Taking a break & the calm before the storm

So the next few weeks signify the calm before the storm....the three weeks prior to school starting. My son starts kintergarten, my daughter starts her first year of middle school or (what was called junior high when I was there) and I start my second year of college. I know what I want to do but what I want to do means three degrees because I am an indecisive women who wants to do it all because I can. I dont know what that means! Anyway I want to be some sort of school psychologist, teacher and teach culinary arts all at the same time. I dont know how I am going to do it but that is what I am going to work on accomplishing. In the meantime Bill needs to find a hobby or something that he likes to do in the wake of all of this madness so that he wont be lonely, bored and stressed out of his mind. Which is likely to happen anyway. So I am going to take a break and find some fun things to do during the next few weeks that dont take much planning or preperation. I need a break desperately with everything that has happended lately. Bill has been able to go fishing, camping and just go hang out with his friends and I havent gotten do do anything remotely similar in I dont know how long. He is at the point in his life now where we wants me by his side 24/7 and its exhausting because I need alone time for myself. I almost have one or both of my children with me if not him and both of them so I just need my own time and space. Kids and men dont understand that. There are times where I felt like just getting in the car and driving an hour to the beach and just spending the day alone napping on the beach and walking searching for shells or even browsing in small shops. The point is that I can go at my own pace without having to deal with whining kids, prosthetic legs not fitting and pre-teen cell drama. I am doing my grocery list and monthly menu today, writing up menu cards to get them ready for laminating. Just small tedious things that women do that men do not understand or want any part of. Bill is updating and downloading music and my son is playing the wii and Autumn is at her dad's house....it is chill....no drama....no fighting....and I am going to go take a bath. Its the least I can do to take care of myself today. The house is clean the boys are fed and now its time for me.

Adventures in asking for help....

SO its hard enough to ask for help repeatedly.....its embarrassing....degrading.....belittling....agrivating.....and most possibly the worst thing to have to do as independant adults who at our point in life shouldnt be having to do.....but then to be repeatedly told no we cant help you.....you dont qualify.....you dont rate help from us....you arent wounded enough (meaning you arent drooling on yourself in a hospital bed)....you didnt go to the right hospital....you arent high enough ranked.....you arent in the clique.....you havent served long enough.....you didnt ask for help soon enough.....you arent broke enough.....you live on the west coast not the east coast....the list can go on and on....its amazing what a wounded man with as many injuries and health problems as my husband is not qualified for.....there are spouses out there whos husbands have lesser injuries than my husband who get more help than he does.....its both disturbing and sad.....unfortunate and tragic to sit back and be told no so many times when there are people not even from our country getting better treatment here. I hate being in this situation. Part of me just thinks that if he killed himself people wouldnt even care....he would just be another casualty of the PTSD war. The war has been over for him since he was injured.....but it hasnt....it wages on....I think for him....ok I know for him that the war he/we are now fighting is worse than any firefight you could throw at us. The bombs in our war are much different.....they devestate, mangle and tear up your mind, your heart and your soul.....and then some. My family will never be the same again. I would rather take a bullet to the heart than to sit here and watch the devestation that has unfolded in our lives. People can sit there and say what they want but they will never understand what we have been through and how much the past continues to do to our future. Other people get to move on with their lives and grow and live their lives while their children grow up and its a happy time.....while we are stuck in a time warp where everything spins in a circle contantly stopping on the same space of the game board.....its like being on a horrible carnival ride that you cant get off of.....your mind spins so fast and thinking properly is clouded by the constant chunk rising in the back of your throat and the urge to just jump off and hope that you dont feel the pain when you hit the ground. I dont really feel physical pain anymore and emotionally I am ragged....I have probably aged ten years in the past five. My kids.....oh gosh....my kids do not deserve to live this life. They have done nothing to be subjected to this kind of life.....I know its no good for them and I try the best I can with what I have left in me. I dont want them to hate me for something completely out of my hands. I want more good days between bad ones.....I want to smile and mean it.....I want to enjoy spending time with my husband.....and I want to feel like the home I live in isnt out to get me. I just want to be happy.....and I want my family to be happy....money cant buy that.....but support can and we havent even gotten that.....not from the right people anyway.....we are an ant in an anthill....another number.....just a grain of sand.....thats all we are.

Ghetto in the suburbs

So I have always joked that we are ghetto. I have since changed my mind....we are more of a combination of redneck, white trash and something from a Stephen King movie. We no longer have the car sitting in the yard that we dont drive. Yeah thats right Bill finally sold his mustang. Now we can buy a new front door for our house. Who wouldve thought those things would cost so much. I know you are probably thinking....if you are as redneck as you say then surely you could just go to a trailer wrecking yard and find another....oh no sir....we live in a house and those doors cost bucks....and plus I want my kids to be safe. I have a dog but I dont think he bites....he barks when he hears someone pull up in our reched driveway or walk up to the door.....but he sounds harmless. I also invested in a stungun a few years back and have been lucky enough to not have to use thus far. I am itching to see what it would do to a full grown pedophile though. So Bill thought since he sold the mustang....his favorite car.....his pride and joy....that he would never have to see it again and the burden of having to sell it would be long gone....out of sight out of mind. Turns out he sold it to a marine corps recruiter who lives directly next door to his buddy. Talk about smack in the face. Now every time he goes to visit his friend....that car is going to haunt him. Such a bummer. Off of the car subject Bill and I have been fighting like cats and dogs.....all claws out....I gotta say out of Bill's whole unit that went to Iraq, we are the only couple that has stayed together through the wake of the deployment from hell. The rest of them didnt even have the kind of issues that we had and still have and they all buckled under the pressure. Either we are seriously meant for eachother or I an just real stupid and put up with alot of shit. There are so many variables leading to our spats....mostly his forgetfullness, lack of compassion and my newly aquired spousal PTSD, which I cant rally blame on a guy with a TBI. I want someone to be punished though so badly and I want someone to feel bad and apologize and take the blame.....but the only people who are to blame are the ones calling the shots. They will never own it....will never admit their wrongs and will never take responsibility. SO the next time when someone asks me why I wear a Marine Corps t-shirt proudly but own not one Army or National Guard item.....I can simply say because I have standards.....and they do not include supporting a group of irresponsible, inconsiderate, uncaring, backstabbing, bitches who have no idea how to take care of their men, their families or their wounded. See now I got all worked up and am rambling and I will get carried away and I wont stop speaking my mind. I gotta get some rest. Time for a coctail and a sleeping pill.....just joking....none of that for me. A glass of wine and a hot bath sounds fabulous though. So you can be civilized and still be ghetto.....as long as there is wine involved.....the ghetto part comes when you hook up a beer bong for wine.