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We kicked off our student spouse blog titled "The College Spouse" over the summer semester with fabulous Army wife, Jennifer Spare.

Now, it is a new semester and we are looking for a new voice.

We are searching for a military spouse, who attends school full- or part-time, to write about the very busy life of being both spouse and student.

No experience blogging? No worries! Send a sample blog to info@salutetospouses.com and we can coach you.

The newly anointed blogger will be responsible for one blog a week for 12 weeks. Then, new semester, new writer!

And, drum roll please, you will be paid - a teeny, tiny stipend for your services. But hey, that’s the business. In my day you walked up hill in the snow to intern for eight hours a day and didn’t get a dime! You get the picture.

So send us your best. We want new voices, new attitudes! You may just end up a star in the world of blogging.

As I look around our home assessing our most cherished, adored items and prep mentally for the next move, my thoughts always return to the same sentiment: Why the heck did we bring this?

After two years we have boxes that have never been unpacked. Pictures, never hung on the walls. Clothes, never been worn. Holiday decorations, never celebrated a single moment.

And seriously, I can’t even explain what was floating through my mind when I decided my wedding dress had to make the cross-Pacific move.   

If I was asked for a single piece of PCS advice this is it: store it, baby!

We moved to Hawaii with three kids, a dog and myself seven months pregnant. We moved here with – you may want to sit down – 13,000 pounds of stuff.

The guys from the moving company in North Carolina who packed us were running a betting racket to see how much over our allotted weight we would be.

Luckily, we slid under that number by the skin of our teeth. But now with five kids, I’m not sure we’re going to be so lucky.

Our biggest mistake? Overestimating how important that little glass trinket would be on the table at Halloween …

Or promising ourselves that we really would read all 20 of those books that have been sitting on our shelf for 10 years ...

Or believing that we really needed to bring the good dishes.

And the books and books of baby pictures? Puhlease! We haven’t opened them once!

Store it, store it, store it!

If you are heading overseas, the government will pay to store your stuff. There is a set monetary amount they will allot you each month, in a storage facility of their choice. Read between the lines here to mean the lowest bidder, in the most crime-ridden side of town and never, ever in a climate controlled facility.

Quick hint, you can pay the difference and put your goodies in the storage facility of your choice. Whoo hoo! Climate control bound!

I know it’s a struggle to part with sentimental objects. I know I wanted my kids to have memories of the same holiday decorations adorning our house ever year. I wanted them to have access to every toy they loved, every baby picture in case they had a hankering to pull it out.

But like so many aspects of military life, there are choices to be made.

And wouldn’t you prefer to choose what to leave in storage, rather than what to sell in order to meet your shipping weight limits?

I did it! I sent my baby to kindergarten. I have told you before that my sweet boy is on the autism spectrum and he is what most doctors would term as high functioning. What we have also discussed before is that his speech is not that great, so it scares me to death to put him in a new situation. But I am also his mother and I still have to push him out of my comfort zone. The funny thing is that when he began public school in Maryland, people would tell me that, ‘I was my son's best advocate.’Truthfully, I had no idea what that meant until a few weeks ago.

Based on my sweet boy's Individualized Education Plan, he was supposed to be in a self-contained classroom most of the day and he was to spend 30 minutes per day in a general education classroom. For any of you that know my sweet boy, you know that it does not make sense, but I really do try to lean on the experience of the educators when it comes to decisions like that. This time the educators were wrong.

I went to the school where he was assigned to register him and I was informed that he was re-assigned to the brand new school on post. 'That is great,' I thought. They will have the best technology and they even have a fun sensory room with a swing that can be put in the ceiling! It gets better! It is within walking distance from my house, but they will still bus him! Oh my goodness, I could not ask for a better situation until something dawned on me. This new team has not met sweet boy. They have not observed sweet boy. They don't know me. They don't know his IEP. Oh my goodness, this is terrible!

I raced across town and registered sweet boy at his new school on Friday, and Monday, I called to set up a meeting. As I spoke with the assistant principal, she seemed to be listening intently to my needs, and she agreed that a meeting with the autism teacher, the general education teacher and the paraprofessional was a good idea. What shocked me was that within a couple of hours, there was an email in my inbox from the assistant principal asking the autism resource teacher to contact me. School began the following Wednesday, and kinder began the Monday after that.

