This weeks {Listable Life} really made me think. I like the self-reflection that these lists bring.

5 Regrets

1. Not standing up for myself sooner.

This is a perpetual problem of mine and every time, after I build up the courage to say/do something, I regret not doing it sooner. This regret could also be titled, “Not going with my gut instinct.”

The older I get, the better I am at this. I have learned to walk away or stand up for myself sooner.

2. Getting stressed out over nothing.

I dislike being stressed. I recognize that as military families, we carry a certain amount of stress around. Our lives are unpredictable. Our spouses can be here today, gone tomorrow. Orders could come tomorrow and we could be moving in a month or less. We just never know.  However, sometimes I bring stress on myself.

9 times out of 10 it’s something so ridiculous that I look back and think WHY?

I like to think that I am a superstar at sorting my feelings out. After years of adolescent counseling, I learned to make mental piles. So, I have a Navy pile, which is stuff that I have zero control over; and a Misc. piles, which is stuff that I sort into further piles and ask myself, “Is this worth getting worked up over?”, if the answer is yes it goes into the ‘Yes’ pile and if it’s ‘No’, it gets discarded. Sometimes, something that was supposed to go into the ‘No’ pile ends up in the ‘Yes’ pile. That’s where I end up with a regret.

3. Not listening to the people who love me.

“Is that a good decision?”

“He isn’t good for you. He’s cheating on you!”

“You don’t think so and so might be using you because you’re so generous?”

“I think 7 candy bars might be a little too much.”

“I think you might be working yourself a little too hard.”

I have heard it all. I have been given great advice by friends and family and completely ignored it. Later, I figured out that they were right and I regretted not listening to them in the first place. I could have saved myself a world of hurt. Years later, I appreciate their sound advice.

4. Running through the pain. 

I really thought I just had shin splints. Turns out, it wasn’t shin splints, it was stress fractures.

Fortunately, the doctor I saw was a military doctor, who has some understanding of this wild ‘never give up’ mentality. I could have given up any day. I could have told myself that it just hurt too much to continue running. The reality is, I just can’t give up, there was too much keeping me going.

Now I’m paying the price, sitting on the sidelines, when all I really want to do is get back out there.

Oh well.

5. Eating a bag of sour patch kids.

Now my tongue feels weird and I can’t taste anything.

 

While I am listing these as regrets, I do understand that these things make me who I am. I am able to move past these ‘quirks’ and understand that it’s all okay. People make mistakes, I’m not above that. I am not perfect and I don’t wish to be.

5 Things I do not regret

1. ‘Marrying the Navy’

I love being a Navy wife. I love hearing about all of the cool stuff my husband does (after it’s Unclassified, it stinks having to wait to hear what he’s doing sometimes, but I do understand the need for secrecy). I love moving, seeing the world, and trying new things. I think deployments are hard, but worthwhile. I like that I can be married, but get to hang on to my fierce independence. I like knowing that I can do things like, register my car, change the oil, change the tires, fix a sink, mow the lawn, patch walls, and move, all by myself – with no assistance from my husband.

I love that being a Navy wife has made me a stronger person. I’m a little rougher around the edges, but I’m proud of that.

I won’t sugar coat it, my husband and I had a rough go at first. We got married in March and he deployed in November. I was listening to too many people who, looking back, had no idea what they were talking about. For some reason, I kept being told that my husband should be able to call everyday, because so and so’s husband called everyday during deployment. Because of some phone issues (his calls were not going through to the blackberry I had at the time, I had to break my contract with the phone carrier we were with at the time and get an iPhone) and bad timing, 4 months of deployment had gone by before my husband was able to call.

Through the lack of communication with my husband and listening to everything that everyone else was telling me, I ended up feeling like he just didn’t care. (During that first deployment, I had a civilian tell me that her husband could never deploy, because he cares about her. People say crazy things. Once he got home, he said, “Maybe I deployed because I care MORE about you.” Which makes sense.) I learned to be flexible and to listen to no one, but my husband. The next time he deployed went 1000 times smoother. I also learned to remind those who thought that my husband should call everyday that he is on a ship, in the middle of the ocean, not only does he not have the opportunity to call sometimes, sea to shore minutes are CRAZY expensive. Sometimes they have zero communication. Zero. If they are doing something that requires a certain amount of security I may not hear from him for a while, simply because there is a communication blackout or the network is down.

2. Making the wrong friends.

The way I see it, if I never made the wrong friends, I would never realize how great my good friends are. I would never appreciate all of the wonderfulness my great friends bring to my life.

3. Having two kids.

When I had my oldest, I was all set with it just being her. I was okay with having a single child. Then my husband and I talked about the future and his career progression and I wasn’t sure I was okay with my oldest moving and going it all by herself. So, we had a second.

Even though somedays are trying with my kids bickering nonstop, I have never regretted the decision to have our youngest for a second. They argue, steal toys from each other and do all sorts of crazy sibling things, but they love each other and they lean on each other when the Navy throws us a curveball. They lean on each other when my husband is away.

4. Being assertive.

Living in privatized Navy housing has taught me a very valuable lesson. Don’t take ‘No’ for an answer. If something is not done right the first time, you can bet I will be on the phone having them come back. Such as the hole that is meant for our air conditioner. Every time it rains (which lately is frequently), water pours into the wall. There are electrical outlets along that wall that we have to turn off the electricity to because the wall is pretty much caving in. They came out and put putty over it, but it doesn’t fix the issue. They’ll be back. One would think it would have been easier to do it right the first time.

5. The oodles of money we have spent on family pictures.

I love professional photographers. Our living room is filled with beautiful family pictures because of them. It wasn’t cheap and at the time I thought I might regret it, but looking at them fills my heart. I love my husband and kids and I love being able to look at pictures that have been taken of us over the last 5 years. They are beautiful.

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I haven’t posted music in a while either, so I’m sharing this:

Mat Kearney’s cover of Mr.Springstein

I have a bunch of his stuff in my iTunes library that I had completely forgotten about until I was out with a friend and heard one of his songs on the radio and remembered how much I love his voice. (It’s not Chris Martin…I know it’s crazy how much his voice sounds like Chris’.)

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Now for the goodies and my absolute favorite candy on earth.

Marshmallow cups, of the homemade variety.

I was perusing through Baked:Explorations and came upon the recipe for these and HAD to make it. I actually made them for my daughters Bake Sale this weekend. I donated them and them bought most of them back. They are so so so good.