First Look at Devastation from Bledsoe County Tornado | WDEF News 12 | News, Weather and Sports for Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley

First Look at Devastation from Bledsoe County Tornado | WDEF News 12 | News, Weather and Sports for Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley

Here Comes the Sun

It is sunny in Spangdahlem today.  After the gloom of winter, it is glorious to see the sun.  It is not warm but I am not freezing.  My youngest is thinking of shorts. My oldest will stay in her hoodie because it will never be as warm as Texas.

The first day of Spring was this week so it is doubly nice that we have sun to go with it.  Effie jokingly asks something along the lines of what is that light ...it burns!!!  Yes, we are used to the gloom and the dark.  The novelty of walking to school while it is light outside is something she should enjoy.

For awhile we have sun and beautiful cloudless skies.  Soon we might have rain or a cold snap.  But for a moment, spring is here and I will revel in it.   I love the beauty of snow falling and the sound and smell of rain but for this moment, I will turn my face to the sun and just enjoy the blessings of today.

Eyes wide open love

"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted."
C. S. Lewis
Short, sweet and to the point.  My husband sees me, really sees me, but he still loves me. Who could ask for more than that?  Shame on me if I ever give less than that in return.  After almost 25 years of marriage and 27 years of friendship, I would not trade him for anything or anyone else on earth.  I am sending my love to him today and praying for his safe and undelayed return.

Where has all the niceness gone?

I am sad that as a community, we don't teach our children to be kinder to each other. Regrettably, many times children and adults are just plain mean. If we as adults don't speak up, children can only assume we believe the behavior is acceptable. It is easy to say kids will be kids, but I don't think that is entirely true. Kids will be what they are taught to be, good or bad.  We teach, not only through the behaviors we say we find acceptable, but also through the behaviors we witness and chose to ignore.


I hope that my children are never involved in the kind of incident that caused me to write this.  I know they have been bullied.  I hope they have learned not to do the same. My kids aren't perfect, nobody's are.  I know that our children are not the same around us as they are when they are away from us. Sometimes they are much better and sometimes they are worse. Adults are the same way.  I understand that my children see me at my ugliest, while the "public" generally sees a much nicer me.  I have a long history of not modeling the behavior I wish to see in them.  Maybe everyone is like that.  I hope not.


I don't want to preach but we all need to understand.  Bullying, rudeness, meanness, whatever you chose to call it, is not funny. It is not cute.  It is ugly and frankly, choosing to laugh at it or encourage it, makes you an accessory to the behavior.  I live on a military base, filled with people who make it their job to defend others.  I don't understand why, as their families, we are not doing the same thing.


What I wish for is this.  That if someone sees me or my children behaving badly, they call us on it. I also hope I will have the courage to do the same with them.  It may not be received well but that doesn't mean it is the wrong thing to do.  I hope that I can be more responsible in what I model to my children and to the people around me.   I pray that others will do the same.  

ADELE - 'Make You Feel My Love'

One of those weeks

This week, good Lord willing, I will be 50.  I never thought that I would be 50. I was supposed to be a teenager or young adult forever.  Aren’t we all?  We were never going to be those other people. They were cute, precious, sweet, but still old.  I look in the mirror and I don’t see me.  I see some overweight, old lady who let herself go.  I was an older mother but I am not my children’s grandmother as some people mistake me for.  I have an aunt that used to happen to.  I thought it was awful for her, now I know for sure it was. My husband would say, “Then what are you going to do about it?”  I wish I could tell him something.  Some days I am frozen in place not feeling like I will ever change anything.

I am afraid it will just be one of those weeks.   My husband is deployed.  This year, he will miss my 50th birthday, Valentine’s Day and most probably, our 25^th wedding anniversary. It is what it is.  My children hear that a lot.  I was under the mistaken notion that because they were older things would be fine.  They are not.  My oldest daughter tries extra hard to be good and helpful and cries for her daddy.  My youngest daughter yells at me and acts out and cries for her daddy.  I sit and wait for their daddy to call and then have nothing to say.  What can I say? He is not here, the situation stinks and we are a couple who keep company, doing our own things, together.  He doesn’t talk much and I talk too much but long distance calls don’t lend their selves to hanging out together and chatting (especially when he works 10 hours a day 6 and sometimes 7 days a week).   He is tired. I am tired. So I get irritable because I want him to have something to say to me.  I get angry because I want to have something to say to him, something that is not a problem or a complaint.  I want to be able to be where he is and just hang out.

We did not go into this blind. He enlisted after we were married. It was a choice we made.  I am not unhappy with the choice.  It is just one of those weeks.  The weather is gloomy. The girls are having semester finals and we miss daddy. Oh, and I will be fifty.  A day above ground is a good day. I will remember that and be grateful but it may take me until next week to accomplish it.