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The Navy Life of A Pilot's Wife

7 years, 4 States, 2 Countries, & 1 Love Story

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Thriving During Deployment

I’d say that I need a massage, but …

2013/02/07 CorgiMum Wedding Leave a comment

It’s crunch time for the reception – our guests will be starting to arrive this time next week, reception events begin a week from tomorrow, and the reception is next Saturday. I’d say that I need a de-stressing massage, but I got one tonight. Maybe I need another. So. Much. Left. To. Do.

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Raven Nation scorching through Washington 🏔🏔 We live in a privatized military housing rental (not in WA right now!) and we are currently unable to use our sinks, toilets, showers, and W/D 🙃 We came home to a (thankfully) clean water flood in our master bath and backed up water elsewhere. We can get clean water, but it can’t drain anywhere. The staff plumber can’t fix it and housing won’t commit to putting us up in a hotel tonight 😳 So typical, and this is why we didn’t want to live in privatized housing! 🏘 #BalfourBeatty #MHPI #privatizedmilitaryhousing #militaryhousing #BalfourBeattyMHPI #militarylife #militaryfamilies #militaryfamily #militaryfamilylife

Can I get an *Amen* for how easy it is to establish and maintain personal and professional ties no matter where we live or how often we move, thanks to social media and online communication?! I started with a new lifting coach this week who is based in Columbus, Ohio. I am not in Columbus or even Ohio, and I’m moving in November (again, not to Columbus or Ohio!). I can work with her anywhere I go thanks to phone apps and online comms. I’m so thankful for how easy it is to maintain relationships as my friends and professional ties and I move around so often with the military. Maintaining relationships is a big part of how I can keep on keeping on, no matter what the military (and life!) throws at me and my husband. 📲💻🏋🏼‍♀️🗺⚓️✈️ #ladieswholift #milso #milwife #milspouse #navywife #navyspouse #girlswholift #strongwomen #pcsseason #pcs #militarypcs #navylife #navyfamilylife #milsoblog #militaryblog #navyfamily #milfam

We have official orders and my husband has his next year laid out, which will culminate in taking over as a squadron XO. Simultaneously, I’m officially matriculating into the Nursing Science PhD program at a University on the other side of the country (it’s mostly online). He has about 5 years left in the Navy, and my PhD program is 5 years long. It’s a really exciting but stressful time for us. We are starting to talk about how we will partner to support the squadron through deployments, workups, and day-to-day stress. I will likely be the senior spouse for the full 3 years of his time in the front office, AND I will be pursuing my own career, goals, and aspirations. I have a full ride + big stipend for my PhD, which also means that I will be teaching, mentoring, and researching in addition to working on my dissertation and classwork. This is such a huge moment, and while it SEEMS like an insurmountable mountain, it’s not. In fact, we can already see the other side - it’s only 5 years away, and there is so much fun, joy, and happiness to be had along the way. I love this Navy life. We only experience it for a limited number of years, so it’s important to make the most of it. I love the opportunities it provides, the experiences we only have through living this life, and the endless possibilities for change, growth, and becoming. We’ve worked diligently over our years together to build a lifestyle that accommodates our joint and independent goals, and it’s payoff time. He has the great honor of leading a jet squadron (during a time of war, no less), and I have the opportunity and joy of earning the highest educational honor in my profession, a PhD, and I will begin my career of helping aging veterans with chronic pain by creating a dissertation with a focus on chronic pain in former Navy SEALs. We are lucky. I am lucky. #flynavy ✈️⚓️🇺🇸

Hello from the wilds of a KOA camp ground. We are attending my family reunion this weekend ... at a camp ground ... in a heat wave ... y’all, it’s hot and humid and the humidity might be worse than the heat! I hope you all are staying cool and having a great weekend! 💚☀️🛶⛵️🏕 #campingisintents #navyfamily #lifeisgood

He’s been slated and we have verbal orders, y’all! Okay, okay, we’ve known what squadron he’s going to next for a few months, BUT now we tentatively know when we will move (November? December?). I am mid way through my first PhD class and we just got home from vacation in St Thomas. Did I mention we are thinking about making an offer on a house?! Never a dull moment 😝 I hope you’re having a wonderful summer! 🔆🏖

