military Archives - Page 15 of 17

Military First Friday Fill-in #73

July 7, 2012 No Comments

Greetings all, time for one of my favorite parts of the month, the Friday Fill-In. Whoop whoop!!! I’m totally late on this, seeing as its 10:15pm, but let me just say this has been a ridiculous day and week for that matter. Phillip is ridiculously fussy with the teething and seriously, this mama’s boy is getting old. I know I know, please shoot me in 10 years when he wants nothing to do with me. I’m sure I have some VA/DC readers here, so you will know first hand about this ridiculous storm and the 2 million people that originally were going without power. Holy Cow! So needless to say I’m like really behind, then throw in teething, a five year old with summer-itis and a three year old with a fever, you have a recipe for disaster and non-blogging.

Some really exciting things and housekeeping here. Check out the side bar for a coupon giveaway and sweepstakes, as well as amazing series of guest posts about military life from some amazing ladies. You will also find a military discount from a fabulous Cammo Love sponsor, Leading Lady, who makes amazing bras! Also, I am so excited and honored to have written for Spouse Buzz about OPSEC. I’m pretty proud of my first big writing experience.

Now for the questions! Thanks again for the amazing Wife of Sailor for doing this!

1. What’s one thing in the past month you would have changed?
Gosh, the last month…..nothing really in the last month. I think the month before I had wanted to attend a Memorial at the National Cathedral and didn’t go because I had the kids and I was worried about that. I should have just gone. I could have handled it!

2. What was your favorite thing that happened in June?
My brother from another mother came through town with his band. That was pretty darn exciting. I haven’t seen him about two years. Now that I’m on the East Coast I’ll probably seem them more which is so exciting!!

3. What did you do to celebrate Independence Day?
Well, the hubby was working but arrived just in time for fireworks! I packed up the kids and made it to our first parade over here. It was so amazing. The support for the military, and the military involvement in the parade was amazing! Loved it!!

4. When you PCS, what items do you take with you and not let the movers pack (and if you do a DITY, what do you take with you and not box up) (thanks to Sespi at And You Never Did Think for inspiring this question)?
Important documents and special items like jewelry and stuff of the children’s.

5. What are you looking forward to in July?
I’m looking forward for some more sightseeing with the hubby and finishing up some major DIY projects around the house! (be on the look out for that)

Thanks for stopping by!!

bra, Leading Lady, military, military discount, review, support

Leading Lady Supports the Military!

July 6, 2012 No Comments

I’m totally giggling in my head right now about the title of this post…I hope someone else does too! Once again I’m bringing you an awesome discount from Leading Lady. I’m a huge fan of Leading Lady and have been using their bras since I was pregnant. As a well-endowed chicadee I’m always looking for bras that I like. There are very few pretty bras for us gals that don’t cost a million dollars. Thankfully there’s Leading Lady. This time around I was able to try out two different kinds, the seamless padded wirefree bra and the Lace Underwire Full Figure bra. I was kind of nervous about the wirefree one, but I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered it provided a lot of support. It was really comfortable and it was really seamless. A+ across the board. The Lace Underwire bra was also amazing. Dainty and beautiful and comfortable. I really liked it. If you’re looking for a beautiful bra for a full-figured lady this would be an excellent choice. And as always, the customer service provided by Leading Lady is always par excellence’. I’m never disappointed with that or the ability to fit myself without having to go into a store.

Leading Lady is a premiere intimate apparel company dedicated to creating comfortably functional, remarkably affordable, stylish and easy-to-wear bras, camis and sleepwear. A family owned and operated business, Leading Lady has been expertly tailoring nursing and full figure bras for top brands and retailers across North America for more than 70 years. Leading Lady’s comprehensive line of nursing and full figure intimates – including sexy stretch lace wire-free and underwire bras, supportive and seamless sport and yoga bras, and cozy sleep and leisure bras – can be purchased directly on LeadingLady.com.

