My hat, every single one I own, is officially off to all the military wives out there. I don’t know how you do it. The Mister has been away for work for twelve days now. We still have one more to go (37 hours, but who is counting?) and I am a wreck. There are but two things that have kept my whining at a minimum: one, knowing that there are so many military wives out there who don’t see their husbands for months, not just a days, and knowing how blessed we are with the job The Mister has. He has worked very hard to climb up a literally gruesome ladder (think: slaughter, butchering…) to get to where he is at. I am grateful. I swear.

But three months in to having finally married my best friend and confidante, I am far from amused with two week stretches of his absence. It doesn’t help that he is stuck in Green Bay, Wisconsin in April (think:snow), or that it has rained every.single.day since he left. And it doesn’t help that I know he will be gone again in three far-too-short weeks. Sigh.

My friends think I am crazy. Either they are wishing for a two-week reprieve from their own spouse, or they remind me I am not-so-far removed from my own independent single days. I see their point, at least the second one. Shouldn’t this be a cake walk for two people who have been single for years? Some might even think this would be a tremendous help, a way to ease into married life for two independent people. But it is quite the opposite. Having been on our own for so long, having finally found someone we love spending our time with, having become quickly spoiled with daily conversations and nightly bed partners, we hold onto such things with a fierce grip. We know too well what it feels like without it.

We try, the two of us, to focus on the silver linings. The extra money has helped us do some spring projects that would not otherwise have been possible. We look forward to our vacation this summer. We are grateful for email, texting, FaceTime and free long distance calls. And it certainly makes us treasure the days we have when he is home.

For those of you who are separated for months; where a guarantee of a safe return is not promised; who have young children even – my hat is off to you.

For those who know me, for those close enough to know that God has been trying to teach me patience my whole life (and I am a poor student in this class), I promise to keep you apprised of The Mister’s travel plans, so you know when to steer clear of me. I will be much better soon.

It sure goes to show how much I love, need and miss this man, that’s for certain.

Come home, Chief.

…But I’ll be lonely without you
And I’ll need your love to see me through
So please believe me
My heart is in your hands
And I’ll be missing you

‘Cause you know it’s you babe
Whenever I get weary
And I’ve had enough
Feel like giving up
You know it’s you babe
Givin’ me the courage
And the strength I need
Please believe that it’s true
Babe, I love you

(“Babe” by Styx)

It was his half day that started it all. With The Mister, aka “Flash’s Personal Taxi Driver,” away, we didn’t have many good options about getting Flash to his afternoon high school. The best option (in my opinion) was for me to drop him four and a half hours early when I went to work. He didn’t much dig that plan.

I finally realized (again, I’m on cold meds) that while The Mister is out of town, his Jeep is in the garage. We are a two car family!! Flash was thrilled with the new plan that involved me taking the Jeep to work, while he slept in and eventually made his way to school in my car. The Mister gave his blessing with the forewarning that the Jeep was low on gas. No worries. I can put gas in the Jeep.

As it turned out, putting gas in the vehicle was about the only thing I actually knew how to do. I did NOT know:

-how to turn the headlights on
-how to turn on the dome light so I can find the headlight switch (Duh, it’s a soft-top Jeep. There isn’t a dome light!)
-how to get the key out of the ignition
-how to get into or out of the Jeep in a skirt and heels
-how to decide if the low tire pressure light was important or a fluke
-know how much air pressure Jeep tires take
-know where The Mister might keep a tire gauge
-how to get back home, get a soon-to-be grumpy teen out of bed, get in MY car, dropped at school and still get to my classroom before the bells. (Not possible)
-how to remain calm while driving the Jeep to work, despite the low tire pressure light
-how to manage a vehicle on the highway that aerodynamically behaves like a sideways mobile home

The ride home was much more relaxed. The Mister had since responded that the tire pressure sensor is on the fritz and is nothing to worry about. It was daylight and I had no need for headlights (although I now know how to work them). The gas tank was full and I drove the back roads home, eliminating concerns over cross breezes and passing semi-trucks. As I enjoyed the curvy roads drenched in bright sunlight, confidently navigating my way, an oncoming Jeep reminded me I still have much to learn. I had not prepared myself for the mandatory “Jeep wave” from one Jeep driver to another!

Flash has another half day tomorrow. Perhaps by then I will be better prepared to drive the beloved Jeep!

The Mister wasn’t too happy when he found out he would be working in Detroit last week, but he met up with friends and enjoyed his hometown city and made the best of it.

He was even less thrilled, however, when after being back less than 48 hours, he was back out the door, this time headed west to Chicago, for another week away from home.

