Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Nearly a year

So it's been almost a year since Josh retired... Crazy to think so much has changed... Our marriage is more stable then it's been in years... He's by no means healthy or cured but we've come to accept the "new normal" and the daily stress that comes with it... 

Ellen coming home changed our lives in ways I never thought possible... Her love, her support, her just being here.. It's brought back parts of Josh I never once thought Id see again <3

I promise to start writing more again... Honestly, I stop writing when things aren't horrible because I'm fearful I'll jinx myself...

Sunday, August 3, 2014

It's been a while

It's been months since I written and so much has happened and changed... Josh retired, began new treatment at the VA, oh ELLEN CAME HOME, ya know nothing big I just fought SecArmy with the help of Congress and won :)

We went to KY for random 2014 in Feb while we waited for Ellen to come home... And in Oct were going to Disneyfor a week with Joshs mom and my grandma (can't wait!)

But the big shocker in the past few days is Josh booked a surprise weekend trip in Jan for us... 2 nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge with a Arusha view room for our Anni! Even got us a dining plan! I have no idea how were ever gonna eat that much food haha he got us the deluxe dining plan... For each meal we EACH get an appi, entree and dessert! That's a ton of food hahaaha but more on our Anni adventure later!

But things have been far from magical :/ we've had some serious issues in our marriage, issues that I'm not sure we can get past but I really am not ready to talk about them publicly... Esp since I know my blog is followed by news companies who followed Ellen's homecoming...
 
Josh had a seizure on June 28th... It was the scariest thing I've ever seen in my life... He has no memory of it but I sure do... I didn't sleep for weeks after it happened and I still have a hard time...

We have however started sleeping in seperate rooms... Not for bad reasons but because Ellen sleeps with him now LOL she's cuddled with him right now...

I'm gonna start writing more... I have a few topics already in mind... Lately the only thing I can think about is what would have happened had we never left Ft Lewis... What would our lives be like now?? I'm also going to make a post about Ellen's homecoming and his current treatments :)


Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Retired!!

I can't really write much right now I'm having a super bad ankle day so I took so pain meds and now I'm all lalalalal hahha but as of 5pm today Josh is officially medically retired and I couldn't be prouder of him <3

Oh also our kitchen exploded lmao the Plummer was here and while he was here  the pipes burst and the garbage disposal fell off and the dish washer took a shit so we bought a new Dish washer (so pretty!!! Praying it fits in the "hole") and the home Warranty are replacing the garbage disposal and fixing everything else (yay for the HW! This would been over $1300 and I paid $600 for a year of this coverage!!!!!)

Alrighty I'm going to bed I'll write more this week... So weird to think I'm aretired veterans wife and Josh is a vet not a soldier anymore :) 

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

One week

Wow. It's all come down to this.

In one week our lives will change forever. In one week Josh will be out of the army.

And yet here we are 1 week before retirement STILL fighting the army! Nothing can ever be easy!

They messed up his orders and forgot to include terminal leave... BIG uh-oh!

When you get out of the army (ETS or medical retirement/discharge basically anyway except chapter or dishonorable) you have 2 options: take what's called "terminal leave" where you use up all your left over leave days and are just on leave til your ETS date being paid full pay and BAH like any other time your on leave or you can sell back your leave time but you only get base pay and it's taxed to shit.

If you ask me anyone who sells back their leave is an idiot.

For us it's the difference of $4500 right off the bat by losing BAH and then whatever they tax! No way! Josh has earned that money!!

So for the past month or so Josh has been working to have his orders amended so we get his terminal leave... Here's to hoping it works!

Once he's out of the army I'm not sure what's going to happen it's a whole new world and that's both exciting and terrifying... We've both only know military life... I don't know what it means to be able to live wherever you want or go on vacation wherever you want or anything...

We know he is going to go to college and he picked political science as his major.. He's hoping to go to law school and become a politician to help other vets.

The army says PTSD is accepted and they don't judge and won't punish but that's an out and out lie as we've seen!

Right now I'm working really hard to our VFW's gala for cancer research... Last year we made $19K and were hoping to beat that this year!!!! 

Josh and I are also hoping to go on vacation to Europe once we know everything with the VA is settled. I can't help but be so scared that something awful is gonna happen with the VA... I've heard so many horror stories about people not being paid for months and months or the soldier not being able to get medical care or a whole list of other worst case issues...

I just want it all to go smoothly so badly... Just a nice calm tranisition... I hope Josh enjoys college and I hope he finds fulfillment in his civilian life...