I cannot believe how fast summer came and went! There have been a lot of crazy days between our summer PCS move and fall as well as a lot of bad days too, I won’t lie. I am still adjusting to my husband being back in the fleet and somehow, even though my baby is well over a year old, I am continually learning how to be a mom of two while juggling this crazy roller coaster lifestyle. I am not sure if I will ever get the hang of it all!

But there have been lots of good days and plenty of laughs because frankly, that is all you can do sometimes - like when I walked into my baby’s room while he was playing in his freshly pooped diaper or when my toddler ate half a bag of chocolate chips while I showered and then colored his face with pen. It could always be worse, right? 

We did have a moment of celebration too. We made it through an entire week without running to the ER while my husband was out of the country at a conference. Military wife success!

The new season means new changes for our whole family. My biggest, little guy started a preschool playgroup on base. It was a tough adjustment for us both but I know it will be a great experience for him and help socialize him with other kids his age. My littlest guy has also started attending hourly care on base - a huge step for this mama bear who never took advantage of this resource at our other two duty stations.

Does it sounds like I have a lot of kid-free time on my hands now? Not so. I’ve started a new adventure!

As if settling in to our new duty station over the last three months with two toddler boys and adjusting to my husband’s longer work hours wasn’t enough, I decided to add more to my plate. I’ve mentioned in previous columns that I have applied to graduate school but I’ve also begun working toward a long-time goal of volunteering for a non-profit on base.

Volunteering has given me a whole new perspective on military life. I never imagined I would be in a place where working for free could be so fulfilling. I love being a stay-at-home mom, and feel beyond fortunate that we have been able to find a way for me to stay home for almost three years, but something has been missing for me.

Since starting my volunteer job a month ago, I find myself excited to get up in the morning and work face to face with adults again. Helping military service men and women has been incredibly rewarding. Not only are they respectful and kind but they truly appreciate the services the organization provides.

Not only am I getting work experience on my resume, but I am also utilizing my college degree in psychology. I am able to study and work towards becoming a caseworker for the organization which will (hopefully) help make me more marketable when the time comes to return to work.

I have known about this organization since my husband joined the Marine Corps and I could kick myself for not volunteering sooner. But as they say, everything happens for a reason and I truly believe I was not in a place in my life where I truly would have appreciated giving back to the military community. This opportunity came when I most needed it and although I only work a couple of mornings a week, I feel like a new person.

Somehow being busier has made me more patient with my family and I cherish the time I am home with them. I rush to pick them up at daycare and I am excited to hug them and hear about their day.  I realize how incredibly lucky I am to have the opportunity to stay home with them and pursue this endeavor.

I am not sure how long I will be able to keep up with all these new changes but right now, it’s working. My husband loves his job, I am bettering myself and feel fulfilled professionally while still able to be at home which makes for two happy kids and one big happy family.

Working outside the home and taking care of a family can be a precarious balancing act. When those two worlds collide, lost jobs, exhausted kids and quarreling spouses can be found in the wreckage.

Military spouses are often not just balancing those two worlds, but rather twirling plates on sticks as they try to manage their own careers, their families and the endless trail of red tape and paperwork that comes with the title of military family.

This month, my worlds collided and it felt like a galactic explosion.

My husband retired this month, which resulted in a mountain of paperwork and deadlines that I never anticipated. We were naïve to and unprepared for the required number of meetings, paperwork, deadlines and costs that come with this milestone. I assumed my husband would take care of much of this. He assumed that much of the changes were automatic. We both assumed wrong.

In a week’s time we lost medical and dental insurance. We are without both for the next month and had to fork over more than $400 we didn’t budget for to be eligible to even apply. The Army held his last paycheck, standard protocol of which we were unaware. No paycheck also meant no money was sent to housing, where we still live for the next 30 days. In Hawaii that means we now owe $2,900 that we didn’t budget. I have spent weeks going three rounds with the transportation office to find a flight home that can accommodate my handicapped child’s service animal as well as our family pet. The renter moved out of a home we own on the mainland (meaning less income again) and I have been organizing and cleaning around the clock to prepare for the movers to arrive this week. I am doing this alone while still caring for our five children since my husband left early to take care of family business.

The havoc in my personal life wreaked havoc on my professional life. I work from home but the work wasn’t getting done. Exhaustion set in, causing my performance to slip. I was so busy trying to stomp out the proverbial fires around the home front that I had little left to give at work, and it showed. I didn’t manage my schedule or workload well. I missed meetings.

When the chaos at home creeps into your office, the result is never good. For someone like me, who takes great pride in their work, realizing just how much damage was done was like taking a punch in the gut. Suddenly, you look around and see that you are doing nothing well, anywhere.

