After I visited my family for the summer, I knew that it was only a matter of time before we had an invitation to go somewhere with Clark's family. Or rather, a request.

When we were first married, Clark's family still seemed to make things a "priority". There would always be a reason given and it was almost as if they were telling us what we had to do.

It wasn't easy. I suppose it wasn't easy for them, either. The fact that their 19 year old son was married, had withdrawn from a four year college, and was still figuring out what he wanted to do by taking a full time job at Walgreens and going to community college part time.

So, I honestly can't remember if it was August or September, but one very late night in one of those months we headed to the beach to meet Clark's family. His shift at Walgreens didn't get over until 11pm (so he could go to class during the day, he worked at night). So we did the unthinkable and drove after Clark got off of work.

I should say Clark drove. I slept. I told him if he wanted to leave that late to drive down for a few days at the beach with his family, then he could drive. I was very willing to get up and leave the next day at 5am. He was not.

So, Clark drove us to the beach and we didn't get there until probably three or four in the morning. It was something ridiculous like that. Needless to say, my parents didn't know that we left that late. I didn't tell them (sorry mom, dad). It was stupid, and I knew it. I was just appeasing my husband.

The same morning we arrived, we were stranded to sleep on the couch. All the beds were taken. We didn't know where we were supposed to be sleeping. So we crashed on the couch.

I was not a happy camper. Clark was too tired to care.

Three and a half hours later, Clark's grandmother came out and immediately woke us up exclaiming, "Oh my goodness, when did y'all get here? You drive all night?"

She had a lighter reaction than my parents would have.

Clark's parents do night driving. It's where Clark got it. Leave late, get there late. Or leave late and get there eeeaaarrrlllyyy, if you know what I mean!

The vacation itself went well. I got the schoolwork I needed done, done. Clark got to surf. We got some quality time in with just the two of us. It was great.







It was just adjusting to the way his family did stuff at the beach vs. the way my family did stuff at the beach that was difficult on me. I mean, we'd taken a beach vacation with his family before, but that was before we were married. It was different, as much as everyone wanted to pretend it wasn't.

During this period of our relationship, we had a hard time standing up for ourselves. What I mean by that is sometimes family would get into a mode of trying to tell us what to do and how to do it. Being in the mindset of just getting out of our parents' homes, we tended to just do it... even if it stepped on each other's toes.

From then on out, we didn't do much late driving. We left the beach at a reasonable time to get home at a reasonable time. Just the way I liked it.

Lately I've been starting a lot of projects. Finding things to fill my time. When I get bored, or just decide I don't want to do that project anymore, I move forward.

Sometimes it doesn't phase me that I started one thing and stopped because I couldn't get it just right. Other times I realize that I gave up because I was afraid of something not being as good as the first time, or afraid it wouldn't improve.

Then the saying, "Practice makes perfect!" flies through my head.

"Whatever." I say back to it. There's no such thing as "perfect".

Lately that's what I have to remind myself of.

I get stressed and frustrated with some of my projects. For example, I really (someday) want to turn this blog into a business. I'm not really sure what type of business, whether it be a catering business or a retail business (you'll see what I mean there soon enough), but I want to turn it into a business. So for part of the month of April and most of May I was all into making this website a business. I started making this one particular item and got all excited about it.

I successfully made one.

One.

Just one.

And I have yet to really start on another one.

Why?

I don't know.

All of a sudden I lost my mojo and thought I was using the blog as an excuse to not really write anymore. After all, that's what I went to school for. That's what I've always wanted to do. Was I giving up because I see "The Newfangled Housewife" as an easier road?

Maybe. I'm still not sure about the answer to that question.

But the thing is, I bought all the supplies to make more of these items and I have yet to even unwrap them. Something is stopping me. Something is holding me back.

I'm questioning my motives. I'm not sure of my confidence. I seemed to have misplaced them both.

Then this past Monday I began a cake decorating class. I hadn't practiced what we did in class at all. I felt like I was failing when it came to my homework.

But part of me just didn't care.

It's like there's this little voice in the back of my mind telling me I'm never going to be good enough at it. So why bother?

