My "boring" military husband

There have been many posts as of late about the 'Boring Husband'.  I both love and loathe these posts.  My husband is all of these things but is anything but boring.  I do not like the idea of classifying what he does and characterizing it...but it comes down to the fact that love is shown in the ordinary not the extraordinary.

As a military family these expressions become more complicated by distance and time away.  Frequent moves, uncertainty for location, separations from family (brothers, sisters, cousins, moms and dads), deployments and a crazy fun lifestyle.

NOTE: I am not one to complain about our lifestyle.  Yes, it is challenging and not for everyone but it is awesome and fun so we continue.  I wouldn't choose any other way to live...but I wouldn't do it for just anyone. I love this man...so it is a worthy endeavor.

What is boring about my Military husband?

1.  He calls me when he can and emails when he cant.  He asks about the kids and does everything he can to be engaged and involved despite being on a boat or 6 or more time zones away.  He chats with the girls about drawings of '????' and fakes it until he can ask me what they are talking about.  He loves his children how he can when he can.

2.  He values what is important to me even if he isn't here to enjoy those things with me. 

3.  He supports my endeavors regardless of their level of insanity.

4.  Most importantly, he realizes that the decisions that are made while he is unavailable and deployed are my decisions that I make considering his desires and sometimes they are off the mark but he supports and backs them up.  100% of the time.

5.  While gone for deployment...he taught our son to make coffee (Keurig people...nothing extraordinary there) so I would still have the luxury of having my coffee brought to me.  I am a much nicer person after a cup...so it is also protective of our kiddos.  :-)

Most importantly, and the impetus for this post, he kept my plant alive.  As I said before...we move...often and I love houseplants.  But, I never buy them as then it tempts fate that we will move overseas (again) and I will have to give it away or the plant will die.  So, 10 months ago I bought (1) houseplant.  I even bought a very pretty container for it.  Then we found out that we were moving cross country and decided to move into our RV (with our 3 children, 2 dogs while I work full time and home school) for several months.  The houseplant came with into the RV.  To Disney, to the Desert, to Lassen NP, to the Beach.  It was my mascot and symbol of resiliency.  Then...I left him in California and moved here to Maryland...and I forgot the plant.  During this time, he lived in our RV then with our friends and on then on the USS Ronald Reagan.  I expected it to die...undernourished and forgotten.  Today he arrived in Maryland after driving across country and what did he have with him?  Oh, my bike, my collection of Riedel glasses, several bottles of swanky aged balsamic vinegar that he saved and....my plant.  The PLANT.  He kept it alive and arranged for its care.  I realize..it is just a plant.  A boring plant.  But, true love lives in the boring details.  True love and devotion comes from the months apart, the hours on the phone, the willingness to help, the tolerance as your mate expresses their interests (note...adopting a 'few' animals)
and...the plant.  The plant that is still alive.  I am easily amused but this plant looks awesome...don't you think??

Why do we home school?

Lately, I have had many inquiries as to why we home school.  I am not saying that *everyone* should home school.  I am just saying that with our particular set of circumstances and abilities it has worked out to be a blessing.  This post is a definition of our choices and not for the purpose of sparring other parent's choices.  So, if you are offended I apologize it isn't meant to be that way.

1.  Socialization.  I will start off by saying the biggest concern that we had starting to home school was social interaction for our children.  Now, that is one of our top three reasons for continuing to home school.  Social Interaction in school is more like forced association and although that is a good lesson to learn I would rather my children learn Latin, C++ and Classical Studies.

2.  Wholesome Living.  This kind of goes back to #1...I wanted their lives to be more wholesome.  Focused on the things that are important to us as a family.  I didn't want my girls worried about jean brands and who was wearing a bra in the 4th grade.

3.  Gifted and Talented.  We felt that we could do a better job providing a gifted and talented program than what is provided by the schools.  With so many children struggling and lacking language skills I knew that my children would do better with me.  Yes, yes, yes.  I could have supplemented their education at home and I did that for 2 years but with activities (boy scouts, Tae Kwon Do, playing w/friends and family time) there are only so many hours in the day!

4.  ?.  Adolescence sucks and sharing it with your peers sucks even more.  WORD.

5.  Modeling.  If the goal is to raise responsible adults...we felt that they would be better off with those who can model (most of the time) those behaviors.

Fellow home school moms...what are your top three?  You can post in Facebook if that is easier.  :-)

On acting like a kitten....