I have no great words of wisdom to avoid or fix this situation. After 42 months of deployments, 15 years as a military spouse and handling my own deployment to the war zone as a reporter, I never doubted my ability to handle this move, retirement and my job.

And I don’t think I should have doubted myself. Instead, I should have been better prepared. I didn’t discuss the ins and outs of retirement planning with my husband. I assumed he had it covered. When he didn’t, rather than ask for his help, I took on each and every task myself. I shouldn’t have. When I was preparing for the move it took hours to do so with all five kids nipping at my heels. It shouldn’t have. I should have asked for help from my friends and let them step in to take the kids so I could finish more efficiently.

There’s a lot I could and should have done differently to make the insane workload during this transition more manageable. But I also know it can be hard to ask for help. Military spouses are so accustomed to simply handling whatever is thrown our way that to reach out for help can feel like admitting defeat.

It is not possible to strike a perfect balance every day. We will have off weeks. We will be caught off guard and occasionally, we will slip. But when we set our sights on sailing straight into a perfect storm, such as moving, retiring and maintaining daily life all at the same time, it’s also ok to raise the white flag and ask for help.

If there’s one thing a military family knows, it’s that life never stays stagnant during a deployment.  Sure, we may be missing our spouse, but life continues here at home at the same pace as usual. For our family, that usually means a breakneck pace. This has been even more true this deployment.

My husband has been gone six, very, long months and it will still be several more before this tour is over. But these six months have been some of the most packed we’ve ever experienced.  My career is moving along, I’ve changed all the eating habits in our house and I’m down nearly 70 pounds. All four boys are in hockey about six times a week and our latest adventure arrived Oct 1: our beautiful foster daughter. 

So when Jason does finally come home, it will be to a busy wife, a strange kitchen, insanely busy kids and a new daughter. In his mind, home is what he left behind, but our busy six months means home is no longer what he remembers. It makes me nervous. After all, if I’m struggling to keep up, and I’ve been here the whole time, how will he handle the drastic changes?

Change happens during deployment. We can’t sit still and live in a glass case until they return.  We have to live, grow, and not only survive, but thrive. I can definitely say that I didn’t foresee all these changes. The dietary changes?  Kind of.  They evolved after the first month of me going on a paleo diet, but our daughter?  We’ve been waiting two years for her to come, but it never occurred to me that she’d pop in while Jason was deployed.  These are big, hectic, glorious changes.

How do we handle them? As a team. When we have a meeting with her case worker, Jason uses Skype to participate. When I consider changing the boys’ eating habits, I explain why and ask his opinion. When he’s going through something during the deployment, he brings me in on the issue. Remember, we’re not the only ones living, ladies, our spouses are too.

We work extra hard on our communication, because we know reintegration can hit us hard if we haven’t put the time in beforehand. I keep him up to date with our routine as much as possible, because though he may not be here for it now, he will be, soon. I share with him my worries, my anxiety and my joy, because it’s really ours. The minute I start treating my husband like this is only happening to me, is the moment we cease being a team. He may be 6,000 miles away, but he’s still my partner in all things. We take things on together during deployment so that he can fit seamlessly back into this house when he comes home, which is always our end goal.

Change is good and beautiful, as long as we’re dealing with it together. Getting our foster daughter nearly six months into a deployment may be the biggest change of all, but she’s so beautiful in her timing, her grace, her everything. I hate that he’s not here for these changes, especially her arrival, but I can’t wait to introduce her to him. She’s like the cherry on top of our homecoming sundae.

Follow Rebecca at http://theonlygirlamongboys.blogspot.com

It is the end of my husband's career and I feel more like a historian than a spouse.

For 15 years I have carefully labeled, organized and preserved hundreds of documents that he has been issued over his career. Overkill? Maybe. But necessary, absolutely.

Last week my close friend's husband visited the on-base transition office to begin the process of leaving the Army (before retiring). He was told that, unless he provided them a copy of his original enlistment contract, which he was issued 13 years earlier, he would forfeit all entitlements and benefits. That document was lost to a house flood five years ago. She knows this for a fact.

When she asked the Army to check his digital file, it turns out that somewhere along the line an office worker had scanned a common set of orders and labeled them as his enlistment contract. The Army didn't have the correct copy either.

Now, at this point in the story, it is also important to note that you should know your policies. My friend and her husband are fighting the ruling based on the language of the policy requirement in the document. But that is another column for another day.

The important point for today: keep, organize and hold your official documents close. You will need them, you will need to produce them. It is about knowing what to keep and what to toss that is the key.