Back at the ranch, my sinus infection is still rearing its ugly head after ten days (again-as if six weeks at Christmas and sniffling through the “in sickness” parts of our vows wasn’t enough) and to top it all of, I came down with my first ever case of pink eye-in both eyes today…

The Mister says he wishes he was home to help pick up my prescriptions and hand me the one thousandth tissue of the day, but I think he is secretly on the phone with his boss asking if they still need someone in Green Bay next week.

Just a hunch.

The Mister left this morning for work related travel. I wasn’t home an hour before his absence was tangibly felt. First, I had to make dinner. The whole dinner. And get plates and all ready. Even as Flash and I tried to point out the silver lining’s I. the Mister’s absence, (parking in the middle of the garage, sleeping in the middle of the bed…) I realized I couldn’t even turn the TV on. I have no idea how to work all the remotes we have now. I handed them over to Flash and said, “you do it.” He asked me what I wanted to do. I thought this was surely a trick question. I was handing him all the remotes to the TV, wasn’t it rather clear I wanted the darn thing on?! Apparently, I had to specify antenna or satellite before I had even seen the menu of shows. Good grief.

Even with TV on, things didn’t improve. Flash found a show he liked, which I promptly made fun of (he gave me permission to). But when I tired of that entertainment, I quickly started nagging him to teach me the game he was playing on his phone. Which must have been annoying to him because he started begging for The Mister to come home already.

Zoiks. We still have four more days of this.

The SECOND Star Wars marathon has just begun at our house. The FIVE teens are ready to read every opening, play the theme at top volume and be extraordinarily loud until around ten tomorrow morning.

Wish us luck.

After spending a frustrating amount of time once again today, trying to unjam my school printer-the one that seems to think it needs to feed at least two or three pieces of paper instead of the one it was designed to handle – I wondered, as I pulled up to the ATM for cash tonight why the bank dispenser never seems to have the same issue. Just once, couldn’t the ATM slide two twenties out when I only requested one?

“Wait, wait, tell me if this is safe….”

I don’t even want to know. And to think, that was The Mister asking the teenager!

31 things I have learned in my first month of marriage with The Mister:

31. The Mister will eat anything. He will pop a never-before-tried piece of food into his mouth fearlessly. He will eat any combination of food; foods that should be hot, he’ll happily eat cold; and he will eat the strangest leftovers and call it breakfast. But he won’t eat quinoa.

30. Combining many of our accounts and bills is a great, time-saving idea. Combining our iTunes music is not. Upon realizing he has Vanilla Ice, The Mister will feel the need to launch into a white-man’s-overbite version of “Ice Ice Baby” in the kitchen. Be glad you weren’t there. He was not, apparently, “2 Legit to Quit”.

29. You can indeed feel smiles coming from the heavens. While certain Mom would have loved this man, her approval became certain when The Mister announced his obsession with the show, “Dallas”.

28. Household projects are far better when they are done at the same house. Progress is much faster and the process is far more entertaining.

27. Laughter is a great medicine. Not a day goes by – usually not an hour- that he doesn’t make me laugh. Gut-wrenching, tear-inducing, my-stomach-hurts kind of laughing.

26. Things miraculously get fixed around here. At the mere mention that a handle is loose, or the back door squeaks or I wish I had a shelf there…and it is done.

25. Being on a budget or a diet (or both) is way better when you do it with someone else.

24. A Michigan winter is easier to tolerate when I don’t have to fight with the beastly snowblower. EVAH.

23. I never realized the sheer joy that comes from hearing the words (or reading the text) that says, “Don’t worry about dinner. I’ve got it covered.”

22. When there is nothing to do, there is still someone to do it with.

21. While “divide and conquer” is a good idea in battle, three people shopping together at the grocery store only results in overspending.

20. Parenting is made easier with a second opinion.

19. Parenting is made more difficult with a second opinion.

18. While I was used to a rapidly-depleted fridge before with a teenager, it is safe to say, every night we start from scratch for dinner and I will never eat another leftover. Even if I wanted to.

17. New brakes on a car is a do-it-yourself project. I.had.no.idea.

16. The family calendar will now have vacations planned out a year in advance and will include dates when the Red Sox come to town to play the Tigers.

15. I have been buying meat wrong for years. Having an expert who will shop for, purchase, divide and prepare meat in house is a money and taste bud saver.

14. Despite being a favorite sport of both of us, despite being the occasion of our first date, I will still watch most of the Super Bowl alone due to a three a.m. alarm for The Mister.

13. People say he will learn to adjust to me staying awake after he falls asleep, and that I will learn to sleep through his early alarm. Neither has happened in the first month.

12. We realized 30 days too late to call the deal off, that The Mister has never seen The Princess Bride in its entirety. We will do our best to remedy the situation by making him watch it and then quoting it incessantly.

