Together

I think the past 30 days has been one Hell of a ride. There so many places I could start that it's ridiculous.

Patty has been in the hospital in a coma for almost a month.  They are expecting to try to wake her next week. She is off all coma inducing medications, but is still sedated.  She is moving all her limbs.  We are happy to know that is happening.  Her aneurysm has caused much stress, sorrow, confusion, uncertainties, disappointments and has brought relief and happiness at the same time.

I got in the car last month and drove straight to Denver with no expectation that I would make it to DIA in time to meet him from his flight from Germany. I got lucky and made it 15 minutes before the original scheduled landing.  His flight ended up being an hour late. Since the moment our arms were around each other all the emotions from this haven't stopped.  It has been a difficult and yet easy transition back to as normal a life as we can manage.  There has been no post deployment ceremony to mark the end of this year and honestly we both have had a hard time accepting that it is actually over without that marker.  There was no crazy anticipation.  No group of crying family or people embracing each other.  It has been hard.  We are still so ready for it to end and have what happiness we can find tore out from under us.

I have taken the month off from grooming. I cannot even begin to describe how thankful I am that I have not had to work. I do not think I could have handled all this and a full time job.  I have been able to be home with Skip and give him all the support he has needed to deal with the situation at hand.  I feel like because of that, the stress levels have been dramatically lower compared to how they would have been were I still employed.


We have been able to sit together and make some goals and plans that will benefit us and our tiny family.  We have been able to start the Iraq de-programming process.  He is still using a lot of water simply because it's clean.  I fully expect a huge water bill! Getting regular sleep and rest is still not happening.  I don't expect to see much improvement in that department for another 90 days, minimum.  I am cooking healthy meals and have started pushing some vitamins to help cope with the lack of sleep.  I know his body is only going to take so much,


The entire unit has started it's move back across the world.  We are expecting multiple groups to continue being received for the next week and a half.  I am happy this is over for not just us, but for all the families that have been effected by this deployment.  My heart goes out to the ones that are returning home to broken families, divorces, infidelity and so much more.  I am thankful we made it through this one in one piece and stronger than we were before he left.

And for some strange reason I am most thankful that I get to be the significant other of one of our military personal.  I have a lot of pride in knowing that I have done the right thing by him and that he can come home knowing it's all going to be ok, even if it takes some time.

Teach them, don't give them hand outs

There has been a bit of talk on a blog I follow about Michelle Obama's plan to feed 2 million children 3 meals a day, 365 days a year, on the governments tab.  There have been some extreme ideas of what this could lead to as well as talk of possible solutions.  The biggest topic being that as a parent it is YOUR responsibility to feed your kids.  Not the government.  There are people from older generations talking about raising their kids without assistance and how they made it work because it was their obligation to do so.  Now a days you don't actually have to do anything but wait for a hand out and most people never strive to get off the assistance.  They do just enough so they don't lose it.

I commend Mrs.Obama for wanting our Nation's children to be fed and healthy.  I think something should be done about the alarming rate of obese kids and the childhood rate of diabetes climbing. Clearly there is an issue. But telling parents who qualify for this what their kids are going to eat every day of the year?  Taking the responsibility from the parents hands?  Giving them a free ticket to not be responsible for the meals in their own home is not the answer.  It's going to play host to whole new world of issues.  Pretty soon it won't just be meals, it will be activities.  They will want to step in and tell you how to teach your kids morals. Hell, might as well get ready to hand your baby over at birth to your local government official so they can raise it too.

As a parent I just don't see how you let someone else take care of your basic responsibilities such as feeding your family.  I don't think there should be a golden ticket out of that.  Go google how important meal time is to a child, to the family. You can't just put a plastic tray of pre made food in front of them and walk off.  For the people that qualify for this program I say give them more food stamps. Require them to attend a food preparation and budget class once a month to keep getting their benefits.  TEACH them.  Empower these people with knowledge.  I don't think enough of us under the age of 30 are being taught the very basics of this.  I know I wasn't. I am just now learning to cook, how to shop. How to make my food dollar stretch.

Quit letting food stamp benefits buy garbage food. No soda, chips, sugar laden "juice". Make the benefits cover actual food.  Produce, dairy, grain.  Everything you need to cook from scratch.  Microwave dinner?  No.  Cheap food from a can? No.  It's just disgusting that food stamps cover garbage food. It's unreal they would just freely hand out that money and not teach people how to eat and how to shop with it.  That's like trying to drive a car and never having any formal instruction.

