Celebration!

As of 2:00 am this morning, Hubby Blue will be DONE WITH FTO!!!

Words cannot even express how excited I am for him or how proud.  This has been a long three and a half months, for sure.  It feels like the academy was ages ago.  I have learned so much about what being his wife means, and even though I know I have a lot more to learn, I think I'm off to a good start.  It's funny how much your perspective can change in just a few months.  When I think back on what I thought marriage was all about 3 months ago, or even 6 months ago or a year ago, gosh, it's come to mean so much more than I realized then.  Sometimes I wonder how my perspective on marriage would have been different if Hubby Blue was already a cop before we got married, but I guess it doesn't really matter either.

Starting tomorrow, which is really today, Hubby Blue will be on the power shift, which is the 6:00 pm to 2:00 am shift.  This will probably last until they change shifts in March, but who knows.  His days off will be in the middle of the week, unfortunately, so we'll be jumping right into a police life routine!  I'm hopeful we'll get into some sort of pattern of doing something fun together on those nights he has off (and that I'll get better at remembering to leave him to-do lists!).  And that I'll find a way to get enough sleep since I inevitably wake up halfway through the night when Hubby Blue comes in.  It's just so nice to finally be able to think about possibly planning ahead.  FTO, with all the schedule changes that were sometimes only happening a day in advance, was exhausting.  I'm so glad we're going to be done with this.

Hubby Blue working power shift tonight meant I went to my school Christmas party solo tonight.  (I really didn't mind this actually.  He went to the party with me the first year I taught there, and it was pretty dull for him.  Not that the party was dull.  Oh, no.  Teachers, in general, are a pretty crazy breed in my opinion.  Maybe it's that we spend our days turning everything into song with small children rather than conversing with adults or maybe it's that we live in constant fear of head lice and projectile vomit or maybe it's just that we spend 80% of our day herding cats managing 25 or more little people who would all be running in 25 different directions if you let them.  But elementary teachers tend to be some of the craziest people I know.  Party.  Animals.  Let me tell ya.)  Anyway, I went to this party with just some other teachers who live in my town, and I had a really fun time.  Earlier this week, another teacher said she'd also be coming without her husband, "because he has to work nights.  Yeah, it's just the luck of the draw.  They switch off between days and nights."  I, seeing she appeared to feel bad about this, and being the empathetic person I am, rushed to reassure her that I was in the same boat and that my husband also works nights so he would not be coming.  Then I actually thought to myself how awful that must be to have to switch off like that and never get into a normal sleep schedule.  But now,  I'm going to stop right here and tell you, if your husband is not a cop, do not tell a cop's wife that your husband works nights if he doesn't actually work NIGHTS.  This girl's husband showed up at 9:00, so I'm gonna guess he must not ACTUALLY work nights.  I know, I know, you're not supposed to compare your marriage to someone else's (at all, really, but especially not if the person isn't a cop).  Even though it kind of drives me crazy, I guess I'm just going to take this as a reminder that I should remember that someone else is always fighting a harder battle than I am.

Anyways, now that we'll be in the same routine every week, I'm really excited to plan how to spend my time alone.  I'd much rather have Hubby Blue around, but if he can't be, then I ought to at least make the best of it!  I'm hoping to take a few fun classes offered at the community college (soap making, anyone?  Glass blowing?  Hahahaha) and make a plan for getting things accomplished at home every week, whether it be making time to work on that scrapbook I mentioned, sewing, cleaning and cooking, or just reading.  Or playing Rosetta Stone (yes, playing: I'll write about that another day soon :))  I'm feeling very optimistic, which is a lot more than I could say three months ago.

So in the meantime, I've got some things to accomplish tonight!  I'm trying to wait up 2 more hours for Hubby Blue to get home so we can have a celebratory drink together.  Cheers!  Here's to the future!