I'm Impressed!

Hello! No pictures for today, since I'm preparing to go to bed, but here's quickie update for the gang!

1.) My replacement, Paul, is here. Yay! Paul showed up in great spirits and so far has been taking the firehose of information quite well.

2.) Paul arrived on Thursday night. About 12 hours prior was when I was notified to pack up and move out of my room, it was to be given to Paul upon his arrival. Great. Typically, one moves into a "transient tent", which is fine when you have an outbound flight arranged. I didn't have an outbound flight arranged at the time so our first sergeant said that if someone in a dorm was willing to take me in, I can share a room with someone. Enter Rose! I had stayed in Rose's room in March when she was on vacation (she's deployed here for MUCH longer than me!) and she took me in for the duration of my tour, bless her heart. Thanks Rose!

3.) I don't know exactly when I'm coming home quite yet. Even if I did know when I was coming home, I wouldn't publish it on the Internet, but I could at least say here "Yay! I know when I'm coming home!". I will say that the suspense is killing us!

4.) Those computer batteries I had purchased my first week here, that provided me 8 hours of life back in February before requiring a charge, now gives me a whopping 45 minutes of untethered support when I'm trying to webcam with the family. But that's okay, I've found several hidden outlet spots that I can take advantage of when I'm doing the webcam thing at 3-in-the-morning here...very few others online at the time. Besides, something strange happened to the WiFi here and my connections aren't so hot as it is.

Just as well on the computer and the batteries -- it's literally going into the GARBAGE when I get home, so it only has another month-or-so to live. MacBook, here I come!

So as you can see, there are many signs out there that my time here is wrapping up, even if I don't have a clear date for leaving. I'm homeless, my replacement is here and is being trained up, and I'm getting weekly e-mail notifications about what date my e-mail address here will be turned off! All good signs.

Besides my husband and kids (and Howie, who is recovering exceptionally from his surgery of 10 March), I think the thing I can't wait to do is COOK!!! I'm breaking out the big guns when I get home, I think: chicken etouffee, beef bulgogi, homemade bread, hand-decorated cakes!

Time for bed!

Interior Decorating...

So here I am, outside under the "Bra"...the wind is whipping and the dust is blowing. But I persist...things are well enough. I pulled a table and chair behind the giant wooden film screen, so I'm mostly blocked from the wind.

I'm getting ready for my replacement to arrive at the end of the week, although I'm getting rather anxious because I still don't have a flight home arranged quite yet. No one here does it -- suffice it to say that there's someone in the U.S. who makes all of our arrangements. I'm hoping to hear something in the next 48 hours!

Meanwhile, I am still awaiting word that I have to move into the transient tents later this week. So I've been packing up the extra stuff and shipping home what I don't need between now and when I get home, such as extra yarn and books. I just shipped two boxes today, and there will probably be two more later this week.

Before I took it all down, I thought I'd share with you how I decorated my dorm room:

From 2009 03 25 Kids_Art_DormRoom

I received so much artwork from the boys, and even several letters from Jacob, but some of art from Timmy included some of his first word-writing.

Jacob's teacher encouraged him to write letters to me. Here are some examples:

From 2009 03 25 Kids_Art_DormRoom

From 2009 03 25 Kids_Art_DormRoom

Before you pick too much on his spelling, remember that he's in Kindergarten and apparently the spelling part of his language skills come later. Here's a card Jacob made for Timmy's 4th birthday in January. That's Thomas the Tank Engine pulling Annie and Clarabel drawn at the bottom.

From 2009 03 25 Kids_Art_DormRoom

This is Timmy's work. My heart melted at his drawing of Howie.

From 2009 03 25 Kids_Art_DormRoom

From 2009 03 25 Kids_Art_DormRoom

And finally, enjoy the Valentine's Day card I received:

From 2009 03 25 Kids_Art_DormRoom

I also had pictures of the boys up elsewhere in the room, and I enjoyed looking at the art and the pictures of my boys each and every day. I'm so excited -- it won't be long before I'm home!

I need to stop now -- the dust is actually accumulating on the laptop screen and it's getting hard to see outside with the outdoor glare. Keep in touch with my Twitter feed on the right column!