When my sweet friend, Allison, asked me to blog my way through this deployment, I thought, 'This is a year-long deployment! How will I ever figure out what to write every week? What is it that is going to get me through this deployment?'

Music was the resounding answer! I have music that is tied to events in my life. I have music that is tied to people in my life. There is music that I love to sing and there is music that I love to just hear. One of my very favorite memories from my adolescent years is being in the car with my mother belting out the Eagles' ‘Hotel California’(not knowing what the words meant) and loving the harmony parts!

If music can soothe the savage beast, consider me soothed! I have satellite radio in my car and my presets are 70s on seven, 80s on eight, 90s on nine and Radio Disney. I love the music on all of the channels! I hear a song that reminds me of a date that my sweet soldier and I had. I hear a song that my kids love. I hear a song that reminds me of a girls' night out. Now, I hear songs that remind me of a special blog, and occasionally, I wonder if music was the proper "hook" for my blog. Today, I knew it was.

A friend wrote on my Facebook wall today that she was beginning her running journey and started by reading about my journey. She wrote, as she was running, Gloria Estefan's "Conga" played, and she kept going! She let "the rhythm move her feet"!

I have songs in my running mix that do the same thing for me. I was thrilled that by reading about songs I love and apply to my life, she made it a point to listen to the words and let them wash over her.

Most of the songwriters I have met want their music to move those who hear it. I hope that following along on my journey, you will really listen to the words of your favorite songs, or even my favorite songs. I hope that the music will free your soul and I really do hope that you get lost in the rock and roll!

Thank you for following along on this journey with me. It is not always pretty and sometimes I wonder if it has been worth it to put my life out there for everyone to see. Now, I realize that it is. If my struggles inspire you to make it through your struggles, then we can struggle on together. Never forget that we are stronger together than we are apart.

Thank you for being a great big part of me making it through this deployment! 

Strength and Courage...sby

We haven’t PCS’d in over four years and I feel like I am totally out of the “friend” dating game. 

That’s exactly how it feels, like dating. I am so glad I already have a husband because my game is weak. I find myself stalking the park to see when someone is out playing with their kids, going to the children’s library and giving a sympathetic eye in the commissary to a mom whose little one is acting up.  

I am doing everything I can think of to find new friends. I try to strike up conversations and hope to exchange numbers so my son will have a playmate and someone to entertain him while I enjoy adult conversation. As much as I miss my friends from California, I know I have to face reality and make new friends or else it’s going to be a very long and lonely year.  

Military life is what you make it. You can let it make you miserable or you can look at the positives and enjoy the new experience.

It was a rough start trying to make friends here at first. Our loop of townhouses cleared out as soon as we moved in and new families slowly trickled in almost two months after we arrived.  I had no neighbors for most of the summer. I had to pull myself together to stay positive about this new move.

Luckily, my husband started his new job and he is currently a full-time student. The job is very family friendly and by family friendly they mean they give the spouses chances to get together.

My husband still has long hours and lots of work outside of his “work hours.” At a spouse orientation the first week the very first thing we were told was: this school is a priority for our husband’s careers.

That was a great way to meet friends because misery sure loves company!

Even though I would love to see my husband more during this break from combat training and deployments, I am thankful to be in a position where so many other spouses are going through the same thing. Not only do our husbands work long hours together, we are all only here for 10 months. It is hard to feel settled.

Since this is a temporary move, it seems like we have made friends quicker in order to make the most of our time here. And because I have met some great women, it also brings me back to the whole “dating” comparison.

I feel guilty for making new friends, almost like I am cheating on my old friends from our last duty station. But that’s the nature of this lifestyle: you make friends that become your family and at some point someone moves and you have to make new ones.  

It doesn’t change the things we experienced together or make those friendships any less significant.  It just means it’s time to start a new chapter in this crazy journey. And thanks to Facebook, the miles between us don’t seem so far.

I love the first day of school: new clothes, fresh, crisp, white sheets of paper in your notebook, refreshed hopes and goals.

Military families experience a lot of first days of school, in a lot of new schools as they PCS around the globe.

And though walking through that new door for the very first time can be nerve-wracking, the friends you make on the other side are always worth that difficult first step.

As we crack open our books this fall semester, please welcome our newest columnist, Kira Hooper, a Navy veteran, military spouse, mom of two and full-time college student.

Kira writes from her home in California where her husband serves as a Navy corpsman and where she attends school to fulfill her dream of becoming a registered nurse. 

Please help us welcome her through our front door on her first day here at Salute to Spouses. We know you’ll be happy she has joined us.  

