Tag: storytelling

What Does a Dairy Free Thanksgiving Look Like?

Food memories are something I quite like talking about–we all tend to have some positive experience around food or drink choices, be it recalling the best lunch entree in your elementary school cafeteria, cookies from grandma, or the first alcoholic drink you ever tried. In answering those questions here are my selections: I liked school pizza, my grandmother-in-law makes some great snowball cookies, and my first sip of alcohol I believe was Southern Comfort and coke (it’s been a minute!). There is something to be said about how food transports us; even the move “Ratatouille” honed in on this reality in the scene where the harsh food critic remembers how comforting ratatouille was during his childhood years.

I do not see my family that much for the holidays as an adult now because travel is expensive, but something like a holiday meal allows me to feel like the space between is not as great. Well before we sit down to our Thanksgiving dinner, my family is on my mind and I often wonder if I’ll get ahold of everyone and/or whether we’ll have time to chat. Making a festive meal certainly takes a lot of time and the duties are not always split among a lot of people. When I was younger though, my family broke down these responsibilities pretty well when my mom was sick during our last Thanksgiving together. Her cancer progression is still an issue that hits me hard, but that last Thanksgiving is a fond detail in my wealth of memories. I made an ice cream pie; it was far from fancy, but as a teenager, I could make it on my own and I was proud to (literally!) bring something to the table.

My parents’ home is rather modest in ways, but there was always space to crowd in people and all the food they brought with them. The kitchen is a pretty tight space, but my dad and stepmom remodeled over the years, improving the flow of the space. Their work has been exceptionally helpful with our family expanding due to the addition of partners and grandchildren. Every time I think of my parents’ house, I think of nearly every inch of counter space eaten up by an assortment of plastic storage containers full of side dishes, holiday tins full of treats, and roasting pans and saucepans with the dinner entree and whatever sauce was appropriate for the meat selected that year.

I am not as consistent as my parents in recreating my Thanksgiving dinner. The same is true of Christmas. I love trying out new things; I guess that can be our tradition of sorts unless I start to be more consistent in making the cinnamon pie I love for Thanksgiving. This year we brought one to Friendsgiving since I already settled on making a vegan pecan pie for our family meal. Preparing the same components for the holidays is not important to me, and I think it’s important home cooks feel comfortable deviating from practices established by older family members. I constantly make new things for our weekly dinners, so it is only natural to keep up the same practice for the holidays. Cooking is my hobby; I may not create many of my own recipes, but I don’t think that decision reduces the enjoyment I feel from the craft. Now that I am lactose intolerant, it is becoming more of a mindful practice. Vegan and lactose free ingredients are not always options for me. Something could be out of budget, out of stock due to low supply, or the vegan version does not work as well due to textural differences or fat content compared to the traditional dairy products. None of these concerns though drove my desire to build a dairy free Thanksgiving this year, a complete 180 from what I know will be found in my parents’ home.

I’ve grown tired of remembering what dishes require taking Lactaid beforehand and buying the medicine is truly a waste of money when I have the power to create dishes without dairy. Last year I wasn’t as mindful in building a dairy free Thanksgiving, selecting items like Trader Joe’s green bean casserole bites because I wanted a taste of green bean casserole without being stuck with a lot of leftovers that would be painful to my digestive system. Those little bites still upset my stomach. What is off-limits to me does not keep me from recommending those to others who might need a last minute appetizer. They are tasty. If Trader Joe’s went out on a limb and released a vegan version, I’d gladly buy it for future holiday gatherings. Returning to this year’s dinner, there are some traditional selections:

  1. Turkey with gravy
  2. Cranberry sauce
  3. Dinner rolls
  4. Sweet potatoes (savory, not sweet, topping)
  5. Pecan pie

The execution of the menu is what lumps my choices into being somewhat non-traditional for the holiday.

  1. The turkey uses Aarti’s tandoori butter turkey breast recipe from Selena +Chef as the base idea, substituting vegan butter for dairy butter and increasing the amount of ingredients to cover the entire bird. We will also use the vegan butter for the gravy from this same show episode.
  2. Cranberry sauce naturally is dairy free, but I’ll use apple juice instead of orange juice to sweeten it.
  3. Udi’s gluten free classic French dinner rolls replace the Rhodes dinner rolls. While the two roll choices are both dairy free, my body also feels better when I cut back on the amount of gluten I eat during the week.
  4. A sweet potato casserole with marshmallows could have been on the menu and made with vegan butter, but I opted instead to roast purple sweet potatoes and will top them with The Mushroom Company au jus onion saucy mushrooms. The other plus is these steam in the bag!
  5. I thought a vegan pecan pie recipe would be harder to come across, but I will make the one from Nora Cooks. (I’ve never made a pecan pie before, so wish me luck!)

