and that is totally fine.  Others have a blog that centers on the fact that they are a military spouse and Military life is a huge part of their lives.

It really just depends on your comfort level.  This is the decision to tell you that my husband is in the military. It is the decision to tell you where we live, although not the exact address of course. It is also the decision to tell you when my husband is deployed or if he deploys. I know for myself since I blog about military issues, especially deployment, that there would be no way to carry on my blog the way that it is without letting you know that my husband was deployed. It’s kind of one of those things.

When I have spoken about deployments, I have tried to keep it more general. I am not going to tell you the day that he’s going to leave. I am not going to tell you the day that he gets home. I might say he is going to be deploying rather soon. I might say that he will be home rather soon and that we are at the end of the deployment. I really don’t even want to know about his mission or where he is until he is home with me so sometimes I don’t even know what he is doing or where he is exactly.

OPSEC

OPSEC comes into play when you’re talking about dates, locations and all of that. If you are a non-blogging military spouse, the most you have to really worry about is Facebook although it is not a good idea to talk about the dates openly in public either.

For the military spouse blogger, it is even more important since more people are reading what we are writing. If I were to write on my blog that my husband is getting home in 10 days that would not be good in that would be a big violation of OPSEC. There have been cases of groups of soldiers being delayed because of people breaking OPSEC.  Think about how frustrating that would be if you’re waiting for your husband and you find out that the only reason that they are getting delayed is because somebody talked about it on Facebook. It happens.

So, if you are a blogger, what are you supposed to do when you want to write about the deployment? When you want to share your feelings about the night before he leaves or the day before he gets home?

What I have done about this is I write about these things when they happen but I did not publish them until after-the-fact. This way, I can share with my readers my feelings on those days but I’m not breaking any OPSEC rules.  When you do get to read them, it has already happened and it is no longer an issue.

I don’t want to live in fear. I want to be safe but not fearful and that includes my blog. I don’t want to break any OPSEC rules.  I’m not going to tell you things that you don’t need to know. However, I am going to share that my husband is in the military as that has been a huge part of my life and a huge part of this blog.

I do encourage bloggers to only post what they feel they are comfortable with. If they don’t want to share that their spouse is deployed or even in the military, that is okay. Not everyone blogs the same way.

 

How do you decide what you’re going to share on your blog? If you are not a blogger how do you decide what to share on social media?

Bye To Schweinfurt, Germany

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Bye To Schweinfurt, Germany

In March of 2006, my oldest son Daniel and I flew to Germany to join my husband at his first duty station. Daniel was just 18 months old and we had been waiting to join him for the past 4.5 months. It would have been longer but we decided to buy our own tickets and head over once the Command Sponsorship was done. They sent us our No fee passports about 6 weeks later.

I remember when we flew in. I didn’t know what to expect. I had never been to Europe before, I hadn’t even been out of the US unless you could mission trips to Mexico. We were tired and so ready to be back with Ben.download (17)

 

Ben met me at the airport and we took the train to Schweinfurt, our first duty station. I remember sitting there watching all the business people on their cell phones thinking, this is a lot like America. In some ways Germany is like America, in other ways it is completely different as I would soon learn.

We got back to our apartment which was a third floor stairwell apartment. We lived on Askren Manor which was the main housing area there. People also lived off post in government leased housing or in private housing. There was also a small section of housing on another part of the post.

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The next day Ben had to work all day. I was suffering from jet lag and rather confused. I wanted to go exploring but I was a little scared to. I didn’t even know I could have walked to the Commissary. I felt silly about that.

Time passed. We got our household goods. We got our driver’s licences and Ben got orders for his first deployment. I also found out I was pregnant with Drew. I got pregnant the day we got there. This was right around the time that I started making some friends. Our FRG had a dinner a few weeks or maybe it was months before the deployment. I went and got to meet some of the other wives which was a very good thing. During the deployment we met for coffee on Mondays and did a lot of fun things together.

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The deployment was long, 15 months. During that time I never left Schweinfurt other than going on a retreat to Garmich. I had Drew during the deployment and my family was able to come visit. My mom came for two months which was amazing. I got to experience two different hospitals. The first is where I gave birth to Drew and the second was where we spent almost a week when he came down with RSV at two months old.

Ben eventually came home and we spent a month in California with our families. I will always remember that trip and how nice that time was. We headed back to Germany the first week of January and I really didn’t want to go. I was kinda in a slump. I was annoyed that there was already talks of them deploying again. I didn’t like my apartment and I felt like if he did deploy then I would just go home.

