Some things to know...

I am a girl who likes tips and tricks to make things easier.  I am easily a sucker for magazines that tout the newest way to overcome obstacles in my life and house.  Rarely though do I find something new anymore.  That said, I have discovered somethings over time and it occurred to me I might share them with you.

• Borax Mule Team worked great to keep my cloth diapers white and clean smelling- the same thing applies to musty smelling towels.  Put a quarter cup in the wash with smelly clothes or towels along with detergent and softener and you will have fresh smelling towels again.
• WD40 is a mothers best friend- if you have lipstick or crayons in stray places.  It takes an oil to break down an oil.  Both of those items are oil based, thus you need a finer oil to get rid of them.  WD40 will do that.  It wipes crayon right off a wall with NO work.  Easier than mr. clean.  Just don't use on FLAT paint.  
• Make deviled eggs pretty!  Use a ziploc to put the filling into, press out the air and seal.  Cut off a small corner (i mean SMALL) of the bottom and squeeze out like a decorator bag.  Works great.
• When you grease and flour a pan for chocolate cake, replace the flour with cocoa.  Plain old cocoa powder instead gives a lucious look to the cake.
• Use applesauce in all baked goods instead of  vegetable oil.  In a boxed cake, you can save hundreds of calories by replacing the 1/3 cup oil called for with applesauce.  The cake will be tender and light.  I love using cinnamon flavored in all but the white cakes.  
• Use an apple corer to core a cucumber.
• Want really white whites?  Get some bluing.  Old fashioned and it works.  Use as directed in your whites and line dry them in the sun.  The will blind you!
• Is your school/preschool always sending home lice notes?  Rub rosemary oil on your child's feet and behind ears (just a drop) daily.  It is a natural repellant to lice.
• Use dryer sheets (used are better) to dust with.  It stops the dust from returning as quickly, uses up the clothes for double duty and attracts the dust very nicely.
• Use old pantyhose on the end of your vacuum tube to get under furniture/radiators.  There will always be something under there that shouldn't be sucked up.  This lets it get caught on the stocking and you can then save the 'found' earring or toss the year old tator tot.  
• Every time you use a lemon or lime for juice, zest it first.  Freeze the zest to throw into pancake, cake, french toast, muffin batters.  
• Green hair from the pool?  Wash it with beer.  It is a cheap way to get the green out.  
• Static in your hairbrush?  Spray with hairspray first.  Then let dry a moment and brush your hair.  No more static. 

I guess that is a good enough list for now.  Just a few of my favorite hints.  I hope you find one useful. 

The answer is... suck it up and drive on

Many a time I am asked, "How do you do it?  How do you live with a man, give him your heart and bear him children, all while knowing he may leave for battle and never return?"  They even ask, "How does he do it?  How does he live with the fact that his job may take his life?"
All too often I want to say, "we don't".  But we do.  We just don't think about it too often and when we do, we pull up our big girl panties, suck it up and drive on.
That is what got every soldier through every battle.  That and the knowledge that 'someone' was back home, praying they would return.
Recently we were blessed to see a dear friend home on R&R (rest and relaxation in the middle of deployment for those non military).  When it was time for us to go, I hugged him and whispered in his ear, "Come home safe. Come home whole.  Not in a box.  Please."  As we walked away all I could think was I love his wife dearly, but I did not know if I would have her strength to help HER through that if it were to happen.
The point is, it happens.  So we cannot ignore it.  We don't "not think about it".  But we do avoid it when we can and live this life, this day, this moment.  We savor this kiss, this hug, this great marital intimacy, NOW.  We even find a way to savor the fights and frustrations.  I may complain that my beloved leaves his dirty underwear on the floor (apparently this is not an uncommon male trait), but as I do, I say a silent prayer of thanks, "he is here to do this, capable to do this, may he always be so."
I teach my children to be proud.  I cry when the National Anthem is played, when any patriotic song comes on.  I teach them and myself to let ourselves be caught up in this moment.  Why?  Because someday, that moment may be all we have left to remind of the one we loved and lost.  But we cannot dwell on it.
I make sure our ducks are in a row. Every good Army wife is trained too.
  Do you believe me?  Our training is subtle, but constant, and as necessary as theirs.   I know where all his paperwork is.  I know whose name is on every policy and what it will deliver should that day come.  I know how to put his ribbons back in order for an open casket.  I know what to expect if that black car pulls up and a chaplain and another officer get out. I know how long I have in housing, how long it will take for the first gratuity to fly in loved ones, what protection is granted us- and what isn't (Westboro baptist thugs) I know these things because if- that ever looming 'if' that is asked all the time of me- if it happens to us, I might be able to lean on that training when nothing else will work inside my broken heart and mind.  My training will be what I act upon by instinct.  And should I never need it, I am surrounded by my sisters in arms, who might need me to be there to gently guide them through in case their training just didn't quite kick in.  That applies in reverse too, which is why I am so invested in training Army spouses (God forbid in all this, but I am being real here.)
So there you have it.  We live with it.  We don't ignore it, we cannot.  It won't let us.  But if we let it consume us, we will drown. What we can do is treasure here, now, and today.  We allow ourselves our moments to delve deeply into the subject, like Memorial Day, when we remember all who have given thier life before us.  We let ourselves shed a tear.  We must do that- to honor them, to remember them.  Then we must let the others take on that task the rest of the time so we can do our job- which is not just to protect and serve, but to live.
Last night a friends husband shared that his mom always tells him"Carpe Diem". I wish that I could, I certainly try.  The thing is, we cannot ignore, we cannot dwell, and some days, we just cannot seize the freaking day.  All we can do is pull up those big girl panties.... suck it up.... and drive on.   That my friends is the answer to how we do it.

