Note to Self - Deployment Survival

I've been told that they key to surviving a deployment is to keep yourself busy. My lesson learned is that this is accurate information, and important information/advice. However, the part that people leave out is to not make yourself TOO busy! I think I have officially crashed and burned and I want nothing more than to just sit on my couch, watch a movie and veg out for a while.

The weeks leading up to Mr. V's deployment were insanely busy. Between Dining Out, Change of Command, various parties celebrating the change of command, and random other mandatory fun events, I thought I was going to lose my mind before he left (the only thing that saved me was a random day trip to the Olympic Peninsula to see Forks and La Push - I'll have to write a very outdated blog about that when I get time.)

Anyway, once he left, I decided to take the advice that I was given and stay busy. Between more mandatory fun (spouse club related), planning an FRG picnic, making the squadron deployment calendar (other wives created their own squares, but my friend and I created the actual calendar. We were determined to make it the best looking calendar there is, so needless to say, I can't believe how much time this calendar took up. Its still not done and we have to mail it out tomorrow.), babysitting for a few different families, cleaning my house, learning how to mow the lawn (my neighbor eventually took pity on me and finished my front yard while a friend's husband did the backyard for me) and spending time with a friend of mine while she was housesitting, I am offically, completely worn out. That may not seem like a lot to do, but certain things have doubled for me since Mr. V left - like house cleaning. I was looking forward to having less laundry and dishes to wash, but I didn't account for the fact that he takes care of all the cat related stuff. Scooping litter boxes, cleaning litter boxes, sweeping excess litter, cleaning up random hairballs, and figuring out why my one cat is insisting on peeing everywhere in the house (no he's not sick), is not my cup of tea. I think the work that lessened for me was just taken over by the work I gained, which was not a happy realization to come to.

The FRG picnic went off without a hitch today and that was a very good thing. 3 of us planned this picnic, so we weren't quite sure how it was going to turn out. Thankfully, it went as planned, and we had a fairly large turnout. I'm sitting here now realizing that I managed to get a pretty bad sunburn today, even though I was freezing all afternoon. I think the sunburn is what did me in. When the picnic was over, I said I was done being busy for while. Then I realized I had a sunburn. I'm exhausted, tired, and my arms hurt from the burn.

I wish I could say that I have nothing to do this week, but that's just not true. On Wednesday we have a spouse club meeting/party to welcome the new XO's wife. Then on Friday I have to go to a party to celebrate the old XO's wife becomming the new CO's wife. I think it would be pretty rude if I skipped these 2 parties, so maybe next week I can finally just sit around doing absolutely nothing for a few days. Somewhere in the week I also have to find time to finish this stupid (thank you to Liz for calling and constantly reminding us that its a morale booster - otherwise it would probably be in the trash by now) deployment calendar too.

So my note to self is this: Stay busy during a deployment, but find some time to relax in there too! Sounds obvious right? I wish I knew how obvious it was BEFORE I managed to wear myself out.