Deployment 2010

Day Forty Seven - March 20, 2010

2010-03-21T10:45:00.000-07:00

Saturday was a looooooooooooong day! We left early in the morning to drive up to Rockville so we could attend a memorial service for an old friend who passed away during the winter. Traffic heading up was light and no issue at all. I had picked up several new DVD's for the girls the day prior so they enjoyed them - they watched Astro Boy for the first part of the trip then the little one watched Chestnut - it looked like an innocent enough movie about a dog but half way through I had to give her a tissue to wipe her tears - it seems the landlord told the family they couldn't have a dog in the apartment anymore so the little girl took the dog to Central Park to let it go. It all worked out in the end as the dog saved the landlord and he changed his policy about animals in the building - our little one can certainly put herself in these positions and takes full ownership of a movie!

We arrived in Rockville and the teenager met some friends at Rockville Center - they had about 2 hours together so they went to the library, walked around and had lunch. I took the litte one and the dog (yes, we took the dog with us - ugh) to see her elementary school and our former house. The area around our former home is really nice - they had been working on upgrading the pond by the elementary school for a year or so - it was finished and looks so nice. They actually relocated the original pond, moving it up the hill a little bit, adding a boardwalk and basketball courts. The play area there has always been terrific but the upgrade to the pond area really enhances the whole area. With all of that said, while I greatly appreciate the opportunity we had to live in the Rockville area, today just reminded me that our quality of life is just so much better now.

We stopped at Jerry's for lunch then it was time to meet the teens at the library. We arrived at the church about 30 minutes early and had a chance to spend with so many of our friends that still live there. I also had the chance to see the new sign that took nearly 2 years for the county to approve - it really does enhance the church and it looks so much nicer.

The memorial service was so nice and so well done. I did feel so badly though - there was so much about this gentleman that I did not know; I'll have to certainly work harder on that aspect of life.

After the service we stayed for the fellowship. The banana pudding was cleaned out quickly - there was plenty of food and desserts! I had a chance to spend some time with the pastor as well as some of my closer friends. We made a quick run to the bookstore and then met the 'surrogate grandparents' for supper at their new apartment. These are the folks that basically adopted us during our time there - they came to my wife's graduation and they call me at least once a week to check on us. They are adjusting to apartment life after over 40 years in their last home. They appear to be happy in the senior's housing which is honestly very upscale. They fed us in the formal dining room downstairs then took us up to their apartment to show us around. They have a private balcony, huge bathrooms, big closets, a very nice kitchen and living/sleeping quarters.

The drive home was pretty good - the area where the beltway merges with I95 is always a mess and tough to navigate - a true chokepoint - but other than that, the traffic flowed pretty well. We got home just before 11pm exhausted and fell into bed - unloading the car can wait until tomorrow.

Day Forty Seven comes to an end, here's looking forward to Day Forty Eight.

Day Forty Six - March 19, 2010

2010-03-21T02:54:00.000-07:00

Friday's are always an exciting day around here - mainly because the girls really don't mind going to school on Fridays for some reason!! If the teachers could find out what they are doing differently that day to make it exciting for the kids and use that daily, that would certainly be nice!!

It has been a long week with all that has gone on. When you already have a busy schedule and then you add a major event like the Revival to it, you really are challenged. But we've survived. Today was absolutely gorgeous weatherwise. I took the laptop out on the backdeck and did some work. Had three loads of laundry and dusted downstairs plus ran the vacuum. I also finished my topic and PowerPoint for tonight's Teen Program.

Had a chance to spend an hour talking with my wife via Skype and that was just so wonderful! Of course the dog had to come over and check it out to see what I was doing that was preventing me from paying attention to her all that time! Come to find out she's a little camera shy!! We'll see how much longer we are able to use Skype as the Internet option where my wife works could be going away which would be a shame.

I spent the afternoon ironing clothes, made a quick run to WalMart and made banana pudding for Saturday's memorial service in Rockville. I'm getting better at making it and dirtied up less bowls this time!

Both girls had good days at school but they were excited to be home. The little one came home, dropped her backpack and jacket in the living room floor and headed straight for the family room couch!! Said she was just tired!! 10 minutes later and she was passed out!! I let her sleep for about 40 minutes - figured she needed it!

The oldest daughter made it home a little later and was in a good mood. Once she got settled, we loaded up the car and left for the teen program. Tonight's topic was "Trusted with a household" and endurance was our theme. We had a decent group there tonight with 5 first time teens in addition to our regular group. We also had a "guest cook" who had worked in an Italian Restaurant in New York City. After trying his sauce I can now see why he is working in a grocery store instead of a restaurant! The missionary sat through the last portion of my lesson tonight and he was a good addition to the class. He's been a missionary for almost 40 years and really knows his Bible - even more important, he's not afraid to listen to others and learn something new.

The last night of Revival!! I'm not a big fan of the revival process but I support what our church is trying to do. I just think they reach the wrong audience - the ones that come to all the sessions are not really the intended group. The missionary saw this and didn't go for the salvation message, instead he was able to broaden our knowledge base and I really appreciate that. Several folks from other local churches were there tonight so we had a positive group there. We got home around 9:30 and everyone went straight to bed.

The girls devotion was "Never too busy" referencing Philippians 2:3-5. My devotion was "The way of Abraham in faith" referencing Hebrews 11:8.

One more busy day in this week and then we can throttle back a little. I am certainly looking forward to a different pace for next week! Day Forty Six comes to a close, here's looking forward to Day Forty Seven.

Day Forty Five - March 18, 2010

2010-03-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, first and foremost just let me brag here - on my ESPN Tournament Challenge Pool, I picked ODU to beat Notre Dame, Northern Iowa over UNLV, Murray State over Vandy, St Mary's over Richmond AND OHIO UNIVERSITY OVER GEORGETOWN!!!! If you are a doubting Thomas, let me know and I'l be happy to send you a copy of my bracket directly from ESPN. The only two games I missed so far from Day One were the Florida/BYU & Marquette/Washington games - I picked Florida and Marquette. There are still two games playing but I'm not going to pretend to be silly enough to stay up to find out who wins - SportsCenter tomorrow will let me know all I need to know. Still with all of those upset winners, I am #597 in the national contest and only 10 points behind the overall leaders (which is one game)!! Not too bad. By the way, I have Kentucky winning the national championship game over Ohio State.

Okay, back to reality. Today was a very good day. Both girls got up without issue, had their breakfast, did their chores, didn't wake the missionaries and got on the bus. After the little one got on the bus, I made a trip to Goodwill to get rid of the last load of "stuff" we no longer appreciated enough to give a home.

My morning routine was changed with a trip to college this morning to sit in Dr. Yoho's class and meet the Dean at his school. Just let me say that Dr. Yoho is perhaps the single smartest person I have ever met when it comes to the Bible. For two straight hours this man talked with great authority about the Bible, quoted so many scriptures and displayed just an intense knowledge and love of the Bible. His passion was just radiating through that room. I will admit his knowledge is so expansive and he knows so much about each portion of the Bible that he can really lose you if you are not paying careful attention. For example, he said "Paragraph E" then he started talking about whatever paragraph E was - 20 minutes and four pages of notes later he says "Paragraph F" - his notes were simple one liners, he supplied all the rest of the information. From one chapter of Mark, he quoted 36 verses while walking around the room - oh my goodness!! Before today I was very happy I could remember John 1:1 and that was about it - what a humbling yet wonderful experience.

I did have the pleasure of talking with my wife just before the class started. It appears she has broken the greatest of sins during deployment - she has started counting days until she gets to come home. I'm not sure if she is counting them down because she misses me that much or if she just dislikes being over there that much!? Something to ponder isn't it?

I got home just before the little one's bus and we worked on her homework. Thursday night is also parent's homework night - we have to look over their work from the previous week, sign the folder and send it back the next morning. Most of the stuff I've already looked at each evening - what I'm looking for is things like spelling tests, AR tests, notes from the teacher and those type items. Tonight I was most concerned about a yellow block she had in her nightly signature page - that means she did something during the day to warrant a warning from the teacher - when I asked her about it, she said she couldn't remember. Now if you don't speak "8 year old daughter talking to her dad" this clearly means "dad, you're not going to like what I have to tell you so I'd rather not talk about it right now, I'd prefer to take my punishment later." Of course she got done with an in-classroom assignment before everyone else so she felt like talking to a neighbor. This is about a once a week or every other week at the most happening with her. Intellectually, she should be higher than the 2nd grade. Maturity wise, she's in the right grade. Even if the school did bring up the subject of pushing her ahead an additional grade, I will not let it happen - she can progress normally with this bunch. It is okay to be one of the smarter kids in your group, it is something completely different to be less mature than the group though.

The oldest daughter made it home without issue but with plenty of homework. She has also broken her cell phone and cannot get it to turn on so this is causing her some concern. I think her texting finger is going through DT's!

We grabbed chicken sandwiches on our way to dance/singing class at Hurrah tonight. The oldest daughter studied on the trip up - we got caught by the Great Bridge draw being open so that really plugged up traffic - I don't think the harbor master realizes how much trouble he (or she) causes when they raise the drawbridge at 5pm but it was a good sized mess. We arrived just before the class started and was able to watch part of a practice session for the Grease broadway play being performed next month - they were pretty good.

The practice went well and we rushed back to Chesapeake to make it to the revival. I had let the pastor know we'd be there around 7:50 - based on the past two nights, the sermon should just be starting. We were on schedule when we had to stop for the drawbridge opening on the steel bridge on US17 - just no luck tonight with drawbridges!! We made it to church at 7:56 so that was good, slipped in the back pew and caught almost all the sermon. It was about prayer and very good - I didn't learn anything new but it was a good refresher.

A lady at church had baked a cake for the girls so they had cake when we got home with ice cream. The missionary's wife had some as well. We all watched the end of the Ohio University/Georgetown basketball game - and OU won as I so clearly prognosticated with ESPN!!! Since I'm not working, I have to rub it in somewhere so there it was!! I'm sure my wife would just smile and roll her eyes at me. Just in case you didn't know, I fully believe in the power of the otter - whatever hat the big otter at the front door wears, no one is allowed to touch his hat but me on the day of a game. If someone even accidently bumps or touches the hat, that team will lose. I'm telling you, the power of the big otter is great indeed!! Ohio State is the football recipient of the power of the big otter. The Reds get the baseball power. Today my Ohio University hat was on the big otter and they came through!! Now, if I could get the lottery to make a hat I'd be in there! On Saturday evening when the folks from church were over visiting, my youngest daughter was showing some of the women through the house and when they noticed the two otters, she told them not to touch the big otter's hat - got her trained anyway!! Laugh if you want, but never doubt the power of the big otter!

The girls devotion tonight was "Missing" referencing Matthew 18:10-14. My devotion was "Shall I rouse myself up to this?" referencing 2 Corinthians 7:1 - it talked about putting God first.

Day Forty Five comes to a close; here's looking forward to Day Forty Six!

Day Forty Four - March 17, 2010

2010-03-18T03:08:00.001-07:00

Evidently a lot of the world celebrates St. Patrick's Day - it received a lot of coverage on the news, you could buy green t-shirts, hats, beads, buttons, socks and anything else you wanted - most with a leprecaun or four leaf clover on it. Both girls were to wear green to school today - the oldest found a green Christian t-shirt and the little one found a green shirt with a rainbow on it. We also had the all important stickers for her - I found some Trader Joe St. Patrick Day stickers in a book - must have been a couple of years old. She gave one to her bus driver and wore one on her shirt - the others went to school with her to give to friends who forgot to wear something green.

So the morning routine went well, the girls both wore green and the day started normally. Today was landscaping day out front - I wasn't really looking forward to it but I am happy with the way it turned out. After breakfast, I got two boxes together to ship to my wife and also two rather large clinical manuals she needed. I wound up double-wrapping them to make sure they stayed as safe as possible.

Had a good workout this morning - having the garage back to normal was very nice plus I now have an 80" screen to watch while I run!! Very nice indeed. It had been a few days since I ran on the treadmill and boy, did I ever feel it! But I survived. Fortunately I caught my breath and didn't sound like I was dying when my wife called. Her day was good but exceptionally hot.

Right after talking with her, I spoke with our pastor from the church in Maryland. We are driving up there Saturday to attend a memorial service for a friend who passed away several weeks ago - he was such a nice person and so enjoyable to be around - he would never allow me to walk to him, he would always insist he should walk to my pew and speak to the entire family. You have to remember he was in his mid 90's - I do so appreciate his character. And yes, we are bringing banana pudding.

From there it was off to the post office and then Lowe's to get the mulch. I spent the extra twenty cents per bag and got the reddish mulch that is guaranteed to stay red for one year - we'll see because last year that stuff turned brown shortly after the first rain - which around here is nearly every day! It takes 12 bags of mulch to properly fill in our landscaping beds. I also took care of that mess next to our front step by the water faucet - the builder put in these two nasty looking low shrubs and I've not enjoyed that area the entire time we've been here. I transplanted these two guys to the bigger bed next to my twisty tree at the end of the porch and I put in two rose bushes - one pink and one red. I'm hoping they bush up nicely and fill the area in - you really have to use your imagination because right now they look like hacked up stumps sticking out of the ground. I also attached the downspout extensions to the gutters. I will say all the work was definitely worth it - the front of the house looks terrific! I do have some work to the front yard left to do - in a couple of weeks I'm going to build up the bed around the two weeping cherry trees out front.

The little one got home just as I was putting the last of the downspout extensions on the gutters and she did the last one - I guess she has the right to claim the whole day's worth of projects! She had a good day at school and was in a good mood. From there, I moved into the garage and built a shelf to hold the projector and then loaded up the car for a run to Goodwill Thursday morning. The pastor and his wife stopped by to pick up the missionaries for supper and we chatted for a few minutes then they were off. They hung around long enough so the pastor's wife could welcome the oldest daughter off the bus from school and that was neat for her! Of course our dog has to be the center of attention and she just wants everyone to only pet her - what a mess she is!

Supper was good again!! I made thin sliced sirloin steaks, fried potatoes, alfredo noodles and green beans. Dinner conversation was good, got all caught up on the goings on at high school - not much has changed since I was in high school a few years ago!!

The evening service went well and the message was good. The missionary started out by showing slides and updating us on his work throughout the world. He has projects in Romania, Vietnam, the Philippines and Honduras - quite a wide spread operation. Then he moved into his message about Joseph from Genesis - mirrored my current series on Friday nights.

During the service, Dr. Yoho slipped in to hear the missionary speak. After service we had a chance to talk and he invited me to sit in on his class for a couple of hours Thursday morning which I will do.

We got home around 9pm and the girls were worn out. Their devotion was "Happily ever after" referencing Revelation 21:1-5 - it talked about how many story books end with "and they lived happily ever after" - nice to know we are aware of our happily ever afters as well. My devotion was from 2 Corintians 5:9 and titled the "worker's ruling passion." It was quite deep and talked about keeping your private life in order so your public life will reflect it.

Day Forty Four is in the books, here's looking forward to day Forty Five!

Day Forty Four - March 16, 2010

2010-03-17T03:22:00.001-07:00

If we are going to struggle with our daily routine, Tuesday's and Thursday's are the most like candidates to do so. I have no idea why Tuesday is such a struggle - Thursday is the day after Wednesday evening service so that might explain that day. But both girls were a little groggy this morning when they got out of bed. The little one perked up well after her shower but the teenager drug around the house all morning long - maybe she should take up drinking coffee or something!!

Speaking of coffee, our house is normally coffee free - I don't drink anything warmer than a room temperature bottle of Mountain Dew from time-to-time and my wife drinks hot tea but neither of us drink coffee. But with the missionaries in the house, the whole place smells like coffee!! They don't eat breakfast at all, lunch consists of a bowl of cereal for each and then someone from church takes them out to eat supper but they really put away the coffee!

I don't see much of the missionaries, in fact today I didn't see them at all until we went to church in the evening. They are working on a summer youth program in the Philippines and stuff for other countries so that is keeping them busy.

When we went out to meet the bus, we were getting some of that rain from the storm in New England. It was that little, itty bitty rain that feels like needles, coming sideways at an unusual angle and my goodness was it ever cold when it hit your skin!! The missionaries have their Excursion and their trailer parked in our driveway and our cars are across the street on the dead end road - the trailer is pretty tall so it is hard to see the bus coming down the street - so we put on our caps and braved the elements. Today was "wear a hat for kids with cancer day" at the elementary school. Each school kid was able to pay a dollar and they wore a hat to help the kids with cancer. They also got the most important prize imaginable to a second grader - a sticker to wear on their shirt all day!!! If you don't know of the power of a sticker to a second grader then you are really missing out on one of the most powerful motivational devices known to elementary schools! Our daughter absolutely loves them and will wear it like she had just won the congressional medal of honor! As a parent and head laundry person, I have to be ever vigilant for the stickers on dirty clothes - normally she takes the sticker off when she gets home, places it on the railing of the upper bunk and keeps it there - should she forget and if I was to wash that sticker, let's just say the wrath of an 8 year old who just lost a sticker to the washer is a much greater wrath than any adult female can spew forward! Fortunately I'm rather thorough when I check the laundry before it goes into the wash - girls don't shove mud or rocks down their pants pockets as much as boys do but you find all kinds of stuff that will ruin laundry - magic markers, nail polish, lip balm and most importantly, wayward stickers on shirts!

The teenager finally found the energy to get out the door as the bus was coming. I cleaned up the kitchen, swept the floors, watched a few minutes of SportsCenter, read the paper and had breakfast. Then it was off to the garage!

I made terrific progress out there today - I figured I would once I got the shelving arranged. The garage looks a little naked right now but I have everything where I want it. I do need to put up some type of curtain over the back door going outside from the garage and I want to put up a curtain around the mezzanine level. I still need to make a run to Goodwill to get rid of the last little bit of stuff we are going to donate - I'll do that Thursday morning.

I had a chance to talk with my wife again today and that is so nice. I remember many deployments of my own where we had to go several months without talking with loved ones or getting mail. But now we can call and e-mail as well as regular mail. At least by talking daily she can remain caught up on the day-to-day things around here and nothing should come as a total shock to her when she returns. Well, except how much the children have grown and matured while she was gone. More importantly, we can know daily that she is okay. Still, all of that doesn't make it any easier to be apart.

The final item for phase one of the garage project was installing the pull down screen for the projector. I mounted it into the facing board of the mezzanine and it looks really good. The nice thing is it is white and will blend right in once I paint the facing board - I plan on doing that next week when the missionaries are gone and it warms up outside.

The mailman delivered a package from my wife today - it was a video she had made a week ago. The USO has a program where the servicemember can read a book to the kids while they are being videotaped. The DVD is sent along with the book and the kids can read along. Very appropriate timing and once the little one got home she was able to watch and read along with her mom on the big screen in the garage. I was able to get photos of it and share them with my wife and family members. When the teenager got home, she enjoyed it as well. I see great potential from the new garage - it will be our own personal drive-in movie theatre once I get through a couple more phases. But before I go there, I have to work on the landscaping out front (ugh).

Supper tonight was outstanding and everyone enjoyed it. We had fried ham slices, pineapples, stuffing, mac&cheese and corn. I didn't figure the girls would enjoy the stuffing but that was their loss! I cheated and got that Bob Evans stuffing in a microwave container - you have to microwave it for a couple of minutes, stir and microwave for a couple more minutes - then dump it in a pan and put it under the broiler - outstanding!! I love that semi-crunchy top and moist interior combination! My wife makes great stuffing - Bob Evans isn't as good as hers but for now, it'll do!

After cleaning up the kitchen yet again, we got dressed and headed over to Oscar Smith High School. The second grader won a writing contest and was getting an award. It was for all the students in the Chesapeake Public Schools and she was so excited! Oscar Smith isn't too far away, just over the Great Bridge - after we parked the car and were walking in, we met up with her principal and talked with him. He was very gracious and nice - my daughter about died when I asked if he minded taking a picture with her - he obliged and it was a very nice photo. After he left, she asked me how could I do that, after all he was her principal!! So grown up for such a little person. But no matter how embarrassed she was then, she'll cherish that picture for a long time. I must admit her book was very, very well done and I was very proud of her. She has a friend from Maryland and they have been writing back and forth since we moved down here - her book was titled "Pen Pals" and it showed a lot of heart, emotion and was well written. Even better, she illustrated it as well! She received a blue ribbon last night and they will be sending her award and book to her school so she can bring it home later. A very nice ceremony.

The little one called her grandparents in Kentucky after we left the ceremony to share her news! And when we got to church, the folks there were very appreciative of her accomplishment! The evening revival service was good and we had a few visitors so that was nice. The thing about revivals is they tend to run long so we didn't get home until close to 9pm!

The girls devotion tonight was "Stubborn Love" referencing Luke 6:27-36. It talked about loving others even when it hurts. My devotion was "The Master Assizes" referencing 2 Corinthians 5:10. I know I am in trouble with a reading when I have to look up the exact meaning of a word in the title. Oswald Chambers was writing in a different era of the english language and sometimes is hard to follow - fortunately the story he is talking about is timeless so it is easy to get. In tonight's devotion he talked about the deadliest Pharisaism is not hypocrisy, it is unconscious unreality - pretty deep for 10pm at night!

Day Forty Four comes to a close as we look forward to day Forty Five!

Day Forty Three - March 15, 2010

2010-03-16T03:15:00.000-07:00

This is going to be one boring post but it was a very productive day! Guess it is nice to have a day where nothing major happens from time-to-time.

With today being Monday, we started out the day early. The missionaries will be with us all week and they have the master bedroom suite - we tested our "stealth" abilities to do what we needed to do without waking them. It appears we were successful as I didn't see or hear either one of them until later in the morning.

Both girls did very well this morning getting ready. We've moved the hair drying evolution to the downstairs bathroom to minimize noise upstairs. Breakfast went well and without drama and we were off to the bus. Was a nip to the air all day long as we have a storm system just to our north dragging cooler air in from New England - I was hoping for nothing but t-shirt weather from here on out but I guess I can live with a coat for a couple more days.

Just as the first bus was about to arrive, the pastor texted me asking if I could change the sign to reflect the revival going on all week. That was simple enough so I put the little one on the bus and drove over to the church. It took about 40 minutes total to change the old letters and put the new ones in place. I'll probably do that more often trying to keep the sign fresh - you never know when the right message will catch someone's attention!

From 8:15am until about 2:30pm I worked in the garage. The shelving was the real issue, taking it apart and putting it back together. It appears I have two different kinds of wooden shelves and they don't play well together - once I figured that out, I was able to get it going. The rain outside limited my ability to put things outside and the garage still looks messy. I figure a few hours on Tuesday and I'll be done with phase one (I hope).

I did get a chance to talk with my wife today for about 15 minutes. She sounded good and had been productive. Those first few days in a new place are a learning experience. She had a list of things she needs sent over to her - so far she hasn't received anything I've sent up to this point - it would be nice to know that the mail is getting through to her before sending off more stuff.

Once the little one got home, we went over her homework and she had a snack. They went to the library today and that is always a good day for her! She showed me each of her books and why she picked each of them up. My day quickly changes from only having the dog to talk to, to having the little one talk constantly at me!! She didn't come equipped with a mute button but I probably wouldn't use it if she had one.

While we waited on the teenager to get home, one of the missionaries came downstairs and he watched some of the baseball game with us - we were watching a spring training game between Detroit and Toronto. The missionary has had a lifetime of experiences and is interesting to talk with. They had been in the master bedroom all day working on projects all around the world. Sounds as if they are really making a difference. The nice thing about supporting missionaries is getting to share in what they are doing.

Once the teenager got home, we got her ready for work and went over what she did all day. About 30 minutes later, we took her to work and then returned home for supper. Someone from the church is taking the missionaries out to eat supper each night so they were leaving about the same time we were. Our head deacon was taking them tonight and he is quite the character - he loves messing with our youngest daughter and I think she takes great pleasure in messing with him!

Supper was quiet and laid back since it was just the two of us. We had grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches, salad and fried potatoes. After that, we got dressed and went to church for the evening service which was very good.

After service, we picked the teenager up and came home. We all had a chance to talk with the missionaries for a few minutes before they went to bed. The girls devotion tonight was "Seed sowing" referencing Matthew 13:3-8. My devotion was "The discipline of dismay" referencing Mark 10:32 - it talked about self-doubt when following Jesus and His example.

