Well howdy-do.

I’ve been lovin’ Mondays lately.  Except today it is snowing here in Chicago!  Oh. My.

FITNESS

But that’s okay, the random cold weather didn’t bring me down today.  I completed a total-body work out this morning!

I opted to bust this one out at home today.  I just grabbed a 10-lb weight from the basement and used our door-frame pull-up bar.  It felt gooood to be moving, and it got me sweating in no time, despite the frozen rain outside!

FOOD

I followed it all up with Brittany’s delicious pumpkin pancake recipe.  Yummm.

 

MILITARY MONDAY

So…today is a Military Monday!  On the occasional Monday, I’ll post a military-related topic to help out all my sistas (and brothas!) out there who are either in the service or are married to someone who is.  This week’s topic:

Making a Deployment Survival Kit for Spouses whose other half is deployed.

There are a ton of “Deployment Survival Kits” for service members, but I wanted to share some great things to send to the person left behind… who could use a survival kit, too!

I recently had two dear friends’ husbands deploy, so I headed to Target to get my creative juices flowing…  (Target is so stinkin’ cute, how can you not to come up with cute ideas while there!)

Here’s the list of goodies that I grabbed:

• Stylish Pens — For all those handwritten letters.
• Mini-notebook — For jotting down things/ideas to talk about at that next Skype date.
• Chocolate — This one speaks for itself.
• Socks — For those cold nights when he’s not home to keep your feet warm!
• Nail Polish — For girls’ nights or “me time.”
• Toy GI Joes — For the kiddos to play with until Daddy gets home.
• Chew Toys — For the dog to play with until Daddy gets home.
• Mentos Mints — For fresh breath on your sweet, sweet reunion.  ;-)
• Flowers (fabric) — Because you are loved!

These are items that helped get me through Jason’s deployment, and I knew that they would bless these girls, too!

I tied little notes to each item with the above explanations, and arranged them in a box with a love-note and “Deployment Survival Kit” label.

I thought that the outside of the box looked so drab, so I grabbed my colored sharpies and got to work beautifying the boring brown cardboard.

Before…

After!

My friend Amy loves zebra print, so I found zebra-patterned duct tape and got to work on her box.  The tape made a huge difference!

 

In the end, I had two Survival Kits ready to be sent out to a couple of wives and moms who have and continue to sacrifice so much for our country’s freedom.  Thank you for your service, ladies!

 

Past Military Monday posts:

• Dear Military Spouse (My #1 Advice for You)
• Know Your Rank
• How-to: Choose a Home Sight-Unseen
• How-to: Find a Job or Volunteer as a Military Spouse