At this point, you may want to get your beverage of choice. Things are going to get good!

We finally have a meeting scheduled. I spent the evening before studying sweet boy's IEP and his Extended School Year final report. I was a little more than shocked to discover that my sweet boy had surpassed most of the educational goals that had been set for him for the 2012-2013 school year. That struck me as both good and bad.

So, sweet boy and I show up for the meeting, and it is in the autism resource classroom. As I put one foot through the door, I realized that I should have asked more questions when he was assigned to the self-contained classroom.

Before I go on, please understand that the behaviors that I will describe can be characteristic of severely autistic children and I know that in some cases these behaviors are difficult or impossible to control. That is why autism is described as a spectrum and getting back into the school routine is tough on all the kids!

As we came into the classroom, we saw children who were grunting, hitting and kicking. We saw children who were not verbal and we sat down at one of the side tables to stay out of the way until the teacher was ready for us. As we waited, I looked around the room and do you know what struck me? What struck me was how sterile the room was. I know that it has to be that way, but kindergarten should be warm and inviting. The other thing that struck me was the ages of the children. Due to a staffing issue, they had all ages in the one classroom. Oh my stars! At one point, I found my sweet boy in a closet because he couldn't handle the behavior of the one child that was kicking a door. When I opened the closet door where sweet boy was hiding, he looked up at me and said, "Quiet, please."

That is it! This is not going to be my son's kindergarten experience. Not on my watch. We left politely at the end of our meeting, but on the way out of the building, we happened to see two paraprofessionals restraining a large child (fourth or fifth grade) who was trying to bite. That sealed the deal for me. This boy cannot help the hand that he was dealt and I am sure that he is in the right class for him. However, this is not the right class for sweet boy at all. So I did what any sane mother of a special needs child with a deployed husband would do. I strapped my son into his seat safely and I sat in the car and cried. I cried for a solid 10 minutes and it was the ‘ugly’cry too! I want the best for my sweet boy and it starts tomorrow! I was so upset that I couldn't even think straight. There were a couple of margaritas and a lot of pizza, and, well, I cried some more.

Saturday morning, I became my son's advocate. I had four points to make that I felt were critical, and they were as follows:

•     Physical safety
•     No kinder peers in the class
•     No assignment to a general education kinder class
•     No discussion of IEP

I had to make my case clearly with passion but without emotion. There was no blame to be placed, but there were other avenues to pursue. As a team, let's re-examine our options for my sweet boy. I sent the email thinking that the assistant principal might get it over the weekend, but wait until Monday to answer. I was surprised to learn that I was wrong! Within an hour, she was calling my house. The first words out of her mouth were, "Here is our new plan." Oh the relief that rained down on me. I have not felt anything like that in a long time.

And what was the new plan? I am sure that you are dying to know! The plan was full inclusion. Are you kidding? I was so excited I could barely keep my cool when I said, ‘Thank you.’She scheduled an IEP meeting for Monday (the first day of kinder), and sweet boy would start his general education career on Tuesday. They needed one full school day to prepare for his arrival and I was thrilled to give it to them.

If you have a child or are close to a child with autism, you know that as far as behavior goes, it can be like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get. I was so glad that sweet boy was on target that day. He sat sweetly through the IEP meeting, and he impressed the team with the book that I brought to keep him occupied. But the thing that impressed me the very most, and I will remember it always, is that on the first day of kindergarten, his new teacher took the time out of her class to attend our meeting and meet sweet boy for the first time. I asked her if we could come back after school to meet his paraprofessional and check out the room. She thought that was a great idea. Again, sweet boy was on target. He loved the classroom. As soon as he walked in, he found a book and began to read it out loud to the teacher and the paraprofessonal. We talked about his behavior and expectations, and we created a dialog among the three of us that is proving to be amazing. I went to bed that night ready to send my sweet boy to kinder the next day.

Morning routine intact, we took some special pictures with older sweet boy and sweet girl, and I took a picture of little sweet boy and me. As I posted it to Facebook, all I could think was, ‘Look after my heart, for I have left it with you.’He pulled away on his bus, and I cried some more, but this time, they were really tears of joy. This is really the start of a new chapter for him. He came home triumphant that afternoon, and the smile on his face was all the evidence I needed of a good day. I also received an email from his teacher and another teacher on his team with regard to what a great day he had.