Here is a quick reference list for the most common documents:

Awards - Keep. Always. This is proof that you earned that accolade. Keep both the fancy document presented in the snazzy binder and the official order that show how and when you earned it.

Orders - Keep at least one copy. They are a paper trail of your career and, frankly, a cool keepsake for future generations.

Promotion orders - Keep. Again, proof, proof, proof.

Security clearance updates - Keep.

Sick Call Slips - Toss after a month. If you are issued a narcotic keep those specific slip call slips for proof that the medications were issued. Pain medication abuse is a huge issue in the military now and it is good to have proof that you were issued these medications when commands perform random drug testing and they can see it in your test results.

Hand receipts - Opinion differs on these sheets but I always keep my husband's because he has, at times, been issued upwards of $1 million in equipment. That's a lot to payback if that equipment suddenly goes missing. A hand receipt proves that he returned it in working order and you don't owe a dime.

TDY forms - Not necessary, but we keep these just in case there are questions later about the reimbursement amount. If you have the receipts and forms still on hand, you can prove that the amount you received is justified.

Tax returns - Keep for the basic seven years as advised by the IRS.

PT test forms - We keep for a month or two and toss. If you really want to be prepared, keep the latest results before a PCS so you can deliver them to the next unit. Otherwise, toss.

Family documents  - For example, marriage certificate, birth certificates, baptismal certificates, etc. Always keep these. In the military, the finance office will ask for many of these items to pay you for certain entitlements. In the civilian world, will need these to apply for loans, enroll in schools and many other activities. 

Medical documents - The military keeps a file that you can access. However, if you have a spouse who has been severely injured and plans to file for VA benefits, it may be beneficial to keep your own copies and organize them in a way where you can find what you are looking for. It is better to be able to cross-reference the military's files than search blindly. Medical documentation from military doctors is also what is used to award veterans the monetary amount they receive for injuries. Without the documentation showing that it is a military-related injury, you cannot make a case to receive the monthly medical payments.

Keeping track of a military career can be a job in itself. Even the most attentive spouses run into road blocks. For my friend, a flash flood ruined many of her husband's most important papers.

"You can't expect after 13 years and six moves for someone still to have all that paperwork," she said.

And even though the military is moving toward making these documents available in digital format, the system, as she discovered, isn't perfect yet.

So if you haven't started, pull out that cardboard box of folded, creased and smooshed documents. Lay them out in a binder and put it up on a shelf. You never know when a single piece of paper might save you weeks of hassle.

Friends, if you think back, there are probably several times in your life that you swore you would, "never do this again."  My list includes:  waking up with a wicked hangover, giving birth, rappelling and changing planes more than once on a single trip.

I've sworn after having done each of these, that I would never, ever do it again. The pain, the trouble was too great. But of course, I have, some much more often than others, see reference to hangovers.

However, this, my friends, I will never. ever. ever. do. again.

I am executing every phase of our family's PCS alone, with all five kids, a dog and a cat in tow.

Family circumstances have required my husband to move ahead without us. Meanwhile, I am cleaning up the mess. And it is a heck of a mess.

Preparing the house for the movers' arrival is akin to eating Oreo cookies while brushing your teeth. Everything I pack, my toddlers unpack. Everything I clean, my older kids unclean. It feels like an exercise in futility.

Every stop on the paperwork trail, from booking our airline tickets to arranging for temporary hotel stays has had a snafu. It took a call to a senator before the military agreed to book us on an airline that would accommodate our pets. We are spending six nights camping during this move as hotels were fully booked since we were wise enough to try to pull this off during the holidays.

And through all the moving chaos, I've had to keep each kid on track with school, extracurricular activities and attitude checks as each day presents a new challenge. We're sticking it out until holiday school vacation so that they have a clean break in their lives. Why stumble now and pull them out? That would defeat the purpose of jumping these obstacles, right?

But it would mean I could sleep, I could relax. I could not spend every day on the phone, standing in line, running from government office to government office, repacking a year's worth of Olivia DVDs and other random knick-knacks that we really don't need.

However, I am running, I am waiting, I am phoning. Since this is just not a PCS move but is our final move as we retire, the amount of paperwork I am chasing seems to have tripled. If there are beach chairs and lazy days in retirement, I haven't seen them yet.

But they are there. I know they are there, waiting for me.

And when this is through, and I find them, I swear friends, I will never, ever do this again. Ever.

There are so many things that make us forget the deep sighs of midterms and remind us of the magic of the fall semester - the smell of new pencils, the intensity of new highlighters and the crisp newness of notebooks not yet introduced to the beauty of the written word.

