Day Two - February 2, 2010

Greetings and welcome back. Still no school for the girls - while we had a warm day yesterday (in low 50's) all that happened was the ice started melting but it refroze overnight. Probably a good call although the girls weren't too happy about it.

Besides school, the day got off to a very early start - I woke up at 2:40 am and couldn't go back to sleep at all. Definitely have to keep an eye on that and if that becomes a habit that will be a real issue. Since the girls were out of school I was at least able to talk the 2nd grader into taking a nap in the early afternoon after lunch so it all worked out okay!

This morning was an errand morning! It looked as if many other folks around had cabin fever as well - the streets were rather busy. We went to the post office, the cell phone store, grocery store and finally to the library. The library was quite busy and the happening place to be, mainly because school was out. The 2nd grade is doing projects on famous Americans and my daughter is working on Eleanor Roosevelt. Part of the project required a book from the library and fortunately Mrs. Roosevelt was quite popular so we had a nice choice of books. Just in case, we wound up getting two books - remember when I said our girls were upset that school was closed? Well, before we left the library one of the books was completely read and our daughter wanted a different book - maybe I spent too much time looking for a book myself or something!

By combining their Christmas money, the girls got a Playstation 3 - so far no fights! Since it was forecast to rain much of the afternoon they wanted to pick up a second controller from the Gamestop. Of course the hardest choice there was what color to get - I guess that is much more important than functionality.

Normally on Tuesday evenings, the men of our church get together for the Pastor's Roundtable. It is a good time of fellowship, talking about the church and praying together. In preparation for this, I took the girls over to the church between one of the afternoon light rainshowers and we cleared off the sidewalks of snow and a ton of ice. The porch to the area we meet was covered in snow and ice - all told we spent an hour cleaning that up so everyone could walk safely. While the snow is pretty, I'm pretty much done with it and it can go away now! After cleaning up the sidewalks and porches, we came home for supper before the meeting and had a message from the associate pastor that the roundtable was cancelled. At least the sidewalks are cleaned off!

Our former church is Rockville has always been supportive of us and they were one of the reasons why finding a new church home down here was difficult. We had the pleasure of hearing from the pastor of the church via e-mail and he just reminded us that they were praying for my wife and our family and then he caught us up on the news of the church. Was very nice to hear one of our friends was home from the hospital after an extended stay there - I think she'd been in the hospital since late September 2009.

I went to the Department of Agriculture's website yesterday and worked with the new Food Pyramid (http://www.mypyramid.gov/) for a little while. So far, it appears we are doing okay but it will be tough to get all different things in daily without consuming too many calories. At least it will be easier to justify not eating out so often! Everyone did well with drinking their required water for the day and our food was good. Breakfast was cereal, milk and an apple. The girls had mandarin oranges for a snack - I'm not a fan of them so I had a pear. For lunch we had ham & turkey with mayo, lettuce and tomato on a flour tortilla, baby carrots with ranch dressing and a few potato chips. Supper was good - we had breaded chicken cutlets, baked potatoes, bread, corn and I had a salad while the girls didn't really eat much of theirs. Later in the evening we each had one of the chocolate chip cookies I had purchased for the Pastor's Roundtable.

Communication with my wife was okay today - she was able to call this morning for about 45 seconds as she was walking from the chow hall to her classroom. In the evening she had a little more time and was able to talk with the girls some. Just after the girls went to bed, she was able to call back again and we had a nice chat. My wife is an Operating Room Nurse and normally there isn't much call for use of a rifle in the OR - she stuggled today with the M16 qualifications on the shooting range. I don't think she liked it when I suggested she wear glasses to see the target - ah, vanity in war you have a face of an angel now!

My in-laws!! Actually I have nothing to fuss about with them, they are very nice people and we get along well. After my wife's second phone call, I gave my mother-in-law a call and updated her on her daughter. Even though my wife has been in the Navy for over 23 years, this will be her first deployment and my mother-in-law, understandably, is concerned and really doesn't know what to expect. My wife has been stationed overseas before but a deployment is quite different. Our phone call was nice and did both of us some good.

Today's bible study was subtitled "The Constraint of the Call" and referenced 1 Corinthians 9:16. The girls have their studies in their rooms so I'll have to update that tomorrow!

The afternoon nap seemed to help and I was able to stay up a couple of hours later than the girls. We pretty well kept the house clean as we went and after supper I loaded the dishwasher. Just had to turn it on before bed. The rain does make it easier to sleep though - tomorrow is Day Three!