Category Archives: blogging

Military Spouse Appreciation Day Link Up!

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You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.
~Unknown

Hello and Happy Military Spouse Appreciation Day! I wanted to put together a MilSpouse Link Up so we could get to know each other and maybe find new blogs.  So write a post introducing yourself and link up with Mr. Linky below. Please visit other blogs and let them know you found them through the link up and please feel free to use the image below in your post!

MSADLU

Hi! I’m Wifey (well, that’s what my husband calls me) and Huzzy is my husband. We’ve been married for more than four years now and he’s been in the Navy for more than 14 years. Though I was born and raised in Michigan, we now live in the beautiful state of

Surprising Huzzy on the Dependent's Cruise after a long patrol... he had no idea I was coming! (No, I'm not that short, he's just super tall. I'm 5'5")

Surprising Huzzy on the Dependent’s Cruise after a long patrol… he had no idea I was coming! (No, I’m not that short, he’s just super tall. I’m 5’5″)

Washington… and this is where we intend to make our home for the rest of our years.  Not only is Huzzy in the Navy, but I’m in the Navy as well. And I work for the Navy as a civilian. So I guess you could say the Navy owns nearly every aspect of my life.

We have two enormous dogs, Skah the 5 year old Great Pyrenees and Lulu the 7 year old Greyhound, and twin cats, Kissy and Skully. We’ve been trying to have kids for quite a while now, but I’ve been diagnosed with unexplained infertility. We’ve tried Clomid and IUIs, but nothing has worked so far. Right now, we are in the middle of a break so I can focus on getting ready for my physical test for the Navy.

Around here, I blog about what’s going on in my life. Sometimes it’s the Navy, sometimes it’s infertility, and somethings it’s something else. Right now, Huzzy is on shore duty (yay!), so it’s kinda like he has a “regular” job (other than the uniform he wears and 24hr duty several times a month) so I don’t always have a whole lot to say about that at this time. Right now, it’s more about infertility because that’s the major frustration.  Of course, I deal with an Army hospital for my infertility issues… so there’s always talk about that!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy the link up!

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I’m alive

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Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. 
~Robert Heinlein

I’m still here and still alive. I just finished up a marathon summer, which included six weeks of traveling. Because of this and Huzzy’s most recent deployment, we still haven’t spent more than two weeks together since Christmas. And he’sbeen home since April.

Kittens at three weeks old.

We’ve been dealing with some things lately. The number one issue is that for the past six months, we’ve been unsuccessful in trying to become pregnant. We’ve done everything right and even with my traveling, the timing has been perfect. But nothing. And that’s on top of the year (minus a total of 14 weeks Huzzy was deployed) of “not trying but not preventing.”

It’s been long enough that my doctor wants me to come in and she’s going to try and see what the problem is. Huzzy already had some tests done and it’s most definitely not him. So whatever it is is my problem. Hopefully we can fix it easily. That being said… does anyone know of an RE in the Kitsap area that you love/trust? I may need to find one.

Huzzy and I are also dealing with some personal things, so please pray/think good thoughts that things work out well.

On top of that, we have some absolutely adorable foster kittens. In fact, we have six of them and they are 6 1/2 weeks old. So freakin’ adorable. Momma just went back to the Humane Society yesterday… she stopped nursing the kittens and was getting tired of them. So it was time for her to focus on herself and get a home.

The Dog Did It

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Never do anything that you wouldn’t want to explain to the paramedics. 
~Author Unknown

I really need to come up with a good story, but in reality, I accidentally stepped off a step and into a hole dug by our dogs in the backyard last night. On the way down, I heard a horrible crunching sound.

I even managed to completely lose consciousness for a bit from shock (according to the doctors) on our way back into the house. Good thing my knight in shining armor (Huzzy) caught me!

Five hours in the ER later (everything was quick at first and my xrays were all done but then they had some MAJOR emergencies happen that delayed results for three hours), it has been determined that I have a bad ankle sprain (all my tendons are now loose) and sprained stuff in my knee. There is a small possibility I fractured them too… I’ll know if it still is painful by the end of the week. If it’s still painful, I’ll have to go back for more xrays.

I do have to say that I was rolling in laughter at one point because the bed I was in was completely flat. I wanted to sit up. So Huzzy tried to make the bed move and it ended up being something that could have come out of a slapstick comedy routine! Feet down, bed up, bed down, pitch forward, etc. He never did figure out how to get the back to sit up. The nurse who came in to check my vitals did that. LOL

So, now I’m in an air cast for my ankle, ACE bandage for my knee and crutches for them all. This better all heal quickly as I’m flying out a week from today and from then until August 6, will only have 2 days at home. Hopefully I’ll be off crutches in a week (doc said anywhere from three days to several weeks… no one can guess with sprains) because traveling through the airport with two suitcases, a laptop case and a backpack on crutches would be interesting!

