Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Julie

Home of the Free, Because of the Brave

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As a military spouse I am thankful to be able to say, Home of the Free, Because of the Brave.Home of the Free, Because of the Brave

America, home of the free, because of the brave. This is something we see all over the place. We find this phrase on t-shirts, on banners, and on websites. We say in our Facebook posts, to our family members, and think about what the phrase means when we do.

Home of the Free, Because of the Brave

To me, this reminds us that we are a free society. I can be a Christian, my neighbor can be a Muslim, and we both have rights in this country. We can worship as we like. We don’t have to conform to a state religion. We don’t have to worship anyone we don’t want to worship.

As a military spouse I am thankful to be able to say, Home of the Free, Because of the Brave.

Home of the Free, Because of the Brave

This means that others have come before us to make sure that we have the freedoms we do. Whether they fought against the English in the 1700s, fought against injustice in the world in the 1940s, or fought against terrorism in the middle east in more recent times.

As a military spouse, I look at my husband and all the others who have come before him. The men and women who have helped keep our country free. Those who gave up part of their own life, or all of their own lives, for us to be able to live our lives the way that we do.

As a military spouse I am thankful to be able to say, Home of the Free, Because of the Brave.

Home of the Free, Because of the Brave

Being brave isn’t easy. When I think about the bravery of people in history, it takes my breath away. To stand and fight for a cause, and not know what would happen. To know that they could lose their own lives for that cause, and while doing so would make this world a better place, they would not be able to see it happen.

To be brave not only for today but for future generations. To be brave in the face of evil. To give up what others can’t. To stand proud for a country. To stand proud for doing the right thing.

Home of the Free, Because of the Brave

As America looks to the future, I hope that all of us can work toward the best interests of those living in our country. From sea to shining sea, I hope that good things come out of any hardships and that those who continue to serve in any way are always respected.

I hope that every year we can remember what we have been through and where we have been. That we can remember those that came before and look to the heroes of the future who will continue to do good for the benefit of our country.

As a military spouse I am thankful to be able to say, Home of the Free, Because of the Brave.

As a military spouse, I am thankful to be able to say, Home of the Free, Because of the Brave.

I know this means sacrifice. I know this means more pain for some people. However, I know that bravery is never a bad thing, and I am thankful for those who have been brave enough to help our country.

Whether they signed up for military service, whether they work tirelessly in our local communities, or whether they take a stand for liberty and justice for ALL in all the different ways that Americans can. 

 Home of the Free, Because of the Brave

The Uncertainty of Military Life As a Military Spouse

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The Uncertainty of Military Life As a Military Spouse

Life as a military spouse can feel like a rollercoaster. It is filled with uncertainty, and that can be so hard to deal with. From not knowing when your loving spouse will be in the same country as you to having no idea where you will be living six months from now.

As a military spouse, uncertainty is apart of the deal. It comes with this crazy life, and it will always be there. We need to figure out ways to handle the unknown, and not let it control our whole life.

Yes, much easier said than done but there are a few things we can do as military spouses to help make this part of military life easier to take.

Accept the Uncertainty of Military Life

Reframing our mindset can go a long way in helping us accept that so much of military life is not set in stone, and there will be a lot of time when we just don’t know what is going to happen next. If we hope that things level out and become more clear, we are going to be disappointed.

While it would be nice to know when a deployment is going to happen, we have to be prepared that dates will change, and things might not work out the way they first said they would. While it would be nice to get firm PCS orders in a timely manner, we need to remember that we might have to wait and wait, and then wait again for everything to get sorted out.

Accepting that this is a part of military life will go a long way in finding contentment and not becoming as frustrated as a military spouse.

Focus On What You Can Control

While we can’t control what the military does, we do have things in our lives that we can. Focusing on those things will go on a long way. You might not be able to control where you are going to be stationed next. You can however control aspects of your move, where you might live, and other parts to your PCS.

Focus on what you need to do next for your own life and career. Figure out what your family needs that you can give to them. Try not to dwell on what is out of your control, and focus on what is in your control.