As far as price goes, the dinner is $117.27 pre-tax, and excludes items that are pantry or fridge staples already on-hand like flour, vegan butter, apple juice, and spices. I also plan to pair the vegan pecan pie with the dairy free Cherry Garcia ice cream Ben & Jerry’s makes; since the latter was already in the freezer and not specifically bought for the holiday, I did exclude it from my pricing. The only thing I truly forgot to account for was buying flax seed for the pie, and I am ok with not trying to tally it as we bought non-dairy Reddiwhip and So Delicious Coco Whip for pies recently and I included numbers for both of those in my Thanksgiving tally.

Our breakdown looks as follows (and is enough for Thanksgiving dinner plus leftovers!):

  1. 10.76 lb. free range organic turkey ($53.69)
  2. 2 packages Trader Joe’s cranberries ($5.00)
  3. Vegan pecan pie ($24.65)
    • 1 pie shell, frozen store bought
    • Non-dairy Reddiwhip
    • So Delicious Coco Whip
    • 10 oz. chopped pecans
    • 1 bottle dark Karo syrup
  4. (4 packages) Mushroom Company onion au jus mushrooms ($15.96)
  5. (2 packages) Udi’s gluten free classic French dinner rolls ($10.98)
  6. 3lbs. organic Stokes brand purple sweet potatoes ($6.99)

I hope this little snapshot of Thanksgiving inspires you all and wherever you find yourself this week, may you be surrounded by people you care about and who care about you. Life is short. Be around people who matter and whatever you are grateful for this season, please remember there are many grieving this time of year. Their “happy” will not look like your “happy” and that’s ok. I speak about loss not tied just to the Club Q shooting in Colorado, but these families and many like theirs will stare at empty seats this year and without the person(s) who brought particular dishes, jokes, games, etc. that make their family events memorable. We can enjoy our blessings and still be mindful that hands need holding, prayers are requested, and support options exist within our means and spheres of influence to serve those families in need this season. Remember, it is not the time of year to only think of ourselves.

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

Anxiety Self-Care and Vacationing

I took a trip to Wyoming recently with my family to visit Sheridan and Gillette and as rewarding as vacations are, I am always happy to get back home.

IMG_4478.jpg
Flying back into Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport

Home means stability for me and it helps me greatly in managing anxiety.  I don’t over schedule myself when I am at home the way I do on vacation.

This vacation, in particular, was a bit more full than I expected.  I had dreams of lounging around a bit more but now that my daughter is 7 years old, she wants to, naturally, do more.  She wants to explore and visit, and being a young child, she is demanding, hates naps, and will squeeze every ounce of daylight when not impeded by her mother.  Unlike when we lived in Wyoming, she is also old enough now to have a fully fledged opinion.  She was “meeting” people for the first time because she didn’t remember them from years ago and she also was insistent on having as much time with her young cousins as possible.  As an only child, she craves time with other children and summertime is the worst time of year for her.  She is not around her school friends and with high temps here, we spend more time indoors.

My daughter does not yet comprehend the stress I carry on a daily basis.  She knows I don’t like fireworks but she hasn’t caught on how a significant change of routine bothers me.  I look forward to vacations but I also struggle with leaving my comfortable environment.  I worry about what could happen when I leave my home, both to my home and the people in it while we are away.  There’s a lot of history recorded in my journals, photo albums, and scrapbooks that I can lose if something happens.  Additionally, I don’t like the idea of someone’s possessions becoming personal effects, to include mine should something terrible happen while we are away.  I considered writing about these feelings when I took my trip to Albuquerque last year but was quite hesitant to do so; while I am beginning to feel more comfortable talking about my personal struggles and coping, I still tread lightly.

I’m not surprised by my sensitivity to people and possessions, but I’ve had 12 years to wrap my mind around the intense situation that was my first deployment.  After spending 12 hours of nearly every day on deployment knowing people died and others were wounded, I became more aware we don’t all get a fair shake at living (and living the way we choose).  Without knowing the true number of people who died on my deployment, it’s still safe to say I have few peers who will ever understand the human toll of a deployment like I do.  (For any newbies, my alternative view of Operation Iraqi Freedom, as incomplete as it is, is available for viewing here. If you check out the video, please also read the blog entry for clarity purposes.  Thanks. )

IMG_4008.JPG
Some of my most precious possessions

For me, this vacation was a beautiful experience and one of the true breaks we’ve taken this summer as we had quite an unexpected–but necessary–financial burden demanding our immediate attention.  My husband’s service dog tore her ACL in June but was (and is) recovering from surgery and was unable to walk more than five minutes shortly before we left for vacation.  Her recovery will still take months but she is starting to show tremendous progress and is happy again, instead of her morose state when we couldn’t let her do any activity except use the bathroom.  If she had been able to walk, she would have flown with us for the first time and yes, there was some anxiety about that issue as well.  As you can see, she’s not a petite girl and even with my husband, daughter, and I all in the same row, she would attract attention.  I have no doubt other passengers would have inquired about her and peppered my husband with questions.

IMG_3551
That happy kid look after surgery was too precious.

IMG_3854
She became quite leery we’d take all the fun out of her day with her surgery recovery restrictions.