Leading Lady is proud to celebrate “Leading Ladies” everywhere through its products, programs and philanthropic activities. Leading Lady is committed to supporting military families, as well as a variety of organizations and issues relevant to women across the country. Follow Leading Lady on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

I’m also proud and happy to say that Leading Lady is a supporter of the military and I have a special discount that goes through tomorrow (I know I’m sorry its so short, but this storm has me all behind). The Leading Lady Military Discount will score you 20% off when you enter the code MBLOG20.

I was provided samples for my review as an ambassador for Leading Lady, but I was not compensated for positive feedback. The thoughts and opinions stated here are my own.

Army, military, Military families, military life series, military spouse, milspouse

Military Lifestyle Series #5

July 2, 2012 No Comments

Happy Monday Everyone! Its been a crazy last couple days here in the District, which is why things have been a little quiet here on Cammo Style Love. We had a massive storm, leaving millions without power here in the area. It was absolutely terrifying!! The wind was hurricane force and it literally littered our house, cars and yards with tree limbs and branches of all shapes and sizes. After waking up the next morning and learning about all the devastation and destruction I was so grateful that the giant tree in our yard didn’t get uprooted, like so many other huge trees in our very neighborhood. But anyway, so happy that we are here and safe and we are one of the lucky ones with power. What better way to celebrate then another installment of my military life series.

This post is from new blogging buddy discovery of mine. I happened upon her blog only a couple months ago and was hooked! Absolutely lovin’ it and she has inspired a few blogging ideas of my own (with full credit of course!). She’s amazingly fit women, and wonderful mama to their darling daughter and a super wifey to her super hubby!!! She’s a fellow mil-spouse and has some awesome tips for you fellow spouses out there!!

Hi everyone! I am SUPER excited to be guest posting for Rheanna today. My name is Madeline and I blog at Food, Fitness, and Family . I mainly write about good food, sweaty workouts, and life as a family of three but at the center of it all I am an Army wife raising an Army family. As any military spouse knows marrying into the military thrusts a never-ending cycle of changes upon as, and we, as women, adapt and move on. One of the biggest changes a military family can face is a PCS (permanent change of station). Having done this three times in the last three years I am no stranger to packing up our lives and starting fresh. Our most recent PCS was 2 months ago to Fort Stewart, GA. One of the hardest things about moving is leaving an established social network and heading into the unknown. I jump in feet first when I get to a new duty station and establish a new social network as soon as possible. These are some tips that have worked for me when trying to meet friends at a new duty station.

1. Check out your FRG. Before you gasp and say “not the FRG!” hear my out. An FRG is a family readiness group designed to support the families. While not every FRG is a good one there are many many out there that are. Before you make a judgment on your new FRG try it out. Then before you write it off because you don’t like it, try to get involved. Seek THEM out. They might not have your contact info yet or know you’re there to welcome you. Send them an email and ask for the information.

2. See if your installation has a spouses’ club. Most duty stations still have some sort of volunteer spouses’ club. Some still have them as officer or enlisted spouses’ clubs but more and more they are being combined into one. There is typically a monthly luncheon that you can attend. Again, don’t knock it until you try it 😉

3. Check out MeetUp.com. It’s a free service for forming groups. If you have kids this is a great way to see if there is an established playgroup at your installation. I have found 3 here at Fort Stewart already. If you don’t have kids but have some sort of passion, like running, see if there’s a running group nearby.

4. Host a BBQ. Your spouse has it much easier when it comes to making new friends because they are thrust into a new unit where they see people every day and can pick and choose who they want to hang out with. Mooch off them. I always invite my husband’s friends, WITH their families, over for a BBQ. I have made some of my best friends this way. The added bonus is that since our spouses already got along it opened the door to a lot of “couples” functions.

5. Go in with an open mind. True friendship often comes in the unlikeliest places. Remember that every other military spouse at your installation has been thru what you’re going thru. I would like to think we are pretty welcoming bunch.

6. Pay It Forward. Once you’ve been at your installation for a while and you have grown your network of friends, reach out to the new wives. Remember what it felt like to not know anyone and be the person welcoming them to the area. Invite them out to coffee. Pay it forward.

