Wordless Wednesday

May Photo Dump.

May was a good, yet bittersweet month. Lot's of time with my family (human family & fur family). A too short visit to Charlotte. The last birthday of my 20's. My husband's deployment. As good as it was, I'm glad it's over. Now if June, July & August world hurry & fly by as well =)

Happy June!

Buddy was as adorable as ever.

Hermione spent more time than ever in the water.

Probably one of my favorite pictures of all time.

BFF's =)



We ate so much good food!
(My mission is to make the rest of the world love livermush as much as we do.)



One of our favorite meals in Little Rock @Union Bistro

Said goodbye to my husband, yet again....

Deployments do not get any easier...

Deployment: 0, Us: 2

I know I don't typically post much personal stuff on here. I'm a fairly private person. I am very active on Facebook & Twitter, but those accounts are protected. I've had a Live Journal since 2003, which has been the recorder for some of my very private thoughts, but it's protected. This blog is public, so I typically don't give too much of myself.

As you can tell from my header, I am an Air Force Wife. But only because my husband is in the military. I honestly have very little to do with the military, and other than my insane love for the commissary, I don't like very much about being an "Air Force Wife". I have a whole list of things that irritate me about the base here, and their policies, procedures and complete lack of awareness for spouses that actually have jobs, but this post is positive, and public, so I won't go there. I'm an Air Force Wife, but I don't adhere to the school of thought that my life is difficult, special, or that I deserve special treatment because of it. Graham CHOSE this job. He CHOSE this lifestyle. And I CHOSE him. Living this life, deployments and all, was my choice. It's not any harder that being a firefighters wife, or a police officers wife. We get acknowledged and referred to as a special breed because we deal with deployments. I had a friend in college who was engaged to a guy who lived in England. She once went a year and three months without seeing him. That's longer than both of the deployments that Graham and I have been through put together. When you love someone, you do what you have to do.

Anyways. Back to the point. Last night, after 6.33 months/27.57 weeks/193 days, my husband returned from a six month deployment in Kuwait.

We had been through a deployment before ( we actually got engaged after he returned home from the last one), but this one was different. Last year, we were already in a long distance relationship. We were used to going a month (or sometimes longer) at a time without seeing each other. But this time we were married. I moved to Arkansas to be with him in January. We got married on April 23. He deployed May 7. We had a little over four months of total togetherness, and we both got SO spoiled having that time together. We're not the most exciting couple. Most of our nights consisted of curling up on the couch together and eating really good food. And I missed that so much.

Making it even harder was the lack of a support system here. I haven't made any friends here. It's hard for me to make friends. I'm lucky enough to have a job I really like, and to work with people that are great, but it's not the same as the awesome friends I have back home. So I was lonely. A lot. I know everyone thinks I'm turning into the crazy cat lady, but this cat made my life so much easier while he was gone. I love animals, but this one is special. We adopted him from a shelter on January 14, and I don't know if I would have made it without him. People say cats are mean, anti-social... that's a load of crap. At least when it comes to Buddy. He was company for me. He needed me. He's so loving. And having another living being in this house just made me feel so much less lonely. He really has made our little family complete.

I have so much in my head right now, but above all else, I'm just so happy. I've been so full of anxiety all week. I've been anxious over BIG things (thinking his plane would crash) to silly things (worrying the cat wouldn't remember him) and when that plane touched down, all of that went away. It seemed to take forever for them to disembark, but when they did, and I saw him... It's a moment I'll never forget. I feel silly that if effected me so much, when I've been through a deployment & homecoming before, but it was just different this time. And when I flung myself at him, and felt his arms wrap around me, I just felt this overwhelming sense of pure and total joy. While I don't wish for anyone to have to be separated from someone they love for six months, I do wish more people could experience that feeling. I think less people would ever settle if they could feel that.

I'm not sure why I do this to myself.

When the M&M's are gone, he'll be home.

Earlier today I stumbled across this blog. I knew from the "about me" section that this was a blog of a woman whose husband was killed in Afghanistan.

Yet, I started reading. I read a few of the more recent posts and then I was morbidly curious about her life when he died, so I clicked over to the month that it happened and read those posts. My heart absolutely breaks for this woman. The day he died she was blogging about baby formula and making care packages to send to him. And the next day her whole world came crumbling down. Her husband was a Marine and he was in Afghanistan, so I had assumed that he died due to enemy fire or land mines or something like that, when in actuality the vehicle he was in flipped over. That doesn't make his death any less meaningful, but it made me sicker.