Day Forty Three comes to a close - here's looking forward to Day Forty Four!!

Day Forty Two - March 14, 2010

2010-03-14T18:10:00.001-07:00

One less hour of sleep but everyone cooperated - not a bad way to start a busy Sunday morning! Having company in the house changes the dynamics of the household, but I think we did pretty well today. The missionaries staying with us for the week have taken over the master bedroom and the master bath - fortunately I planned ahead and moved most of my necessary clothes and stuff to the spare bedroom. We didn't even see them until about 20 minutes before time to leave for church.

The morning was good - all of us were able to talk with my wife for a little bit - the Veteran's of Foreign Wars had arranged for a free phone call day for the troops overseas so that was nice. My wife is settling in nicely and doing her usual wonderful job. She was also able to find a church service there so she felt good about that. Was nice to hear her sound rested and productive.

Had a chance to speak with the mother-in-law for about 10 minutes today and she was good. I think having a daughter in a war zone is a tough thing to go through and probably moreso when you are somewhat removed from the military as they are back in Kentucky. Things move at a different pace there - it is a very comfortable pace in a very small community, but they are still insulated from many things. While I think many folks in the country think they understand the military and what goes on, they really don't - it is something you have to experience first hand.

Sunday School went well this morning. It is always a little intimidating when you have a seasoned missionary and his wife in your class but the curriculum we are using will stand up to the most intense scrutinization. I just included them in the class as a regular person and I think they appreciated that.

Some good news at church this morning, we are going to buy the bus and start a bus ministry so that is a wonderful outreach. We have a few more hurdles to jump but this is quite the positive. I was able to tour the bus with the pastor and was pleasantly surprised how nice it was. The upholstery needs some updating and attention but we can absolulely live with it in its current condition.

The missionary gave a wonderful sermon this morning and like most missionaries, he talked about why we have missions in the first place. He is a very polished speaker and he was very good at laying out his points in a classical manner. He made four major points that all started with the letter C. Then the sub points under each major heading all started with the same letter - for example the first major heading was "command from above" then he went with authority, accountability, activity, area, assignment and audience. This was all from Mark 16:15 if you want to read along.

After the morning service we had fellowship in the modular and the food was good. Since we are hosting the missionaries, we were told we didn't need to bring anything and that was good - I doubt I had time to really prepare something!

The afternoon was quiet. The missionaries took a nap and stayed in the master bedroom. The teenager studied for her upcoming AP tests in May and then took a nap - I don't really know how much studying she was able to do. The little one stayed downstairs with me, terrorized the dog, played on the trampoline outside and then asked about a zillion questions while I tried to watch the UK/Mississippi State basketball game - Kentucky finally pulled it out in overtime to with the SEC Championship.

The evening service was very good. The missionary's sermon was excellent and was something I had never thought about - the title was "where's the beef?" He started in Deuteronomy 11:22-32 and talked about God's covenant with the people. Then he went to Numbers 32:1-4 and talked about how the 2.5 tribes wanted the land east of the Jordan because of their cows. Then he went to Mark 5:1-15 and showed how these same people no longer were raising cows, they were farming swine - where's the beef? It was very good.

After service we came home and had a light supper. The missionaries came home a little later and we had a nice conversation - they appear to be quite nice people. I helped them get onto my network so they could use the Internet to do their necessary business. The girls devotion tonight was "Locked out" referencing Psalm 119:57-64. My devotion was "Obedience" referencing Romans 6:16.

Day Forty Two comes to a close, here's looking to Day Forty Three!

Day Forty One - March 13, 2010

2010-03-14T01:40:00.001-08:00

Looking back over today, all I can say is "whew" what a day! The weather started out as a rainy morning but changed around noon to quite the sunny, beautiful day. We didn't really have a chance to sleep in today because our day was scheduled pretty tight. I got the teenager up at 6:30 to start her day - she gave the dog a bath, got herself cleaned up and then cleaned her bathroom and bedroom. The little one contributed as well - she cleaned her room and then helped dry the dog - I think she likes drying the dog because she knows the dog hates the hair dryer - for such a pretty and sweet child, she does have a touch of a mean streak in her; I think she must get that from her momma!

Speaking of my wife, she had a chance to send an e-mail then call later in the morning. She had a shower, although it was a cold one, and she now has her own bed so she'll be able to sleep in a bed instead of a chair so that is nice. They put her to work almost immediately upon her arrival so she's settling in. Even though it was a busy day and I didn't expect to talk with her, it was a very nice addition to the day.

The morning continued by running the teenager to work then we stopped at the post office to mail off two boxes and one package to my wife. The package had her reading material for the Wednesday night class and our Sunday School class in it plus I sent her some work the girls did at school, copies of report cards and that type of stuff.

From the post office, we went by WalMart and re-stocked the refrigerator and pantry shelves. The store was busy on a Saturday morning but well stocked. I find it quite interesting to watch the interactions among people in the store - there was a family argument in the frozen foods, two separate little kid tantrums in the various aisles, a couple of poor guys who obviously hadn't been food shopping in a few years, of course we had the obligatory old couple who plugged up an entire aisle and then the one lady with the cart who thought she was speed walking - I love those people, they walk as fast as they can and from time-to-time you just see their arm flick out from their body, grab something from the shelf and toss it in the cart - of course they are talking on their cell phones attached to their ear while they are doing that. Just a Public Service Announcement here - if you don't realize how silly you look with your phone wrapped around your ear in WalMart in your velour "sweat suit", please look again! My favorite WalMart shopper - the middle aged woman on a cell phone trying to communicate with someone else in the store "yeah, I'm right here by the peas, where are you?" - "now I am by the canned potatoes, no I don't see you yet" - this WalMart shopper doesn't really need a cell phone, you can hear her on the other side of the store anyway!!

We got home safely with the groceries and I got them put away. Of course I had to deal with the dog for a few seconds and then the little one who wanted to terrorize the dog. We had just enough time to put the groceries away, fold the load of towels in the dryer and mop the hardwood floors before we had to leave to pick the teenager up from work - she only worked 3 hours today on computer training. We made it back to her grocery store just as she was walking out. I had spoken with the head deacon earlier while I was in WalMart so we met him and the missionaries at the church. I took the missionary's wife to the house and gave her a tour, showed her where they would be staying and gave her a key to the house. After taking her back to church so they could finish setting up, I took the girls to lunch and then we drove to Norfolk for the play.

Norfolk is building a new light rail system and that construction has really messed up the downtown area. They also are building a couple of new buildings so you wind up with total gridlock. I was able to drive the highway up there - this area is serviced by several tunnels and drawbridges that serve as traffic choke points if you're not careful - we were between drawbridge lifts on the Berkeley Bridge so we went that way and into downtown. We parked close to the mall and walked over to the theatre.

The theatre is pretty nice - it is one of those old, refurbished RKO theatres and it has some character. The youngest daughter saw her Thursday night dance/singing teacher there and they had a nice chat. The play was the broadway production of Tom Sawyer and they did a very nice job with the production. At the same time, we couldn't help but notice the one empty seat we had.

We remained on a tight schedule - we were to meet some of the church and the missionaries at the restaurant at 6pm. The play didn't end until 5:20, we had about a 10 minute walk to the car and I had promised the teenager she could stop at Barnes and Noble to pick up some study guides for the AP tests coming up in May. The mall in downtown Norfolk is very, very nice but they have a rule teens cannot be in the mall after 5pm without an adult so that ruled out me letting her run in to get the books while I got the car and met her at the front door. But we made it and were in the car by 5:50pm. I sent a text message to the pastor letting him know we'd be there by 6:10 - of course he texted back he was going to be late as well. We wound up being there before everyone except one lady so that was good.

Supper was nice - anytime you don't have to cook is nice! The waitress did well considering the group we had assembled. After spending nearly 2 hours there, almost everyone came over to the house to relax and spend some time talking. Yes, that was too much for our dog so we had to put her in the very, very messy garage. But it was a nice evening.

The girls did their devotion but left the book in the little one's room and I dont' want to wake her so I'll update that tomorrow. My devotion was "The abandonment of God" and referenced John 3:16. It was a positive spin on a very familiar verse.

Day Forty One was a whirlwind of activity, a very busy day and actually a very quick day! We get one less hour of sleep as we look forward to day Forty Two!

Day Forty - March 12, 2010

2010-03-12T16:49:00.000-08:00

In Old Testament times we are now at the same point as the rain storms Noah endured! Fittingly, it is raining pretty hard here right now as well!!!

Day Forty fell on a Friday. The girls were excited; the bus driver was excited; heck, I'm excited too! I don't think the dog was too excited about it - I might not be either if I walked around with a fur coat and water made me smell like a dog! But despite the all day rain and what the dog thought, it was a good day. I don't mind the rain much as I find it soothing.

The girls both made it off to school without too much drama. The teenager had a headache but I think it was more along the lines of a test-induced experience than anything else - today was the day for the infamous chemistry test on the stuff she told me "the teacher wasn't teaching out of the book about" - yep, remember that one?

I did talk with my wife twice today. She's not able to tell me much so I won't tell you much. She was very tired though and said she needed a shower. Still, it was great to talk with her. The first time I spoke with her, I was at home. The second time, she called while I was at Marshall's and she was able to vicariously go shopping with me!! Good thing she called, I would have gotten the wrong sized dress for the teenager!

Zero progress on the garage today - the rain was my main excuse but I really didn't have time to get around to it. I went to Lifeway to pick up some secret pal gifts - found something for all three of the secret pals. Then I stopped by Marshall's to pick up an Easter dress for the teenager. Found her a really nice white Calvin Klein dress that was originally $319.99 - paid just a touch more than 10% of that price so I'm very happy with that. Do you think places like Marshall's and Ross put inflated price tags on their clothes to make you feel better about your purchase decision? Are they secretly trying to make us save our way into the poor house?? I hope not, that would be an ethical issue on many levels. I'll just trust that they aren't messing with my mind via price tags. I also found a very nice pair of shoes for the little one that matched her dress. No, I never had a vision when I was a kid growing up of me picking out the right pair of shoes for an 8 year old daughter some day!! I also never thought I'd be carrying around purses and baby dolls either but that is a different story.

I stopped by Office Max to pick up the copies of the program we are using on Wednesday night. Wasn't cheap but well worth it. The rain was really coming down so I stopped by Paradocks for lunch, watched a little of the Ohio State versus "that place up north" basketball game while I ate. Was still raining when I came out so that plan failed but I had a full tummy! It did stop raining by the time I got home though.

I got home in time to watch the end of the Ohio State game - they pulled it out with a last second three pointer from about 40 feet out - very nice shot! Kentucky was losing but they came back to beat Bama in their game as well.

The little one got home as normal and was full of energy - well, for a little while. She laid on the couch like a big old log and passed out while watching PBS! I know, PBS puts a lot of folks to sleep!! I covered her up and wished I could take a nap as well! I took advantage of the time, loaded up the car for the evening teen program and started some laundry.

When the teenager got home, it was nearly time to go. She was going to see a movie after the teen program tonight with the pastor's grandson - the pastor's wife is chaperoning so that is okay. Of course she couldn't find just the right shirt so we had mild drama. That tension was resolved and away we went to church.

The program was good with a fair turnout considering the weather. We had hot dogs and sauce. You get spoiled by a certain type of taste and when you encounter something a little different, you have to re-think what you're eating. The pastor's wife made chili sauce for the dogs - it was okay but still different. Tonight was part II of our look at Joseph and Trust. Tonight we talked about God's preferred future for Joseph and Joseph's response to it.

The rain continued as we came home. Tomorrow will be a light clean up around the house, the teenager has work at 10am and then we are off to see the play Tom Sawyer in downtown Norfolk in the afternoon. Saturday evening we are meeting a group from the church for supper to greet the missionaries and then the missionaries are staying with us for a week. Somewhere in there I need to clean the garage a little so it doesn't look like the total disaster area it does now, plus I need to study my Sunday School lesson as well.

The youngest daughter did her devotion tonight then watched Planet 51. Her devotion was "God's way, my way (part 1)" referencing Matthew 5:38-44. My devotion tonight was "Abandonment" referencing Mark 10:28. It talked about commercialized self-interest versus real abandonment.

A rainy day forty is in the books. Here's looking forward to day forty one.

Day Thirty Nine - March 11, 2010

2010-03-12T03:07:00.000-08:00

Today continues the great garage project - I figure about one more week of working out there and I'll be okay with it! We had some rain during the night and the gutters worked as they were supposed to - it is very nice to walk out the doors and not get dribbled on from the roof!

The girls both had very good mornings. We changed the teenagers routine a little so she could get a little more study time in the morning and day one of that went good enough. We'll see next week when we have company and she does it four or five days in a row how much "sunshine" she can ooze!!

The sun was out and it was very pleasant when the bus ran for the little one. After she got on the bus, I made a quick trip to Goodwill to donate some stuff out of the garage. Fortunately they have a 24 hour box about five miles from the house. I made it home before the teenager left.

Once both girls were gone for the morning, I cleaned up e-mails and got the Make a Difference ready for next week. I will admit I've been slacking a little bit on that - normally I'm 30 days ahead but I allowed it to run down some. I'll start building it back up again to stay ahead. I also took part of the morning to finish the PowerPoint and my notes for the Friday night program. We will be talking about part II of Joseph from the Old Testament and how he was trusted with God's vision to save the Hebrews well before the famine.

Just as I was getting ready to leave to run some errands, my wife had the chance to call and that always makes the day so very nice. So far, we've only had one day out of 39 where we were not able to talk. I doubt that streak lasts much longer but I'll take what I can get. She only had 30 minutes to talk but that was okay - allowed me to catch her up on all that is going on and let her know all was good here. And in all honesty, things are all good here.

After the phone call, I sent a quick e-mail to our family members to update them - my wife did have some news I needed to share with them - so I took care of that. Then it was off to run errands and to fix something.

The afternoon was spent in the garage. The main issue is moving the shelving I already have in the garage - in order to do that, I have to unload the shelves, put it on the floor, dismantle the shelves, clean them, re-assemble the shelves and star loading them back up. Some things are going up in the loft area, some in the garbage and some on the shelving. I'll just say that progress was slow today.

When the little one got home, we did her homework and then went to the dentist. Perhaps the best thing about our house is that we are probably one mile from everything - two or three at the most. A lot of folks might be able to say "go one mile and you're at the store" - we are actually one mile from the dentist office, one mile from the elementary school, one mile from a drug store, one mile from several fast food places, one mile from 7Eleven and other gas stations and one mile from the library/city center. We're two miles from church but that is okay. The only things that doesn't fit the one mile radius is Wal Mart - it is 1.5 miles away - and the high school - it is maybe 3 miles away. But, we had coordinated this morning exactly what was going to happen with the dentist. The first appointment was at 4pm which is exactly when the teenager gets home off the bus. The dentist is really great and they have a terrific theatre for kids to sit in and watch tv before/after their appointment. They also have the required dentist/doctor office oversized aquarium with colorful fish. I took the little one and got her appointment started, then ran back to the house to get the teenager. Then the cell phone rang and the teenager was still on the bus at 4pm - they had a substitute driver who was driving the route backward!! Of course on the day we needed to be coordinated - I told her to get off the bus at the next stop and I would get her. I grabbed her travel packet with floss, rinse, brush and toothpaste then drove back toward the dentist office - she had gotten off at a friend's house less than a half block from the dentist office - so that worked out well. Both girls had good checkups with zero cavities!! Almost as good news was the magazines in the waiting area were all relatively new!

We ran over to WalMart afterward to pick up one item that of course turned into three things - does anyone ever go into that place and get only the one item they went after?? The girls were hungry so we stopped at Applebee's for supper. We've only been in this Applebee's three times and each time we've had the same waitress - fortunately she is perhaps the best waitress I've ever had anywhere so that made for a pleasant dining experience.

Once we got home, I worked in the garage for another 30 minutes then the rain really started coming down and we had thunder so I decided to come inside the house. We dusted all the rooms and ran the vacuum. I installed the new roman shade in the master bath and it looks very nice plus it enhances the room as well.

The girls devotion was "I should have listenend" referencing Hebrews 1:1-2 - it talked about a little girl who went to Florida without a jacket - basically the story was about being prepared and listening to adults. My devotion yesterday was "Have a message and be one" referencing 2 Timoth 4:2. My devotion tonight was "Vision" referencing Acts 26:19. Just as I was getting ready to shut down the computer for the evening, I wound up exchanging e-mails with the pastor regarding the bus ministry and some enhancements to the church grounds.

The rain continued to fall as we close out Day Thirty Nine. Here's looking forward to Day Forty!!

Day Thirty Eight - March 10, 2010

2010-03-10T17:56:00.000-08:00

We had a very pleasant start to the day where everyone had a chance to talk with my wife on the phone for a few minutes. She didn't have much news to talk about, sounds as if she's trapped in the Navy's "hurry up and wait" mode. I remember that quite clearly from my military days - they would hurry up and rush us to a certain spot, then we'd wait. And wait. And then wait some more. Kind of kills the momentum of all concerned. Not that I'm fussing in my wife's situation - I'd rather her be bored where she's at right now that busy at her final destination. But it was nice to talk with her.

I was also able to share some photos of the gutters and what I'm doing in the garage with her via e-mail late last night - she was able to view them and comment. The gutters do blend in nicely with the house and are quite "un-noticeable" if that is a word. But that is very important in the gutter world! And to her credit, she could see what I was doing in the garage - the photos weren't the best but I did give her a narrative. And we had talked about this project before she left so she knew it was coming.

After talking to their mother for a little while, both girls got up and started getting ready. Breakfast was incident free and all progressed well. It was 50 degrees when the little one went outside and a perfectly clear day. She was happy I didn't make her wear gloves and a hat. Once her bus showed up, I worked in the garage a little while. I got all the holiday stuff up off the floor and onto the decking, swept that side of the garage really well and then started going through stuff on the other side of the garage. My whole goal is to get everything off the floor and on the deck - that will open the floor up completely. I have an 80" projection screen I'm going to mount so we can watch movies and the girls can play video games in the garage. While I'm not turning the whole garage into a playroom, we will certainly have more livable space for the entire house by doing this.

I stopped after about 90 minutes in the garage, got cleaned up and just as I was getting ready to leave the Head Deacon at our church called. He asked if I remembered seeing some brick at the new modular last night when I was there for out meeting. As he told me why he was asking, I told him I was heading down Battlefield to the post office anyway, I'd swing by the church and call him back. I took our nutso dog with me and away we went.

All was quiet at the church - no workers around or anything going on. I called the deacon back and we worked out the situation with the contractor. Of course Casey had run over to visit with Huck, the neighbor's dog, and I had to get her back in the truck so we could continue on.

Zero line at the post office this morning and two boxes were shipped off. What was left of the morning was spent cleaning the house, doing laundry and making sure I had all the bills done for the month. I spent part of the afternoon in the garage moving more stuff around - I'm really liking this project, it is going so well so far!

The little one came home and just as she got into the garage it started raining. We didn't get enough to test the gutters, that should happen tomorrow. I had to start supper early because today was the oldest daughter's first day at work - once she got home, she would have to change, eat and go to work. I'd be the taxi driver - taking her to work, then picking her up a couple of hours later and driving to church for evening service.

Our teenager doesn't handle stress well at all so she showed a little attitude when she got home. One of her teachers had e-mailed me earlier today that she didn't do well on an in-class assignment and it was obvious she hadn't studied. I gave her a little time to get organized and cleaned up, then as we were going downstairs for supper I asked her how chemistry class was going. I got the standard teenager "fine". I asked how she did on that particular assignment and if she was ready for the test Friday - she said that she wasn't sweating it. I asked what she scored and then the attitude popped out "99.9% of the kids did poorly and the teacher didn't seem concerned about the test plus she's not teaching from the book" she snarled! She doesn't give me attitude too often because she knows she rarely wins - I knew this was more because she was stressed about work, school and keeping her chores up so I remained calm. I said that her teacher must care, she took the time to send me an e-mail and in it 7 of 24 kids did exceptionally well which is no where near 99.9% and unfortunately she (my teenager) was somewhere on the backside of the Bell Curve instead of the frontside with her score. She had her chemistry book in her hand - the teacher had included the page number of the chart she was supposed to memorize, so I opened to that page and asked "is this the page she's not teaching from?" Like I've said before - we moved to this area specifically for the schools - they communicate exceptionally well with us and the kids can't pull much bologna. I reminded her who the adult was and who the high school student was, then asked her if she would like to rephrase her previous statement in the form of truth and proper tone. An e-mail from the teacher has a terrific way to stop teenager BS in its tracks pretty quickly. We moved past that discussion quickly with a plan to study for the Friday test.

After taking the teenager to work, we returned home and cleaned the kitchen. I also ironed my slacks and the little one's dress. It wasn't long before we had to return to pick the teenager up and then go to evening church.

The Wednesday night service is a small group of folks but the book we are using is excellent. It is the ABC's of Christian Growth and we are going very slowly. Tonight we started on the letter B - Bible!

Tournament basketball has started on TV - I watched a little of the games on ESPN tonight but wasn't really vested in any teams on. I'm not a real fan of any college basketball team but I will watch Kentucky or Ohio State if they are on. Other than those two, it is just noise in the background.

The girls devotion tonight was "Passing Grade" referencing 1 John 1:5-9. The little one read it to the dog - she'll listen to anything as long as you rub her belly! It talked about cheating at school and our 2nd grader had a hugely long story about a boy who cheated in her class - I asked her if only boys cheated or if girls could cheat as well; she said she only knew of boys that cheated but no Christian would cheat! Nothing like the faith of a child!! I took my devotion book with me in the car as we were waiting on the teenager but left it in there - I'll have to update you tomorrow on it.

Day Thirty Eight is in the books - here's looking forward to Day Thirty Nine!

Day Thirty Seven - March 9, 2010

2010-03-09T17:21:00.000-08:00

I must totally be over my jet lag - I was up at 4:30am and fully rested this morning! The past week I had the "swimmy head" as my wife's grandmother used to say and that is not a good way to start the day. Swimmy head doesn't go away until about the 10th soda!! But today, was good on many levels.

The girls both did well again today starting their day out so that was wonderful. Little one fixed cereal for her breakfast - the dog benefitted because there was a trail of milk soaked Cheeri-O's from the counter to the table - she had tilted her bowl a little too far to one side. The dog did a good job cleaning up, all I had to do was mop later in the morning!

Everyone had a chance to talk with my wife this morning and that was very nice. We'll take those phone calls as long as we can get them. She was in good spirits and sounded good. We decided what to get her on her birthday - she washed her I-Pod so we'll get her a new one and load it up for her then mail it to her. I didn't fuss at her, I figured she had enough on her mind in the first place and if washing an I-Pod is the worst thing that happens, then I'll be thankful. I think getting to talk with the girls made her day as well so it was a win-win for everyone.

I anticipated - well, let me change that to I expected - the guy doing the work in the garage to be there around 8ish this morning. He called about 8:15 to tell me his helper didn't show up and he was looking for him. Those of you that know me realize what was going through my mind - of all the things I value, being where you said you were going to be when you said you would be there is pretty close if not at the top of my list of things you must do. But I realize who I was dealing with so I was kind and told him to call me when he was on his way.

I took the dog to get her flu booster shot - it is always something with a pet around here! The vet is just around the corner, less than one mile from our front door to their entrance. Our dog is a mess when she goes into the vet's - it is also in the same building as the kennel - I don't speak dog so I don't know if she's excited, nervous or just an idiot when she gets in public - whatever it is, she's no fun to be around! It took the tech all of 30 seconds to get her, take her to the room, give her the shot and bring her back. That was one dollar per second!! Good thing it wasn't an hour long procedure!!!! I'm not done with dog stories yet - she has one more "rooftop" moment later in the day.

I got home and the guy still hadn't shown up. I worked on a few things, folded laundry and stayed busy around the house. Finally at 10:32am (can you tell I'm a little peeved by now?) he calls and says he is on his way. He started in this great big, long, overboard story about how he couldn't find the guy and all that - I told him I didn't want to hear his story, I would see him soon.

Lunch was enjoyable considering the guy still hadn't shown up. It was close to 12:30 or so when he finally did. Now, I'm a very easy person to read and I do very little to mask my emotions - he caught on real fast I wasn't interested in hearing his story, I just wanted the work done and done correctly.

