7 am.

I have been awake since 5:45 which is when Tom left for work. It was a great long night. His phone rang three times around 3am. One of the guys he is in charge of was drunk and had quite a few questions concerning stuff for the deployment. And then Tom's alarm went off but did the static thing and he couldn't turn it off. As much as the noises always sometimes annoy me because it takes me awhile to go back to sleep, I am going to miss them.

I have been having a hard time falling back to sleep when he leaves. He will come get Saphira and take her out. When they get back in, she goes in the cage and he tells me he's leaving, gives me a kiss, says "I love you" and is out the door. Seven months with no kisses, few "I love you"'s, and no morning wake ups. I have six days left to get as many of these things as I possibly can.

People ask me how I do it. How can I be married to a military man? Isn't it hard? They say they couldn't go a week without seeing their significant other. Honestly I don't know how I do it, or how I will do it. I don't know how other military wives do it either. We just do. It's not something that we have control over so we just deal with it and take what gets thrown our way. I can honestly say that I am glad that Tom is not a "lifer" and that we can live non-military lives in two years. I won't ever have to worry about deployments after that. I shouldn't have to be without my husband for longer then a couple weeks, hopefully. My children won't have to worry about whether daddy will be home or not.

Don't get me wrong. I am glad that we have men and women who have joined the Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and Reserves. I am glad that I married Tom because he makes me extremely happy. Whether he was military or not I would've married him. Being a military wife was not my goal like some other wives around here, it just happened.

I give a big round of applause for the men and women who stick by their "lifer" military spouses. There are people who can handle that type of thing and then there are people who can't.

Well, I think I am going to try to get some more sleep now that I have been able to vent alittle bit.