Give Away, Give Away! (Sailor)

It's been quite some time since I have done a giveaway. I think the last giveaway was my 200 followers giveaway. Look at my blog now! More than 300 followers on here and more than 450 on my Blog fan page.

*blushes*

Thanks y'all!

The item I'm giving away is a LEGO Sailor keychain.
It.Is.Awesome!

I know, I know.. It's branch specific- BUT I love it, and I just couldn't help myself.
Just look at how awesome it is:

I found this little booger on Etsy. Yes, I'm addicted to Etsy. The site is Boxhounds on Etsy. They were actually out of the Sailor keychains, so I put in a custom order for them. I ordered one for me.. and one for this giveaway... and a few for friends. The turn around time was so incredibly fast! Seriously- go check them out.

The site also makes them for Marines! So- Check it out!

So.. Now you're wondering. How do I enter?

Ways to enter:

(multiple chances for entry!)

1. "Follow" my blog (click the follow button up top)

2. Comment this blog post with how you found my blog.

3. "Like" The Journey of a Navy Wife on Facebook.

3. Follow me on Twitter @NavyWifeLife

4. Tweet about this giveaway!

5. Post on Facebook about this giveaway!

6. Blog about this giveaway!

There are 6 chances to enter! :D

Post EACH entry in a Separate comment to this blog post.

Also, Put your email address with your comment!
(if you don't put your email address, you MUST check back my blog to see if you win, I will not track you down! :P)

Entry to this giveaway will End May 5 at Noon- eastern time. 

Ready, Set, Go!

Talk To Me

In my nearly 3 years as a Navy wife, what is the one thing I have learned that is Key to a Military Relationship? Not even just a military relationship, Relationships in general? Communication.

Without communication what do you have? Nothing really. Without good communication, You can't have trust, can't have full honesty.. You don't have a Solid foundation for a relationship. You're left with a relationship that is set up for failure- UNLESS you improve on both partner's communication with each other.

Lack of communication causes couples to grow apart. I'm not talking about the long periods of time that a service member CAN'T contact you due to deployment. In your casual emails, phone calls.. day to day life together.. How much is really said between the two of you? How often does he tell you how he's doing? When in port, does he tell you about the things he did? Things he seen? How included in his or her life are you without being there? And reverse it.. How included do you keep them in your life while he or she is away during deployment? It all falls back on communication with each other.

My husband and I didn't always have good communication skills- making periods of time very tough for each other. We weren't together physically, he was away to a-school and I wasn't allowed to live with him. Aside from boot camp, it was the first time we had ever been apart from each other. We thought our communication was good, but in reality, we had a lot to learn.

A-school, as some of you may know, was our big challenge. What made that so challenging is because our communication with each other was rather horrible. It led to trust issues and little lies. I had honestly wondered at times if our marriage was going to be broken due to the military (Military not to blame, but only ourselves- didn't see that then).

Both of us wanted things to work, and work well. We loved each other too much not to. We started to work together and find the root cause of our trouble. It came down to communication. We started discussing more, talking things out- every situation, every issue we faced from there on out. Then the Workups started at his permanent duty station. We knew it was going to challenge us again.

I'm proud to say, that all the work we put into learning to talk to each other and work together paid off. It also totally proved my point to me and to him. Communication is KEY to a relationship. You NEED it. Here we are more than 2 years later, and our communication skills are as strong as ever. I don't hear from him every day.. sometimes longer, but I'm apart of his every day life and he is mine. He writes to me when he can, sometimes they are short emails.. but he will go out of his way to write me to make sure I know he loves me and that he needs me. I tell him about all my little endeavors without him (minus homecoming surprises) to make him feel like he stays apart of my life here at home without him. This allowing our trust to stay strong.

I could keep going with this post, but I feel I'm starting to ramble.

Just talk to your SO, get them involved. Communicate.

"D" isn't for deployment, "D" is for DiVoRcE

I've noticed a lot of relationships get torn apart by deployment. Right around the time of the halfway party, you start to see those who quit. Both on the deployment side and the home-front. I'm not just speaking about those affiliated with the Ship my husband is apart of.. it's everywhere.

I can't judge their reasoning, I do not know it. It is also not my place to know or judge it. However, there are some who just blatantly put it out there. To me, it looks bad on their part because It's a personal and should be private matter- but in their defense, it's good to vent. But that's not what this blog is about.

It's sad to me to see marriages and relationship's fall apart. Some of which, I know are stupid reasons that could be worked or well, quite honestly, should have never been issue to begin with. There are some who are private with the matter (as it should be), So this isn't about anyone of those. I can't comment on their troubles.