Find Support

You are definitely not the only military spouse out there getting frustrated over the uncertainty of everything. Even others not related to the military can go through periods of time when life is so uncertain. Life in general is a mix of good and bad, waiting for something to happen, and then moving forward.

Find mentors and seasoned spouses to connect with. These people will know that life as a miltary spouse can be all over the place sometimes. They probably have tips and tricks that have worked for them that they can pass on to you.

You never ever have to walk military life alone. There is both in person and online support out there. Find it, and work with your local community to find ways to help each other through.

Never Ever Write in Pen

This is simple. Invest in some cute pencils and an erasar. Anything can be changed at any time for any reason. Hope for the best, always, but plan for change too. Sometimes, those changes are what lead you to amazing places.

As a military spouse, things can feel a bit out of your control at time, and they are. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find the joy in this life anyway. Find ways to adapt to this crazy life and you might even surprise yourself over how much you actually do have control over.

Is Rank Really An Issue When It Comes To Making Friends As A Military Spouse?

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Did you ever watch Army Wives? You know how those military spouses are all such good friends despite their spouses’ rank? Is that even possible? Well, yes, and no.

While there are some cases when two spouses probably wouldn’t be friends because of rank, I think, for the most part, spouses don’t care. I would question the level of friendship between some of those characters on Army Wives, but in the end, I think they could all be friendly with one another if nothing else.

There are very few military spouses who ask a potential friend what their spouse’s rank is before they decide to befriend them. In my real-life experience of being an Army wife, usually, a spouse’s rank comes out but it is not something that you use to evaluate a friendship.

Usually, the conversation goes something like this, “we are PCSing to Fort Campbell and I wonder what E-5 housing is like” or, “once he goes to such and such a school, he will make E-7.” It is usually never, “Well, I can only be friends with spouses of E-6 and above.”

Rank is brought up as a simple fact of their service member’s time in the military, not something to rub in someone else’s face.

Rank shouldn’t be used to bring other people down and make them feel less than. Among us spouses, rank isn’t or shouldn’t be a big issue.

This isn’t to say that no one out there is like that, I am sure you could find someone who thinks that way. But in my experience, these people are not the norm.

You know why? Because most military spouses are really just trying to make friends. We all pretty much want the same thing, to be included, to find our people, and to have fun along the way.

We don’t care what your spouse does, we just want to know that you can relate to being a military spouse, at least in one way or another.

We don’t care how high up your spouse is, we just want to know that you have days when you miss them just as much as we miss our own and that we can laugh about that together.

We don’t care if there is an E by their rank or an O, we just want to know that we are not the only ones serving cereal for dinner sometimes and that feel overwhelmed by too many deployments.

Going through military life alone isn’t the best way to go and finding friends wherever you live is going to make this life a lot easier. Finding your people is going to help you through those lonely nights and crazy mornings. Knowing someone has your back is going to give you the bit of peace you need for this military lifestyle.

So if you are a new military spouse, try not to worry about people not wanting to friend you because of your spouse’s rank. I can’t promise that won’t happen, there are going to be those people out there. But I do know that most of us don’t care about that.

We want to know what your hobbies are, how old your kids are, what you like to read, what you like to watch, what your dreams are, what your fears are, and so on. 

And with time you will find the ones you will walk through this life with. The ones that will make you a better person. The ones you will befriend and have in your life from here on out.

Making friends as a military spouse is a must, no matter what rank your spouse might be. If you are new to your duty station, get out there and see what is going on. Figure out places to go to meet other spouses. Join your local spouse’s groups, and work towards finding those friendships. Doing so will be worth your time.

What do you think? Have you ever had trouble making friends because of your spouse’s rank? What did you do about it?

Jealousy, When You Are a Military Spouse

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Jealousy, When You Are a Military Spouse

During my time as a military spouse, I have experienced a variety of emotions. Happiness during homecoming. Sadness during a deployment. Getting excited about a new duty station or promotion. Loneliness when a friend moves away.

There are a lot of different emotions we feel during the time that our spouse is serving in the Military. One emotion that we can feel, even if we don’t want to, is jealousy.

