Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Boy did the holidays fly by. We went "on tour" to visit family for about two weeks, which didn't leave a lot of time to stop by here. We put a tree up, but I didn't really bother taking many pictures of it since we didn't really spend much time here at home. I did make some new, cute stockings to hang on our mantle. This was the first year we had a real fireplace to hang them from, and so I felt as though we needed an upgrade from the basic red and white dollar store ones that we've used for the past couple of years. It was a pretty easy project to complete, and I used one of the old, felt stockings as a template. Here's how they turned out:

I didn't even get a picture of them all hung on the mantle. How incredibly lazy am I? Ah well. There's always next year, right? 

As for our tree, it looked a little something like this.

Classic red and white has been our default style for years now. I like it so much that I don't see myself choosing anything else, but you  never know! There's just something about the white lights and red trimmings that speak to me and say "Christmas"! My little cupcake was so excited to help us decorate the tree this year. Maybe next year we'll gather around it with family for the holidays. (Ps. if you can see the giant pile of uniforms dumped on the chair in the background, ignore it. This has been my husbands "drop zone" after he gets home from work. Nothing like smelly work boots and ACU's laying around the living room to fuel my Pinterest addiction and keep me pining for a mudroom.)

So now that the tree has been put away until next year, I've been rearranging furniture and dusting. And preparing for our move. Yes, that's right. It's time to move. Again. This time Uncle Sam isn't responsible (for once) as we have chosen to move for reasons that we'd rather not air here. Let's just say that it wasn't meeting our expectations. Fortunately, the landlord has been gracious enough to cut our lease short without losing our security deposit. So for now we have some big decisions to make. I've been leaning towards purchasing a house of our own. My husband and I aren't getting any younger, and we'd prefer not to spend retirement renovating. Unfortunately that also means that we'll have to make some sacrifices. If we put down some roots, we would like for it to be in Pennsylvania-- closer to family and friends. I grew up in South Central Pa, and it's an excellent area to raise a family. It's funny because I spent all of my young adult life trying to get away from that place, and now I would love nothing more than to move back. Anyone else experience this dilemma?

It's certainly a place we would want to settle down, however my husband's job still remains in Upstate NY. There is no possibility for transfer to a closer location which means he would stay in NY if we moved to Pa. I'm a pretty tough woman when it comes to enduring deployments. I've been through my fair share, and it never is easy. Especially when you have kids. My husband doesn't plan to retire for another 12 years, and so we would basically only get to see each other on extended weekends and holidays. There is also no guarantee that my husband won't deploy again soon. He has been on standby several times since we have moved here. And so that is where I am torn. Do we pull together and keep on moving around from place to place as my husband is reassigned? Or do we put down some roots close to family to provide some stability for our daughter and our future, and basically have a long distance relationship with the man we love? I'm torn. Does that make me a bad person? Does it make me a bad wife that I would consider spending time a part from the man I love? I've been able to make it through a year on our own while my husband was deployed, but I'll admit that it was hard not having friends or family close by. It's been a little over a year since he returned home from his last deployment, but he's been deploying on average every two years or so (which, thankfully, is much less frequent than others). What would you do if you were in my shoes? Any advice or perspective I should know?