And then I lost my cool because the blender broke and I had already put the ingredients for a smoothie in it.

I took a moment of silence to listen.

And then (after laying Michael down for a nap) I took out my frosting and tips, and decided to practice my cake decorating skills.

It's not much, but it's a start.


"Stars": You're supposed to get it down to where you're making "factory stars"... aka they all look the same.


"Inline Shells": This is pretty much the border you see on every grocery-store-cake. Believe it or not it's harder than it looks... and I still don't think I have the hang of it.






Since I have awful handwriting, this is actually one of the hardest things for me. People say it's "All in the wrist"... but our teacher told us it's all in the elbow/shoulder. Lots to learn...

The day can only get better (I hope)!

It's impossible to say how we got here so quickly. It feels like I was just looking at pictures of my niece at 9 months and now she's a year old and Michael's not too far behind her.

Everything is changing so fast with Michael it's hard to remember what I should write.

Michael is on the move. A month ago I thought he was crawling, but that was nothing compared to now. We've had to get a baby gate to keep him out of the kitchen and away from the animal's bowls. Not to mention everything has to be taken off of ground level unless you want him to get a hold of it. His favorite thing?




Pulling out the DVDs.

Besides crawling, he was SO close to pulling himself up last night it wasn't even funny. It ended with a rather loud "thud", but he just sat right back up and started playing with something else. He is at a stage where bumps, bruises, scratches, and scrapes are unavoidable and he doesn't seem to mind. I just hope no one thinks they're from us!

We had to take him to the doctor yesterday because he was lucky enough to inherit his daddy's allergies. He weighed in at about 19 with his diaper on, so I'm thinking he's just below it. It's amazing how in the beginning we were so worried about his weight and now he's just shooting up whenever we glance away!

Michael also has a new found love for the outdoors. While before he enjoyed it, now he fusses until we go outside at least for a few minutes! Two days before we discovered his allergies he was out crawling around in the grass and having a wonderful time. However, since he didn't break out from being in the grass, the doctor did say we can assume for now that's not what's causing his puffy eyes and such.


As for talking, Michael is always making noise. That much hasn't changed. He successfully associates "dada" with Clark and understands when we're trying to tell him what something is (at least I like to think he does). He has said "mama" a couple of times. The first was when we were in Kansas and was very deliberate and wonderfully annunciated. Since then... I think he knows who "mama" is, he just doesn't seem to think it's necessary to verbalize my name. He continues to try to say words and has tarted "meowing" whenever he sees a cat. This also started in Kansas. It's not really a "meow" but more of a humming noise made to imitate the noise the cat makes. Still, he's trying! He's also starting saying "dah" when he sees Luna. Not sure if he'll say it when he sees other dogs, but it's still very exciting!

Right now his favorite foods are: soda crackers, carrot + pineapple, avocado + applesauce, and sweet potatoes. He did try a little bit of plain tuna a couple of times, as well as ground turkey the other day with his sweet potatoes. He was a big fan of both, although I'm not sure if he just liked the turkey because it was pureed with his sweet potatoes. We're still taking it slow when it comes to meats. Oh! He also loves refried beans and will eat toast when give the chance. But his absolute favorite?


Banana.

This was my first time making scones. I'm not sure if they turned out quite like I wanted them to, but I have the stamp of approval from my husband and his climbing partner. That must mean something!

Don't get me wrong. They were delicious to me as well, but they weren't quite as "sconey" as I wanted them to be. Let me know what you think!

Ingredients:

- 3/4 C buttermilk
- 1/4 C sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 C unbleached, all purpose flour
- 1 C white whole wheat flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 tbsp butter (must be cold) cut into small pieces
- 6 oz Blackberries

*1 large egg white, lightly beaten
*1 1/2 tbsp sugar

Directions:

- Preheat your oven to 375 and spray your cookie sheet, pizza pan, or cooking stone.
- Mix together the buttermilk, sugar, vanilla, and egg in a small bowl.


- Mix together the flours, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter that's been cut into pieces and "cut" them together using a pastry blender until well blended and resembling course meal. If you don't have a pastry blender, I imagine you can use two knives but that seems awfully difficult to me.