As with most laborers like him, he forgot one item from his original bill of materials. He said he was going to run to Lowe's to pick it up but I stopped him and told him he should stay here and start the process, I would go get it. That little trip took about 30 minutes round trip - he did have a good start on the project by the time I got back so that was good for him.

It was a little stuffy in the house so I opened a window close to my desk. The screens were out in the garage and in a place I couldn't get to but to be quite honest I didn't think much about it. A few minutes before the little one arrived home from school, I walked out to the front porch and then down in the yard to wait on the bus. As I was standing in the yard I heard the dog bark at me - I turned toward the upstairs to see her walking on the roof!!! The dog had climbed out the window and was walking on the second floor roof line - YIKES!! I don't take her out to meet the bus because she can't sit still when the bus arrives and I'm afraid she will run in the street to meet the little one so I leave her inside. But I never, ever thought she would run back upstairs and climb out the window on the roof but there she was! The bus was coming up the street so I had to sprint back inside and up the stairs to the open window - yes, I know my fault for leaving the window open - and grabbed her. I was afraid when she saw the bus pull up she would leap off the roof and get hurt - just what I didn't need. Yes, the screens are back in the upstairs windows!! Stupid dog - stupid me!

The little one got home as normal and had a good day at school. She only had a little bit of homework and she got that done. It was a beautiful day so she went outside to play on the trampoline while I sat on the back deck and read a book. I could hear the saw and nail gun from the garage so that was good.

The oldest daughter got home with a pile of homework again. I don't remember having that much home work in high school but she does stay busy.

Supper tonight was very good - seasoned pork chops, alfredo noodles, green beans and bread. The pork chops from the butcher are really good - nice and thick with the right amount of fat on the edges - as you cook them they stay so moist and juicy - almost like a bacon wrap! Once you cut away the fat, the meat is just so good.

The guy in the garage finally finished right as we finished supper. I checked his work, had him clean up his mess and paid him. I will admit his work was good and exactly what I wanted. Now I'll just need to paint it and move forward. Once I finish the garage project, I'm going to work on the landscaping that took a beating during the winter months and rain storms.

We had the pastor's roundtable tonight and that was good. A small group but those are the best kind. We didn't have much new business and that leads to more time for prayer and reflection. We don't make decisions for the church in these meetings but we do discuss items, come to an understanding and then once we present it to the church during a business meeting, we appear to be more unified. It really keeps issues to a minimum in the church.

The oldest daughter got a call from her new job tonight and she will start the computer stuff tomorrow evening. We are going to have to adjust her homework/study schedule so she'll be able to pull this off.

The girls' devotion tonight was "Casts and crutches" referencing Philippians 4:10-13. It talked about complaining and letting a physical ailment hinder you. We talked how the same thought process works for allowing money issues to hinder you as well. My devotion was "the time of relapse" referencing John 6:67 - it talked about walking with Jesus while you do His work then reminded us many do the work of the church for their own reasons, not God's reasons.

Day Thirty Seven comes to a close - here's looking forward to Day Thirty Eight!

Day Thirty Six - March 8, 2010

2010-03-09T02:27:00.000-08:00

It appears everyone is finally over the jet lag we seemed to be hampered by late last week! Today was a very productive day for all concerned. The little one got up, took her shower, got dressed and made her breakfast without a problem. Just a note about her making her breakfast - it is just as much, if not more work for me but she is developing a spirit of independence that I think everyone needs. We've cleaned up a couple of milk messes and had some issue getting a cereal bowl or two from the "pouring" spot to the table but I can live with those. Right now we are working on her being more consistent in getting her empty dishes from the table to the sink!

Our teenager must have been fully rested, all I had to do was open her door and turn on the light this morning for her to get going!

The day was absolutely beautiful - so nice in fact that the regular bus driver took the day off! Fortunately both girls were able to jump on another bus that runs by the house later to make it to school.

Had a chance to talk with my wife for 15 minutes today - we'll certainly have to remember the USO the next time they ask for financial assistance! They have certainly made things nice for all concerned. She was in good spirits and sounded well. One of her former division directors was in camp and she saw a couple of other people she had worked with in the past so that gave her some comfort!

After the phone call, the day really shifted into a higher gear. I talked with the guy who was going to work in the garage Tuesday just to make sure the list was correct, then it was off to the lumber yard. They were quite organized so getting the lumber was easy enough, loading it was a different story! But I was able to do so and get it home and into the garage. Later in the day, I made a trip to Home Depot and Lowe's to pick up some other items for the project. I'm ready to get this one over with - I'm sure it will enhance the house a lot; I promise you it will enhance my feelings about the garage!

The line at the post office today was long, at least for our branch. They had two postal workers at the counter so the line went pretty fast. I can remember days in Maryland waiting 45 minutes to an hour at the post office on a normal day - here 10 minutes is a long wait! I was able to mail off two more boxes so once all these arrive she should have plenty of supplies. I have four more boxes at home packed, wrapped and ready to go. I'll probably send two more Wednesday and two Thursday. Once my wife arrives at her final destination she can tell me what the PX doesn't stock.

The youngest daughter made it home safely and we ran out to the guy's house that was working on my computer. He was able to get it to run and work but it still won't access the Internet but I can live with that. I'll make sure I have all my files off the computer that I want and then we'll see what we'll do with it.

The oldest daughter had a good day at school but came home loaded down with homework. She always comes home with a backpack full of books so you never know what she really has to do or not but she worked hard most of the night.

The girls wanted hot dogs for supper so I made those, mac&cheese and fries. Plus we had a good chat while eating so that was nice. We talked about suppers for the rest of the week as well as the missionaries coming to stay with us for a week.

The first part of the evening after supper we moved things around in the garage so the work could begin tomorrow. I just need to move the freezer in the morning and he can get started. The girls were a big help until the first spider came out of his slumber and they decided that was enough for them - darn city girls! I spent part of the evening working on my topic for Friday night and getting it ready - we are in week two of a look at Joseph's life from the Old Testament giving it current day implications to our lives. I also took a little time to clean up my Internet - I've decided I'm going to minimize my exposure to negative people and cut way back on my Internet time - both are real thieves of my time.

My devotion tonight was "The Relinquished Life" referencing Galatians 2:20. The girls devotion tonight was "slug bug" referencing Numbers 13:25-33 - it spoke about how you see things - good or bad? Kind of went along with my resolve to minimize or eliminate my exposure to negative people!

Day Thirty Six comes to a close. Here's looking forward to Day Thirty Seven!

Day Thirty Five - March 7, 2010

2010-03-07T18:19:00.000-08:00

The absolute toughest day of the week is Sunday! Well, more accurately from 11am until about 12:30pm is the toughest part of the week!! It wasn't much easier today but I was able to survive!

I was so glad I cleaned the kitchen last night before I went to bed - I strongly considered waiting until today. Personal self-discipline is a key to being a stay-behind person on the deployment - I can see where it might be tougher for someone without kids in the house during a time like this because there are moments when you just want to say "who cares, it'll be there tomorrow" and forget about it. But I'm not going to allow myself to get into that mindset - once it happens the first time, it will become a consistent failure not to mention a poor example for the girls.

I am glad I set the alarm last night though - I probably would have slept a little longer than I did! When the dog heard the alarm, she was at the door waiting on me - she really had to pee and must have been full to her eyeballs! I grabbed the paper and waited on her - I'm really going to have to put some type of shoe by the front door at night, the concrete is quite chilly in the morning! Once back inside, I started the water for the elbow macaroni and I checked on the banana pudding I made last night - okay, so maybe I took a little taste but someone had to be the first to try it! It tasted very good. I'll never be a five star chef or anything like that, just not my passion, but I can certainly read a recipe card! The macaroni and cheese went into the oven as we were eating a bowl of cereal. Both girls were in good spirits and they both enjoy going to church. Plus today our friend, Dr. Yoho was going to lead Sunday School, the 11am and 6pm services talking about 1 Corinthians 13. I have only known him for a few months now but we have developed a really good friendship.

Getting dressed and ready went good. We had the great fortune of talking with my wife again this morning - she was at the USO and was able to call. She was no longer a zombie as she had 11 hours of sleep last night and sounded much more like her normal self. But all was good with her - she can't go into much detail or specifics with us about who, what, when, where and how but the important thing was we all got the chance to talk with her.

I let the teenager drive to Sunday School this morning and her decision making process is still off a little. By now she should be able to drive from the house to church with her eyes closed but it just isn't happening yet. I'm hoping the light comes on quickly - I'll jump ahead a little bit to after church and letting her drive home - let's just say she got chewed out for her rather poor performance on the way home and she was told to either find her focus or there was no way I was going to even let her attempt to get her license in April when she's eligible.

I started off the Sunday School service by taking prayer requests and leading the opening prayer. Dr. Yoho took over after that and gave us a re-hash of what he talked about at our Valentine's Dinner - he started this series then but today he was going to go all the way through it over the three services. I'll just suffice it to say that he gave an excellent sermon and I wound up with three pages of notes! I must also compliment our pastor - not many pastors would step aside and let another man speak from God's pulpit like that but our pastor is big enough to allow others to be a voice.

We had fellowship after the 11am service and the food was very good. I was surprised the macaroni and cheese was wiped out quickly - I will admit it did taste good. We had an abundant supply of desserts as well and my wife's banana pudding was cleaned out as well. Dr. Yoho and his wife sat at our table and we had a very pleasant conversation over fried chicken, mac&cheese, potato salad, green beans and dessert. Yoho has been both a source of wisdom and a challenge to me - I really do enjoy people that cause me to stretch outside of my normal self - Yoho does that quite well.

After our less than decent drive home and heart-to-heart discussion, I started a load of towels in the laundry while the girls got their homework finished and backpacks ready for school. The little one terrorized the dog and vice versa for a little while. Finally the chicken kicked in and the girls laid across the bed playing video games for about an hour. I did some research based on my conversation with Dr. Yoho and then applied for a job. After that, I took a short nap - I was just completely out of gas!

We had to be back to church at 5 for choir practice - the teenager drove and did better this time - she does well as long as she is completely focused. The girls are in the choir and enjoy it a lot. They were practicing their Easter presentation of songs - I was in the back pew talking with the pastor and some how I wasn't paying enough attention to the music director, the next thing I know I wind up with a speaking part for the presentation!! I'm going to have to keep an eye on them women next week so I don' wind up with more!!

I will continue my thought process that I cannot even imagine taking on the challenge of maintaining a decent home for the girls during a deployment without being actively involved in the right church. This group of people are so very wonderful and so encouraging. I also had a chance to talk with Dr. Yoho before the service and we'll continue our discussions over the next few weeks.

Yoho's conclusion to 1 Corinthians 13 was exceptional. I have never been the kind of person that could quote Bible verses from memory very well and I was amazed at how strong his memory and retention of the verses was. I wound up with almost 2 more pages of notes.

As with most guest speakers, the service ran a little longer than normal but that was okay. We drove through Wendy's on the way home and had chicken sandwiches. The girls devotion tonight was "Brianna's Baby Book" referencing Colossians 3:23-24 and it talked about not dwelling on failures and mistakes. The teenager needed that after her driving this afternoon! My devotion was "Undaunted radiance" referencing Romans 8:37. It was a continuance of yesterday's reading.

30 Sundays to go!! I've gotten a lot of advice from folks about counting or not counting how many days, weeks or months to go. Each person has their own logic behind why or why not to count a certain way - to be honest none of them really make the time go faster, it all comes down to how your mind is best able to handle the time apart. Day Thirty Five is in the books, here's looking forward to Day Thirty Six!!

Day Thirty Four - March 6, 2010

2010-03-07T03:51:00.000-08:00

Today started out a little earlier than I planned but it was a very welcome wake up call from my wife. She had arrived safely at an intermediate destination and she was tired but okay. The USO had provided each person with a free 15 minute phone call home and it was so nice to hear her voice and she was safe. Currently her living arrangements aren't the best in the world but it could be worse - she's living in a tent with 24 other women - kind of a modern day harem if you will!! I doubt their uniforms are veils and mid-riff baring shirts though.

I took advantage of being the only one up and cleaned up the downstairs while the girls continued to sleep. Made my shopping list for a run to WalMart later in the day, took the dog for a walk and read the newspaper. I called my mother-in-law at a reasonable hour when I knew she would be up getting ready for work to let her know about her daughter and then we had a pleasant talk. She said she was surprised and happy to receive the photos with my wife's address on the back - I used a photo of my wife and mother-in-law from my wife's graduation from the master's program at USUHS. Now she can give them out to her friends at church and from her butcher shop in the grocery store. My mother-in-law is very nervous about her daughter being deployed and that is understandable - but at the same time she wants to be as involved as she can be so this helps her a little bit.

The girls were really tired and slept until well past 8am. I had baked biscuits and fried up some sandwich ham I picked up from the meat market. In theory and sight, it should have been pretty good - very nice cuts of meat and just the right thickness and size to fit on the biscuit. But boy were they ever salty!! Must have been double salt cured or something - I had about half a slice and couldn't take anymore. I had also fixed eggs so I went with that and put jelly on my biscuit. The little one wasn't a fan either but the teenager thought it was good. We all agreed that while it was a nice effort, we probably won't pick those up again!! At the same time, I think we were all smelling lunch that I had put in the crock pot - the smell of bar-b-que was really good and made us all look forward to lunch!

The rest of the morning was spent giving the dog a bath, cleaning bathrooms and then I spent the rest of the morning in the teenager's room - she was fussing she didn't have anything to wear to church so we cleaned out her closet and drawers. Let's just go with a little organization goes a long way - I knew her mom had gotten her plenty of dresses and skirts, we just had to find them and put them together. Sure enough, we found plenty of Sunday clothes as well as Monday through Saturday as well. We did wind up with three large garbage bags full of "donate" clothing. Her closet and drawers look very good now - we'll see how long that lasts!

Lunch finally arrived and we had boneless short ribs soaked in bar-b-que sauce, fried potatoes, baked beans and bread. Just in case we didn't have enough sauce on the ribs, which we did, I took the sauce from the crock pot and put it in a bowl so we could dip our rib into it. The ribs got the thumbs up from everyone and the girls want to have this one again soon - it wasn't very hard so we'll certainly do that! Even better, Phineas & Ferb were on TV as we had lunch!! Afterward, we all resisted the temptation for a nap and did a few more things around the house. The teenager also had a ton of homework to get done so she worked on it. The little one helped me.

In the evening we met a few other folks at the church. We drove to the house of a couple who attended the church but have not been physically able to attend the past couple of months. They are in their mid 80's and he is now really sick. It was a very nice service and the lady has always been so kind to us - was nice getting to see her again.

The day wasn't over just because the sun went down!! We stopped for some chicken on the way home and had a late supper. The girls stayed home and played video games on the TV downstairs while I ran to WalMart. We are having a farewell luncheon after church on Sunday. I decided to make banana pudding and baked mac&cheese plus we needed a few other things. I made the pudding when I got home and it tastes really good so I'm happy with that. At the same time, it does mess up several bowls so I had to do a late night sink full of dishes. Trust me when I say I don't function well at all after 9pm!! I'll have to really re-check all those bowls before I put them away! I'll make the mac&cheese in the morning before we go.

The girls devotion today was "Getting clean" referencing Revelation 21:10, 22-27 and talked about salvation. My devotion was "undaunted radiance" referencing Romans 8:37. It talked about things that can get in the way between you and God.

Day Thirty Four comes to a close. Tomorrow is another Sunday but Dr. Yoho will be speaking at all three services so I don't have to be prepared to lead the Sunday School class - here's looking forward to Day Thirty Five!

Day Thirty Three - March 5, 2010

2010-03-06T05:05:00.001-08:00

The girls were really happy it was Friday this morning - I think the weekend of travel and our normal schedule caught up with them! But they still did good getting up and going this morning. Even the bus driver was ready for the week to be over, she showed up early and honked the horn out front to get the youngest daughter!

The weather was beautiful all day - perfectly clear skies, mid 40's or so and just nice. I was able to walk around the yard and pick up some debris that had flown into the yard the past few days and checked out the gutters a little closer. We might get to test them out early next week! So much for the theory that my house's lack of gutters caused all the rain in the area the past year!

I spent the morning getting boxes ready to ship to my wife who was still on an airplane heading toward her destination. She left Thursday evening and I imagine they would be flying all day Friday. The lady at the post office was very nice and she gave me a stack of the custom's forms that have to be put on each package. I figure after the first week or so, I'll mail one package a week. Right now the packages serve two purposes - the plastic shoe box so my wife can safely store her stuff (I'll send a total of 10 for now) and then the stuff inside so she has some reserve. The postal clerk did give me a sermon on why we cannot send pork products overseas - that is not really a concern for us, I hadn't planned on sending any over there but it would eliminate potted ham and vienna sausages - my wife doesn't care much for those anyway so I've been sending tuna packages (in water).

I took the dog with me this morning and of course when I got back to the car I got the "you've been gone for years and I've missed you so badly" interrogation my dog gives! I was running low on caffeine so a quick stop at 7Eleven where the lady gave me a dog treat for the dog (casey was in the front window watching my every move) and we drove over to the church. They had bought a new gas grill with side burners the few days I was gone - I don't remember volunteering to put it together but they said I did, so I spent an hour putting it together. They picked it up at WalMart and I will give them credit - it is very nice.

Lunch was another meat loaf sandwich - while it was good, I'm a little tired of meat loaf now! The pastor from our church in Maryland sent an e-mail saying he had received the photos I sent him - I mailed them 150 photos of my wife with her address on the back. They have been such a good church and a loving bunch of people. Will be nice to see them when we go up on the 20th!

The youngest daughter got home as normal and said she was "flat out tired"! She had a small snack of grapes and a cheese stick then went up to her room to put her school stuff away. She was laying on her floor watching TV and petting the dog when I came by - about five minutes later she was passed out on the floor and the dog was asleep in her bed! Something wrong about that picture! But I left them alone, covered her up and let her take a nap - I did make the dog get off the bed, she knows she's not allowed on the furniture - she just went down to the front door and slept in the sunny spot. The oldest daughter had to stay after school to make up a test she missed Monday so we had a little time to spare.

Around 4ish I got the youngest daughter up and ready, we headed over to the high school and once the oldest daughter was done with her test, we drove over to the church. We had a nice turn out for the teen group. Food was good enough - they cooked mild italian sausage, sundried tomatoes and pasta. I didn't figure the little one would like it and she didn't - I told her we'd feed her something a little later. The lesson was well received - it was an overview on Joseph from the Old Testament and Trust. I'm going to spend the next few weeks on the subject.

The girls devotion was "Not just a game" referencing Acts 16:16-19 - it talked about comfort of your future - it went well with what I had talked about in church earlier and how we needed to trust God. My devotion was "Is he really Lord" referencing Acts 20:24. I talked about the joy in hearing "well done, good and faithful servant."

Day Thirty Three was the first time we hadn't heard from my wife but I trust she was safe. I know it had to be a long, long flight for her - it was a long, long day for us! Here's looking forward to Day Thirty Four.

Day Thirty Two - March 4, 2010

2010-03-04T17:37:00.001-08:00

Today was a beautiful day and very productive for each of us. Today was also the one day we had been dreading for several months now. So much good but one great pain - which weighs more heavily on a heart?

The morning started out with the little one taking a shower. It was picture day at school and we had to tame the hair. She is letting it grow out so she can donate it to Locks of Love - she has done that twice in her life and enjoys doing so. They are a group that takes at least 12 inches of hair from donors like my daughter and wife, then weave the hair into wigs for those with cancer or other diseases that causes the person to lose their hair. It is such a pleasure to see such a loving heart and spirit in someone so little as our daughter. Still, we are going to have to visit the hair cut store soon to trim it up some - same with the oldest daughter; her hair doesn't grow long, it just gets really full and thick.

So, we tamed the hair and found the right outfit. Even though it was very pretty outside, it was still chilly so we debated on whether to wear a dress or jeans and a sweater. We went with the jeans and sweater. The primary purpose of today's photo was a class picture and the secondary was individual photos. The school had their photos done in September so this will be the second time around for the little one this year.

She had Cheerio's for breakfast - I've never seen anyone take so long to eat a bowl of cereal as she does! After that, she finished up her room and was ready to leave for school. While all this was going on, the oldest daughter was up and about, getting ready. I had gotten her a new shirt yesterday and she was going to wear it to school today but had to find the right jeans to wear also. I figured any old pair of jeans would go with a t-shirt but I guess I was wrong - had to be the perfect pair!

Once the girls were gone, I concentrated on my sermon topic for tomorrow night. I'm quite happy with what I came up with - tomorrow I'm going to do an overview of Joseph from the Old Testament and the five separate acts of his life. I'll spread the five acts out over the next month or so, taking a break for Palm Sunday and Easter - I have those presentations already completed. The basis of my topic is going to be Trust. I also prepared the PowerPoint slides for it as well.

I did have a couple of chances to talk with my wife today. They were all packed up and getting ready to board the airplane. They cleaned the barracks and did all their mustering and stuff. She sounded well and was ready to get the whole event started and over with. Same here.

The gutter guys came and installed the new gutters. They did an excellent job matching the gutter to the paint on the facia board - if you didn't know any better, you would have thought the gutters had been there the whole time.

I also talked with the guy who is going to work in my garage. He'll be here either Monday or Tuesday so I'll have to get the supplies this weekend and move the garage around. I'll be glad to get this project done.

I ordered the roman shade for the bathroom today as well. It took two additional phone calls from the company but the order is being processed and built. How hard is it to make a 46.5" x 46.0" roman shade in chocolate fabric with a white blackout liner on the back, inside mount and left side draw string? I'll let you know once it arrives. It appears the installation is pretty easy - the rep asked me if I could physically pick up a screwdriver; when I answered "yes" he said then I could install it. I never had a doubt I could get it in there though!

I was going to cook short ribs for supper but after talking with my wife, I'm going to wait until Saturday when they can be in the crock pot for 8 hours. Her logic made sense so I cooked minute steak and stewed them in diced tomatoes in the crock pot for a few hours. We had fried potatoes, corn and a roll with it also.

I finally got the summer camp thing all figured out, paid for and in the mail today. If there is a more confusing form or catalog, then I don't want to see it!

I printed my topic and slides for tomorrow, put them in my brief case and took the little one to dance/singing class. She really enjoys the class and I'm finding the obnoxious parents must be reading my blog because they aren't coming around anymore. Still one or two adults there still living vicariously through their kids - hoping all their fantasies are realized by their children. I've never understood that in a parent - I want my children to be abundantly happy and successful beyond all belief, but I want them to do so at something they want to do, not something I wish I had done. The hallway was quiet at Hurrah Players tonight and I was able to review and edit my presentation so it was productive. They really worked the kids hard tonight and my little one was tired when she finished. As a reward, we stopped at Sonic on the way home for three milk shakes!

I did have one final chance to talk with my wife this evening while I was sitting at Hurrah. She also talked with the girls and that was nice. She might give me one more call when the plane stops for refueling in middle America but we'll see. Once she gets over the Atlantic Ocean, she'll remove the battery from her cell phone, store it in a plastic bag and we'll use Skype or calling cards to talk. I doubt we'll be able to talk with her much at all while she's gone though.

The tax preparer left me a message while I was gone this evening and my amended return is ready to be picked up - I'll pick that up tomorrow and mail it in; Uncle Sam won't be too happy when he sees it though!

The girls devotions tonight were "Like Desert Plants (Part I)" referencing Psalm 37:30-31 and "Part II" referencing Isaiah 55:8-11. It talked about problems feeling like rain, falling all around you and our response to it. My devotions were "The unrelieved quest" referencing John 21:17 and "Could this be true of me" referencing Acts 20:24. We are all caught up now and I hope I remember our books the next trip we take!!

One final piece of good news - my desktop computer had caught a virus and shut itself down. A young man at church said he could fix it - while I was skeptical, I gave him a chance and he just called saying he was able to get it to work which is great news! When I get it back, I'll get everything off of there and stored on an external site. I've been backing up the laptop daily on Mozy.com so I'll probably do the same with it.

Day Thirty Two is over with and in the books. Here's looking forward to Day Thirty Three!!!

