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Posts By: Retired Expert
Mapping Out Your New Year

Mapping Out Your New Year

by | Jan 12, 2020

t’s arrived. I turn it over in my hands, appreciating the new leather, running my fingers over the embossed 2020 on the cover. Cracking it open, I am met with initial stiffness and resistance as with the start of any new thing. To limber it up, I shuffle the pages with my thumb from front to back and back again. Now the crisp, sparkling blank pages greet me openly. They are bright white, empty, and brimming with the promise of things to come.

It’s a new year and a new calendar. A tool to plan and direct the flow of time as best we mortals can. Skipping past January, February, and all the other months, I find the few blank pages in the back. It is here I will make my mark.

How many of us get into our car and begin driving to a new destination without first putting it in the GPS?

Reflecting on Life with Blue Highways

by | Dec 29, 2019

As milspouses on the move, we don’t often have a specific physical place where we build up years of memories. It isn’t like we have a favorite path we can walk daily and then reflect on how it (and we) can change and grow over the seasons and decades. Since we are by nature nomadic, we have to come up with other benchmarks to use when we reflect on our lives. For me, the book Blue Highways has served as my tool for reflection.

I am about to re-read the book for probably the 20th time. Blue Highways is a book I bought at the college bookstore before . . . everything–before becoming an Army wife, before finishing growing up, everything. The author was a professor at my university, and I remember wondering at the time if I should take one of his classes, as I had not met an author before. Instead, I knew them through their writing.

The Benefits of Family Traditions

by | Dec 19, 2019

“We are what we celebrate,” Meg Cox writes.

Our traditions are an outward expression of our family identity. The traditions we observe and the meaning behind them communicator family values to our children and others. The types of traditions we teach our children, and that were taught to us as children, are one way our family values get passed down from one generation to the next. For example, a family that values community service may have a tradition of volunteering at a soup kitchen or food bank together.

The scary thing is we teach our children about our family identity all the time by the activities we engage in as a family. Worried about the message that gift-centric traditions might be communicating to your children? Start a gratitude tradition! That is why intentionality in observing traditions is so important; without it, you forfeit your power to forge your family’s own identity. However, what makes traditions effective is that they bring together the family, foster connection, and have a purpose, and you get to chose that purpose.

Family Traditions and How They Strengthen Bonds

by | Dec 18, 2019

It’s that time of year when family traditions and celebrations abound. It’s a beautiful, magical time.

However, when faced with a deployment this season takes on a tinge of blue. I’ve been there.

Last Christmas, I was pregnant, alone, and my hormones made sure I felt all the feelings. I didn’t have my hubby home and didn’t have the option to fly as I was too far along in my pregnancy. So, I decided not to do anything for Christmas. I thought it would just be more manageable, less stress, and maybe, just maybe, it would make me feel better about spending it alone.

Boy, was I wrong.

I Wish I Was This Wise 50 Years Ago

by | Dec 12, 2019

I recently completed a walk across America to raise awareness and advocacy for our veterans. It was a 110 day walk, from May 15 to Sept. 1, from my home in Newburyport, MA, to San Diego, CA. I took only five days off to rest. You will undoubtedly hear more about my walk in the following months, because it was the one of the most meaningful events in my 72 years of life.

But, today, I want to talk about women who are so supportive of their husbands/partners during times of deployment. (I am well aware that many women are also on active duty and have partners supporting them, and I will write about that topic in the future).  

Plotting a Course to Gratitude

by | Dec 5, 2019

You know those people who always seem to find something to complain about?

You know those people who always seem to find something positive in every situation?

Maybe you’re one of them—quick to catastrophize or let a moment turn into a bad day or always encouraging others to find good. Perhaps you have the patience of Job.

Did you know that our thoughts literally wire our brains? They create connections as synapses form—perhaps they start off like deer trails in the underbrush, difficult to see and follow, but before you know it, if you don’t guard your thoughts, that path has become a newly opened toll road and you have an express pass, quickly getting you from Point A to Point B.

But is it worth the cost?

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