- Gently fold the blackberries into the flour mix.


- Add the buttermilk mix to the flour/blackberry mix. Mix as thoroughly/gently as possible.


*You can cut up the blackberries before adding them if desired. No matter what you do, there will be a mess with them, but it's well worth it!*

- Transfer the dough to a a counter top or other place you have prepared with flour. Cover your hands, too, and knead the dough at least three times. Note that the blackberries will get smushed a bit and your hands will become a ridiculous mess!


-Transfer, again, to your prepared pan. If the dough needs a little added flour, go ahead and do so.


- Cut the dough all the way through into at least ten "slices". If you can cut evenly and manage twelve, I'm sure that'd look much nicer. But this was my first time!


*Optional: Brush the tops of the scones with your lightly beaten egg white and sprinkle sugar on top of that. These really aren't that sweet unless you add the sugar on top, but I personally like them with just the berry sweetness!*


- Bake in the oven for 23 to 25 minutes.

Enjoy with a nice cup of coffee, tea, or whatever suites you best!


Inspiration for this recipe came from: Skinnytaste.com

Since my spinach turkey burgers seem to always be in the top five or so, I thought I'd introduce a new turkey burger recipe! These are easy and have a little bit of a kick to them. Clark compared the taste to crab cakes... so if you like crab cakes, I imagine you'll like these!

Ingredients:

- 1 lb ground, white turkey meat
- 1 egg
- 1/2 C crushed saltines
(I used the unsalted, so they're actually just "soda crackers"; you can also use regular bread crumbs!)
- 1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped
- 1/2 tsp Lemon & Pepper seasoning
- 1/8 tsp Cayenne pepper
- salt and pepper

Directions:

- Crush your saltines (about 15 crackers) and mix them together with the lemon pepper, cayenne pepper, salt & pepper, and red bell pepper.




- Add the egg and turkey and mix until well combined.
- Use your hands (or 1/3 to 1/2 C) to make the burgers.

- Broil or grill the burgers to your liking.


Yep, it's that easy. Hope you enjoy!

In September 2008 Clark and I celebrated our one year anniversary.

We had successfully moved and survived one year of college. Clark was at a job that provided enough for us to live on, and I was working part time at a calling center on campus. We were flying high as newlyweds.
It just wasn’t quite enough.

While I had enjoyed my first year of school, and enjoyed my first year of marriage even more, something was missing.

I had a couple of college friends, but I was still closer with my high school group of girls. I needed girls to escape married life with. I needed girls to talk about boys with. After all, I was still only 19. I needed to be a normal college girl in one way or another.

I decided to rush, meaning I decided to join a sorority.

I had heard great things. My mom was in a sorority and my older sister was in a sorority. It just seemed a natural way to meet girls with the same interests and one major thing in common.

Clark was incredibly supportive. He was making work friends, and he knew I needed girls to hang out with. I think he was glad I was finding something else to do.

I was a bit demanding during our first year because I was so wrapped up in married life.

It happens to all of us. We are so enraptured with the person we’re spending the rest of our lives with that we forget about the other part of our lives.

While Clark is my best friend in the entire world, I needed an estrogen balance. It just took me a year to realize it.

So, I went through rush. I had an extraordinary time. I ended up with a sorority who was very accepting of my marital status.




Most sororities do not want a girl who is already married. I was lucky. I found one that wanted me precisely the way I was.

Girls need girl friends. There’s no way around it. You can spend day in and day out with your boyfriend or husband, but ultimately you need time with girls.

I hadn’t quite figured this out until I had been married for one year. I needed shopping, exercising, movies, coffee, and all the other wonderful things with a female friend. Not Clark.

Don’t get wrong. Clark is my best friend. I can talk to him about everyone and everything… except him.
I needed girls to talk to about him: when we disagreed, when he was wonderful, all of it. I had my sisters, I had my mom, but I needed friends who were in the vicinity.

Balancing was hard. Having time for friends who wanted to constantly do things, and spending time with Clark on top of school, work schedules, and now friends was exhausting. However, it was necessary.

