New Goals: A Military Wife

I have purposefully waited to write this post because I wanted things to be finalized before I made anything "blog official." Taylor will be deploying with his Utah Army National Guard unit to Afghanistan on January 15, 2012. Yup, less than a month after we get married.

Needless to say, things are crazy right now. I'm in the final count-down for the wedding with last minute to-do lists and coordinations and I'm mentally preparing myself with long term goals and short term goals for his departure. Weird that I'm going to be a military wife. The military spouse transformation will be complete with military ID, power of attorney and military spouse benefits.

The thing that keeps me going is knowing that things are going to be okay. We'll be married, we have been separated before and we love each other. Plus, the overriding feeling (even at times stronger than the pain of him leaving which I already feel) is that he is suppose to go. I can't fight it, and it makes his national guard duties easier to accept and support.

Next week I should have some down time because he starts training so I am going to do a "strong women" list of my goals or ideas of how to be successful for the next year of full-time army. If you are, were or know any military spouses, feel free to connect us. If there's anything I've realized in the past month it's that support networks are the only way to stay strong during a spousal separation.

Lots of love,

Hilary

Pure American Greasiness

In honor of the new school year the local McDonalds offered a deal where if you bought one BigMac you could get a second for 1¢. Before I can say, "Needless to say…" let me explain my relationship with the big McDaddy.

I grew up anti-McDonalds. My family wasn't fast food oriented and my parents inadvertently passed on an ewww-McDonalds attitude. I slowly changed my opinion when my siblings and I started making the Dollar Menu cheeseburgers our pre-concert ritual. I came to have a fond relationship with McDonalds when Lover and I started eating Hot 'n Spicy McChicken sandwiches on a regular basis; a part of our relationship's foundation.


So, needless to say I took advantage of the pre-school year deal. Lover was still doing Army training so I went with my roommate, Michelle. As we sat down with our boxes of food she confessed that this was her first BigMac ever. (Come to find out another friend of ours still has never had a BigMac. Waaaaahhhhhttt?! How can we be stereotypical greasy Americans and never consume the mother of all American hamburgers?)



This is the documentation of the event:

She may look apprehensive, but she enjoyed it. Seriously.

SPC Lover

The reason I refer to my fiancé as "Lover" and haven't really posted any pictures of him is he prefers his anonymity in pretty much every regard (he doesn't have a Facebook, for example) so I try to respect that. Today, I am going to break that a little bit.

Lover's in the Utah National Guard and his unit has been preparing this last year for their deployment to Iraq starting the end of this year. During his training last week, he called to tell me that their deployment has been delayed until October 2012 (there's a real likelihood it's been canceled). Needless to say, I'm happy! We are hoping our plans will be such next year that he won't have to go at all and we can have more of working/studying like this:

Nothing is ever certain in the military, but it made me want to talk about him a little more.

The military is awesome in a very frustrating way. Lover and I have no interest in making the army a part of our lives, but I would not change anything the time we've had in the military has done to our relationship. I have a ton of respect for our soldiers and I love all of them a little because I see Lover whenever I see someone in ACUs.

(A picture he texted me while he was at training. He knew I missed his face. :) )