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Help! I’m a Military
Spouse – I Get a Life Too!
by
Kathie Hightower & Holly Scherer
(Potomac Books, 2nd
Edition, 2007, ISBN-10: 1597970670,
Paperback, $15.95)
Kathie Hightower and
Holly Scherer have been delivering
inspirational training programs to US military spouses for years, and
we have
always heard good things about them. This book not only confirms, but
enhances their
reputation.
As
military spouses know, the military lifestyle -- even
during peacetime, which is more and more rare for the US military --
is challenging and often arduous, and frequent PCSs can wreak havoc
with
morale. Employment, when it’s available at all, must be left behind,
resumes
become checkerboards, circles of friends are scattered with each move,
new and
strange surroundings replace the familiar, and the only constant
sometimes
seems to be anxiety for one’s spouse, finances, children, and marriage.
Although
base family center personnel are working
conscientiously and often heroically at duty stations around the world,
their
budgets are often tight, and many military spouses need more support
than they
now receive. This makes every source of current support -- like this
book --
even more important.
The
chapters are replete with real-world advice and tips,
acknowledgements of difficult challenges, and steady, confident
encouragement. As
military spouses themselves, the authors also draw on a deep fund of
personal
anecdotes to demonstrate their points.
Taking
one of many examples, Scherer recounts how having
three-year-old twins made it difficult to get exercise and
conversational time
with a friend who was also a mom. Scherer’s children no longer wanted
to sit in
a stroller, and would go in opposite directions whenever they rode
their
tricycles.
Scherer
solved the problem by meeting her friend and her
friend’s two children at a fenced-in local high school track. They
placed the four
children in the grassy infield with toys, balls, a wagon (and even a
potty
chair), and the two women got exercise and chat time on the track while
the
kids played nearby.
Chris
and I have met and worked with many spouses during our
Military Spouse Virtual Assistant trainings, and those who seem to have
the best
outlook on military life are those who share the outlook these authors
exemplify in the resource-rich pages of this book. Highly recommended
for all
military spouses, and spouses new to military life in particular.
(For
more information on the book and the authors’
credentials, see http://www.militaryspousehelp.com
.)
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Rat Race Factoids
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Work
From Home Scams
There
is a 42-to-1 scam ratio among "work from home" ads on the Internet, and
that is not counting the ones that arrive as spam in your inbox. [Read
our press release on this statistic.]
Average
Annual Vacation Days by Country:
United
States...........13
Japan...............25
Canada...............26
Great
Britain............28
Brazil..............34
Germany...............35
France................37
Italy.................42
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