The Ball

Can I be real with you folks for a minute?

When am I ever not real with you?  But that's besides the point.



I do not get excited about military functions.  Usually there's a lot of ma'ams and sirs and stand, sit, stand, salute.  I'm a down home kinda girl.  I'd much rather have everyone over for dinner than worry about if my dress is fancy enough or if I waited to let my husband introduce me in a receiving line rather than introducing myself.



I'm an army wife.  If I can take care of myself during deployments I can certainly introduce myself.  Duh.



But readers, I promised I would keep it real.  And the real truth of it is, I had a good time.  A really good time.

Since we're keeping it real I feel obligated to tell you: I also had 4 glasses of wine.

xo, nikki

Piles and Smiles

There's something different around here.



There are man things around.



Piles of man things.

I'm really happy about it.

My Favorite Veterans

I don't talk about being an Army wife or an Air Force brat a lot on this blog.  I'm not sure why because the former certainly affects my life in a gargantuan way.

My father served as a pilot in the United States Air Force for 20 years.  He retired when I was just a kid but you can tell he's a military man.  On clear days with blue skies he still says to me, "Today would be such a good day to fly."

My grandfather, who unfortunately I don't have any digital pictures of, served in the United States Army during World War II.  He fought in France along side his bother, my great uncle, who didn't make it home.  My father is named after this uncle.  My grandfather died when he was 87.

My husband is an officer in the United States Army.  He's currently serving a 12 month deployment in Afghanistan.

Side note: He's coming home so soon!  Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have the welcome home photos for you.  Squeal!

I wish I was close enough to one of my favorite vets to give them a squeeze today and say thank you in person.

Happy Veterans Day.

Codependancy

Cecilia's been gone since Thursday to London to visit her cousin.

I'm having serious withdraws.

She's going to be moving back to the States with her husband a month before my husband gets home.  I've already started planning how I'm going to keep my nights full while she's gone: local Italian classes, more running, more devotion to my schoolwork.

A few weeks ago I was talking to my husband about it on the phone and started to get choked up.  He said, "Seriously, Nikki?  I'll be home a month after that.  That's nothing."  I whimpered a pathetic I know type noise.  "I feel like," he continued, "you're going to miss her more than you miss me."

"You're coming back!  She's leaving for good!"

Little army wife tip: Don't tell your husband while he's in Afghanistan (Iraq, Germany, Kuwait, insert your chosen deployment place here) that you miss your friends more than you miss him.  It tends not to go over so well.

She'll be home tonight.  Hopefully she misses the shuttle from the airport to post so I can pick her up.

I don't talk very much on here about being an army wife.  Even though it's a big part of my life (huge actually) it's not one of the things I use to define myself.  Christian? yes.  Student? yes.  Southerner? yes. Reader? yes.  Writer? most of the time.  Army wife? not really.

I'm not sure if it's the bad connotations that are attached to the stero-typical army wife or if it's that I have enough of being identified as my husband's wife in my non-blog life.  Either way, one thing that I do love about being an army wife are the deep friendships that are made.  I don't have family within 4,000 miles of here and don't speak the language well enough yet to feel completely comfortable.  Added by the fact that if I did have an emergency my family would have to use a passport to get to me.  My husband is gone 80% of the time.  I'm alone in the truest sense of the word.

Enter Cecilia.

Margo

I was going to prepare a celebratory post for being half-way through this deployment. Only 6 more months (give or take) to go.

But then Margo's husband died yesterday in Afghanistan. I know people die in this war every day and that is tragic. There's something different about it though when you go to that person's promotion ceremony from Major to Lt. Col. and when you saw that person dressed up for Halloween as a football coach (Margo was a football player) and when you cared for that person's child at the center where you work. You hurt pretty bad for someone when you were in thier Bible study class on marriage, which Margo was really qualified to teach since she and Tom have been married over 20 years.

Had been married.

That's hard to get used to.

Margo and Tom have two beautiful daughters. Please keep Margo and the girls in your prayers.

32?

April is Month of the Military Child. To celebrate we're having a BBQ tomorrow at work. Tomorrow is also my birthday. Cecilia told all the kids that the BBQ is in honor of my birthday tomorrow, not month of the military child.

They took it and ran like wild fire. I've gotten pictures, cards, well wishes and questions. I'll scan some of the cute cards tomorrow.

So far best question from the kids: "Are you going to be 32 tomorrow?"

I'm turning 26.

This guy...

Posts had just gotten back to a regular rhythm, but they are about to be interrupted by this guy. My husband is coming home for R&R today!

Let me show you my level of excitement by the amount of things I couldn't focus on:

• missed a meeting with housing
• my boss had to repeat everything to me 3 times
• I left the groceries in the car overnight
• this is the end of my list

Have a wonderful Valentine's day. Mine is going to be my best Valentine's ever because my Valentine will actually be here for Valentine's day.

(For the record amount of times the word "Valentine" has been used in a sentence see above.)

Merry Christmas Eve

I don't know how many of you know about life at an APO. But the government tries to provide the people here with basic comforts of home. One of those comforts is publishing a newspaper in English that can even be delivered to your house. (or you can check it out online) This is today's front page. The small print under the picture says:

With sleigh bells attached to his rucksack, Mike Lord waits for a helicopter at Camp Liberty in Baghdad on Tuesday. Lord, a civilian contractor at the base, said he'd grown out his hair and beard for the season and planned to visit as many U.S. bases as he could in his up-armored sleigh.

