He is in the FL National Guard and I was in the Army Reserves. We met at AIT at Ft. Leonard Wood and trained as 88 mikes( transportation). We fell in love and after graduating from AIT, I moved to Fl about a month later. He actually came to TN and got me and my belongings. I know it sounds crazy!! Anyways, we’ve lived together for over a year now and we just found out that he’s deploying in July to Al Asad, Iraq. We are trying to figure out what we want to do about support for me because I don’t have close friends here in Fl and all of my family is in TN. His family lives in CT, so I’m going to take care of his things and car. I like that anyways because I’ll feel closer to him in some weird way. So, now I have to make up my mind where I want to live? I ended up with some thyroid problems and I got a discharge, so I know that I’m not going anywhere. If I decide to move back to TN, we will have to move around the end of April because he has training in May-when he deploys.

He throws hints around about getting engaged before he leaves, so that makes me happy. I haven’t finished school yet, so marriage is not an option right now, however, I can def see myself with him. He’s been gone for training for 6 days and I’m starting to think about things. What am I going to do with myself? Am I going to be strong enough for myself and for him? How do I ignore to tell him how miserable I am without him when he calls for a year? How much will he be able to call or communicate? I’m getting Tshirts, bracelets, coffee mugs that show my support for him, but I feel like I should do more. I just need to know how to be the best girlfriend or fiance while he’s gone. What should I send him? I thought about a scrapbook? Please help?

It sounds like this will be a tough and testing time for you both. I hope it all works out for you.

I think a scraobook would be a lovely idea as they can help a person feel closer to someone they care about and help them remember good times when they are going through not-so-good times. Have you ever made one? You can buy scrapbooks and kits from scrapbooking stores (I think you would have a Michael’s near you maybe?) and also find kits to help you decorate your pages with matching papers and embellishments.

I have a website about paper crafting and have written some ideas aout how to make scrapbooks and the tools you could use etc, if you would like to browse around there for ideas:

http://www.papercraftcentral.com/scrapbooking.html

Also, SplitCoastStampers has wonderful ideas for scrapbooks too:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/

Scroll down to Scrapbook Pages and you will find lots of ideas.

All the very best.