Deployment rears its ugly head again. Another extended separation for you and your family. Don’t you secretly hope, it just “doesn’t” happen? Your spouse will most likely get a list from work on all of the legal/financial/military mumbo jumbo he has to do. But what about the homefront? Here’s a list of how to prepare for deployment.
1. Hold those kisses and hugs just a little bit longer.
2. Develop recent photos. Yeah your wedding day photos are top notch, but you’re going to want to see the “latest version” of each other.
3. Make friends with the mechanic. Something will to go shit on your car when he’s gone. I put money on it.
4. If you haven’t learned to kill bugs/spiders/creepy crawleys by yourself yet, start doing so.
5. Power of Attorney. Just do it.
6. Have baby sitters on standby for the days that you need to run errands or just have me-time.
7. When you’re making friends with the mechanic, ask if he knows a good handyman too.
8. Get the ombudsman/FRG leader/FRSA’s contact info/social media page. Just in case.
9. Put extra money in the bank. Not just for rainy days, but for those frickin floods that come out of nowhere.
10. Make your wine ready at the helm. Bad skype connection, missed phone calls, changing the homecoming dates again… Wine is your friend. It’s classier than the hard stuff.
11. But if you need the hard stuff, go for it.
12. Lay in bed, then roll over to his side, then roll back. Look at all this space you’ll have!
13. Don’t be surprised when the toilet seat is down… all of the time.
14. Learn how to fix the tv/cable/internet/video game/dvd player, especially the reset buttons.
15. Have the customer service phone numbers available too, because the reset button does nothing!
16. Make an extra set of keys for the house, and leave them with someone you trust or have them in a lockbox outside of the home. If you don’t do this, you will inevitably learn the hard way that you need an extra set of keys.
17. Make a list of all of online accounts with usernames and passwords that you guys share: banks, email addresses, DFAS, etc. in case you ever need to log-in for some reason.
18. Instead of regular countdowns, do a money countdown- force yourself to put a dollar in a jar for every day they’re gone. If you stick to it, you’ll have enough dollars for date night. If the deployment gets extended, you can use the dollar bills for some other fine establishment where dollar bills are the method of trade.
19. As much as I love you for reading this article, start weaning yourself a little bit from the online world. Money and Facebook Spouses groups are the root of all evil.
20. Try to laugh often, because all you want to do is cry. (sadface but it’s true)
*Advice should be taken only by those with a sense of humor. All other overly sensitive people need not apply.