Be happy where you are

I have been forming this entry for a few days now.  I actually started thinking about being happy where I am after thinking of all the things I was unhappy with at the moment.  I was tired from working all day, H was crying, I was trying to make supper, I found out I missed a deadline for a school project and didn't know how it was going to affect my grade, and I was battling a headache!  Ugh!  I decided to be happy for all the good things I have in my life.  I have an amazing husband who told me last week he is pretty sure he is the biggest fan of my blog :) I have a wonderful daughter that I get to teach to grow into a beautiful woman who trusts herself and trusts God more.  I have a wonderful family in WI and other places that really does love me.  I get along with my inlaws very well.  I have great friends, both here, back in WI, and now all over the world.  I have a warm place to lay my head, my vehicle starts and runs when I need it to, I make enough money to make it beneficial for me to pay for daycare to help provide for my family.  I am just so blessed.

So, in the middle of my thinking of all these things, Rick comes in to tell me that he wants to trade in his car, which we have only had a few months, for a vehicle for me so that his girls can be safe and secure while driving around.  I told him he feels guilty because he has the nice vehicle and I have the older one.  He agreed, but said that is really what he wanted. 

I started looking.  I knew that the next vehicle I bought, I wanted to be a Jeep Grand Cherokee.  I found one about 70 miles from here and we are going to look at it on Friday.  I am now pretty excited.  I am still uncertain why he has decided to abandon the car, but I guess it is ok with me.

Back to being happy where you are:
I have been pretty down since about March.  In March my best friend down here left me!  We were really two peas in a pod.  We never ran out of things to talk about and it was always a great time when we were together.  She really did get me through Rick's deployment.  I have mentioned it before, but she kept me sane when I wanted to pull my hair out.  I think one of the most special experiences we got to share together was the day Rick came home finally. 

He was on the last flight for our Battalion (about 600-700 people total in the Battalion).  We had gone to so many home comings together.  Her husband was already home and had been since May, mine wasn't coming until January, so it was a little funny that we were not Family Readiness Group leaders, but we still made it to so many.  I missed 2 and I am a little glad I missed the 2 I missed.  I missed the one on Christmas eve.  I was a little happy to miss that one since so many of the guys from our company (about 150 people guys) were coming home and Rick was not one of them.  The second one I missed was on New Years Eve, it was at 11:30 at night and I couldn't justify taking H out at that time a night when it wasn't her daddy coming home.

But, the day Rick came home, that was another story.  We arrived when we were supposed to, I was so nervous.  It was surreal because I had been to so many that I knew what to expect.  We got to sit pretty close to the front and the wife of Commander of the whole Brigade (about 3500 people) asked how old H was and if she had seen her daddy yet...I said that she had, but she was only 3 months old at the time and she was 9 months old now.  They were so excited for us to be able to see our soldier!  Based on the fact that we had been to so many, we knew what music went with what portions.  During the Army Strong commercial song, we knew that the guys were walking in to line up behind the large curtain in the gym.  When it was playing, Sarah looked over at me and said "he's over there Sara, he's finally over there!"  We both just started crying.  We were a wreck!  We still had to wait, the curtain had to rise, they had to play the Big Red 1 song, the Star Spangled Banner, and then be released, then I would have to find him.  All the while, Sarah was holding my 17 pound baby so that I could run to find my love.  When they were finally released, Sarah looked at me and yelled...."RUN"  So I went running.  As many of you know, that was an epic FAIL as I tripped over myself and fell at his feet, but it was all worth it in the end, he was home, in my arms, safe and sound.  Sarah brought H and we had our fist family picture in 6 months!

Sarah's status on Facebook later that night was about how she has many friends and each welcome home ceremony was meaningful, but seeing her girl H be reunited with her daddy took the cake.  I am crying just remembering it.  Whew

I am an Army wife and I knew this would happen.  Just like I knew Rick would be deployed and I would go through the fear and anxiety with it, I knew my friends would leave and I would leave and we would meet again at some other post.  Well, it is different to know it than to live it!

Sarah was my first friend to leave me in the Army.  When I was a kid, no one really moved away, everyone stayed close.  When we went to college, everyone left together, even leaving college.  I also feel it is so much different leaving someone than being left!

I have decided I do not like being left!

But I will be happy where I am and make new friends when I can.  I have already started, a little.  Last weekend we made friends with our neighbors and I do like her...she is not the typical Army wife (Sarah isn't either, neither am I), so I love it!

Anyway, I am happy where I am and I will continue to look at the glass as half full!