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But then one morning I woke up to the news that some of the brigade was moving to Grafenwoehr, two hours away. I told Ben I really want to go. We were able to. In May of 2008 we moved to a small village about 30 minutes from post called Erbendorf.

Anyway, Schweinfurt is now closed. The closing ceremony was last week. When I was there I remember hearing it would eventually happen but not for years and years. And now that time has come. It makes sense for the Army to close some of the posts in Germany. We don’t need them like we did in the past. So I get it. But it is weird to think that it will be closed and will be given back to the Germans. It is weird to think that little city will not have an US Army presence anymore. It is strange to think that if we ever go back and visit, it will be very different.

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Although we moved to Graf and I was so happy about that, I will always have a place in my heart for Schweinfurt. It is where I learned to be an Army wife. It is where I figured out the Commissary, had our first experience with Military schools, found PWOC, made friends, figured out how to get through a deployment. It is where I learned about German culture, Euro and how my US life is just one way to live in this great big world of ours. It opened my eyes to things I never would have thought about before. It is also where I learned to be a Mom. Daniel was only 18 months old when we got there. In the two years that we were there he changed a lot. I think back to those years and Schweinfurt is a huge part of it.

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Have you ever been to Schweinfurt? When were you there? Have yu ever visited Germany?

On Coffee Cups, Puppy Dogs and Wars

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On Coffee Cups, Puppy Dogs and Wars

I am sure most of you have seen the video going around about President Obama saluting a Marine with a coffee cup in his hand. You might have seen the response to that of a photo of President Bush saluting with a dog in his hand. You have probably read a lot of the comments going around about how he shouldn’t have done that, how rude it was and how we can really tell what one President thinks based on what they do with something in their hand.

I could go on and on about what I think about all that.

However, I just think it boils down to if you like President or not. You know how when you don’t like someone, everything they do annoys you? That happens with political figures too. They can’t do anything right, ever. Even if they do something a previous President did, doesn’t matter, it is worse when they did it.

The thing is, we are all human and we all make mistakes. When you are in the public eye, every mistake can be blown up and turned into a story. Remember when Dan Quayle misspelled potato?

Sigh…The fact is our country is STILL AT WAR!american-flags

Yes we are. People are still deploying. Military families are still having to say goodbye to their loved ones. It’s not over yet and probably won’t be for a while.

I would never want to be in a political office. Never. I would never want to have that over me. To have to be in charge of something that important. I can’t even imagine. I can’t even imagine what would it be like to have to make decisions about war, terrorists and what the best thing to do is. To have that on your mind 24/7? I can’t even imagine.

As a Military spouse, I am not sure what the future holds for us. Will my husband have to deploy again? I just don’t know. It is always in the back of my mind as is the case with other Military families. It is always something we think about. When we watch the news, we are reminded. There is no getting away from it.

So we can sit and debate saluting with coffee cups vs dogs but at the end of the day, that really doesn’t matter. What matters is that we do live in a country where people are willing to stand up for what is right. That we do have a Military that will go where they need to go and do what they need to do. That there are families out there that live this each and every day.

It is also important to remember that Military spouses make up a range of different types of beliefs. From political to religious to if we even want to have children or not. We are not all the same but what we do have in common is the love for our spouse and our country and the freedom we all hold so dear.

 

 

 

Give Forward and Erase Love With Hate

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I was saddened to hear the story of a 14-year-old boy with Autism who was bullied by a group of kids in Bay Village, OH. The boy was going to do the ice bucket challenge but instead of pouring a bucket of ice over his head they filled it with urine, feces and spit. Not only did they do this but they also videotaped it and put it on Instagram. What a horrible thing to do to someone. Bullying can be such an awful thing. As a parent of special needs children, I worry sometimes that they will be bullied and it makes me so sad when I hear it being done to other kids.

The organization, GiveForward heard the story as well and decided to do something to help. They started a fundraiser for the boy. The goal was to raise money for the family as well as creating a page full of support that they can read and be encouraged by. I know it is helpful to know that others, even strangers are on their side and feel for them. That most people are not okay with what happened to their son.

giveforward-hiresGiveForward provides free online fundraising pages allowing friends and family to raise money directly for a loved one when they need it the most. You Can set up a page in minutes, share it with friends and instantly create a community of support. It is a great way to be able to help other people. They want to be able to prove that there is more love in this world than hate.

