Family

Ten Happy Things

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Happy 101 Award

I may go into sugar shock just looking at the wee cupcakes (or maybe I’ll be inspired to give into temptation and walk to the doughnut shop for something with sprinkles), but I still want to thank fellow Navy wife Mrs. Somarriba (of The Somarribas fame) for thinking of me when bestowing this sugary award.

As with most sweet things in life, there are still some rules attached:

  1. Thank the person you received the award from.
  2. Name 10 things that make you happy.
  3. Pass it on and contact the lucky winners!

Ten things that make me happy, huh?  Various and sundry things bring a smile to my face, and I find that being easily amused is a trait that leads to a more pleasant stroll through life.  Selected at random and in no particular order, my ten happy-making things of the day are:

  1. Cracking open a new book, especially if it’s hardcover.
  2. Baking bread, particularly challah for Shabbat.
  3. Hanging out with my younger brother, who is a pretty cool guy.
  4. Yummy-smelling handmade bar soaps, such as those here.
  5. Seeing my cats curled up on the chair next to me; bonus points if they’re entwined such that I can’t tell whose paws/tails/what-have-you are whose.
  6. Doing crosswords with my husband.
  7. Tea.  All kinds: white, green, black, spiced, herbal (yes, I know herbal “teas” aren’t actually Camellia sinensis and should rather be termed tisanes), you name it.  It’s a sad day when I can’t brew myself a cuppa.
  8. General aviation.  I love flying in small airplanes, and I look forward to proving myself competent to take the controls myself.
  9. Taking pictures at the local botanical garden.  No matter the season, there is always something to see.
  10. Building LEGO sets.  Who says you have to wait ’til you have kids to play with the cool toys again?

The eleventh thing that makes me happy is getting to chatter cheerfully with fellow MilSpouseBloggers such as the ladies linked to here.  I love reading your blogs and chatting with you on Twitter, and if you’re inclined to share ten things that bring a smile to your face, consider yourself invited to snag a little sugar for your blog and list away.

Cobwebs

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It’s been so long since I posted here that I feel like I should do the Internet equivalent of shaking out the rugs and dusting the furniture.  (I’ll avoid the vacuum metaphor lest it reinforce how badly I have sucked at being a regular MilSpouseBlogger.)  So, uh… hello.  Nice to type at you again.  Hope you had a nice Halloween, Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, Sukkot, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and any other holiday that has passed since I managed to throw up an entry here in Nth-land.  Ours were fairly nice, on the whole.  We even built our own sukkah for the first time this year, as this was the first year we were in town to enjoy having our own yard in which to build the temporary hut for the Feast of Booths.  Our actual “dwelling” in the sukkah for meals was severely curtailed by the bumper crop of mosquitoes; we discovered that being a festive meal is much less joyful than eating a festive meal.  Still, we felt pretty accomplished just for building and decorating the structure, and we did manage to partake of a few tasty beverages within before getting too chewed on by bugs.

On the Navy side of the coin, things are still slo-o-ow on this journey to the first fleet squadron, wherever that might end up being.  However, there is evidence that the pace will be picking up considerably with the arrival of 2010, in the form of a mad dash to get my husband prepared for carrier qualification sometime in March.  Keep in mind that we arrived here in early May… of 2008.  That puts us at nearly a year and a half of being told that things are going to get moving any week now, so stay ready to pick up and move at any time.  On paper it looks like we’ve had a lot of free time, but the fact that my husband has still had to check the flight schedule every evening on the off chance that he might have an event the next day has put a damper on any number of things we might have liked to accomplish.  There are several home improvement projects that we put off starting lest we have to drop them in the middle when the flight training finally picked up.  We could each be well on our way to completing a graduate program.  I could have put more serious effort into looking for a job if I’d known to laugh in the face of the predicted six-month FRS timeframe.  Hell, we could have gotten me knocked up as soon as we moved into our house, experienced the whole pregnancy together, and spent the first seven months of our child’s life with hardly anything to distract our focus from the nugget — er, baby.

On second thought, scratch that last one.  Murphy’s Law would have ensured that the moment we saw the little plus sign on the pregnancy test, my husband would have been rocketed through the syllabus at record speed, sent immediately on his first det, and left me to move to California by myself just before giving birth.  I’m glad we opted for cats instead.

