Everyone is a newbie at some time, right?

With much help, and some prodding, I'm finally starting a blog of my own. I've never considered myself remotely literate when it comes to these computer thingies. Heck, my grade-schoolers know plenty more about the ins and outs of the computer than I do. But there comes a time when everyone must step out of their comfort zone and try something new and the time has now come for me. So begins my first blog.

As you get to know me more you will find I am a pretty simple gal. Nothing in life makes me happier than being with my family. I'm not hard to please at all, at least I don't think I am. I tell my husband all the time that I'm probably the easiest person in the world to get a present for because a homemade card, particularly from my girls, is the best gift ever. I don't ask for much. I just adore my girls to pieces and feel that family is what it is all about.

However simple I think I am, I know there are some complexities to me. It is there that you will find the inner struggles that make me human, and ultimately, have shaped who I am. I won't go into all of that in this very first post, but those struggles will surely be featured often as time goes on and this blog finds its voice.

In this initial posting I suppose it would be polite to introduce myself to you, to give you a better sense of who is doing all this jabbering. I am a 30-something military wife, mostly stay-at-home mother of two, part-time aerobics instructor, often volunteer enthusiast at my girls' school, and a Disney freak. I was raised in the Midwest, mostly in Kansas, so I suppose that's where the simplistic side of me comes from~~good, ol', Midwestern, Christian values. I married my husband when I was a young, immature, naive 19 years old. He was already in the Army at the time so I thought I knew what I was getting into by agreeing to be his bride. I had no real clue.

James and I have been married for 13+ years now, but I shutter to think how much of that time has actually been spent together versus apart. It's staggering to total up all the months upon months that add up to years spent in separate states and continents. As I begin this blog he is on his third tour in Iraq, which leaves me in a position shared by so many others in this day and age~~an acting single mother burning the home fires, waiting for her love to come home, praying that when he does he will be intact and as normal as one can be when they do and see what they must for their livelihood. I don't say all that for pity. I don't pity myself. I never forget for a second that I am not alone in this. Hundreds of thousands of others wait for their loved ones to come home, too. It's impossible for me to feel alone when I encounter and talk with other spouses daily who also wait for their husband to come home. Living on post is therapy in its own right. By living on base I am surrounded by others in the same situation as me, who understand, who keep me grounded, who become my family, who make me proud and grateful to live where I do.

It's so very cliche to say how proud I am to be an American, but those simple words ring true every time I hear the Pledge of Allegiance recited in my children's school each morning. I'm grateful that my girls go to a school where the Pledge is not questioned, it is not forbidden, it is spoken with pride by the population of the school. I am proud to be an American. I am proud to be a military wife. And I am a proud mother who lives and breathes her children and their accomplishments. Simple. But that's me.

Which will lead me into my next posting~~Morgan and her most recent accomplishment. Stay tuned.