Like being alone…

I know Jeremy is my other half because being with him is like being alone.

Now, let me explain that, because I could see how that could sound like a bad thing.

I love being alone, I think my own company is great. I don’t make myself uncomfortable nor do I don’t make myself angry. In fact, I make myself happy. I like myself and my own companionship.

And being with Jeremy is like being alone. I am as comfortable with him as I am with myself.

He is my other half. Living with him, loving him, being around him, it’s easy and effortless because it feels like an extension of myself.

In a lot of ways he is not like me, and I don’t mean to say that he is like my clone. I’m not big on co-dependent relationships. It’s more like a combination of different and similar qualities/attitudes/beliefs that still blend together harmoniously.

It’s so peaceful and fulfilling.

Looking Back and Looking Ahead (2012-2013)

Looking Back:

• New Years 2012 – rang in the New Year at our apartment in Oceanside, CA with a kiss from my husband
• January 2012 – started my second semester of graduate school at SDSU and moved down to San Diego when Jeremy got orders to MCAS Miramar
• February 2012 – Celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary at Mt. Soledad, San Diego

• March/April – school, school, school lol
• May 2012 – finished my first year of graduate school and spent an amazing 2 weeks of pre-deployment vacation up with my family in SF

• June 2012 – Said good-bye for to my husband for deployment #2.

• Gained a sister-in-law

• July 2012 – got laid off from my summer tutoring job and spent 6 weeks watching Netflix and being a bum lol
• August 2012 – started my last year of graduate school
• Sept/Oct/Nov – school, school, school lol
• December 2012 – got my husband home from a 6 month deployment 🙂

• Turned 24 years-old
• About to start my 17 day vacation and take a road trip to WI with my husband to see my in-laws for Christmas and New Years!

Looking Ahead: (when I started writing this I thought I would have more to say, but then I realized that most of our plans for next years are in the military’s hands, and you never know what you are going to get with them lol. So I guess this is more of a prediction, or wish list ha)

• New Years in WI
• January 2013 – starting my last semester of graduate school
• February 2013 – celebrating 4 years of marriage
• March/April – working my butt off at school and internship
• May 2013 – Finally, after 6 years of college, I will be done! Graduating with my Masters of Social Work 🙂
• June – October – hopefully working an awesome job in my field that pays big $$$$
• October/November/December – Jeremy maybe being at recruiting school and possibly moving to the midwest to spend the next 2 years on recruiting finishing up his contract with the Marine Corps.

The way it’s supposed to be

Jeremy has been home from deployment for a week now. I can’t believe how fast time has gone by! When he was gone the days would drag on, I was constantly thinking about how many days had passed and how many more were left.

Now, I don’t even notice the days passing. Because this is how my life is supposed to be. His alarm waking me up at 4 am when he hits the “sleep” button 3x a morning. Being able to text him about pointless things like picking up milk on the way home and having him reply in minutes instead of days. Coming home from work and having him be home waiting for me. Cooking dinner for two. Cuddling on the couch and catching up on Criminal Minds together. Yelling at the TV during football games. Falling asleep in his arms every night.

That is my life, the way it’s supposed to be.

Watching the Packer game together the first Sunday he was home 🙂

My Weight Loss Journey

Well, I guess I can add another item under my list of “what you will find in this blog”…my weight loss journey. 

I’ve always struggled with my weight, ever since High School. I’m not obese or anything, but I’m on the high side of “normal” and occasionally my BMI will tip over to the “overweight” range. I normally wear between a 10-12 in women’s, fairly average, but certainly no bikini body. 

I hate working out and I hate eating healthy, which is probably why I struggle with my weight lol. Honestly, if I could have a metabolism that would allow me to eat what I want, never work out and maintain a socially acceptable weight, I would do it. I hate girls like that lol.

When Jeremy left for this deployment my goal was to lose 25lbs. I managed to lose 15 during the first 3 months, but then I got lazy and busy with school and work and probably put back on the 15 by the time he came home.

Jeremy, on the other hand, got into amazing shape on this deployment. He has always been slender, the man eats 3x the amount of food I do and never seems to put on a pound, damn him! lol. But over the last 6 months he has mostly been lifting weights at the gym and is now sexy buff…like, I can count all 6 abs 😉

He wants to do a triathlon soon, so we decided to get into shape together. I certainly won’t be attempting the triathlon, but I’m still going to get into my own version of “shape”. Pear is a shape, right? lol

On the Saturday after he got home we started by shopping for healthy food. We don’t eat extremely unhealthy, not like fried chicken and McDonalds every night, but normally a lot of pasta, red meat and no vegetables. 

