I underestimated the workload I would have with Horatio away. Sure, I knew it would be a lot of work, and people I run into rarely miss an opportunity to remind me of the mountain of chores that face me each day. It’s not like I didn’t do most of the house related stuff before Horatio was away, but he helped a lot when he was here. I recognized it then and even more so now.
What I didn’t anticipate was the exhaustion at the end of many days. I remember reading a book about another Navy wife, about a year before Horatio’s deployment. She wrote in her book about not unloading the dishwasher for days, and her kids going into it to get a fork or spoon to eat breakfast with in the mornings. I vividly remember thinking that that would not happen in my house. How ridiculous!
Oops, here I sit, with the dishwasher full of clean dishes, begging to be unloaded, yet I cannot bring myself to do it. I consider myself to be a fairly “green” person, yet, I bought paper plates just one month into deployment. I could not bear to dirty more dishes when the dishwasher was already full. Of course my friends all say this is fine, and even encourage the actions to ease my workload, but I feel a little guilty.
Today is a perfect example of how my days go…
I had a plan:
Get the three older boys off to school.
Work out.
Shower.
Take Harold to school for his class picture.
Be home by 12:00 to meet the heating and cooling guy.
Do housework in the afternoon.
BUT- At 9:15 the health aid from the middle school called to say that Zack was feeling sick. It was clear that the right thing to do was to pick him up so he could rest at home. So, plan derailed… I picked Zack up from school.
Worked out.
Took Harold to school for the pictures.
Dashed home.
Power outage for 2 minutes- this NEVER happens.
Heating and cooling guy came at 1:15. -$420 of unexpected preventative maintenance, not good, but 20 minute conversation with the guy about his life in Cambodia, good!
Showered at 2:30
Baked cookies with Harold because he wanted to “mix stuff.”
Tidied up, moved laundry around (did not fold said laundry).
Made dinner.
Served dinner.
Took Dwight to scouts.
Bathed Harold while Bob read a story to us.
Prepared medicines for the three boys who have bad colds.
Settled Harold and Bob into their beds.
Cleaned the medicine droppers.
Then, I had to reset all of the clocks that went off during the power outage. Now I have to clean up from dinner, oh, and eat dinner.
Did I mention it is 8:30?
What am I doing sitting at my laptop?
The point is that none of these tasks is a big deal, but piled one on top of the other, day in and day out, with four months in and at least 14 to go, it gets tiring. I hate to admit it, but it’s true, and it does get to me sometimes.
The Deployment Diatribes 