I am currently writing on the patio of our new apartment with the newest addition to our family chewing my big toe. It has been a long year since I’ve moved to Washington state and I have just now started to find the time to write and tap into my creativity again. In the past year, the bar I work at shut down for a few months and then re-opened, we moved into our own apartment, I started taking clients for personal training and also became a certified nutrition specialist. Bu

September 15th. That’s the date I want to finally close the gap between me and Taylor. Emotionally, it took me a very long time to get to that date. I knew from the beginning of our relationship that, if it ended up working out, I would have to leave behind my parents, my hometown and all the people I’ve known for the past 21 years to start a huge new chapter in my life and, honestly, I was absolutely horrified. This was more than just trying a new activity or a joining a clu

Deployment is… a whole mess of emotions that I don’t even have a word for. It was like going through puberty, it was like I was dating a ghost, the beginning, middle and end all had totally different vibes to them. Going through deployment is kind of like going through puberty. It’s awkward, it’s unfamiliar, you spend your days just trying to figure it out, you have good days and you have bad ones but overall it’s a horrible time. Once it’s all over, however, you realize how

I’ve heard it at least three times since I came back from Hawaii…how silly or naive I am for being a military significant other. I started a new job at a bar to make a little extra cash and wore my new Navy hoodie I got in Hawaii. A man, who I had met one other time, asked me with enthusiasm who I knew in the Navy while I was counting some money. I piped up, excited and said, “My boyfriend!” and his expression instantly changed. The brightness vanished. He just replied with,

I felt really overwhelmed after Taylor left. It is my first time going through a deployment and I had no idea where to start as silly as that sounds. How am I going to survive all these months? What am I supposed to do to pass the time? How do I go back to “normal” life again? Break the time up into smaller chunks: The first thing I did was break the deployment up into fourths. I wrote down the date that we would be a quarter of the way through, half way through and three qua

It would be an understatement to tell you that Hawaii was beautiful. And the time that I spent with Taylor and his family was just as beautiful if not more. I went to Hawaii to visit T and to say my last goodbyes before he goes under the sea for a long period of time, the longest period of time that we will be apart thus far in our relationship. If you read my last post, “How to Travel to Hawaii for Cheap,” you know that we rented an Airbnb which, let me tell you, was a bless

I never really thought I’d have the chance to go to Hawaii. I know it’s beautiful but my dad hates airplanes, family doesn’t travel much to begin with and it’s expensive so I never really had the urge or the means to go. Enter Taylor, my boyfriend who chose Hawaii as his first pick of places to be stationed. He told me a gallon of milk was about ten bucks a pop and I freaked out because if a stupid gallon of milk is that expensive how in the hell am I ever going to afford foo

*For the safety of my sailor and his boat, there are no dates, locations or names posted. The article has been written and posted after his underway was long done and over.  OPSEC for the win. I have been very fortunate in the fact that, for the first two years of this adventure, I have been able to speak to my sailor on the daily minus bootcamp of course. I actually forgot what it was like to not speak to him for more than 24 hours. After he graduated from all of his schooli

Being that I was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, you would think that I would have already taken the three hour drive down to visit St. Louis, Missouri at least once in my life… Surprisingly, this is untrue. Me and T wanted to take some type of road trip while he was home on leave and my friend had told me that the St. Louis Zoo has a penguin tour where you can meet and pet the penguins. T’s favorite animal is a penguin so we easily settled for St. Louis as our roa

You’ve just spent this amazing few weeks with your SO filled with lots of love, companionship, laughter, fun-filled plans and parties. Then no sooner do they get back that you find yourself back at the airport waving goodbye with tear-soaked eyes and a snot-filled tissue in your non-waving hand. Then there is the drive home from the airport that you don’t really remember too much because of all the thinking you have done during that time. Then before you know it, you are stan

Military relationships are not Dear John. It’s not romantic. It’s not wonderful. When you ask a little girl where she sees herself one day, most likely, the answer will not be sleeping in a bed by herself while her husband is fighting a war and her kids are asking where daddy is. Most people already understand that so it’s no surprise that I often get asked the question, “Why would you ever put yourself through that?” I asked myself that same question when I first met Taylor.

There is no denying that distance is hard and I would be silly if I told you that I have found a way to deal with it completely. I haven’t. But I have found ways to bring comfort during those times when I feel like my heart is literally tearing in my chest, those nights that I toss and turn and can’t fall asleep. 1.Grow yourself a support system I think of my support system as a circle. The reasoning for that is because none of them come before the other and they are all ther

For two years now, Charleston has become my second home and it wasn’t too traumatic on my wallet most of the time. My airline tickets averaged around $300 and if I couldn’t do that I could drive. The next stop on our military journey, however, is going to be Hawaii, a trip that will most definitely not be too kind on the old wallet. But I have recently put in place some tips and tricks that will get me, stress-free, to Hawaii and back… I might even be able to afford a nice di