Thankful Thursday.

Three and a half years ago when Dave chose his first set of orders, I was shocked and a little disappointed that he got orders to some island in Washington that I had never heard of. I had pictured us taking orders to sunny Florida or tropical Hawaii. When we were driving to this island I was skeptical but excited. Then we got here and I was shocked at how small it was. I was picturing a huge shipyard with lots of carriers and big ships. That isn't what I got.

Now, here I sit in the place that I call home. This is where David and I have built our life. This is where we truly became a family. This small town on this beautiful island is where I became an adult and where I learned to flourish as a mother and as a wife.

People ask me all the time if I am going to go "home" while Dave is deployed. I am home. I have this place where I have amazing friends. I have friends who are moms and who have similar ways of parenting to my own. We go to play dates and we do fun things. I know my way around and I know which restaurants are good. My son was born in the living room of this house.

When I think of Dave coming home and where I feel safe, it is here. It's within these four walls. When I consider what will grant my family the most stability in a really unstable time, I know that I belong right here. I belong in this town house on this island.

I have no idea how it happened. I have no idea why reality and my expectations are always so different. What I do know is that I am on this island for a reason. I was put on this cold, windy rock because I was meant to grow into myself here. I am so glad that a simple twist of fate led me to Washington.

A whole 15 days.

The B-Man and I have made it fifteen whole days without eating out. I have no idea how much money this endeavor has saved us, but my best guess tells me that it's a lot. I have no idea what compelled us to take up this challenge, but I am glad that we did.

I drove all over Washington this weekend and because eating out was not an option, all that I spent was what the ferry cost me (less than $25, round trip) because I ate breakfast at home, packed a lunch, dinner at my friend's, breakfast with her, leftover dinner for lunch, and then a home-cooked meal at home when I returned.

It was fantastic. For one thing, I simply sat and visited with one of my favorite people on the planet. There was no pressure, no stress because I was enjoying a weekend that I couldn't afford, and it was relaxing and amazing to get away from home. Our kids love each other and were ridiculously excited to see one another since they are used to seeing each other a lot more than they have lately. I needed to get off of my island and do something on my own.

I also proved to myself that it is possible to take a road trip without spending a boat load of money. I found out that leaving Dave at home without me doesn't mean coming home to a burnt down house. He didn't even break our deal, he ate leftovers and managed to not eat out. Someone should give that man a medal. I am guessing that it would have been the most tempting before I got home on Sunday.

Today was officially our fifteenth day. We are halfway there. I know that we can make it 30 days. I know that we will be happier for it because we will have more money and be healthier. I pride myself on making good choices for my family, but I have found that where food is concerned I sometimes sacrifice for the sake of convenience. Who can fault me? I am a Navy wife, full time student, wife of a full time student, runner, and mom. Convenience is important to me. This lesson is teaching me that I don't have to sacrifice convenience completely for the sake of nutrition.

The bottom line for my family is that we are living on Junior Enlisted pay, in a high cost of living area, in a period where prices are higher than our pay allows. We can't afford to eat out. We could be enjoying other things in life a lot more if we weren't spending money on restaurant food. I think that if we can make it thirty days, we can make it sixty. Now I just need to convince my husband.

The Clouds Have Come.

I look outside my window right now and I see grayness. It's ugly. It's mid-September and I am guessing that fall has come to Whidbey. That would be great if I were in Colorado. I love the fall in Colorado. The leaves turn and it's still relatively warm and the air smells like fall. On Whidbey, when the fall comes, it just smells wet and looks dirty. Whidbey fall is my least favorite Whidbey season. It also means that I probably need to up my dosage of Zoloft. I don't do well in the Washington winter. My first winter here was the lowest trench of depression that I have ever experienced. It was truly awful and I am not eager to repeat it again.

Ironically, on this thankful Thursday, it is the clouds and the ugly (both outside of my house and inside of me) that I am thankful for. At this time last year, two years ago, and three years ago I was completely unaware of it. It was consuming me. I was not showering, I lived in sweats, I would go weeks without leaving my home, I was dangerous to myself and my family. Today, even though I feel it, I am safe from it. I am aware of it and am addressing it. I confront it head-on every time I swallow a Zoloft and every time I run.

