As military spouses, I’d say we have two distinct moments of the spouse experience: one we loathe and one we anticipate.

The one we dread is obviously the numerous “see-ya-later” moments with our beloved service members. Some days, as I kiss him and he walks to the door/bus/plane, I feel like we just did this same routine like 20 minutes ago. Gross.

But with the see-ya-later moments comes homecoming anticipation. And really, it doesn’t matter if they’re gone for a week to the field, a month to training, or a year to a desert somewhere, homecomings are always one of the “marked” military spouse adventures.

We recently had our own homecoming (for what seems like the eleventy-billionth time this year) and I got to thinking.

It is really kind of a funny experience. So, I thought I might share this compilation of six (humorous) signs that homecoming is coming:

1. The food/drink variety in your house is restocked.

I’m not sure about you, but my hubs and I have very different food/drink tastes. Let me rephrase that: We have very different metabolic rates, i.e. he can practically eat whatever he wants, and if I look at a donut my pants get tighter. So, when the hubs is gone, I eat very differently. Salad. Easy one-pot meals that literally last for a week. But when that fateful homecoming day approaches, I restock depleted supplies. Chicken wings appear back in the freezer. Chocolate chip cookie mix is in the cabinet. And of course, his home brew is upgraded and moves from the dark corner in our laundry room to the prime-time shelf in the fridge.

2. You start slowly migrating back to your side of the bed.

Don’t get me wrong. I’d always prefer that hubby’s home with me to share my bed. But when he’s gone and that’s completely out of my control, you better believe I work it to my advantage. There’s so much activity space! I sprawl out like a college kid at the beach after finals week. But when he’s coming home in the near future, I gradually scoot a few inches back to my own “side” to prep for his arrival.

3. You engage the start-up test run.

This experience is directly proportionate to the length of time he’s been gone. One month, I probably go out to the garage and start up his truck just once to make sure the battery isn’t dead and that the lunchbox of leftovers has not grown into a radioactive science project. But if he was gone for 12 months, we do it 12 times a day, because #ComeOnHurryUpAmerica.

4. The calendar has become an object of protection.

As with many of my military spouse peers, I try to keep busy when my beloved is off doing the things with the stuff for the military. But when the come-home day nears, I start protecting my calendar like a mama bear guarding her cubs. I back my activities way down for about a week or so, just in case he gets home early and/or might get a teensy bit of leave time to spend with us.

5. Nesting begins.

I don’t know what it is about my service member returning home. Maybe it’s because I need to keep busy because I’ve cleared my calendar too early (see #4) or because I think he’ll care what shape the house is in. But I clean, I organize, I purge, I purchase new stuff, I purge again. I pretend that he won’t be coming through the door with 4,000 pounds of gear (all covered in dirt/sand/who knows what) and dump it on my kitchen/living room floor.

6. Personal hygiene/maintenance habits are drastically reinstated.

This is probably my favorite and most exciting of the “homecoming is coming” signs. I’m not a slob, but let’s be honest—if our darlings aren’t in the same zip code, my personal grooming habits drop a couple notches, usually replaced by “keep kids alive” and “maintain sanity.” But as that date approaches, I get my hair cut. I make sure my caterpillars (I mean eyebrows) are tamed. And no joke, this really happened to me last week: I got a text from a fellow military spouse in our company, about 12 hours from the return of our hubbies. She announced that she finally showered and shaved her legs!

I literally laughed out loud because I had just done the same not 10 minutes before.

So, fellow spouses, what signs do you see that homecoming is coming?