I’ve made great strides to significantly reduce my chest pains this year through regular self-care, but I had four of them during the course of this trip.  The additional stress of monitoring my husband because he didn’t have his service dog was a contributing factor. While I can recognize times where my husband needs additional support I notice it much later than she can and I didn’t feel quite as prepared to be his “service person”–yes, that’s what we joked I was doing in my caregiver capacity–because she had to stay behind.  Other things, like not being consistent about my sleep routine, contribute to the frequency of my chest pains.  Normally, I like to be in bed no later than 10pm and  I think most nights we were lucky to be back at our hotel room by 10:30 or 11pm.  Different noises also present challenges when it comes to sleep as I have trouble drowning them out; my bedroom at home, by comparison, is kept very quiet.  I do not have a wall clock and after living in my home for a year, I am used to the sound of the house fan when it’s on during hot evenings.  I am also a big fan of blackout curtains; the darker the room, the easier it is for me to stay asleep.  There are other things I can do like moderating my consumption of coffee and alcohol that also help reduce the frequency of my chest pains.  (I know I drank far too much coffee on this vacation, nearly 3-4 cups a day, but I was pretty good about keeping my alcohol consumption in check.)

In spite of my continuing battle with anxiety induced chest pains, the vacation was successful.  I think one of the things we need to keep at the forefront of conversation about anxiety and coping is resiliency.  I’ve had these annoying things for 12 years–and it’s really only in the last few that good medical professionals have worked with me to control this condition so it doesn’t destroy my quality of life.  Occasionally, they have to remind me not to pass up opportunities because I know they may or will exacerbate the stress I already have in my life. They also remind me I’ve been through the worst so the things that bother me are triggers (fireworks, sudden loud noises, people walking behind me surpising me suddently, etc.) and not actually life threatening events.   The fact that I had four chest pains on this trip is a sign I do need to plan better for my vacations.  I am still learning to say ‘no’ and I think because I’m in my 30’s I still feel silly to say I go to bed so early and in many cases, need the additional sleep.  Not everyone understands this issue and unlike my peer group, I find it harder to forgo time with family and do not wish to come across as being rude.  Next time, I’ll also work on cutting back on coffee.  I’m sure it’s not bad to have a day or two with that much coffee but the others I should probably stick to two or less cups.

I’m only taking you on a partial journey of the trip but below are some of the wonderful things I photographed during my weeklong visit.  If you want to see more things from the trip, feel free to check out my Instagram, she_wears_dogtags.

Like always, thanks for stopping in to visit.

~Cheryl

IMG_4140
The view behind our hotel room

IMG_4047
One of the flowers in my husband’s grandmother’s garden

IMG_4084
My grandmother-in-law has this sign from her late husband’s job working for telephone companies.

IMG_4149
My readers know suicide prevention is important to me and I love how this sign is integrated into community spaces.   

IMG_4164
I got to see inside a home built in 1905 and it had all this gorgeous mahogany on the walls and stairs. 

IMG_4208
I enjoyed sharing a flight of beers at Black Tooth Brewing Company. (I also learned IPA’s are not my thing.)

IMG_4224
My beer of choice at Black Tooth Brewing Company is the seasonal blonde ale.

IMG_4243
I’m a sucker for architecture and I’m glad my husband took me to the old post office in Sheridan to check out the marble staircase.

IMG_4246
I didn’t get donuts from this little place only because it wasn’t open when we walked by.

IMG_4247
This JC Penney’s is where I got clothes after returning stateside from deployment #2 as the only civilian clothes I had were the ones I was wearing.  It was surprising to see the store is closing.

IMG_4256
Clearmont, Wyoming

IMG_4301
The potato oles were one of my favorite foods when we lived in Cody, WY and they are still as good.  I just eat less of them now.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

Starting New Chapters: Personal Expression and Confidence

Good morning, everyone.

I was quite eager to do a “2007 versus 2017” series post and I had the fun surprise of looking back into my old journal entries only to discover I didn’t write a single post in June 2007!

I will give you a comparable 2007 versus 2017 substitute.

I have a good entry from May 2007 about my feelings regarding leaving the Marine Corps.  The timing works well because I started my new position in higher education.  I still work serving a military affiliated student population but I made the dramatic shift from being student facing to a non student facing opportunity.  Last week was my first week in my new role and I am just floored by the welcoming company culture.  As a veteran, I do find I get somewhat skittish that I’ll be judged for my visible tattoo (although I frequently wear long sleeves since office environments tend to be colder than I like), my preference for ponytails versus fully done up hair, and my sporadic use of makeup.

Society judges women heavily and it hasn’t seemed to matter at what age or in what industry.  The rules are written and unwritten.  The looks for stepping outside those “norms” feel the same.  Any time I’ve changed my working environment I question what will my peer treatment look like, what will my supervisor’s rules look like, and what infringement will the company place on my personal expression.  My desire to be more myself was a key part of leaving the Marine Corps.  Over the years, I’ve come to see pushing and prodding to adhere to desired female beauty standards and thankfully last week I was rewarded by the visual confirmation my new company permits a lot of personal expression.  Some female peers have full sleeve tattoos, others enjoy wearing shorts and jeans (as permitted by their departments), and makeup is worn from the slight touch of lip color and mascara to a fully done face with false lashes.