Day Thirty One - March 3, 2010

2010-03-03T18:13:00.001-08:00

We woke up to snow on the ground and slush on the roads this morning plus we had those giant, puffy snowflakes falling from the sky. As I walked out to rescue the newspaper, our ditches were full of water, the concrete was slippery and slushy and the snowflakes were really, really wet - almost like someone throwing a small slush ball at you! I thought for sure the girls would get to sleep in a little bit or school would be cancelled but that didn't happen. I opened the garage door and we stood in there waiting on the bus to show up - I had to shovel a path through the slush so the little one could safely make it to the bus. The bus driver blamed us for bringing the weather back with us from Seattle!!

I wound up running a couple of errands this morning since I won't be able to go anywhere Thursday due to the gutter guys coming. I stopped by the post office to drop off box number two and some letters - we still send birthday cards to the folks back at Central and stay in touch. We have two office supply stores relatively close by and neither one has everything you need. I picked up a new projector so I don't have to lug around the big 42" tv when I speak at church plus the oldest daughter has been using a dining room chair at her desk since her desk chair broke so I got her a really nice chair. Most of the cards I have for stationary have something written in them or are sympathy or birthday cards, so I stopped by Lifeway and picked up some blank cards so I could write to my wife and drop those in the mail. I'm going to encourage the girls to write often as well and keep their mom posted on what is going on - not only will it be good for all of them and keep her in the loop, it will enhance their letter writing skills. Our oldest daughter is such a creative writer but she struggles so much when we have her write a thank you or birthday card to someone.

The afternoon was quiet until the youngest one got home. I put the new chair together for the oldest daughter and swapped it out with the dining room chair. The other good thing about her new chair is she won't be able to lean back on one or two legs - it was just a matter of time before she broke that dining room chair even though it is relatively heavy duty.

Of course it was raining when the little one got home and an even bigger "duh" is she came sprinting off the bus with her jacket unzipped and no hood on. I can't wait for 20 years from now when she is fussing at her kids to zip up their jacket, wear their hats and wonder where all the gloves went - I can sit back and say "I remember when you didn't do any of that stuff, why should your children do it?" I'm sure she'll tell everyone she was an angel and deny all of it. Just in case, I'd better take photos!! We've been telling the oldest daughter for years now that when she gets an apartment or house, we're going to come over and drink red KoolAid on her furniture, not use a napkin and wipe our hands on the furniture, jump and bounce on the floors and furniture, leave our shoes in the middle of the floor and never, ever, ever replace an empty toilet paper roll - we'll just go to another bathroom instead of all that labor involved with swapping out a new roll.

We had what is fast becoming our favorite dinner tonight - meat loaf!! I will admit that it doesn't get much easier than this recipe and it is quite good. I get really good ground chuck from the meat store, add one egg, 1/2 cup milk, 1 cup bread crumbs and 2 tablespoons of spices from a bag the butcher sells, slather some ketchup across the top, bake at 350 for one hour, add some mashed potatoes and peas, put out a roll, fill three glasses of water and there you have supper! We have a few rules we must observe in the house - with mashed potatoes you have to have either peas or corn but you cannot have steamed peas, they must be from a can. Also, the corn has to be whole kernel, do not dare put cream corn out. A regular slice of bread from a loaf will not work either - you have to buy either potato rolls or those hawaiian breads. See, isn't meal time so much fun!! The good thing is I'll have meat loaf sandwich for lunch tomorrow!

Church service this evening was good and everyone was in a nice mood. We don't seem to have much in the way of gossip or poo-stirrers in this church and it is so nice. We are going through the ABC's of Christian Growth on Wednesday nights and it is such a nice compliment to the Sunday School class I teach. We've loaded the course on my wife's computer and I'll start sending her the lesson answers so she can keep up on both of them. The writer of the course I'm using on Sunday mornings is quite the hoot - he sends some very funny e-mails almost daily - he stays closely connected to our church and really likes us. We met him our first Sunday when we visited this church and we've e-mailed since.

We had a chance to talk with my wife tonight. She was doing some of her final phone calls before she leaves, talking with her sister, her mom and dad. She sounded good and is staying positive. I'm sure she must be nervous but I'm not hearing it in her voice. She just wants to get this started and over with. I'll probably have the chance to talk with her tomorrow during the day and that will be it for awhile. We all just want this over with. The good news is the first month flew by - we have March madness staring in a week or so and that time always seems to fly by, then baseball season starts in April. Even though they play 162 games, the season flies by as well - she'll be home just as the regular season ends and the Reds have finished a couple of games below .500 again!

The devotions tonight were good. The girls did "Family Members" referencing Galatians 4:1-7 and "The Picture Puzzle" referencing Romans 12:3-8. They should be caught back up after tomorrow night and will be able to return to one per night. My book has a February 29th in it, so I did three tonight - the first was "What do you want the Lord to do for you?" referencing Luke 18:41. The second was "The undeviating question" referencing John 21:17. Finally I read "Have you felt the hurt of the Lord?" once again referencing John 21:17.

As Day Thirty One comes to a close, it is still raining outside. It must be low tide because our ditches are less than half full. Tomorrow is a full day and one when my concern for my wife's safety will start to kick in overdrive - still, I'm looking forward to Day Thirty Two; without it, there cannot be a Day Two Hundred and Forty Six.

Day Thirty - March 2, 2010

2010-03-02T18:24:00.000-08:00

A good night's sleep made the start to the day feel so much better! I did talk with my wife last night for a few minutes and she had a good day. She has a busy week ahead of her though.

Today was a good day around here and all went well. We fell right back into our routine and everyone did well. The youngest daughter got up in a good mood and was ready to go back to school. We got her dressed and she made waffles for breakfast with a glass of milk. The teenager was a little tougher to get moving but that is normal. She had three tests today so that didn't help any!

Once the girls were out the door and on the bus, I started on my list for the day. The gutters will be installed Thursday afternoon which is good - it would have been Wednesday but we are preparing for another nor'easter storm. I left a message for the guy who is going to be working in my garage - I hope to get him in here Monday or Tuesday. I talked with the lady at the Girl Scout Council about camp for the youngest daughter - she will be going to the 10 week program they have around the corner - it sounds pretty neat and should be a good time. I talked with the tax preparer about our return and will meet with her Thursday afternoon to take care of the amendment. Made a meal plan for the rest of the week as well as a grocery list and checked coupons.

You know a deployment has officially started when you start going to the post office to mail things overseas. My wife won't be to her ultimate position until mid month but it takes at least two weeks for mail to get from here to there. This morning I mailed her some twin sheets for the bed and a pillow case - I can think of nothing more torturous than military sheets; they scratch you to pieces! I picked these sheets up last week and started washing them daily so they were pretty soft when I put them in the mail - to add a touch of home I stuck a dryer sheet in them as well so they would smell decent by the time they arrive. I have a little experience mailing things overseas but I have much more experience knowing how much I enjoyed receiving stuff in the mail - my goal is to send plenty of care packages to her and I will absolutely send a letter per day. She might not receive them every day, but there will be one day when she might receive 5 or 10, so it all evens out. The important things about letters and boxes, besides the address, is to number them!! I remember one deployment when a guy who worked for me received a letter that said "your Uncle Dave is a little better - we were really worried!" He was frantic thinking his Uncle was really sick - the letters arrived out of sequence and all Uncle Dave had was a headache and some swelling when he got hit in the head by baseball at a little league game!

After I went to the post office, I drove over to the gutter installer's office to sign some paperwork. In Virginia you can buy a vanity plate for an additional $10.00 - some folks really need to think about what they put on these vanity plates and if the $10.00 is really worth all the funny looks they get!! I got behind this guy on I-64 and his car was a smoking and chugging, belching out all kinds of smoke and it looked like it was on its last leg. As I passed him, I noticed his vanity plate said POODOG. Now, I don't know how or why he was or is PooDog but trust me, it didn't fit him! He was 75 or 80 years old, could barely see over the steering wheel, had a toupee on that had slid a little off his head and he had the obligatory old guy tweed jacket on. In the passenger seat was what I suppose was his wife and she was flapping her gums at him about something - I doubt PooDog had his hearing aid on, he was just a smiling and driving that car like it was the Queen Elizabeth on the high seas! After I passed him, I watched as PooDog cut off the next car that tried to pass him - nobody messes with the PooDog!!

I find that I rather enjoy going to the meat market. We have a wonderful butcher shop close by and they have some excellent meat. On the side of the building, the market has a small farm with sheep, goats and a few chickens - after you park the car you can mess with the animals and tell them you're going to go inside to take their uncle home with you - doesn't do any good, animals don't much care about our humor plus they just have the pigeons poop on your car while your inside if you mess with them too much! Once inside, I find I enjoy browsing and just wondering what do people do with some of that stuff like pig's feet, chitlins, back fat and all that. Of course, some people probably wonder why I go in there and order a bologna sandwich so I guess we're even!!! Actually there is a good story why I order a sandwich from the lady at the deli counter - my mother-in-law is a terrific meat cutter in her town and nothing annoys her more than someone to ask her to make a sandwich at the meat counter!! I fully support her by annoying other meat cutters around the world by ordering a thick slice of bologna on white bread with mayo, tomato and thin sliced onion. While that is the story part, the truth is I'm a bologna junkie and I've been doing this long before I met my wife and her mother - we used to walk over to the Little Giant close to St. Joe at lunch and get fresh sandwiches from their meat counter as well. I got the same annoyed look from the meat cutter then as I do now. And no, I've never asked my mother-in-law to make me a sandwich but I'm sure she would without a second thought!

Back to the meat market - I purchased our meat for the rest of the week and took advantage of a sale they were having on ground chuck - got a few extra pounds for the freezer.

When the youngest daughter got home from school, we went to Wal Mart to take care of the rest of our list and load up on stuff to mail to my wife. I know how she is and she refused to eat an MRE so I'll do what I can. Things like those individual peanut butter containers, tuna in a bag, dehydrated banana's and strawberries for cereal and other items to round out her diet. For the first couple of weeks, when I mail something I'll put it in a plastic shoe box container - the critters and bugs in the desert are quite nasty and love to get into food - if you remove their ability to eat, they'll go away and find some other room to hang out in instead of yours.

The nor'easter started just before supper. But it didn't stop us from eating good - we had macaroni & cheese, pork cutlets, green beans and bread. Everyone cleaned their plates so it must have been good!

Tuesday night is the Pastor's Roundtable at church where the men of the church come together to talk, fellowship and pray. As we went in, it was raining - as we came out, about a 1/4 inch of snow/sleet/slush was on the sidewalks and grass - right now the roads are covered with snow and our sidewalk at home was hard to walk on. I did shovel it to lessen the amount of mess on it in the morning (I hope). We are hosting a missionary and his wife at church starting March 13th through March 19th. They will be staying at our home instead of a hotel and we discussed the other folks of the church taking them out to eat supper in the evenings. All-in-all, the meeting is very good and a nice way for the men to get together during the week outside of a church service.

The girls devotion tonight was "Come" referencing John 6:32-40 and "It hurts" referencing 2 Corinthians 1:3-5. The second one was good because the little girl in the story had only one parent in the house so we had a chance to talk about how best to handle the situation - gave me a good chance to see what the girls needed from someone else as well. My devotions were "The impoverished ministry of Jesus" referencing John 4:11 and "do ye now believe" referencing John 16:30-31.

Day Thirty comes to a close for us - my wife will call around 1am my time once she is finished with her exercise - at least we have the chance to still talk so I'll take what I can! While it doesn't appear the weather will allow the girls to go to school tomorrow, I'm still looking forward to Day Thirty-One!

Day Twenty Nine - March 1, 2010

2010-03-02T05:21:00.001-08:00

March started out with us on an airplane bound for Cincinnati to connect later to Norfolk. Sunday was a very, very long day but I don't think any of us would have traded the weekend for anything.

All four of our flights were good and each flight took off on time and we landed earlier than scheduled each time!! In fact, we were out of the airport and driving home in our car when the flight was originally scheduled to land. And it was a good thing too - I was a zombie driving home!! Over the weekend, I could relax a little and my wife kept a very close eye on the girls - now that I am back to the single parent again, my senses were on high alert the entire time and I couldn't relax or sleep the entire evening or flight keeping an eye on both girls. Before we originally left Thursday evening, I was very careful to note the parking location of our car on my cellphone - even though I didn't need it, I felt better knowing I had planned ahead. The expedition also has an electronic code to unlock the doors and I stashed the spare set of keys inside just in case a bag disappeared on the flight or I couldn't find my keys.

I did have time to call my mom on the way home from the airport - I don't know how good the conversation was on my part but no matter how old you are, you still have to call your mom when you get off an airplane!

We had skipped breakfast in the airport earlier and each of us just had a bottle of chocolate milk - no one was really hungry and it worked out well as we wanted to get back on an "east coast" schedule for things. By the time 11:30 rolled around here, we were starting to get hungry for lunch. On the way home we drove through Taco Bell (girls request) and went home.

When we arrive home from an extended trip, I'm always careful to go through the rooms first - no exception this time. I am careful to close all the doors to each room in the house as we are leaving and as I'm checking the house upon return I open each door and then look over the house. All was well. I had forgotten to call the newspaper and stop delivery for the weekend so we had a few papers out front that announced we weren't home but all looked okay. I do feel safe as our house is alarmed and the company does a wonderful job.

I do have a "Fred Factor" moment to report - Thursday as I was preparing to leave, I put the VW in the garage and was loading up our luggage in the car when the mailman went by. We always say hi and wave but not much more than that. When I came home Monday, our mailbox was empty - I thought it was a little odd because we always get some mail daily, even if it is just junk mail. About 15 minutes after we got home, the mailman pulled up and got out of his car - he walked up to me and told me he had left the mail Friday but on Saturday he noticed we hadn't picked it up, that he remembered seeing me put the VW in the garage and our Expedition was gone so he just held all of our mail over the weekend! I thought that was wonderful and so nice of him! If you've ever read the Fred Factor by Mark Sanborn you know more about the story - but that was customer service above and beyond the call of duty!

After lunch and unloading the car, the girls started taking showers to get the airport off of them - I went to the kennel to rescue the dog. She was very happy to see me, at least I think it was happy! The drive home from the kennel is about 2/10ths of a mile but she was in the front seat and had her two front paws on the console of the car and she "arrf'd" at me all the way home - I don't know if she was telling me she missed me, if she was pissed that I left her at the kennel or what she was telling me, but whatever it was she didn't want petted or touched until she got done having her say!

Even though we had a wonderful weekend, life still continues when you get home. I decided the best way to handle all I had to do was by taking a nap! The little one wasn't tired so we agreed she could play video games while I took a 90 minute nap. The teenager didn't have any problem - she climbed in her bed and was out before I came back upstairs!

90 minutes later I was refreshed and felt much better. The first of the month has a few things I take care of - changed out the shower curtains, changed the filters in the house, threw away and put new toothbrushes out for everyone, and gave the dog her monthly flea, tick and heartworm treatments. I also washed, dried, folded and put away four loads of laundry from the weekend, got the luggage put away, checked homework, prepared everyone for school Tuesday, went through the mail, read parts of four days worth of newspapers, balanced the checkbook and paid bills!

We called and talked with the in-laws for a little bit in the evening and gave them an update on their daughter.

The girls had to get caught up on their devotions - we had left the books they work in at home but they did two of them and will do two each of the next two nights as well. Same for me! The girls devotions were "Disappointment Part I" referencing Isaiah 46:9-11 and "Disappointment Part II" referencing Psalm 135:1-7. My devotions were "The destitution of service" referencing 2 Corinthians 12:15 and "Inferior misgivings about Jesus" referencing John 4:11. After devotions, we talked about a church group from Kansas that is in the area "protesting" different things - I just wanted to make sure the girls knew about them, what they were really about and how to deal with them if they showed up at their schools. While this group claims to be using the Bible, their hatred, anger, fear and downright mean attitudes are really fertile fields for evil instead of good. I think the girls have a better understanding of them and we agreed they need our prayers.

We all were pretty tired as day twenty nine comes to an end; here's looking forward to day thirty!

Day Twenty Eight - February 28, 2010

2010-03-01T12:37:00.001-08:00

We remain in Seattle as day Twenty Eight begins. Hard to imagine February is coming to an end but at the same time that is a good feeling - start clicking those months away!

Today was low key and had a cloud hanging over our heads as well - we knew that later in the day would be the time to once again say good-bye; the first one went well, I wasn't so sure about this one. Outside, the weather was very nice especially for Seattle.

The morning was spent in the hotel room, packing up and watching a little TV - just relaxing and hanging around. Once we checked out of the room, we stopped by Target so my wife could pick up a few things. From there we drove down I-5 and visited Olympia - a very pretty town. It was nothing like we imagined it would be like especially since it is the capital of Washington. The capital building is pretty but understated. The area around the capital was clean, neat and full of people enjoying the sunshine. The marina was full of boats and it seemed like a very quaint town.

My wife spent part of the afternoon making those dreaded last phone calls - to our friends in Rockville and to her parents. Communication will be poor at best as we go forth from here - we've known for awhile that I will be the point person in forwarding information to others; she just reinforced that during these phone calls. The drive back to the base was good and we tried not to let the impending good bye creep into the car but it was hanging there. On day one when I took her to the airport, it was more of a jump out of bed, drive to the airport and gone type of thing - this one took its time.

The base has a gorgeous view of Mt Rainier and the snow covered mountain dominated the view from all angles. There was a couple of times that it was all you could see - even from several miles away it was huge.

Some good-byes are more painful than others and this one was a bad one - we all knew exactly what one month felt like, now we have seven more staring us in the face. Even with the painful departure, I wouldn't have traded the weekend for anything I can think of.

After saying good bye, my wife returned to her barracks and started packing her issued gear plus she had to return to the armory to get her weapons. The next couple of days will be a drill/exercise to culminate the training process she has been through. I promised I wouldn't fuss about the military in this blog but the entire process of this month's training makes zero sense and really needs to be looked at for future training evolutions - this is the first navy team to go through this particular training and they have a lot to work on.

Our drive back to the airport was quiet. I returned the rental car and we started the long process of returning home. Our timing was good and the TSA lines were short so we didn't have any issue with them. We did take the tram from the main terminal to our departure gate. SeaTac airport is pretty big but it is nice, full of good food choices and several things to do. We had a good supper, found our gate and settled in until time for our flight a few hours later.

Being in close proximity to the 2010 Winter Olympics, the airport had well over 20 people in USA and Canada hockey jersey's going home after Canada's overtime victory - I was able to watch the highlights on CNN and each time they showed them, the Canadian fans started cheering. Nearly all of them were flying on an earlier flight to Atlanta.

During our few hours there, it would have been fun to watch the events of the airport in some sort of stop motion camera - people come in waves, then go in waves; flights arrive, flights depart; a constant symphony of motion and movement.

As Day Twenty Eight and the month of February came to an end, we sat in SeaTac airport, gate S8 waiting for our departure - the little one passed out on two chairs next to me, the oldest daughter reading her book and playing video games in the chair across from us - all three of us feeling quite certain that Day Twenty Nine was going to be a long one.

Day Twenty Seven - February 27, 2010

2010-02-27T16:48:00.000-08:00

We are getting a little more used to pacific time - of course going to bed early and sleeping for 9 hours doesn't hurt either! We had a very pleasant morning and everyone was in good spirits. We had breakfast in the restaurant downstairs then drove to downtown Seattle!

The drive over was very nice - I was able to see a cloud free sky and from what I understand that is a rare sight here! We went to downtown Seattle and parked close to the Pike Street Public Market. This is the one made famous by the Pike Street Fish Company - you might have seen them if you've watched leadership videos or read their book FISH! or FISH STICKS! They made a fortune by talking how they made their fish stand the best in the market by working together as a team and having a good time. They toss fish and make a lot of noise as they are doing it. Personally, I wasn't all that impressed - they just appeared to be playing to the crowd gathered.

The Public Market was teeming with life and is a very cool place. They had a lot of fish markets (five that I counted), a bunch of flower stands, several vegetable & fruit markets and a whole bunch of vendors. It was crowded and we had a good time, got plenty of photos and had a fabulous lunch. We were able to cross the street and watch them make cheese, saw the original Starbucks then took a monorail to the Space Needle. For our family in San Antonio, the Hemisphere tower is much nicer but the views from the Space Needle are gorgeous! You can see the snow capped mountains, the bay, the river as well as the city. It was a very pretty view and I got plenty of photos. Yes, the skies clouded up and it rained most of our time there!

Close to the Space Needle, we visited the Science Fiction Museum. They had a bunch of neat displays, some costumes from movies as well as props. We had a good time there. Attached to it was a Music Museum - we didn't spend much time there. Of course, it continued to rain!

The hardest decision of the afternoon was where to eat - they just have so many good places to eat. The girls got mac & cheese and cheese curds from the place that made fresh cheese. I went to a russian stand that make beef & cheese piroshky's. They also made a great apple and cinnamon roll. A piroshky is like a really big buttery croissant stuffed with beef, cheese, onion and some spices then baked.

I was surprised about the homeless population in Seattle - every street corner had someone asking for money. Seattle must be aware of this population because they've created a newspaper the people can sell for a dollar.

The rest of the afternoon was spent with the trip back to the hotel, a quick nap for the girls and then we went back out for the evening. The area we stayed in near the airport was quite congested - the mall area was quite packed out. We spent about an hour searching for a mexican restaurant - since it was her last evening to choose, that was my wife's craving!

After driving around for an hour, we wound up at a restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel! It wasn't bad but wouldn't crack my top 300 restaurant list.

The girls went to the pool and spent some time while I got the clothes packed up. Tomorrow will be a quick day at the hotel then a long day elsewhere so our organization skills will be challenged especially if we are going to make it to church tomorrow morning - we found a small church close by that has service at 11am.

Day Twenty Seven comes to close as I hear the Seattle rain on the side of the building. I'm not really looking forward to Day Twenty Eight but we have to go through one more good bye before we can begin preparing for hello.

Day Twenty Six - February 26, 2010

2010-02-27T16:27:00.000-08:00

I didn't sleep very long - we arrived minutes before midnight and were in bed by 1:15 pacific time - my body was still on eastern time and I was wide awake, but not very refreshed at 3 am pacific time!! I had to force myself to go back to sleep for a little while longer finally getting up at 5:30 am.

After a quick shower, I startd puting away clothes and getting things organized. We just dropped all the bags, changed quickly into our pjs and that was it for day 25! The girls slept together in one of the beds and I was able to put away both bags and organize the room without bothering them!

Shortly after 6:30, I woke the oldest daughter and had her shower and get ready. Instead of actually waking the little one, I just flipped on the TV and let it wake her up!

It wasn't much after that when I heard from my wife. Instead of having to wait until 4pm as we originally thought, she would be getting off around 8:30 am or so which was nice. That helped get both girls going and we were out the door a few minutes after 7.

When you get a rental car after dark and are totally tired, you don't always remember important facts the next morning like "which car is mine?" I got to the point in the parking lot where I thought I had parked it and hit the emergency button on the key FOB - we had a grey Chevy!!

As we got outside the hotel, we were greeted with that famous Seattle rain! It was in the mid 40s but the rain was cold! We had a 45 minute drive south on I5 to the army base - on the way we stopped for breakfast at Jack-in-the-Box!! Had been about 15 years since I had eaten at Jack's place - it was pretty good. The girls didn't enjoy the milk - it was that fake california stuff where they take a little bit of milk, some milk fat and water, swirl it together to make something that looks close to milk but not really!

We drove through Tacoma and then continued to Ft. Lewis arriving a little after 8:15. My wife was in the process of finishing her muster and team meeting so our timing was pretty good. We were able to pick her up and get off the base by 9am!!

One thing about my wife, she's not a big fan of the military food so she's lost some weight. I think it was her main mission this weekend to pack on a few extra pounds! She has a complete adversion to MRE's - I never had an issue with them but she refuses to eat them. No matter, everyone was happy to see her.

We came back to the hotel and all three girls went swimming. The hotel we are staying in is okay. We're close enough to Seattle it will be a short trip and far enough away from the military base my wife won't have to worry about that for the weekend! The girls had the pool to themselves in the morning - I sat on the side and read the paper - was nice not having to have all my senses on full alert for a little while!