People like Mike Lord make me smile.

Someone wants to say hi

That's the love of my life. He's saying hi to me, our niece, and my mother-in-law. He makes my heart go pitter-pat. Doesn't he look hot? He looks kinda badass too with that gun strapped to his leg. Which, in my completely unbiased opinion, makes him hotter.

Oh, dear. I better stop before this post moves up from a PG rating.

He's gone

I have been absent this past week because I've been trying to soak up every last moment with my love. He left for Afghanistan. He will be gone a year which I am so thankful for. The last deployment he went on was 15 months. It's going to make such a difference when 3 months of the deployment have gone by and we only have 9 months left instead of a year.

I have so many great goals that I can't wait to get started on while he's gone. Busy, busy, busy is the key. He's going to be busy staying safe. Please keep us both in your prayers.

Some things on my list of goals:

a trip to Paris (which is booked!)

furthering my education in education

write, write, write

read books

take tons of pictures

The list is still growing and I plan on recording progress of my adventures here. I love the internet for keeping track of my life so easily. I can have thoughts, pictures, videos, etc all in one place.

German Jump

Who's that over there at Zia's house in Santa Flavia?

Oh, that's my husband.

My extremely, good looking husband.

We got back from Palermo on Monday at 8 pm and he left for Germany at 2 am the next morning. Then he did a jump into Germany while it was hailing.

He jumped in the air with the hail.

Don't worry, he said it's ok because he earned his Germany jump wings since he jumped with the German army.

In case you were wondering, no, that wasn't ok with me. It was ok with him.

He comes home tonight. Can't wait! Have a good weekend.

Excited to get started

There's a lot of big changes coming up for me soon: new school year, new PWOC year, another deployment, another year in Italy. I think normally, if I didn't live the life I do, I'd be extremely adverse to change. But being thrust into this life of constant and DRASTIC change has been one of the best things to happen to me in my short life. I have grown spiritually and in my faith. I have gotten stronger and more patient.

A lot of people are dreading this deployment. I am excited about it. I'm exited for the new things that are going to be birthed in me because of the difficulties I know I'm going to go through. I'm excited for my husband's opportunity at a prestigious leadership opportunity that I know he will excel at (because he always does).

Soon I'm going to make my deployment list. Every deployment (or long training) I make a list of things to challenge myself even further in a positive way. I'm going to post my list here when it is finalized. This blog is on the list and I'm already making great strides with it.

I can't wait to get started on the next big difficulty in my life.

Change of Command

My husband took command of a company today. It's a pretty big deal because he hasn't been to his career course yet. He's pretty amazing and the hardest worker I've ever known. I'm so proud of him.Today is the day I start sharing my husband with 150 other men.

*sigh* Isn't he the cutest thing you've ever seen?

Then this evening we had a battalion FRG meeting. That basically means all the companies met to talk about things that are going on and coming up at the end of the year. I already have been called out as the commander's wife twice and he hasn't even had this company for 24 hours. I turned bright red both times. Not sure how I'm going to do with all this attention.

Icing tubs and up high things

I was going to blog yesterday. But I didn’t. I was SAD. Sad because my husband left for Germany yesterday for a month. I asked him not to leave. The conversation went something like this:

ME: Don’t leave.

HIM: But I gotta.

ME: What’s in Germany anyways? Germans? And pristine autobahns? Politeness? Who wants to leave dirty Italy for that? Italy has CHARM and it has me and your house and please don’t leave I’ll love you forever pretty please with sugar on top. *insert Puss in Boots level sad puppy dog eyes here*

HIM: And they have schnitzel!

So.

The thing is, I used to be fine with him leaving. I know that sounds mean and wicked but it was true. He would leave every other month for six months and then left for 15 months and I was good. I got to watch whatever I wanted on TV uninterrupted. I got to have everything in the fridge the way I wanted it. All of the juice labels were facing outwards. It was nice to have everything just so.

But he’s been home now for quite a few months. I’ve gotten used to finding boxers on the floor next to the hamper instead of in it. I’ve gotten used to hearing him sing while he’s shaving and I’m in the bedroom at night. And things on high shelves were ATTAINABLE with him around.

I’m not fine with him leaving any more. I NEED those things in those high places. We’ve been married three years and the first two were pretty much spent apart. Him coming home from Afghanistan this last time was really like our honeymoon period. And I discovered something. I LIKE my husband. I mean, really LIKE him. He’s funny and has a cute butt and is a reacher of high things and he drives slow when I’m in the car because he wants to keep me safe and he LOVES me even on my craziest day. Really, really loves me. Anybody want that to go to Germany? Me neither.

Yesterday I didn’t post because I was sad. And I was busy eating a tub of frosting and a roll of crescent rolls and feeling sorry for myself. Obviously much more important and productive things than blogging. (Small digression: If you eat a whole tub of icing and then watch True Blood for the first time late at night right before bed expect to have scary vampire dreams where it feels like you really have to poop in the dream the whole time. Just a kindly warning.)

MOVING ONWARD: I’m going to a writer’s workshop tonight with Daniel Wallace. He’s the guy that wrote BIG FISH. It was turned into a movie. I forgot my camera, which I’m still kicking myself for but I bought new pens. So I’ll give you a play by play tomorrow.