by Brianna

Brianna and Ariel review and discuss the book Fly Safe: Letters from the Gulf War and Reflections from Back Home, by Vicki Cody. If you order the book through our affiliate links, you're helping to keep Busy Nest News going at no extra cost to you. Thanks.

Ariel and I recently received copies of Fly Safe: Letters from the Gulf War and Reflections from Back Home, by Vicki Cody. We’ve read a lot of books by military spouses, from awesome to cringeworthy, so we were cautiously interested to see what this one would hold. 

Fly Safe is Cody’s memoir from the Gulf War, with details filled in by her journal entries and letters between her and her husband while he was deployed. She describes life on an Army base (post) before, during, and after the conflict. During the deployment, she covers what her husband was doing (the details of which she only learned of afterward) and the challenges he faced, as well as the challenges she dealt with on the homefront.

By Brianna and Ariel

This post contains affiliate links. If you follow them to purchase Fly Safe, you're helping to keep Busy Nest News going at no extra cost to you. Thanks.

In addition to getting advance copies of Fly Safe: Letters from the Gulf War and Reflections from Back Home to read and review, we also had the pleasure of talking to the author, Vicki Cody, about her latest work. Read on to see what we chatted about! Forour full review of Fly Safe, click here.

by Brianna

Did you just marry someone in the military? Congrats! Feeling a little culture shock? You're definitely not alone! There are loads of reading lists out there for military spouses, many of which rattle off the same books over and over. Those picks are ok, but we have a few problems with them.

First, they focus on the negative parts of military life, such as deployments and death. Second, they're getting old and outdated, which admittedly happens pretty fast. When I first got married in 2011, the books were about being a military spouse in the 90's, and that was a little helpful, but not a lot, because so much had changed and many acronyms had become meaningless. Likewise, now, there are a bunch of books about being married to a service member in the early years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military does not work the same way now as it did 15 years ago. Third, some of these lists are all about understanding your service member spouse's world, but they don't help YOU! We're all for learning about each branch's heroes, histories, and challenges, but a list of books for military spouses should help the spouses. Some of the books on our list will be specific to the military, but several address key pain points about life in general that tend to be exacerbated by the military lifestyle.

One challenge we encountered when we went to make this list is that we would not recommend the same books to new spouses as we would seasoned spouses. This list is for the new (and probably quite young) military spouse. If you're new to the military community, you might be suffering a little culture shock, homesickness, or loneliness. Even if you're adapting well, you might be struggling to explain it to your family or friends. Read on for our list (in no particular order) of great books to help you embrace your new life.

​The links below are affiliate links, so we'll get a small bonus if you use them to order any of these books from Amazon, but we also have a free printable version of this list that you can take to the library!

by Brianna

Big changes to The Commandant’s Professional Reading List Program were recently announced. For anyone not in the know, the United States Marine Corps has a professional reading list, packed full of titles that are meant to educate Marines and inculcate them with the Corps’ values. We explained how it typically works in a previous article, but a good deal of that has now shifted, mostly for the better.

We here at Busy Nest News love a reading list, especially a list meant to develop leadership, creativity, and resilience. We believe any org can benefit from developing a reading list for its members. The Commandant’s Reading List has been updated regularly since it was established in 1989, so it’s always been one of our first stops when we’re looking for the next book in our respective self-development journeys. So what are these changes, and why are they a big deal? Doesn’t the list get updated frequently anyway? Read on for my initial analysis of the changes.

By Brianna
​Updated 10/22/2020

by Brianna

Many of you who follow Busy Nest News already know that Ariel and I are military spouses. While our product (awesome book club kits) is unique, our decision to strike out on our own and blaze a trail as entrepreneurs is not. The internet has made it easier than ever for anyone to start a business or cultivate a side hustle. For military spouses, in particular, these opportunities aren’t just nice to have; they’re often essential for family stability, a sense of identity, and maintaining mental health.

That sounds pretty dramatic, but Blue Star Families has the numbers to back this up. In their 2019 survey, 38% of military spouses were not in the labor force (most not by choice). Of the spouses who reported being employed, 77% were underemployed. These numbers are very dramatic compared to the rest of the country. To learn more about why these numbers are the way they are, check out Blue Star Families’ latest survey results here.
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With the unique set of challenges that come with developing a career while being married to a service member, it’s no wonder so many MilSpouses choose to start their own businesses. Here are some reasons why entrepreneurship is so attractive to military spouses.

by Brianna

Recently, Brianna and Ariel reviewed Raising Men by Eric Davis and Dina Santorelli. Being women and mothers of daughters, not sons, they wanted a little backup for this apparently testosterone-fueled book. Read on to find out what their Marine husbands made of a parenting book written by a former SEAL.

By Ariel and Brianna

In which Ariel and Brianna gently nudge their families toward fantastic gift ideas for them. Ahem! Is the mom you are purchasing for a coffee lover or a jet-setter? Is she a mom married to the military or simply a multi-tasking mom who always needs a third hand? Chances are she falls into one of these categories. If so, we have ideas to jump-start your Mother's Day shopping! This post contains affiliate links. By using them you help keep Busy Nest News up and running. Thank you for your continued support!

by Brianna

Wherein Brianna introduces a book that helps military kids understand where their parent is when they aren't at home. This article contains affiliate links. Using them helps keep Busy Nest News going. Thanks for your support!

​My Daddy Sleeps Everywhere, written by Jesse Franklin and illustrated by Tahna Desmond Fox is a picture book for military kids. On each page, Daddy is shown sleeping in a new position and in totally different terrains and climates. In concise, rhyming prose, Franklin explains that Daddy sleeps in forests, deserts, snow, and rain. Daddy sleeps on boats, prairies, airplanes, and in broken houses far away. But Daddy’s favorite place to sleep is home. The story is accompanied by Fox’s detailed watercolors depicting each location, with the sleeping Daddy (and his coworkers and gear) contrasting as a simple black and white line drawing.

​At only 1% of the U.S. population, military families are a minority. As such, there aren’t a lot of great books for helping our kids with the various challenges involved in our families’ service. With the rise of independent publishers, vanity presses, and viable online self-publishing options, more service members and spouses are opting to fill this gap with some much-needed literature. However, that doesn’t mean they’re all the same caliber we would expect of more mainstream children’s books. In fact, some are quite bad. So where does My Daddy Sleeps Everywhere fit?