Our internal clocks are totally messed up so we were starving around noon pacific time plus we were a little groggy! We drove over to the local mall which was quite nice and had lunch at Rainforest Cafe. The food was good but you still pay for the atmosphere there just as much as you do the food. We walked around the mall for a few minutes then headed back to the hotel for a nap! That nap felt wonderful!!

Of course it was raining so we headed over to the same mall - it appears the indoor mall is of major importance here because it was packed! We had a nice supper and walked around a little bit. After that we came back and we just took it easy in the hotel!

Day twenty six comes to a close, here's looking forward to day twenty seven!!

Day Twenty Five - February 25, 2010

2010-02-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

As far as long days goes, this one was very long! The day started off exactly the same as all the other weekdays so far. Life was uneventful through breakfast, getting on the bus and starting the day. Once the youngest daugter was on the bus, I ran over to the church. I was going to move a set of steps from behind the modular building to the back of the pastor's new home so the bank inspectors could access the house - the guys installing their house will build a deck out back later and add steps for the front as well but for now the only way to get in was a ladder. The steps to the modular were attached with two long bolts so I changed the plan and moved a picnic table to the back entrance. Once I fortified it with bricks and made sure the steps were okay so the pastor's wife could get in there "lady like" with a skirt on, I figured things were good enough. Actually the picnic talbe worked out quite well. I came back home and the oldest daughter was about to leave, so I started getting things into the car so we would be prepared for our flight out later in the evening.

For as dumb as our dog is, she seems to know when something major is going on! All morning long she was up and down the stairs. Around 11ish, I lifted the garage door and put the VW in the garage causing the dog to go absolutely wild! So, I figured no better time than then to take her to the kennel. Dropped her off, ran by the bank, filled the Expedition up with gas, put the last of the bags in the car, folded and put away the last of the laundry then waited for the little one to get home.

As she got off the bus, I put the alarm on the house and we drove over to the high school to pick the oldest daughter up early. Our area had a slight threat of snow but the weather held off. Traffic from the high school to the airport was light and we timed it very well. Once at the airport, I found a great parking spot and we went in.

I just love the airline's newest money making proposition - charging for each bag. One bag I had weighed 5 pounds over their limit so the lady was going to charge me an additional $150.00!!! I pulled the bag back, moved somethings from that bag to the second bag and then both of them were well under. I'm pretty sure the airlines didn't reduce each person's ticket cost by $25, so they are making out pretty well on the bag situation. Actually what is really happening is more people are just not checking their bags, they are dragging them onto the airplane and trying to cram them into the overhead bins!

We had supper in the terminal then went through the TSA security checkpoint with no problem. Our departure gate was close by and we had time to sit and relax a little before departing. The little one is not a big fan of "things she has too much time to think about" so I worked hard to keep her from worrying about the flight. We watched a couple of airplanes taxi out, one taxi in and she was okay. Well, until we were airborne!! Once she closed her window I knew we had a problem. A little bit of talking and then we were able to open the window again - she was able to slowly accept where we were at. Then the pilot announced "We are now at 34,000 feet and will be here for the duration." That caused some minor concern but she did well.

We arrived at Atlanta early and it was a good thing!!! We were at Terminal A and had to go to Terminal T!!! Hartsfield is a very nice airport but we had a long walk from A to T! The trains they have were filled to the brim and I doubt another person could have gotten in there. They do have moving sidewalks so that was nice. Still, we were all happy to make it to Terminal T!

Our flight from Atlanta to Seattle was just under 5 hours long. The plane left about 10 minutes late but the pilot was able to make up for it. I had tried to keep my wife informed of the details via text messages all day long, but I would learn later she had a really, really, really long day in the field and knew nothing of what we were doing until much later in the evening. The flight to Seattle was drama free - the little one slept a good portion of the way wedged between the oldest daughter and myself. The flight did have television and movies on a tv in the back of the headrest so that was nice. They also had a flight information channel that showed the track of the aircraft, altitude, speed and other stuff like that. The coolest thing was the track of the aircraft - you knew where you were all the time.

We arrived in Seattle a few minutes before midnight pacific time - to our bodies it was 3 am so I was pretty close to 24 hours of awake time! Of course the "24 hour car rental" wasn't really 24 hours inside the airport - we had to go over into the garage, down some stairs and find the rental counter. Fortunately the hotel we reserved was less than half a mile away - when I walked into the hotel I told the young lady there "we have been awake almost 24 hours now, please make this drama free - any questions you need answered can wait until tomorrow." She was very understanding and I think she wanted to get back to her tv show as well - I parked the car and we were asleep in less than 30 minutes at 1:15 PST!! Very long day!!

Day Twenty Five comes to a close early on Day Twenty Six - here's looking forward to that 26th day!

Day Twenty Four - February 24, 2010

2010-02-24T18:04:00.000-08:00

As far as days go,today was quite busy! Once again our routine saved us during the morning and everyone is reacting consistently with that. In all honesty, our entire day is going pretty smooth and I think discipline and sticking with a consistent plan is so important. The girls are reacting favorably to how we are handling things so far.

We did make a minor change to the teenager's routine this morning - I had her lay out her clothes for this weekend so I could go through it and check what she had and didn't have for the trip. We normally forget one or two things with her each time and I'd like to eliminate that issue this time. If possible I hope to get all of our stuff in one large rolling duffle bag and then we can get the rest into small carry ons - things like video games, a book or two and laptops.

I also had to remember to send notes to school about pulling the girls out of school - did that. I will still need to call the attendance line at the elementary school or that lady will get upset again! I also had to write a check to the high school for the teenager's lunches.

The rain started quite early this morning. We are supposed to have rain all day with it turning to snow just after midnight. Their thought of snow is much different than the north - here an inch causes complete gridlock - anywhere else they would just drive right through it. I pray it doesn't cause the flight to be delayed or cancelled. We are flying through Atlanta and they had some groundstops today due to the weather but the forecast for tomorrow is better.

Only one load of laundry today. I filled in the extra time by searching for DVD's to take to my wife so she'll have something to watch when they don't have Internet access. We do have netFlix so she can log on there and watch instant movies or TV when they have web access. But being in a war zone, I doubt she'll have a lot of Internet access.

I did get an e-mail from the president of the board of the nonprofit and they decided to go with the other candidate. After talking with her, I had to agree I would have done the same - very hard to compete under those circumstances. The lady did say she had some contacts that were beginning to look for people with my qualifications and she did ask if she could forward my resume to them - I told her sure. But when one door closes, another tends to open - a company from Canada is looking to expand their curriculum development presence here in America and they called this morning asking if I would be interested in talking with their Project Manager. More than likely they are going to go after some government contracts and need to assemble a team before bidding - normally the bidding requires a complete bio of the team in place - I won't let them use my bio without at least a personal services contract in my hand. What I really need to do is find some quiet time and really, really decide what I want to do - the first thing I have to answer is do I want to continue to make money for other folks or do I want to do something on my own?

After stopping by the barber shop, I went to WalMart. We didn't need much but we still were out of a couple of items including parts of tonight's supper. I spent the afternoon running errands and answering questions. I also gathered up my clothes for the trip as well as the youngest daughters. I just talked with my wife and I'll get her clothes together once this is posted.

Supper was good - we had country fried steak, gravy, mashed potatoes, corn and bread. Even better, we watched Phineas & Ferb while we ate!

Anticipating many people asking for my wife's mailing address, I ordered a bunch of photos from our online storage company - Ofoto.com. The prints are fifteen cents each and right now they have a special where you receive free shipping so that was nice. Our former church in Rockville, the church in my wife's hometown and our current church were the churches I planned on sending the photos to. For the church in my wife's hometown, I used a photo of my wife and her mom from USUHS Graduation in May. Our "surrogate grandparents" in Rockville gave my wife a framed photo for the same graduation - I used a photo of her holding that photo (lot of photos there) for the Rockville church. For our church I used a photo of her carrying a bowl of "slime" from last years Fall Festival. I purchased a bunch of Avery Labels, typed in her mailing address and ran 400 of them off on the computer. We put her mailing address on the back of each photo and I'll mail them to the pastor in Rockville so he can distribute them as well as to my mother-in-law - she'll pass them out in her church. I took them to our church tonight and the pastor will distribute them Sunday to those not there tonight. For our family, I took a really good photo of my wife from our December visit to the Aquarium of the Smokies and did the same thing with the address. The folks in the churches can use the photo like they do missionary cards - put them on their refrigerator or other prominent place in the house and when they see the card, they are reminded to pray for her. Having the address on the back is just a bonus for everyone.

The rain continued all evening so attendance was down at the evening service. At least the spirits were high there though! A lot of positive things are happening in this church and that is so nice. We have been praying for a choir leader and we might have found one - at the very least he is coming to visit Sunday. I saw his listing on Craig's List under nonprofit jobs of all places, forwarded it the pastor and they have been in communication since. I wish finding a church van/bus would be that easy!

The girls devotion tonight was "Something Beautiful" referencing Psalm 37:18-23. It talked about Jesus taking something that seems worthless in your life like finishing last in a race, blending it with positive things and then it starts to bloom. Speaking of blooming, I just remembered that we have snow crocus' starting to pop through the landscaping in our front yard!! They are vibrant green with a yellow flower - they should be a little taller and more visible when we get back. My devotion tonight was "The delight of sacrifice" referencing 2 Corinthians 12:15. It talked about laying down your life for a friend, doing the hard thing when you really don't want to do it.

I'm off to get my wife's clothes ready and pack the bag - my bed is loaded down with clothes so there is little room to sleep! I purposely did that so I would pack the bag before going to bed tonight! Day Twenty Four is in the books, here's looking forward to a long, long Day Twenty Five!!

Day Twenty Three - February 23, 2010

2010-02-23T18:24:00.000-08:00

The first month continues to fly by and all is still going well. The morning before school routine works very well so no adjustment needed there. Two loads of laundry were out of the dryer before 8am, all the dishes cleaned and put away, trash out and house was clean. Both girls made it safely to the bus without issue or problem once again.

I started gathering stuff up for the trip this weekend - looking for things we haven't used for a few months like bathing suits and shower shoes. I started digging through the DVD's to take them to my wife so she has something to watch on those days she has free time and the Internet is not available.

The dog went to visit the vet this morning to get her flu shot. That is a requirement by the boarding kennel she'll be going to. Parts of Virginia had a deadly outbreak in 2009 and they are being proactive. It was almost $30.00 for a 2 second visit to see the vet - what a tough job! While we were waiting to see the vet I had the lovely opportunity to sit close enough to this young man, maybe 17 or 18 who was shuffling through his Yu-gi-oh cards. Without prompting he started talking with me and his opening statement was "let me show you how I'm going to win the Phantom Challenge this weekend!" He was very excited about it so I said okay. For the next several minutes he was speaking a language that I had no idea what he was talking about but I let him go on. Then he made a mistake - he showed me his favorite card and took a breath!! I jumped in there and started telling him about my favorite baseball card - a Pete Rose rookie card! Now I was speaking a language he didn't understand because it was obvious that he had no idea who Peter Edward Rose was or is and probably the only baseball this young man had ever seen or played was on a video game. I asked him what kind of bubble gum did he get with his cards and before he could answer I started telling him about that flat piece of pink cardboard they used to stick in baseball card packs - if you had a dollar you could buy 10 packs and get a big wad of that gum in your mouth and you couldn't hardly breath but your jaw looked like you had a tennis ball in there or something! He said he didn't get gum with his cards. Then I asked him what did he do with his cards other than shuffle them and have challenges with them - did he ever put his cards on the tires on his bike with a clothes pin and listen to the noise as he rode his bike?? Yes, I was being annoying but it was kind of enjoyable on my part - he was trying to be annoying with his cards, I was just a little better at it than he was. I'm sure Saturday morning when he's battling some gnome guy, an elf, maybe a pixie dust throwing wombat or even a wanna-be warlock, he'll tell this story about some guy boring him with a Pete Rose baseball card story!! On my way out I wished him good luck! I think he was still trying to absorb what had just happened in the conversation a few minutes earlier!

The rest of the day was quiet. I ran a few errands and was able to work on Make A Difference e-mails for the month of March and April - we have some pretty good books coming up that we are reviewing.

We did have one small dramatic event this evening that could have been really bad - the youngest daughter took the dog outside for a walk, the dog spotted a cat and the race was on!! The dog ran across the street chasing the cat. Fortunately our daughter didn't chase after, she came inside to get me - I walked across the street and hollered for the dog, it turned around and came streaking past me and back to the house just barely missing a car driving on the road. That would have been bad!! The dog ran in the house and straight to the garage door - she knew she was going to doggie prison for awhile after that. Subsequent visits to the yard were on a leash.

Tonight was clean out the refrigerator night for supper - I had leftovers from the past couple of nights with a salad and the girls had pizza. I'm trying to run the refrigerator down kind of low because of the weekend trip but it still looks as if I'll need to run by WalMart for a couple of items. When we get back it will be the first of the month and it will be time to change filters, shower curtains, tooth brushes and do a good inventory of the pantry, cleaning supplies, paper towels and laundry products.

The pastor's roundtable was good tonight. We have some things we need to work on but the communication is getting much better. The pastor's new modular house is now on the pads and looks very nice in its new location. I'll still have a ton of room for the community garden and we talked about that as well - I've enlisted the help of our head deacon to find me a roto-tiller and he volunteered to talk with the family next door about possibly helping. They are a mennonite family and they have a terrific garden in their backyard - from what I gather, they have been very good about sharing with the church and they set up a small roadside stand in mid-summer. Their knowledge would be a great help to our efforts.

My wife had a relaxed day today with only one short meeting. The scheduling at this school isn't very good at all! But she was able to relax, have a good meal or two and we were able to talk a few times. Sometimes you just don't realize how many decisions get made during a day regarding the functioning of a house until you sit back and think about it.

The girls devotion tonight was "No results" referencing 1 Corinthians 3:5-9. It talked about not getting discouraged or angry when you show love and friendship in the work of the Lord that isn't returned. My devotion was "The determination to serve" referencing Matthew 20:28. I liked this one - many pastor's believe they are superior to the people they are supposed to be serving. Chambers used Matthew's text and Paul's life to talk how pastors are spiritual leaders and must never feel or act superior. I fully embrace the concept of servant leadership - I also realize there are many times I fail but during those times of failure, I do my very best to fail forward.

Day Twenty-Three is in the books, here's looking forward to day Twenty-Four!!

Day Twenty Two - February 22, 2010

2010-02-22T16:32:00.000-08:00

We're back to the weekday routine once again! The weekend was quite relaxing and very enjoyable - we were able to take it easy but still accomplish a lot. Now comes a shortened week at the house as we will be leaving Thursday evening to fly to Seattle for the weekend!

The morning went very well and our routine continues to work well for us. Both girls made it off to school in pleasant fashion. After talking with my wife, we decided that the training manager job with the travel load wasn't right for us. I sent the supervisor an e-mail early this morning so they could move to their second choice and give them the chance to spend Tuesday at the ERT. She responded in a very complimentary manner - said she would think of me each time she laced and tied her shoes!! No news from the nonprofit position yet.

The first contractor came over a little earlier than I anticipated - he would have been here much earlier if he had been able to follow simple directions. Finding our house is not that hard but talking with him on the phone turned it into an event! I did not have a warm fuzzy about this. His wife drove him here, evidently he had lost his driver's license or failed to renew it or some story I'm not too terribly interested in. We had already discussed in length over the phone exactly what I wanted but I guess he is a more concrete thinker and he needed to actually see my garage and go over one more time exactly what I wanted. He was able to create a materials list and then gave me a quote for his labor - it was exactly what I expected him to say so that is a good sign. We agreed I would get the materials per his bill of materials and he would do the work - I have found when dealing with contractors, or guys that need their wife to drive them to job sites, the less opportunity you give them for increasing the cost, the better. I'll get all the materials and have them delivered to the house. So, we agreed on our deal as well as the terms and shook hands on it. Once I get back from Seattle, I'll call him and remind him of the deal, get the materials and let him go to work.

A little later the gutter guys showed up. Our landscaping has taken a serious beating over the past few months and it is going to take some work to get it back to where it needs to be. The gutter estimate was very good - once we return from Seattle I'll pay for the work and they'll install it shortly afterward. The guy giving me the estimate was from Kentucky and he noticed the UK sticker on the side of the car - always good when you have that bonding in situations where you want someone to do work for you - in this case I'll use my wife's Kentucky roots! As we were standing on the porch talking about the estimate, of course it started raining! The weather here certainly isn't postcard material.

I also worked a little with getting estimates for a roman shade over the bathtub in the master bathroom. That window is a series of those glass blocks stacked in a large square pattern 46" x 46" - you get a ton of light and heat into the bathroom from the sun for almost the entire day - I want to knock down some of that heat before the summer sun arrives again. That one bathroom can heat up the entire upstairs and if you forget to close the door, it can have an impact on our cooling bill.

The dog now has an appointment for doggie daycare while we are gone. The thing about doggie daycare is they always get you for something - this time she has to have a dog flu shot before they'll board it. As with everything else, it will cost more than a human flu shot PLUS she needs a booster in two weeks thus the cost doubles! She'd better start fetching something and bringing it to me to make up for all this!!

The girls both had productive days in school. The youngest one worked ahead in her homework a couple of days - they have a structured program for their spelling words. The teenager picked her classes for her senior year and we talked about it for a little bit to make sure her plan was solid, then I signed it off.

We started the process of finding summer camp for the little one. I've been watching a couple of them for the past few weeks and today the Girl Scout book arrived with their camp information in it. The good thing about that is it is just around the corner and we get a nice discount if we schedule prior to April 1st. Each week has a different theme and her t-shirt population will explode as well!! Each week the campers get a new t-shirt based on the camp of the week. I did remind her going to camp was based on continued good school performance (which won't be an issue with her) and if I'm working or not. It looks like they are doing some neat things each week - Art Explosion, Camp Beverly Hills, Dance Up A Storm, Fun by the Pool, Girl Power (great, just what I need!), Go Green Art Week, Virtual Competition, Wacky Water Holidays Week, Wild Life Week and You Go Girl! Week. They also go swimming, canoeing, do arts and crafts, cookouts and other fun camp activities as well. Those ten weeks will get her through summer if we need it.

The teenager got a call from her job that she passed her drug test and the supervisor is going to call her tomorrow to work something out for her to start her computer training.

We had a chance to talk with my wife's parents tonight and they are doing good. I also had a chance to talk with my wife between classes this evening and she had a productive day - she qualified on today's weapon - the squirrels out back should probably enjoy their last peaceful year before she gets back!

Supper was outstanding or horrible, depends on who you talk to. If you are 8 years or younger, it wasn't so hot. 9 years and above thought it was great. I fixed pork schnitzel, corn, bread and scalloped potatoes. Actually the little one liked everything but the potatoes - I asked if she tried it and she said she didn't like it; when I asked if she took a bite, she said 'no' then took a deep breath and a bite - I knew I was going to get the thumbs down as she had already convinced herself they weren't good. No problem, she had eaten all of her pork, corn and bread so it was more potatoes for the rest of us!

The girls devotion tonight was "Serena's Shoes" referencing Matthew 6:25-33 - what do you do when you feel alone? My devotion was "the discipline of spiritual tenacity" referencing Psalm 46:10. It talked how tenacity is endurance combined with absolute certainty that what we are looking for is going to transpire. I like that definition.

Day Twenty-Two is in the books! Here's looking forward to Day Twenty-Three!

Day Twenty One - February 21, 2010

2010-02-21T18:15:00.001-08:00

The peacefulness of the weekend morning is quite wonderful! School days are usually rushed and you seem to miss quite a bit of what is going on in the world around you. But this morning was very nice. It was already in the low 40's when I got the paper - I was able to go on the back deck and just sit and enjoy nature for a few minutes. Plus it was the first time I've really been able to survey the damage this winter has done in the back yard - several limbs have fallen and a few more need to come back. The grass is dormant and lifeless. We have several squirrels that were running through the yard and the trees on the back of the property and a flock of orioles were feeding in our backyard as well. The nature God created for each of us can certainly make you feel quite small at times. I learned to love feeling small when I was on an aircraft carrier - there cannot be a "smaller" feeling than to be on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier engulfed by total darkness, the only sound was the hull of the ship cutting through the waves and looking up to the heavens to see an impossible number of stars, planets, moons and other heavenly objects. I think God created moments like this morning to remind us that we all need His help to make it each day.

All went well this morning. Our Sunday routine is a little different than Saturday but it was stress free. I showered then got the teenager up and pointed toward the shower. I was going to let the little one sleep another 20 minutes or so, thus I went downstairs and started breakfast. The youngest daughter came down a few minutes later and she was in a good mood so we got breakfast ready. After the teenager showered and dried her hair, breakfast was done and we enjoyed breakfast together while we watched Pink Panther on Boomerang - the girls think the older cartoons like The Flintstones and Jetsons are just ancient and they don't always get the humor so they always have a lot of questions. The Pink Panther cartoon today was one I've seen close to a hundred times - the little guy is conducting an orchestra and the Pink Panther causes him problems - at the end, the little guy goes away and Pink Panther finishes conducting the orchestra in the Pink Panther Theme. Our girls are too logical and think too literal to get something like the Pink Panther - I keep telling them it's not funny if I have to explain it!

After breakfast I showered the little one, dried her hair and got her dressed. It helps so much laying out church clothes the night before and removes all stress, especially for the teenager!

Before we left, I put meatballs and sauce in the crock pot on low so we could have meatball subs for lunch. Sunday School was great and the material was very powerful - Dr. Woodard did a great job and gave me a lot to work with on this one. I'm finding that his writing is working well with my skills and thus we are having a great class each week. Our lead deacon spoke with me afterward and paid a compliment on the class - said he is learning so much - always humbling when a leader of the church recognizes you but I also must remember the glory cannot rest in me, we are working from God's book not mine. The class is starting to grow and we had a full room today so I was thankful for that.

The church service was very good today. In my Sunday School class I always stress that if you don't get something out of worship service, then you cannot blame the pastor, the sermon, the music or any other reason - we are in church for one reason only and that is to worship God - if I fail to get something from the service or I am less than satisfied, I have no one to blame but myself. The church was very much alive today and the greatest majority of folks were there to worship, not to be preached to. I still have a personal struggle with parts of Sunday Morning worship service - I just feel incomplete. Still, I was able to get past my personal shortcomings and have a wonderful worship experience.

After meatball subs for lunch, the afternoon was relaxed and very good. The guy who was supposed to meet me at the house about the garage wasn't able to make it so we rescheduled for tomorrow. I'll already be at home most of the day and the gutter guys are supposed to be there at 11:30am as well. Besides the two groups coming to the house, the only pressing need I have is to schedule doggie day care for Thursday through Monday.

The girls took advantage of the beautiful weather and played outside for a couple of hours today. They also had a chance to play some of their new video game - it is quite a weird game and is one of those role-playing games but you still have to beat each level to move forward. Whatever happened to the good old days when Mario went running through the sewer and beat up Bowser??

I did have several opportunities to talk with my wife today and we had an extended discussion about the training manager job. We also had a chance to catch up on a few other things we missed out on talking about this week. I gave her all the flight information for this weekend as well. I think everyone is looking forward to the trip!

The girls had choir practice at 5:15pm. I let the teenager drive us to church both times today and she also drove us home from the morning service. I'm really praying that practice will help her - my alternate prayer is that if she doesn't improve, I won't turn to alcohol to keep my nerves calm!!! There are things she does really well; there are things she does really bad; there is no middle road things!

While the girls went to choir practice, I went out to the back of the church lot and started measuring for the community garden. If the city doesn't call me back this week, I'm going to formulate my own strategy. I feel our success rate will be imminently higher with the professionals help but I also have confidence that God will bless this endeavor if I have to do the planning. I am also confident that the plants that perish in my pursuit of helping others will one day bloom abundantly in my front yard in heaven - of course in heaven the squash plants will all produce chocolate glazed donuts instead of squash - so will the okra and tomato plants as well!!!

Evening service was very good. The atmosphere in our church is so relaxed and so loving; it is just a wonderful place to spend time with God. Normally the Sunday evening service has 10 or 12 people there, but tonight we had 21. I hope if you've gathered nothing else from this blog and are going through or preparing for a deployment of a loved one that you understand just how important it is to be intimately involved with a strong, bible believing church - just don't go to the services but be actively involved in the worship of God. The second thing you must have is a positive prayer life. Everything else is just details if you have these two things right in your life.

