Respect

Most people don't even know what that means these days. I hope I can teach my children to respect others and treat people the way they want to be treated. For my son I pray he will learn to respect girls and know how to treat a girl. I want my son to be the guy that opens a door for a girl, whether it be a door to a store or the car door, I want him to know that a lady should always be treated like a Queen no matter what. Maybe since he will be raised soon in a house with only girls it will set in pretty quickly. I am very fond of the southern man. One that says "Yes Ma'am" and tips his hat to say hello...I know I am dreaming but hey it could happen. I would love for my daughter to know that, that is how she should be treated always. When she starts dating I hope she is picky and finds someone like I have described. Growing up my daddy would treat his girls with respect, he would take each of us out on Daddy/Daughter dates and no matter if he was worn out from working he would take time to throw the ball with us, go swimming or come to my softball practice. Now my dad is an amputee due to being in Vietnam. He was blown up when he stepped on a land mine. That never stopped him! He would be in pain but he always made time for his three girls. He taught us what sacrificing for your kids meant and I thank him for that. When you are a parent you have a really big job and that job is to raise your kids right. I don't think many people even know what thats means these days. We shouldn't let the internet and TV raise our children. If we do they will NEVER learn what respect means. Respect is weighing heavily on my heart right now with all that my family is going through. I wont go into details but that is something that is missing in my family right now, but not for long!

I goggled respect and this is what I got:

re·spect

   [ri-spekt]  Show IPA

noun

1.

a particular, detail, or point (usually preceded by in ): todiffer in some respect.

2.

relation or reference: inquiries with respect to a route.

3.

esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of aperson, a personal quality or ability, or somethingconsidered as a manifestation of a personal quality orability: I have great respect for her judgment.

4.

deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, orsomeone or something considered to have certain rights orprivileges; proper acceptance or courtesy;acknowledgment: respect for a suspect's right to counsel; to showrespect for the flag; respect for the elderly.

5.

the condition of being esteemed or honored: to be held inrespect.

Europe I will miss you!

When we got off the plane on Sept 29th, 2011, I thought I was going to die. I felt like we were being abducted by aliens and just dropped off in the middle of no where. As we were driving to Peer, the town we would be spending the next month or so in, I was in culture shock. All the little towns and roundabouts, it was insane so I thought. I thought to myself there is no way in heck I was ever going to drive in Europe. JR was going to be driving us everywhere and I was going to be fine with that. Then I put my big girl panties on and just did it. We were borrowing a car from one of the families here...and when I say car I mean a freaking purple boat...I felt like we were riding Barney. The car was affectionally named the Mustache Ride (long story). So I got in the car and drove. I was doing it and I never stopped. It was like it came natural to drive in those roundabouts and driving on one car roads when people were coming from both directions. You just get use to it. Today as I was driving to Schinnen I started thinking about how scared I was of this place and how bad I hated it. I hated driving 45 minutes to get the the Commissary and I hated it took up every Saturday to get groceries etc. Now I love it. I love the drive. It gives me time to think and just be alone or when we are all together going to Schinnen its a time that no one can be on the internet. I love driving on those tiny roads, its like a challenge to me. I am beast when I am behind the wheel of my Volvo driving on those roads. I love seeing the horses galloping in their field, watching them go from a colt to a full grown horse. I am going to miss having to dodge those people on their bikes that think the road is theirs only when they are not on the bike path. I will miss admiring the older people peddling as fast as they can to get to their lunch dates. You would be amazed at how many older folks ride in their bicycle gangs. It is so cute to see the ladies all riding down the road just chatting away ( I am assuming they are chatting about the day, I cant understand them) In my head they are talking about how beautiful the day is and what they are going to cook for dinner that night. I hate that I didn't embrace the European Life sooner. When we got here we had about one week of warm beautiful weather then it turned extremely cold. We had snow and sleet every week it seemed like. If you know me I would rather the warmth and sun! There were some days when we would experience all the seasons in one day. There was a Sunday afternoon we decided to go to our favorite pizza parlor, while there it was beautiful and sunny then all of the sudden it turned dark and was hailing then sleeting then snowing all in the time that we were sitting there having dinner. It was crazy but you learn to expect that here in Europe or at least in Belgium. BUT the real thing I am going to miss other than the person we are leaving behind is PROCH SITTING! Oh porch sitting, you rock my world. That is by far the most relaxing thing to do here in Europe. The local restaurants are plentiful here. If its just to sip on coffee and relax or have one of the best meals you will ever have, each restaurant delivers just that. Now there are some more relaxing porches than other but I pretty much have my favorite places to frequent with my girl friends. Porch Sitting, I shall take with me to Montgomery and maybe I will make it a tradition there with my kids. Too bad I cant take back the slow pace of life too.