Today, I think about my marriage. My husband and I have a couple disagreements, well- Arguments. I can't really even say they were arguments. My husband didn't use the best judgment and made some poor decisions, but it was nothing to make me want to quit my marriage. My husband isn't perfect, and I know my marriage isn't perfect. However, there are days when I read SO much negativity about other's marriages and even negativity about the husband- Posted by the wife mind you, that I sit back and say, "Wow, Thank God my marriage is perfect.". It's not perfect, but It's pretty damn good compared to some.

I'm not trying to bash anyone or anyone's relationship- but I think there comes a time when some need to step back and remind themselves WHY they got married or WHY they committed to the relationship in the first place. "Love conquers all", if you love someone and you WANT it to work and they WANT it to work- it will. The problem is people give up entirely too easy. Yes, there are those situations where one person wants it to work, and the other doesn't... Those are just sad situations. I have a friend that has tried and tried- She wants it, he doesn't anymore. I feel terrible for her, he is the idiot in this situation.

Why do the stresses from deployment break marriages? It's not even deployment's fault, Why do people allow the stresses they face to completely break their marriage? Why do people quit when the situation can't entirely be fixed with Thousands of miles and several months to go between them?

I just honestly do not understand it. Marriage isn't just something to quit and walk away from. It's SUPPOSED to be forever. Why be so brash and start talking the "D" word, divorce *cringe*, when the problem, if a big problem, can't entirely be solved until the deployment is done? I just don't get it.

Open your eyes. You LOVE him or her... and more than likely he/she LOVES you too.

Seriously, Thank God I have a great relationship with my husband. I'm so grateful for the good communication we posses and our willingness to make sure our marriage works, and we are both happy.

I Need You

Today wasn't the best "Deployment day" so to speak. Due to my health issue, I woke up not feeling well at all this morning. Probably one of the worst days I've had with chest pain and breathing- being winded. So, because of that, today was a required lazy day. I stayed in my PJs ALL day.

Because I wasn't feeling well, I was a bit moody today. I am just really over this whole something possibly being wrong with my heart mess. But my heart issue is separate from deployment and I don't blame it for being a bad deployment day.

The ship recently left port, and earlier this week- there was another man overboard and another Sailor who passed, both of which are two separate happenings. All the talk yesterday about the death was draining, I didn't so much let it affect me- but I just couldn't continue to listen and read all the speculations and rumors. It was all over facebook, in one on one talk, texting, email and messages. It just drains you. Can sometimes suck the positivity straight out of you. I just had to tune it out, for the betterment of myself.

Last night- I had a nightmare about my husband... I don't remember what happened, but I remember that it didn't end good. Fine, just a dream. It's OK. I suspect it had something to do with the recent sailor passing talk get to me some.

I get online to see that my husband's division's Facebook page had uploaded pics from Port. All was good until it stuck out to me that my husband wasn't wearing his wedding band. Being positively drained, feeling rough and tired.. I allowed my wondering thoughts to get the best of me.

Him not wearing that band lead to questioning him to myself. NEVER good. (of course you know I'm only blogging about this because all is ok.. and it's me being the idiot.)

Thankfully, I had a couple of amazing ladies that I vented to and I emailed my husband to ask about it.

Before I ever got mad, I KNOW I should have thought about it a little bit. My husband is a VERY forgetful man.. and I can't count how many times he's ran off from the house and left his wedding band on his bed side table or on the bathroom counter. On top of that.. He's not allowed/ supposed to wear it when he's working in his rate. Had I of thought rationally.. this wouldn't have been an issue. But of course- Yeah, I'm a dumbass.

Anyway, I emailed him and asked. Several hours later... all day had passed, he emailed back to explain that he had been keeping it in his pocket everyday while working until a little over a week ago when it fell out of his pocket and he almost never found it. Since then, it has been kept safe in his rack. When they ported, he realized he forgot his ring when he was already off the ship with his liberty partners.

I can't say that I blame him for not dragging his buddies back on the ship to get his ring.. however, I LOVE seeing that ring on his finger.

Everything added up today- just made today pretty much suck, but at the same time.. great because the email he sent me after that one was amazing an just what I needed to hear. You know, one of those really Sappy ones that went something like, "I love you baby and you’re the only one baby all I do is think about you every second that I'm out here. Its hard for us being away from each other and I miss you like crazy and I know you miss me like crazy baby. you’re the only girl I want. I need you baby. I don’t need anyone else except for you. I love you baby. Forever. I promise." 

Ok, yes, that was a copy and paste from his email. Yes, he says "baby" alot. You should see the "Lol"s and "haha"s in other emails.. maybe that'll be a different post for a different day- evidently everything is funny to my husband.