We drove through McDonald's for chicken and fries on the way home. We kind of wish we had held out for Popeye's instead once we did get home but there is always the next Sunday we are in church! Those red beans, rice and spicy chicken would have hit the spot though. Yes, you can also say heartburn around 2am as well!!

My devotion tonight was "have you ever been carried away for Him?" referencing Mark 14:6. It talked about being of value to God. The girls devotion was "Questions" referencing Luke 2:41-52. It talked about patience.

Day Twenty-One is over; we have 32 Sunday's left in the schedule for this deployment! I can wrap my mind around 32 much easier than I can the total days of 32x7 (yes, I can do the math but I don't want to think about how many actual days there are). In all honesty, if the rest of the time goes by as fast as the first 21 days, I'll be very happy. Here's looking forward to day Twenty-Two!

Day Twenty - February 20, 2010

2010-02-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

Saturday's start out relatively peaceful with the girls grabbing a little extra sleep. I took advantage of the time and got a few things done. My wife had called back last night around midnight our time and confirmed they were getting liberty from 1600 Friday until 1900 Sunday. Originally they had been anticipating liberty on March 3rd, 4th and 5th - that was during a testing cycle for the girls during their state exams here so we had decided we would not be able to pull them out of school those days. However, we are going to go this weekend - it will be good for everyone plus I can take my wife a few of the things she needed but didn't have room for the first time and bring back some of the stuff she doesn't need. I worked a few hours in the morning having Expedia, Hotwire and a few airlines information up on separate tabs and finally got what I felt was the best deal for us - we'll be leaving late Thursday evening from here and arriving just after midnight Seattle time. That'll give us the chance to get some sleep, adjust a little bit to the time zone difference and then pick up my wife when she is ready at 4pm Pacific time. I was able to package a deal for a nice hotel, roundtrip airline tickets and a rental car for those days. Girls will miss two days of school (Friday and Monday), but I feel this is completely more important right now.

For the most part the day was relaxed and nice. Breakfast was good as I scrambled some eggs, fried sausage and we had biscuits with jelly, an apple and some milk. The weather was gorgeous here and the girls went out to play on the trampoline for a while with the dog. The dog doesn't think much of the trampoline but she'll hang close by while they are out there. We did have one stressful part of the day and that was when we drove to the post office. I let our teenager drive and to be very kind, she didn't do too well. There was some traffic on the road but I don't think that was the issue today. We finally made it to the post office then we drove over to a gas station. Yes, it was a 7Eleven but a different 7Eleven than the one she appears to have a grudge or issue with and she did well this time - I saw no part of my life flash before my eyes this time and she actually stopped close enough to the pump that the hose would reach it! I'll take my victories with her driving wherever I can get them. From there we drove back toward the house and stopped at Great Bridge BBQ for lunch. They have really good carolina bar-b-que, the type smothered in vinegar. My wife is not a fan so I don't get to go often but today we did. From there we stopped at GameStop so the girls could pre-order some game coming out March 13th and they pooled their allowance to buy a game for the PlayStation 3. They've done well with it and I haven't heard any fighting.

I made my wife's hot dog sauce for the movie night at church tonight - everyone enjoyed it very much; I could taste a difference but either everyone else was starved for sauce or they were being kind. My wife is one of these people that was created to cook for fellowships, everything she brings in there is the hit of the party. Each church has different favorites but this church really enjoys her hot dog sauce and banana pudding - one young fellow asked where the pudding was tonight and pastor told him we all were waiting on October to get here!!! The movie was pretty good - Flywheel. It was about this used car salesman - the acting wasn't high quality but it was a good movie. It was made by the same group that made Facing the Giants.

The girls devotion tonight was "snowcones and eggs" referencing Luke 19:1-10. It talked about telling a lie and thinking you got away with it. My devotion was "The initiative against dreaming" and referenced John 14:31. It talked about getting busy with what God has put in front of you instead of merely meditating over it.

Day Twenty is in the books - here's looking forward to another Sunday and Day Twenty-One!

Day Nineteen - February 19, 2010

2010-02-20T04:41:00.000-08:00

At least the numbering of the daily blogs is pretty easy this month as they correspond with the day of the month. I wish all the decisions during this deployment was that easy!

Day nineteen found us all starting out a little groggy and slow to get moving. Wasn't a lot of meaningful conversations during breakfast - we called it the caveman morning with plenty of grunts and non-audible responses. At least the dog was full of spirit and once the little one took the dog for a morning walk, that woke her up and brought more life to the house.

Everyone made it outside in time for the bus. I spent most of my morning working on laundry and doing the PowerPoint for my presentation later in the day. For the most part the morning was quiet and productive. I was happy with the way the presentation turned out, read through it a couple of times and put it away for the rest of the day.

The afternoon was busy. Around lunchtime I received an e-mail from a friend telling me the foundation had asked them for a reference on me - during the interview the board president said she was only going to ask for references on the person they were most interested in hiring. If the offering of the position comes down to a writing contest from references, then I feel pretty confident because my references are all outstanding writers! So we'll see what happens from there.

I have been trying to get someone from the area to call me back about installing gutters on our house - each website you go to has a customer response/contact form they ask you to fill out and so far, I've had zero luck. I saw a local company's truck today as I was at the post office, looked up their website and sent them a request - they actually called back and someone is coming Monday morning to take some measurements and work up a quote. Our house is new construction and the builder didn't feel the house needed gutters - boy was he ever wrong on that one!! The rain here this past year has made a real mess of our landscaping and I'm concerned about what it is doing to the foundation. This year I'm going with upgraded gutters, leaf guards, reinforced mountings and downspouts. Next year or the year after I plan on installing a rainwater reclamation system to help water the landscaping - right now I don't know if that means simply rain barrels or an underground system. But the first and most critical step is to get quality gutters up.

I also plan on adding a second level to part of the garage. We have a seriously tall garage and so much space is wasted. After November's nor'easter I also have some minor concern about flooding - the water was at record levels here and it just barely touched our foundation but the garage is the most vulnerable. I also want to make room to fit both cars in the garage as well if needed - the weather here is paying a real toll on our cars. A friend at church gave me the name of a decking guy he felt comfortable would do a good job. He's coming over Sunday afternoon to see my vision and let me know what he can/cannot do.

The youngest daughter came flying off her bus and was full of excitement! She had found the library book she had been hunting for and was so excited to read it!! She dumped her stuff in the formal living room and went straight to the table - she grabbed a snack and something to drink and started reading. I had to pull information from her on how her day was and I think the dog was ticked off as well - she stood there with the ball in her mouth waiting on her friend to play with her!! I wound up throwing the ball for the dog but I don't think it was the same. Not to put out the fire of her excitement, I let her enjoy her book and snack. It didn't take her long to finish it, she must have been reading it on the bus and then she was able to put up her book bag and jacket, then take the dog out in the yard for 20 minutes to play.

The oldest daughter got home and immediately started lamenting her chemistry test she took earlier in the day. She always does that so I just listen and let her go. The teacher will post her grade later in the evening and we'll see what she was fussing about - the teacher just posted and she only missed one question so she did well.

Just as we started loading the car to go to the teen program, the phone rang. The interview from Wednesday called to let me know I was their "candidate of choice" and the supervisor wanted me to come spend some time at the ERT (Elizabeth River Terminal) on Tuesday and get a better feel for the facility. We talked for about 15 minutes or so as I expressed some concerns I had from the interview and she was able to alleviate some of them. We also talked about money and benefits. I told her my biggest concern was the travel and how that would impact our family - I agreed to spend a few hours at ERT Tuesday and we'll go from there. I will openly admit the money they are offering is very enticing and the benefits package just cannot be beat. I also like the thought of the bonus program they have in place and that could significantly increase the base salary - this company actually pays your taxes on the bonus so it is a real bonus. I'll go into Tuesday's visit with an open mind but it cannot impact my ability to work with the youth program at church and most definitely, it cannot be a burden to our family. With my wife gone and no family locally to help, I cannot see how his would work. I'll make a couple of phone calls this weekend though.

The teen program went well. I'm so glad to see some of the adults from the church showing up to support the program. I don't know how I would think if I was a kid again and came to a program a church said they supported and then only one or two adults were there. If the folks who already believe in the information being put out aren't there to support it, why should I be interested? Of course we do know that God's invitation is personal and private, different for each one of us but I have to think that excitement generated around a program would have to be a positive one. The pastor's wife showed the kids how to make biscuits, sausage and gravy. It was very good and I'm not a big fan of gravy.

During the evening, my wife had a chance to call. She had a long, tough day and was feeling it. They gave them a break for a couple of hours and she was heading back to the barracks to take a quick shower and grab some food. They announced that instead of the family visitation being March 3, 4 and 5 (when we couldn't come because of school testing cycles) it was being moved up to next weekend. She gets liberty from 4pm Friday until 7pm Sunday. The girls will miss two days of school but that is doable because they won't be testing. I'll work on the arrangements later tonight. We hadn't planned on seeing her again but this will be good for all concerned.

The girls devotion tonight was "Love in action" referencing Ephesians 4:31-5:2. It talked about keeping peace in the family and helping out instead of moping when things don't go your way - quite appropriate! My devotion was "The initiative against drudgery" referencing Isaiah 60:1. It asked if we see God in the routine, mundane chores of life.

Day nineteen was quite busy but a very good day - here's looking to Day Twenty!!!

Day Eighteen - February 18, 2010

2010-02-18T17:31:00.001-08:00

From a personal perspective, the day started out kind of crappy - I woke up with a throbbing headache for some reason. Not wanting to take any chances, I took some aspirin and drank plenty of water - I suspected I was a little dehydrated.

In spite of my headache, the morning still had to go forward and everyone did their parts. In fact, other than the headache, the morning was very good. The little one did her breakfast again today without issue, the dog cooperated and the oldest daughter has finally figured out how to shower in less than 10 minutes! Once the little one got on the bus, I drove off for my interview.

Traffic was a little heavier this time but I was still there in under 30 minutes. Bad thing about driving east toward Virginia Beach is the positioning of the sun right over 264 and it blazes in the front window - I also noticed how dirty my windshield was!! Of course the sun hitting me in the face didn't help my headache much but I figured I would survive.

I had breakfast at Burger King just down the street from the interview site, tied my tie and then went to the office. The office manager who was supposed to open the office door hadn't shown up yet so I had a chance to meet the board chairman and board president in the hallway outside the door as we waited. It was a pleasant, relaxed conversation. The interview itself was very good - just the three of us and we talked about strategic plans, the board composition and the role of the board. The chairman wasn't at the initial interview so we went over my history a little bit - he was exceptionally sharp and asked some very good questions. He's on a few other boards in the Virginia Beach area as well and I've seen his name in the paper several times. About half way through the discussion my headache really started pounding, almost like I had a heartbeat behind my eye!! This was a true test of personal fortitude - the chairman is a very soft speaker and my head was thumping louder than he was talking! But I survived and we closed the discussion. On the way to the car I felt horrible so I just sat there for a moment. It was 32 degrees and I rolled the window down on the way home - the cold blowing on my face seemed to help. I got home, took two more aspirin (I know, waaaaaaaaaaaay too many but too bad) told the dog to be quiet and dropped into bed. At least I had the foresight to set the alarm for 1pm - just in case I did go to sleep at least I'd be awake early enough to be "de-groggy" when the bus arrived.

When the alarm went off at 1, the headache was gone and I felt much better - nearly human again! The little one arrived home first with another library book. A little later the teenager arrived home and all was well.

Supper was an easy one tonight - we had hot dogs, sauce and fries. After loading the dishwasher, I took the little one to song/dance class at Hurrah Players. The oldest daughter stayed home to give the dog a bath. Actually most of the normal "show mommies" weren't there tonight so the classes were better - at least the hallway where the parents were was better! I was able to work more on my presentation tomorrow night and fine tune that.

The devotions tonight were pretty good. The girls was "The Onion" and referenced Hebrews 12:12-15. It talked about being angry about things you cannot change and what to do with that anger. My devotion was "The Initiative Against Despair" and referenced Matthew 26:46 - it talked about despair when we have done something we shouldn't have. This actually worked well with what I am going to talk about to the teens tomorrow - failing forward.

Day Eighteen is done and in the books - here's looking forward to Day Nineteen!

Day Seventeen - February 17, 2010

2010-02-18T11:52:00.000-08:00

This morning was a day in which I was very thankful we had practiced our routine enough that it was a habit for each of us! In order to make it to my interview in time, I had to leave the house at 7am - the direction I was going would lead me directly into the teeth of the traffic in our area so I wanted to make little room for issues. Both girls cooperated fully and it was a very positive morning. I'm still considering the moving of the milk container and drinks down lower to be a success - I'm not worried about the milk being warmer on the door because I'm only pouring two or three cups at a time into the container for her and I can keep a good track on the freshness of that milk. Plus the little one really enjoys taking care of her own breakfast - this morning she had cereal and the mess was no larger than normal.

The oldest daughter did well also. I started the towels this morning a little earlier than normal and she was able to fold them before she left for school. Today she also made sure her little sister got on the bus - a good test for the future if needed.

The interview - ahh, nothing like a good face-to-face interview. The interview took place at their administrative offices which are on the port. The person I would potentially be working for flew up from Houston. She invited the local project manager and the local EHS representative. While the lady from Houston was very attentive, the two local guys were much more interested in their blackberries and answering text messages. Those of you that have worked with me know my feelings on electronics in meetings but I was able to overcome my internal desire to grab their blackberries and hold them until the end like some teacher gone mad over a kid chewing bubble gum or something! But as I learned more about the position, I came to the realization that the two people I would be in contact the most would be an issue and the job wasn't really as they had spoken it - I learned their definition of light travel was really travel of nearly 40% of each week - instead of a quarterly flight to Houston for a national meeting, the job was responsible for five terminals located up and down the east coast, from Newport News to Baltimore, Philly, Newark and one other port in Jersey.

I do have a question for all the people that ask questions in an interview - I understand the importance of have pre-written out questions approved by HR prior to an interview - but my question is if you were asked the same exact questions, would your answers be the same that you are looking for in the interview?? And if you're going to ask me a question like "if you had to mentor Mary, what steps would you take?" Ummm, maybe if Mary was important enough for me to mentor, wouldn't I have a little more information about her such as who, what, when, where, how and maybe why? Certainly don't give me a blank stare when I come right back to you and say "why do we want to mentor Mary?" and an unacceptable answer from you is "well, that is training's job" - if you don't want a canned, thin answer, don't ask a canned, thin question.

The presentation of lacing and tying shoes went well - I was able to locate blue and yellow laces so my demonstration looked exactly like the drawing. One guy was going to jump on my presentation that I didn't have permission to use the photos from the website - I think it angered him when I produced an e-mail from the website owner giving me one-time rights to use the photos (thanks Ian)!!

Needless to say, the cost of me taking that job went up significantly during the interview. I've worked with putz's before and I'm sure I'll work with them again - it's just going to cost your more for me to do so.

The worst part of the morning was I missed an opportunity to talk with my wife before she went to class. But the drive home was pleasant and I had plenty of time to think as I normally do after an interview - I felt I did well so no matter what comes from the interview, I'm good with it.

The afternoon was spent with the tax professional. The lady doing our taxes has 23 years in the business and we got along well. We did have a complicated tax return this year with part year earnings in Maryland, unemployment, purchasing of a house, interest, donations, 1099's for consulting and many other things. We killed a small tree with all the paper but in the end all turned out well. The federal government will not allow you to e-file the homeowners credit with your original return which is silly in my opinion so once we receive our original return payment from the government, we have to file an amended return to reflect the homeowners credit.

While I was sitting in the office with the tax person waiting for the forest to be felled so we could print the papers, I was thinking wouldn't it be better to just get rid of the tax system, have everyone pay 7.5% of their base income via employer deductions and then everything you purchase would be subject to a 2.5% federal tax - we get rid of all that government bureacracy, saving us how much in infrastructure and salaries, countless trees would be saved and if my memory of the Laffer Curve is correct, more people would actually pay their taxes increasing the money available for the federal government! The downside to that is all those folks in the IRS would lose their jobs and unemployment would temporarily rise but we could offset that by selling the IRS buildings and equipment across the country. Take all those IRS workers in DC and make them tour guides at the Smithsonians or walking guides for large groups through the national mall. So, we all know that isn't going to happen anytime soon but instead of expansion of our government, maybe we need to contract it.

Supper tonight was pretty good - we had chicken, fried potatoes, mac&cheese and corn. I'm not a mac&cheese fan but the girls are and they really wanted it last night - I've gotten into a personal mindset that mac&cheese works well with ham steaks but they didn't hit me with the idea until I had the chicken going. The girls were happy so that's all that matters.

The Wednesday night church service went well. Small group but we are continuing to work our way through the ABC's of Christian Growth. In all honesty, this is a really basic course for those new to faith but I am finding it to be very good and the church is building a very solid base using this course of study. Even better, everyone gets to participate by reading, answering questions and more importantly, asking questions!

Each of us had a chance to talk with my wife after church for a nice chat. She had been busy and had a rough day - said she was sore from carrying litter patients and doing training. But it was nice to talk with her about all that had happened the past couple of days.

My devotion for today was "The initiative for depression" and referenced 1 Kings 19:5. Chambers had battles with depression during his life and this is one of several times he writes about it. He did make one good point that I'll store away - as humans if we have the ability to exault something or reach the highest highs, we also have the ability to become depressed and reach the lowest of lows. I hadn't thought of it like that and his devotion today will help in the future. The girls devotion was titled "Family Photos" and referenced Psalm 51:5; 58:1-5. It talked about a little girl who thought her sin wasn't as bad as her friend's sin - we had a nice chat about it and looked at Romans 3:23.

Day seventeen is done and I think I'm ready for tomorrow - here's looking forward to Day Eighteen!

Day Sixteen - February 16, 2010

2010-02-16T17:38:00.000-08:00

Just to start, I did think of another item that needs to go on the “Change-out” list for the first of the month – shower curtains! We just did that the day before my wife left and they are still in good shape – next trip to WalMart I’ll have to pick up a few. I keep a small pad of paper above the sink to capture all of these “aha” moments and make sure I remember. Like I’ve said – the more things I have written down, the less I have to worry about forgetting.

Some days are tougher than others for different reasons. A lot is going on and without having my wife around to talk through them, I find I am second and third guessing myself a lot more than normal - naturally she thinks differently than I do and has a different perspective on a lot of things and that is one of the gazillion things I miss about not having her around. I know I don't have the ability to think or react the way she does, yet I still find myself trying to keep her views in play as I make decisions. Even though we talk on the phone, that doesn't really count - body language plays a much larger role in the way humans communicate - phone calls and e-mails completely remove that large chunk of communicating. The girls are very talkative but there are still things you don’t talk about with children.

We all had a very productive morning. The little one was so very excited to make her own breakfast – you would have thought a five star chef had made those waffles for her! But she enjoyed pouring her own milk and a glass for her sister as well. I’ll chalk that up as a good suggestion!! I’m sure we’ll have a different entry another day when she drops the milk on the floor but for now, we’ll go with good.

Was cold when we went out to meet the bus this morning but it soon warmed up as the sun came out. We had beautiful clear skies and temperatures in the mid 40’s.

After my run, I watched the movie 300 before taking a shower. My wife absolutely hates these kind of movies – it was pretty violent – but I enjoy a totally guy movie complete with violence from time-to-time. Can’t watch them very often but I wanted to see this movie for awhile. I’m sure they embellished the story line some but I still enjoyed it. Of course, it gives the term “tough guy” a whole new meaning when you are watching 300 and folding whites fresh from the dryer! But I can check 300 off my list, she can come home now!!

I drove over to the local educational store today to pick up a wooden shoe for tomorrow’s demonstration. I found what I was looking for and then went to Target to get a package of blue shoe laces and a package of yellow shoe laces – I’ll have to magically morph them into one lace but that’ll be easy to do. I also checked all the buttons on my jackets – I plan on wearing the same one I wore last week to tomorrow’s interview. Thursday I’m wearing a light tan jacket – those buttons are on there pretty good too!! I also ironed my shirts and slacks for both interviews.

I found all the information for the tax visit tomorrow afternoon so that was a positive – they were where I thought they were. I also finished the written portion of my presentation Friday night to the teenagers – I’ll just have to put together a PowerPoint to reinforce and hold their attention! I’m going to talk about John Maxwell’s book “Failing Forward” – we all fail, it is just a matter of which way do we fail – forward or backward? I feel this is rather important for teens to hear that we all fail and how to react to it in a biblical manner. So much on TV and in books is geared toward success, doing great things, instant millionaires and all that – sometimes when we stub our toes not only do we hurt physically but our ego’s get bruised as well. If we know how to react or what to do AND if we realize others make mistakes too, it might help the teens cope in a better fashion. Even as an adult, if I make a mistake I can get into the thought process that “well, I’ve really done it now, I might as well go ahead and do this or that” which would make the situation even worse.

Little one was the first one home today – her homework was to find her spelling and vocabulary words in magazines and cut them out – this was a horrible homework assignment and much harder than it sounds – we found six of the twelve and I’m writing a note to the teacher to let her know we abandoned the search. The little one also has a loose tooth – hope the tooth fairy has a big wallet because she doesn’t think her teeth are worth a quarter – she holds out for those dollar bills!!

The teenager came home in a good mood and had a good sized load of homework. We didn't see a lot of her tonight as she was holed up with books all evening.

Supper was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn and bread – it was very good if I must say so myself! After supper I went to the pastor’s roundtable and we had a good meeting. The contractor started digging the footers for the pads where the new modular will go – the pastor and his wife will be moving on the property once we get the modular installed, probably around the first of April or so and that will be nice.

Rest of the evening was quiet. I did have a chance to talk with my wife a couple of times today and she was okay. She had gone for a run in the morning – they had class later in the evening today due to scheduling issues. I’m not so sure the training process she is going through is as productive as it should be and there is no doubt the length of the course could certainly be shortened considerably.

My devotion was “The Inspiration of Spiritual Initiative”, referenced Ephesians 5:14 and talked about initiative that was truly inspired, not merely conceived in our minds. The girls’ devotion was “Almost isn’t enough” and referenced Acts 26:22-23, 27-29. It was a story about a young person who only thought parts of the Bible might be right. We had a pleasant discussion about it and then we went to 2 Timothy 3:16 which says "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:" - we talked about the word ALL in the passage.

Going to wrap up Day Sixteen and try to get a solid night’s sleep so I’ll be ready for tomorrow – Tuesday through Sunday I stay pretty busy and the interviews only add to that load. Here’s looking forward to Day Seventeen!

Day Fifteen - February 15, 2010

2010-02-15T17:37:00.001-08:00

Today was quite the busy day and a lot was accomplished. Even though today was supposed to be a day off from school but they had to go to make up for a snow day, both girls woke up in good moods and did a good job getting ready. The little one didn't like the thought of today's lunch at school so we packed PB&J, chips, twinkies, juice and a fortune cookie! The twinkies were actually those little 100 calorie packs and just the right size for her - of course the teenager would have to eat several packs to get a taste though! The fortune cookie was left over from last night's stop at the chinese restaurant and she thought that was a nice touch when she came home from school - she even saved the fortune to share with me!!

Our morning routine continues to work well for all of us and we have it pretty well down pat. We did make a couple of changes today though - the little one really wants to help more and be more independent so we took a container, poured some milk in it (enough for one bowl of cereal and maybe two cups of milk), moved some things around in the refrigerator so she could easily reach it. We also moved the lemonade and a gatorade bottle down lower for her. I'm leaving a bowl and plate on the counter for her so we'll see how that goes starting tomorrow morning. She wants to make her own breakfast - its not like she's cooking omelets or baking bread - she's talking about pouring a bowl of cereal or making a couple of toaster waffles for herself.

After the girls left for school, I went over the grocery list and got the coupons ready. A load of darks in the washer then dryer, a quick workout and shower - also had a chance to talk with my wife for a few minutes on her way to the chowhall and class - all sounds good there. Our time to be able to speak to each other daily is fleeting and this time next month she will be in a place where we'll rarely be able to talk with her.

