Two days to go.

My dear hubby told me this morning on the phone that his phone battery is just about dead and he may not be able to charge it before heading for home. That's the downside, but the upside is that while on the phone, he started getting weepy when talking about missing me. Victory!!!! :)

That is my big grateful for the day. But with 17 things left on my To Do list this morning, and three total days left to accomplish them, I simply started at the top and cranked them out, despite how unappetizing. (You know, those things on your list that you skip over for the more fun or quicker items?) However, I also added a few items, so now I have a total of about 7 things left to do tomorrow and Saturday morning.

My second greatest grateful for the day is the 4 bags of trash and 7 bags of stuff-to-take-to-Good-Will that are leaving my house! I'm actually getting it done! Feels so good. It's from the kids' rooms, too, and they're getting really good at getting rid of something they don't need, love, or will use. (beam) So proud.

I think I got more of a workout from decluttering the boys' room tonight than from Bellyrobics last night. And I celebrated with half a piece of chocolate cake (from Walmart, so, you know, eh) and a small glass of chilled white zin, and the last fifteen minutes of So You Think You Can Dance (incidentally, chuckling at my friend and bloggy-friends all a-twitter about it).

Tomorrow I get to say "tomorrow..."

More gratefuls...

= I have been UBER productive this week. Unfortunately, at the moment, you can't see all the things I've gotten done (ain't that always the way?). But I have. I have done grocery shopping (at least in part, since I had a kid who didn't feel very good). I am getting forms ready for homeschooling. I have laid ten pavers at the bottom of my backyard steps. I bought a printer (by myself, thank you). I picked out a paint color for my coffee table (okay, that's just fun for me). I have have sewn a pillow for my 2yo. I have mended two other couch pillows. I have cleaned off hubby's desk (no small feat). I have taken the trash to the dump. And - not to be overlooked - I have kept up with laundry and dishes. (Okay, looking back over my list, those are relatively few things out of what I wanted to get done...but I guess that means I'll have plenty left to keep me busy!)

= All my children (plus a niece) spontaneously put themselves outside, making it so much easier for me to collect all the things in the living room and pile them on the couch and coffee table for children to put away, which now they are sorting into their bins in the hallway. Tada!

= A week or so ago I bought a new Febreze scent - Thai Dragon Fruit - which I'm now using with the vacuum, and I love it. Light and lovely.

= Brown sugar cinnamon Pop-tarts. That's all.

= Oh, and coffee. Heart.

= Did I mention my bestie?

= I took my first ever exercise class tonight, for goodness' sake! (Talk about stepping out of your comfort zone.) It was nuts. My body doesn't do that. But I did it! And now I know I could do it again.

Wednesday.

It's Wednesday. Finally.

There's no monumental thing happening on Wednesday, except that it finally means that I'm more than halfway through my hubby's absence. Four more full days until his return. Four. Sigh. That sounds like a lot. Isn't that a lot?

Do I sound like a big whiny crybaby about my hubby being gone? I don't mean to. I'm doing okay. It's just getting harder. It's past the halfway point, but it still feels like I have as long to go as I've already gone. And one of these times when I say to him, "I miss you," and try to explain a little about how long it seems (and I'm getting a little weepy), I'd love it if he could come up with something inspiring to say. (I don't know what. I usually have an idea of what I'd like him to say - which leads to arguments heated discussions about feeling like his life is scripted for him. But this time I don't know what I want him to say. Just something. "I'm so sorry, baby." "I miss you like crazy, too." "I'm barely hanging on here..." You know. Something.)

Although here's my yearly disclaimer -- I am no military wife. I could never be a military wife. You ladies are crazy strong. Although I do think that dealing with your hubby being gone has a great deal to do with knowing roughly how long they'll be gone. If my hubby's supposed to be gone for a weekend, my heart is set up for 2...3 days max. Right now hubby is gone for 9 days. It's too long in my book, but I'll give him the full nine days. (But if he's not back Saturday night, as promised...Sunday morning at best, depending on his traveling party, I might shrivel up.) And, military wives usually live around (not always, but usually at least are involved with) a bunch of other military wives, to whom you can go and fall apart. And they'll come back to you later and return the favor.

Fortunately, my best friend (although in Arkansas...and not really the "fall apart" type) is a former military wife and completely indulges my ramblings and poutings. I'm so thankful for her.

But I am not mocking or belittling military wives in ANY manner. The fact that your husbands are gone for months on end, you get no reprieve as the sole parent in the house, your husbands signed up for the job but would not have chosen to leave their families for so long, and the fact that they're often heading off to harm's way...you all trump me big time. I've got nothing on you and your conditioned nerves. Not that it ever gets easier, I understand.

So...if I stop and think about how long it's been and how long I have yet to go (and how easy it is for bitterness to creep in about what a good time he's having while I'm sitting here waiting, trying to stay busy), utter despair and depression is waiting and ready to jump in and be useful.

SO. I am clinging to the Beautiful Things that are acting as buoys for a few moment's rest as I tread one day to the next. And I'm feeling it necessary to start chronicling these things so I remember all the glorious gifts God's sending my way to care for me, to allure me, to speak tenderly to me. I do notice them as they happen. I need to remember them in the betweens. Here, my first three (so as not to make this post more cumbersome)...

= Yesterday while making dinner, my 7yo skipped into the kitchen, hugged me, and then skipped out. She, completely foreign to having The Love of Your Life away from you for so long. (Although he does act as her first love until she finds her own.) Later that same evening, she came in and sang me a song she learned at church about the countdown getting lower to the day of Jesus' return. How much more straight-from-the-mouth-of-God does it get?