We have amazingly cute kittens.  They are about six months old and our days are filled with their zest for...well...being kittens.  I think there are lessons to be learned from how they view life.  The pic below is the best I could get of them wrestling.  They are just.that.fast.

The kittens spend all day playing...jumping, tumbling and being outright crazy.  As they jump from the ledge to the top of the bookcase kittens don't stop to think; hey, that is WAY too high.  No way I can get my fuzzy rear up there.  They just jump and give it their all on the first jump.  Rarely do they miss...sadly I am too busy laughing to cat-olog (see how I did that?) the misses with a camera.

On relationships; the kittens continue to try and get the older (6 year female) cat to play with them.  They will smack at her from hidden corners or jump out as she saunters down the hall.  99.999999% of the time she pops them in the face and they run off.  Yet they come back...trying to draw in a new friend for play.  This is what she wants to do does all day.

On trying new things: have you ever seen a kitten examining a gap between the couch/bookshelf/bed/etc for fit check?  NOPE.  They run at it like their butts are on fire and make themselves as flat as they can and slip under or inside.  They seem to defy the laws of quantum mechanics as their bodies occupy the same space as solid pieces of furniture.

Never once do they doubt that they can do what they set out to do.  Why?  Is it because they are stupid?  Because they are learning (or not) their limits?  Or is it because that they are so full of vigor and vitality that they do not pause to consider that they have have limits?

I think it is a bit of all of those.  When considering my goals...I am going to think about my crazy felines who are incredibly successful at being crazy felines.  They NEVER consider something based upon a preconceived notion that they can't do it.  They just give it their all and go.

Otherwise...how would they go from this:

To this:

 

And then finally, this:

So, my goal is to charge at a WOD the way my kittens would.  To not look at the end and think how I am I ever going to do 100 double unders after all that other stuff.  I can because I don't think I can't.  Simple.

To WOD or not to WOD...that was the question.

*****Warning*****  This post talks about being a girl...if you can't handle it...don't read this one.  Plus, you might get offended by my man flu reference.  :-)

This morning when I woke up, it was like back in High School.  I felt horrible...in that every 28 days sort of horrible.  Back in High School I would have gotten in my mom's bed and the conversation would have gone like this:

OhhhhhhnnnUrghhhhh....mooooooom.  I don't want to go to school today...I feel girl horrible (way worse than man flu btw) and I have PE today.  My loving wonderful mom would say something like, 'stop whining go to school'.   OOooooohhhhhhhhrrrrgggggg....but mooooooomm.  Then I would hug her and she would: :::sigh::: I will write you a gym pass.  Sweet.  Out of bed and on to school I went donning sweats and my bottle of Motrin praying for time to pass.

Fast forward a *few* many years and that was me this morning.  Minus my mom (deployed husband in parenthesis as he is here in spirit but spirit meant jack this morning) and adding 3 children, 2 dogs, 3 cats, 7 chickens and a job that needed me to get moving.  OHhhhhhhhurgghhhhhhh....and it was cold in my room.  So, I thought, I can do this but I don't think I can do Crossfit.  No way.  No how.  I am almost 40...I am writing my own frickin gym pass.  So, I plowed through my morning responsibilities.  Which, this particular morning, amounted to me commanding my children to do everything.  Then I looked on Facebook and saw this posted as the WOD (Work Out of the Day)



OH MY STARS. <grabs sports bra>  I thought...WOW.  <puts on appropriate socks>  That looks like a lot of fun.  <puts on comfy every 28 days gym pants>  For realz...I WANT to get my butt going and do that <yells at kiddo to get ready>.  The music will be awesome, cause our coach is a banging DJ too.  Plus, this WOD has things I am strong at and I know I can rock it and feel good.  <puts on shoes>  (For the record...I didn't see the burpee pull ups until I was actually there <gag>)  Just like that...I was out the door. 

I was right, it was fun.  I had a PR in the HBBS and got the 'next time use a bigger weight' encouragement from the Coach with the sled pull (90#) and KB swings (35#).  I walked away not thinking about how bad I felt (even though I still did) but how strong I felt.  Endorphins are great.  So are sled pulls by the way. 

Now, if only we had been doing CrossFit in High School PE.  Then I could have had tons of fun, enjoyed exercise and occasionally experienced performance anxiety (yes, girls have it too) while waiting in line for the rope in High School.  But, that is a blog post for another day.  That infernal rope mocks me from the corner and shall.be.mine.  One day beotch.  One day.