Wal-Mart wasn't very busy this morning and I was able to get my list filled without much problem. I also spent a few minutes in the women's section looking for a dress or skirt for the oldest daughter. It is so hard to find her dresses that she'll wear and are appropriate for church. Some of that stuff they are selling for girls her age is downright awful - the stuff that is semi-respectable is of such poor quality it wouldn't be worth taking home even if we did like it. I was able to find a white sweater and a black skirt with white polka dots on it though. Maybe soon they'll have some nice spring/summer dresses coming out. I also picked up a pair of jeans for the youngest daughter. My main reason for grocery shopping was filling out the weekly menu, ensuring we had all we needed and I wanted to stock up on a few items. As it appears I'm closer to going back to work, I'll have to be really good about being organized and not running out of things. We also have a plan as it relates to certain items like tooth brushes, shower items, air filters for the house and all that type stuff - on the first day of the month I'm going to change out all the tooth brushes, change the household filters, and give the dog her heartworm and flea stuff. That'll keep us going pretty good for those items. I also have reminders programmed into my e-mail account to remind me of certain items at certain times such as bills due, normal maintenance and all that - the less I have to commit to memory, the better. With the coupons, I wound up saving $26.10 in coupons today!

Weather was pretty today - we started out at 24 degrees but was up to 49 by 11am. It did rain some this afternoon but nothing like our weather people forecasted. Yesterday I had started on my "homework" assignment for my interview Thursday morning - it had to be mailed in to the board president by the end of the day Tuesday. I finished it today with the help of a few friends, wrapped it up in a pdf and sent it to her a day early - she replied cheerfully with a thank you! I spent an hour working on "how to lace and tie a shoe" and it looks pretty good. I'll fine tune it tomorrow and practice a few times - that interview is Wednesday morning.

Supper was good - we had burritos, refried beans and pears. Everyone enjoyed it. I do have one complaint though - while those flat, ceramic stove tops look really neat, they are one serious pain in the bottom to keep clean - every little drip or dribble that hits the hot burner area turns a dark black instantly and you get this dark steam build up around the burner as well - I'm beginning to think the stove top makers are in cohoots with the guys that make the cleaning products to increase their sales as well!

After we got the dishwasher loaded and started, we drove over to the church to clean up from the weekend's festivities - that took the three of us less than 30 minutes to clear the ceiling, pop the balloons and pick up any mess. I'm pretty sure our dog has an issue with church or being on church property - everytime I take her over there she goes absolutely nuts for some reason. I'll probably just start leaving her home for now on, it just isn't worth the aggravation.

I did pick up some ice cream at the store today - those M&M Cookie ice cream sandwiches are a big hit around here! We always have at least two types of ice cream in the house but the easier and more convenient you make a treat, the greater the chance they'll disappear quicker! The girls ran downstairs around 8:30 to have theirs tonight. I'm not much of an evening snacker - my danger time is early afternoon to snack and for the past 15 days now I've been too busy to go hunting for a snack so that is a positive!!

The girls devotion tonight was "Me First" and referenced Luke 14:7-11 - it talked about not exalting yourself. We all agreed we really need to teach the dog this lesson, she absolutely has to be first in everything and will flat run you over to get up the stairs or out the door! My devotion tonight was "Am I My Brother's Keeper?" and it referenced Romans 14:7 - it was one of those painful messages where Chambers tries to get us to realize we are responsible for the souls of others.

I got an early start today, waking around 4:15 am so I'm wrapping up Day Fifteen - through groggy eyes, here's looking forward to Day Sixteen!!!

Day Fourteen - February 14, 2010

2010-02-14T18:18:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day! While we don't have a lot of major holidays to survive during this deployment, we do have several important dates - Valentines, my wife's birthday, our anniversary, our oldest daughter's birthday, my birthday and our youngest daughter's birthday. If there is good news on the holiday front, my wife is slated to be home before Thanksgiving and Christmas - I've been deployed through those holidays before and no matter what your home situation is like, those are tough. On the ships I was on during holiday cruises, the mood was always somber during holidays.

To make this Valentine's Day tougher, it fell on a Sunday. That Sunday morning service just doesn't feel right without my wife.

With all that said, today was a very good day. I woke up early, was able to read the paper and shower before getting the girls up. The morning routine is going quite well and we had a good breakfast - egg, sausage and cheese breakfast burritos, hashbrowns and bananas. I also made chocolate milk - nothing like a thick glass of Ovaltine in the morning!! While I like Hershey's syrup on ice cream, is still prefer Ovaltine in my milk!

I felt brave today and the roads were clear so I let the teenager drive to church this morning. My wife called just as we were pulling out of the driveway so she got to hear me remind the daughter of the rapidly approaching ditch on the way - for some reason she loves to hang entirely too close to those drainage ditches on our road!! She was a little rusty and I take most of the blame for that - she hasn't driven in awhile - the weather can take some of the blame as well. I do hope I can find the strength to allow her to keep practicing - as I say that I can vividly remember the intense humping action of the car from her hitting the throttle too hard and then letting off to compensate - but I have to be strong and allow her to do this.

Sunday School was good - we had several new folks in class today. We reviewed the chapter test, discussed a few items for clarification and started the new chapter. The first two chapters of Dr. Woodard's book are key to understanding the concepts later on in the book so I went extra slow on them and reinforcing the information. I'm very happy to report that everyone has been bringing their books with them to class and some have even been reading them during the week!! I was really worried we'd be busier replacing "lost" or forgotten books but that hasn't happened.

The 11am service was excellent - our visitors to Sunday School stayed with us for service and it was very good. We brought the Secret Pal bags to church and the pastor's wife distributed them after church. My wife received one as well from her secret pal as did our youngest daughter. My wife received a writing kit, pens and chocolate!! The youngest daughter received a really cool Build-A-Bear kit - it was actually a dog, but she gets to stuff it and sew it up.

During service, I was surprised by the pastor - he had me come up front and he gave me an "award" for being the "right man" - it was very nice. The church also recognized the lady of the month and she was quite deserving of the recognition.

We're going to grow feathers as we had chicken, fried potatoes and veggies for lunch!!! For supper tonight I stopped by the local chinese restaurant and we had orange chicken, rice, broccoli and of course, fortune cookies!

This afternoon I ran by the library to pick up a book I needed for some research on my "homework" project for this week's interviews. I wanted a particular graph I remembered from a book and couldn't find it online - I was able to check our library online and hold the book until I got there.

I let the teenager drive us back for evening service and she did somewhat better - we still don't have a warm fuzzy about her need to hang so close to the ditches. Evening service was very good - it is somewhat relaxed and is a true worship service. A newer member who used to be a pastor at another church delivered the message and did well.

We had the chance to talk with my wife on the way home. She had class most of today and it was a linguistic lecture on islamic languages. She will be re-issued her weapons tomorrow and attend classes as well all day - your weapon is your buddy and it never, ever leaves your side so she'll be sleeping with it as well as dragging it around.

We have deciced we are not going to count down total days - that is rather maddening and causes you to stress too much about the wrong things. We have deciced we are going to count down Sunday's though - 33 to go!

The girls devotion tonight was very similar to the message Dr. Yoho delivered Friday evening - "Valentines" and referenced 1 Corinthians 13:4-10. It talked about God's love. My devotion was "The discipline of heeding" and referenced Matthew 10:27 and Chambers talked about when to be quiet and when to talk. I actually understood this one - well, at least I think I did!

The girls were supposed to be out of school tomorrow for President's Day but the snow day a couple of weeks ago is causing them to be in school. I'll take advantage of the day to get my final writing project on lacing and tying a shoe done for my interview this week - did you know that mathematically there are over 2 million different ways to lace your shoes? Did you really need to know that? Phineas & Ferb taught me something a month or so ago I'll probably never forget - that little plastic tip on the end of your shoe lace is called an aglet!! They have a great song about it too - fortunately for your, my singing voice isn't such that I could do it justice so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Day Fourteen comes to a close - here's looking forward to Day Fifteen!!

Day Thirteen - February 13, 2010

2010-02-13T16:16:00.000-08:00

We woke up to snow this morning covering the grass but fortunately nothing on the road or sidewalks. It snowed until about 11am or so but by noon, all evidence of the snow was completely gone.

The morning was very good and peaceful. I was brave enough to get back on the scales and found I have lost 5 pounds (6 total) - of course that always puts a smile on your face! I let the girls sleep in while I went out to the garage to get in a good run - it was quite chilly in the garage at first but felt pretty good later on. After a good run, I turned on the oven and got breakfast going. This morning was bacon, eggs and cinnamon rolls with a glass of milk.

I had an appointment this morning with the tax preparer - the girls weren't interested in going so they lounged around the house. I did give both of them something to do while I was gone including giving the dog a bath - that is always a fun chore! The time at the tax office was good, the lady doing our taxes this year is very good and has been doing taxes for 24 years. I need to find a couple of answers for her, but we'll finish up Wednesday afternoon.

Driving from the tax office to home in the snow, I had the chance to talk with my wife before she went to class. She sounds so much better and said she had a decent night sleep - that is hard to do in an open bay barracks so she must have been really tired. A friend at church last night mentioned they had giant ladybug pillows at WalMart - she knew our youngest daughter really likes ladybugs - so I stopped there and picked up one giant ladybug pillow, one giant heart pillow, one Wii game (Redneck Games - it is very cute) and one Nintendo DS game (Chicken Shoot - it was funny as well) - these were for Valentine's Day for the girls and I gave them to each of them while they were talking with their mom on the phone this afternoon. I figured they could use the giant pillows at movie nights at church - those hard seats get rough on your backside! Maybe we can talk the pastor into moving the movie into the church where at least the seats are padded.

The rest of the day was spent in various household chores and lounging around. I did three loads of laundry and we got that put away, cleaned up the garage a little bit, cleaned the hardwood floors, had lunch (we cheated and went to Sonic) and ran the vacuum. After lunch, we watched Coraline - well, more accurately the girls watched Coraline and I took a nap in my chair!

The church has a nice program for the ladies called "Secret Pals." Those that are interested let the pastor's wife know and they trade information - you don't know who your secret pal is (hence the name Secret Pal - duh) and once per month you discretely leave a bag or gift in a special area of the church - the pastor's wife then distributes the gifts. All three of my girls have someone so we took care of that today as well and have them ready for tomorrow. My desktop computer also caught a bug three weeks ago and I'm taking it over to a young man at church - I hope he can get it working but if he can't, I'll stick with my wife's laptop for a little while - while I understand the need and applaud the convenience of a laptop, I still like a desktop computer best for typing and working on. I will make sure I do a daily backup somewhere with all of my stuff though - the pastor was telling me about mozy.com last night - they appear to be a little better than other online storage locations because it does an automated backup during idle times on your computer. I'm going to do a small 2GB test for a few weeks to see if it something I like or not. You can go unlimited, which is greater than 2GB for $4.95 a month with the automated feature. When I was searching for all of our tax papers, I realized we have a ton of necessary stuff (not terribly important but would be a real pain to be without) in our files - I think I might start slowly scanning some of that stuff in and storing it on an external drive or on a site like mozy.com.

Supper was very good if I must say so myself!! We had white rice, sweet and sour chicken, peas and corn. I combined the chicken with the sweet/sour sauce after the chicken had baked - it turned out quite well.

The girls devotion today was "Melissa's Valentines" and referenced Micah 6:6-8 - it talked about the best way for kids to show love was through obeying. My devotion was "The Devotion of Hearing" and referenced 1 Samuel 3:10. I had to read this one three separate times to get an understanding of the reading - Chambers talked about the obtuseness of the heart and mind; he (Chambers) wants us to have the attitude of a child and always say "speak Lord, for thy servant heareth" without allowing outside things to interfere.

We have laid out everyone's clothes for tomorrow morning, I just need to review the Sunday School class assignment again. I spend a few minutes with it each day as well but the night before teaching I go over the entire section, add my speaker notes and highlight some areas to keep me on task. I'm really thankful for the way Dr. Woodard has laid this book out.

I'm wrapping this one up a little early tonight - the Kentucky basketball game comes on a 9pm so I'd like to relax and enjoy a little of that. At 9:30pm MLB TV has a 30 minute preview of the Reds on tonight and I'll probably flip between ESPN and MLB TV to catch those. We did turn on FoodTV for a few minutes today - when my wife was home, I could always tell where she had been watching TV at last because that was the channel it was on!

A little early but Day Thirteen is done; here's looking forward to Day Fourteen!

Day Twelve - February 12, 2010

2010-02-12T18:40:00.001-08:00

I'll go right to the end of the day - don't you just love it when you are a small part of something so big and it is just about to take off into something fantastic?? Tonight was just such a night - my wife and I were named Youth Directors at our church the week before she left and one of the first things we were able to implement was a teen program. We took a thought pastor's wife had been hanging on to for sometime and combined it with a more "traditional" teen program and we wanted to add a service element to it as well. The pastor's wife is teaching the kids to cook a main course each Friday evening and I have the pleasure of delivering a message. This week a group of teens (most of them do not regularly attend a church anywhere - only three of the chilren there tonight regularly attend our church) cooked lasagna, made salads and dessert for the congregation while Dr. Yoho came to our church to deliver a wonderful message on love from 1 Corinthians 13:1-12. I greatly enjoy Dr. Yoho and his mannerisms as well as the way he presents the materials - it is quite the pleasure just to listen to him. Let me be quite honest with you, Dr. Yoho is perhaps one of the two absolutely smartest and most educated people I have ever met when it comes to the Bible - not to compare them but he is on equal ground with Dr. Carroll from Central - these two men can get so deep into the Bible that it gives an entirely new meaning to Bible studies.

The pastor's wife had finished decorating the fellowship area and it really did look good - when we first arrived tonight we filled the fountain with cherry soda and turned it on and started melting the chocolate for the dipping fountain. I also brought strawberries, angel food cake and pretzels. The food and dessert were excellent - it was so nice at the end of the meal to hear the teens laughing and having a good time, truly enjoying themselves in a church setting and being comfortable. I find a lot of very good things about Trinity but what I really enjoy is the commitment to people this church has and how everyone is accepted. Even the adults tonight were laughing and enjoying themselves. While the teens missed out on Dr. Yoho's message, I think they learned quite a bit and will feel comfortable enough to come back.

Today was a good day from start to finish. I had an interview at 9:30 this morning so figuring in traffic I knew I'd have to leave early so I could ensure I'd find the location. Both girls cooperated very well and the morning was very smooth. Traffic to the interview was good and without delay - I had plenty of time to sit down at Burger King close by, enjoy a warm (not hot, but warm enough) breakfast and drink a soda (I don't do coffee, tea or anything hot to drink), review my notes, tie my tie and then drive the two blocks over there. I arrived about 20 minutes before the interview but didn't get out of the car until 9:20 - then potential disaster struck!! As I was pulling my suit coat off of the hanger a button snagged on the door and popped off! Not the impression I wanted to make for an executive director's position - two buttons on and one missing in action. Fortunately, my past life experiences keep me somewhat prepared and I had a sewing kit in the glove box - I put that button back on in record time and made it to the interview in a very timely fashion.

I felt the interview went well - the president of the board did ask me one question before I left that gave me some concern about my qualifications for the position - they always have to do that to you for some reason.

The drive home was good - this particular location is less than 30 minutes from our house and a couple of blocks from the Atlantic Ocean. We are not interviewing at the agency's main office but if that one is close to this area, I can see where the summer commute to/from Virginia Beach will be tough. When I got home, I got my usual terrific reception from the dog. Don't you just love dogs - no matter what they have been through, they always find time to be so happy when you get home. My dog is extra excitable - if I walk out the door for 5 seconds and come back in, she treats me like I've been gone for weeks - why can't people be so excited to see each other like that?

After walking the dog and coming in the house, I was putting up my jacket when the phone rang. My phone interview from yesterday (Thursday) was calling to set up the second interview!! I am one of two finalists for the position. The supervisor is flying in from Houston next week and I am meeting with her management team Wednesday morning at 8:30 am. I have some homework I need to work on the next few days - they want me to create a job sheet on how to lace and tie a shoe then I have to do a 10 minute presentation during my interview. This is a pretty standard interview technique for training positions so I'm comfortable with this. The one thing I like about this particular job is the supervisor's commitment to hiring only trainers that have a degree and/or a credential in the training field - too many companies slight training by hiring or "promoting" people into a training job without a degree. Would you hire a janitor for a doctor's position? Probably not unless he had a medical degree! Why would you hire someone for a training position if they didn't have a training degree? Let me answer that - you are just paying lip service to your commitment to training, that's why! The ability to operate a video camera and a computer to create PowerPoint slides doesn't make you remotely qualified to work or run a training department. Okay, soap box put away.

I spent the rest of the day getting housework done and going over my stuff for tomorrow's visit to the tax professional. We have a very nice stack of papers for her to work with - I'm kind of hoping my preparation will result in a nice stack of money for me to work with!!

Once the girls got home, I took the youngest one to WalMart with me so we could pick up some strawberries, cherry soda and melting chocolate for the fountain. The oldest daugther stayed home to get ready and walk the dog - we stopped back by and picked her up. While I was gone, the president of the board from today's interview had called and wanted to schedule a follow-up interview. I called her back and found out I was one of two finalists for that position as well AND she gave me a homework assignment before the interview. I think I'm going to play the lottery!!!

The oldest daughter once again had a positive day - a story she had written for an essay contest was one of seven selected as honorable mention. She does write some creative stories and did a very nice job with this particular one.

My wife was rather sore today from yesterday's hand-to-hand combat training and she spotted a few more bruises on her body. She sounded a little better today as her allergies were giving her a temporary break. Today was all classroom for her group - probaly more to allow them to recover than anything else. Her next day to relax is March 3rd so it will be a long couple of weeks for her. The good news is her Skype and NetFlix connections are working well on her new Netbook so she'll be able to use those if she has any free time at her final destination. She did call tonight while we were eating at the church and everyone was able to say hello to her - nothing like a long distance group hug!

I think the reason things are staying positive and productive for the most part is due to our commitment to prayer. Our days start and end in either the Bible or a Bible study devotion. If you are going through a deployment or your loved one is about to be deployed, I cannot stress enough the comfort you will get from a positive prayer life. Tonight the girls' devotion was part 2 of "The Heart Box" and referenced Psalm 18:1-3. It talked about giving your life to Jesus. My devotion was "must I listen?" and referenced Exodus 20:19 - Chambers talked about us not listening to God.

It took two glasses of water, but I think I'm over the sugar coma I induced into my body from the dessert at church! Day Twelve is over and here's looking forward to Day 13.

Day Eleven - February 11, 2010

2010-02-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

Looking at my schedule, I just knew this was going to be a busy day and boy was I ever right! Day started off with the alarm going off at 5:00 am. Went in to check on the little one and she was already awake and waiting on me - she was just so excited to go back to school! Wish I could get her that excited about cleaning her room.

While she showered and got dressed, I started my Bible readings for the day. Of course at the good parts I have to go scrub her head and then soap up the washrag so she can do her body. Other than those two things she's pretty independent when it comes to showers. I dried her off, helped her get dressed and made breakfast for her - while she ate, I finished my Bible reading.

No issues with the teenager this morning - she's slow most mornings and this one was no different. Her first words today were "isn't it Saturday yet?" At least she is consistent. At 6:00 am the youngest daughter has eaten, made her bed, brushed her teeth and the rest of her morning routine, angered the dog and has her jacket, gloves and hat on ready to go outside to wait for the bus. Of course the rest of us "slackers" know it will be a full hour so I encouraged her to take off her jacket, hat and gloves and relax. As you might have guessed, every 15 minutes I heard "how much longer?" If the bus is late today, it might not be a pretty sight!

Finally her bus picks her up. I'm able to get back on routine a little with the teenager's help. I will admit she has done quite well since her mom left and has been a big help - while she's not good at finding things to do on her own, she doesn't mind asking what can she do to help. The little one on the other hand has tried to take over the "mother" role and is busy keeping tabs on everyone - I had to talk to her this morning that while I appreciate her concern for my safety, I probably didn't need to report to her all of my actions and I certainly didn't need her permission to leave the room. The youngest daughter has a bossy streak in her and is a very strong-willed person - at the same time, you have to be very, very careful how you correct or discipline her - I'm keeping all of that in mind as I make sure she stays in the "daughter" role and not assuming more than she should.

The morning was very positive with a very good phone interview for a training manager position. I have a very hard time reading my performance on interviews but I feel I did my best, had good positive answers to all the questions, the right amount of experience and the right amount of can-do spirit as well.

A little later in the morning, I went over to the church to start decorating for Friday night's activities. The teens are going to cook lasagna for the adults and we are having a special guest speaker, Dr. Yoho. I've heard him speak one time in our church, had a chance to talk with him and I've read several of his books - I consider this to be quite the special night to get to hear him again. Our family also has the incredible opportunity to financially support his Missions 300 writing ministry on a monthly basis. I decorated the ceiling of the modular trailer where we will be eating - last year our family decorated the fellowship hall at Central and I used the same theme/materials - pink and white tafeta material was draped from the ceiling and I put red and pink balloons in there - that gives the lights a nice glow. In the middle of the room, I took a hula-hoop and suspended it from the ceiling. I tied red and pink balloons all around the hoop to create a balloon chandelier. Very nice effect. The pastor's wife will decorate the tables and the rest of the room. I also took our chocolate machine and our punch fountain over as well. I'll need to pick up the chocolate, strawberries and pretzels as well as some type of reddish colored pop for the fountain at Wal Mart Friday.

Both girls arrived home as scheduled and full of their days activities. The little one had her homework finished before the teenager got home. I made sure the youngest one felt like eating spaghetti for supper - didn't want a repeat of that from Tuesay!! She was okay with it, so I cooked spaghetti - we added salad, baby carrots and bread to complete the meal.

The teenager had a ton of homework so I took the youngest to her dance/singing class. I still stick to my thought process that we are in the wrong element there but she really enjoys it - as long as it remains fun for her, we'll continue. The classes are okay, it is just the infrastructure and the mothers. The building just isn't set up for that many people, it is cramped and not laid out well. Add to it all the mothers that are just convinced their little darlings are the next mega-star and you have some really intersting people watching! To make matters worse last night, one guy kept going out to smoke about every five minutes - of course when he came back he caused the entire hallway to smell of smoke. About the time the smell would clear out, he'd go out to light up again - I've been second hand smoking my whole life, just some days are worse than others.

During the time I was at church decorating, our friends from Maryland called to check on us. They are an older couple who became like "surrogate" grandparents to the girls while we were there. A very lovely and wonderful couple, both in their mid-80's. Once I was sure our youngest was in her class and it started, I stepped outside and spoke with them for several minutes. Also during the day, the pastor from Central sent me an e-mail catching me up on the news there, mainly snow related, and let me know that Mr. Oglesby had passed away - he was 95 years old and he was so nice - he would never let me walk up to his pew to shake his hand, he insisted on coming back to speak to our entire family and shaking each person's hand. His wife passed away a couple of years ago and he just wasn't the same after that. Right now the plan is to have a memorial service for Richard in March and if pastor has it on a Saturday without terribly bad weather, we'll do our best to go - by far the least we can do to honor a man who was so good to all of us. I imagine there was quite a great parade in heaven when he arrived.

My wife added to her bruise collection yesterday in hand-to-hand combat training. She also had a snotty nose, probably from allergies related to living in a pre-World War II building and full of 70 years worth of germs and crud. It was raining there so someone ordered pizza and sodas for supper - we don't want our soldiers getting wet, do we? She found out they would be having class each of the next three days for sure so not much rest for her. We've been watching the impending offensive in the region where she is slated to go - our prayer is that it will be over with before she gets there and their team can be part of the recovery for the region instead of the insurgance.

Rest of the evening was good. I did some final research for the interview for Friday morning. My devotion today was "Is your hope in God faint and dying?" and referenced Isaiah 26:3. I will say that Mr. Chambers must have been quite the straight shooter and didn't pull many punches. Ther girls reading was part I of "The heart box" from Psalm 19:16-22 - this part was about sharing.

Day Eleven is done, here's looking forward to Day Twelve!

