I am both so very humbled, honored and thrilled to be nominated this year for the Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year!!!!!! If you know me, then you know it’s a hard acceptance and I feel a little (okay…a lot) awkward promoting it….BUT…at the same time…I am just so deeply honored. The fact that my friends thought enough of me to vote for me is just so awesome and I am forever grateful. Click picture below to register to vote! Voting starts Feb 3! I am nominated alongside so many friends and military spouses doing incredible things in their communities! Here’s a shout out to the following Ahhhhmazing women who are in the running for their bases! Pamela Bolado- Joint Base Lewis McChord Christine Gallagher- Fort Bliss Aj Smit- Lackland Air Force Base Kati Poston- Torii Station Japan Nicole Solis- Fort Sam Houston Christina Smythe- Joint Base San Antonio I’d love to have your vote and support to further programs for military spouse integration into their communities!! Sign up please. Voting starts Feb …

It’s 2020. I know. It’s hard to believe. And just like with years past, each new year brings on a slew of thoughts as we look starry eyed into the year ahead. This is my favorite time of year. We can reflect on the year past and make lofty goals for the year to come. It’s a time for goal- setting and making way for things in our minds and hearts. Here are 6 steps to a better you in 2020 Step 1: Before you can move ahead, reflect on your past I was always very quick to jump into a new year, wide eyed and bushy tailed, but with no direction. Over the years I have found that it is quite impossible to plan for the future unless you have assessed past attempted goals and what worked and what stood in the way. Do you hold onto past calendars, planners and journals? I take the week after Christmas to look over the year before I dig into a new one. I write down what …

This coming Tuesday is #GivingTuesday. GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities. Knowing military spouses for who they are, always ready to jump in and serve, three military spouses (Maria Reed, Samantha Gomolka and Jessica Manfre) took this day and added a Kindness component. These women forged a way for the entire military community to participate and enacted #GivingTuesdayMilitary. We are now all on a mission to spread 1 million acts of kindness across the world. It’s one simple act…and it starts with YOU! The goal is simple. On December 3rd, every single person is challenged with doing a kind act. It can be big or small. There is no wrong way to spread kindness. The goal is to just do it. 25 Acts of Kindness any Milspouse can do With endless possibilities it can be a little overwhelming to pick and choose what to do. Here I’ve compiled a list of 25 Acts of Kindness any Milspouse Can Do can do. Pick one, pick 3, …

Deployments are scary and downright intimidating. I don’t care how many you’ve been through before, or how many pep talks you’ve given yourself saying, “It’s okay, I can do this!” Deployment has a way of wearing you down and draining you both physically and emotionally. Believe me, I’ve been through seven different deployments as either a military girlfriend or wife, and the most recent one was just as much of a mental challenge as the first one. But you know what did change, since that first deployment 18 years ago: my confidence, my experience, and my ability to laugh at the craziness. After raising four kids of various ages through all those deployments, I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with the Deployment Curse (or Deployment Murphy, if you prefer.) Like any seasoned military spouse, I’ve dealt with late-night ER visits, flat tires, broken appliances, and vomit on the carpet. We’ve lived far from family and had to make emergency requests from strangers. I’ve learned that these unpredictable frustrations are guaranteed to begin as soon …

Living life as a green beret wife is a difficult one. Although times are rewarding, like offering love and support to my husband, the frequent deployments and trainings have my head spinning. And in all the aftermath, I feel way more accomplished this time around as compared to my first deployment experience. I remember calculating the days my husband had been gone (a terrible game, I know) and discovered that by our son’s 4th birthday, he was absent for 3 full years of his life. It was the constant and unrelenting deployments, pre-deployment trainings, schools, TDY’s and all the other in-betweens that keep our husbands occupied and away. Now that we’re on deployment number 6…or 7, I forget, I am finding my groove and not just surviving the day to day. Although there are days when deployment kicks me in the rear, for the most part I have mastered taking ownership of my time. I mean, who says deployments have to be a time to wallow and struggle? Yes, we all have “those days” and …