thankful friday

last friday was Veterans Day, and I probably should have blogged this last week but I was terribly busy with the Nutcracker market and well, I was shopping...

If your only ongoing experience with the government is paying taxes every year and the occasional speed trap, you my friend, are a lucky ducky. Working with the government is like Weekend at Bernie's, wrestling a dead body.

David has been out of the military for 4 years this December.

I met Dp the month before he went to boot camp so military was pretty much all we knew. I had this idea that if we got married and I lived where he was stationed we would see each other A LOT more, but that didn't really happen. I was so cute and naive and believed that when we were out of the military I would be freeeeeeeeeeee as a bird now. No.

• Dp was still in the IRR- individual ready reserves. He got his discharge papers this July saying he was free from being called back, really really.
• The GI college benefits they bait you with are not, NOT, easy to get.
• The GI college benefits they bait you with are not, NOT, easy to keep. Sometimes you will be in your last semester of college ever and they will say you have used up all of your benefits.

In less than a month now David will be done with school and is currently looking for a job (holla if you have leads), and since September we have been benefits free. It was an unpleasant surprise and sent us scrambling to find some way to pay for school.

(this doesn't really sound like "thankful friday" but I'm getting to it, be patient. today is also "patience friday")

I was/am so scared about how to pay for this semester, but I am so relieved to be a real civilian. We are really free from the government now. We will always be veterans, and maybe you have to be a veteran to understand all the civilian benefits that are easy to get and easy to keep.

• I have spent 3 nights away from Dp in 4 1/2 years, which is still unbelievable.
• The government doesn't own him, seriously he was property, I'm not kidding. 
• We won't get a call in the middle of Christmas dinner saying we need to get back to the boat because they pushed up his deployment and he is leaving for 9 months in 3 days. Sigh, good times.
• I have a husband to carry heavy things, kill roaches, take out the trash, fill the car up with gas, and intimidate annoying solicitors.
• If we decide to have children one day, I won't be a single parent.
• When I have an emergency and need to talk to him, I can pick up the phone and will talk to him face to face that night. Instead of -- sending an email that says "next time you are in port I REALLY need to talk to you", and 3 weeks later he would buy a calling card and stand in a 2 hour line and we'd get to talk for 15 min.
• I own a house. And will be in this house till I decide I don't want to live here anymore.
• I can be a person again, not just a Navy wife, not following David around the country, not just planning for David's trips and welcoming David home. I can have dreams again, I am important again.

There are too many things I take for granted now that he is here all the time.

I am thankful to be a civilian.