Before you go to sleep

Say a little prayer

Every day in every way

It's getting better and better

Out on the ocean sailing away

I can hardly wait

To see you come of age

But I guess we'll both just have to be patient

'Cause it's a long way to go

A hard row to hoe

Yes it's a long way to go

But in the meantime

Before you cross the street

Take my hand

Life is what happens to you

While you're busy making other plans

Before you go to sleep

Say a little prayer

Every day in every way

It's getting better and better

John Lennon was right. It truly is getting better and better. I am glad to see sweet boy flourish. I am convinced that we could not have been given a better team and I stand truly amazed at what lies before my sweet boy.

If you are reading this and you have a child with special needs, I hope that you will take from this writing that you can be passionate about your child's education without being emotional. Remember that you are all on the same team. Voice your concerns without blaming and be prepared to answer any question on the table. Realize that by laying all of the cards on the table, you have a better chance to give your child a great education.

Finally, I have to say, "Thank You" to our Seitz Elementary team. Thank you for listening. Thank you for responding. Thank you for taking a chance on my sweet boy. He may not remember this part of kindergarten, but I will. He will remember Miss May and Mrs. Brown and their bright smiles. He will remember a brightly lit classroom full of children who are his age. He will remember how they all learned to negotiate school and life together.

Strength and Courage ... sby

I am nearing the last few weeks of my second pregnancy and somehow this time around it is more stressful than having my first son while my husband was deployed in Afghanistan.

PCSing across country at 32 weeks pregnant with a 20 month old, moving into “historic” base housing (note for future housing assignments accepted unseen, “historic” does not mean cute and southern; it means old, awkward and high maintenance, but that’s a story for another day), not knowing a single soul and having a husband take an 8-week job that keeps him away for days at a time have tested my limits and sanity. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful that my husband is not deployed this time around, but just because he isn’t in Afghanistan doesn’t mean he is actually home.

Let me rewind for you. In 2010, my husband and I received the news that we were expecting a baby! The timing was not in our favor since our due date fell in the middle of my husband’s deployment to Afghanistan but as a military family we knew there was never a perfect time to start a family. We took this as a blessing and our baby boy helped keep us strong and connected during a stressful combat deployment. Not that I didn’t have a pity party for myself.  My entire pregnancy I had wished my husband could be there. From going to doctors appointments with me, to feeling the first kicks to running to the store for my crazy pregnancy cravings, I longed for my husband’s company. I sent weekly updates and pictures of my growing belly to keep Daddy connected. I held my head high when strangers would ask if my husband would be home for the birth and fought back tears when they gave me a sympathetic look and pat on the back. At night I would break down and cry, praying that my husband would return home safe to me and be able to meet our little miracle.

The minute I held my son for the first time, my husband called from Afghanistan. Our family was together. We didn’t have the typical hospital picture of the three of us physically together but we do have some pretty amazing pictures of my husband’s homecoming a couple months later. There are no words to describe the emotion I felt watching my 8-week-old son look up at his daddy for the first time.  We made it. We got through the deployment, my husband was home safe and we were finally a family. Being together erased the heartache of all we had missed.

Fast-forward to today, a year and a half later. I am pregnant with our second son, who is due any day now. We just moved to Virginia from California a few weeks ago where my husband is currently an instructor at an 8-week intensive school; a job that keeps him away from home 20-24 hours a day, including weekends.

I am so grateful my husband is not deployed but I hadn’t planned on going to my doctor’s appointments alone this time around. Well, I guess I’m not completely alone. I have a curious, energetic and sweet little 20 month old joining me who likes to pull up my shirt in public and show everyone his baby in Mommy’s belly. I am still feeling the baby move by myself and going out to get my own ice cream and potato chip pregnancy cravings.

And, I am not sure if I will be able to reach my husband when the time comes to go to the hospital. But I have to stay positive because there are just some things you have no control of. (In the military, that’s an understatement).

When all is said and done, I can’t let myself get down. Do I wish things were different and we could experience a “normal” pregnancy and delivery together? Absolutely. But I have a loving husband who works hard for his country and loves what he does. He provides for our family and we are blessed to have our healthy children. We may not be together as much as other “civilian” families but military families sure know how to make the most of the time we do have together.