Jealousy can happen when you least expect it. Jealousy can happen over a deployment schedule, a promotion, a pcs, or just life in general. You can be happy for someone and still feel that green-eyed monster creep up. When you are waiting for something to happen, and that very thing you are waiting for happens to someone else, you can feel jealousy coming up.

I have felt this way over the years. I feel bad when I do. I have felt this way when I felt like my husband was always deploying and others were not.

I have felt this way when someone else seemed to be holding it together better than I was.

I have felt this way over little silly things that I would never want to share with anyone.

Jealousy happens, but what we do with those feelings is what really matters.

One big lesson I have learned over the years is that military life simply isn’t fair. Some people deploy more than others. Promotions don’t always happen even if it feels like they should and some people get better duty stations than others.

Sometimes you are going to be surrounded by good friends and other times you will be the lonely one still trying to make new friends since your old friends moved away. Military life can often be one big cycle.

Some years are going to be better than others. That is the nature of Military life.

Want a free Guide for the First 30 Days of a Deployment???

If you are feeling jealous of someone else, know that it can happen, especially in Military spouse life when we know so much about what other people are doing. When our community is so small.

Maybe your spouse just left again, and theirs just got home, and that is causing you to feel jealous. Think about the times when you were experiencing what they were. Think about how you will be in their place in the future.

Try not to let everything get to you and remember that by the time you are getting ready for homecoming, they could be getting ready to send their spouse off again. You never really know.

Think about everything you have and all the amazing experiences you have been through in the past. Remember that even if it feels like everyone else has more than you do, others have less.

Try not to let jealousy rule you. Focus on what is going well in your life and work on what you don’t like. Let go of anything you don’t have control over. It simply isn’t worth your energy if you can’t do anything about it anyway.

The feeling of jealousy can creep up on you, but you don’t have to let jealousy win. Take a step back, write about what you are feeling in your journal, and know that seasons change all the time during military life. One moment you are in the midst of another deployment and the other you are on a family vacation celebrating their return.

Do you ever struggle with jealousy? What do you do about it when the green-eyed monster hits?

As Military Spouses, What Happens in the World Can Hit Us Hard

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As Military Spouses, What Happens in the World Can Hit Us Hard

As military spouses, what happens in the world can hit us hard.

As we turn on our TV or log in to our social media account, we see another situation that will likely require the military to step in, deploy, and serve in the way they have been trained to do.

We wonder what this will mean for our own spouse. Will they have to go? Will they be gone a while? Will they be safe?

We just don’t know what will happen and we can get pretty freaked out by it all.

Some say this is what our spouses signed up for, but the reality is, we can never really know what a military career will look like.

By marrying a service member, we start a new journey.

Will it lead us to amazing places? Will we find our community? Will we be challenged beyond anything we could ever imagine?

Yes! Yes! And Yes!

Military life means deployments and moving, probably too often. It means going days, sometimes longer without being able to talk to the person we love. It means sitting back and having to wait to see what will happen next.

As the country tries to figure out what is going on overseas, we sit there knowing that if it isn’t our spouse going over there right now, it is someone else’s. If it isn’t our soldier leaving soon, it will be someday. And we know how hard these types of things can hit the military community as a whole.

I can tell you to stay strong, but the tears might still come. I can tell you not to worry, but there is so much to worry about. I can tell you to depend on your friends, and maybe that is the only thing you can do right now.

As I watch what is happening in the news, I wonder what is to come. Will this be another Iraq? Will this not be quite as bad as we think it might be? What is going to happen?

I wish we could see the future so we know what is ahead. I wish we could plan everything for the next five years. But the reality is no one really can, and as military spouses, we can’t know which way the tide will turn. We don’t know what all of it means for our spouse.

We have to just stay strong, as much as we can. We have to reach out when things feel a little too much. We can’t let all the little comments get to us, because let’s face it, not everyone is going to say the right thing.

This is an emotional time. There are many different viewpoints about what we should do, even within the military community. There are many different ways this could go.

