Two things I want to cover. One is D&D, both tabletop and electronic. The other is gaming before marriage vs. after marriage. I’ve been having a lot of discussions about these topics with friends, lately, so I decided it was time to bring together all my thoughts.

Dungeons and Dragons

The beginning of it all, right? D&D was the first commercially available pen-and-paper role-playing game (RPG), if not the first invented. It started the industry of RPGs, a type of game which is my favorite because it serves the purpose of encouraging social interaction as opposed to competition, according to this article. In tabletop D&D, the players and dungeon master (DM) gather around a table with all their supplies and act out their respective character roles in a story through “a process of structured decision-making.” They have character sheets which list all of their equipment, armor, weapons, spells, hit points (health), background, and abilities, and they use that information to determine what the character would do in any given situation. On their turn, they state what their character would do and often have to roll a die or dice to determine whether the character can successfully complete said action. (In other cases, players may choose to play a live action form. This is less common and, in my opinion, weird. Just saying.)

Pros:

• face-to-face interaction
• feeling that the dice rolls are real and determined only by natural chance

Cons:

• difficult to limit out-of-character talk
• tends to be slow-paced
• must schedule a meet-up at the same time in the same place

The alternative to tabletop D&D is to use a program on the computer which tracks character information and electronically rolls dice at your command. The DM can easily manage multiple maps while hiding from the players anything of which they should not yet be aware. Rather than shuffling through papers, all the information needed is essentially at your fingertips and available at the click of a button. By creating buttons that automatically roll the necessary dice for any individual action, you can save on time. The pro/con lists should show you which version I prefer.

Pros:

• turns seem to take less time
• easier to separate in-character talk from out-of-character
• easier to imagine the scene through textual descriptions
• less distracting to get up from the game to do things like get a snack, use the restroom, et cetera
• can play from a distance by using the internet

Cons:

• no face-to-face interaction
• dice rolls sometimes seem less random when done by the computer

Girls and Gaming

Let’s face it. There are fewer girl gamers than guys. Why is that? I don’t know. Maybe not enough girls had older brothers to introduce them to games at a young age, like I did. Maybe parents tend to work harder to discourage girls from gaming. Whatever the reason, girls make up decidedly less than half of the gaming population.

But, when I started moving from Mario and Spyro to RPGs and MMOs (short for MMORPG, or massively multiplayer online role playing game), the percentage of female gamers was closer to 4% than the 20-40% you find now (depending on your source of information). 4% is quite a minority!

Its Place in My Life

One might think that now that I’m married I would have outgrown gaming. But no, no such thing has happened.

Perhaps if I hadn’t married a fellow gamer.

But really, gaming as a wife is even better than gaming single! Now, I have a partner almost any time I want one. And I felt a lot less like a loser playing Rock Band online on Christmas Eve since I was playing with my husband rather than with strangers.

Gaming definitely has a place in my life. It’s something I enjoy, and more importantly, it’s something my husband loves and we take joy in doing together. Which is great because I don’t think I’m ever going to want to go camping with him as often as he would like. Gaming is great shoulder-to-shoulder time for us, especially when I’m able to reign in my temper over things not going like I want them to…

While it’s important to balance recreation time with other responsibilities, I still think it’s good and even advisable to have some good recreation time – every day, if possible! Gaming in its various forms helps my husband and me relax together, helps my friends and me connect, and helps me take a break from reality when reality is especially trying.

What are your thoughts? I know a lot of wives are more of spectators than participators when it comes to gaming, but are there any others who do enjoy a good video game sometimes? What do you enjoy about it? What games do you play?

Guys, what games do you enjoy? And what do you think about marrying a gamer or non-gamer?

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Oh hai!

I missed the first five Fridays, but as they say: Better late than never! Several blogs I read are participating in this weekly meme that was created by Wife of a Sailor. She has a linky to all the blogs that are participating, so if you’re interested, head on over there!

1. What is your spouse’s best feature?

Physically, gosh, I don’t know. I have to pick one? It’s really a three-way-tie, but if I have to pick one feature I’d pick his arms. Especially in the last year or two, they’ve gotten even bigger! I should really post a picture of his PT shirt. He ripped the sleeves apart one morning doing pushups. I love being held by his big, strong arms!

