Blog | hisfirstmate

Nov 29, 2018
2 min

What Closing the Distance Has Taught Me Thus Far

Two months ago, I packed my entire life up into my Honda Civic and drove across the country to finally close this damn distance between Taylor and I. I insisted to my mom, who came along for the ride so I wouldn’t get mugged or kidnapped, that I wanted to drive the entire way. I savored every mile that got me closer to him. Eating Doughnuts in Denver, CO I want to tell you that my road trip and these past two months have been nothing but amazing and a breeze…but that’s not wh

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How to Stay Fit When Traveling to Disney World…Or Traveling in General

Breanne Cassidy

Jul 2, 2018
4 min

How to Stay Fit When Traveling to Disney World…Or Traveling in General

Twenty-four years old and I had never been to Disney World… I know. My parents aren’t big travelers and they also aren’t big theme park people so I never really thought going to Disney World was a possibility for me as of now. Enter Taylor. Somehow we got on the topic of Disney a few years back and he learned that I had never been. Time passed, deployment came and then it ended and Taylor said he had a surprise trip for me. So began my first trip to Disney… and trust me, it i

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The Biggest Realization I Needed To Have Before Truly Loving My Body

Breanne Cassidy

Jan 28, 2018
4 min

The Biggest Realization I Needed To Have Before Truly Loving My Body

What is it that you see when you look in a mirror? What do you look at first? Typically, we go for flaws. The roll of back fat, the tummy pooch, the acne, the flat butt, whatever you deem to be imperfect about yourself or whatever you feel society deems to be imperfect. But when was the last time you looked in a mirror and really, truly thanked your body? The human body does so many brilliant things that are overlooked every day, things we take for granted time after time. It

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Breanne Cassidy

Jan 22, 2018
3 min

Deployment Diaries: What to Send in a Care Package

After T deployed, care packaging got a little more serious. The things I was sending before were, in all honesty, more for my enjoyment than his. It was stuff that he could’ve easily went to Walmart and just got himself. That’s not really the case anymore seeing that hes on a sub these days. A lot of what you send and what they need depends on your sailor and what kind of craft they are on, what kinds of shifts they have and work they do. But I have learned from Taylor a few

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Don’t Just Make a New Year’s Resolution, Make a New Year’s Plan

Breanne Cassidy

Jan 3, 2018
3 min

Don’t Just Make a New Year’s Resolution, Make a New Year’s Plan

Wanting to better yourself is a beautiful thing. Everyone can use some self improvement and the New Year is always good motivation to move forward with it. However, you will set yourself up for failure, or at least make success more challenging, if you don’t have a plan to go along with your aspirations. Let’s say that you want to quit smoking, for example. It’s a great thought but it has no meat to it. Add the why. Adding in the reasons you want said thing can add more of

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Breanne Cassidy

Dec 18, 2017
3 min

Deployment Diaries: How to Go Weeks Without Speaking to Your SO

Every deployment and situation is different. You may go through a deployment and have decent communication the whole way through or there could be periods of time where you haven’t received any kind of communication for weeks or maybe months. It would be an understatement to say that going with no emails or phone calls is hard. It’s hell. I had no idea if he was okay, I missed his voice, I missed telling him about my day and his advice, I missed hearing about his day and I ha

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Breanne Cassidy

Nov 29, 2017
2 min

You Are Not Naive For Being a MILSO

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,

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Deployment Diaries: Six Ways to Make the Time Fly

Breanne Cassidy

Oct 23, 2017
3 min

Deployment Diaries: Six Ways to Make the Time Fly

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

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Breanne Cassidy

Oct 9, 2017
3 min

How to Travel to Hawaii for Cheap

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

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Breanne Cassidy

Aug 28, 2017
5 min

Six Tips to Surviving the First Underway

*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

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Breanne Cassidy

Aug 14, 2017
3 min

How to Meditate for Stress Relief

It has always amazed me how the mind and the body react so closely to each other. This past week has completely turned my comfortable life upside down and while I knew I was stressed about it I didn’t realize just how stressed I was. Of course, I’d think about all stressful stuff but I was still feeling fine and still happy and healthy. And then I started to notice that I was gaining a bit of weight, I couldn’t go to sleep without taking a melatonin gummy and I couldn’t stay

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The Three Things You Need To Be A Military Significant Other

Breanne Cassidy

Jul 31, 2017
2 min

The Three Things You Need To Be A Military Significant Other

For two years I have had more people than I can count ask me, “How do you do it?” And I have never had an answer. I didn’t really know how, I just did. But after two years of getting asked this question and then asking myself, “Yeah… how the hell do I do this?” on my car rides back home I have finally come up with the answer. So, here it goes. The three things that you need to have in order to be a military girlfriend: Genuine Love No, not the puppy love you have for Ryan Gos

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How to Get Back On Your Feet After They Leave

Breanne Cassidy

Jul 12, 2017
3 min

How to Get Back On Your Feet After They Leave

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

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Breanne Cassidy

Jun 26, 2017
3 min

Five Tips on How to Handle the Distance

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

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How to Budget Your Travels into Your Monthly Expenses

Breanne Cassidy

Jun 19, 2017
4 min

How to Budget Your Travels into Your Monthly Expenses

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

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If You Think That You Are Fat, You Need to Read This

Breanne Cassidy

May 12, 2017
4 min

If You Think That You Are Fat, You Need to Read This

I hate my lower stomach. The “pooch” as some people call it. My upper stomach is flat and looks fine but my lower stomach…hell no. My arms are a little chunkier than I’d like. And I don’t like my love handles. They stick out when my yoga pants slip down a little too far or if I wear jean shorts. Sound familiar? In the past two years I lost around 15 pounds or so and I was happy but it wasn’t enough. Once I got hooked on fitness, I couldn’t stop. I’d sit for hours on Instagram

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Seven Ways to Help Alleviate the Fear of Being Cheated On

Breanne Cassidy

Apr 24, 2017
4 min

Seven Ways to Help Alleviate the Fear of Being Cheated On

I hear all the stories. The ones where a sailor comes home and the house that once held his valuables, his life and his wife is now completely vacant. The girl who waited at home and kept the house and kids up and running for months at a time finds out her deployed husband cheated. I have even heard recently that women wait at ports to try and persuade military men into sleeping with them. *Shudders* I think we all have fears of being cheated on and these can especially be ma

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How to use "Hopper" to Get the Best Airline Deals

Breanne Cassidy

Jan 17, 2017
2 min

How to use "Hopper" to Get the Best Airline Deals

My best friend at work bought tickets the other day for her and her boyfriend to fly round- trip to Denver, Colorado…for $50 each. That blew my mind. Fifty dollars?! Round trip?! That’s insane considering my flight tickets are always at least $200 a pop. So, I asked her how she did it. She used an app called "Hopper", an absolutely beautiful thing for MILSOS. First you create an account and then type in your starting location and where you’d like to go. After that this screen

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