While I wouldn’t say taking the sorority road is for everyone, I would say if you’re married while in college, you need to have girlfriends. Get together for coffee, lunch, manicures, or whatever your style is once a week or so. Get some time away from the home, school, and the husband, and enjoy being a girl.

Since Monday was Memorial Day, I thought I'd do something a little different this month.

As you may or may not know, "Be Our Guest" is not only for moms, but wives as well. Those who do not have children, or do not have children yet. So, if you're in that category, do feel free to shoot me an e-mail! Even if you're about to be married you can guest post!

Anyway,something different.

This month I would like to introduce Cindy! I truly cannot do this introduction justice, because there's so much that can be said. Cindy became a part of my life when she started dating my best friend, Will. Turns out that Will, Cindy, Clark, and myself all ended up being thrown together in this thing called life and came out being best friends all together. Clark and I have been so blessed to have them as part of our life.

I must admit that when I read Cindy's guest post it brought me to tears. If you're a military brat of any kind, be warned-- this truly hits "home".

Nowhere's Home (And That's Okay)

(L to R:Cindy pinning rank on her father at the age of five; Cindy pinning rank on Will, her husband, seventeen years later.)

Whenever I’m getting to know someone new, there’s always one question that I dread being asked. I dread quite a lot of questions, to be fair, because it’s already in my nature to be shy around strangers. But one, in particular, gets me shaking in my shoes - not because I don’t enjoy the topic, but rather, I loathe the embarrassingly long time it takes me to formulate an honest answer.

It’s a simple little inquiry, a terribly typical and polite thing to discuss. But I cringe inside every time I hear the four unassuming words - “where are you from?”

You see, the truth is this: I was born deep down in the heart of the American south, in Macon, Georgia. But I was raised by two Floridians, who had just moved there from California, so I don’t sound like it. When I was a toddler, we moved to the border of Missouri and Illinois, near St. Louis. After that, I moved in rapid succession through four towns along the gulf coast of Florida. The final one, Sarasota, is where I graduated from high school. I attended the University of Connecticut for one year and lived in Willimantic before transferring to the University of North Carolina as a sophomore and taking up in Chapel Hill. I lived in Washington, D.C. for several months during college, working as an intern for National Geographic. Presently, I reside in the “other Washington” – the state, just south of Seattle. Oh but, in terms of culture, climate and general comfort, I will always feel most at home in England, where I spent several months in 2009.

As you can see, the truth is quite messy. I refuse to subject a casual inquirer to all of that.

So, I’m left two options: 1) lie, and just say whatever place I’ve left most recently or 2) try to temper my honesty with brevity by saying something enigmatic (but still technically correct) like “everywhere,” “the world,” or “the United States Air Force.”
(Cindy hugging her dad after he arrived home from six months in Istres, France.)

Actually, that last answer may be closer to the truth than any other. I’m a textbook “military brat.” The place of my birth and nearly all of the places I lived as a child were purely dictated by my father’s assignments as an Air Force officer.

Of course, the general “mil brat” category contains a couple interesting subsets. There are inevitably those kids that come to resent the nomadic lifestyle forced upon them. They pine for storybook, small-town normalcy and settle down somewhere as soon as they become adults, vowing to give their own children the warm, fuzzy, clear-cut, geographically-based identity they never had.

Then there’s the other kind.

I’m the other kind. The “hell with it, I’ve already lived in a dozen different places, too late to turn back now, might as well make it even more interesting” kind. And my husband of one year, Will, an Army officer, is allowing me to do just that.

He’s a military kid, too, though he moved around far less than me. I met him in high school, when we were both fifteen. He already knew at that point that he wanted to follow his dad’s footsteps and join the military. I had thought that I might join myself one day, when I was younger, but my cluster of chronic health conditions had quickly quashed that dream. So I both admired and envied his decision. And the more time I spent around him, the more in love I fell with him, the more I began to wish he’d take me along with him – take me “home,” in effect, to the itinerant military way of life, the only one I’d ever known.

A couple years passed before we really got to know each other better and started dating. He received an ROTC scholarship to attend the University of Central Florida, and I went off to Connecticut. Then North Carolina. Then England. Then D.C. We embarked on a four-and-a-half-year, long-distance relationship (with distances ranging from 600 to well over 4,000 miles).

