Brave Crate
Blog
August Brave Crate: Shine
Everything Inside of the August Brave Crate!!Summer has truly arrived- and if you're like me, you're tempted to skip out on the summer fun while your spouse is deployed. This is my favorite season, and yet I still need a little bit of encouragement to really embrace...
July Brave Crate: Explore
Everything Inside of the July Brave Crate!! Let me be honest- prioritizing time to make memories while my spouse is deployed can be a real struggle. Between the busyness of life during a countdown and the stress of missing a loved one it can be tempting to let...
Planning a PRIVATE Homecoming (while keeping family happy)
It was a tough decision but you made it.You and your spouse are on the same page and have finally settled on a private homecoming. No friends, no extended family, no parties, no visitors or guests- just a few days of down time to reconnect, sleep it off, and settle...
June Brave Crate: Celebrate
Everything Inside of the June Brave Crate!! It can be hard for me to find the energy and motivation to celebrate life’s milestones while my spouse is deployed. But when I dig past the exhaustion, the loneliness and (to be honest) the guilt of celebrating while...
May Brave Crate: Chaos Coordinator
Everything Inside of the May Brave Crate!!One of the realities of deployment that we sometimes overlook is the fact that those of us on the homeside are often taking on the job of two people. We're maintaining all of our regular rhythms and responsibilities while also...
Dealing with Delayed Homecomings: An Action Plan
“How is it possible that this hurts worse than the day he left?” It’s the question I asked myself when my deployed husband called to let me know that his upcoming return-date had been cancelled (#thankscoronavirus). In that moment, the reality of his extension hit me...
April Brave Crate: (Not) So Serious
Everything Inside of the April Brave Crate!!Living life on the home-side of a deployment can seem like a heavy weight. The weight of loneliness and worry ach of our moments with an added sense of stress and tension. Over the years, I have definitely experienced...
80 Habits to Try While Counting Down Deployment
There’s this lie we like to tell military spouses whose service members are deployed: We love to tell them that they should “stay busy” to make the time feel like it’s moving more quickly. And (in the wise words of day time TV host Maury Povich) “the test reveals…...
March Brave Crate: Blossom
Everything Inside of the March Brave Crate!! I know this may sound strange, but while my spouse is deployed I always admire the cactus. A cactus grows stronger, more resilient and can even create beautiful blooms even in the harshest of conditions. This reminds me so...
8 Simple Ways to DATE Your Deployed Spouse
When my husband deployed for the first time I felt like our relationship had been put on pause. We were newly married, and I couldn’t help but worry about how this distance so early in our relationship could cause rifts, miscommunication and distance between us...
February Brave Crate: Long Distance Love
Everything Inside of the February Brave Crate!!Usually I’m all about the hearts, chocolates and love poems that surround us in February. Valentine’s day can be a great reminder to spend time focused on our most important relationship with the person we love- but when...
January Brave Crate: Goal Digger
Everything Inside of the January Brave Crate!! I'll never forget the "aha" moment that I had ad the beginning of my spouse's first deployment. I had spent weeks feeling completely overwhelmed by the days in front of us until homecoming. It was as if time was...
