My first blog!  Wooooooo – totally not nervous at all!  I ALMOST had to post this from my phone, while traveling to one of my work locations in Afghanistan, which was starting to make me nervous.  But then I did get my helicopter flight out that I was hoping to catch!  Bonus for you because you’ll get to see some neat ‘get to know me’ pictures!

Hi everyone, thanks so much for stopping by.  This is my very first blog and I have so much to share with you!  First, I’ll introduce myself if you don’t know me.  I’m an Army officer, currently stationed in Afghanistan.  My specialty is Field Artillery and I’m working in the NATO Resolute Support Headquarters.  I’ve been in the Army for 18 years.  I’d planned on four, but I’m still having fun!  In the Army, I’ve been stationed lots of places and held many jobs.  I’m a unique one in that I started Artillery and then moved to Transportation and Logistics, but then moved back to Field Artillery.  King of Battle always had my heart – I had to go back!  I’m a new wife and instant bonus mom to two beautiful girls. Getting married before a deployment is not easy, but my husband has been pretty strong about it.  I know it’s not easy being the one at home, worried all the time.  I have a huge list of hobbies and activities I like and ways to define myself.  When I started brainstorming how to tell you who I am, here’s what I came up with – new wife, stepmom, Army, artillery, NATO, aunt, sister, daughter, farm girl, soccer, rugby, Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, hula dancing, Norwegian, cooking, baking, hiking, CrossFit, weights, makeup, calligraphy, yoga, retirement, tackling debt, roller derby, crochet, crafts, bullet journaling, budgeting – all in no particular order!  How do I put that into words?  I feel like I may have to take more time to introduce you to all the different parts of me and all the crazy things I do or this first post will get way too long!

I honestly, deep down, feel like I lead a normal life, but I also realize there are some interesting things I do.  I remember very much disliking my chores that I would have to do every night (and mornings and nights on the weekends) while growing up on a dairy farm.  To be fair I didn’t despise them all the time.  But I do remember not ALWAYS enjoying them!  My first clue into the whole “things that other people do are awesome” thing came from my friends and cousins when they would visit or stay overnight.  They would come to the barn with me and help with chores.  And they were always pumped to help.  Like they thought it was the coolest thing ever!  At first, I’d wonder if they were a little crazy, but then I would realize, yeah this is pretty neat and nothing like what they are used to.  It seemed to always give me a new view of my mundane farm chores, and made me feel like the boring and tedious chores I had to do were actually something special.

So because of that, I want to share with you.  I want to share my journey.  Partly because I’m in an interesting place – not just my location being deployed, but also in my life.  I’m close to retirement, newly married, and learning how to be a step-mom and integrate into a family dynamic that’s already established.  I’ll very soon be working to pick up my derby skills after a year off, working to figure out how to combine two complete households into one, and continuing to work on a long distance relationship during our new marriage as I continue active duty service while my husband and kids are established where I grew up.  Another part of me enjoys writing and sharing and I figure that even if no one reads this, I’ll have a record for myself and my family.  I absolutely love heritage and family history and I feel like this is a great place to capture that.

My plan is to start with posting once a week, every Thursday.  As I leave Afghanistan and get settled back into a more “normal” way of life (side note – I’m so excited to have a weekend again!  Don’t even get me started about what I’m going to do with my first weekend in a year!  Yes.  My deployment work days are 12 hours a day, every single day.  The only days I’ve had off are when I took R&R and when I got to take a three day trip to one of the other provinces here in Afghanistan to visit my brother, who is also in the Army.  Thank goodness for being a farm kid and learning that grind from the start!) I will look at adjusting my posting schedule.  Whatever I do, I’ll keep you updated for sure.

I would love it if you all to get involved too.  If you have questions, please feel free to ask.  I have a comments section and you can contact me via email as well through the “Contact” form.  Maybe your question will become the topic of a new blog post!  You are free to disagree with me about what I post and share – that’s completely normal and I expect everyone to have their own opinions on different topics.  I do have a rule though.  I expect everyone to treat each other with respect on my blog.  I will not tolerate name calling or personal attacks.

Some of you may be wondering about the name of the blog.  Din Favoritt means ‘your favorite’ in Norwegian.  Feel free to head over to my “About” section to read more about the name and why I chose it.

That’s all for now.  Thank you so much for reading and allowing me to share.  I hope to see you again next Thursday!