Any-who … thanks Rheanna for letting me hang out in your corner of the blogosphere for the day. J

What tips do you have for spouses moving to a new duty station? How do you go about meeting new people?

mil-spouse, military, Military families, National Guard

Excuses only go so far…..

June 23, 2012 No Comments

Its been going around today so I thought I would jump on the bandwagon, since apparently that’s what I’m doing these days *wink wink*. Two other wonderful articles I read concerned the National Guard spouse who got the media involved in her lack of an R&R were on Spouse Buzz and Army Wife 101, and mine isn’t as good as theirs. But, what’s a blog for if it isn’t for expressing ones own feelings and venting out some annoyance. I have been a National Guard gf/fiance/Spouse (of various standing – Active Duty for almost the whole time) for 10 years. I have never lived on or near a base until about six months ago. I’ve never been to an FRG meeting, or had a pre-deployment briefing or meeting, or post deployment anything. I learned right away that the military is in charge when my wedding occurred four months later than I wanted (Yup I moved around a good ‘ole fashioned white wedding for the military). My husband was basically my only guide and example for about four years before I really became close with any fellow mil-spouses, and they weren’t close to me anyway (distance wise). He set the example for me. He explained things to me, and helped me through when I was frustrated with the change. I quickly learned that was the plan in the military. The plane WAS change. It became a joke in our house, humor to deal with the insanity. I’m not a betting woman, but I would lay a whole lot of money down on the fact that many military families cope with life in this same way. The military is the mistress, the other woman, and so on and so on. Taking this military life became really important to me and I experienced a lot of things most younger and new spouses did not experience and quickly became a senior spouse because of experience.

Another thing I came to realize is that though my husband is not alone, a lot of husbands don’t convey the importance of things properly to their wives. There are a lot of amazing husband and wives, and girl friends and fiance’s out there that do. I know I’m not alone, and I know there would be another girl/guy out there that would totally understand what I’m saying when I say, “I may not get to wear his rank, nor do I deserve it, but its just as important to me as if it was mine.” His career is important to me, and being insanely involved with my husband and understanding the in’s and out’s has been one of my ways of coping.

Now that I’ve blathered on and on, let me get to the point. The point of this is the National Guard spouse in question. If you haven’t already seen or read the article you can go here and check it out yourself. Personally I’m wondering more about her husband than I am her, although I am definitely questioning her actions 100%. Something wasn’t talked about. Something wasn’t explained. I wonder also about this feeling of entitlement that I feel like may or may not be occurring in this situation. The military won’t even guarantee your husband home for your child’s birth, so I’m pretty sure an R&R doesn’t rank up there in the Things To Do category. But I also question her need to rush to the media? Did she do this on her own? I mean, did she just get so incensed, and without checking on things that figuring out what’s what, she just immediately went there with it? Did she not consider what may happen to her husband when its seen that she’s talking like she is and demanding apologies not just from the Army, but from the Pentagon? Really? I get that she may be uneducated and far away from support, but so are lots of people that go through crud that don’t do this. Common sense has to come into play at some point. I feel bad for her, I feel bad for her kid. It’s sad. My kids have been through a lot of disappointment, but I explain to them in an adult way and I talk about what an honor it is to sacrifice for their country. Sure I’m real and we say it totally sucks that daddy isn’t here. I don’t live life looking through rose colored glasses, but I try to make life as rosy as I can for the kids.

I guess that’s my point really, in these last few words that I say. I get it, and you’re not alone, but I feel like excuses only get you so far.

Europe, guest post, mil-spouse, military, military life series, OCONUS

Military Life Series #3 OCONUS

June 15, 2012 No Comments

Welcome to the third post in my Military Life Series! I hope you can check out the previous two posts from A Boy, A Girl and The Marine Corp, and Aim High Erin. The goal of this series was to focus on and highlight situations within the already crazy military life, that just make it that much more crazy. I know, before I got myself really connected with some fabulous military girls I frequently felt lost and alone. Was anyone else going through what I went through? So these posts are a way to connect people, to show them that they aren’t alone and to help them through a situation in life. I know there are other people in the same life situations as these fabulous ladies!

