Home

When does your house become a home?  There are probably many philosophies on that, but I think for us, this new house became a home at Christmas.  Specifically, when Daddy came home, and we spent Christmas together.  I've said before that home is wherever we can be together.  Well, that bond is intensified so sweetly at Christmastime, when combining the spirit of our Savior, Jesus Christ, with the love we feel for each other.  It's the love of Jesus Christ that holds a family together, and living his gospel that keeps happiness in the home.  We try very hard to make our home a place the Savior would want to be.  Everything good, and wonderful our family has had, we can easily see are blessings from a loving Heavenly Father.  The greatest and sweetest blessings seem to always come when we are all together.  Having Daddy home...well, to this verbose writer, words fail to describe that gift.  We all love him so much.  Christmas with him safe and home meant everything to us, and we will never stop being grateful for that time we had together.

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In case you can't read the print on the last slide, the quote is:

“It is in the home that we form our attitudes, our deeply held beliefs. It is in the home that hope is fostered or destroyed. Our homes are to be more than sanctuaries; they should also be places where God’s Spirit can dwell, where the storm stops at the door, where love reigns and peace dwells”
-- Thomas S. Monson

A little bit of humor goes a long, long way

I haven't written since Anny's birthday.  That's a long time, she turned 7 in July, and it's October!  I can think of too many good excuses to explain that.  We were busy moving, busy packing, busy unpacking, and all the drama that comes with that.  However I think the biggest reason I haven't written any new entries, is because I've been sad.  As explained in detail in a previous entry, I wasn't very excited to move from beautiful Florida, to dry New Mexico.  It's been much more difficult than I thought it would be, adjusting to our new home.  It's been hard to make friends, difficult learning where everything in our new town is, challenging creating order and comfort in our new home, frustrating finding a new doctor, new dentist, new piano teacher... if you've moved before, you know what I mean.  I have moved a few times, but I don't know if it's because we were in FL for so long, or have more kids now, or what it is, but this move has just been hard.

However like any difficult life challenge, with diligence, faith, patience, and lots of hard work, one slow day at a time, it gets better.

Humor, of course, also helps.  I have been surprised to find how much I need humor in my life right now.  I need to laugh.  It is such an immense relief from all the stress, to find something that causes spontaneous laughter and smiles.

So, instead of posting pictures of our new house (still not unpacked yet), or listing all the things I am trying to like about this new place but still don't, I thought I'd make a list of things I've found funny the past few weeks.  Even if you don't find them funny, hopefully when I'm having another long day, I can look back on them, and bring up a much needed giggle.  Maybe even a snort.  You know it's really funny if it makes you unattractively snort.

1.  DH learned some interesting information in his welcome to Cannon AFB five hour brief.  (It really was that long!)  He was warned to be watchful of cows.  Yes- cows.  If someone's cow gets loose and wanders into the road, and you hit it and miraculously survive the crash, you'll wish you hadn't.  Not only is it considered your fault for hitting the cow, even if the cow isn't anywhere near the farmer's land- BUT you are required to reimburse the farmer for said cow, PLUS an additional two generations of cow, making up for the loss of potential cow offspring.  Crazy, very crazy.  But also funny.  If I ever hit a cow though, not so funny.

2. We saw a man in a restaurant in a crazy cowboy outfit.  By crazy, I mean he had a huge belt buckle, big brimmed cowboy hat, and cowboy boots that were so pointy, they actually pointed upwards at the tips like elf shoes do, and were covered in a sort of stud-polka dot design.  This may not be funny if you grew up around cowboys, but to this suburban girl who literally had no idea adults wear cowboy hats and boots outside of Halloween parties, it was very funny.  I may have let my jaw drop to the floor, and stared much longer than is polite, before a huge and stupid grin formed on my face, and I had to suppress an intense case of the giggles.  

3. Watching the What Does the Fox Say viral video on youtube over and over with my kids, (it never stops being funny) and having my two year old walk up to me at random moments of the day and sing, "pow pow pow pow, what fox say?"  I've tried to catch him doing it on video with my phone, but as soon as he sees me try, he wont do it anymore.  I haven't given up yet though, it's such a great combination of funny and cute.

4. I saw this commercial on TV last week.  I'm afraid I'm one of those city people who doesn't get it.  Instead, I find it funny.  Just imagining Earl, Jim-bob, Bubba, and all his cousins taking a break from haulin' hay so they can log onto onlyfarmers.com and look up chicks- yeah, sorry, no matter how hard I try to be humble and understanding, it's still funny.

5.  Lots of funny posts on Facebook.  Thank you, my dear friends, for sharing life's funny moments.  I needed the laughs.  I think my favorite funny post, was by my best friend from high school.  She so kindly wrote:

Words I never thought I'd utter: "Don't use your toothbrush to scratch your butt!"

Ah, parenting!  You just can't make this stuff up.