Just a few more days left, and I’m free! What am I talking about you ask? It’s almost time for the kids to go back to school! I know, most of the country has already started, and technically my kids should have already as well. But, the school district here is building a sixth grade center (yes, the sixth graders will have their own building), and construction pushed the start of school back. Normally they start the third week of August, and now it’s the day after Labor Day.  Considering that they got out right before Memorial Day, it’s been a long summer!

So today will be spent getting the last few supplies my daughter needs so we can take them to her school for “Meet the Teacher night” tonight. This year, she’ll also be making the switch to the “big” elementary school this year because the district splits the elementary school with kindergarten through second in one building and third through fifth in another. My son will be in his final year of junior high, so I have one more year before the shock of having a high schooler is upon me. How did we get here already? It seems like they were both in kindergarten yesterday.

I hope both my kids have a great year. I hope my daughter likes her teacher. I hope she makes lots of new friends and continues to do well with her academics. I hope my son finds some motivation to do better in school (yes, I have one of those!) and I hope he enjoys his year as a big, bad eighth grader. It seems to be going by so fast and I hope they take the time to enjoy this time in their lives. Of course when you’re that age, the thought of getting to be, well, my age, seems inconceivable!

So best of luck to all of you returning to school and to all your children this year!

Home is where the military sends you. Many military families I know have this sign proudly displayed in their homes.

The sight of it makes my civilian friends shudder.

They don’t understand how we can grow to love a place so foreign to our very being; a place we may never see again; a place we dread moving to at first and cry when we pack our bags to go.

Military spouses have a unique ability to make the best out of the worst situation. They can make the tiniest, least desirable housing feel like a home. They understand that home is a feeling, not a place.

Please meet Ann Marie Dombrowski, our newest Salute to Spouses columnist and Marines wife. She joins us after a cross-country PCS move, while pregnant, to a duty station where her husband is away more than he is home.

To say the least, it’s been a tough couple of months. But Ann Marie knows how to make the most of her situation and her home is by her soldier’s side, no matter where that may take her and her two young sons.

Please join her as she chronicles her military family journey through the good, the difficult and the places that touch her heart and eventually will always feel like home.

So I was browsing one of the groups I am a member of onFacebook the other day, and one of the conversations was about school supplies. When I was younger, parents didn’t buy school supplies. Shockingly, school districts had enough money for all the necessities such as pencils, crayons, paper, etc. Now, the school supply lists grow longer and longer by the year and get more expensive. The lists are things not only needed for your student, but also things needed for the class and for the teacher. I don’t complain about this, because if all the parents don’t pitch in, the teacher is left to purchase all these things on their own, and I don’t think that’s right. My dad is a high school history teacher and I know how much he spends out of his own pocket for supplies and snacks. His expense may be higher since he teaches at a low income school with a lot of students coming from single parent households. So as the Facebook conversation went on, it morphed into the technological advances schools have made and whether or not that is a good thing.

When I went to school, it was chalk and chalkboards. I saw my first computer in fifth grade and it was an Apple. It had a black screen, green letters and all I remember doing on it was making crossword puzzles. Now, the classrooms are totally different.  Teachers have Smartboards. There are computer labs with computers for every kid in the class. Some schools even require students to take computer classes. Some days I think my kids know more about computers than I do!

I personally think it’s a good thing. We live in a technology-filled world. Kids need to know this stuff. But with that said, I don’t think technology should take the place of good old fashioned learning: write instead of type, use scratch paper instead of a calculator and actually learn cursive. Can you believe some schools aren’t teaching this anymore? Kids need to know how to do things in the absence of a computer, a cell phone and a calculator. So while I am very pro-new school, I am also pro-old school as well. Balance, that’s the key.

If you look closely, the military offers more than you can ever imagine.

I’m not talking about money for college, and programs on base. I’m talking about weird, unusual, even bizarre perks that military families have access to. Some of them, you’ve never even heard of.

Last week I stumbled across one of the more quirky benefits, though it’s limited at best.

If you are stationed in Hawaii, and you have a second POV you want to ship home without the added cost, the Navy will toss it aboard a ship – if they have room.