Graham is deployed right now and he's pretty safe. He's in the Air Force, so he's not on the front lines. He spends 12 hours a day in 120 degree temperatures fixing planes. He works, goes and gets dinner, and then goes back to his dorm and calls me. We talk for a little over an hours, then he tells me goodnight and goes to bed. And I am absolutely terrified that something is going to happen to him. Specifically I'm terrified that on one of his trips to another part of that God forsaken desert he's going to be in a plane crash. Logically I know that isn't going to happen. Logically I know that there is a greater chance of me dying in a car accident in this town of ridiculously bad drivers (and I always thought that South Carolina drivers were the worst) than him dying in a plane crash. I even looked up statistics on plane crashes one day. I thought the pretty low number would make me feel better, and it did for a while. Until I read her blog.

My husband is seriously the best. He calls me every night (unless he has to fly off somewhere or there is a communication outage on base) and sends me an email every morning. But every time I don't hear from him at one of those times, I start picturing a black car pulling into the driveway and uniforms getting out. I picture myself going numb as a complete stranger tells me the love of my life is gone. I picture having to tell his family and his best friend (I have a very active imagination). Although I also worry constantly that they won't know how to get in touch with me and they'll tell his parents first and I think hearing it from his family might be worse. I park in the garage, so no one would know if I was home or not. Unlike a lot of military wives, I work. I spend a lot of time at the gym & at Target. So... would they wait? Would they track me down? Would they give up doing it in person and just call me? It's all so confusing and upsetting to think about, but I can't help it.

I just... I can't even fathom what it would be life to go through that.

Anyways. I've asked this before and I'll probably ask it again, but please pray to whatever deity you pray to for my husband and every other service member to have a safe return home.

Graham's last day here

My husband deployed this morning. For six months. Yeah, it sucks. But yesterday was amazing. We spent the day together just walking around downtown and eating fantastic food and just enjoying each others company. I'm going to miss him like you would not believe and I can't wait for him to be home so we can have more days like yesterday.

We started out with lunch at Copper Grill. The food was fantastic (best fries I've had in Arkansas), but the service was horrible. Service means a lot to me, especially in this economy. So many people out there are unemployed, so I think that people who are employed in the service industry should go above and beyond.

Granted, we came in in jeans and t-shirts, when the rest of their customers were obviously business people on lunch breaks, but that is no excuse for bad service. We waited forever for someone to acknowledge us. We waited forever for our drinks to arrive. And we waited for about 30ish minutes for our food to arrive. I had a salmon burger and he had a catfsh po-boy. It should NOT have taken that long. Especially when everyone else there (all 2-3 tables of people) already had food, so obviously the kitchen wasn't that busy.

Graham had a catfish po'boy, which was delicious. The fish had tons of flavor. The sandwich was crispy and not the least bit soggy and the fries... o'boy =) Let's just say I'm glad my burger came with fries too, or I would have eaten all of his. They were some of the best I've ever had.

 

I had the salmon burger with wasabi coleslaw. It needed more salt, but otherwise was fantastic. Honestly, I was expecting the salmon burgers I make (with canned salmon), so this was different but a very good flavor combination. I don't love wasabi, so I was hesitant, but it wasn't an overpowering flavor, just a distinct something in the background.

The food was excellent, but the service was awful. Not sure if I'll be back, which is unfortunate considering those delicious fries...



We continued our day at this cool bookstore we both love, River Market Books & Gifts. It's run by the library and they sell used books for fantastic prices. I bought two books for $4.00. And they have some funky gift items there, including these hand-carved canes Graham always amuses himself with.

 

We even stopped in the Clinton Museum Store, even though neither of us are a fan of the former president. I most certainly do NOT miss Bill, fyi.

Next, we continued our tour of some of our favorite places in Little Rock and headed out towards Kavanaugh. There is a cupcake place on Kavanaugh that I used to love, but fruit topped frozen yogurt beats out overly iced, dry cupcakes every time. I prefer the places where you top your yogurt yourself and it's weighed by the pound, but Red Mango is delicious.

We headed home after our yogurt and a little window shopping, and Graham gave me my birthday present: my giant fork! I saw this at Pier One back in October and I've wanted it ever since. But ever since giving up my well paying job & moving out her, I've become more frugal and couldn't justify $70 for a metal fork. Even though we agreed no birthday presents, he surprised me with this and I was so excited.

We ended our day with dinner at Bonefish and curling up together, talking, crying, not going to sleep and dreading the very early morning goodbye. Now I'm just anxious for the summer to fly by and for him to be back here where he belongs. If anyone is religious, please keep him and a safe return for him and every other service member in your prayers.