facebook gave me roots

We hear it all the time, "facebook ruined my marriage, my friendship, got me fired...".

Well apart from the fact that a computer program cannot do those things, I am here to say that facebook has done something really good, really true, of value, of moment, in my life.

I am a Brat.  yup... proud to say it.  Military, Army to be specific, Brat.  It is what I know.  It is what I do now, I am a BratBride.  I traded one ID card for another.  I had a civilian life once, many years ago, before my parents remarried and I was given a prefix to my sponsors ID#.

To be fair, that first life was when I was young, by the time I was 12 I was a Brat.  But the moving started much earlier.  I love my parents, let me just say that.  I am not trying to be unfair or mean, but the fact is, in general, every time my parents split up or got back together we moved.  So we could argue my training for Army life began early. Add to that, my father is a GOOD solid German Norwegian.  In good Scandinavian style, "we" don't speak about family, it might be gossip.  But that rule also stopped me from learning about my heritage. I lost an invaluable treasure trove of stories about who I am and who I come from.  I know what I learned from my mom's side and can only IMAGINE what I would feel if I had been able to connect to my fathers family in the same way.  I didn't even know what I had lost until I lived in Wisconsin.  There the women of my church and quilting group taught me old family recipes.  They shared thier stories of thier families in that odd womanly way that doesn't qualify as gossip somehow.

Let me back up though.  I have always felt like I had no roots, no home.  Once told that there is no way anyone doesn't have a place they truly call home, they said emphasized by asking where I want to be buried.  In all honesty, with a straight face, I answered, " Dig a hole beside my body and role me in."  I was and still am serious.  I have no place I call home.  None.  In face, I have few places I can go where anyone would recognize me if I showed up today.  My life is that ephemeral. Thus, I have no roots.
That is, I didn't.  Until facebook appeared.

Somehow, the roots to my high school- that no longer exists (due to BRAC, Base Realignment and Closure started in the 80's) were found through this neverland of the world wide web.  There have been reunions, there are groups, there are close friends reconnecting and recalling the fun.  Even the icky stuff too- but all of that is required to have roots.  You know, it takes poop to make good plants grow deep roots too.

 I have found many a dear friend on here.  Some, we find, we read up on each other and we then settle into a non-interactive connection again.  Others, who may not have been my closest confidants, are now quickly becoming the ones to whom I go for support, connection, encouragement and truth.  I know the rules.  I don't do that with the guys.  I have a loving hubby and I am not willing to risk that.  But that doesn't mean I won't add a guy to my friends list.  They are a root too.  Maybe one of those tiny ones, but they count.  They are a part of my past, a part of my now and will be a part of my future, even without facebook.

I have connected with cousins.  I have been shown pictures I did not know existed of me as a young girl.  I have found distant relatives through my grandfathers cousins!  I am finally, creating my own "web" of roots- and facebook is to credit, not to blame.  It has been a blessing in my life.  It has connected me with my college pals in Kansas and Minnesota.  It allows me to participate in Bible study groups.  It has let me learn who my husband is and has given me a key to that treasure trove of stories in my father's family, so that now I may share this with my children. I finally feel almost confidant enough to reach out to family in Minnesota to ask if I may come visit, to see family history in person, to see faces that look like mine, hair of flax that looks like my children's.
Yup... for once, facebook has done as good as an inanimate object may.  This Brat has finally found some roots, in spite of my lifestyle.  Thank goodness for this marriage wrecking, job losing, friend turned enemy making site.