How (Not) to be a Good Military Wife

November 13, 2011 By

I begin this post with a standing ovation to my heroes in uniform and the men and women serving beside them but carrying the title of “Military Spouse”.  I know that both jobs, at times, can be equally difficult and equally rewarding.  However, there are certain missteps that no self-respecting military spouse should make.  Here they are:

 

1.  Being a military spouse can be very confusing.  Yes, it is a lifestyle for your family.  But at the end of the day, it is just a job.  Your spouse’s job.  Yes, it requires long periods of separation, deployments, frequent moves etc.  but it is a job. You need to put your grown up undies on and deal with it.  If you don’t, it will make you crazy!

2.  It is no more appropriate for you to contact his boss directly than it is for him to contact yours.  If you are in a social setting or at a social function, it is not okay to talk about your husband’s career with his boss or, for that matter, anyone in his chain of command.  Commiserating between spouses is acceptable.  Sometimes.

3.  Take all that shit off your car.  Ditch the ACU purse and the “Proud Army Wife” t-shirt.  It’s called opsec.  Not advertising.  Besides, I haven’t seen anything of that genre that isn’t tacky as hell.

4.  ”Don’t confuse my rank with your authority” is a myth.  You have no rank, you have no authority.  Period.  Your position as household six does not put you in his official command structure.  NEVER NEVER NEVER call your husband’s boss to bitch about anything.  Trust me when I say your beloved will thank you for it.  All these calls do is cause complications and get your loved ones’ mates thinking he’s whipped and ineffective.  ”Does your wife make all your decisions?”  If you’re calling his chain of command, the answer to that is a hard to disprove “yes”.

5.  Support your local family programs.  There is strength in numbers and the friendships you will make during your spouse’s career are invaluable.  Just like in every situation, these social groups are what you make of it.  If you don’t like it, put yourself out there and change it.  Use your powers for good!

6.  Take time to pursue your own interests and stay your own person.  Work if it suits you, get an education, volunteer.  Keep your marketable skills sharp.  You never know when you might need them.  Do not vest yourself so fully in your spouse’s career, that you neglect your own.

7. Manage your money wisely.  Be a fully informed partner in your financial future.  There are lots of benefits to military life.  Familiarize yourself with them and use them to the max!

8.  The very best advice I can give you is to treat people the way the way you expect to be treated.  Not everyone will be nice to you but you will still like the person looking back at you in the mirror.  Also, if you notice that EVERYONE is being a bitch, it’s not them.  It’s you.

 

 

Filed Under: Army Life, Blogging, Don't make me break stuff Tagged With: ,

New Challenge!

February 11, 2010 By

One of the fun things about being an Army Family is that you get to move – a LOT! And, in our case, you get to move all over the place. Every house is a new organizational challenge.

This house is no exception. The problem is, as a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, I really have no excuse other than the children. So I’ll be taking on a new challenge over the next few days (with! pictures!). I’m going to organize my house by applying Lean Six Sigma Methods – 5S, Visual Controls, etc.

My goal is to spend 60-90 minutes in one area every day on a 5S activity and photograph it when I am done as the visual control piece. The visual controls will hopefully serve as checks for the children on whether their chores are done well enough. Wish me Luck!

Filed Under: Army Life, Destination Organization Tagged With: , ,

Guess What’s on Everyone’s Mind at Our House?

December 19, 2008 By

The Khan and the Emporer meet Santa

You bet! Today’s the last day before Christmas break and, while I don’t have a ton of Christmas spirit, the fellas are geeked. The Czar is even helping 1SG keep my present a secret. They shopped yesterday. Alone. I was worried. Then 1SG comes home with this “Academy Sports” entry in the checkbook. He’s sneaky. I’m sneakier and I balance the checkbook. I didn’t see “Academy Sports” online. I saw “Helzberg Diamonds”. Maybe this is getting interesting after all…

Funny story: Last week the Senator had an orchestra performance. He wanted to stay afterwards for the handbell choir’s performance. One of the pieces was “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”. He leans over to me and says “Mom, there’s a word in this song. Well, it’s kind of like a swear word.”

Sing with me: “Now bring us some friggin’ pudding. Now bring us some friggin’ pudding. Now bring us some friggin’ pudding and bring it right now.”

I had to clarify. Then I had to explain both figs and figgy pudding. Maybe I shouldn’t have corrected him.