I feel more at home than I expected I would as a new employee.  I am quite happy and I feel once I get the hang of my work responsibilities this happiness will only magnify.  I don’t feel like the lost person I felt I was in May 2007.

Below is one of two entries I wrote for May 23, 2007.  I am not sharing the earlier one as I  included some personally identifying information for family friends and I don’t want to worry about anyone having that person’s address.  (By the way, anyone who knows how I feel about fireworks might laugh that back then I still thought I’d enjoy them!)

Take care and have a great weekend.

2007 Entry

Screen Shot 2017-06-11 at 7.52.11 AM

Screen Shot 2017-06-11 at 7.53.17 AM

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

America In Times of Conflict: Creating Peace From Conflict

IMG_2364

Yesterday, I volunteered with a handful of other veterans to be part of a local community collaboration sharing our stories interwoven with pieces of The Odyssey for Odyssey Home: A Veteran Performance.  The Chandler Public Library held this event called Creating Peace From Conflict at the Chandler Center For the Arts in partnership with Arizona State University and Veterans For Peace.  We also had Veteran Vision Project photos on site for attendance goers to see along with the individual narratives associated with each photograph.  Once the footage is available, I’ll provide the link.

This collaboration starting off with group drumming and continued with our storytelling mixed with selections from The Odyssey.  A few musical pieces were played by Guitars for Vets and another veteran, Ahmad Daniels was there as a representative for Veterans For Peace, also sharing his story.  I know the event was scheduled to conclude with audience engagement, sort of a Q&A opportunity.  I only stayed for the Odyssey performance as I had another engagement in the afternoon and with today being my daughter’s birthday, I wanted to make headway Saturday on some other issues I’ve currently slacked on.

The theme of the performance was homecoming and I am quite thankful the event started with the group drumming.  While I did not choose to drum (I am embarrassed by my lack of rhythm) the sounds that filled the room reminded me of the wonderful performance given by citizens of Sao Vicente when I visited Cape Verde in high school.  My peers, teachers, and I landed to a beautiful musical performance at the airport that reminds me still music is a thread shared globally; we may not always understand each other’s words and actions but music binds us in such a spiritual way.

I loved being reminded of a place that was my home for a short period of my life.  Three weeks may not be an eternity but it’s sufficient time to be welcomed as a stranger, treated like a daughter, and remembered as a friend.  I am forever grateful for that experience and everyone who welcomed us into their country, their homes, and let us savor their culture that we might never have experienced in our lives had our paths not crossed.

Cape Verde airport
The airport in Sao Vicente

I think I was better able to embrace my role as a participant yesterday feeling like I was welcomed to this group much like how I was welcomed into Cape Verdean life.

My cohort of veterans included an ASU professor, my close friend and fellow ASU student, and a future student.  For our individual tales, we provided the audience a better glimpse of ‘homecoming’ as experiences shaped by individual perception and built a bridge that homecoming is not exactly a single finite moment in time, but a process.  I focused on the more immediate aspects of coming home to family tragedies and feeling like I did not fit into my life stateside.

I think a vital part of the construction of this storytelling was how well Robin Rio and her students shaped the music performance.  I met Robin back in the fall of 2014 when I started my graduate degree at ASU.  She is an Associate Professor with the School of Music and the Director of ASU’s Music Therapy Clinic.  I interviewed her to gain a better understanding of ASU’s chapter of Guitars for Vets.

Looking back, I did not ask great interview questions, but I think we all have moments like that in our lives where our place as students does not necessarily provide us a sufficient lenses to see and understand the larger context of our community because we are also shortsighted about more immediate concerns like passing a class, juggling work, and testing our fit with fellow students.  Seeing Guitars for Vets on campus though did inspire me to get out of my comfort zone about trying a musical instrument.  I purchased a Taylor guitar awhile back and now, with my reduced commute, can commit more to my goal of learning the acoustic guitar.  (Maybe I’ll be able to play a song before the year ends!)

IMG_2365
This talented bunch just wow me; there’s so much musical talent in this group. I cannot wait to share the performance so you can understand how beautifully they play.

 

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War

Good afternoon, everyone.  The video for the Chandler Public Library’s America in Times of Conflict: She Went to War panel I served on March 11th is now posted.  I consider myself still somewhat of a beginner when it comes to public speaking and as such, have not watched the video yet.  I think if I do and see how nervous I was, I might not be willing to share it with you all today.  (I love written storytelling but I am dipping my toe into the territory of oral histories.)

I agreed to be a panelist to show support for my dear friend, Nancy Dallett.  She is the Assistant Director of the Office of Veteran and Military Academic Engagement at Arizona State University and she is quite passionate about oral histories.  She knew a past misstep with another oral history project left me somewhat reluctant to take on another but the way this project was shaped is what changed my opinion on the matter.  What I do like about a panel is the interpretative distance the moderator plays with the panelists.  She directs the conversation and keeps it in check, but her influence on what is stated via certain questions is tempered by the panelists.