2. Mild, Medium, or Hot sauce?

Hot! As Sharone says, “It’s not spicy enough unless your nose is running.” Last Saturday, Hubby had to inform me that something I was eating had jalapenos in it. I couldn’t even tell.

3. What is the worst uniform you had to wear for a job?

I actually only worked one job that had a uniform. It wasn’t too bad, but it did have its downsides. You had to wear all white – white slacks or skirt and white non-t-shirt. The only problem I really had with it was making sure nothing was see-through. Now I have these white slacks that I never really wear because I never really understood when it’s okay and not okay to wear white.

4. You have invisible powers… where is the first place you would go?

I think the first place I would go would be to Hubby’s work to see what really goes on there. Not out of suspicion, just out of curiosity. “We sat around.” What does that really mean? I just will never understand what they really do at work until I can see it for myself.

5. What’s left of your “to do” list for this summer?

Block leave! We’ve got a short-but-awesome trip planned for next weekend, and I’m really looking forward to it. Did you know that Sea World has a program that allows active duty military (and I think veterans, as well) to visit for free and take up to three dependants with them for free? One of our friends from our FRG informed me of this fact, so we had to arrange to go to Sea World on block leave! Check it out here if you don’t believe me! Other than that, summer is almost over, and then we’re moving into fall and deployment, which I don’t really want to think about!

Previous Fridays

As I do most weeks, I am posting 5 reasons I love my hubby again! If you’re interested, head over to Jesstagirl and Her Officer to see links to other Milspouse blogs that have taken up this thing called Five for Friday!

1. I love you for calling my face beautiful right after I scowled at you.

2. I love you giving me permission to do nothing today, even though it won’t really work.

3. I love how efficiently you engineer things (like the trunk, the fridge, etc.)

4. I love that you’re the one with the different jokes.

5. I love that you’re here, with me, for a while longer yet!

I started selling Avon in January of this year. I signed on as a representative right before the winter holidays, and I also signed on as an E-rep, allowing me to operate an online store and sell to people who would otherwise be too far away to deliver to. My experience thus far has been…interesting.

Starting Off

It wasn’t what I expected. The way my upline manager met with me, in my home and face-to-face, but still with an impersonal feeling, left me kinda feeling like… huh? What just happened? I had expected simply to meet with her and discuss what would be involved in the process, since she had pushed me to have that meeting, but I ended up going ahead and signing up that day. After my initial appointment with my upline Doris, I spoke to her only one other time, when she called a week later to check in on me.

There are good and bad upline managers. Some help you get going, maybe help you throw your first Avon party and get you started with some supplies. Some, on the other hand, do the bare minimum, sign you up with your initial “kit,” and expect you do go at it. Mine was one from the latter group, and so I was really on my own from the beginning.

Learning the Ropes

To supplement my lack of instruction from my upline, I turned to online resources. Avon supplies a very nice training section of their website which any representative can access. The Beauty of Knowledge courses go over how to make sales, how to enter your orders, understanding how much you’ll make off of your sales, et cetera. It was very useful. I also made use of the official forums to ask more experienced representatives for advice.

I knew I would run into one problem with selling Avon: I’m not an outgoing, pushy, make-the-sale type of person. I’d learned to be firm when talking to insurance companies at my former job, but talking to potential customers is a whole different kind of firmness. Still, I was ready to try, and so I started going out with my few brochures and doing what I could.

The first couple campaigns went well enough that I decided to start ordering more brochures. After all, I was mostly breaking even, so it was worth the risk to try and actually make some profit. Instead of 10 brochures per campaign, I pushed it to 20 and then to 30. Things got fairly busy at that point – on my end but not with incoming orders. I still received maybe two or three orders each campaign, but I was keeping myself busy with running around trying to take brochures to various places (and trying to share one car with Hubby).

Doing the Work

After a few more campaigns of this workload, I began to feel worn out. I seemed to only have time for Avon and blogging, and I wasn’t happy with it. I was stressed, feeling pressured to do more, and yet I was disappointed that I was not seeing any positive results from how hard I was already working. Around this time, also, my husband was having to spend weeks at a time doing field training, and I was getting lonely and somewhat depressed. I started to think that Avon just wasn’t for me.