I didn't have the best of luck the first 6 months living here, I wont even re-live all that happened and what I went through. It had me down in the dumps, but at some point you just have to say STOP IT, and learn to roll with the punches. Just when I started rolling with it and getting my smile back on my face it got slapped right off of me, for about a solid week. After that week of crying nonstop and thinking about what I could do to end it all I had to say again to myself STOP IT. Yes, my marriage is over and my children are absolutely miserable here but I had to start leaning on God since I couldn't lean on my husband anymore. Prayer is what has kept me from jumping off a cliff and saying screw it all. Prayers from others, I have felt daily. If it wasn't for prayer JR and I wouldn't be able to get along so well. Just imagine living with someone that you know doesn't love you and has started a romance with someone else, knowing his love and thoughts have shifted to someone else. It's gut wrenching when you think about it. The love of my life is no longer my love. God has helped me not lose my mind in all this. Each day before turning on my kindle to do my daily devotional, I pray that he speaks to me in what I read. Do you know that each day he delivers! How awesome is that?I always want to run to JR to tell him what God spoke to me about that day, but I know I cant do that anymore. I don't deserve anything from God. I fall daily to sin and I let the devil in so many times a day it make me sick thinking about it. Our God keeps picking me back up and brushing me off. I pray daily for my husband even though I don't think he wants my prayers, I still do it in hopes that one day it will click and he will come back to God and his family. I can't hold out hope for that though, I have to focus on myself and my kids. I have to make sure that whats going on right now isn't going to effect my children spiritually in the long run. If anything I hope they see what God has done to help them/us through this. I have to hold on to hope that God will not give me something I cant handle and I have to hold on to the saying I have heard so many times before that everything happens for a reason....thats a hard one to swallow! Why would God destroy my marriage and have the love of my life not be in love with me anymore, then I have to stop and think, its not God its the devil and the devil alone. With Gods help we will get through it and come out on top. There may be times that I break down and cry, I am still mourning the loss of my husband/best friend and mourning the fact that I am leaving a country I have grown to love and good friends that I could finally call friends and feel like I could be Helen and it was good enough. I know when I get back I will have my family and my BFF but it just wont be the same without him.....

Hurry Up and Wait...

that is pretty much what we are dealing with. I hear that saying quiet often being a dependent in the Air Force. Right now we are dealing with trying to get a ERD (Early Release of Dependents) so the children and I can move back to Alabama. We had to hurry up and get the paper work in so we could be gone by the end of May. The end of May is next week and we still don't have orders to leave. The kids will need to get in the Acceleration Program at school to be able to get their grade of completion and be able to leave 20 days before school lets out but they are not allowed to do so until we have orders. Their last day of school is at the end of June as of right now. I am afraid thats when the Air Force will actually get everything complete for us to leave. How do you break it to your kids that they will most likely have to stay here until then? My son is not dealing well living here. I am not sure if its because of what our family is going through or what. I know its hard for him to see his parents together knowing the heart ache I am going through. Its also hard for him to look at his father. I wanted so badly for those two to work out their issues before we leave. I don't want their relationship to get any worse. I pray daily that at some point they both will grow up some and realize they are stuck together forever. No matter what has happened and no matter how disappointed my son is with his father, he is will always be his father. Its just so sad to see time wasted by watching TV or being on their IPODS when they could be outside throwing the football or taking a jog down to the canal to talk. One day it will be too late. I digress though. So back to the hurry up and wait, without our orders from the Air Force I can not ship my car, buy airline tickets, or have the movers here to pack our stuff and start having it sent to Alabama. In a perfect world all that would have been done already so when we arrived I would have my car and household items so we can get settled before school starts again. Once school starts, I will have to find a job and start finding my way through the life of being a single parent.  Just typing that brought tears to my eyes. I never thought my marriage would be just another statistic. My kids were always so proud to say to their friends that yes my parents are still together and have been married for such and such time. Now they will join the other kids that deal with going to their dads every once in a while and having that part time parent. With JR living 4000 miles away in Europe for the next 2.5 years the kids will not be able to see their father easily, nor with the time zone they will not be able to pick up the phone and call him whenever too. So the kids are for sure over this place and ready to be in Alabama, if you are my sons friend on Facebook you would be able to come to that conclusion pretty easily. As for me I just started loving Europe. I could stay here for a while and be just fine, other than knowing my husband is cheating on me and would rather us be gone so he can do whatever his heart desires. I want to travel and explore this part of the world. That was one of the reasons JR joined the Air Force. JR said to me "I want to show you the world". Well buddy I guess you kinda did, just not in the way I thought you would. So at last we will wait and wait until the Air Force signs the orders, then its back to hurrying up again....after that the next time we wait will be for our plane to take the kids back to their happy place and for me, it will take me away from my husband and my life I started here and make me realize this all isn't a dream and I am not in a coma have the worst nightmare of my life...in fact it will be real.

