Make your own oatmeal bar

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I started with the base recipe oatmeal from www.katheats.com

Boil 1/3 cup oats with 1/3 cup soy milk and 1/3 cup water. Add an entire thinly sliced banana once it starts to boil.

Then give your kids a choice of toppings and let them design away!





She added a blob of no sugar added apple sauce, a blob of Marion berry preserves and 8 chocolate chips.

She had a ton of fun and is getting all her soluble fiber (she hates oatmeal normally!)


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Suprises of the best kind.

Thursday afternoon, while I was cleaning the house trying to distract myself from the whole deployment thing, the dog suddenly started barking out the window. I peeked out the window, only to discover my best friend Jessica waking across my driveway. I nearly propelled myself out barefoot on sharp rocks and probably scared the heck out of my neighbors with my screaming! What an amazing friend, she came to be here for Zoe's birthday!

We had a whirlwind weekend of activities, restaurants and scenery. We covered all the way North to Bainbridge Island and across the sound on the ferry into Seattle. We also worked in a Harvest Dance and dinner at a Thai restaurant. I have some wonderful memories to take away from the weekend, there was a lot of laughing and reminiscing. Truly great for the soul.

But oh the rain, rain rain! It has been nonstop and doens't show any signs of letting up. We lost power yesterday in our town, including the school. Apparently this is a common occurence. I am learning all about living through a winter on an acre of land with a hundred trees, and a (electrically powered) well pump and a septic tank. It is actually really enpwering for me to be able to trek in the wood and build fires!

She went to bed four and woke up fifteen.

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Location:Pumpkin patch.

Best friends, angel daughters and flowers!

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If I could just squeeze in there...

Maybe they could send me to daddy!


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PIcking Myself Up By My Bootstraps...

The first few hours after Chris leaves are always very intense. Basically the overwhelming feeling is panic. It's strange and it always catches me by surprise. I expect to be sad, I expect to be determined. I always, always forget the panic. Today while looking forward onto a fairly long period of time without him, I sort of felt like the wind got knocked out of me a bit.

But I have managed to get through an entire nine hours without him so far and pretty soon I will head off to bed, having survived a day. One then once one day is over, the next one starts and then ends and before you know it, this whole thing is a distant memory.

People approach the initial send off in different ways. Some people like to take their "other" to the airport, others like to stay home and not deal with the emotional intensity that occurs there. We have always gone to the airport together (in fact we have a wonderful, long standing joke about this that makes it sort of fun). In the past, I have both scheduled a million things for the hours after and scheduled nothing at all, wanting to be alone with the feelings.

I toed the line today. I made no plans ahead of time, but called a good friend of mine who has a daughter Zoe's age first, figuring the distraction would be good for both of us. We had a very casual day. Luckily the sun was shining and I was able to soak up some much needed Vitamin D. I also made plans to have dinner at Panera Bread with my sister in law and nephew, who always cheer me up.

We left everyone at about 6:30 and drove home before the girls' bedtime. This gave me time to cuddle, change and feed Abby and then to read, snuggle and talk with Zoe. It was a great mix of busy and calm. Everyone is sound asleep now, including the dog, who is always unhappy when she realizes that Daddy isn't here.

I am left alone with my emotions and I have had some ups and downs so far. The hardest part isn't that I have to be self-reliant. The hardest part isn't the loneliness. The hardest part isn't the work involved. The hardest part is just missing the person who I love talking to, adore listening to, and who pushes me when I need it. But I digress into cheesiness.

I have scheduled appointments with some baby sitters tonight. I do have in laws an hour or so away, but I think I need to have some back  ups in case of emergency and for sanity. I am also trying to schedule some classes for January and will need some help with Abby then.

On a lighter note, I am reading "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest". It's a fantastic book, the final in the series. And with Chris gone, I am finally going to finish it. Not a fair trade off by any means, but I am trying to look on the bright side here.

A Brief Q & A About the Upcoming Deployment

I have received a variety of questions/comments about Chris' upcoming deployments and I expect my blog posts will pick up as a way of keeping him in the loop. I am going to just address some things that I have been asked or told so far.

Q: He is out of the army. Why is he going back there?
A: Yes, he got out of the army. And while in the army, he did all of the things he was supposed to (got a Bachelor's Degree and a Cisco certification) and he was fortunate enough to get a great job in this economy. That job kind of expects people to take their "turn" overseas and it's good to get it over with early on.