I am quite proud of the types of questions asked of my fellow panelists and I.  Often times, I feel it is hard for us as women to be asked truly valuable questions outside the context of victimization.  I get stuck with questions that tiptoe around or center on the issues of sexual harassment and sexual assault within the military service branches and while I think it is important not to minimize those social problems, I think it is quite valuable our society continues to also see the professional opportunities for women in military service and the opportunities they can have post-servicing to enhance their lives and their family legacies.  Situations like the recent nude photo sharing being discussed in the news   can impact the willingness of women to join and/or to have their families’ support when considering service in one of our military branches.  (The ‘Marines United’ nude photo sharing scandal came up as one of the questions asked by our audience.)  As a female veteran, I want people who hear and participate in these conversations to understand any person (man, woman, or child) can be victimized at any point in his or her lifetime; it is more imperative we look for ways to make our society safer through education and awareness for everyone, not just groups of people or individual persons, and to instill appropriate punishments on the perpetrators so as to give the best measure of justice to the victim(s) of heinous deviant acts like this photo scandal.

Again, I want to reiterate the questions asked were quite considerate so as to not give you the wrong impression the panel was skewed far to the victimization spectrum of women’s issues.  General themes included our motivations for service, expectations of what Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam were prior to serving overseas, the reality of our living/working situations abroad, and concern over whether we thought our service had a positive impact in our lives.

Fair warning, the video is lengthy.  At almost two hours, you might want to set aside time to listen to it in its entirety or skip around for shorter conversations.  My daughter asked a question of me near the tail end of the audience Q& A section (proud Momma moment here!) so I hope you her piece of the presentation.  I didn’t expect she would actually have something to ask although she did ask before the panel began if it was necessary.

Take care and enjoy.

(If you have any tips on how to improve my presence as a panelist, I’d love to hear back from you.)

 

 

 

 

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

2007 Versus 2017: Goals, Goals, Goals

Hello, everyone.  I know New Year’s treated you well.  I spent my three-day weekend at home and enjoyed a slight decrease (much to my appreciation) in fireworks exposure.  My new neighbors don’t seem to go quite as crazy as the ones I had in the Willows neighborhood in Gilbert.  If you like fireworks, you might enjoy a stroll through this neighborhood on the 4th of July or New Year’s Eve; I anticipate in a neighborhood of 586 houses so long as the Town of Gilbert permits fireworks, people will set up small fireworks shows just outside their front doors.  For today though, I’ll like to start my first 2007 versus 2017 post.

2007 was important for me because I completed my active duty service with the Marine Corps and started to explore what life beyond the Corps would look and feel like, my taste of adult freedom if you will.  I won’t say I made smart money moves back then so as we begin this new journey looking back and discussing my future in 2017, please know I will likely discuss money a lot.  My financial needs were met very well on active duty; Thomas and I did not have any kids while I was serving and we both collected a housing allowance.  Since we both served, we received one full housing allowance and the other received a partial housing allowance.  I do apologize that I do not recall the actual monetary amounts because I understand this knowledge aids our conversation greatly.  All too often, a young service member will complain about not having sufficient pay for food, housing, etc.  but for our household size and relative expenses, we always came out ahead even after I separated until we moved to Wyoming in 2009.  Stories for another day I know, but the short version is that many of our expenses, fixed and variable, remained the same and our housing allowance decreased significantly.

In 2007, I had some lofty wedding reception ambitions, as you can see from my journal entry below.  While we never ended up having our wedding reception the reality is I spent a significant amount of time planning for a costly one-day event.  On the skinny spending side, I think we were looking at $8,000 to $10,000 for the venue, a photographer, hotel rooms, travel, food, etc.  The dream was dropped before anything was booked but not until after I purchased my wedding gown (we got married through the Justice of the Peace in 2006) and picked up some small wedding related items.

screen-shot-2017-01-04-at-11-29-45-am

My desire to control my personal finances did not truly begin until we moved to Wyoming. Our crash course in the broke life lead us to Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University.  Being introduced to Dave Ramsey’s program through friends and their church, we made headway towards undoing the financial damage.  It’s not fun, but without the substantial housing allowance we received in California, we had to take a serious look at our finances. Throughout the years, we’ve still struggled to stay on the Dave Ramsey path so I still refer back to the books and resources.  My in-laws also added more Dave Ramsey resources to our collection.  Additionally, I kept my Financial Planning notebook from my undergraduate studies because I want to ensure I update our financial goals (i.e. retirement planning, life insurance planning, etc.) as our family needs change over time.

With my husband still in school, 2017 does not wear the carefree face our lives did in 2007.  We just don’t have that same amount of money to play with on a daily basis.  Thankfully, he has one semester of Post-9/11 GI Bill® benefits to help cover expenses this semester but law school is one of those endeavors where we are bringing student loan debt into our lives.  This decision obviously strays from Dave Ramsey’s teachings.  We take steps towards self-improvement and I would prefer to not be shamed for student loan debt; I do not make enough money to fully fund law school.  We considered ASU’s Employee Reduced Tuition but the reality is 100% of that tuition reduction is taxed for graduate programs and I am already working on a tight single income, the last thing I need is more money taken out of my paycheck at this time.  Now that we have a more transparent conversation (thanks for not judging me or keeping your opinion to yourself) I would like to share personal goals for the year.