We were going to go really healthy, but neither of us like vegetables, so we got kinda stuck lol. Plus, I think it’s important to have realistic goals, we aren’t going to be able to maintain eating nothing but steamed vegetables and grilled chicken. 

Today was the next step, gym membership! There is a gym walking distance from our apartment and today we walked over and signed up (and worked out, of course). Our plan is to go together 4 nights a week and take a spin class on Saturday and Sunday morning. 

I’m hoping that by going together we will motivate each other and it will be a good husband/wife activity for us, since most of the things we like to do together don’t involve much physical activity (e.g. going to the movies and watching TV) lol. 

So we will see how the next few months go! I’m hoping I can keep it up and start to see some small changes in my body which will motivate me to keep it up! I know the best way to get in shape is to make a lifestyle change, rather than crazy fad diets and exercise regimes. Hopefully making the change as a couple will make it stick for me this time 🙂

Homecoming #2 Finally Arrived!!!

There were many times over the last 6 months where I thought Homecoming would never come. But as one of my favorite homecoming quotes goes, “although not fast, the days will pass”, and they did 🙂

At around 10:30 pm on Thursday December 6th, I welcomed my husband home from his second deployment!

There were many date and time changes, which was incredibly frustrating. On Thursday at 10:00 am I finally got the phone call saying they were on the flight and would be there at 9:00 pm that night.

I was an emotional mess. I nearly burst into tears many times that day, just thinking about the fact that he was actually coming home to me in just a few short hours.

But I had to make it through two finals and four hours at work, so I needed to hold it together. It was the longest four hours of work EVER! lol

I headed to base right after I got off work and was one of the first families there…which was when they told me that the return time had been pushed back to 10 – 11 pm.

So I waited. My friend Heather came with me, and I had hired a photographer, so we all hang out and chatted for a few hours.

By the time we went outside to wait for the buses, I pretty emotionless. It was not a conscious effort, and maybe I do it to protect myself. Or maybe there were just so many delays and so much build up that I was just over it. Either way, I was happy he was coming home, but I wasn’t on the verge of tears like I had been for the week before he was supposed to come home.

So he got off the bus, and I ran to greet him with a smile on my face.

He was super grumpy because of the long flight and all the delays, but after we got his bags and headed home we fell right back into our normal husband/wife interactions 🙂

It felt a little weird having somebody else in my house and sharing my space again, but falling asleep in his arms felt like heaven 🙂 And waking up beside him felt like he had never left.

Is it “fair”?

The most memorable comment I ever heard about post-homecoming was from a fellow military wife. I was at a Scentsy party (which is an at-home-business like Avon or Mary Kay, but with scented wax instead of make-up) with fellow military wives and the girl who was hosting the party said that she would not be hosting any parties for the month of February becuase her husband was coming home that month and it “wouldn’t be fair to him for me to work right after he gets home”.

I was confused, and kinda angry, about this comment. As a full-time graduate student who is also working 20 hours a week, my life is busy. I have my own schedule, people relying on me and deadlines to meet. My life doesn’t stop when Jeremy leaves, nor does it stop when he comes home.

I thought about this comment today becuase Jeremy’s homecoming is right in the middle of my finals week and my work week. As much as I would love to cuddle up with my husband for a nice 4-day weekend after he gets home, I have two finals the next day and a group to run at work that night. (Thankfully he comes home in the evening so I didn’t have to worry about getting time off work for the actual homecoming.)

Is that “fair” to Jeremy? Yes, I think so. Does he rearrange his work schedule around me? No. In all honesty, he doesn’t have the power to do that, but I certainly don’t blame him or feel that it’s unfair that he had to be deployed over my college graduation or that he missed my birthday for 2 years in a row.

Granted, selling Scentsy is a little more flexible than being a grad student or working as a counselor, so if I had a different job I might take a little more time off to spend time with him right when he gets home.

But to me it’s the concept, that your husband, and his schedule, is more imoprtant that what you have going on in your own life. To me, a marriage is a joining of two complete people, with their own interests, jobs, and responsibilites. You still have your own interests and responsibilites when he comes home, just as you did before you met him and before he deployed.