Unlike Cinderella, I was dreading attending the ball.

On Friday night, my husband and I attended the Signal Corps ball in Honolulu. In college, I counted the days until my then-boyfriend came to sweep me away to his military college ball. The gowns, the decorations, the flowers, oh my!

Now, as a mom of five with a pile of laundry as high as my countertops, stealing away for a Friday night was seriously cutting into my chore time.

Not to mention, after five pregnancies in nine years, I don’t exactly fit into the cute little ball gowns anymore. Not a fact I was in the mood to highlight.

And we had to hire a babysitter – two in fact; one to care for our two children on the autism spectrum and another to chase after everyone else.

Once I calculated the cost of the sitters and parking and my $8 soda and the several drinks my husband had (I was afraid to ask the cost) and my not so ball-like gown – well, it wasn’t a night I was looking forward to.

So I did what any tired military spouse does -  I pulled a pair of old shoes out of the closet, powdered on some of my own makeup (and hoped I looked like I was wearing makeup and not that I’d been punched in both eyes), threw a flower in my hair and walked out the door. No salon appointments, no special purchases, no worries.

And you know what, it was ok. No. In fact, it was really fun.

In years past, we attended balls almost immediately after we had moved to a new post. I knew no one. I had no one to sit and chat with, comfortably, while my husband and his buddies ran to the bar. I was miserable.

This time, I knew everyone at our table. I knew people at the table next to us. Heck, I knew people sitting across the room. We laughed. We joked. I got teased for cornering the guest speaker and questioning him like a good reporter does (check back next week for those details!).

We took nice pictures of each other. We took stupid pictures of each other in silly poses. We danced – badly. When the clock struck midnight my feet hurt because I had been up and enjoying the night, not because I had been sitting still in too tiny shoes.

There were young spouses in flowing, glittery dresses. But my friends and I, in our less revealing, glitter-free dresses were just as stunning. There were young soldiers zipping across the dance floor, twirling their girls to the beat. But my husband swaying with me to the music on the side was just as romantic.

We toasted the Army, we toasted the nation and we toasted each other.

And when we pulled into the driveway, I even felt a little like Cinderella.

Last week I shared with you about taking a deep breath and starting over when you feel like things are getting to be too much. When we are under this amount of stress for this long it is difficult to get past hurt feelings.

This week, I want to encourage you with a reminder that this deployment is only for a finite amount of time. Ladies and gentlemen, whether we think so or not, this deployment will end!

For some it will end sooner. For others it will end later. We will all get to celebrate that glorious time when our spouse comes home. And when that happens, we will not have time to get into each other's business.

So when you become overwhelmed by the drama, and the chaos, remember John Popper's words and know "that it won't mean a thing in 100 years."

Strength and Courage ... sby

Here we are at our new duty station and after almost four months, I can finally look back at the whole experience and smile. It wasn’t exactly the easiest move we had ever made and it certainly was stressful at times. But, those types of situations are always the hardest while you’re actually going through them. Now that we have gotten through the roughest part and are starting to adjust, I can laugh about some of the crazy moments. It wouldn’t be a typical PCS if there weren’t a few bumps along the way.

PCSing is stressful, no matter how many times you’ve done it or how you prepare for it.  This current move has been a little more challenging because we only had three weeks’ notice. Moving with a toddler and baby on the way, I thought for sure it was a recipe for an emotional breakdown. But if anyone can handle it a Marine Corps family can, right? After all, the very first piece of advice I was given as a new military spouse six years ago was “Semper Gumby”.  Yep, the translation means to always be flexible.  We scrambled to get everything done in two weeks, including paperwork, movers, lodging, housing, etc. So from the west coast back to the east coast, a new house and a new baby on the way, we arrived at our new duty station with optimism.

Our new house wasn’t exactly what we were used to. We have an active toddler, a newborn and two dogs. Although nice, a four level townhouse with no backyard was “inconvenient,” to say the least. With a little creative decorating we made this house a home. After all, if I have learned anything through deployments, being together is what matters the most. My husband was home and I was grateful to have a roof over our head. Ok, I admit, I shed a few tears and complained a little. Ok, a lot.

It wouldn’t be a PCS if some of our belongings didn’t end up broken or missing. It doesn’t take long to learn to always carry your valuables with you! Although it is a benefit to have the military move you, somehow your belongings are not always treated the way you would treat them. For example, I would never pack my toilet plunger with my bedroom comforter. I take this as a lesson learned to be very specific with the moving company next time and throw away the plunger before the movers come.