Filed Under: Army Life, Frivolity, kidspeak

The Big Night!

March 16, 2008 By


The food was fine. The wine “acceptable” (not!). The DJ was terrible. My date: impeccable. It was fun. Actually, for an Army dog-and-pony, it was really fun. We enjoyed ourselved immensely.

Unfortunately, that’s the whole story.

Filed Under: Army Life, Quickies

Crap! I need a blog topic!

March 10, 2008 By

Where’s the book when I need it? I didn’t mean that I was not going to blog any more after last Tuesday’s post and I certainly didn’t mean for it to be almost a week on radio silence. I have seven or eight readers to keep happy and that’s a VERY. BIG. DEAL.

I don’t want to say I’ve no thoughts because I’m full of them but most of those thoughts are real downers. I’ll be 40 in a month and a half and it is typical me to do a retrospective around the anniversary of my birth and to be pissed off. Pissed off is where I am. Really, it would be great to say things are looking up and the future’s rosy but the reality is that all my dreams are dead. Dire? Sure. But let’s take a look:

Job: Have to move because I can’t afford to stay. Even if I did stay, the state’s budget crisis threatens to undermine my job security anyway.

House: What do I really need to say? We’ll lose the Michigan house one way or another and quite likely never be in a position to own our own house again. Not to mention that the business of my dreams is still for sale and there is no viable way I’ll ever be able to purchase it. I know I could make it successful but I can’t make the purchase so what’s the difference? Do you know that I seriously did play the lottery for about three weeks hoping that the odds, while absolutely impossible, might swing in my favor. I literally pissed away a full $60.00 and didn’t win a dime.

Websites: The domain renewals are due for lisasharp.com and asisterforkostya.com. I have decided not to renew the adoption website because another adoption will never happen. I’m not over reacting and I’m no longer kidding myself. At this point I’m leaning toward not renewing the hosting account and effectively ending lisasharp.com’s run also.

Grumpy much? No, not really. I’m resigned and resigning. I’m a follower whether I like it or not so follow is what I will do. Hopefully the leader has a good map.

Filed Under: Army Life, Mondays, Random Stuff

Stressful…

February 27, 2008 By

I have just over two weeks (until March 14) to turn a sow into a silk purse. Yes, the sow is me and I will be escorted by my dashing soldier husband (I’m not even going to lie about how seeing him in his dress uniform makes me twitter – it does to his unit’s annual dining out. For you lucky non-Army people uninitiated, a dining out is a FORMAL event. Formal as in Sarge wears his very sexy blues and I need a formal dress. I need suggestions. Links, pictures, moral support. I am not a teeny tiny girl, I’m me. I haven’t worn a long dress since my first wedding and that fucker didn’t even fit. No idea where to look, what to look for, shoes, hair, makeup, nothing. I am completely clueless. This is the very first time I will accompany my husband of 14 years to a formal event and I guess I would like to make my best effort at looking good. Please, loyal readers, help me!

Edit: I think I have it covered. I went with this:
And this:

Plus a little black clutch purse. Now I just need shoes and jewels.

Filed Under: Army Life, Random Stuff

Hug Me Now. Hate Me Later.

December 19, 2007 By

This monumental announcement I promised? Yeah. I could make it, but after a lot of consideration, I just, well, I can’t. It’s stressing me out too much right now. I will say this:

No Adoption
House didn’t sell
Nothing else major like that. We are all healthy and (for the most part) happy. Okay?

One of my blog readers knows but I’d ask her not to say anything. It’s important for the moment, k? Tal, I’ll e-mail you.

Filed Under: Army Life, Brave New World, Quickies

Five Signs You’re Raising Army Brats

October 27, 2007 By

1. You call them to attention and they move to attention.

2. They not only can define PLF (I am not sure what exactly it is but I think it is Parachute Landing Formation – landing from a jump with knees and ankles together and soft to cushion your landing), they do them. Often. From Everything.

3. You get them to leave Grandma’s house with hand and arm signals for “Rally” and “Move”

4. They have zero interest in GI Joes because they live with one.

5. Conversations like this:
Senator and Khan run up stairs

Khan: “Where’s daddy? I’m hungry!”
Me: “He’ll be home in a minute, sweetie, and then we can have dinner.”
Senator: “Oh, he must be the late man today.”
Khan: “Late man? Oh! Papa’s the late man today!”