So, it's not a very long list.  There have been a few other humorous moments, but they would fall under the, "you had to be there and have heard the entire conversation" category, and I've found whenever I try to explain those kinds of funny moments, I just start sounding stupid, and whomever is listening, kind of glazes over, and will respond with a fake laugh, or polite comment such as, "haha, yeah", or "uh-huh".

If you have something funny for me, please, by all means, share it in the comments.  Like Elizabeth Bennet, I dearly love to laugh.  

Comfort Zone

My mind has been too full, for too many weeks to write.  I've had to filter through so much, trying to decide what words need to come out.  To summarize the events that have caused this mental turmoil, the Air Force has not been kind of recent to our family.  They have promised holidays, time off, and breaks in deployments, only to change and withdraw them, always for the worse.  Deployments got longer and more frequent, time home cut shorter and shorter.  They have told us we're moving, then told us we can make new plans, then told us we're moving again.  The goodbyes, time apart, to and fro, and constant changing of plans that affect not just my DH, but our whole family, has been a strain on what little peace our family clings to.

A word of caution to anyone considering military service- this is neither unusual nor "unfair".  It simply is.  When you sign a contract, they can say or do whatever they want to you, and if you have a family, remember it will effect them just as much as it affects you.  You quite literally sign your life away, in exchange for a job and benefits for the time on the contract.

For us, that contract meant the military would pay for DH's college and flight school, in exchange for 10 years of service after he received his wings.  It also means a paycheck for that time, a housing allowance, healthcare, and many many logged flight hours to take with him when he leaves.  Thus far the Air Force has kept their end of the deal.  We aren't owed anything more than that.  That contract doesn't mention happiness in the job, satisfaction with the work, and regular or even reasonable working hours.  We don't regret the decisions made back when we were young and in college, no matter how naive we were in making them.  This was the best option for my husband to be a pilot.  And despite the disillusionment we've come to have with the unstoppable U.S. Air Force, we're not entirely ungrateful for the opportunities it's given our family, despite how dearly we have and continue to pay.

The upcoming moving plans will be sending us out west, to New Mexico.  For many, back west is where they want to go, where their hearts lie.  Not mine.  My comfort zone is filled with full, big, beautiful deciduous trees, turquoise beaches, seasons, warm humid air, regular soft rain showers, fireflies, and breezes where you can hear waves or the rustle of leaves.  It's where people say "ya'll", where good BBQ is found, and where the locals have ancestors who fought in the American Civil and Revolutionary wars.  I like to roll down the car windows and smell summer honeysuckle in the wind.  I love peaches off a local fruit stand, berry picking, and thunderstorms.  Oh, Dixieland, my comfort zone.

While I love those things, life is not about living within our comfort zones.  Usually you don't even know what that is, until something forces you to move on or change to make you uncomfortable.  God wants us to learn, grow, and find love and beauty everywhere, in everything.  It's too easy in the land of Dixie to do that.  No matter how unwilling we are, it's time for us to move on to new adventures.  When I wrote her about my moving woes, a dear friend and seasoned military daughter sent me a loving letter, full of understanding and sympathy, but also with the advice that I take the Lord's hand, and my husband's in the other, and jump forward into our new life out west, with excitement and anticipation.  I think it might feel a bit like jumping into a cold pool after sunbathing, but I know she's right.  I know I can, and will.

Some of my friends have these cute signs in their homes, that say "Home is Where the Air Force Sends Us", and then hanging from the sign, are planks with each base or location they were stationed at.

I've thought about getting one made myself, but I've never felt like that phrase fit us.  To me, where I call home has nothing to do with the Air Force.  It's like saying "Home is where your kitchen sink is" - not exactly a  false statement, but more accurately a minor coincidence.  The military may tell us where to go, but they can't dictate where I feel at home.  Where the Air Force sends us is where we make our home, but they aren't why, and don't deserve the honor of being on a sign on my wall.  They've already put their name on my husband, everything he wears, and on enough gear, uniforms, boots, notebooks, manuals, maps, and deployment crap to fill an entire bedroom.  After much meditation throughout these weeks and months of turmoil, I finally came up with a better motto.

Home is Wherever we can be Together  

While I may not be in love with the location, and frustrated with the circumstances the Air Force sometimes places us in, all the pieces of my heart are together when all the members of my family are under one roof.

So look away, Dixieland.  I have to leave you for awhile, and move my home to where my family can be together.  I still love you, and will shed an occasional tear for your benefit while in the far away west, and out of my comfort zone.  I don't know if we'll get to come back, or when that could be.  But when I imagine heaven, it's where my home and you are the same.

I asked the girl who made the above sign if she can do a custom order with my new phrase.  I'll add a picture of it to this post when it's done.  While you wait you can listen to Brad Paisley.  His song helped me find the words I needed write today.

A special thanks to Kim, who was willing to take on a special order and make such a beautiful, personally meaningful sign for us.  Check out her store, she's great.  She also has more items on Facebook, you can message her for a link to that!