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One of the most important parts of supporting your service member as they serve our country is “holding down the fort” (See also: running a smooth, loving, and supportive home life for you and your family, while keeping all things going in your service member’s absence). Easy peasy, right? Sometimes, not so much.

With this category, we cover everything behind the scenes, such as organization, communication, marriage, parenting, overcoming trials, and just some good ole fashioned humor.

Join us as we embark on figuring out the home-life balance as a milspouse and find ways to thrive and excel! No matter what your life at home looks like, one of our Experience Bloggers or Command Team members has probably been in a similar situation and is here to share their triumphs, lessons, and laughs along the way.

Christmas in a Minor Key

Christmas in a Minor Key

by | Jan 13, 2020 | , ,

The holiday season; the season of Joy. In my experience the holiday season brings many happy moments: Watching holiday movies, making cookies to share, decorating the house with lights, spending time with family.

Christmas carols hold a special place in my heart. Every Christmas Eve of my childhood was spent singing carols with my family while my church organist grandmother played the piano. We are, by no means, one of those Von Trapp-caliber singing families. Still, we would laugh as we sang different parts for The Twelve Days of Christmas and poked fun at Grandma during our rendition of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.

Even as I write these words and remember such joyful moments, I have tears in my eyes.

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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?

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The Journey to Discovering Your Why

by | Jan 11, 2020 | , , ,

This time of the year is notorious for finding something in your life that you want to remove, increase, or alter from the previous year into the new year. 

I have gone through many New Year’s resolutions in my lifetime. Becoming debt-free is always near the top of my list—each year I am able to decrease it, but never fully cross the finish line. Other times I am able to truly commit to changing my behaviors for a better wiser self.

Why do some of the commitments that we make never survive into February, while others become a lifestyle change? Finding the why inside, that core motivation to make the desired change.

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When Military Life Feels Scary

by | Jan 9, 2020 | , , , ,

Few Americans have missed the news from the Middle East in recent weeks.

It’s difficult to scroll through social media without seeing calls for war, specific response, restraint.

But in the military community, it isn’t the politics that matter as much to as what will happen with our service member spouses.

As we watch the news our stomachs drop through the floor.

Our chests tighten to the point we can only inhale shallow breaths.

Our hands shake a little.

Our hearts beat a tiny bit faster.

Images of yellow ribbons, hugs and kisses goodbye, waving flags, and overstuffed olive drab bags littering the entrance to our home, and uniforms in a combination of browns and greens packed tightly run through our minds.

It’s hard to stop that flow through the channels of our brain, the rolling images of what we’ve done before.

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Doing The Best You Can Do

Doing The Best You Can Do

by | Jan 7, 2020 | , , ,

We’ve all heard the saying “just do the best you can do.”

Possibly this was muttered by your senile, passive-aggressive Great Aunt this holiday season while standing around the cheeseball; hopefully, it was said with sincerity from a loved one.

Military wives know this phrase possibly better than anyone else. And if you don’t, then I hope this post will empower you to see the truth in this phrase.

I, like many other victims, am a recovered people pleaser. At one point in my life, I was so concerned with letting people down or saying “no” that I would break down in tears if I had to break a commitment. It wasn’t until I had two kiddos a mere 19 months apart that I realized I needed a change.

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I’m not Glib; I’m a Connector

I’m not Glib; I’m a Connector

by | Jan 3, 2020 | , , ,

Sometimes military spouses can get a bad reputation. People use words like dependent, clucking hens, glib, and other derogatory names. What if we started using words like connector, networker, or change seeker?

Every day, I make the conscious decision to be a connector. To me a connector is someone who builds a large network, not for popularity, but for the sake of helping others. A connector is someone who reaches out to others, engages in conversation, and genuinely cares about building new relationships while nurturing old relationships.

To a milspouse, the military community might seem large, but it is actually pretty small. Only about 1% of the population serve in the military. Being a connector allows you to help others when they are in need.

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