Q: Well, I imagine it will be easier since he is "just" a contractor.
A: Anytime we are separated is difficult on all of us, whether he is overseas or one state over. However, this is something that we have become good at and we will get through this. I also get just as pissed off at this comment as I did when people told me that I was "just" his girlfriend, "just" his fiance, or that he "just" did shorter deployments. None of this makes a freaking difference. One day is great, the next one sucks. And there are tons of Navy wives who go through this all the time when their husbands are on subs or on a ship and I can only imagine how aggravated they must feel when being told "at least" their husbands aren't overseas.

Q: Isn't that a really horrible thing to do to the kids?
A: Well, we had a lot of difficult choices to make. Staying in the army would have been pretty difficult given some situations with the housing market and our condo in Florida. We wanted to give them a house with a yard and great schools, and so we are sacrificing to make that happen.

Q: But don't you think the industrial-military complex is just soo messed up? You are profiting from the war.
A: How I feel about the industrial-military complex will always come second to how I feel about my family. And I find this vaguely insulting. Contractors actually outnumber soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan right now, and I think that it's great that some very overworked soldiers (who have done multiple deployments with little rest) get to be home for a change. And while I have some issues with the concept in general, I can't help the fact that it's the reality of the world.


So that's that. I am having some difficulty figuring out how this is all going to go, and how and if it willbe different from being a military spouse. I am sure that some things will be much easier and others might be somewhat harder.

The bottom line in all of this: I support my husband, who is doing an extraordinary thing to take care of his me and our daughters.

My life never feels as overwhelming as it seems when I write it all down

It's been a long time since I have felt compelled or inspired to do more than just the monthly and event posts for the kids. I think a lot of that was just Abby not wanting to go to sleep at night and me falling into an exhausted heap right behind her. Now that she goes to bed reasonable early and Zoe follows a few hours later, I atually have some time to myself. It's amazing!

We have moved and settled into our brand new house. It is so amazing to love where I live. I feel so at peace here and I am remembering so many of the things I always loved to do. I guess somewhere around nine months after a baby is born you suddenly sort of look around and remember who you are.

And a ROUGH and busy nine months it has been. We moved when Abby was three weeks old, which means the movers came and we cleaned the condo out when she was two weeks old. No matter how hard I tried to take it easy, there was always something to do. That coupled with the fact that Abby only very recently started sleeping the night just kind of made me not myself for a lot of the last year. And I don't really like that feeling, but those days are behing me and I definitely feel much cheerier these days.

I am obsessed with the little town where we live. It's a strange and wonderful place. We have pretty much no chain restaurants, but it's still big enough that you would expect it. We have a waterfront downtown area, and they have now zoned most of it that you have to have a full five acres to build a new home. The school Zoe attends is just unbelievable. I love the small town feel around here so much. Yesterday our neighbors down the street picked their daughter up from the bus stop on their horse! It was great to watch the horse walk past my front door (thankfully not pooping right there!).

Chris and I got to go away for the weekend without the kids last week, and that was just as amazing as you would expect it to be. We stayed at the Renaissane Clubsport outside of San Francisco. It was very strange being away from the kids for so long, but they were in good hands and it was really good for us.

It was especially good for us because we are closing in on yet another deployment. Chris is headed to Korea for about a month at the end of this month and then will be heading back over to Afghanistan in early December for about a year. I am having a hard time verbalizing my feelings about this, and it may  be because it hasn't truly sunk in for me. It's going to be hard being in a new place without any nearby friends or support. His family is a little over an hour from here, so I do have them in case of an emergency but I don't have any "let's grab coffee" friends nearby.

As for making friends, it is so hard when you are an adult! It seems like I become the most awkward and strange person whenever I meet new people. I think I definitely take some getting used to. I manage to say all the most inappropriate things. But I am confident that if I stop being so lazy about it (and really attend those mom groups, etc instead of just thinking it would be a good idea) then I will make some friends.

And I miss my people in Florida. A lot. I miss my mom and dad and my Jessica and Carol and my brother's family. But I love it in Washington. I love my house and my town and the school here. I love the fall and the cold weather and the wild blackberries that grow all over everything. I wish I could somehow merge the two because I feel a lot of guilt about not being able to be there for people on the East Coast sometimes.

This has turned into something much longer than I intended but I guess it's good I got the baseline information out of the way so that I can just jump in with thoughts from here on out.

And now, for those of you who haven't read this far but just want a quick glimpse of my life's recent goings ons: