100 Things You Can Do While Your Spouse is Deployed
by Brenda Marlin

1. Paint your toenails while propped up in bed.
2. Have a pamper yourself day.  Play your favorite music and take a long bubble bath.
3. Organize an area of your house that you have been putting off for a long time.
4. Be spontaneous and break out praising the Lord by dancing and singing while the children are down for a nap or away at school.
5. Have a tea party with neighbors that you may not have ever met before.
6. Have a tea party with friends.
7. Go to a local thrift shop (Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc.) and find a treasure for under $10.00.
8. Paint a room in your house a new trendy color.
9. Turn your bedroom into a haven for you and your husband when he returns.
10. Meet with a weekly Bible study group.
11. Go to the zoo with your children.  Before you go, take time with your children to study about a few of the animals you will see there.
12. Start a new hobby or sport.
13. Finish putting together your scrapbook/photo album.
14. Curl up and read a good book.  When you are finished with it, consider writing a book report.
15. Begin a new commitment to read a chapter of the Bible per day.
16. Take a spiritual gift test, and then ask God to show you a place where you can try it out to verify it.
17. Adopt a “grandparent” at a local nursing home.
18. Get together with another wife whose husband has deployed and make care packages together to send to your husbands.
19. Treat yourself to a manicure.
20. Make a picnic lunch and take your children to the park.
21. You are in a great location!  Take advantage of all the beautiful surroundings around you.
22. Go swimming.
23. Start working out at the gym (check with your doctor for a recommended regimen for yourself).
24. Try cooking a new recipe, then invite a friend over to try it out.
25. Learn how to make a flower arrangement for your home.
26. Look for something beautiful that God has placed in your path today.
27. Ask God to delight you in some way.
28. Stop and smell the roses!
29. Pray for a specific purpose, ministry or person and believe that God will answer your prayer within His will and time.
30. Pick a person in the Bible to learn more about.
31. Pick a founding father of faith to learn more about, i.e., DL Moody, Martin Luther, etc.
32. Memorize one bible verse each week that your husband is away.
33. Write a poem and read it to someone, even if it’s God.
34. Have a cup of tea using your favorite fancy teacup and write a handwritten letter to someone special in your life.
35. Have a slumber party with your girlfriends.  Practice serving each other by painting each others toenails and fingernails.  Have some popcorn, watch a girly flick and have a pillow fight.
36. Learn to read music.
37. Sharpen your grammar skills by taking a refresher course.
38. Sharpen your math skills by taking a refresher course.
39. Take a part time job.
40. Start your Christmas shopping early.
41. Address your Christmas card envelopes early.
42. Write a Christmas letter to be inserted in your Christmas cards.
43. Drop a quarter on the ground in a good traffic area and watch from a distance how you delight the person who finds it.
44. Tell someone how much you appreciate them.
45. Take a meal to someone in your church who needs it (maybe even for a busy mom whose husband is deployed).
46. Offer to visit a church member who is in the hospital.
47. Plant a flower garden with your children or a friend.
48. Build a simple arbor for your garden with a friend then go to her house and help her build one.
49. Spend some extra time with the Lord in prayer.
50. Ask God to show you and area in your life where you need to trust Him more, then ask Him for the strength to do so.
51. Start a filing system for your tax documents, warranties and other important papers.
52. Visit your children’s school and offer to help out.
53. Make some goodies for your children’s teachers and school staff.
54. Have a weekly prayer meeting with a few other wives whose husband’s are deployed.
55. Learn something new about yourself.
56. Take time to be yourself.
57. Forgive someone who has offended you.
58. Ask for forgiveness from someone you have offended.
59. Give yourself totally to the Lord for His use in a special time of prayer.
60. Organize your closet by colors or by items.
61. Take pictures of coordinated clothing outfits and place them in your closet in order to help you save time getting ready each day.
62. Get a makeover.  Set a dollar limit on what you will spend before you go and stick with it.  If you don’t have extra cash to spend, ask a friend over to help you with one.
63. Have fun with your children by playing a game that they suggest.
64. Write down questions you think you will want to ask the Lord when you meet Him in heaven.
65. Make some homemade French fries for dinner.
66. Write a list of God’s attributes, write a definition for each attribute and find scriptures that support them—write them down as well.
67. Write a list of scriptures of who God says you are.
68. Try out a new hairstyle without cutting your hair.
69. Have some milk and cookies with your children when they get home from school.
70. Start a prayer walk for your neighborhood with a friend.
71. Challenge yourself to share the Gospel with someone.
72. Ask God to see someone that you view as “hard to get along with” through His eyes.
73. Ask God to show you how much He loves you.
74. Ask a few friends to come over, so that you can share your wedding albums together.  Tell the story of how you met your husband and fell in love.
75. Challenge yourself to like a food item that you have rejected in the past (how about that one that your husband likes).
76. Learn something about a special interest that your husband has.  Learn to take interest in what interests him.
77. Write down a list of character qualities that attracted you to your husband.  Have a good cry if you need to.
78. Do something nice for a neighbor today.
79. Make a loaf of homemade bread.
80. Learn how to crochet, cross stitch, or knit.
81. Go to the playground and give yourself permission to play by swinging, sliding and riding the merry-go-round.
82. Make a suggested budget; send it to your husband for his agreement, then stick with it.  Reward yourself when you do it for a month.  If you have never learned how, check out a book or two from the library and educate yourself. 
83. Go shopping with a friend to pick out an outfit to wear when your husband returns home.  Don’t forget to spend within your budget and remember the thrift stores if money is tight.
84. Rearrange a room within your home.
85. Buy yourself a bunch of flowers and place them in a location you can see everyday.
86. Open the curtains and shades in your house and let the sun shine in.
87. Don’t have any curtains?  Go to the local fabric store and learn how to make some.
88. Hang your linens out on a clothes line, then bring them inside when they are dry and smell how fresh they are.
89. Join the choir at church and sing your heart out for the Lord.
90. Make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.
91. Dust off the instrument that you learned to play while you were in school.  Relearn how to play it.
92. Speaking of dusting, dust some of those areas that are hard to get to, like the top of the refrigerator.
93. You are the apple of God’s eye—believe Him!
94. Find the scripture verse that proves that you are the apple of His eye, and then memorize it.
95. Make a new friend.
96. Invite some of your children’s friends over for a pizza night, and then pray for them.
97. Learn how to decorate your home by reading a few decorating books.
98. Create a special space that your husband can have when he returns home. 
99. Begin an accountability group with a few women.

100.Write a great love letter to your husband and tell him the different ways you respect him.