In today’s world, 98% of the time we stand by idly and watch life go by. When we see a tragedy or injustice on the news, we say “what a shame” and then we flip the channel and proceed to do NOTHING about it, as we expect someone else will step up and help. There’s an actual psychological term for this. It’s called bystander apathy.

We also know that when people don’t stand around being bystanders, magic can happen. We saw it when a bomb exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon and this nation made a collective decision that we were going to do something about it.

One of the many fundraisers started at that time was for a newlywed couple, Pat and Jess, who lost their legs in the bombing. Friends, family, and so many that were outraged by what happened that day were able to raise almost $900K for them, making sure that they would never have to worry about any of their medical expenses as they deal with their new life with prosthetic legs.

As you can see,  GiveForward has done to help people be able to give back.

You too can help by donating to the fundraiser, leaving a message and just choosing love over hate, no matter what you encounter in your daily life. Love goes a lot further than hate ever will.

 

* Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value to write it. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

My New Keurig 2.0

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Keurig 2.0

How many of you like coffee? I am pretty much addicted to it. We got a Keurig for Christmas a few years ago. We loved that thing. That is why I was excited to learned I would be getting a free one from Influenster to review. This one is called the Keurig 2.0 and it is pretty sweet!

We have been using it for a couple of weeks now and we are loving it!

Keurig 2.0 cups

It is great because you can use small K-cups or K-Carafe ones for a carafe full. This is nice because Ben and I can share it unless he decides he needs a lot of coffee and drinks it all before I get to it 😉

Another great thing about this one is that it reads each K-cup to give you the perfect cup!

 

https://www.keurig.com

The only issue we have had was when I went to buy some K-cups at the store. We went through the ones they came with pretty fast. Anyway, they were Keurig brand but the machine would not take them. A number came up on the screen and I called it. Found out that they will only take the Keurig K-cups with the whiting that is in white, mine was yellow. The lady on the phone told me this could be a bit of an issue because the 2.0 just came out and it will take a bit for retailers to catch up with the new cups. They did send me a coupon for a free box which was nice. It shipped free from https://www.keurig.com.

Keurig 2.0

How do you like your coffee?

* I received the Keurig 2.0 for free from Influenster in hopes that I would write a review on it. 

How My Son With Asperger’s Is Doing In The Second Grade

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Asperger's

How My Son With Asperger’s Is Doing In The Second Grade

My son was diagnosed with Asperger’s when he was five. That was in the middle of his preschool year. We started with ABA therapy right away. He started kindergarten a few months later. That was a challenging year. He had full-time ABA with him at school. 1st grade was similar only we encountered some other issues. However, other types of behaviors got better. It seems like it is two steps forward, one step back with him.

In the middle of last year I felt strongly that it might be a good idea to have him in the special needs class because of his Asperger’s. He was having quite a lot of behavioral problems. We also worked on having the school take over more than having ABA with him. This was an important step to me and something we were working towards. Towards the end of 1st grade things got a little better but I wasn’t sure how it was going to go for second grade. I knew the school was working hard with us to make sure he was getting the help he needed to get through each day. They also assured me that at anytime I can call an IEP meeting. When summer started I just knew that no matter what we would be able to figure out how to get through second grade.

Asperger's

Now we are about six weeks into the school year. Overall he is doing really well. I am thankful for this. He grew a lot during the summer and I could really tell he was a different kid than he was at the end of 1st grade, although with some of the same behavioral issues. He is in a regular class and that seems to be going well overall. Not so many behavioral issues, he gets on the bus a lot easier than he ever has too. His biggest issue is not wanting to do the school work he needs to do. We are making him do it once he gets home and that has been hard.

I am not sure how the rest of the year is going to go. We had an IEP meeting last week and will have another one after fall break next month. He has a list of goals and he is slowly working towards them. Some days are easier than others.

What we want for him is to know that school is important, that the work he does at school is important and that he has to go to school each day before he can play or relax. The thing about him is that if he doesn’t see the reason for it, he doesn’t want to do it. This was a major issue last year. He didn’t see why he had to go to school so he fought it a lot. I think this year he is understanding more how it works. You go to school Monday through Friday, then you have the weekends free. You go to school until about 3pm, do your homework and then you can do what you want. I think the more he understands this, the better he will be about school. I am hoping anyways.

Do you have a child with special needs? How is school going for them?