Things Change Mox....

the saying from one of my favorite movies, Varsity Blues. In this case things are changing in our life and I am still figuring out if its for the best or worst. Finding out your husband is cheating on you is about the most gut wrenching thing that can happen to woman other than their child falling ill or worse, has died. That moment when you think life is good and you are making changes in your life to make it even better and then BAM you get hit with something you never thought you would ever hear...Yes, I cheated on you and I want a divorce or I am not in love with you anymore. Life is changing and its changing fast. We just moved 4000 miles away from our family, just unpacked all the boxes and I just started loving Europe, we were making friends and things seemed to be on the up.....so I thought. Now the children and I have to pack back up and move back to Alabama and start over.  Divorcing after 16 years of marriage is extremely hard on top of splitting everything up and trying to keep the peace for the children's sake. But is it for the children's sake? Its very complicated. We get along great. We laugh, joke around and still share common interest. How could someone still do all this and be getting divorced? Selfishness is the answer. Selfishness is a deadly thing to your mind and soul. Its something I was taught to never be but I guess he wasn't. After the other times I found out he was cheating, we worked it out. We went to counseling, started praying together and reading marriage books to help us through the rough patches.I told him Jesus forgives us daily so who am I to not forgive and move past this. I wonder now if he even read those books or even whole heartily tried to become the man he was called to be. Without God your life is empty and dark. Why would somebody want that kind of life? The devil is in control and he has a tight grip on things. With God you know you will one day end up living in a mansion, singing with Angels and living with our Lord Savior for eternity. Yes, the devil makes everything look so much better. He makes "her" seem 100% better than what you have already. That's just it though, he makes it seem more desirable and better....just like Eve in the Garden of Eden. Why cant men/women that cheat realize when they are doing this it is hurting so many more people and not worth the pain and agony it brings on the family. Again selfishness comes into play. So what I am doing about it? I am praying daily for him and using this hell I am living to turn my life around. When you live with someone that doesn't give you respect you deserve and make you feel so ugly inside and out it really damages you. I am using this moment in my life to get healthy. I have started running and working out. I have lost 30 pounds since January. The sad thing is he never noticed until I asked him about it. I don't plan on stopping at 30 pounds lost. I plan on going all the way to 100 pounds lost. I have 70 more to go. I am looking at life differently. My goal is to think positive about every situation, starting with my husbands affair. If he hadn't of slipped again I would still be in the dump of life just going through the motions caring for him and the kids but never taking the time for myself. Not saying what he did was right or that he is excused from this, I am saying everything happens for a reason. God doesn't give us something we cant handle.I truly believe and I am so much stronger now.Through prayer and having support from my family and friends I will overcome this. The sad part is it took this happening for me to open my eyes and see where I was headed. I had thought about suicide a lot but I couldn't do that to my kids and family. Maybe God decided this was the best thing for me to go through. It sucks, it sucks bad. I loved my husband and still do and I would have moved the world to make him happy, when all a long he would not have done the same for me, and I am still asking myself why I love him, trust me. I married for better or worse, he did not. My marriage could be fixed but when its a one way street it cant happen. I pray each day he will find what he is missing and will one day open his eyes to what he is leaving behind.  Our children are the real ones suffering here. Not having both parents there to support them at everything they do and to make memories as a family really just sucks for them. That is extremely sad to me. All because one person was so selfish and couldn't get over himself. I also pray my children learn from the mistakes made and will one day find a love worth working for everyday. I was willing to do that....