These things allow us a temporary break from the drudgery that comes with the lack of campus parking, the unexpected cancelation of classes and the fact that those new pencils, fresh notebooks and other college must-haves cost half the mortgage payment. 

Such is the metaphor for the balance of adulthood, I suppose. Just like real life, school can be expensive, stressful, and overwhelming - both for our kids and ourselves.

I am constantly staring at the overly energetic youth bouncing all over new classrooms, whether they're eight or eighteen. The first day of school can be a struggle, whether we are tearing up while dropping our five-year-olds off with their first teachers or staring with disbelief at the recent high school graduates that have become our academic peers. 

It takes incredible strength and fortitude to drop a child off and then keep our heads held high as we enter classrooms in which we are likely closer in age to the Ph.D. at the front of the class than we are to the other students.

But at the end of the day, after dinner is eaten and baths taken, we can smile and know that every day we educate our children and that every new semester we are accomplishing something amazing as well.

My cat is the face that has launched a dozen angry phone calls.

It's time to PCS, which means, it's time to wade through red tape, phone calls and stacks of paperwork so tall that even the most organized spouses shudder at the thought. We've never moved with a small animal before and now I know why.

This is a royal pain in the tail.

Military families that PCS from Hawaii are sent back to the mainland on a number of contracted airlines. The flight you get is luck of the draw based on the amount of money the government is willing to splurge on your seat.

We were assigned an airline, that I am discovering, is among the least pet friendly. We will owe them close to $400 to ship my cat halfway to our destination. We then have to find someone to pick her up from cargo and board her until we can drive back across the country to pick her up. The other option we were given: leave the airport, rent a car, drive to the cargo area, pick up the cat, return to the airport, check the cat in again, go back through security and continue on to our final destination. Our layover is 1 hour and 10 minutes, at Washington Dulles. Superman wouldn't even try it.

I've fought. I've pleaded. I've begged. Families sent home on other carriers to other destinations can check their pets through the entire journey and pay a cool $125 and board, stress-free.

After two days and dozens of conversations with the transportation director, he finally told me, "Maybe it would be best if you just got rid of your cat."

It wasn't malicious. I don't think he particularly liked saying it. I think he was just pointing out the obvious. Our 11-pound ball of black fur was making my life, and everyone around me, miserable.

I would be a liar if I told you I hadn't considered it. Our cat, Porter, a rescue from the local pound has only been with us since August. At just under 2-years-old, she would adjust well to a move to another loving family on the island.

But my children, they would be heartbroken. And that is where sensibility looses the fight. Are we military? Yes. Are we used to giving up some of the niceties and normal perks that other families who don't move as often enjoy? Yes. But why does that mean my kids shouldn't have the pleasure of a childhood pet?

I'm beyond irritated by the unfairness of the situation. By pure luck of the draw we will end up spending hundreds, if not nearly a thousand dollars by the time we drive back to pick up the cat in D.C., to get her home. And that point, I still plan to fight.

But I also refuse to ditch her, as the Army suggests, because that would be the easiest course of action. It's not fair to her or my kids. No amount of money, or red tape, can change the love we have for our animals.

So back your bags, Porter. You're coming home with us. One way or another we'll make it work. And that is what Army leaders tend to forget. We always make it work. 

I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.' Muhammad Ali

I AM a champion. I am a champion for military families, for my family but mostly, I am a champion for me. But right now, honestly, I don't feel like a champion. I feel like a hot mess.

Here I sit. Alone. I am in a hotel room fighting with the demons in my head - a battle I have been fighting all week. No one told me that I would be this nervous.

It's my race. It's my pace. It's my finish. It's my medal. It's my dream.

So why am I so worried?

When I began my journey to a better me, I never knew how many people would be watching. Somehow, within my circle, I became the wife who mastered her weight problem. The wife who overcame obstacles. The wife who could do it all. The wife who mentally had it all together. Now, I am the wife who is a puddle of goo worrying about not having the mental acumen to make it through 26.2 miles, but what I keep reminding myself is that the most difficult part of the race for me is over.

On Friday, I left my house, three kids, sweet soldier and the dog. On Friday, I drove to Kansas City and hopped on a flight and I (and my baggage) made it to DC. Clothes are washed. Instructions about the morning routine are written. Babies and soldier were kissed. And I let go. After five deployments, I am taking care of me, and a big part of doing that is letting go of them so I can grasp what matters to me, my health and my sanity.

But as I sit here staring at my race bib and thinking about the amazing people at Team Fisher House who do so much for others, I have to remind myself that it is okay to be selfish in this moment. Daily, I want the best for my soldier and his career, my family as a unit and my children as individuals. But as moms, I think we sometimes get so wrapped up in what we are doing for others that we forget to do for ourselves.