There are so many things you will go through as a military spouse. Maybe your spouse will only serve for a few years, and you will look back at this time as the “Army years.” Maybe your spouse will serve over 30 years, and deployments are going to be a part of the memories of your life together. Whatever the case, saying goodbye to your spouse is never easy, especially when you are unsure of where they are going off to.

I can remember sitting with my friends and our kids at a McDonald’s in Germany. Our husbands, who had been deployed for over a year, were being extended. This seemed impossible. It seemed like something that couldn’t possibly happen.

But it did…

And as heartbreaking as that news was, as hard as the next few months were, somehow we got through that long deployment. Somehow we made it through those unsteady days.

When I see the articles about service members being deployed because of this new threat, I feel so much for their families.

For the new spouse, who didn’t think this would happen so soon.

For the seasoned spouse who thought this last year of military life was going to be uneventful.

To those who have been through this before and to those who have no experience with a long separation.

Know that we see you, and we have your back. The days won’t always be easy, but you have people praying for you. You have people who get it. You have people in your corner.

No matter what happens today, or tomorrow, or next week or next month, know you are not alone. We have each other. And that is something we can depend on!

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Did You Know Lowe’s and Home Depot Have a Military Discount?

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It’s date night! We go to dinner, maybe to a movie, but oftentimes we find ourselves at Lowe’s. Whether we want to get ideas for a new project or to buy some new plants for the garden. Lowe’s and Home Depot also have a military discount, which we use for almost each and every visit. I love saving money!

Lowe’s Military Discount

Lowe's Military Discount

Lowe’s first opened in 1921 in North Carolina. They offer a 10% military discount on eligible items, both online and in-store. You need to create a MyLowe’s account. At Lowe’s, not only can your service member sign up for the military discount, but you as a military spouse can too. After you have signed up, when you visit the store, provide your phone number, and they will be able to add the discount. At the Lowe’s here near Fort Campbell, they always tend to ask too.

Recently, we were very happy that Lowe’s had a military discount, as we purchased wood and soil for our new garden area in our backyard. Not only that, but when I get in the mood to buy some new seeds or other items for our garden, I know I can save a few dollars using the military discount.

Home Depot Military Discount

Home Depot Military Discount

Home Depot started much later in 1978 in Atlanta and also offers a 10%. Their discount is similar in that you have to sign up for their program, and can use the military discount online or in person. They do have a limit of $400 per year, and as a spouse, you can only sign up after your service member has done so.

Last year we went to Home Depot and found the perfect outside couch for our deck. I fell in love with it. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the sofa in stock at our Home Depot, but I was able to buy the couch online using the military discount.

Saving Money on Military Discounts

Here in Tennessee, our sales tax is almost 10% so when we use the military discount at Lowe’s or Home Depot I know it typically covers most of the tax. This means I can compare the cost at the Exchange when I am shopping for appliances, since the Exchange is tax-free.

Whether you’re working on a home project, preparing for a PCS, or just need a few items from a home improvement store, take the time to sign up for the Lowe’s and Home Depot Military Discounts. You can use them wherever you are stationed within the United States, and of course, online.

Beyond Lowe’s and Home Depot, you can find military discounts at other stores, restaurants, and even amusement parks. Military discounts are great ways to save a little money and are typically pretty easy to use. If you are unsure if a particular store offers a military discount or not, make sure to ask just in case. You will be glad that you did.

Did You Know Kroger Has a Military Discount?

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Does Kroger have a military discount?

Grocery shopping is not fun these days. The cost of everything seems to have gone up, and what used to be affordable now feels high-priced. As military families, we do have choices. We can shop at the Commissary, which gives us an average of 22% savings over regular grocery stores, with plans to raise that to 25%. However, the Commissary isn’t always the easiest place to shop.

For us, it takes anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes to get to the Commissary. We like to go a few times a month, but Kroger is much easier to shop at regularly. Luckily, there is a way to save money there as well, at least in the Fort Campbell area.

Kroger in Clarksville, TN, and Hopkinsville, KY, offer a 10% military discount on Wednesdays. This discount is available to active-duty military personnel, retired military personnel, National Guard members, and reserve personnel, as well as their dependents. You just need to show your military ID. They might even ask you about it if you shop there on a Wednesday.