I’m so happy to have Lynn here for my third guest post. If you get a chance to go check out her blog I know you’ll love it. She’s super great. Here’s a little bit about her:

Lynn is mom to an incredibly charming, mischievous 18 month-old boy and a dog who hates the rain. She blogs at http://wanderlynn.wordpress.combecause she still hasn’t figured out how to not do some kind of work on the computer since leaving her marketing job when the little guy was born.

She and her husband, an officer in the US Air Force, just celebrated their 7^th wedding anniversary at a rather fancy restaurant in the east of England. She’s a Midwestern girl who sometimes misses the soul-warming heat of her college days in the South.

My Military Life – Getting that Overseas Assignment

By wanderlynn

A big thanks to Rheanna for asking me to write a guest post about our military life overseas!

The prospect of seeing the world was dazzling when we got married, me just out of grad school and him just out of training. Then this strange thing happened, where our Big Adventurous Military Life started off as anything but. As in, we started off with more than half a decade in Omaha, Nebraska.

We settled in nicely there. I began my marketing career, got involved in a variety of community projects, and made friends. We got used to regular deployments and not seeing each other for about one-third of each year. We were DINKs (dual income, no kids) in an awesome neighborhood, and started to believe we’d never leave.

It wasn’t until we had two dogs and an infant that we learned we’d be moving to England. (Isn’t that how it goes?)

The news was thrilling in the exciting-scary kind of way. We were finally leaving! And going to ENGLAND! But we’d have to ~~sell~~ rent the house, and pack it all up, and fly overseas with a 6 month-old boy.

The concept of moving seems simple. Pack, move, unpack. The reality is vastly different. There are a ton of moving parts in getting everything and everyone from Point A to Point B, particularly if there’s an ocean involved. Toss in a healthy dose of unfamiliarity with processes and destinations and, BAM!, you’ve got yourself one heck of a mess.

Being a novice mover (but a professional project manager), I was stunned to discover that there was no “account manager” or point person for the giant cluster that is moving. Rather, I was not prepared for that person to be me, and to have to balance those duties with full-time care of an early-mobile infant.

Of course, there was a deployment hanging over it all. Perhaps I was pushing off full responsibility to my husband to take advantage of him while I could, up until our 10^th day in our new, empty, English house.

Ultimately, the transition was challenging mostly because I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted to blame it on the fact that our household goods took three months to arrive, making it impossible to feel like “home.” But the truth is, I had no idea what to expect and was embarrassingly unfamiliar with the processes and offices involved. It felt like there were a million moving parts that somehow intersected at our house while flailing wildly in every direction.

We received information booklets and checklists from so many places – Airman & Family Readiness, the vet office, Pass & Registration, the housing office, the medical group, the squadron, the VAT relief office (which, thankfully, provides relief for Britain’s 20% sales tax on many large purchases) … sometimes there was conflicting information, sometimes information was flat out wrong. And usually an office was closed or a person wasn’t available.

Next time around, I intend to take the PCS bull by its horns and handle the frenzy with authority. And you bet I’ll make plenty of phone calls to get my program straight before I start running all over base to do it!

There are certain things, though, that you just can’t anticipate.

How hard it is to miss your family and not be able to pick up the phone to call any time of the day (that is, unless they’re cool with calls in the wee hours of the morning).

How hard it is to miss your family and not be able to hop a cheap flight or take a long car ride to see them.

The lost feeling many of my friends here share, from not working after having established ourselves in challenging careers.

The intense feeling of isolation of the stay at home mom of a young child, without your “village,” in a new country, while your husband is away for months.

But we get by. We adapt to this “normal.” Then we hop cheap flights to Europe to squeeze it in while we can. And before we know it, the tour is up and we do it all again… maybe closer to home?

Thanks Lynn and have a fabulous Friday everyone!!!

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