I am loving my husband! Even from thousands of miles away he is so amazing! He left the sweetest message in my calendar. When I flipped the page to this week it was a wonderful pick-me-up. 

I am loving that there are only a few days left in this term! At the end of this week I will officially be on spring break! I can't wait to have these classes behind me.

I am loving my beautiful orchid that finally decided to bloom.

Besides these things, this Wednesday I am reaching deep to find things to love. My patience with the military housing office is wearing very thin. Sometimes people just don't understand, if a piece of paper is in Afghanistan... that means you can't have it. It's not like I can call up my husband and have him fax it on over. He's in the middle of nowhere Afghanistan with nothing. I can assure you if they don't even have a toilet, they sure as heck don't have a fax machine. And I get to wait around my phone for him to call whenever he gets a break every few days. Calling him up with this issue is just not possible. Some people!

I'd just like to take a moment to pass on a great story. This Marine has challenge himself with 1 million push ups in one year. 1 Million Push Ups in 2012! He's raising money for the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit organization dedicating to serving and empowering our country's wounded veterans. Help him out and encourage his efforts! His current goal is $10,000 but I believe he could raise much more! It's a marvelous thing to give back to our veterans who have fought so hard and paid such a heavy price for our freedom.

Link to the 1 Year, 1 Million Push ups Facebook page, where you can track his progress. And please visit Wounded Warrior Project where you can track his fund raising progress.

So the house is all quiet again with Travis away in the field. Hopefully this will be the last of it until he deploys. We are both dying to get this deployment over with. It has become a huge thorn in our sides. The last deployment wasn't exactly a walk in the park for either of us by any means. But this one is just going to be different. We both weren't exactly expecting him to be doing what he's going to do. It looks like communication is actually going to be worse this time. I'm sick of hearing about it. He literally got home from Afghanistan and that week started talking about the next go. We're just ready to get it over with.

Thankfully, there are a few positives. He won't be deployed over the holidays again. Though he will miss my birthday (which is nothing new..) and our third anniversary. This will also be the last deployment. There won't be enough time on his enlistment to deploy again. What we do next after this deployment is really up to us. I am so thankful that his job in Marines has provided him with good training. I feel like we are less stuck than other couples. Whether he stays in or gets out is still up in the air. Either way I'm excited and ready for our options!

With all this alone time, I have no excuses with homework. This semester is proving to be a lot more difficult. Being sick and away at the beginning pushed me behind a bit. I hope next term is a bit easier! That's a big hope though! Next term will fall during a lot of predeployment stuff, a tonsillectomy, and the holidays. Yikes. I will work my little school butt of during the deployment, and if all goes as planned I'm thinking I might take a semester off during homecoming. I think homecoming is challenging enough without the added stress of school!

I've been really needing to get this off my chest.
I think at some point every single military wife grapples with the question, "is it worth it?".
While I try not to keep tally, it inevitably creeps in. Our two year anniversary is coming up next week. That's 24 months of martial bliss. Travis has spent one quarter of our marriage in Afghanistan. Almost three quarters of our marriage has been spent living apart, consumed by field exercises, training, and schooling. That leaves this grasping at straws feeling with me. Weeks where you try to ignore the constant coming and going, unpacking and repacking, and try to make the most out of the time you have together, which is easier said than done.
While we were at the VA marriage retreat, there was a couple there who had just finished their fourteenth deployment. Fourteen deployments in the Marine Corps is somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 100 months of just deployment time. One hundred months is over eight years. That doesn't include the many many weeks of field exercises and training to prepare for deployments. Is that worth it? Is missing countless holidays and birthdays worth it? Is being gone when you need each other most?
The yes or no answer may be in a gray area. But these are some things I do know. I know that we love each other. I know we are together purely by choice and sheer determination because it would be simpler if we weren't. I know that even with Travis gone a lot, he is worth it. I know that our marriage is a lot stronger than the people I am jealous of. When I am wishing I could just hold my husband's hand at Christmas, Thanksgiving, or during a birthday time like everybody else, I should remind myself that that moment in time is fleeting and quantity does not make up for quality.
I know we are freaking awesome together :) With Travis' next deployment speeding towards us, I should remind myself daily how lucky we both are to have each other.

On a lighter note, part of Travis' anniversary gift came in the mail today! I wish I could show you all but we still have a week to go!