= I had the courage to ask my mother-in-law to feed and watch my children tonight while I venture out to my first-ever exercise class! I've been trying to shred myself this week, and I've had much less discipline than I had about it last year while hubby was gone (it was the first time hubby had been gone that long and I dutifully got up every morning to do my video). I've done the shred a total of once. Since then my boys have not been sleeping well, and I have made the decision not to listen to my alarm clock. But tonight I am leaving the house to do some "Bellyrobics" so I will get at least a second workout in this week.

= What started as an annoyance is actually a blessing - MIL thought they'd just feed the kids chicken nuggets tonight. Tonight, when I actually had coincidentally put a kid-friendly meal on the menu called "bubble-up pizzas." But, feeding them chicken nuggets saves me a meal, a meal that I can then put on next week's menu and save myself the money. :) (Still would've been neat. Wonder what I'll have for dinner...)

end of day

Oh, God... I'm getting to bed much too late and I miss my hubby and a dear friend hurt me tonight and I'm sad and I'm still coughing and I can smell hubby on the sheets and I'm lonely and I want to cry and I'm sore and I have to do it all again tomorrow and it's only the end of day 2 and I need his hug.

Please wrap me tightly in cool sheets and uninterrupted sleep and sweet dreams of grace. Amen.

Button, button, who's got the button?

I know it's trivial, but I'm excited. I just made a button! And in due form, here's where I learned how. She rocked it. Holla.

This morning's prayer.

God, help me just for today find the balance of getting work done and spending precious time with my kids. Help me not to worry about finding a long-term balance, help me not even worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries of its own. Help me not only be a good wife, but a good MOTHER, too. Be constantly in my face, dear Lord.

Getting my vineyards back.

This day BEGS to be blogged about (I actually did already but it came out all wrong so I'm so glad Jesus stopped me from publishing it). But just what I was going to say I didn't know till everyone went to bed, the house quieted down, I was on my own again...and hubby is off somewhere again. Could it be that I'm starting to think better on my own? Not on-my-own like without him, because he and I are one. To separate now is impossible. To function correctly without the other is a non-issue. But on-my-own...like...as me. I'm ahead of myself...

I spent much of today being sad...and hurt...and angry...and downright pitiful. To the outside? Oh sure, I'm fine, to the in-laws and kids and parents, no sweat. But I know, with hubby, I was trying to find that passive-aggressive delicate balance between "fine" and "underlying struggle," hoping he'd see it and really beg me to tell him what was wrong. Silly girl. Does he ever do that??

I've been feeling like he's been completely gone for the last two weeks, except that every once in a while I get to look at a picture of him, and talk to it, and it even talks back to me. But I don't feel like I've been with my husband in far-too-long.

And I should take every moment and enjoy it, right? Sure, that's what a Wise Woman would do. Clearly, I require more work in that area. Because I, silly girl, spent hubby's first vacation day off lamenting what we weren't getting done, what we weren't going to do, the moments he didn't ask me what was wrong, or how I've been feeling, or tell me how much he's missed me, too, over the last two weeks. (I even missed the last day of Staples' $1 sales. Pout.)

I know why God has been bringing me into this wilderness...these wildernesses (wildernii?) of hubby's event weekends and meeting/rehearsal/Bible study nights away. He wants me to depend on Him. He wants me to go to Him first. Not hubby. Hubby has enough pressure of his own, and the Lord knows that I heap burning coals on his head when I start to complain about him not being around enough for me.

Am I lonely? Yes. Do I feel forgotten? Yes. Unappreciated, left out, un-considered? Yah, sure, you betcha. Are my feelings still valid? OH HECK YES. Will any of my whining and underhanded methods help the situation? Nope. Has God been poking me all day? Uh, yeah.

First, 3 downright lovely - and, not to be left out, 100% RIGHT!!! - communication tools by a downright lovely woman who is in a wilderness of her own, being married to a man with chronic pain that often takes the wind right out of her sails, their marriage, and her soul. This woman has studied how to talk to her husband. And I love her for her journey, and how my story parallels hers (although in a very seemingly pathetic way).

Second, another friend's blog that I JUST found today (coincidence? I think not), where I actually took this "wilderness" terminology from. Her wilderness is a daughter with cystic fibrosis. They find joy because their daughter is alive, and suffer through moments when she's coughing so hard she pukes. How lame am I??? But her latest post included a quote from Hosea (a story I love; you should read it).

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor ['trouble'] a door of hope." Hosea 2:14-15 ESV

Wildnerness. Yep, that's a good name for what it's felt like when he's been gone. And...oddly...God has been calling me to these places of ugliness on purpose?? Yes. Called me there, and then spoken tenderly to me. (Really? Maybe I haven't been listening...) Called me there, spoken tenderly to me, trying to give me vineyards (ooh la la!) of sustenance and luxury, and turning my gate of trial and sadness into a gate of hope and joy!

I want a gate of joy. (pout) I want to send hubby off on weekends (or August's terrible week-and-a-half) or to meetings, etc. with joy and contentment. Do I want him to maybe suggest on his own, during some free evening, that he put the kids to bed for me? Or that I go peruse a store or get some coffee on my own, alone with no children? Without me guilting him into it?? OH, yes. But is it possible, just possible, that he's been a little busy, with not a lot of time to think of that? I dig my toe in the dirt and concede. Yeah.....I guess so.

Silly girl needs to start listening to Jesus, and try harder - and pray more - to trust and believe in His love for me. And his love for me.