My goals are broadly categorized under personal achievements, family activities, and home improvement.  Financial planning is important to each one of these endeavors.  I am in a place to either spend money for the results or I am saving money to complete the goal.    Although I am not outlining these as SMART (specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-based) for your respective purposes as the reader, these qualities are important whenever you desire to see a goal through completion and I’m keeping these factors in mind for each goal.

In lieu of resolutions, here are my planning goals for 2017:

  1. Finish Pauline Nordine’s Butt Bible Challenge to restore fitness discipline into my life (Challenge runs January to March).
  2. Attend an adoption education event, free other than cost to get there.
  3. Add $1,000 to my daughter’s savings before the close of 2017.
  4. Pay for a one recipient’s scholarship for the Rising Stars, Desert Nights Writing Conference.
  5. Close a credit card account.
  6. Finish painting my master’s bathroom (February).
  7. Complete a family vacation (no visiting extending family).
  8. Attend a family member’s wedding.
  9. Add additional money to our emergency fund (i.e. amount will vary depending on overtime worked and additional income received this year).
  10. Finish first draft of memoir by October.
  11. Set up college fund accounts for nieces and my nephew to be born this year in lieu of gifts and clothes for Christmas.
  12. Visit family who have not seen my daughter since 2011.
  13. Set aside money for an adoption home study (approximately $1,200 to $1,800) before the end of the year. (Goal is to adopt in 2019)
  14. Replace our large bookcase with wall shelves (May/June).
  15. Purchase (1) PAX wardrobe for master bedroom (September/October).
  16. Put in Astroturf and extend patio slab (March/April).
Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

Writing About Your Life: Intimate Details

screen-shot-2016-12-08-at-12-42-38-pm

I know it’s not normal for you to get an updated post from me this time of time but I am at home with my sick daughter and now that I’ve sent her off for an afternoon nap, it’s time for me to enjoy some “me time” which translates to writing.  It may not be what I do best [yet in my life] but it’s one of the best things I enjoy.

When I started this blog back in 2014, I mentioned something that probably did not come off as an intimate detail in my life.  I mentioned how, back in 2004, one of the Corporals at my unit told me not to write a book about Iraq.  Now, as a thirty-two year old, I cringe more when I think of that asinine statement.  There is not a single soul in this world that deserves to tell me what to do with my life.

I think war narratives are important, even if I haven’t liked all the ones I’ve read.  The point is not to get rich.  The point is not to be famous.  The point is to convey a slice of history that can be lost otherwise.  The point is to capture sights, sounds, people, and places that are changed in the moment and hopefully influence people to take a more nuanced approach to understanding war.

As impossible as it is to whittle down what I learned in graduate school, one of the best lessons I came away with is uncovering the extent of how society ignores, belittles, and underreports the achievements and lived experiences of women.  We are not shadows of living beings; we are living, too.  I say society in this reference in speaking specifically to American society however there are many teachings that shows us women compared to men are often given less notice.

I write to you all today to tell you I will write my book.  I will write it regardless of whether it gets published.  I will write it because there will never be another moment in time that mirrors this experience.  I will write it because there are numerous others who could gain something from this type of storytelling.  I will write because a song I heard recently made me think of this experience and the amount of emotional connection I have to that point in my life.

I will not forgo a personal achievement because another human being has such set opinions against writing war memoirs.

If you’re wondering about that song, below are the lyrics:

“Every Little Thing” (Sung by Carly Pearce)

The scent that you left on my pillow
The sound of your heart beating with mine
The look in your eyes like a window
The taste of your kiss soaked in wine

Every little thing
I remember every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Of every little thing

Guess you forgot what you told me
Because you left my heart on the floor
Baby, your ghost still haunts me
But I don’t want to sleep with him no more

Every little thing
I remember every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Of every little thing
I remember every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Of every little thing

They say time is the only healer
God, I hope that isn’t right
Cause right now I’d die to not remember

Every little thing
I remember every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Every little thing
I remember every little thing
I’m haunted by the memories of
Every little thing
The high, the hurt, the shine, the sting
Every little thing

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

July 2016

What a month!  It’s not over yet but it has been busier and more stressful, complete with more opportunities and challenges.  My nervousness over how fireworks would make me feel morphed into a bigger stress response than I imagined.  As a result, I have logged my chest pains to keep track of them for an upcoming appointment with a cardiologist.  Looking back, the 14 days of chest pains just gets exhausting.  Thankfully, they are not all day long but once I do have an episode I do worry if I’ll have another attack during that day.  While I have been extremely reluctant to seek medical assistance/further diagnosis about my chest pains the reality is after eleven years of suffering through them, sometimes I cannot manage them effectively on my own.  I do find it difficult to carve out sufficient exercise time which keeps them in check.  Separately, the sensation of these pains has changed over the years and I know that issue alone is pretty significant to go back to seek medical advice and assistance.