Don’t get me wrong — I love having my husband around so much on a day-to-day basis, but I think we’re both going to be relieved when he is finally able to dive into flying again.  There is very little sadder than a Naval Aviator who is not flying, and I can tell it’s getting to him.  It’s more than mere lack of flight time, though.  He has many friends from his graduating class at the Naval Academy (not in aviation, obviously) who have already completed their first sea tours and several deployments.  My husband wants to get to the point where he is truly serving rather than only training to do so.  I’m proud of him for it, and I understand, but I do feel the need to point out that there is little need to worry that the Navy won’t get its fair return (and then some) on the investment.  I am certain we’ll be looking back wistfully on this relative freedom soon enough, but we ought not let ourselves forget that too much “free time” ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The D-word

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A recent post by ENS Wifey got me thinking about something a well-meaning family member said to me when I expressed concern over a central aspect of my husband’s chosen career.  A couple years ago, my father-in-law (retired SWO and all-around awesome guy who has Been There and Done That) mentioned something about deployment, and I quipped that he shouldn’t say that dirty word in polite company.  That brought the conversation to a halt.  He told me I shouldn’t think of it that way, but rather as a good thing, an opportunity for growth, and so on and so forth.

Spoken like someone who has always been the one leaving to Do Things around the globe rather than the one left back at home, right?

I would never try to argue that deployed servicemembers have it “easier” or “better” than their spouses, but I do think a very different kind of dread accompanies the prospect of being the one who must passively wait and worry than the one who is actively involved in the mission du jour.

I know my father-in-law was trying to be encouraging–I do appreciate that–but it’s just a step too far for me to be able to look at the D-word as a good thing. I can manage that it’s not a terrible thing nor the end of the world nor cause to fall apart into a wibbly pile of emotional Jell-o, and even that it might indeed be an opportunity for growth, but I am not going to pretend that I look forward to being separated from my husband for months at a stretch.

Summer Vacation

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I am not the most consistent blogger, as ENS Wifey kindly pointed out a few days ago.  I figure that if she can find the time to send words flowing Internetwards between vet bills, personal injury, and the Navy, in its infinite wisdom, deciding that she and her husband aren’t actually married, then I can probably handle taking a few minutes out of my Sunday morning to dash off a few paragraphs.  I must say that the relatively relaxed time we’ve been having this summer doesn’t make for nearly the compelling read that ENS Wifey’s saga does, but I hope the Powers that Be don’t take that as an invitation to throw anything interesting our way.  My poor readers will just have to endure the tedium of our present tranquility until the Navy sees fit to shake things up for us again.

I still don’t have any curtains up anywhere in the house, and I’m at peace with this fact for the moment.  The cats don’t deign to notice.  My parents and little brother didn’t care whether or not I had curtains when they came for the weekend of my cousin’s wedding.  Neither did my grandparents when they dropped by.  My sister-in-law, her husband, and the ultra-energetic, über-sweet, almost-ten-year-old twins won’t turn up their noses at me when they descend upon us later this evening, either.

The “almost-ten” factoid about our nieces is relevant in that their impending visit gave us an excellent excuse to mount an expedition to Toys “R” Us.  We did find them a birthday present I hope they’ll enjoy, but I’m not gonna lie, the true purpose at the heart of the mission was to drool over LEGO sets.   My husband and I have both been LEGOmaniacs since childhood, so every once in a while we must obey the inscrutable exhortations of our souls (bonus points if you know the source of that phrase) and spend some quality time perusing that wondrous aisle of bricky construction potential.  We were impressed with some of the new “=City sets this go ’round, especially the Farm and Coast Guard Helicopter (beware, the linked pages are noisy).  The set that came this close to coming home with us, however, was the Pirates Shipwreck Hideout.  C’mon, how could I not love the ship’s ribs, the rope bridge, the cannon, and the crow’s nest?  It takes me right back to being a kid and playing out elaborate LEGO plots with my brother.

I’m glad that LEGO has returned to its roots with classic themes like City (used to be Town, I guess), Pirates, and Castle.  For a few years there, it seemed like the company had completely sold out to licensed tie-ins for everything from Star Wars to Spongebob Squarepants.  While I’m not crazy about the continued existence of the licensed sets, it is good to see that LEGO is investing in its own creative ventures with themes that don’t rely on already established characters and storylines.

In the end, the Shipwreck Hideout stayed on the shelf at Toys “R” Us.  “The trouble with being an adult,” said my husband, “is that now that we’re grown up and have an income and enough money to get any LEGO set we want, we’re too responsible to do it.”  Maturity is totally lame sometimes.  Hmm… Chanukah is only four months away, though.

Decor in the Theme of Guilt

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My husband and I find ourselves, at present, in a curious situation for a military family: that of living relatively near family.  Wonder of wonders, we are actually in a position to play host to family coming into town for my cousin’s wedding this weekend.  My mom, dad, and little brother (who has yet to see our house, having been busy finishing up undergrad for most of the time we’ve lived here) are descending upon us this Friday.  I suppose the courteous thing to do would be to have the guest room cleared of my beading and sewing paraphernalia and the floors free of the cat hair tumbleweeds that spring into existence when we turn our backs.  I swear we could make three more cats out of the fur they bestow upon this family like it’s fairy dust.