Maybe put Home Ec back in schools. Teach the kids what their parents don't know. Get all the soda and candy machines out.  Offer better school lunches.  The amount of money the government is going to have to fork out for this project is going to be out of control.  They have to hire nutritionists, cooks. people to deliver. There will be contracted buyers, accountants. People to over see the buyers, the cooks, the delivery drivers.  They will have to buy packaging for all this food.  Those totals are easily going to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.  Put that money into a more permanent  solution, because this isn't .

So that's my take on the Obama food program. It's a crappy, temporary solution.

Oreo gave me PTSD

I must say I am still feeling panicky toward owning a new dog.   Oreo made everything about owning a new dog impossible to enjoy.  She didn't pee for 3 days.  Didn't eat for 8 days and even then it was near two weeks before she was eager to eat.   She didn't come out.  Tired to bite Yoshi's face off.  She wouldn't look at me and didn't enjoy human interaction.  She never wagged her tail. She was lifeless.

I was seriously having fears about getting Bubbles.   When I brought her home and she and Yoshi didn't hit it off first thing I nearly panicked! But as the day went on and things started smoothing out I was feeling a bit better.  She's loving, she wags her nub and isn't totally trying to kill Yoshi, unless he is poking her too much.  She ate her first RAW meal like a champ.  She goes out and pees and comes back.  She's not hiding in a kennel.

I am still not a 100% feeling good about everything, but its only been 36 hours.  I know the household will smooth out and I will have 2 awesome adjusted dogs that I will just love.  I hope I never get another Oreo.

Hmm. 2 weeks out of work.

The past two weeks of being home have been really amazing.  The things I can get done now just blow my mind.  My house is in better shape, I've done more cooking and there has been a lot more time for Aiden and the dog.  I knew working full time and then coming home and taking care of everything took a lot of effort, but I don't think I realized just how much it was.  Poor Yoshi was spending so much time locked up every day.  I'd have so much to do after work that I wasn't really spending enough quality time with Aiden.  Getting 35+ hours back a week is just a huge thing.  I'm even getting enough sleep now!

I plan to start having some more meaningful blogs soon.  I am just making a lost of topics!

Happy 2011

A Happy New Year to my few readers(and I mean few) as well as anyone who has stumbled here by accident!

The first few months of this year are going to fly by in a rush.  I am no longer working for Claire & Harley's.  Instead I will be spending a small amount of time grooming for a handful of clients at home.  This is exciting for me because I will have much more time to take care of my home.  I am always struggling to find the time and energy to take care of things. Yoshi starts a new training class this month.  I am using some extra time to teach him some extra manners that I haven't been able to do.  In 6 weeks Skip will be home!  Then we will be rushing around here getting prepared to go to South Carolina.  I will be officially introduced to the family.

The biggest part of this year will be the wedding planning!   Yes I said wedding.  While we don't intend to have anything huge, it is getting done.  I am most excited about this.  I feel like I have been waiting forever.  So at some point expect to see it happen.

I am looking forward to my continuing path of femininity.  I feel like I have come a long way this past year, but I know I have just started.  With the ability to start staying home, I have a feeling I am in for more adventures than I know.

Enjoy a new year everyone.

A Year Spent Unlearning Myself

This year has been an amazing journey for me.  I have discovered some things about myself that completely undo everything I was taught to believe.  I have started to behave in a manner that at one time I felt contempt towards, but in that I have found such grand happiness and peace.  I have dumped a few friends along the way this year as well as reached out to a few for better understanding of what I was going through.  It all got started because of a few goals I had set for myself this year while Skip was gone.  I never expected they would lead me in the direction they did.

Over the years I have made a multitude of jokes about being "girly".  About how that just wasn't for me, you couldn't get me in a dress or skirt if my life depended on it etc.  I've made habits of forcing myself to be exclusively responsible for myself, not allowing anyone in to help me without feeling nothing but shame for it.  I've secretly envied others for so seamlessly being able to switch on the girl light and go for it.   A very serious inner struggle and I had no idea why. 

Skip's first deployment in November 2007 happened 4 months after I met him.  I set a goal for that.  It was to be able to survive on my own.  Pay rent alone.  Feed myself alone.  Survive 15 months without needing anyone else for support.  Just to prove to myself that I can do it.  And I did it with a great deal of satisfaction and dissatisfaction at the end.  Skip was very proud of the growing I did, my changes.  While I knew I had accomplished something, I was never quite able to figure out why it didn't feel as great as I thought it would. Sure I put on a great show of how strong I was and how great I was doing.  I cried near every single day because I felt so helpless.  