During the Fourth of July, I found it possible to avoid most of the fireworks.  My husband and I went to the Keg for a late dinner and walked over to the movie theater in the San Tan mall.  Unfortunately, some very overzealous individuals started shooting off fireworks before it was even 9 o’clock.  I had some high hopes we could miss the fireworks that night in its entirety but not so much. Although I will be flattening the conversation significantly, being around fireworks does not upset me so much because it reminds me of the constant danger I was in while serving in Iraq.  That sucks but it wasn’t the worst thing.  It is a struggle because it is a reminder of the worst mortar attack we had which killed my officer.  The sound of that attack is something that is seared in my memory more than any other one event.  It is a struggle because I know I survived that attack and while so many of us knew Captain Brock we couldn’t save him.  The Quick Response Force couldn’t save him.  The Medevac crew couldn’t save him.  We all–his Marine family–were powerless against an indirect weapon and the rest of us came home.

My daughter asked me recently why I didn’t die in Iraq.  She asked this question of me after seeing the Eyes of Freedom memorial while I attended the WAVES conference (Western Association of Veterans Education Specialists) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  I had no answer for her other than that I was fortunate.  Even then, it’s not a full answer.  I was moved to the night shift in December of 2004.  As such, I was at my barracks the day Captain Brock was hit outside our work.  That day, it could have been almost anyone who worked in that building or it could have been no one.  I was at my home talking to my grandmother on the phone and the blast was something that was easily felt from my location.  It made the most terrifying sound of all the mortar impacts we took.

I know other war veterans understand why carrying survivors’ guilt is hard.  We have the rest of our lives to carry the burden of those who didn’t make it home.  Our existence, our homecoming, is tinged with the reminder we were granted years deprived of our peers.  We will think of the accomplishments they didn’t get to enjoy; we will think of the children they didn’t have; and we will think of the fact their families will never be the same.

IMG_9695
Eyes of Freedom

IMG_9696
Eyes of Freedom

IMG_9697

IMG_9699

IMG_9703

IMG_9702

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

June: PTSD Awareness Month & A Brief Look Back

Please don’t take my extended absence from writing as a sign that I am not interested in continuing my veteran (and more specifically, female veteran) awareness efforts.  During my recent absence I have attended to moving into my recently purchased home.  You can read about that journey–should you be interested–at my other blog, Builder Grade and Reclaimed.  The other large factor contributing to my absence has been my concern over the increasing violence in Fallujah and knowing that while I served in Iraq and Fallujah was in our area of operations there is nothing I can truly say as an American that speaks fully to the horror Iraqi citizens currently face on a daily basis.  It is also hard not to feel a bit ashamed that I am quite privileged–enjoying the fruits and discussing the frustrations of homeownership for the first time–in the midst of such chaos, particularly when I see the large number of affected children.

In doing what I can given my current status as an amateur writer I wish to speak to you all about the fact June is PTSD Awareness Month.  In the most recent couple of months I’ve begun to notice more articles that discuss the mental toll war takes on refugees and their disjointed access to support services.  As a veteran, I cannot help but notice the focus on PTSD as it relates to war veterans and the stigma associated with treatment.  Furthermore,  the more recent shooting at Pulse in Orlando adds another layer to how violence plants the seeds for lifelong hurt in the community.  I was stunned when I read about how first responders were dealing with the constant ringing of cellphones as they conducted their work at the crime scene and I realized I,too, need to broaden my perception of who is affected by violence locally  (city, state), regionally, nationally, and globally.  We do not always know the victims firsthand but we may know friends or family members of the victim or feel our shared identity allows us to empathize with their situation, perhaps it even brings up the hardships in our own past.

The older I get the more I realize it’s ok to talk about my own struggles with anxiety as it relates to fireworks and veteran deaths.  The two issues are markedly similar to my first deployment experiences of frequent mortar fire and daily deaths of service members.  I can tell you daily life is not always a challenge for me the way it is for other survivors (war, sexual assault, weather-related catastrophe, domestic violence, mass shootings, and so forth).  The research I invested earlier this year crafting my applied project took a significant emotional toll on me but it’s coming close to that time of year where the celebratory use of fireworks by others makes me cringe.

After experiencing fireworks last year in my old Gilbert neighborhood on the 4th of July and then again for New Year’s the trepidation for the upcoming Fourth of July has been building and for that reason I decided to open up about my issues.  I don’t know what my new neighbors are like and if they will shoot off fireworks from our shared driveway the way the former neighbors did.  I don’t know if individuals in this neighborhood and the neighborhoods surrounding us will subject me to a marathon four-hour ‘celebration’ on New Years that will bring on a series of chest pains and hours of anguish.  I cannot imagine what the Fourth looks like but I am nervous already about potentially losing a whole night’s sleep and still needing to go into work the next day.