Now that the unpacking is over and I can breathe again. As much as I want to run back to my old house and friends right now, I know better days are ahead.  My mantra during deployments and this crazy roller coaster ride called military life is, ‘this too shall pass’. The stress is just temporary. No matter how hard the day may seem, tomorrow is always a fresh start.

Currently, there are a lot of worried senior enlisted families.

In the next few weeks, officials expect to pink slip a large number of senior NCOs who are serving in career fields that are considered to have too many soldiers through the Qualitative Service Program (QSP).

And they way those soldiers are to be chosen, is not exactly fair or clear, from what those of us holding our breath can tell.

The very basic premise of the program is to purge soldiers from the force who are not performing at Army standards, who are not rising through the ranks in a reasonable amount of time and those who simply are in jobs that have too many soldiers.

At the very core, the program sounds reasonable. Not doing a good job? You’re fired. Drinking and driving? Out you go. That’s how the civilian world works, right?

But the news dribbling down the ranks and into the spouse’s ears tells a very different story: that older soldiers who qualify for retirement will be put out for medical reasons, even if they can currently do their jobs better than younger counterparts; and, that soldiers who may have had a bad report years ago, perhaps under the stress of post-war struggles, will be put out as well – even if they are performing above average now.

We have heard that there is a magic percentage of the NCO force that must go – but no one knows what that number is. Instead, the spouses sit on the phone trying to guess how far up or down their husband falls on that list and whether he will be cut or not.

And with all things military, rumors and misinformation rule the day.

But for families who had planned on being years from retirement, at the very core, this program is not good news.

Unemployment among military members is exponentially higher than in the civilian sector. Many military spouses also have difficulties finding work due to their transient lifestyle.

In our house, we are four years from our retirement goal. In that time, I had planned on earning my master’s degree. My husband is working towards his bachelor’s degree. We are paying off bills and saving for the transition time between Army life and the civilian world.

Now, there is a very, very good chance my husband will be forced to retire in May – four years before we had planned. He has had two major surgeries in the last year but has always bounced back and returned to duty. Still, his superiors have told him to expect to be on the list. There is no money saved, no job lined up and no concrete plans.

He has served 42 months in a combat zone, missed countless holidays, anniversaries, birthdays and the bulk of two of my pregnancies. I have served on Army family committees, Family Readiness Groups and my children have all had to undergo counseling because of the stress of being military children during a war.

And now, there is a very good chance that after all that dedication, like hundreds of others, we will be shown the door and told simply, get out.

My friends and I chatter on the phone nervously, comparing notes and leads on jobs for our husbands. We feel abandoned, kicked and bruised.

Many bases are ramping up their suicide prevention campaigns. This past summer, the Army reached the gruesome milestone of marking the most suicides ever. I often wonder how many of those deaths were triggered by news of the impending QSP.

No one can guess who or how many soldiers will be included in the final cuts. But if you think it might be you, stop and breathe.

I initially spent at least a week panicking as I focused on all the really bad outcomes that retiring unexpectedly could result in. Then, I stopped and decided to focus on planning for retirement as if I was thrilled we were finally there.

The Army has taught us all to change gears quickly and make life work. It’s not going to be pretty. It’s not going to be fun. But this will work. And when it is over, you might land in a better place or job than you could ever have had in the military.

The list isn’t out yet. Nothing is set in stone. But we can plan and be ready. Stay with us at Salute to Spouses as we continue to profile the most portable jobs in the marketplace, tips on job hunting and advice on living in and out of uniform.

Together, we can make it better.

So we are almost half way through this deployment, which can only mean one thing ... the crazy is beginning to creep out. And for me, it seems to be bursting out of the door and jumping up and down on my front porch.

I had a friend tell me that living on a military installation can be like living in a fish bowl, and it really is. We all can see, with our own eyes, who is at whose house, whose husband is home, who never comes out, whose children have lost their minds and - you get the idea.

But through this post experience, I am learning that everyone has different needs through their deployment or non-deployment cycle. We all need to be encouraged through different means, and hopefully, those means do not involve food.

I am learning the art of self-talk. It is nice to have someone around to "talk you off the ledge" when you need it. But what if no one is there? What do you do then?

I will tell you what I do. I stop for a minute, and in my head (not out loud, people will think you are crazy), I say, 'Sarah, think about this. It may not be about you. Not everything on the planet has to be about you.' Then I take a deep breath and start over.

