Life as a Fire Wife - Cynthia Mills writes about her life as the spouse of a South Carolina firefighter. She shares personal stories as a spouse and auxiliary member.
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The Vigilant Hose Company: A Family Visit
by Cynthia Mills - Sunday May 20, 2012Vacations for us are fun, relaxing, and almost always educational. Maybe we’re a family of nerds or maybe we just value the rich history that our country has to offer. No matter what the reason, we spent Spring break visiting Gettysburg, PA. Of course for a firefighter’s family, what Gettysburg trip would be complete without a visit to Emmitsburg, MD? We took a morning and visited the National Fire Academy to see the National Fallen Firefighter’s Memorial with names we recognized and the devoted glow of the Eternal Flame. We stood in awe of the great statues of the firemen raising the flag among the rubble of September 11. We saw some of the beauty of the campus that has been home to our fireman on multiple occasions... -
Fire Wife Preppers
by Cynthia Mills - Monday February 6, 2012A friend recently sent me a link to the National Geographic channel's Doomsday Preppers series, jokingly asking if we are going to be in it. Nope. Not interested, thanks. I completely understand why these people prep though. Just three decades ago, I would go to my grandparents' house and make use of their preps, like canned foods, stored water, a greenhouse full of plants, pecan trees in the yard and enough extra toilet paper and napkins to stock an aircraft carrier. They always looked towards the future and were prepared for anything that may come, good or bad. I now have to wonder, when did people stop thinking that way? As for me, I do prep, in a sense. I think it would be just plain ridiculous not to. I am a mother of three... -
Are We Watching the Movie or Training for Work?
by Cynthia Mills - Sunday December 18, 2011Watching movies with my firefighter is often a test of will for me. I’m not a sappy kind of woman who wants her romance movies, a box of chocolates and a handful of tissues to make it through our couples movie time. I’d take the chocolates any time, but romance and tears are best left to women who know how to use them. I’m more the action type. My husband loves this because he never has to appease me with chick flicks in an effort to win over my romantic side later in the evening. We like the same things, like war movies, action movies, comedies, documentaries and, of course, the obligatory rescue movies. Who in the rescue realm does not love movies about their beloved profession? The problem that arises is that I watch... -
Operation Falling Hippo: A Firefighting Family's Homeschooling Downtime
by Cynthia Mills - Thursday January 5, 2012
Ahhh…the joys of teaching my girls at home. There's rarely ever been a dull moment in my life. After all, I came from a family of crazy people (even though I love them dearly, they're all pretty close to an outhouse rat on the sanity scale,) I married a firefighter, I birthed three daughters for him and we decided that home educating is the way to go. Since the promise was for better or worse, my fireman is still hanging around after all these years, but usually the laughs are worth it for him. Some days though, I question our judgment. I got a bowl of reheated chili for lunch today and was just settling down to eat, when I noticed something fall on our front lawn. What the heck was that? I looked out the window to see a stuffed... -
What I Learned from the NFA Last Year
by Cynthia Mills - Sunday November 27, 2011The National Fire Academy week is here again. Already? When my fireman got accepted for the same week as last year, I thought we still had months to worry about the details and figure things out before he left. As time often does, it fast forwarded us to this magical week. The week I get to be pleasantly supportive and take care of things on the homefront while he drives up the coast to spend a week supposedly in class all day, doing homework into the night, eating cafeteria food and networking. Of course, I know this is just code-talk to soften the blow for me. Here is the list of translations as I have come to know them: • “In class all day” = “Learning fascinating stuff from some phenomenal instructors...
