Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Military Life

Facebook Saved the Military Spouse

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How Facebook Saved the Military Spouse

How Facebook Saved the Military Spouse

Back in 2007, during my first deployment, all my Army wife friends were on Myspace. A lot of my friends from back home were there too. Myspace was the place to be. During the deployment, we would spend time together at the park, head home, put the kids to bed and then log in to share photos, comments and update our music list. Remember the Myspace music list? We took quizzes and looked for old friends.

Back then I would log onto Facebook about once a week or so. It really wasn’t as popular even though people were posting there.

These days, Facebook is still pretty popular. We can go on there and learn what our friends are up to, even if we haven’t seen them in years. We can join Facebook groups, share photos of our kids, and get annoyed by all the news and political posts that always seem so frustrating.

Good or bad, Facebook has saved the Military Spouse.

Here is why…

  • They can share photos with their families back home.
  • They can stay in contact with friends from past duty stations.
  • They can learn about local events such as MOPS or what is going on through their local MWR.
  • They can talk to local friends and make plans for upcoming nights out.
  • They can meet others in their neighborhood, ask for suggestions and sell some of their stuff.
  • They can find groups for their interests and make new friends that love the same hobbies they do.
  • They can look for jobs.
  • They can promote their businesses.
  • They can talk about their favorite tv show or book they have read or really anything that interests them.
  • They can learn more about a new duty station and even start to make friends before they get there.
  • They can find a church or other local group to join.
  • They can help other spouses through problems or just be there to tell someone they are thinking of them.

Facebook makes the world a much smaller place.

Facebook is a place to go to connect, to vent, to encourage and to explore. Sometimes I have even felt like my husband lived on Facebook when he was deployed overseas. That was just the way life has been sometimes.

There are downsides to Facebook and social media in general. There can be bullying, there can be drama, and there can be cases of oversharing.

Sometimes I find myself learning much more about a person then I should really know. Politics can divide people, one-upping each other can be annoying and we can spend too much time scrolling our feeds when we should be doing something else.

But overall? Facebook can be the ideal tool for a Military spouse. Social media can help her in ways that nothing else can. Facebook can be her support when her husband is deployed, can be a tool to find a local group that she needed to find to help her make friends, and can lessen homesickness and remind them of fun memories they have made in the past.

Having boundaries with Facebook is also super important. You don’t want to overshare details about what your spouse is doing and always remember OPSEC. You don’t want to spend all your time on social media so that you start to feel depressed about what you don’t have.

You don’t want to overshare too much information so that you could put yourself in danger. Being smart about social media is a must and having boundaries that work for you about Facebook usage is important.

How has Facebook helped you on your Military spouse journey? 

See’s Candies for Soldiers Program and Giveaway

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I love it when a product I already love and enjoy supports the troops. I have been a big fan of See’s Candies from the time I was a little girl. I get so excited when someone sends us a box of treats. That is why I was happy to see that they have a great program for supporting the troops.

It is called See’s for Soldiers. Starting June 19 through July 5, See’s will provide materials in its shops for customers to write personal notes of gratitude to our troops. They will also donate a lollypop for every note written!

See’s associates will collect these notes and deliver to See’s for Soldiers along with the lollypops for inclusion in their care packages. Customers and fans who are unable to visit a shop before July 5 can show their support by visiting www.sees.com/gratitude and completing an online form with their personal messages.

I am also going to be giving away a $15 Gift Card to See’s Candies. Just enter the Rafflecopter below 🙂

a Rafflecopter giveaway

* Giftcard provide by See’s.

13 Marriage Tips for 13 Years of Marriage

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13 marriage Tips for 13 Years of Marriage

August 3, 2002 was the day I married my husband. My marriage is about to become a teenager. In some ways the last 13 years have gone by so quickly. In other ways it seems like a different world. It was before I became a Military wife and when I said I do I didn’t know that would be in my future. The Army was in his past and I thought that was all it would ever be for us.

I know there are a lot of marriage advice posts out there but I wanted to add my own based on 13 years of being married to my husband. I was only 23 when I married him and I am 36 now. We have been through a lot of different situations over the years. Having 3 boys, buying a house, 4 deployments, job changes, getting a dog, moving away from California, living in Germany and now trying to figure out are after active duty Army future.

