Being a military wife sometimes means dealing with more than your fair share of stress, and it can be easy to feel overwhelmed. Especially during deployments, and especially when you have children. Your days develop a strange texture in that while you are enduring them they seem to stretch on forever, but at the end of the day as you frantically try to cram in more activity it seems as though the day has flown by before you even noticed. Some days I feel like I have stopped burning the candle at both ends and I've started to burn it from the middle. To deal with my stress in a positive manner, I have put down the cookies and found the joys of the gym.

I have a disclaimer—I've never been the athletic type. I've always been more inclined to recline with a cool drink and a good book, the only movement being the breeze in my hair and the pendulum-like motion of my foot as I rock the hammock. Relaxing, yes; but stress being what it is, I needed to find a, shall I say, more aggressive form of relief than just ignoring or avoiding it.

So I have started to run. Lift weights. I've taken my closer-to-40-than-30, highly uncoordinated self onto the track to (are you ready for this one?) rollerblade. I've done yoga and fancy fitness tapes. I've invested money in sports bras, athletic shorts, shoes, hand weights, and water bottles. And this week I rediscovered kickboxing. And now I am in love. The punching, kicking, HEEYAH!-ing, boxer-shuffling activity effectively burned off my stress, leaving me ridiculously refreshed at the end of a very strenuous hour.

The side effects of all of this is a calmer, more focused mom with better posture, balance, and endurance. I still have stress, but it's amazing how burning stress in a positive manner (as opposed to, say, eating a package of cookies) actually does burn the stress and not stoke it. I can handle anything that comes my way.

Because sometimes being a military wife means dealing with more than your fair share of stress—with grace, faith, determination, and a smile.