Just came home from a 10 day Mediterranean cruise and a few days in Rome. It’s not often that military families can plan travel ahead of time, but we managed to plan this vacation 10 months ago. We visited Rome, Palermo on Sicily, Palma de Mallorca, Valencia, Marseille, and Genoa with family, and we traveled on @msccruisesofficial, a European cruise line. Can’t wait to visit Continental Europe again! The Pride Flag in the first pic is hanging on the US Embassy in Rome 🏳️‍🌈🇺🇸 #loveislove #pride #militaryfamilylife #navyfamilylife #navylife #summervacation #mediterraneansea #mediterraneancruise #msccruises

Have you seen this yet?! I would have missed it completely if it hadn’t been for spouse ally and friend, @pollockce, messaging me the link! The Obama Admin made it so we spouses have front of the line privileges for state licensure due to PCS, and now the Navy made the licensure cost reimbursable. Thanks to all the folks who made this possible. Now, if you could please help us FIND employment, that would be greeeeeat ...... 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻 #navyspouse #navywife #militaryspouse #militarywife #navyfamily #militaryfamily #spouseemployment #militaryspouselife #militaryspouseblogger #navyspouseblogger #navywifeblog #militarywifeblogger #militaryadvocacy #militaryfamilyadvocacy #PCS #pcsseason

It’s been a minute since I’ve posted, but I’ve had some exciting professional stuff pop up recently and I’ve been busy. BUT I wanted to get on here and promote a new YouTube vid from someone I know and trust as a military/tactical fitness professional, @realmattwenning. He just posted a great Tactical Fitness vid on YouTube, and it’s really good for all service members, including aircrew! Those of us who know pilots and Flight Officers, know they frequently suffer from chronic pain, typically in their back and neck. Fitness is one way to prevent and mitigate pain, and Matt gives great tips on how to train. The moves are basic enough that even someone newer to fitness can figure it out. As a nurse, I deal with chronic back pain also, and so I found this video really helpful and I’ll pass it on to my CNAs at work tonight, too. Overall great video, totally worth 5 minutes of your time, and it’s from someone who has a lot of experience and a long track record of successfully coaching military professionals to better wellness and overall strength/conditioning. The video can be found by searching “Matt Wenning” on YouTube, or you can type in https://youtu.be/yIkX6o6oSUQ. Take a min to watch and learn! 🏋🏼‍♂️🏋🏽‍♀️✈️⚓️🇺🇸 #flynavywithahealthyback

I think I can safely speak for most military families when I say that we feel the deep, heavy sadness of Memorial Day in our hearts this weekend. Many of us still host and attend #MDW parties and celebrate the unofficial start of summer, but we keep the “reason for the season” in our hearts as we celebrate and enjoy our long weekend. We couldn’t live this joyful, free life if it wasn’t for the sacrifices of others - some of whom we had the honor of knowing before they made the ultimate sacrifice. We grieve loss, but we also celebrate their life. So, if you are a civilian and don’t live the military life 24/7/365, please take a moment during your celebration this weekend to pour out a beer for those who aren’t with us to celebrate, or research one of the heroes lost and tell a friend of their sacrifice; speak their name so that they may live on and toast to their sacrifice. Sending hugs to all those grieving the loss of friends and loved ones this weekend. May you find peace in their memory 🇺🇸♥️ My husband and I walked the beach with our corgis today. Here is a pic of one of their adorable corgi bums 📸🍑 #mdw2019 #memorialdayweekend #memorialday #memorialdayweekend2019

I just sat for an interview with my per diem nursing company’s PR team about being a military spouse and working per diem as a nurse. I feel empowered, catered to (who doesn’t love that!), enabled, and successful on my own terms doing per diem nursing work, so I was excited to have an opportunity to tell my story to a wider audience. I love finding companies that enable their employees, and I found that with #ConnectRN. I’ll post the article when it’s published online 👩🏽‍⚕️ For now, enjoy this picture I took during a Friends & Family Day aboard the USS George Washington in Japan ⚓️✈️🇺🇸 #flynavy #perdiemnursing #militarywife #navywife @inkhousepr