13 Marriage Tips for 13 Years of Marriage

1. Remember that you are in it together. This is so important during the more stressful parts of your life. Remember you chose each other and you are in thismarriage together.

2. Have your own likes and dislikes. My husband and I have a lot of different likes and dislikes. In some ways we are quite opposite from one another. I think it is good to have your own interests. It is also good to have some things in common as well.

3. Spend time apart. I feel we spent too much time apart, but being without each other sometimes can be a good thing. I have learned more about myself since I have had to be without him at times.

4. Spend time together. Busy lives can make this hard but it is so important. Figure out when you can spend some quality time together and make it a regular thing. This can be a weekly, monthly or even quarterly date.

5. Sometimes the kids will need you more. I know there is advice about not putting your kids first but I see it differently. I don’t think it is about putting them first, at least not for me. It is about remembering that sometimes your kids do need you more than your husband does but that he can’t be ignored either. It can be hard in the early years to balance everything and maybe I see it differently since so much of that baby time was spent with a deployed husband. I didn’t have to work hard to focus on my husband because he wasn’t there.

6. Be honest with each other. If something is upsetting you, let them know. You don’t want to be the type to complain about every little thing but sometimes your spouse doesn’t understand why you could be upset about something and it could be helpful to talk about it.

7. Listen to one another. If your spouse brings up something important, listen to them. You don’t want to just go through life ignoring each other.

8. Invisible trust. We have had to have this during deployments. He has to be able to trust me when he is gone so he can focus on his work. Trust that I will be faithful, that I won’t waste all our money on things we don’t need and that I will be there for him. I also have to trust him in return. I see it as an invisible line connecting us that we just have to believe is there.

9. Keep learning about each other. My husband is almost 40 and he was 25 when I met him. A lot has changed and I still am learning about him. It is good to keep asking those questions and to learn more about your spouse.

10. Don’t let the bad stuff take over. Deployments, moves, money issues, problems with children, etc, all of these can really make life hard for you and your spouse. Don’t let it take over your lives. Remember you are walking through it together.

11. Enjoy those quiet nights. You don’t have to leave the house to have moments together. One of the things we like to do after the kids go to bed is find an interesting movie on Netflix and watch it together. It is something so simple but it bonds us and we don’t have to spend any extra money to do it.

12. Take photos of each other. When we were dating I was always having us take pictures together. Over the years I have tried to keep that up and I so enjoy looking back at them. Even if it feels like we are in a boring or uninteresting part of our lives, it is still nice to have so many couple photos of us.

13. Love each other. I know this one seems obvious but it is the most important. Treat each other like you love each other. Tell each other often that you do. Hold hands and always be there for one another.

How long have you been married?

Military Spouses Serve Their Country Too

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Military Spouses Serve Their Country Too

There is a debate going on about whether Military Spouses serve too. The question is, serve what?

Serve in the Military? No, unless they too have actually enlisted.

Serve their country? Yes, totally.

When your spouse is in the Military, it is not just a job but also a lifestyle.

Maybe this is because my first duty station as an Army wife was in Germany. Overseas things are a little different then stateside. People can’t live as separate of a life as they can in the states. When you have to depend on the local Military post for American foods, your mail, your car, etc, it is a lot harder to stay away from the Military as a whole. Stateside you don’t have to depend on the Military post for as much.

When my husband re-enlisted in 2005, everything changed. I realized this right away when I had zero control about what was going to happen to us. He went over to Germany and I had to wait behind in the states until the Army finished all the paperwork that needed to be done for me to join him. At the time I thought I had some control but I found out that I didn’t. If someone who was supposed to sign our paperwork went on a two-week vacation, we just had to wait.

Deployments

You can’t control those either. Sometimes things can happen such as a soldier staying behind because you are having a baby. That was part of the reason my husband didn’t leave for his third deployment earlier, I was due one month after his year at home was over. We were not so lucky with baby #2 because he had to leave when I was 25 weeks pregnant and came home for R&R when he was born, missing the birth by 3 days. It really just depends on the Command and what they want to allow you to do.

I have been the wife of a soldier and the wife of someone working a regular job and there is a world a difference.

So back to the question, does the Military spouse serve her country?

