Over the past year I have shared my life, my experiences, my views, and my world as a working oilfield wife (OFW). I have expressed my thoughts on this crazy lifestyle, I have related my own role as a wife, and I have elaborated on my survival tricks as a mother, but today I am writing to say farwell.
As I re-read my initial introduction last night, I thought to myself, WOW, life has really changed a lot even in the past year! Our daughter is getting ready to turn four in a week and what a roller coaster having a three year old has been. We are enrolling in Pre-K next week and then my husband and I made the decision to enroll her in a private school. We are already on the wait list for 2015 and have our interview scheduled! I am beyond the moon excited for her new school because it is a full day Kindergarten program, and they have a fantastic after hours tutoring program that makes life as a “single working OFW” that much easier half the month. Riley reached so many milestones this year at the age of 3, she completed swim lessons and went off the diving board for the first time, she had her very first ballet performance, and she is playing soccer for the first time. We are currently planning her first Disneyland trip for 2015 and I think I may even be more excited than anyone else! The best and most beautiful growth I have seen in our almost 4 year old though, is her relationship with God. She loves to pray out loud and quite honestly just thanks “Lovely Jesus” as she says, she thanks him just for the day.
I would not say that our marriage and relationship between my husband and I has changed so much in the past year, as it has grown tremendously. As I sit and write this, I think about the fact that this week marks five years for us, granted in oilfield life that really means 2.5 years, but I still can not believe how time has flew! I have shared a lot about my emotions of missing my husband, my sadness of living a life without him, and my heartache about being alone, but the reality is, at the end of the day, every minute, every day, every hitch we are apart our love only grows stronger! Granted a lot about our love is still very juvenile; we still send selfies and mushy lovey text messages, we email through out the day, we hide secret love letters for one another to find when we are gone, and we even still slip a t shirt that smells like one another in hiding places. A day does not go by that I do not tell that man thank you for busting his butt doing what he does and that I admire and respect him more than anything. We bought a new house together this year, he surprised me with a new Rover on Valentine’s Day, we experienced a miscarriage, endured my parents divorce, the loss of old friends and the love of new friends. All and all at the end of the day my role as an OFW continues to be one of the greatest blessing of my life.
Professionally speaking, life just gets better and better. I continue to work outside of the home, however the last year was explosive for my career. I was promoted last December to take one the Digital Department of another local news stations, so I am now Digital Sales Director of KKCO and KJCT both in Grand Junction, CO. I love my job, I love my boss and my co-workers even more. I am a firm believer that you could not handle being an OFW unless you were a worker at heart period! Work in the home, out of the home, running a business, all of it is work that we as wives to the oilfield get as just part of this lifestyle. Over the year I have wrote a lot about my adjustments of working fulltime outside of the home while my husband is away, and to anyone seeking advice or input if its the right thing for them, let me tell you this, it saves my sanity! Working forty hours a week helps the hitches apart go a little bit faster and keeps me that much more busy. We all know the uncertainty the oilfield can bring and the extra income, the extra nest egg, and all the less debt makes it worth it in my eyes. The one downfall professionally is that when your job, your career, really starts to take off and kick in high gear you have to be able to prioritize and learn to say “NO” sometimes in order to make more time for those things precious to you.
My blogging, my writing, and being apart of realoilfieldwives.com has hands down been one of the greatest experiences in my life thus far. I have made so many new friends, been exposed to so many new outlooks, and heard so many new stories and life experiences I feel forever thankful! The therapy of being able to vent and be heard is amazing for the soul, but the ability to know you are not alone and have so many that can relate is near to the heart for me. Thank you all for your emails, private messages, comments, and feedback over the year! I wish you each everything wonderful in life, and remember I like you will still be trucking along hitch by hitch living off Pinterest, caffeine and hoping for days off! Feel free to continue to follow me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/becky.arnold.18, share a pin or two on Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/beckyarnld/ or check me out on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=212578598&trk=spm_pic!
Much Love To All!
XOXO
Becky
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