The other side of that coin, in my opinion, is that when we can't "talk ourselves off the ledge", we (including yours truly) tend to say things and do things that are completely outside of our nature. We back bite. We form alliances. This is not life. Instead, it sounds like an episode of Survivor.

While a lot of us can be in survival mode at this point, there are plenty of other ways to survive! Go for a walk. Sit outside in the sun. Do something nice for yourself that you haven't done in a while (a good mani/pedi leaps to mind), but for heaven's sake (and the rest of ours too), take a deep breath and reset.

As a gentle reminder to all of my sweet friends out there, let's bear in mind that we are all (deployed or home) dealing with something. Every day, there's something. Not everyone will respond to your needs and my needs in the fashion that you or I think they should. We all need to exercise a little grace and patience. We all have to remember that it is tough when they are home, and it is tough when they are gone.

I picked Michael Jackson's song this week, because it is one that makes me feel good when I hear it. You will see me dancing and singing in the driver's seat, but the lyrics paint a great picture of how our words (and actions) can truly affect those that we love! Never forget that what is done or said can't be undone or unsaid, and no matter how much we apologize (and truly mean it), it still hurt the other person. So before you speak or act, take a deep breath and start over.

Strength and Courage ... sby

As a military spouse, I have heard my fair share of horror stories about labor and delivery in a military hospital. The bad stories are usually the ones you hear the most.

Unfortunately, I had a rough first delivery experience in California. I will spare you the details because they don’t really matter. I walked away with a beautiful, healthy child and that’s all that mattered to me.

It was my first pregnancy, my husband was deployed, my ignorance was bliss and I knew no different. Your options can be very limited in the military community and I was not as assertive as I should have been, to say the least.

During my second pregnancy, PCSing in my third trimester was a little nerve wracking.  I was late in the game and chances were, I would not have much say in the care I received - especially since the base we are currently stationed at has no hospital. I was told I would be receiving care at a military clinic in town and deliver at a different military hospital.

I lost all hope. It was bad enough that I had to find a new doctor, but finding out my new provider wouldn’t even be delivering me was upsetting, to say the least.

My husband and I were able to tour the labor and delivery floor at the hospital a couple weeks before my due date. Although I was not receiving my prenatal care there, just pulling into the facility was a positive experience.

The hospital was brand new and absolutely beautiful.  We met with the staff, spoke with some nurses and everyone was wonderful.  The private room with a large TV and gaming system may have won us over as well. Maybe my expectations were low but I was actually excited for my stay in the hospital.

The odds were against us the weekend I had my son, who was born one week early. The base and surrounding area was hit with a terrible storm and 80 mph winds. The hospital and the entire base lost power and while we were in the hospital a 30-foot tall tree fell and landed on our home.

Luckily, no one was hurt but it definitely complicated things. In the hospital we had limited power provided by generators, which meant no TV or games. Guess my husband and I got to make up for all that time apart during the last five years. Be careful what you wish for, right!

Despite all these events, my labor and delivery experience in Virginia was much different and everything I dreamed of. I was in control and comfortable thanks to the wonderful nurses and best of all, my husband who was by my side. We had a beautiful, healthy new son. During our three day stay, we had no access to most hot food in the café because of the power outage and limited water usage (I had to sneak in a shower). But I still walked away with such a great experience. Although both of my experiences having my boys were very different, they both had the same outcome and I am so lucky and blessed for that.

I have changed my attitude about my previous, “bad” experience because it doesn’t really matter how my son came into the world. All that matters is that he did. I have two wonderful gifts and for that I would go through any bad experience over and over again.

There is an Alan Jackson song, “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning,” that contemplates the events of 9/11 and their impact on our lives.

It asks the average American where they were and how they reacted that day. The song, while popular, has little relevance to those of us who live our lives as military families.

The world didn’t stop turning for us that day. It just started to spin faster.

The years since 9/11 have gone by in the blink of an eye. Our active duty spouses have come and gone and come and gone and come and gone, again and again.

We count our milestones not by the year, but by the deployment.

When did we go to Disney World? Was that R&R the first time or the second time?

When did we have to buy that new washer? Was it during the 15-monther?

Many of us have spent the past 11 years preparing for a deployment, living through a deployment, or adjusting to life after one.

There is no drawdown in our world.

We could get out. Our spouses could leave the military, or we could leave them.

We could all just walk away.

But we can’t.

We won’t.

We make the choice every single day to stay, to stand by our families, our military and our country.

We didn’t stop living on 9/11. We embraced our lives. We grew stronger and braver and more resilient than we ever knew possible.

We are warriors, each and every one of us.

And we will never, ever, let the world stop turning.