This deployment again brought goal setting.  I had a goal to lose some weight(I've lost 18lbs and 2 sizes), a business goal to support a business single handedly, which I have done well and a goal of becoming more "girly".  The last one being the hardest thing I ever thought I would have to do.  But that last goal I have truly blown out of the water and I am amazed at how easy it actually was.  I am amazed at what changes it has brought out in me.  The world is a much different place to me now.  

These two sets of goals could not be more different! The first is before I understood what I needed and the second was made at the beginning of a great change that I do not think would have happened if we had not moved to Kansas.  When we got here I was forced to deal with some situations that brought me a great deal of personal shame.  I wasn't able to pull my load financially.  It was a horrible feeling.  I was letting down the biggest part of myself. The part that always demanded I take care of myself, to not rely on anyone.  I was embarrassed when Skip paid the full  rent here and I was even more so when I realized the job I had just wasn't going to make enough money for a bit of time to cover the expenses I was accustomed to taking care of.  I wanted everything 50/50.  But it never turned out that way. I was forced to rely on someone. The worst part was he didn't even complain! He just did and said he was happy to.  

By the time Skip left me in March I was growing used to the idea of the rent being be paid.  I was taking care of all the utilities and small bills that came up here and there.  I was actually able to relax and feel less stressed.  It wasn't until our loss in May that I realized it felt good to let someone take care of things.  I took near a week off work to deal with things and I never had to worry once about taking the world on.  Skip told me to go shopping, to buy something nice for myself.  Then for the first time in a long time I started shopping on the women's side of the store.  I didn't buy T-shirts and jeans. I got skirts and fitted shirts to match.

Then I started reading.  I was given a few links to some blogs from friend and quite quickly found common ground.  I started my unlearning process.  I started to ditch the idea that I had to be a provider. I stopped believing that men and women are equal.  Instead I started regarding them as too different to be equal.  I had been forced to believe I was something that wasn't natural.  There are things I don't want to do and shouldn't be doing if it can be helped.  

I have found peace in cleaning my house.  Peace in doing the laundry for us.  I am content with not being  the bread winner in my house.  For the first time in my life the thoughts of staying home and taking care of children and maintaining my house are actually welcome.I don't fear I will go crazy.  I don't think I won't be able to handle it.  I am all to happy to fall into a gender based role because it FEELS good.  It FEELS right.  I am happy to not be a man.  I don't want to pick up a tool and take care of it myself.  I don't want to do a man's job, not when I have one who gladly does it for me because he already feels like it's his job.  

I have taken my year to unlearn how to be a feminist.  One who was striving to better than men.  One who thought men actually couldn't do anything right.  With that I think I have saved myself a lifetime from misery and discontent.  My road to unlearning isn't done yet. There are still a few things I struggle with simply because they are skills that were not taught to me.  I struggle very much with grocery shopping and meal planning.  I know how to cook, but I don't understand how how to put a meal together, to create something.  

I have cried a great deal this deployment, but not because I am confused or because I haven't found gratification in what I have accomplished.  I can say with absolute certainty that I am the happiest I have ever been.  I can say I have an understanding of myself.  I am aware of what is happening around me and what I stand for.  I do not feel as if I am grasping for straws and answers.  I have found peace with the values opposite of what I was forced to learn growing up.  Just because this year is about over, doesn't mean my journey is done.  I look forward to next year.  I know there will be new beginnings, but they will the kind that add value to the things I have worked so hard toward this year.  

Christine

A Good Post For Number 200!!

This is post number 200 since I started this blog in 2007.  And it's good news too!

The owners of Claire and Harley's have opted to close the business as of January 1st.  They have been trying to sell it, but have had no luck.  This basically leaves me without a "job".  So instead of sit around or working for someone else I am just going to strike out on my own.  I have clients no problem. Most of them will follow me and I am going to be offering some pretty damn flexible options.

A)In home grooming.  I will just load up the tools and do their dog at their home.

B) Grooming at my home.  This is going to be for people who live in Junction City, My house is closer than Manhattan and they can drop off and pick up there.  Also for my large dogs.  Can't groom the big ones at their homes, not enough room.

C) Pick up/Drop Off- this will be for those who don't want the hair in their house, don't want to make the drive etc.  There will be an additional fee for this.

I won't need to groom anymore than 12-15 dogs per week and I will be sitting pretty damn good.  It's nice to not have to share commissions with anyone else.

I will be purchasing one of the tubs from them(a gift from Dad) as well as the table and dryer.

This is a very exciting time for me!  I have really always wanted to be on my own and this is a good way to do that without having to worry about getting clients.  I already have them.

The New Year is going to rock.  I'll get this going and then Skip will be home.  I can take time off to be with him and not feel guilty.  I am my own boss.