If you are serving your country, you can do so in different ways. Standing by your Military spouse is one way to do that. Being there for them whether they are deployed or at home. When orders say it is time to move across the country, you do it. Understanding that the Military comes first and they can’t just call their boss to change things around. The Military is the one pillar in your life you have to work around. It isn’t flexible and if your spouse is making it a career, you have to figure out how you can handle it for the long haul.

Some years will be easier than others. Some deployments will be easier than others. Some duty stations will be easier than others.

Spouses serve in so many different ways. It’s a different type of serving than those who are serving IN the Military. We don’t have to see any battles, we don’t have to put on a uniform, we don’t have to say goodbye to our families for months at a time. We don’t have to put our lives in danger.

We serve in different ways. We serve our families and our communities. We strive to make things better, even in the simple ways. We are the support our spouse needs when they are home and away. We help make it possible for those with families to keep serving their country and it is nice to acknowledge that.

What do you think? Does it bother you if someone thanks you for serving too?

 

 

What I Would Change About the Military

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What I Would Change About the Military

 

If only I had a magic wand. I would change a lot of things. I would use it to fold laundry and keep the living room looking amazing. I would also use it on the Military. I would want to change a few things to make it a little easier on the families while still allowing the service member to do their job. I have often felt that there were quite a few times in my Military spouse journey when things could be done differently and still allow for the Military to stay strong and do what it needed to do.

1) Change deployment rotations. I can only speak on the Army here, I know other branches have other time tables. I would make it so that you had to be home for at least as long as you were deployed for. And by home, I mean working at your local Military post, not spending months in training. After someone had been home for that amount of time, training could start up again. I remember when deployments were 12 months they talked about a system where the soldier came home for a year and then the next year would be when they would train or go to schools before deploying again. Makes sense to me.

2) Survey the family about moving or staying put. Now I know sometimes a family HAS to PCS because of career classes or changing their MOS. What I am talking about is people who are PCSing who don’t want to. Why would this be a good thing? For one thing, it would save the Military money by not moving people as often. It would also help with morale. This would be even more important overseas. Why spend money moving a family back to the US and another overseas when neither one wants to move?

3) Deployments hold more weight when it comes to promotion. I could never understand why deployments don’t count for more when it comes to promoting someone. Isn’t that what they are trained to do? Isn’t actually deploying worth a whole lot in experience?

4) Weight limits based more on family size then rank. Now I get it, we want to reward those that are higher up in the Military but it seems like if you have a big family and you are lower ranking, moving could cost you a lot of money going over weight. More people usually means more household goods. From beds, to dressers to books, to toys to sports equipment.

5) Remember that a lot of spouses are solo parenting. There have been so many times when I heard about a policy on post which leaves me going, “huh?” because it doesn’t make a lot of sense for a place where a lot of people are solo parenting. It isn’t always possible to find a babysitter for your kids, especially when you are new to a duty station and don’t know anyone yet. They have a policy here about OB appointments where you can’t bring your other children to an appointment under ANY circumstances. Now I get it, they probably made this policy because people were bringing their kids and they were not behaving the way they should. But all this policy does is make spouses freak out more than they need to. There has to be a better way. I normally don’t bring my kids to appointments if I can help it but sometimes I had to and I was glad that the places I had to go understood that.

 

What would you change? Is there something you wanted the Military to change and then they did???

Finding New Roads Through the Military Spouse Blogging Community

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Military Spouse Blogging

 

Over the last several years I have been inspired by the Military Spouse Blogging Community. Through their words, their thoughts and their boldness I have learned more about myself as well as the Military and the community that stands behind it. Through these bloggers I have been able to help find new roads, even ones I never expected to find.

They have gotten me to think about certain things I never would have and have caused me to grow as a person and as a Military spouse.

As a blogger myself, I know what goes into creating a blog post. In most cases, the words are from the heart. They are meant to help others, to let them know they are not alone in their struggles, to help their readers see that they too can get through anything. To let them know that they are not alone.

If you are getting ready to go through a deployment, you can find strength through posts about others who have done the same. You can see that it is completely normal to cry your eyes out when you hear the news of an upcoming deployment only to not shed a tear when it is time to say goodbye. That it is normal to want to stay in bed for days after they leave and that once you do emerge into the world, you find strength that you never knew that you had. That it is okay to not always be happy about it and that finding comfort with other spouses is one of the best ways to get through it.