Have you ever noticed (for some) that you're ok if you don't get an email all day- and the days you're fine and are ok without one, are the days they get to email quite a bit, but the days that you have a question or "need" something.. those are the days you either don't hear from them or it's definitely not fast enough to calm your nerves? Maybe that's another post for another day. Yes I know that "question" was a horribly written run-on sentence, but I'm ok with that. 

 

F.ull of R.idiculous G.irls

Full of Ridiculous Girls- This is a thought I had months ago about the Ship's FRG. I had contemplated months ago blogging on how I didn't feel like they weren't the support that everyone had looked for. There was too much drama involved. I went from being proud to be involved to wanting nothing to do with it. I stopped attending meetings for several months.

Then, I thought the FRG was nothing but Drama filled wives. Thankfully, since that opinion was formed in my head- My opinion has changed drastically, so much for the better. I'm proud to say that today- the USS Enterprise FRG is outstanding and those that have an alternate opinion on it aren't allowing themselves to be apart of the GOOD it can do for them or well, they expect too darn much, or maaaybe THEY are the drama. These woman aren't super heroes- they have deployed husbands just as we do.

A few months ago, It seemed like the board had given up. And still today, I don't see the past board's actions any differently. The events they did have were kid events, the suggestion box never seemed to be taken into consideration, No one reached out when someone needed something, New moms were left in the hospital, alone, New wives were clueless as to what an FRG was, The childless families were left out because everything was a "kid" event, ETC. The kid events didn't bother me all too much, however After my last 2 miscarriages, I didn't want to be around kids AT ALL. So, I personally felt "left out" and alone. There are others who well, quite frankly just don't like or want kids- just because you don't have kids, doesn't mean you're not family.

So what changed? The board changed. The past board- Some of the ladies' hearts just were not into it fully anymore and another just badmouthed the other leaders creating tension and tons of drama for many people- both leaders and members. Thankfully the board was revamped. Those involved today seem to be on the board for the right reasons and the Ship removed the internal problem.

I think the Board is doing a wonderful job- balancing events for both the adults and the children. The meetings are held better and committees were created to keep everyone involved and plan different events. They allow people to ask questions and they answer as best as they can.

Since the board "upgrade", I'm happy to be involved, I'm proud to say that the FRG I'm trying to stay active in is wonderful.

Pretty Little Liars

Since being a Navy Wife, I have noticed so many things. And one thing I have recently really started to notice is that 'girls' lie.

I guess after recent events, I have started paying more attention to what people say, and how trusting I am to people. I'm just a bit more observant.

It's crazy the things I have heard lies about. From "Husband's falling overboard", money and assets, to husband's rank and everything in between.

It's really pathetic because there are just some things you just DON'T lie about- or well you shouldn't. I hate lies. I cannot and will not be friends with someone who is going to lie to me, especially to my face. Facebook, is the easiest way to catch a liar. If you just read posts. You will read of how "someone's husband is almost an officer" and then another post where their husband is still an airman, or seaman... Definitely no where near being an officer. Why lie about something so silly? Especially when you're going to put all the info out there to be proven a liar.

Even worse, WHY would someone lie about their husband almost dying on the ship? It's one thing for it to almost happen but then to contradict yourself in future conversations and then it not being put out on the ship that there was a "Man overboard".. all I can do is shake my head.

It all comes down to people wanting attention.

I'm just amazed at the lies people are saying. I understand that Deployment is terribly hard for some... but lying isn't a way to get GOOD attention. It attracts negative attention.

Blob

It's new nearly 230am... And I'm wide awake, lying here in bed, paying on my phone.

When deployment started, one of my main goals was to get in shape. Now that I'm faced with a heart condition, I'm limited to what I can do. I wanted to start Insanity, but it's too much for my condition at the moment. I'm not allowed to go running like I would love to, or even jogging..sometimes merely walking across the room will make me winded... And it's not because I'm out of shape, it's something to do with whatever issue I have going on in this chest of mine. I've been trying to keep upbeat about everything, but this week it has had an effect on me.

I see how so many are doing just what I had wanted to do. I'm a bit jealous. I feel like I'm going to stand on the pier on homecoming and look like a blob.

I don't necessarily need to loose weight, I just wanted to tone up. I wanted my legs and butt to look like they did when I played soccer-kick ass. Not to mention, running helps me clear my head, and keeps me in a good mood.

My doctor has basically said I can't do any of that, no working out until they figure out what's going on... Leaving me to feel stuck inside all the time. I'm sure this yucky weather isn't helping much either. I'm ready for some sunshine.

I'm hoping the cardiologist figures something out this week so I can be released to exercise again.

Right now, my focus is going to be on eating better, cutting out all junk food, and putting in more fruit and veggies.

I might even try this 3 day detox I found on an adroid app.

Tomorrow, im starting on a healthy food kick.. and hopefully, the heart issue will get figured out shortly.