I am exceptionally aware of the fireworks season when it crops up: local vendors set up stands on their vehicles on the side of local roadways and local stores clean floorspace for variety packs of fireworks for nearly every budget.  While others plan fun for themselves, I’m counting down the days until I suffer through a particular hell I never imagined I’d be back in.  In war after a mortar attack, I had a purpose and so I trudged through my tasks because my work helped keep people alive.  A daily mortar attack here and there became normal and I adopted a casual brush off of this experience.  So long as we looked around and everyone was ‘ok’ things were normal.

Looking back on my past, I am now rather grateful fireworks were–and are–such a rare exposure.  I lived in the barracks for most of my Marine Corps career and so I did not encounter fireworks there.  When I moved off base–residing in Oceanside–fireworks weren’t a concern either.  From the alley of our home in Cody, Wyoming I could see the large public fireworks display off in the distance which I find enjoyable but none of my neighbors lit fireworks down the street.  (To be honest, I also don’t know if it was permitted either but I am grateful my exposure was limited.)  During the time I lived with my in-laws in Mesa and later in ASU’s family housing I also did not contend with fireworks.

So please know for the duration of June 24th to July 6th–the time period in which the use of fireworks is permitted here–I will be more on edge as I wait to see with what frequency my neighbors use fireworks.

In also addressing the 2006 versus 2016 comparison I’ve promised you, below is one of my previous entries from 2006.  I know I am off a day but I didn’t write as much in 2006 as I thought I did.  However, this time period of entries is a good one because it gets close to when I left for my second deployment with 3rd MAW, serving on the deployment under MAG-16.

Screen Shot 2016-06-18 at 6.21.48 PM

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0

Looking Back: Progress on the Applied Project

We are nearing the midterms part of the semester and I am already falling a bit behind on those objectives I set out with you all in January.  I do not make time for the gym as much as I should and looking at my last post, which was 18 days ago, I am not keeping up on this site as much either.  Today, I’m tackling both.  I knocked out 40 minutes on our indoor bike and as I close out my day, I write to speak with you all about my applied project.

Writing about my history has not been an easy task.  This focus opens up a number of issues which I have not fully shared previously with my family, for one, and second, I am always burdened with how to share the experiences of others.  For my situation, this matter is complicated because those individuals died many years ago.  Like many other veterans, I do acknowledge survivors’ guilt for what it is in my life.  I simply lived through numerous occasions where our base was mortared (on the first deployment).  I also safely traveled through our area of operations without being ambushed; hit by an improvised explosive device (IED), a vehicle born IED, or rocket propelled grenade; nor did I encounter snipers along the way.  There is no way to describe the moments of safety in my deployment as anything other than sheer luck.  For my readers of faith, please understand why I do not say that it is by God’s grace because I feel, in small part, to say so also implies that God does not love his other children who perished.

The other reason this task presents some difficulty on my part is I have not revisited this information fully in years. For the duration of my first deployment, I spent twelve hours a day receiving word that people died or were injured.  In some cases, we received updated information that our wounded later died as a result of their injuries.  The best news I ever received came from our Lieutenant Colonel who informed my team our work prevented a unit from being ambushed.  This incident represents one of my greatest achievements and I greatly appreciate everyone’s efforts to do their jobs that day.  I am fairly certain I never recorded in my journal about the matter out of concern for operational security, as I consciously chose to do for many such occasions, with some exceptions such as Captain Brock’s death.  I was very honored though as a Lance Corporal to have a Lieutenant Colonel come over to let us know our work was so valuable.

As I open up the pages of my past hopefully my audience understands what it takes to share those experiences.  My research is heavily reliant on data available to me through MilitaryTimes, Iraqbodycount.org, and other resources such as BBC.com.  It will likely not encompass all the lives lost, on all sides, but is the closest possibility of this needed transparency.  I make this statement not as a fault of my research, but to remind everyone the limitations I work through.  Being reliant on the system keeping of others has given me some insights into the values of different organizations and additionally, witness through reporting sources the grief of families.  I am also seeing names, faces, ages, and backstories through the associated press articles on Military Times.  These new details are painful reminders of the past and also inspirations for the future.

Social media sites are a great way to express new meanings attributed to veterans, our storytelling, and in today’s time, our lived experiences in war.  I am also very hopeful that perhaps such honesty will invoke others to adopt a more liberal attitude towards many disadvantaged groups, especially war refugees.  I made the choice to serve in a war and I also knew I had the freedom to leave that region at the end of my tour, both times. More importantly, I was fortunate to make it home alive.  Again, both times.

Around the world, in so many places, individuals of all ages struggle because they live in war torn regions.  I cannot attest to their experiences but I can use my lens as a war veteran to share my story.  Perhaps in doing so, I can encourage others in my community, locally and globally, to understand why we should be listening to more of the narratives that come out of war than how organizations present those matters.  Organizations are not affected by war the same way people are. Organizations “see” and “shape” the crisis, but people live (or do not live) through those experiences.  Their stories matter.

Posted on by She_wears_dogtags 0