It may not be "new" news to everyone, but my husband was set to deploy this month. I didn't want to talk much about it to "ANYONE" until I knew he was safely in place. Now that he is, I wanted to share a little more personal side of me on the blog. Our Deployment Bucket List. Something that would keep us busy & HOPEFULLY makes the days go faster. We won't be seeing my husband basically till the new year, so we have quite some time to accomplish things.
This is our first deployment. {But not my husband's} It's only been a few days into this deployment and I feel like I have cabin fever already. Plus a little bit of Groundhound Day too, since everyday seems like we are on repeat. People have asked me "Are you ok?" more than I can count. YES, I am! You just have to stay positive & BUSY! I don't want to think of the bad or dwell on the negatives. I won't be sucked into a dark hole where I think this is the end of the world. Because it's not. I'm taking it as a challenge & I accept it.
And honestly, lil man & I are in such a daily routine, we haven't really noticed a change until night time & the weekends roll around. We rarely saw my husband in the morning and never for lunch either before he left. Not many people know, but the military life isn't as cozy as you think. He goes to work at 630am and comes home around 6pm. Since we live about 15 minutes away from the base, we decided it wasn't cost efficient for him to come home for lunch. So he takes a bagged lunch & we sometimes snuck in at work to say hello. The weekends were our prime time to hang out together. We always made the best out of them.
So with the change, I feel like we have to stay busy to make time go faster. If I'm too much in the house, I literally get stir crazy. Which then leads to me going to Hobby Lobby or Target, and blowing lots of money {which is BAD!} So I decided I needed a Deployment Bucket List. Something I can say "Ok, we are doing this. Let's go!" Plus it will be fun to look back at in the future, because everything will be documented of course. {duh!} This also gives reassurance to my husband when he checks in on Facebook, that we are ok. He can focus on his mission and we will focus on ours. And I'm not saying that in a bad way....but he doesn't need more stress on him while he's over there. As a Air Force wife & mother, I have to hold down the home-front and this is my way.
In no particular order, here is our deployment bucket list. I'm hoping as we complete each one, I can write a post about it too. So stay tuned for those.
1. Make ice cream from scratch with lil man.
2. Go one day without electronics {probably the hardest}
3. Sew something {I have mentioned it before, but the sewing machine & I have a love/hate relationship. I want to change that.}
4. Send at LEAST one care package a month. {Who am I kidding? I will probably send more than that}
5. Go on a picnic outside of town
6. Fly a kite with lil man
7. Watch fireworks
8. Play in the sprinkles
9. Plant something & keep it alive
10. Make homemade lemonade to share
11. Stash $5,000 or more into savings
12. Establish myself in the blog world
13. Do random acts of kindness-give back as much as we can
14. Read SIX new books, cover to cover
15. Pottery date with lil man
16. Print pictures & catch up on ALL my scrapbooking. {I haven't scrapbooked since last summer. This could take awhile.}
17. Visit family in Oklahoma a few times.
18. Dress up and do dinner/movie night. Just me & lil man. His choice of movie of course.
19. Afternoon date at the new frozen yogurt shop {Whenever that decides to open up}
20. Eat healthy, work out {a little} and drop 10 lbs. {This is my own personal goal. Now to purge the house of all the ice cream & cookies}
21. Take lil man to the Children's Museum in Denver. Check out some other local attractions while we are there.
22. Do a scavenger hunt.
23. Potty-train the lil man - finally.
24. Read 100 books to lil man {this won't be hard since I already read him 2 books each night}
25. Do some science experiments and of course, lots of crafts.
26. Plan out a family vacation for when Joe gets back. That means down to every little detail you can imagine. Also save up for it.
27. Learn how to take better pictures. Take a class, read some books and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
28. De-clutter the house. If you we haven't touched in a year, it's time for it to go.
29. Make lil man & I some capes and walk around like super heros for the day.
30. Bake some goodies and send them to the soldiers overseas.
31. Make a fort in the living room. Indulge in snacks & watch movies all day.
32. Watch the sun set {maybe even sunrise??} together.
33. Make tye dye tshirts. My husband & I have a little inside joke about tye dye tshirts, so it will be fun to make matching ones for the whole family. Add to the challenge, going out in pubic with them.
And I hate to end on such an odd number...but I will be adding to this list as I come across something I know I want to do.
Also, when Joe left, he gave lil man this military bear. We call him "Daddy Bear" and you might be seeing a few pictures of him on the blog. I told my husband, wherever we go, Daddy Bear will go to. This way he's always included in our adventures too.
Well that's it for now. I hope you join us in our little adventure. You're going to be seeing a more personal side of me on the blog. I'm pretty excited to share a little piece of us with you.
