Night Out

Well, well, last night was a huge, fancy smancy evening. About seven years ago, Shane and I started a Pregnancy Resource Center and each year we hold a formal Gala with fancy dinner and a pro-life speaker. We all dress up and have a great time showcasing what God has done through the ministry while gathering/sustaining support. All of us board members, staff and close friends of the ministry host tables--which means we fill up a table with our friends who don't know about the center. Shane filled up two tables with his LE friends. Most of whom I've met, but only briefly. I was so pumped about getting to socialize with all his coworkers! I couldn't wait.

That all changed 2 days before the Gala. Tuesday Shane said he thought he had the flu. Wednesday night I had to drive him to the night clinic because he was so sick. I started to fear he wouldn't get to go to the Gala and I'd be all alone with all these officers, including his Sgt. and Cpt. When I got up Thursday morning, it was reality that Shane wouldn't make it that night. I was sick to my stomach and nervous all day long. I was on the verge of tears at points during the day, dreading the responsibility of keeping the conversation going with people I hardly know without my husband there as a buffer. What if I said something wrong? What about the very likely possibility that I'd say something stupid?

Well, I didn't need to worry. I got to sit by my favorite friend of Shane's, Officer H and another good friend of Shane's were at my table, and his Sgt and another guy I don't know sat near us. They were such an easy crowd to be around, especially Officer H. She's a blast and I had a great time chatting about all things from her future costume party wedding to her & Shane's huge fear of spiders. The funniest thing was when I realized that as we were talking about guns, we were both talking with our hands and making shooting motions with our hands. I quickly put my "gun" away when I thought about how we looked.

I probably still said plenty of stupid things, but thankfully no one let on if I did :) Oh, and the center raised $64K for the year!

Edit-in case you're concerned, Shane's slowly on the mend, but boy this flu is hard! He's pretty much one with the bed!

Good reads

I've spent some time on www.policewivesonline.ciom where there are excellent articles and a nice forum. While there, I've come across some books that might be helpful for LE families. I'll give you the amazon.com link along with the titles:

First, the "classic" I Love a Cop. I read this when Shane was in college. I don't love it, but it was somewhat helpful. I came away feeling the author wanted all spouses/significant others to totally bend over backwards 24/7 to meet their LE husband's needs and tip toe around their moods. Okay, I'm all for submission, and I'm all for meeting my husband's needs, but there is a balance! Anyway, it's not bad at all, I just got that feeling.

The next is the one I most want to read, but haven't bought yet. It seems to get the best reviews on the PWO forums. The author offers seminars that I also hear are great. It's Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement: A Guide for Officers and Their Families by Kevin Gilmartin.
This one has a section that describes the rollar coaster of a LEO's day-at work he's on edge, ready for anything to happen. He gets regular adrenalin highs. He's a hero. He's part of a team, a brotherhood. Then he goes home and is expected to help do the dishes, take out the trash and so on. Even if his home life isn't consumed with chores, it's still not a rush to be home, therefore many men will go to "choir practice" with they guys after work, work extra shifts, and/or other LE related activities to keep the high going. That pleases his wive very little! I don't know what solutions he gives, but I know a lot of the women who suggest this book say it really helped open their husband's eyes to what he was doing.

If you've read something that helped you, please suggest it, I'd love to check it out!

My Personal Blog

Visit my personal blog to read stories of small town life with 4 homeschooled girls!

Edit: I am trying to make a link to my personal blog with a pic in the sidebar...I thought I could do it by linking to this post, then moving it to the sidebar, but it won't work with the pic, so I'm leaving this post here until I have more time to see if it's possible...if you know how to do it, help me out! Now, we have to get to some school work, as much as I hate it, there's more to life than blogging ;)

Child's Play

I'm noticing that having a daddy in LE makes play a little different than having a daddy who, say builds airplanes like my daddy did. I don't recall my Barbies' husbands going to work at Lockheed, lol. I overheard my two "middles" playing Barbies the other day and I had to referee a fight because Hope wouldn't let BB's Barbie out of jail. BB, who's 4, came to me and said, "I want my Babrie unarrested, but Hope won't let her out of jail, so I can't play with her!"



Very funny stuff. Jump in and share your stories!

How to love your husband

Since V-Day is this month, I thought I'd post a few ideas of how to show your LEO hubby how much you love him. Without further adu, but with tongue firmly implanted in cheek, here we go!

Show sympathy for the poor, drunk 66 yr old lady he booked into jail. Yeah, the one he had had to clean vomit off of all night. While you're at it, sigh with sympathy every time he tells you disciplinary action had to be taken on a poor inmate. He'll love you for your oozing compassion.

Send him Mickey Mouse pancackes in his lunch. This takes great skill, as the ears are delicate and will fall off in transit, making them normal pancakes. His fellow officers then never have a chance to see how much you love him!

Ask him to run errands for you when he gets off work. Nothin' shows lovin' like sending him to a half dozen places that don't even open for an hour after he gets off the night shift.

Care enough to ask "now, which one is that, is he the one with no neck?" every time he mentions one of coworkers.

Give out his work email so everyone can send him those sweet forwards.

It's important not to lose his badge, name tag, handcuff key, or, and this is very important--his chapstick when you take it all off/out of his uniform to wash. Whatever you do, make sure you keep up with the chapstick, even if you have to wash it in the pocket. Trust me, he'll love you for it and he won't even notice the big dark spot of oily residue left on his shirt after 14 attempts to remove it.

While we're on the topic of uniforms, remember to keep the uniform pants that are a little snug right with the comfy ones. He'll appreciate the little reminder that he's gained a few pounds, especially on the nights he's running late and has to just wear them anyway. What a good wife he'll think you are, so concerned for his health!

Since we've only been in LE for a couple of years, I'm SURE I'm missing a few key ways to show your love. Feel free to add your secrets in the comments!

PS-Blogger is showing the love today by the spell check not working, so forgive my typos, I have no idea how to spell "adu"