Color

Photo A Day April Day #2: Color



Photo A Day April

Okay, I've seriously been slacking. So I figured I would do the photo a day challenge for April...I'd have to post something everyday! And I know it's 'photo' a day...but I figured I'm going to post a few photos for each day.

Also, I just sent out Velle's Easter care package. But he's a stalker so he'll be check to see what I sent so I'm going to wait until after he gets it to write about it!

Here's the photo a day challenge:

Today is your reflection. I took one of these today for Instagram (I'm obssessed!!) but the rest are past ones that I like. Enjoy!

<3

Nightmares...

Since I was a child I have incredibly scary nightmares. I wake up some nights screaming, thrashing, the whole bit. But the majority of the time I wake up remembering something small, heart pounding, and can't fall back asleep for hours. And there's other times Velle tells me I jump in my sleep or fight him and I wake up not really remembering those.

Since Velle left my nightmares focus mainly on his deployment. I've had dreams where he's died, where he's missing, where I'm patiently waiting at the airport but he ignores me as he gets off the plane. That kinda of stuff. Mostly just the stuff that scares me to death. (I don't really think Velle will ignore me, it's more I'm afraid we won't know each other or be okay with each other.)


In the dream, they didn't know if he was alive or dead. Which in my waking scared me more because in reality I didn't know either. Days went by and I pretty much lost it.

These nightmares scare me to death. They bring to my forebrain all the fears I try all day to push back and push back. I wake up freaking out and don't really calm down until I talk to him again. Which most recently was about four days and the nightmare played over and over when I fell asleep until it was at the point I just couldn't sleep.

It's scary not knowing anythin.g about the person you love. What they're doing at that exact moment. What they're thinking about. Whether they're safe. It scares me to death. I feel like keeping myself incredibly busy keeps my mind off it...but when it's the middle of the night and you've dreamt the worst, how can you not think the worst?

I need some serious help with my anxiety or something.

I just can't wait til he comes home.

Camo Connect

Hellooo!

I just wanted to quickly say I recently joined a site called Camo Connect. It's meant to specifically join military significant others together to support each other during deployments, distance and just everything military. I'm kinda obsessed with it now. It's really nice to see some pictures/etc of women going through what I go through.

Blogger does that for me too by that way :)

But anyway, thought you military S/O's would like to take a look.

Playing Catch Up

I haven't blogged in awhile. And I haven't really talked about what's going on with me... mostly because it's a whole bunch of nothing. I'm working constantly around 50 plus hours a week. And therefore, I'm not doing anything when I'm home besides relaxing, talking to Velle, etc.

I'm having some difficulty dealing with my friends here at home. They all seem to think I should be normal. I've been working a lot to keep myself busy, but it means I'm lazy the rest of the day. That being said, they also seem to think since he's been gone so long I won't be upset about it anymore. But it couldn't be further from the truth. I have moments of complete clarity and normalcy. There are other moments where I want nothing more than to go back to bed.

The problem with civilian friends as much as they want to be there for you. They can't. Not in the right ways. They don't understand why you want to put off a movie because a last minute Skype date. Why on earth you carry your phone everywhere and want it to be fully charged no matter what. They don't get why sometimes you burst into tears at the silly stuff. They try to be sympathetic..."I would be really sad too...Are you ok?...Do you need anything, anything at all?"

But they can't really know what it's like. I feel bad for my friends because I feel like they are trying to understand, but they also bug me. My one friend and I recently got into a little disagreement because after not hearing from my boy for a week he contacted me an hour before I was supposed to go over to her house and wanted to Skype. She told me it was a stupid excuse to blow her off. It really hurt my feelings because she completely did not get it. But then again, I can feel understand why she felt ditched.

It's complicated. I'm just in need of a close military spouse friend who can relate. And I need to find some balance between this crazy Army life and my civilian one too.

Tragedy At Home

Today a horrific act was committed. A student opened fire at a local high school killing one and injuring four more students. Read the story here.

This school... Chardon High School...is less than ten minutes from my high school and childhood home. I can't count how many times I've been there for sports events, July 4th fireworks, everything. I have multitudes of friends who went to Chardon and know several families who still have children there.