I have been having a pretty crappy day and I was really close to coming home and taking a nap. I wanted to crawl in bed and make the day go away. But today, I made the active, conscious choice to stay awake. I made the choice to sit down and blog and then do homework. The conversation that I had with myself went something like this:

Dark Molly: Today sucks. If I nap, it will be over sooner.
Rational Molly: No, if you nap today you will feel worse.
Dark Molly: But it would be so much easier.
Rational Molly: It's a bad habit to start napping on the cloudy days. The cloudy days are going to become more frequent, you should start facing the cloudy days and not hibernating.

I'm so, unbelievably glad that I have come to a place in life where I can talk myself out of my depression related behaviors. I even passed up on buying a cookie at the coffee shop, because I knew I would be stress-eating. Mental health is winning.

Yesterday and Today.

Ahhhhh Thursday-the most thankful day of the week. Here I am on the heels of my three-year-old's first day of preschool and I am feeling blissful.

Yesterday, my little man and myself went to a nearby town to ride ponies. I haven't spent much one on one time with him that didn't include yelling, timeouts, or bedtime stories lately. It was much needed. I went to bed excited and looking forward to it and I woke up ready for it. It went wonderfully. He's three, so he's not easy but he's mine and I love him endlessly.

Having $15 extra dollars to take him to ride a pony, $15 more to get him a pre-pre-school haircut, and an extra $5 to treat him to a small toy was amazing. We just came out of the most brutally long pay period ever and we were broke beyond words. It was nice to actually feel like I had the means to make one of his dreams come true. He loves Betsey the pony. He can't wait to go back and see her again.

Yesterday led to today, which also held a lot of joy. Aside from a couple of mega tantrums and a small dog getting kicked, my little man was ecstatic to go to school and then came home to more joy when he got to sleep over at the neighbors'. One of my biggest downfalls as a mother is the fact that I am a full time student. There's a lot of TV watching and solo, indoor play around here. I often feel like I crunch all day long in order to try and get out of the house and do something fun, only to discover that I finished too late and the day is wasted.

Lately, I have felt a lot better about it because for the first time in FIVE LONG YEARS we have neighbors that we like. They're cool and actually want to talk to us and come by and ask us to do things. Archer is absolutely smitten with their son who is around the same age. Every time he sees his new friend, he wants to go out and play. I could not be more thankful. Having cool neighbors is the biggest win I can think of.

Thankful Thursday and Angry Molly.

I skipped Thankful Thursday this week and planned to reconcile that on Friday. Then, first thing on Friday, I had an epic fight with my mother and didn't feel very thankful for anything because I was so busy being angry.

I am still really angry. I still have no intention of ever speaking to my mother again. To forgive may be divine, but I am not divine. I'm just me and that's all that I will ever be. I've never been a very forgiving person and it was recently brought to my attention that I am very stubborn. I plan on sticking to my guns with this one. Until my mom can actually listen to me and hear what I am saying as opposed to hearing what she wants to hear, I won't have a relationship with her. I am really tired of having a dysfunctional family.

I am tired of it on all ends. Dave's family is dysfunctional, my family is dysfunctional, we're all dysfunctional and it's absolutely exhausting. I can't do it anymore and I won't. I won't subject my kids to the dysfunction any more than I already have. So that's that.

I am really grateful that I have a healthy, functional relationship with my husband. The very nature and dynamic of our relationship is so different than the relationships that we both witnessed growing up that I feel that we are bound to, at the very least, be dysfunctional in an entirely different way than our families are. I am ready to make my own way and to follow my own path. I can create and deal with my own dysfunction, but I can't deal with other people's dysfunction and I am not going to anymore.

I never would have thought that epic, raging, pulsing anger would be something to be grateful for but as of today I am very glad that I got angry. The huge fight that I had with my mom made me realize that I'm really, truly mad. I have an anger problem. I get mad and I just want to hit, hurt, and destroy. Had I been face to face with her yesterday, there is no doubt in my mind that it would have gotten physical and that is not good. I'm an adult. If I want to be treated like an adult, I need to act like an adult and rational, healthy adults know how to control their anger.

So today, I am happy. I may still be angry, but I am also happy. I recognized a flaw within myself and now have a plan to address it. I have washed my hands of negativity and plan on turning over a new leaf. I am going to focus on being healthy. I hope that if I am healthy then my relationships will be healthy in turn. I can't fix other people, but I can fix myself and I am not ashamed to try and do just that.