Staying Connected (Annotated Books)

I know this will be written in parts because there is simply no way to cover all the ways to stay connected with your spouse in one blog post but I'll start with the one I've been working on all deployment. One that I know my husband loves and I enjoy myself. 

We are both avid readers, now often we don't read the same things. He loves fantasy fiction and I'm more of a classical fiction, American Literature kind of girl and I mix in some female based young adult fiction here and there. He also reads young adult fiction but mainly male protragonist series. We both read and enjoyed the Hunger Games but we both enjoy dysentopia novels so that's a genre we know we are going to love despite the sex of the main character, similar to the Giver. Which is coming out in theaters soon and I'm really looking forward to seeing when he come home. Despite all the rumors of things that they've changed. But because my husband reads so much on deployment I came up with the idea of annotating books that he might not necessarily pick for himself but that I thought he would enjoy to read first and fill with my own thoughts, comments and ideas and then give to him to read while we is gone. And he loves it, we read often together at home and share what it is we read and what we enjoyed so this is just my way of continuing that together. 

this is literally how we read in bed, side by side, books almost touching. Something about reading together is just so romantic to me. 

here's an example of one of my books filled with notes for my sailor to read underway, every few pages he can read my opinion, my insights and it's a way of sharing someting so special to our relationship still instead of just letting it be taken away. 

MY husband made a valiant effort to annotate some books for me but he ran into a few problems, he doesn't have as much time on his hands, he doesn't read as fast as I do, and he doesn't really like to annotate books. So for him it was quiet a challenge and I don't really have books filled with notes for myself but I've even solved that problem. My husband is a devote fan of the Orson Scott Card series Ender. And I decided that reading those books would bring my closer to him. We saw the movie Ender's Game when it came out and since then I'd wanted to read the book I just wanted to wait for deployment because I had a feeling it would make me feel closer to my husband. And it did, I even annotated that entire book so that I could include it in his care package and he could read my immediate reactions to what I though about his most favorite books. Now that he did for me on his first deployment. He read the Great Gastby and took notes, mostly silly but some incitful and thought provoking and it was such a terrific gift to have. This isn't something for everybody, obviously you and your husband must both be readers to begin with, but you can always find ways to stay connected to your spouse, so long as you put forth the effort you can figure something out. Because trust me once their gone, they're gone and there's nothing you can do about it.