Rather than giving up, I decided to cut back on what I was doing. I lowered my brochure orders to 20, then 10, and my orders stayed around 1-2 per campaign. The truth is, for the last month or two, I haven’t been trying very hard at all. There are so many things important to me, so many things to spend time on, and this just hasn’t been one of them.

I’ve enjoyed selling Avon, though. I really have. I got to meet new people and try something new, something I never pictured myself doing. I got to try Avon products for the first time for less than I would have paid if I hadn’t been a representative. And I like them a lot! I got to experience the fun of running my own business and organizing my time and my supplies the way I wanted them. And I really liked being able to provide people with products they love. That was the best part.

But I’m feeling now like I’d rather use my time and energy on writing, drawing, housekeeping, reading, and studying. And I’m starting to feel like my organizational skills would be of more use in running my website and my home. I guess I just feel like I’ve given it a good run, but it’s just not my thing. And, besides, I’m losing money at it.

Moving Forward

So here’s my plan. Unfortunately, it starts with dropping the online store and my status as an E-representative. The cost of maintaining that is not worth the one-per-month order that it gets. I apologize for the inconvenience to those of you who have been using my online store from time to time.

The second part of my plan is to stop ordering brochures. I have to pay for them, and I have to spend the time handing them out when I get them, and it’s just not something that I can keep up with financially or otherwise.

The third part of my plan, however, is to maintain my status as an Avon Independent Sales Representative, at least for now. Customers will still be able to email or call me with their orders, and I will still be able to submit orders and get products to deliver to them. They just won’t get their own personal copy of the current brochure with their order.

Tumbles: Learning by osmosis?

Deployment is looming! It is a giant shadow standing somewhere nearby with arms upraised and claws extended, creeping closer, silently, on its tiptoes.

It’s not so distant anymore. No Siree!

When Hubby got back from JRTC, it was just the beginning. Now the topic of deployment comes up not just every day but multiple times a day! It’s inescapable! The truth is, it’s almost here.

First Married Deployment

Hubby has deployed twice already. (Have I mentioned how much that bugs me? It’s ridiculous that there are people who have been in the Army for over a decade already that haven’t deployed more than once, and yet my husband has been in for four years and is already on his third deployment.) Twice deployed, but never as a married man. I’m still new to the Army! Having a friend deploy is one thing; having a husband deploy is going to be a different matter altogether!

I didn’t need the other Army wives telling me it would be different for me to know that it would be different. I knew before we married that deployment would be coming and that it would be different than it was before, for both of us. But I think that only now, as we’ve been married for nine months and the deployment is looming, am I really beginning to understand just how different it will be.

Outside of marriage, it’s hard to understand just how close you really get once you’re husband and wife. Maybe simply living together would bring you as close, but I don’t think so. The bond in marriage is more than just living together, and it’s more than having physical intimacy while living together. Being pulled apart from each other for a year is going to be painful. Putting one of us in a constantly life-threatening setting will make it all the harder.

One of Many

This is but one of many deployments, and we are but one of many couples facing it. The life inside the Army is so different from life outside that many of my friends can’t really comprehend it, but there are so many others that can. How many hundreds of wives are missing their husbands at this very moment? How many hundreds are anticipating that loss? How many thousands are cherishing the time they have with the knowledge that it can only last so long? I must take what comfort I can from the fact that I’m not alone in this.

Facing It

The most important thing to remember is that God is with us, even now. I must continue to leave my worries at God’s feet and let him help me through. Prayer is powerful. Prayer is powerful. Must remember that…

Deployment is before us, and we can’t stop it from coming ever closer, but it’s best for us to face it head on. So, I can see it there, looming right ahead of me. Rather than seeing a big, giant, scary cloud of blackness, maybe I can remind myself that it has a form. It’s about yea high… only about 12 feet tall instead of 12 stories. It’s not really black so much as tan, like the sand in the desert. And it’s really just strolling past, not coming directly at us as though to eat us.

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