As I think more and more about the race tomorrow, I am reminding myself that I didn't quit. I didn't give up. I am a champion. More than wanting my friends and family to be encouraged by my accomplishments, I have to encourage myself. I have to look myself in the mirror and know that I did it. I made it to the end of one race and began another.

Most importantly, I need to say THANK YOU to my sweet soldier for putting up with all of my training and listening to me talk nonstop about training and for being willing to hold down the fort while I pursue this goal of mine.

Training is tough but I am tougher. Military life is tough but I am tougher. I AM a champion!

Be Inspired to be an Inspired Spouse ... sby

Best. Teenage. Job. Ever.

As a junior in high school I spent my October working in a haunted house. Every Friday and Saturday night I diligently applied globs of hair gel and aqua net to my curly locks in an attempt to make them stand on end, painted my face white and donned the tattered, "blood-stained" duds of Dracula's bride.

They paid me to make people scream. That part was awesome.

They also paid me to listen to the same dreadful organ music waft over my head, on repeat, at my beloved Dracula's castle.  And in the downtime, four weeks from Halloween, I stood, sometimes for hours, waiting to hear footsteps creep around the corner.

I screamed. They screamed. We all screamed. Ten seconds of terror followed by two hours of sheer boredom. That part was not so awesome.

But, by Halloween night, my voice disappeared as my shrieks at our "victims" were needed every few minutes. I listened for Dracula's strike and then positioned myself around the corner for a double whammy. The greatest moments were realizing that the frightened souls on the other end were my friends who came and intended to scare me instead.

Between our haunts, I had time to talk with my fellow ghouls and met teenagers, out of work grownups and actors who just couldn't get a break on the stage. This silly job, as my mom called it, meant Friday night money to spend with my friends. But it also put food on the table for some of my co-workers' families. Meeting them taught me very quickly the value of a job and the importance of doing it well, no matter how "silly" some people might see it.

Dracula, it turned out, returned every year to haunt the halls. It was his version of working the Christmas rush and gave him a chance to earn extra money. By day, he was a professional opera singer and when the house was empty, he would sing Broadway tunes for us ghouls in waiting.

As a teenager, I could imagine no better way to spend my fall then working as a professional ghost - fun, relatively easy money. But when I look back 20 years later, I realize, that job was so much more. The people I met taught me more about making it in the workforce and what it really meant to make ends meet when times were tough than I could learn in any classroom.

So this October, when I round the corners of the local haunted house with my friends, I remember fondly my days in the gory makeup and appreciate the good scare, the high pitched scream and the ghoul behind the mask. Hope business has been good this year my friends!

When we met, sweet friends, I was just another Army wife trying to get through another, year-long deployment (never mind that it was the fifth). The deployment came and went and now, I am just another Army wife trying to figure out how to live with the soldier who has been away so long, raise somewhat adjusted children and maintain her sanity through fitness.

And then, the government shut down happened. I am not a political pundit and I don't feel that it is particularly appropriate to express my political views. What I do feel is appropriate is to tell you how this has affected my life.

The threat of not getting paid is scary for anyone, especially if you don't have any funds to fall back on. I am eternally grateful that threat was band-aided early-on. What I didn't expect to hurt so badly was the closing of the Commissary. I had gone shopping the day before, so that helped. However, there were four things that I needed to get during the closing, and the day I needed them, wouldn't you know, the power was out at Walmart. I had to make a trip to the local grocery store. Four items cost me $40. I thought I might pass out in the checkout lane, but I paid for the items and left. I realized that we had to make the best of the current situation and if that means eating things in the pantry that are not our favorite, clipping coupons or forgoing our favorite treats for a little bit, we can make it work.

But for me, the worst part of the shut down was that it threatened to cause the cancellation of the Marine Corps Marathon. It is to be my first marathon and the trip is planned. I have been training since July and I am thrilled to be running as a member of Team Fisher House. But after all of the sweat, miles and chaos that training has created, there were several weeks during the shutdown when the fate of the marathon was in limbo. Had Congress not come to a decision, I may not have been able to run.

So Coach Wooden, rather than worry, I took your advice! I decided, if the event was cancelled, I was going to use the money I would have spent to pad our accounts in case we don't get paid during future debt problems and then find another marathon to run in my Team Fisher House jersey. And now that the budget crisis is over, for now, I am going to shop judiciously and plan meals so that I am not in the Commissary every day.

I am going to make the best of the way things turn out!

Be Inspired to be an Inspired Spouse ... sby