If you are getting ready for a PCS, you can find posts about what you need to do to prepare. You can find posts about your new duty station and get excited about what to expect. You can also find groups so you can start meeting new people even before you get there. You can read about what can go wrong, like the movers loosing something and then you can find out what to do about it. You can see that it is okay to be sad about leaving your current home and that it is normal to fear that you will never make good friends again.

If your husband is separating from the Military for any reason you can read about those transitions. You can find out more about how retirement pay works and what healthcare will look like from now on. You can read about what happens during the medboard process and realize your fears about after Army life are totally expected and normal. You can see that life can go on and that although it might take a while, there can be exciting new roads after Military careers are over.

Whatever it is you are going through in your Military family journey, someone has probably written about it. You can take comfort in their words and gain new understanding about what you might have to go through. The Military Spouse blogging world is a blessing to everyone that needs that little bit of encouragement.

I know it has been such a huge part of my life and I am thankful for every blogger I have come across. You can find some amazing posts on this Pinterest Board and link to Milspouse Bloggers in the community:

Follow Military Spouse Bloggers/MSB New Media’s board Written by Military Spouses on Pinterest.

When it comes to finding new roads, you need all the support you can get. That is why I am happy to talk about the #ChevySalutes program and how it can help those in the Military. Chevrolet is proud to give back to the men and women who serve our country by offering discounts, employing veterans and retirees and offering special programs to those in transition from the Military to civilian life.

Come join me and MSB New media for a Twitter Chat on May 27th, 2015 at 9pm Eastern time. Hashtag #ChevySalutes.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Chevrolet via MSB New Media. The opinions and text are all mine.

Sunday Weekly Blog Post Wrap Up {4}

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Sunday weekly Blog Post Wrap Up

 

Every Sunday I will be highlighting my own posts and the great posts I found this past week out in blog land 🙂

 

It’s time for another Sunday Weekly Blog Post Wrap Up!

 

 

Here is what I wrote about this week:

 

Here were my favorite posts this week from around the internet:

 

What are your favorites from this week???

Finding New Roads After Military Life

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It’s been almost a year since my husband got out of the Army. It’s been challenging to figure out what we are supposed to do and what the future is going to be for us. We have made a few mistakes along the way and still trying to figure out what needs to happen. After you have been in the Military for a while, you start to take things for granted. Regular paychecks on the 1st and 15th, free Tricare, being a part of the community. When you get out, all of that changes and you have to work on finding new roads.

For us, we needed to figure out what my husband was going to do for a job. In the Army he was in the Infantry and that doesn’t always lead to an equivalent job after the Military. We had to figure out what I would do for a job as I knew I would need to start making more money. We would have to figure out health care which we did by having my husband join the National Guard. There are just a lot of things you have to take care of before they leave the Military.

By working together and keeping the line of communication open, we were able to come up with a basic plan for after he left the Army. Although we are still working on how we want things to be, it has been very helpful to be on the same page. We don’t have expectations that only one of us agrees with. We are both walking the road together.

I know that it might take a few years to get everything the way we want it to be. Change can sometimes take a lot of time. Looking back at everything we have been through the last few years, I know we can find our way to a new future.  My husband is also getting used to not being in the Army everyday anymore. It is quite a change to go from that to a Civilian employer.

Speaking of finding new roads, I think no matter where you are in the Military journey, you will always be finding a new way to go. From PCS orders to deployments, there is always something changing and you just have to adapt to your new normal in one way or another.

Chevy Salutes is an amazing program that helps support the Military. It is an awareness and engagement campaign. During the month of May, which is Military Appreciation Month, Chevrolet will be highlighting how america’s Military service members and their families are finding new roads during and after Military service.

Did you know that…?

  • GM employs nearly 5,000 Veterans and has close to 45,000 current retirees working for them.
  • In July of 2014, GM worked with the U.S. Army and Raytheon Company announced the Shifting Gears Automotive Technician Training program. This program provides eligible transitioning Army soldiers with skills to become service technicians at GM dealerships after they return to Civilian life.

You should also take part in this fun Instagram contest with #ChevySalutes & #FindNewRoads. Take a photo of you and your Military family finding new roads. Make sure to tag @msbnewmedia and use #ChevySalutes #FindNewRoads as your hashtags. You have until May 17th to enter!

chevy military discount

 

 

How have you and your family found new roads???

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Chevrolet via MSB New Media. The opinions and text are all mine.