The Opportune Lift Program carries POVs between Hawaii and San Diego. Usually, their cargo holds are full of rough and tough Marine Corps vehicles. Every once in a while though, a soccer mom’s van can squeeze in as well.

The program was only able to carry 50 vehicles to the mainland last year. And the webpage for the program does warn that vehicle owners may be charged a crane fee to lift the vehicle on and off the ship.

But I’m guessing that’s a far cry from the more than $1,000 fee a civilian company charges for the same service.

I doubt our family jalopy will ever sail the high seas alongside a Marine Corps humvee. But I thought it was pretty cool to know the option existed.

Have you run across any unusual perks of being a military family?

Need to hitch a ride to Cali from Hawaii? Check it out for yourself!

My daughter asked me the question that every mom hates to answer during deployment: "Mom, when is our daddy coming home?"

That knife went straight into my heart and then she twisted it just a little! Ugh!

Before school started, we were having lunch in the PX, and I happened to see a friend and her kids. I knew that she was expecting her sweet soldier home any day for R&R, but I was not sure when. We exchanged pleasantries and I asked when she expected him to arrive and she replied, "He's in Kansas City waiting to get here, but he said not to come get him."

I was so excited for her. I gave her a big hug and we talked about the anticipation and excitement. I really do get excited for people when their soldier comes home. As they left, I sat down with the kids to eat and my sweet girl looked at me with her big blue eyes and said, "When is our daddy coming home?"

I took a deep breath, thought for a minute, and began my explanation.

"Well, Honey, it is like we learn in school. We have to take turns. If the bosses sent all of the mommies and daddies home at the same time then the bad guys would take over, and we don't want that, right?"

"No, ma'am," sweet girl replies like any dutiful Army kid.

I continued, "So Ryan's daddy comes home this time. Andrew's daddy comes home the next time. Emily's daddy comes home the next time. Alyssa's daddy comes home the next time, and then it will be time for your daddy to come home. So we can get excited when other mommies and daddies come home because we know that it is one turn closer to our daddy coming come."

That was all she needed. It was just the gentle reminder that we all need sometimes that great things will come when we wait patiently for our turn.

But in a special note to my sweet soldier in particular ... Waiting is the hardest part! We miss you!

Strength and Courage ... sby

Apparently, August is the unofficial month to slack at the office.

That’s according to an MSNBC.com article heralding the first day of the month.

And, their experts say good employers know that a little downtime on the clock can make for happy, productive employees. Fewer work breaks mean more stress and more mistakes.

I couldn’t agree more. This theory of necessary relaxation fits in the office and on the homefront.

Like employees who are stretched thin, military wives are up early and heading to bed late as they try to prep for PCS moves, deployments, unit events and the other functions of military life.

When my family left North Carolina for Hawaii, we had three months notice to pack, do the necessary repairs and prep work to rent our house, wrap up the extra-curricular activities we led in our community and find storage for two cars and lots of stuff that wouldn’t be making the trans-Pacific trip.

We also had three kids, one with autism. And I was six months pregnant. 

At one point, my husband and I were working on about 3 hours of sleep each night.

So I scheduled a family vacation, right in the middle of our last three weeks in North Carolina. And boy, was my husband mad.

“We have so much left to do. We’ll never get it all done. This is going to be bad,” he said.

We packed the car and headed to the North Carolina mountains for three days to visit the kids’ beloved hero, a life-size Thomas the Tank Engine. The area was beautiful. The trip, relaxing.

Then we drove eastward and spent three days camping in the shadow of the Cape Lookout Lighthouse. The barrier island we stayed on could only be reached be ferry. There were no phones, no roads, no stores and no electricity. We literally could do nothing but be.

When we finally returned home to the ever-growing to do list that now had to be finished in just two weeks, it didn’t seem so long any more.

As my husband unloaded the camping gear, yet one more thing that needed cleaned and packed, he didn’t complain about the lost time or the additional chores. Instead, he said, “we needed that.”

Absolutely.

So this August, or any month of the year, when you’re feeling overwhelmed by work or the mountain of stuff that has to be sorted before the movers arrive, just walk away. Have coffee, go to the beach, sit on Facebook for an hour.

It’s amazing how much better you will feel.

Article link:

http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/08/01/13036426-nothing-gets-done-in-august-and-thats-ok?lite