My newest post on Militaryfamily.com is now up! What I Love about Army Life, check it out 🙂
7 years of Army life
It was October of 2005. We had moved to Lexington, KY the April before. We knew we needed a big change. We knew Ben needed a new career. He had been in the Army before and knew he could do it again. We decided together for him to enlist. He was ready earlier than I was. By October I was ready. My friend was getting married the first weekend in November so I told him we had to wait until after that. We should have waited until after the holidays. Stuff just doesn’t get done like it should during the holidays when it comes to paperwork and the Military.
He left for MEPS. We assumed he would have to repeat basic. It was 2005 and he went to basic in 1996. A lot had changed in that time. 9/11 happened. But when I picked him up from MEPS later that day he told me that he didn’t have to repeat basic. That he was going to Europe and he would leave in two weeks. Say what? Really? That fast? Yep, it happened that fast. In just a few weeks we went from a civilian couple to a Military one stationed in Germany.
We thought it would take a month to join him in Germany. It took 4.5 months. Welcome to Army life. Hurry up and wait. He deployed about five months after we got to Germany. He deployed a year exactly after he got back from that deployment. Then he deployed for the 3rd time 15 months after that deployment. I am praying that this next break can be two years but probably not.
I can’t say I love the Army all the time. I can’t say it is horrible all of the time. I have had a lot of good come from being an Army wife. I have shed a lot of tears because of Military life.
I am not sure how long my husband will be in. Not sure he will re-enlist next time. We still have some time to decide. I do know that the last 7 years have been a roller coaster for us. Not exactly what I expected Army life to be like. Not sure I really even knew what to think about what Army life would be like.
How long have you been a Military spouse?
Traveling Alone with kids
Helping Kids Through a Deployment
My newest post at Militaryfamily.com is up, Helping Kids Through a Deployment. Check it out 🙂
A Visit to Christian Way Farms
This year we went to two pumpkin patches. I went with my son with his class to Honeysuckle Hill Farm and then we went to Christian Way Farm during fall break. I really liked both of these places, probably better than Riverview Mounds where we have been in the past.
Here are some photos from Christian Way Farm! I really liked how the farm was laid out and my kids seemed to have a ton of fun there. Christian Way Farm is about an hour from Clarksville though so a bit of a drive.
Have you made it to the pumpkin patch this year?
The Lego Store
My boys LOVE the Lego store. Drew will talk your hear off about it. Since I knew that the Lego store in Downtown Disney was pretty big, we planned a trip there. Unfortunately we had to wait until one of the last days of our trip which was kinda hard for Drew. But it was worth the wait.
Now I knew that the store was two stories but I didn’t realize one story was just a play area but the boys didn’t seem to mind.
I love Disneyland and I knew we couldn’t go this trip. Daniel begged me to go and said, “Can’t we just go on one ride?” I kinda wish it was still like that but of course I had to tell him “no, it doesn’t work like that.” I am hoping I can take them when we are out again in February/March.
A Year of Biblical Womanhood
I don’t talk too much about my faith on this blog. Maybe a post here or there. Maybe a mention about church every once in a while. The main reason for that is although I am a Christian, this isn’t a Christian blog. I don’t assume everyone who reads it has the same faith that I do. I am like that in person too. I have my faith but I don’t assume everyone else believes like I do.
Another reason for that is that I don’t consider myself a “Conservative Christian.” Don’t get me wrong, I have a VERY strong belief in Jesus, God and the Bible. I was raised in a Christian home and have gone to church pretty much my entire life. The only two times in my life I didn’t go to church regularly was when I was a senior year of high school and a lot of the time in Germany because of being without a husband and not fully connecting with the chapel services. Although in Germany I was pretty active in PWOC.
I was raised in a Presbyterian church. Ben and I are members of a Presbyterian church in California. We now attend a United Methodist church. These two churches are where I feel most at home at. I feel torn on the predestination issue which is one of the biggest differences between Presbyterians and Methodists. It also has to do with location a bit. Where we lived in CA the Methodist churches are pretty liberal. Too liberal for us. In Tennessee it isn’t that way and we also couldn’t find too many Presbyterian churches here.
