drill weekends

This weekend was a drill weekend.

For those of you who don't actually know me, my husband is in the Army National Guard. He has been for the past six years and he just added another year on to his contract to shorten his time on the IRR list.

Don't ask.

Being in the National Guard means one weekend a month he has "drill," which is pretty much synonymous with "training." It took me a while to figure out exactly what drill was, so I'm just trying to help ya'll out here.

I'm not gonna lie-I love drill weekends. Here's why:

I don't have to cook. Now, don't get me wrong: I like to cook. But cooking for myself and cooking for others are two very different things. When Darren is gone I live on microwave popcorn, chocolate, cereal, and the occasional plate of cheese and crackers. Even if we have leftovers I usually don't eat them. I'm more of a grazer than someone who will sit and eat three square meals a day. I think I prefer to graze because it means I can constantly be eating. For real.

Also, I can eat all the chocolate I want and no one is here to judge me. I usually put down a medium-sized bag of dark chocolate M&Ms every drill weekend. And if I'm out of M&Ms, a bag of chocolate chips. Which is why I currently don't have any in my pantry.

I can read all I want without feeling guilty. I love to read. Always have, always will. But Darren doesn't like to read and he gets bored when I don't pay attention to him for long periods of time. I average two books per drill weekends. Sometimes more, depending on when Darren leaves on Friday and when he gets home on Sunday. I can sit and read all day, and I have. When the last Harry Potter book came out I read it in one day. All 784 pages. It helps that I'm a very fast reader.

I can watch movies that Darren would never watch with me. Movies like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables, and anything Jane Austen.

I can be lazy. Darren is a do-er. He always has to be going, going, going. I like to do things, just not so often. I'm a homebody. Sometimes on drill weekends I don't talk to a single soul. Unless I go to the grocery store or Target. And I'm okay with that. In fact, I prefer it. I have to interact enough with people during the week. It's nice to have one weekend a month where I can be anti-social. In fact, sometimes Darren and I won't even talk on the phone the entire drill weekend. Like this weekend. He texted me yesterday to see what I was up to but I haven't actually talked to him since he left on Friday. And that's okay with me. Is that weird?


I've always been one of those people who prefers to be by themself than with others. I'm not sure why that is, and obviously it depends on the company. Of course I'm glad when Darren comes home on Sunday, but I am already looking forward to the next drill weekend. I am a very independent person and I love to be by myself. When Darren was considering volunteering for the Afghanistan deployment going out next year I told him it was totally his decision. I knew I could handle it whatever he decided. Don't get me wrong; I would miss him horribly. But I wouldn't be emotionally scarred or anything and would probably get along very well by myself for a year. Fortunately he decided against it, but this August he is going to be gone for three weeks doing a class for school up in Cloquet.

Bring on the M&Ms.