I am weeks away from starting the hard work of researching my dissertation topic for my PhD in Nursing Science. My topic is chronic pain in current and former SEALs Operators, and therefore my dissertation hinges on talking to current and former SEAL & UDT Operators. I have buy-in from the Navy & Navy Medicine, SEAL community organizations, and the few former Operators I personally know, but I need help reaching out to Team families to gain broader community buy-in. The Navy can force Operators to talk to me, but that’s NOT a good way of gathering quality information about something as personal as pain. Many of our spouses have pain, regardless of where or how they serve. I’m asking for YOUR buy in, because if I can move forward on this topic, this dissertation will set me up to spend the next 40 years of my career researching and publishing on the topic of active duty and veteran pain and wellness. So, I am hoping that some of you who have connections to SEAL families, or those of you who know people who have connections for SEAL families, would be willing to lend me your network. I may not be able to change the whole military with this one dissertation and accompanying White Papers, but maybe I can start a change for a small part of the Navy world. And, if I can get the ball rolling, hopefully this research will carry me through to research that WILL change the way the whole Navy and the whole Military addresses pain in its service members and veterans. It’s a big task to change the military, but if anyone can do it, our military spouse community can. Any personal connections, suggestions, and advice is super appreciated. The military will never know the names of those who took part in my research study and what they said - I abide by ethical guidelines of scientific research.

One more Nurses Week post before this week is over. I was reminded this week that we all get by with a lot of help from our friends in our military married lives. When @milspooftheyear posed the question of what our go-to military resource is, I instantly answered that my go-to resource is other spouses. As I grow in my nursing practice, I’m finding that one of my greatest strengths is communication with my team: My CNAs, my RNs & LPNs, my nurse boss, my patients, and other professionals. I’ve learned a lot of my communication skills from figuring out how to build strong bridges with other military spouses, which I then apply in my nursing practice. We spouses aren’t all the same, sometimes we don’t have much in common, and we don’t always agree on the big stuff, but we band together, support each other, and are resources for each other. As I’ve grown in my military-based relationships over these past 7 years, I’ve built so many friendships and “working relationships” with fellow spouses. I’ve learned to start relationships quickly and to stay flexible in those relationships as our lives change, sometimes day to day. I’ve figured out how to get along to get along. I’ve learned to speak to others’ strengths and buttress their weak points, just as others have done for me. Now I apply those lessons at work, and my practice and my patients are so much better off because of my experience in our spouse community. THANK YOU to this amazing spouse community, which has challenged me, made me better, helped me get stronger, and provided so many learning and growth opportunities. Also, shout out to #ConnectRN for this awesome rose gold stethoscope gift! So excited to use it at work! #perdiemRN #nurselife #nursesweek

HAPPY NURSES WEEK to every nurse reading this, and especially to my fellow military spouses & significant others who are nurses, too. I became a nurse because I wanted to be a nurse, but I also hoped becoming a nurse would give me a portable career while my husband and I moved around the world for his career. This PCS, however, taught me that it’s really difficult for so many of us military spouses to get jobs, even jobs that we are super well qualified for, because we are illegally blacklisted by employers near bases because we move. I was illegally told during an interview recently that “nobody” will hire me because I’m “obviously a military wife” based on my resume, which is full of relocations. I have my RN, BSN, MS, and a PhD in progress, AND I have excellent job references and experience, yet the interviewer was right - I was blacklisted and I couldn’t get a job call back despite doing everything “right”. I love being a nurse, and after 5 months searching for work here, I was exhausted and considering applying to Home Depot just so I could earn some money and get out of the house (for real). Then one day I received a message on @LinkedIn from @ConnectRN that changed my life. A recruiter from the company saw my profile on LinkedIn and my location, and asked if I had ever considered per diem work, as they had a facility nearby that needed a per diem RN. The work was exactly what I had been looking for, and the hourly rate was more than I had ever been paid. I hadn’t considered per diem work for a number of reasons, but I am so glad I took this leap of faith. Now I work a few days a week at a facility literally 4min from my house and I only work shifts I want to work. I’m a charge nurse, so that’s management experience I can continue on my resume. I’m in school earning my PhD, so when I am busy, I don’t have the added worry of having to work a regular schedule. This is a superb situation for me, and I recommend trying per diem or travel nursing to any military spouse nurse or nursing assistant. Also, l would be so happy to refer you to @ConnectRN if you would like an introduction. #notanad #justabeliever

I’ve been busy lately between working extra shifts and seeing Navy friends. I made it down to Annapolis this week very briefly to see two fabulous Navy friends and their families. While there, obviously I hit the Academy shop and bought myself a few gifts, including these adorable anchor earrings. Peep my cute E/A-18 bangle bracelet from @thenomadicnationshop 😬😂😜⚓️✈️🇺🇸 #flynavy #navalaviation #EA18 #Growler #EA18G

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