2025 may be kind of Magnificent.

This year has started off with dog walks, broken toes, my birthday (of course), and a good bit of snow. 

It's also included visits to specialists, more tests, and more appointments.

My average 5 days a week looks like this:

Wake up: 6:00am

Wake kiddo up at 6:30am.

Homework, breakfast, morning routine: 6:30-7:50am.

School drop off, commute to forest preschool campus: 8am-8:45am

Work until 1:30-1:45pm

Commute and change: 2:00pm-2:15pm

Clients at the YMCA: 2:30pm-3:15pm

Commute and pick up from school: 3:15-3:30 pm

Commute and home time before clients: 3:30pm-4:30pm

Clients: 4:30-5:15, 5:15-6:00pm

Dinner and 1 hr of family TV time: 6pm-7:30pm

Bedtime routine: 7:30-8:30pm

and usually I'm utterly exhasuted, but shower and my bed time around 10:30pm.

This is OBVIOUSLY a lot and not sustainable long term. 

I've been incredibly lucky to have My Sailor on shore duty to pitch in with picking up the Impossible Girl from time to time and making dinners most nights - when he isn't on duty (a 24+hr shift). Despite having to be at work sometimes at 2-3am, he's doing everything he can to contribute and it's kind of amazing. 

We haven't had a date night since, I don't know, December something, but I've been able to connect with some friends and bring the Impossible Girl along for some pretty cool things.

Blodel Reserve

Hanging out in a Tree at the Magnolia Forest Preschool Polar Plunge

Checking out an epic women's hockey game...

And sleeping through the overtime and the shoot outs....

We're heading into a new season of uncertainty. I'm stepping back into a world where I am the 'anchor being' for our family group. My Sailor will go back to deployable status at the drop of a hat, and the help I've had with dinners, housework, etc while I work 2 jobs, 6 days a week (and he works full time military crazy hours). We don't have a nanny. We don't have a reliable babysitter. We don't have local family. Effectively, we are like so many other families out there who are a bit of an island.

We don't have help, and often when we do reach out, it's (completely understandably) unavailable. 

But we do have each other - and I have to say - that's an amazing gift. 

Perhaps I'm a bit extra nostalgic because in about 5 days, My Sailor and I will have been legally married for 14 years. 

And honestly, it's all been pretty good. Sure, we have our rough patches, but who doesn't? He's seen me through some pretty wild circumstances, and still continues to support me, and vice versa. 

I never really understood what people ment when they said, "The Family serves too." I assumed they meant that military moves often cause people to uproot their homes from one place to another (but where ever we are together is 'home' - it's not necessarily a specific address with walls). 

Or maybe they meant that the kids had to change schools, or the long physical separations (which are much harder with kids en tow). 

But I think I get it. 

We've both made sacrifices for this life to work.

He asked me to give up theater for a while. Theater takes up a LOT of free time. I miss it terribly, but I still support and go when I can. If I wasn't investing the time in us as a family, he's right - I'm not sure we would have worked out. 

And he's opted to stay in the military longer than he originally planned to keep The Impossible Girl covered. It wasn't his 'Plan A' for life either - but as soon as we knew there may be some medical complications, he didn't hesitate to do what he could to keep us afloat. 

We're also stepping into a world of Neurology appointments and adding a new therapy to the mix. 

This Spring, I'm also doing some self care while My Sailor will be home. He's using his leave to take care of me so I can finally breathe through my nose again - which is going to involve a month of lower income. I'm leaving one of my jobs earlier than planned to get my face fixed and support our family as we enter the '24/hrs notice of comings and goings' phase of life again. 

It's all exhausting, but there is no one I'd rather face the world with than these 2.