People constantly asked us how we did it. I asked, how could we not? After all, if we lasted, we’d only be spending more time apart once he commissioned as an Army officer. Not only might we be stationed anywhere from Korea to Belgium (and everywhere in between), there would be deployments to contend with. I would be apart from him, alone in some unknown state or country, and on top of that fearing for his safety and life. This was inevitable. This was certain.

So why sugarcoat it? Why give ourselves a few years of constant, contented togetherness just to have it ripped away? Why not suck it up, tough it out, and attempt to get used to it? We thought about it and decided to start things the hard way. If we could both get through the next half decade seeing each other only a couple months out of each year, then we could certainly get through a lifetime of whatever the military threw our way.

(Cindy and her husband, Will.)

Sure, we missed each other. All the time. There were breakdowns, panic attacks, moments of doubt, of abject loneliness, of fear. But if I couldn’t handle Skyping him alone each night from the comfort of my posh, mahogany-furnished, 14th-century dormitory at Oxford, how in the world could I ever expect to handle him Skyping me from a tent in war-torn Afghanistan?

I decided I could—I would—handle it. The same way I handled it when my dad was in France, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The same way I’m handling things now, with virtually all of my friends and family, nearly everyone I love and care about, 3,000-odd miles away from me on the east coast of the U.S.

When you stop thinking of “home” as some sort of building or structure, or cluster of structures, or definable geographic point on a map, something really amazing happens. You realize that none of those things have much to do with home at all.

I believe people become emotionally attached to houses and the stuff in them because they help to contain memories, to neatly encompass emotions, as it were. Just as covers contain the pages of books and the pages contain the words, houses and towns help give physical definition to feelings and ideas and recollections of interactions.

But you are perfectly capable of memorizing a poem, freeing it from its physical form of ink on a page and letting it live instead in your mind. And if you one day picked up another, a different edition with different binding and differently colored paper, wouldn’t you recognize it all the same? You could go out and copy down the poem a million times in a million different ways. Write it down in ink. In pencil. In sand. In blood. It’s the same. It’s yours.

Military spouses and children are asked to do something similar, though on a larger scale. We free the concept of home from all physicality and geography and carry it inside us. It may sound like a tall order. But in the digital, internet age, it’s actually easier than ever before.

I only wish it were possible for other people to see my “home.” I wish I could take them there. Show them a picture. I wish I could evoke it for them as easily as some can when they say Dallas, Sydney, Montreal. When I think of “where I’m from,” a rich tapestry of faces and places comes to mind. It’s the most interesting “hometown” there ever was. And it’s not any less real than yours, if you’ve got just one. I think, perhaps, it is more so.

I imagine there are many people out there who may be nervous about entering military life with their significant other. They may doubt their ability to cope with a rootless existence or their capacity to raise children in such apparent chaos – never knowing where they’ll live next year, or when a deployment will force them to do a stint as a single parent. It’s not for the faint of heart, that’s for certain. But neither is anything else worth doing.

I wouldn’t trade my life, my “home,” for anything. And if Will decides to stay in the military for his entire career, I’m lining my cards up to make it my career, too. In the fall, I’m starting graduate school and will begin working toward my M.L.I.S. so I can seek work as a DoD civilian wherever we end up, serving my country as an Army librarian or digital archivist one day, I hope.

And I look forward to the prospect of raising a kid or two even though, right now, I can’t even guess where they’d be born, or start kindergarten, or win a science fair, or go to prom. Maybe here. Maybe Hawaii. Maybe Germany. Maybe Georgia. I can’t visualize all the kitchens where I’ll cook them dinner or the bedrooms where I’ll tuck them in at night. It’s impossible to do that, and I don’t even try.

But, if we raise them in the military, in some ways it’ll be like raising them in my hometown and Will’s, even though we didn’t grow up together. Somehow, for once, we’ll know all the streets, and all the neighbors. It’s a big neighborhood, and far flung. But it’s a good one, I think. I think perhaps the best.



Want more of Cindy's amazing writing? Visit her blog for all sorts of things at: Between Two Waves of the Sea.