This incident shook me to my very core. I grew up in a small town where everyone knew everyone. You literally couldn't trip without someone hearing about it less than a minute later. Chardon is considered a city population wise (as of like a year or two ago), however it's a small community too. Chardon was the center of the rural county I grew up in, and therefore considered a very intricate part of our community. I have close knit connections to that town and the high school. Everyone in Geauga County is hurt and mourning this terrible act. In fact my Twitter and Facebook have been blowing up from my childhood friends and classmates feeling so much pain over what happened.

I am in a state of shock.

The news has literally been saying all day "This could happen anywhere." And that the students saying"I would never thought this would happen in Chardon" is just an indictative statment of teenagers. What they don't understand is just how TRUE that is.

First, watch the video in the article I posted. Everyone in the press conference is on the verge of tears and hurting. The entire community is in shock and sadness. Second, violence DOES NOT happen in our community. My parents chose our town because of it's low crime rates and great school scores. The entire county of Geauga is like that. It's a rural community, most of it's economy is based on agriculture or small factories. Geauga County holds the 3rd largest Amish population in the country, just to give you an idea. The majority of the county is related by blood to someone else, there is hardly anyone (with perhaps the exception of my family) that didn't grow up in Geauga County and has generations of family all over the county. Chances are if you were to throw three stones, two of them would hit people who are related to each other.



Maple Festival, "Downtown" Chardon

 Everyone cares for everyone. Everyone knows everyone. I know a lot of families who don't lock their doors while they are at home. What's the point? You'd probably know the person who walked into your house anyway. Most families have acres of land, so it's nearly impossible to imagine someone walking through all that to just steal something.

Violence is not common. In fact, you rarely hear about someone hurting someone else. The last great tragedy we had as a community is a family that lost a son in a terrible work accident. People just don't go around shooting each other. People don't hurt each other. It just doesn't happen.

The fact is, something was wrong with this young teenager who felt his only option was to hurt people. Even in small communities like ours, bullying is commonplace. But that does not condone these terrible acts. The world can be a harsh place, and knowing the difference between the right and wrong way to deal with it is something parents should teach their children everyday.

I am thinking constantly of the families of the victims which I have many connections to. I ask that you all hug the people you love today. Especially if you have children. Teach them what to do in situations like these. Teach them right from wrong. Making sure your kids know you love them can really make all the difference.

And send that deployed significant other an 'I love you' via email or whatever. You never know what life is gonna give and take from you.

My Dog

I'm currently at my parents house watching my beautiful doggie dog, Maggie. She's incredibly old and pathetic for the most part, she can barely walk and it takes her about twenty minutes to stand up. And I'm pretty sure she has Doggie Alzheimer's... today for whatever reason, instead of eating her food she decided to rub her nose against the carpet. She rubbed her nose so much and so hard she ripped a good chunk of skin off her nose and she bled everywhere. She still wouldn't eat and my mom told me to give her one of her pills...Which she just gobbled up oddly. I don't know what the pills are but she went larthargic after that and fell asleep.



Maggie this past summer.

Naturally, I bawled like a baby cleaning up her blood and cleaning her nose. I couldn't help thinking about how I was losing her. Slowly, but surely. She'll be 14 this summer, so I've had her for the good majority of my life. So not only is she my best doggie friend, she represents a lot for me. My life here in Ohio. My struggles as a teenager, breakups and the like. Everything. It breaks my heart to think about losing her because I can't imagine life without her. How on earth can I do anything hard ever again without her?

This of course could potentially make deployment a little harder for me. She's been a stand-up support system for me. Every hard obstacle I've had in my life she's been there with her goofy smile and a small lick on the hand. She's not quite the same as she used to be, but dogs are so healing regardless of their mental states. They love you unconditionally and hate to see you hurt. Losing her during this deployment might destroy me.

But when all's said and done, I'm grateful for her. She makes me smile when I need it most. I'm always excited to come to my parent's house to see her. (Yea, I guess to see my parents too. haha) I definately need to get my own dog at home, especially once I lose Maggie. But for now, I have the bestest friend in the world.