The Silver Lining

Here's a little secret kept closely guarded by military wives everywhere.

There is an upside to your husband's deployment.

When you're alone for months and months you make all of the daily decisions by yourself. This can drag on you after a while. But sometimes it is a huge benefit. Like when you want to do something that your husband usually hates.

For example, today I bought a real Christmas tree.

And I don't have to listen to my husband complain abut the cost, or dragging it home, or taking care of it, or vacuuming up the needles, or stringing the lights.

There is a teeny tiny little place deep inside of me that glows proudly whenever I do something alone that I would usually depend on my husband to do. It would have been so easy to forgo a Christmas tree at all this year and just fly back to my mother's house instead.

Today I learned that a seven-foot tall Douglas Fir isn't nearly as heavy as it looks.