Sound of Senator and Khan running back downstairs

Filed Under: Army Life, kidspeak

Saturday?!?

July 28, 2007 By

I hope that this blog never becomes the “Today I had fries and a burger for lunch and it was awesome” kind of blog that there are all too many of and yet, despite a long list of things I can think of to write when I don’t have time, when I do I have time topics for blogging escape me.

See, I know you don’t really want to hear about our house. Hell, I don’t want to talk about our house or our useless realtor or anything even close to that topic. Well, except that my friend Miss Linda has become our eyes and ears in GR and, may I say, SHE IS AWESOME! My realtor doesn’t like any of it and hasn’t answered an e-mail in a week. Sorry. Sell my damn house and then I’ll be off your back. That or September 1 you’ll be rid of me. Just SELL MY DAMN HOUSE. M’kay? Before you know it, I’ll have a Paypal button on here begging for help with the mortgage payment.

You probably don’t want to hear much about the job I’m leaving. I had to give four weeks’ notice despite having only been there a month which I found odd, but whatever. It is a great group of people to work with and I’m happy to leave on good terms. It’s kind of rare, you know? I’m used to working places where you don’t finish your notice because people are, well, paranoid might be the right word. And, because I read Dooce, I never blog about work. It will be a challenge to be suitably vague about teaching – did I tell you I’m teaching? Did I happen to mention how totally geeked up I am about it? And, for the record, it’s official. Contract signed, keys in hand and name on the webpage. It’s not attached to the classes yet, but that will come soon, I hope.

So what DO you want me to talk about? The family’s fine. We’re boring ;) Just ask the kids. Summer vacation is too long!

Filed Under: Army Life, Random Stuff

Is There Anyone Out There…

June 15, 2007 By

’cause its getting harder and harder to breathe!

Wow, what a maelstrom of activity this last two weeks has been. The move was basically a debacle. They brought the teeny tiniest truck – basically the size of the largest U-haul – to move back what a full-sized semi trailer had brought over. And, no, it didn’t all fit – they left a large folding table and Paul’s handy dandy wall locker behind and I’m still learning whether they forgot to pack up the stuff that is stored in the drawer under the stove. No, it wasn’t fun to watch either. They were late both days due to a crazy comedy of errors, I guess. Traffic the first day and a broken scale the next day. Then, it is supposed to be a direct move, right? Check the map, dear seven loyal readers, and tell me whether a direct move from Grand Rapids, MI to Tomah, WI has any business going via Detroit? So our stuff sat in a parking lot in Detroit Wednesday and Thursday before leaving Friday for our Saturday morning delivery. Fabulous. Were it not for the fact my husband realizes the significance of Nitro in my life, I would not be here today. I would be in a nice, calm sanitarium because stupid people sent me there.

Evidently the rules are different for a military move. When you’re moving Military families, you use a lot more boxes, can’t move things that you could otherwise (like PAM cooking spray), and they can deliver it whenever the hell they feel like it as long as the Requested Delivery Date is met. When we moved over, it was three days. Pack, Load/ Drive, Deliver. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday – and they came back for the boxes. We’ll not discuss the option of help unpacking with a corporate move and the complete lack of such assistance with the Military move. We will also not discuss the fact that the Government will buy your house if you’re a civilian who opts to move for professional advancement, but if you’ve got no choice because you’re Military, then you’re on your own. Forgive me but I think this is BULLSHIT.

The family is doing well. We’re adjusting to new routines for daycare and such while Shrek and I continue to do battle about everything! I just want him to keep his hand out of my pocket. The bank needs to close – know what I mean? AND DO NOT CALL ME A FUCKING TWEAK WHEN YOU’RE ASKING ME FOR MONEY! Then his idiot wants child support lowered. Yes, my children are nearly 18 and 20 and I still get support for them. They’ll get it until they have a college degree or quit going. It’s a 15 year-old agreement that doesn’t need to change as far as I am concerned. Christ. I have given Shrek about $850 this month alone and he’s pissing about $25? Yesterday Prince Douchebag (Wow, I absolutely love that name! He will hereafter be known as PDB for Prince Douchebag) asked me if we could sit down and set a flat amount for support lower than what he’s paying now. I would rather gouge out my eyes with plastic utensils than sit down with him so I foolishly agreed to hear his offer on Saturday at The Queen’s graduation party. Poor bastard doesn’t know that my answer to any offer will be “What the fuck are you smoking?” I try not to hate anyone but my dislike of PDB is very, very intense. See? I can too be politically correct!