Luckily for me, while I am going to make an effort to get the house cleaned up, I don’t have to develop a case of OCD to do so.  My folks are wonderfully easygoing houseguests who don’t mind when a home looks a little more “lived in” than “museum-quality and dust-free,” and my brother lived until recently in a college apartment with five other dudes.  You do the math on that one; I should probably set out a pizza box and an arrangement of empty beer bottles to make him feel at home.  (Maybe not.  Lest you get the wrong impression about my brother, I should tell you that he is fastidious by nature and not inclined towards indulging in the usual 18-to-22-year-old male schlubbiness.  I understand that the six-dude apartment was far from the disaster area one might expect.)  In any case, while we’re going to clean up the place, we’re not living in fear that anyone is going to bust out the white glove treatment on us.

I tell you all that so you know that the domestic guilt I feel tugging at my nerves is of my own neurotic invention, not anything inflicted upon me by my extremely good-natured family.

I regret that I have not put up curtains anywhere in the house.  It didn’t particularly bother me not putting up curtains at our previous duty stations, because those places were temporary and so it was completely understandable that we wouldn’t want to waste time and money decorating that which wasn’t ours, not really.  But this is our house, bought in mortgage payments rather than rent checks, and I feel guilty that I wasn’t overcome by a new homeowner’s zeal to mark her territory with carefully chosen window treatments.  We don’t even have blinds or shades in our bedroom.  (Get your mind out of the gutter — we did have the decency to preserve our neighbors by blocking the windows first with cardboard boxes, then with marginally less trashy tea towels.)

I clearly would like to have curtains.  It does, in fact, bother me that we don’t have any up.  So why in the name of all that’s good and holy don’t I get off my tuchus and put up some curtains?  Good question, and I have a litany of excuses with which to answer it.

  1. Curtains are too expensive for the simple lengths of fabric that most of them are — you’re paying for the convenience of having pre-made panels.  I cannot bring myself to pay that much of a premium for something that isn’t perfect when I know I could spend a fraction of the money on fabric and thread for handmade custom pieces.
  2. I want to make curtains myself, as I know I have the skill to sew straight lines with my sewing machine.  When I go to the fabric store, though, I am overwhelmed by choice and pop mental circuit breakers when I try to divine exactly what this mythical “perfect” is.
  3. I know, I know, perfection doesn’t really exist, and for something as trivial as home decor I should just make something and try again later if it turns out I don’t care for it.  Curtains are not house tattoos.  Changing them does not involve painful and expensive laser treatments during which one wonders why in the hell their younger self thought a unicorn leaping through a heart of flames would represent their “true inner self” forever and ever.  (This is why I will never get a tattoo.)  Knowing perfection doesn’t exist doesn’t make the fruitless pursuit of it any less seductive, though.  It’s great: I can agonize and go back and forth and hem and haw ad infinitum without ever having to make a decision or do any work.  The excuse, “Oh, I’m still looking for the right fabric for my glorious home decor vision.  Boy, it will be fantastic when it’s done, you wait and see!” can be stretched out for years if you like.

The real biggie, though?  The real reason we’ve lived here in our own house for over a year and haven’t put up curtains?  I am scared that the instant we make this place too much our own, the second we get all our rooms set up the way we want them, someone will jump out at us from behind a tree with a set of orders  and a pack-out date of tomorrow.  I like living here.  I would love to find out that we’re staying here for my husband’s first fleet tour, because three years — three whole years compared to the three months we were at the last duty station and the bare year we were at the one before that — sounds like an eternity.  It sounds like time to get really settled in and worry about fussing with window treatments and maybe painting a room and gardening.

Yes, gardening.  I have guilt about that, too: a good-sized front and back yard all our own, and I haven’t planted a single flower.  That might have more to do with being too lazy to get out and water any plants I might choose than weird hang-ups about getting too attached to a house we might be leaving in a matter of months.

There is one home-related task I think we can cross off our to-do list before my folks and little brother get here on Friday, and that is to finish Rustoleum-ing the outdoor furniture my grandparents passed along to us when they got new stuff for their deck.  By Friday evening, I hope to be relaxing outside, gin and tonic in hand, on our shiny new-to-us chaise longue and laughing with my family at a low-key backyard party before the big bash my cousin’s wedding promises to be.  That’s pretty motivating, as is the fact that the grandparents who so sweetly gave us the furniture might drop by to see the house the morning after the wedding, and I don’t want them to see the paint job half-done.

All right, enough rambling.  I’m off to have breakfast so we can get going on what we need to get done in order to enjoy our time with family.  I’m really looking forward to it, because my family’s not going to care whether or not I have the perfectly coordinated curtains of which I feel I ought to dream.