Military Life is Hard and It’s Okay To Say So

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Military Life is Hard and It's Okay To Say So

Military life is hard and it’s okay to say so!

When I started my blog in 2009, I did so for a few reasons. I was a bit bored but more than that, I wanted to share what I was going through. I knew I couldn’t be the only military spouse that felt the way that I did. I was at the end of our 2nd deployment, missing my husband, and just waiting for the day he would be home.

One of the first things I noticed when I started getting into blogging was the online military community. Other bloggers and readers who had been through what I had been through and who understood what military life was like. Over the years I have met so many military spouses online that are looking for tips and encouragement to get through their deployment or whatever else military life has thrown at them.

Over the years I have heard some people say that military life isn’t hard or that because life is more difficult for other people, we shouldn’t even talk about what we are going through. They say that we should only speak of the positives of this life. That talking about the negatives isn’t good.

While I agree that if you only talk about the bad, this life is going to be even harder, but I also know that military life is hard and it’s okay to say so.

Military Life is Hard and It's Okay To Say So

Here on my blog and in my online communities, I understand that not everything is going to be easy. I understand that some days are just going to be quite horrible. But you know what? There are a lot of benefits in sharing our stories, in letting others know what we are going through, and talking about when life gets hard.

You are real

Things changed for us as soon as my husband joined the Army. He was gone, for months. He wasn’t always there like he was before. He had more rules and regulations than he did in civilian life. Everything changed for us. And life got a lot harder.

Military life brings deployments, pcsing every few years, and life changes you would never have thought about before. You might give birth without your husband, they might miss your son’s first day of kindergarten or even high school graduation, and they might not be around when you need them the most.

So when someone talks about how hard military life is, they are being real about their experiences.

Real about the changes this life will bring, real about how difficult some seasons of this life are, and real about what’s going to happen during their spouse’s career.

Being real about military life also means talking about how wonderful living in Germany is, how amazing homecoming will be, and how you would never have met the friends you did had you never become a military spouse.

Whether you are going through a difficult time or having better milspouse moments, being real about your life is a good thing.

Because we all know it is

Although I am sure there are some who get through the years of military life and don’t even seem to feel the hardships some of us too, this has not been the norm.

Every day I hear from military spouses who have just started a deployment, are in the middle of a deployment, or are struggling through the last few months of a deployment. All of them are looking for ways to make it through, to find friends who know what they are going through, and to figure out the best way to handle their current situation.

At the end of the day, we are all on our own military road. Some roads will be bumpier than others, and that’s okay. Some will have it much harder than you do and some have it easier. That doesn’t change the fact that you are dealing with your own set of challenges that are unique to you and your family.

So we can help one another out

When we don’t share our struggles, we can’t help one another out. When we stay silent, we don’t know who needs that extra set of hands or who needs a listening ear. When we all act like we have everything together, we can overlook those that are falling behind, and that isn’t a good thing for our military community.

While we don’t want to spend all of our time as a military spouse walking around with a pout on our faces, we can stop and recognize when things are a little too much to handle on our own. We might need to reach out to a friend, to a professional, or change a few things to make our lives a little easier.

Military Life is Hard and It's Okay To Say So

So we know we are not alone

In the end, sharing our milspouse struggles helps others know they are not alone. When I share about my deployments, I hope that others can take comfort in knowing they are not the only one going through what they are at the moment. When I talk about the deployment ache, I hope that others can say, “Yes! That is exactly how I feel too.”

When you are struggling, knowing you are not alone can go a long way in figuring out how to make life better for yourself. Whether the struggle is deployment, miscarriage, divorce, infertility, the loss of a family member, a sick child or something else.

When you struggle, knowing others have been through what you have been through can help you see there is a way out, that there are things you can do to make life better, and that you don’t have to walk through all of this on your own.

What do you know when you feel you are struggling? Who do you turn to for extra help?

More on Military life…

Stop Saying That We Knew What We Were Getting Into

To the Military Spouse That Does Not Live in a Military Community

9 Things That Can Hurt a Military Marriage