When it comes to sending messages to deployed spouses, we have so many choices: E-mail is my preferred method for daily messages, but can 10-point Times New Roman on a computer screen convey all I have to say?

Click here to read the Oct. 14 Spouse Calls about real letters.

A hand-written letter or a care package is a tangible reminder of love and concern. Although it may use fewer words, it gives expression to your feelings the way no typeface can do,  :)  :( and ;) notwithstanding.

Click here to read the Oct. 7 column featuring e-mail from kids.

In the Sept 16 Spouse Calls, a soldier adds some important information to the conversation about emergency travel for military families, which was started by a military spouse in the August 19 column.

When military members and their families stationed overseas need to travel back to the States in an emergency, there are several avenues of help:

After I talked with Wendy and Marie of Navy Wife Radio to write a Spouse Calls column about podcasts, I was invited to be a guest on their show.

We had a great time laughing and talking about military spouse life. To go to the program, click here.

When I told my husband my plans for Spouse Calls the week of Sept. 11, he did something he has never done before: He tried to change my mind about what to write.

"Don't write about my deployments," he said without looking up from the socks and t-shirts he was rolling to fit into his suitcase. "There are so many people who are gone for so much longer. This is nothing ..." He went on and I let him, partially because he's right and partially because I was already typing away at the column while he was packing.

The Sept. 2 Spouse Calls column is all about PTSD in the words of spouses of veterans suffering from the disorder. Read excerpts from these first person accounts in the column, or read all of them here on the Spouse Calls blog. (Click here to go to the thread about PTSD.)

Thank you to all the spouses who are blogging your experiences and helping others who are enduring similar sitations. Also on this blog are some suggested Web sites for information and help for PTSD sufferers and their families.