Good thing Huzzy is on shore duty and can drive me to work since I have a stick shift! And, of course, help me around the house. He’s pretty amazing like that.

Deep Musings

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Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not. 
~Samuel Johnson

So the other day I was thinking some deep thoughts. Actually, I’m not sure if they were THAT deep of thoughts because they were thoughts of Kevin Bacon. Or rather, six degrees of separation… which made me think of six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

LOL, but I digress.

So the other day, there were some climbers on nearby Mt. Rainier who fell and needed rescuing. While being rescued, a park ranger fell himself and was killed. The climbers all ended up being okay. However, I saw on my Facebook that my friend’s coworker’s niece was one of the climbers. And that got me thinking. I had no idea who these climbers were yet now I find out I’m only three degrees separated by these climbers (and by reading my blog, YOU are only four degrees separated).

Here I am listening to the news and then BAM! I have a connection to a national news story. And it makes it hit quite a bit closer to home. It makes those climbers… real and not just a story you hear.

So I got to thinking… what if everyone in this world started thinking along the terms of six degrees of separation? If you think about other people in terms of that, you are most likely closely connected to them… just a few “degrees” away.  Makes what they go through hit a lot closer to home, doesn’t it?

What if everyone in this world thought that way? What if, instead of seeing someone and noticing that they were SO DIFFERENT from you, be it Democrat, Republican, man, woman, black, white, rich, poor, American or Afghani… what if we thought about them in terms of six degrees of separation? They aren’t just some stranger on the street or some story on the news or someone who just doesn’t “get” whatever you think they don’t get. They are connected to you. Quite closely, most likely.

What if we started treating people that way? Treated them like they were close to us? What would this world look like? What would living in a kinder world be like? One where instead of thinking the worst of someone or dismissing them because they are different in some way you find important… what if we treated every stranger as someone who is closely connected to us?

And that, my friends, is my deep musing of the day. Or week. Or probably month. Brought to you from 36,218ft in the air and flying at 577mph somewhere over the state of North Dakota (I’m off to do reserve duty at Boston Navy Week and scored some free wifi thanks to an online contest).

Bad, Bad Blogger

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Doing things is not the same as getting things done.  ~Jared Silver

I haven’t been around much, and I’m sorry for that. It’s just…  I feel  a bit out of place and disconnected. Huzzy is on shore duty and there’s just not much about it that is feels “Navy.”  I mean, I see him get in his uniform and leave every day, but he’s usually home before noon and doesn’t work weekends. This week, however, will be a bit different as he is the “duty driver” for some inspection that is happening and so he won’t get off work until 1800. Um… okay. He’s still home by dinner, so it’s no big deal.

That will eventually change as once he gets fully checked in (this command it takes upwards of two months due to the qualifications they have to achieve first). Once that happens, he’ll be working normal days (0600-1600 or so), but will still rarely work weekends. Apparently, he’ll have 24-hour duty every four or five weeks, so he MAY work a day on the weekend then if it rotates that way. Of course, he’s also been told that there are certain duties that they will have to be there for the working day and can go home at night as long as they are tethered to a cell phone and can make it into work easily. Shouldn’t be too hard as we live less than 10 miles from the base.

It’s really feeling like he’s a civilian. It’s totally weird. I’m definitely  not complaining… I’m just still trying to get used to it.

I mean, his last “shore duty” was recruiting during that awful time in Navy Recruiting where they’d be lucky to get home by 2000. In fact, if he WAS home by then, I’d ask him what happened that he was home so early. Normally, it was because he had to have a new recruit at the MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) by 0500 the next day… and that was an hour drive away.

He’s been in for 13 ½ years and this is his first “real” shore duty (I saw him more when he was on a sea billet than in recruiting, so I don’t consider that recruiting duty as shore duty). It’s definitely different and definitely welcome. He’s been home for two and a half months now and I feel myself thinking of things to do in the months ahead and my natural reaction is to still check myself and ask myself if he’s even going to be there that month. But of course… he is.

I can make long-term plans. There’s no boat schedule that he has to abide by. Nothing that’s going to change last-minute and have him out of here for weeks and months at a time. He’s home for three years and I still can’t wrap my head around that. But I’m happy. Very, very happy.