I feel like for the last few years I have been searching. Not searching for Jesus, I have already found him. But searching for what it really means to be a Christian. Searching to know what I need to believe about X. Y and Z. I have seen a lot of crap happen in Christian churches. Stuff that makes me sad and feel icky inside. Stuff that had my own personal faith not been so strong, I probably would have walked away.
A few months ago I came across Rachel Held Evans blog and was amazed! I can relate to so much of what she says. I read her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions
and found it SO interesting. So when I saw on her blog they were asking for bloggers to review her newest book and be apart of a Facebook group, I applied. I wasn’t sure if I would get in or not. I wasn’t sure how many other people would apply or what type of people they were looking for. But I got in! I was so excited! I AM so excited to be apart of her book launch.
You can purchase A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband “Master”
What is “biblical womanhood” . . . really?
Strong-willed and independent, Rachel Held Evans couldn’t sew a button on a blouse before she embarked on a radical life experiment—a year of biblical womanhood. Intrigued by the traditionalist resurgence that led many of her friends to abandon their careers to assume traditional gender roles in the home, Evans decides to try it for herself, vowing to take all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible for a year.
Pursuing a different virtue each month, Evans learns the hard way that her quest for biblical womanhood requires more than a “gentle and quiet spirit” (1 Peter 3:4). It means growing out her hair, making her own clothes, covering her head, obeying her husband, rising before dawn, abstaining from gossip, remaining silent in church, and even camping out in the front yard during her period.
See what happens when a thoroughly modern woman starts referring to her husband as “master” and “praises him at the city gate” with a homemade sign. Learn the insights she receives from an ongoing correspondence with an Orthodox Jewish woman, and find out what she discovers from her exchanges with a polygamist wife. Join her as she wrestles with difficult passages of scripture that portray misogyny and violence against women.
With just the right mixture of humor and insight, compassion and incredulity, A Year of Biblical Womanhood is an exercise in scriptural exploration and spiritual contemplation. What does God truly expect of women, and is there really a prescription for biblical womanhood? Come along with Evans as she looks for answers in the rich heritage of biblical heroines, models of grace, and all-around women of valor.
Here is a video about the book…
I am on chapter two and it is pretty interesting so far 🙂
I will be blogging about it here and there over the next few weeks 🙂
* This post contains affiliate links!
Image courtesy of [graur razvan ionut] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Now You Tell Me! 12 Army Wives Give the Best Advice They Never Got: Making a Living, Making a Life Book Review
I was able to review the book, Now You Tell Me! 12 Army Wives Give the Best Advice They Never Got: Making a Living, Making a Life by Sheridan Scott (Author), B.K. Sherer (Author) and Donna Lyons.
It features all different kinds of Army wives, including the wife of Retired 4 Star General Peter Chiorelli as well as the wives of wounded veterans and isolated moms. It will be published on November 1, 2012.
This book is a great collection of stories from real Army Wives. From their experiences marrying a soldier to deployments to helping children through the Military life. There is a lot of great advice in this book from those who have been through all sorts of challenges with the Army. Each of the wives have a different background and different experience as an Army wife. I liked hearing the different perspectives. Some of the info they gave I could relate to and others I haven’t experienced myself but I know of others who have.
The book is broken down so each wife gets her own chapter. This makes it easy to read and I like that the first part of each chapter included a picture of the person telling the story.
Living as an Army wife can be a challenging experience for a lot of people. It helps to know we aren’t alone and hearing others and their stories helps make the journey a little easier.
There are also some charts in the back which can help you understand rank, size of the different units, abbreviations and even military time. This book would be an excellent gift for a new Army wife and even encouraging for a wife whose husband has been in a few years.
You can purchase the book on Amazon 🙂
* I was provided a free copy of the book to review.