If You Love Someone, Say It

Photo by Jessica Hedberg 2008. From My husband and I's wedding ceremony.


" If you love someone, say it...otherwise the moment just passes you by"
-My Best Friend's Wedding

That is one of my favorite quotes about love. I was having a conversation with a friend about love and marriage and it made me want to write about my views on it all. Now, call me old fashioned all you want but I really believe in my heart marriage is forever. Divorces are not supposed to happen and I get that they are necessary sometimes but for me...I chose to love my husband forever and I will do just that until the day I die. NOTHING can change that. People make mistakes all the time and when you're married you are supposed to give a chance to your spouse to fix whatever mistake they made and move on. Marriage is all about three things; commitment, trust, & compromise. You COMMIT to love each other and to be honest. You TRUST that the other person has your best interests in mind and will always be there for you, for better or for worse. And you COMPROMISE to make things fair between you two-it's all about give and take. I am certain that those three things are the foundations for a strong and happy marriage. Marriage is not easy by any means. It's something you have to work at, each and every day. All that works pays off at the end of the day when you have the person you love laying next to you in bed with their arms wrapped around you. My husband and I have to work extra hard at our marriage because we only knew each other a very short time before marrying and were both very young but this September I'm proud to say we will be celebrating our two year anniversary. Sadly, he will still be deployed but hopefully he will be back soon after. I love my husband more than anything in the world and even though we are very different I do in my heart believe we are ment to be together and I look forward to the many more years we will share together.

Something Special for Your Deployed Spouse

Any army wives fans out there? Well I started watching last season and needed to catch up on the seasons before it. With all the army wives I've been watching and the fact that my husband will be deploying in two months I have got to thinking about special things I can do for him for his deployment and I have came up with a few ideas I thought I would share with you.

1. Have each close friend and family member handwrite a one page(or longer) letter to the spouse getting ready to deploy. Collect all letters and have them binded into a book. Give it to the soldier right before they get on the plane. I feel like this would be an awesome thing for the military spouse to look at for encouragement. To know all those people are there to love and support him/her is exactly what I think they would want when they're deployed.

2. Buy a journal. In the months or weeks leading up to a deployment write a letter in the journal for each day they will be deployed. Tell your spouse not to read ahead and to read one letter a day. (In my case this would be 120 letters) You could also just send out a new journal once they are about to finish one. Get creative with this! This is something I am considering doing for my husband because with recent events I just want him to know how much I love him and care about him. I think it would be so neat for him to always have something read straight from me.

3. Make a photobook. A lot of websites offer these free as a special deal(snapfish, kodak..etc). I did one of these for my husband. I included pictures from when we were dating, pictures from our wedding, and pictures of our daughter. It's something he will always keep with him because it's so small.

4. Get him/her something (s)he'll really use(this depends on their job). I got my husband a camelback for his birthday which is this friday. He works outside on the flightline and gets really hot. Especially in the desert during the summer! This way he always has access to water. It's so lightweight and thin he could even wear it under his uniform.

Hope this helped anyone else getting ready for a deployment! If I come up with more ideas I will let you know!