11. Nerf wars will continue, but I am suddenly lacking a weapon. The boys each have theirs and will go to battle at the drop of a hat. My weapon, however, will be dismantled for parts. Suspicious indeed.

10. Scrabble can be very addictive. And competitive.

9. Conversations that reminisce about Pennsylvania will always creep us out a bit as we lived and ate and shopped at many of the same places, only at different times.

8. For a man who works with dead cows, he can get a group of second graders wound up pretty easily.

7. The washing machine and dishwasher never stop running.

6. The dog has never been happier. A bigger bed to sleep in, a buddy to come home at noon to play, and someone who loves to be in the snow as much as he does. (Oh, and someone who hates the cats, too!)

5. The Mister can do the best “I’ve been shot” impression.

4. It took us less than a month to be comfortable enough with each other to bring out the sweatpants, ball cap, lazy Saturday look. But we still refuse to go to WalMart like that.

3. No one hiccups like The Mister.

2. It takes all three of us to figure out the remotes to the TV, Direct TV, stereo and antenna.

1. I love every minute of this life together! Happy one month anniversary, Chief!

The Mister has a very good job. A job he has worked hard over many years to get and to be secure in. He has held positions along the way that were neither fun nor lucrative, but he climbed the ladder and is in a position most others have to have degrees in the field to get into; he just has a world of experience.

His job comes with a pension, four weeks plus of vacation and more important perhaps than any of that, it comes with security. If he tires of his exact position, he can move within government jobs to something more to his liking without losing seniority, vacation or benefits. It’s a good gig, and he has worked hard to get it.

The downside, and there’s always downsides with any job, is that he goes to work at 3 or 4 in the morning, sometimes six days a week. To be honest, our differing schedules was a point of concern before we got married. How do we create a family life and schedule when I get home at 5 and he is headed to bed by 8? But people do stranger things and we knew we’d find a way.

To be honest, we have found his schedule to be quite a blessing. He is off around noon every day, and can sometimes leave even earlier. This has made him Flash’s personal taxi service on half days, and days when he has a meeting after school. The Mister is home in time to putter around the house without interruption. He can spend a few hours doing all the things men love to do without the supervision or interference of a woman.

But there is another way in which we are blessed in all of this, a blessing that is perhaps a marriage saver. You see, The Mister wakes before his alarm even sounds. He is a shower-after-work kind of a guy, so within fifteen minutes of his feet hitting the floor, they are hitting the accelerator of his Jeep. He dresses for warmth, not fashion, so he lays out his clothes the night before and doesn’t even turn on a light in the early hours of morning. While I am awake during this time, it is brief and quiet.

On the other hand, when I get up, nearly two hours later, I do not go about mornings peacefully. I am an obsessive snoozer. I hit that button more times than should be legal some mornings, putting off the inevitable. When I finally do rise, I do it grudgingly. Don’t dare talk to me. Don’t even try to make eye contact. I am not happy to be up and I am not happy to see the morning arrive. I am noisy in the bathroom. I run the shower and the hair dyer. I go up and down the stairs to warm or dewrinkle clothes in the dryer. I futz around I the closet figuring out what to wear. My mood is as grouchy as the room is bright with lights. Flash has always known this and thankfully, God graced me with an easy going, independent child who rises without issue and is out the door with merely a shout up the stairs.

The Mister is blissfully unaware of my morning reluctance, and I am forever grateful that our start times occur in the order they do for our jobs. If not, just two weeks in, he might be reconsidering the whole “till death -or mornings with Eliza – do us part”.

We finally celebrated Christmas with my sister and her family this weekend. They had been on a cruise, we had been sick and then there was this wedding…

In any case, my sister, much to our excitement, gave The Mister and me a queen-size electric blanket with dual controls. Which, of course, led to us reminiscing about our mom and how she once switched the controls on her future in-laws’ electric blanket, turning one up just a bit and the other down just a bit. My grandparents spent the night wondering why one couldn’t get warm no matter how high they turned their knob, while the other couldn’t get the darn thing to cool off. In all fairness, my mom, a great practical joker, was exacting revenge on a man who pinned her coat sleeve shut then kindly offered to help her on with it. Teasing runs on both sides of my family.

The Mister and I immediately put it on our bed when we arrived home. Flash was beyond thrilled to get the smaller one I had been using (which Jules gave me last year) for his bed. (He also got my antique three quarter size bed after the wedding when The Mister moved in with a queen. This whole wedding thing is working out well in his favor!) The Mister and I plugged in the controls, but then switched them around as he had more outlets on his side of the bed. It wasn’t until later, when we crawled under the covers that we realized our error.

He was trying desperately to get his side off as he was already too warm; I was trying to figure out why my side wasn’t heating up at all….oh Mom, we are such fodder for you down here, aren’t we? And to think, we did it to ourselves!