The Queen dismays me solely by requiring me to be parental. Dammit. She’s got Freshman Orientation today at my alma mater. Oh how I don’t wanna go. But she’s making me and I hate her for it. We have, however, outlined which events I will go to and which there is no way I’m doing. I believe the plan is for me to take her there and pick up her welcome packet, skip the next hour and a half, pick her up for lunch, skip the next 45 minutes and accompany her to her advising session. In return she has agreed to take Personal Finance first semester. I’ll show her the beauty of an override if I have to in order to get her in that class. I’ve also shown her how to tune out the “REACH and SHARE” session with the help of her iPod and wearing her hair down because no one’s got one on me when it comes to slacking and ignoring people that bore me while not appearing overtly rude. Stealth is key. Besides, I figure if kids can listen to the Packer game during graduation a little iPod action during orientation won’t hurt anyone.

On the job front, my head is spinning, spinning, spinning. My dear friends, after languishing for two years with zero or near zero prospects, I have not one, not two but nearly three job offers. That’s right, three. The position I accepted in Market Research and nearly turned down after accepting a position with the PX which I will be turning down because of an agreement I’d be required to sign agreeing to move without my children (aka “take an unaccompanied tour”) or stating that I am not willing to be mobile and make my prospects for advancement effectively zero and…

Sit down, people. This is some crazy shit.

I applied at the school where I earned my B.S. degree (yes, people, I have a BS degree it’s what makes me so good at it) to be a “pool instructor” meaning I’d teach a class or two as the university needed me to in whichever department in the CBA had the need. The day I came to town for the interviews for the other two jobs, I stopped by to deliver a transcript to the Associate Dean (who happens to be my FIN 485 instructor that gave me an “A” and remembers me well) and chat for a bit because I’m like that, you know? Chatty. It was great to catch up and we did talk about teaching and getting a PhD and all that kind of interesting stuff.

Fast forward to the following week when I get an e-mail from the chair of the Marketing Department saying he’s got a copy of my resume and he wants to talk to me about teaching in the Marketing Department. “Cool! I’ll be in the Pool!” I think. I can teach a night or a weekend class or two and still do one or the other full-time things. It’ll be teaching, which I got my Master’s to do and a little extra money.

We agree to meet to discuss this further yesterday afternoon. With me so far? I show up for the meeting stressed out because I’d forgotten to get something other than tennis shoes to wear with my twin set and capris. I had no idea how formal this discussion would be or what to expect, mind you. NO CLUE. But I show up promptly at 1:00 and he’s wearing jeans and sandals so I relax. And then I freaked the fuck out.

I interviewed for a full-time instructional academic staff position and knocked it out of the PARK people. He wants me for this job and he wants me ASAP. The offer isn’t formal yet. He said he wanted to pass it by the other two tenured faculty in the Marketing Department and needed to pass it by an Associate Dean (yes, that Associate Dean – the one who gave him not only my resume but a glowing recommendation) for approval before extending an offer. He said that one of the two faculty members would likely say “If you like her, she’s fine by me too” and the other would want to meet. Then he showed me my office. Then the one that would most likely want to meet me walked in and we, uhm, met. I think it went well. This position would be the same pay as the second job offer, a little less than the first, teaching approximately 160 students in two sections each of two different classes. It is an academic year contract meaning summers off unless I’m asked to teach in the summer in which case it’d pay more and full-time academic staff usually works 25-30 hours per week (so 25-30 hours would pay as much as 40 at job number 2 and just a little less than job number 1). W00t! But no formal offer yet so I am wrestling with what to do. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, right? But I’m still thinking “What the hell?” Nothing for two years and now everything!? My dream job is almost in the palm of my hand. It still amazes me.

After spending yesterday afternoon wondering what to do, I decided to decline the second offer i
n favor of the first – getting the official offer documents made it a very easy choice and hope that if/when the teaching position materializes, we can work something out. The boss there does seem like the kind of person that would understand and I would be willing to stay part-time if they’d let me. Does that seem fair or do I decline both offers waiting for the third one? I could use some advice here and I could use it by 6:00 Monday morning. Thanks!

Filed Under: Army Life, Indulge Me, Rants, What do you think?
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