Day Ten - February 10, 2010

2010-02-10T17:43:00.001-08:00

I'll start out by fully admitting I am rather tired tonight - I think I got 2 hours sleep last night total. While she didn't puke anymore, the youngest daughter had a rough night. She's also not the best bed buddy as she is quite wiggly. When she woke up this morning, she really wanted to go to school so we tried our best. She took a shower and we did her hair - I could tell she wasn't quite her normal self. Once we got downstairs and took her temperature, it was a little high so we started a motrin/tylenol rotation. I had already decided she wasn't going to school but she wanted to try to eat. We did the dry toast - I told her up front that we weren't making this for taste, more to just get something in her belly. She made it about 1/2 way though the toast and said "I don't think I should go to school" - another check of her temperature and off to bed she went.

No issues with the teenager this morning, she had a positive start to her day. Same for the dog. They both probably could sense I was a little tired!

The 2nd grader took a short nap this morning and once the teenager left for school the dog passed out in her usual spot - the top step! I think she does that so she can see out the front door and get patted each time someone walks by. I cleaned up downstairs and read the paper - when I came back the dog had made her way into the youngest daughter's room and was sleeping on the part of the blanket that made its way onto the floor.

Our rain stopped just after midnight and we had a very pretty snow fall this morning from 9am to 11am. It was that really pretty, fluffy, white, big and juicy snow that kind of dances in the breeze. Some of the flakes would get close to the ground and then magically rise back in the sky. For the first 30 minutes nothing was sticking. Eventually the snow became heavier and for a little while we had a complete white-out. The grass got a dusting but nothing stuck on the roads. By noon today it was all gone.

Once the youngest daughter got up from her nap, we went through the temperature check routine and she was thirsty. We ran to the store and picked up some gatorade and some chicken strips for lunch. Once I baked the chicken, she didn't eat much but it was a start. She drank a small bottle of gatorade and slurped down a jell-o cup (always room for jell-o!). We poured some medicine down her and then watched a little bit of Phineas and Ferb. 20 minutes later we both were ready for a nap. I got almost a full hour and she got a little over 2 hours.

The nap must have had some magical powers - the 2nd grader woke up and started tormenting the dog (and vice versa) so I pretty well knew she felt better. We finished her home work from the previous day. I had a phone call from an HR person setting up a phone interview tomorrow morning - a local group is looking for a Training Manager with factory experience. We'll see how that goes.

The teenager got home at her normal time and she was bubbling about her day. She has a new series of AP classes she's taking and she's excited about that. She's sitting for her first series of AP tests from the first semester in April. Today was report card day and that added to her happiness as she made the Honor Roll. The good thing about this year is she has run into a teacher who is giving her fits in the classroom and she's struggled in the class. To her credit, she hasn't let it get her down and she's worked very hard. This was exactly the type of class she needed to remind her that not all school work is easy. One more positive thing for the teenager tonight - she took her drug test for her job at a local grocery store. This has been a very long, drawn out process but she is closer to starting actual work.

After the drug test, we stopped to get burgers – no one was really starving but if we waited until after church we’d be quite hungry. We made it to the church in plenty of time and had a chance to visit with some friends who also arrived early. Service was good – on Wednesday nights we are going through the ABC’s of Christian Growth and it is a very good class.

The evening ended with devotions and getting cleaned up. The girls’ devotion yesterday was “Sharon’s decision” and referenced 1 Samuel 15:22 – it talked about obeying your parents! Tonight they read “The Math Test” and referenced Philippians 4:6-7 – it talked about giving God all your worries. My devotion tonight was “Is your imagination of God Starved?” and referenced Isaiah 40:26. It talked about how the people of Israel had starved their imagination of God by looking upon the face of idols but Isaiah made them look to heaven instead.

Today just wasn’t all about us – my wife had a recovery/recreation day where they had a chance to go into Seattle. She was able to enjoy a couple of decent meals at real restaurants and go into the Space Needle. Tomorrow she returns to training and experiences close quarter combat training including the all time favorite – pugil sticks!!!! Those are those double ended poles with a modified boxing glove on both ends – think a giant Q-Tip on steroids. You take these sticks and learn how to move an opponent, control crowds or knock someone off balance. They do wear helmets and padding but you can still get the wind knocked out of you easily if you get out of position. I've seen more than one person really get the stuffing knocked out of them as well - normally a physical superior person doesn't pay too much attention during the training lecture because they incorrectly think "I don't need this training" - pugil sticks make up for a lot of physical limitations and I've seen many big guys go down in a heap to a much smaller person. Pugil stick training also cures a lot of problems in the barracks including noisy neighbors, bullies and other assorted issues.

Day Ten is over and here’s looking forward to Day Eleven!!

Day Nine - February 9, 2010

2010-02-09T17:44:00.000-08:00

Before I can go on to Day Nine, I have to finish Day Eight. After I published yesterday's post, we had an exciting few minutes shortly before 11 pm! Before I go into this, I must confess that when it comes to puke, I am a total weenie. The mere sound, smell or sight of it will cause me to get very weak knee'd. To actually watch someone or something puke makes me horribly sick. To have someone or something puke on me - well, I just as soon die! I don't like to admit I'm a weenie or something so simple is my kryptonite but this does. I published last night's blog, went downstairs to check the house, get a drink of water and I watched a few minutes of the Kansas versus Texas basketball game. A few minutes later, I set the alarm, turned off the lights and came up the stairs. We have been letting the dog sleep in the house since it was so cold outside and the garage is a little chilly. I guess the dog had a severe reaction to our teenager's room being semi-clean and as I got to the top step I could hear her in the room having the dry heaves - I'm thinking not good and I sure didn't want to clean dog puke off the carpet. I opened the door and tell the dog to run downstairs - she listens to me pretty well but this time she stopped on the top step and was going to hurl so I grabbed her and we were down the 15 stairs in maybe three steps - you just don't realize how badly I hate puke!! As I hit the first floor and get ready to open the front door, I remember the darn alarm was set - if I had opened the door, the entire neighborhood would have heard the alarm - this thing is LOUD - any intruder in our home is going to be an easy catch, he'll be doubled over in intense ear pain!! So I'm still holding this heaving dog, nothing escaping its mouth yet, run to the alarm, hit the code with my elbow and then sprint back for the front door - I don't know why I just didn't go out the garage door, all I know is my anti-puke mode doesn't include fully functioning brain cells! As we are heading for the front door, I feel something way too warm and way too wet oozing down my hands and my forearms - oh my, I'm going to die!!! Of course both the top lock and the door knob locks were twisted so I have to use a juicy hand to unlock both of them, twist the knob and we're outside. I have to give the dog credit because she didn't blow hard until the door was opened - if you are making a movie about this sometime in the future, just dress up a fire extinguisher like a white and brown dog and pull the lever!! She blew like the great whale in Moby Dick!! How thankful was I that the wind wasn't blowing in our face last night!?? I tossed the dog in the yard and then my personal distaste for all things puke kicked in - of course my hands and arms were covered in yellow ooze so I couldn't wipe my eyes. I just prayed that if I did truly die, the ambulance wouldn't find me face down in my own puke!!! Yes, the dog did recover but she slept in the garage!! I found a half eaten yellow crayon in the 2nd graders room earlier today - more about that later! My Day Eight ended with a shower!

Day Nine started better than Day Eight ended thankfully! It was 20 degrees outside as I was hosing off the evidence from last night but an ice slick was preferable to that mess!

All-in-all the first part of my day was pretty good. The dog was good, the girls were good and all was fine. I did a couple of errands - picked up the last of the tax documents and went grocery shopping at Wal Mart. Unlike the pictures we've been seeing of the DC area with empty grocery shelves, our store was stocked pretty well. My "not sexy" preparation yesterday of clipping coupons and getting a list together before hand worked very well - the original receipt was $106.81 and after coupons, I paid $85.66!! Not bad if I must say so myself!

The afternoon was quiet and productive - I found last year's 1040 form in the file cabinet, put away all the groceries, worked in the yard a little bit to remove some limbs than had fallen and took some measurements of the front of the house, back of the house and the garage. I've got to get some gutters on this house soon and that'll be my next project. I am terminally not happy with the garage so I want to try one more thing in there as well.

Both girls arrived home safely. Just as the teenager walked in the door, the skies opened up and it started raining. We've had a steady five hour rain that has been pretty intense but so far, no snow. Just after 4:15pm the 2nd grader walked up to me and said "I don't feel good". I jokingly asked her if she ate the other half of the yellow crayon the dog ate yesterday and she said "no, but I think the spagehetti at school made me sick" - great, more kryptonite!! It is one thing to lean over the rail of the front porch on the verge of sure death in the middle of the night, but it is something completely different to get sick along with your daughter in the middle of the day!!!

Needless to say, it all came back but we were able to make it to the potty - even the dog went sprinting downstairs!! I doubt we'll be having school spaghetti again anytime soon!! Come to find out, the teenager is allergic to other people puking as well so she didn't help at all, standing in the hallway gagging!! What a sorry sight we must have been. The first time my daughter got sick tonight was a killer - notice I said first time because times 2 through 4, I was okay and able to help her - I don't know what happened but I survived. She must have a stomach bug or something because after the first time I just figured it was bad food and that was the end of it so I gave her a glass of water and a cold wash rag, let her lay in bed and relax. The water didn't hang around long so we just let her lay back down and relax. She went to sleep for a little bit but was back up again. I then got some Gatorade in her - we were afraid she'd get dehydrated - but that didn't last long. Remember my story about stocking up on meds before a rainy day - well it was pouring outside but we had some Pepto in the medicine cabinet. The Pepto seems to have calmed things down - we've had one false alarm sprint to the potty and she was able to drink a glass of water. Right now she's in my bed passed out with a cold washrag on her head - no fever or anything like that - might be a long night though. I figure if she vomits one more time, we'll go to the ER to make sure all is okay.

The schools here in Chesapeake are very good and they communicate very well with us. Rarely does an evening go by without a phone call from one or both schools with some information - tomorrow is report card day at the high school! We already know what the high schoolers grades are though so no surprises. The school has an electronic website called Edline that lets the student and the parents see home work assignments, grades, a class syllabus and attendance. I'm really glad we didn't have that stuff when we were in school! The high school is also really good about letting us know about scholarship opportunities, college fairs, local volunteering opportunities for the kids and other good information. The main reason we bought in this area was for the schools and so far, they have been better than advertised.

My wife had a positive day although a bruising one. She was the "gunner" during her group's Humvee training and it was her team's job to help secure her as they were tossed about. Her right arm already had a good sized bruise from the M16's but now it has a twin from today's training.

Even with all the activity in the house this evening, teenagers still tend to get hungry so we had sloppy joes, tater tots and salad for supper. We split an apple as well.

I wasn't able to go to the Pastor's Roundtable tonight but the Pastor texted me with a special prayer request so we'll include that in our evening prayers. We also started Valentine Day cards for family members - the 2nd grader still has four to sign but the teenager did her part.

The girls did their devotion tonight but I can't find the book so I'll update that tomorrow. My devotion was "are you spiritually exhausted" and referenced Isaiah 40:28. Mr. Chambers asked if the way we have been serving God has betrayed us into exhaustion? His object was to make you think about what you are doing, how you are doing it and whether you are replenishing yourself as well as others.

The rain is still pouring down outside. The little one is asleep and as I just took her temp it was still at 98.6 - hopefully she'll sleep well during the night - she didn't get to do her presentation today at school on Eleanor Roosevelt, they ran out of time - I know she was really looking forward to it!! I'll end Day 9 on my knees in prayer and looking forward to Day 10!

Day Eight - February 8, 2010

2010-02-08T18:24:00.000-08:00

Ever watch those commercials for dating & matchmaking websites? They tend to show the romantic side of relationships with the couple dancing, eating a dinner by candle light and having a good time. Today I vote they show the other side of relationships!!! Laundry, clipping coupons, doing the grocery shopping list, changing bed sheets, taking out the trash, scrubbing floors and paying bills!! My wife called this morning on her way to breakfast and asked what I was doing – told her I had laundry going, was clipping the coupons from the Sunday paper, getting the grocery list going and watching the weather channel to see what the weather would be for the rest of the week to plan daily clothing choices – her response “well, that’s not very sexy!” Welcome to the reality of life!!

I forgot to include yesterday’s devotions for the end of the day – the girls read “Mistaken” which referenced John 9:1-7 – it talked about whether God makes mistakes or not; it led to a good discussion and everyone came to the conclusion that God doesn’t make mistakes, there is a purpose for everyone. My devotion was “The discipline of dejection” and referenced Luke 24:21 – it talked about expecting God to be in the thunder, lightning and powerful people of the world while He can be most readily found in the commonplace things and people around us.

The pancakes must have been a hit with the little one over the weekend because she asked for chocolate chip pancakes this morning! The teenager wasn’t interested and she went with the safe choice of cereal and fruit.

I started laundry a little earlier this morning – wanted to get the bed sheets going before the regular laundry. For the most part, the house stayed neat over the weekend so it only took a light pick up this morning. The weather outside was quite cold this morning (20 degrees) so we had to bundle up to meet the bus in the driveway. We really lucked out with this bus driver – the regular bus stop is supposed to be down the street a little bit and we had to walk around a slight curve – our street does not have sidewalks so the walk is kind of dangerous especially in wet weather. Without prompting from us, on the third or fourth day of school this year the bus driver told me to call the bus manager and ask for the stop to be moved to a safer location for our girls directly across from the house. Always nice when you get that little bit extra from someone.

Even though I am not working outside of the house right now, I still handle my mornings as if I am – I still do all the morning household chores, shower and am dressed by 8:30. Since last week, I have also added a run on the treadmill. When I do return to work it won’t be a major disruption to my routine.

For the past couple of years, we’ve been using online banking and I can’t imagine how we survived without that and Internet access to our bank accounts! It is quite nice to log onto the bank website, check the accounts and balance the checkbook instead of slogging through the monthly bank statement. We have several items set up on auto-pay and some companies actually reward you to have automatic debits set up. Our insurance and security companies both gave us a reduction for doing so. We also have our mortgage set up for the “equity accelerator” program paying about half of our normal mortgage two times a month and in theory, it will save us about five years of payments– the start to that program has given us some problems but I think we might have worked past those now – if we have any more issues with that program, we’ll go back to writing them a check to prevent surprises to our budget. We pay almost all of our bills online via our bank’s web bill pay program – the only checks we actually write are to the grocery store, church, missionary support and the little girl we sponsor overseas. It certainly makes life easier as long as you remember to take those auto-payments out of your checkbook!!

Car maintenance is another area we have well addressed. My wife’s car was serviced in December and shouldn’t be due again until April. I’m taking my car in next week for an oil change and tires rotated. As long as we don’t take a long trip or anything, we can go once every four months to keep the cars in good shape – our current schedule has me taking one car or the other into the shop every other month. We have a great repair shop about a half block from our house – he usually gives us a wave every morning as he drives by while I’m standing out front waiting on our 2nd grader’s bus.

Today I made my first fatal mistake of the deployment. I went into our teenager’s room while she was in school with the intent of being helpful by putting her sheets back on her bed and making her bed for her – Monday’s normally present a full load of homework for her and I figured this would be nice. She also had her printer on the floor so I was going to put that up on the dresser for her to give her some more floor room. As I was making the bed, I knocked something small off of her nightstand and when I looked under the bed to find it I also found the “hidey-hole”!! All the mates to her unmated socks, a couple of empty cups and other assorted “not supposed to be there things” – conveniently kicked under the bed! Of course we all know that where there is one hidey hole, they somehow breed into multiple hiding places. So as I turned the second was under her desk and a third was under her dresser. I know I shouldn’t have, but I opened the closet door to find the fourth! I did take a few minutes to do some rearranging but I left the messes pretty well alone except for the cups – they were just those large red plastic Dixie cups that hopefully only had water in them but it was more the thought than the actual cup – she receives a rather nice allowance every week and part of that is the faith she is keeping her room clean – we observe her privacy and don’t go messing around in her room but we both decided today that to prevent further issues, I’d come in and check her room weekly with her before she got her allowance. Her other big areas of responsibility are easier to watch, dog baths and her bathroom as well as running the vacuum on all carpeted areas of the house. As I type, she’s in there working right now and at last check it was looking much better.

I spent the majority of my late-morning, early afternoon chasing down the final couple of documents we need to file our taxes. I’m not even going to pretend to do these taxes this year, I have an appointment Saturday morning with a tax professional – I’ll give them all they want/need, they can do the work!

2nd grade homework was easy tonight – we counted money and made change. Her project was pushed back to tomorrow so she’s really ready for it now. Supper was good – country fried steak, fried potatoes, gravy, corn and a roll. After supper, the little one helped me take an inventory of the pantry. Sounds easy but we have a “food phobia” and we seem to really stock up on food. Our kitchen has a small pantry area that I converted to a pan/pot/appliance storage area and I set up a large metal rack in the laundry room for the food reserves. We are very good about rotating food and using up the oldest first but I just wanted to make totally for sure what was in there so we can incorporate it all into the meal planning. We found a few items I had no idea what to do with, but when my wife called she gave some ideas. There are several bread mixes in there that I’ll never be able to eat up myself as the girls don’t care much for them (triple berry bread and cranberry bread) so I’ll just bake one a week and take it to the church – probably better for them than donuts anyway! But for the majority of the items, we’ll be able to use.

My wife had a long day of class and practical experience. They were doing a form of “land orienteering” using a compass, finding her way from point to point and all that. Hopefully she’ll never have to use it but if she does, she’ll be ready. Tomorrow they get to do the roll-over test in the Humvee – this simulates a vehicle turning over and they have to be able to get out of the upside down vehicle. When she went to OIS (Officer Indoctrination School) she had to go through the “dunker” where they simulate a water emergency and you have to unstrap from your seat and swim safely away. I suggested she take an Advil or two before class, that sounds like some more bumps and bruises!!

The girls’ devotion tonight was “whose fault is it?” and referenced 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 and 10:31. It talked about making excuses for our actions instead of being accountable. My devotion was “instantaneous and insistent sanctification” which referenced 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. It asked if we were really ready to be set apart.

One final “new experience” to report today – I changed my youngest daughter’s ear rings tonight and cleaned her ears. I’m not an expert on ear lobes or anything like that but I thought the hole through the ear lobe was a straight shot and wouldn’t be too much of an issue – while she didn’t scream, she did give me a face when I pushed the new ear ring through the front hole but missed the exit hole – how was I to know the front skin of the ear lobe isn’t connected to the back skin – when I rub my ear lobes, they feel like one continuous mass of ear! I did better on the second ear though despite her having a death grip on the vanity anticipating another missed approach!!

Day 8 is finished and more importantly, our second Monday is over with! Here’s looking forward to Day 9!

Day Seven - February 7, 2010

2010-02-07T18:12:00.000-08:00

Well, despite my concern at the end of last night's post, I was able to survive the Sunday morning service. There were a couple of rough spots but I made it!!!

Today was suprisingly smooth from start to finish. I got up around 6am and had a chance to read most of the newspaper before I got anyone up. Took my shower first - what a luxury that is to have a full, hot shower!! Normally I go last on Sunday mornings and with three other girls taking their showers before me, it can be a spine-chilling experience! But today was different! Around 7am I got the youngest one up, showered her, got her into some sweat pants/shirt and socks, dried her hair and sent her downstairs. Woke the teenager up and the dog had spent the night in her room "camping out under the bed" so it came rolling out as well. While the youngest daughter decided on her breakfast and found a cartoon to watch, I took the dog outside. Was quite cold this morning (low 20's) but the streets were clear. Breakfast today was cereal, toast, fruit and juice. I'm trying to clean out all the stuff my wife left behind so I don't have to throw it away - we seem to have several boxes of cereal with just one or two bowl fulls left in them - I get to either be a billy goat and finish them up or take on the wrath of my youngest daughter, the next generation's nature saver, and toss them in the garbage. This morning she finished up one box of cereal and I took care of another so we made progress.

I had already laid out everyone's clothes last night so getting dressed wasn't much of an issue at all. That is our teenager's hardest decision of the day so once that is removed, she does okay. She had cereal, toast and fruit as well for breakfast.

Before church, the pastor had sent me a text message asking about the roads - he lives several miles from the church and we only live 2.1 miles from it. I let him know my street was clear and I wondered how many folks would be there - gotta ensure we have enough donuts for those that show up but not too many so I have to bring the "fat pills" home with us. I got there a little earlier than normal to clear off the porch to the Sunday School room and got the classroom ready. It was very nice to see almost the entire class show up before 10am. One couple lives in North Carolina and couldn't get out of their driveway and one lady lives across the river in Hampton and her streets had not been cleared yet. It seems as if each city here has their own weather pattern - Hampton did get nearly 3 inches of snow and they don't have the money necessary to clear all the roads. Sunday school class was very good and I really enjoy leading that group. We are doing such a fantastic study right now that is clear, concise and so easy to present - we met Dr. Woodard when he came for a revival late in 2009 and we've been using his materials since. Even though I do about 3 hours of prep work a week for each 45 minute class, the study program is so well written a beginner could fully benefit from it. Even better, the Bible study is provided free of charge and you can either do it online or have a hard copy printed out and mailed to you (once again at no charge) - if someone misses a class (and you don't need a group to do the program) they can easily catch up - it really helps us to maintain our continuity.

Church service at 11am was truly a worship service today. We were only missing a few folks and it went very well. I am really excited by the way our girls participate in church. Both of them sing in the choir and the youngest one really has a heart for the food pantry. I don't know where she keeps coming up with all this change but every Sunday for the past several weeks she has been dropping a handful of change into the food pantry collection bottle we have up front. The pastor loves it because, well let's just go with she is just plain noisy when she dumps all that change into the empty 5 gallon water bucket and it would wake up anyone - we should record that sound and make an alarm clock from it! Our oldest daughter was asked by the pastor today to start reading one or two missionary letters a week to the congregation and that is great. I'm happy she accepted as she is not overly confident in herself in front of groups and this will certainly help. I will give her credit though - her mom's last day at church a couple of weeks ago, she took her guitar and sang JJ Heller's song "Your Hands" to the congregation in honor of her mom. The pastor's message today was about Saul's transformation and was very good.

The afternoon was quiet and relaxing. Lunch was chicken, potatoes and carrots. We had some banana's getting dark so everyone did their part and had one for a snack. I was able to go for a run on the treadmill this afternoon while I reviewed my notes for the evening service. The teenager took a short nap while the 2nd grader went over her presentation one more time then we watched 45 minutes of the Phineas & Ferb marathon on Disney XD. I finally figured out how to split the screen on our TV with Cox cable, so I was able to watch the Capitals/Penguins on half the screen and P&F on the other half. Caps won to run their winning streak to 14 games!

We did have a chance to talk with my wife today and she was doing well and sounded well rested. I don't know what kind of training they are doing, but when I was preparing to go to the Persian Gulf, my training program certainly didn't include Cinnabon for breakfast on Sunday!! Gonna have to write my congressman! Actually I'm glad for her that she has a chance to relax a little bit because I'm sure this time next month she's going to be quite a bit more stressed out.

We made it back to church for evening service and that went well. My message was well received and the pastor commented that it was even better this time than on Friday night. The message was on worship. I am surely the last person who should ever be in a pulpit but I think you can learn a lot about a church by the way the men pray and speak in a church when given the opportunity.

After church and since things have gone so well so far, we had supper at Chili's. It was halftime of the Super Bowl and The Who was playing - anyone else think that was a bad idea? I can understand the safety issue The Who provides versus the Janet Jackson incident a few years ago, but when I go to a football game I like to see some bands get out there at halftime. But my only memory of this year's Super Bowl will be whatever SportsCenter chooses to show tomorrow morning and The Who playing Pinball Wizard.

One last phone call from the wife before the end of the day - we were able to use Skype on this one - I enjoy the video portion of it but so far it tends to freeze up more often than I like.

It appears there will be school tomorrow here so everything is laid out and ready - book bags are packed and downstairs, we've checked the lunch menu for the elementary school and she is thinking about what to do - I wonder if that means she'll be dreaming of pizza or chicken sandwiches or standing in line? What do 2nd graders dream about? Maybe I don't want to really know the answer to that question! Alarm is set for 5am to start a new week.

Day 7 is done and more importantly one Sunday down, 34 to go!! Here's looking forward to Day 8!!

Day Six - February 6, 2010

2010-02-06T18:45:00.000-08:00

The weather was the main story of the day today! We had continuous rain from yesterday up until noon today. The city had requested everyone stay off the roads after 11am today as they were forecasting a sudden, rapid drop in the temperatures so they anticipated freezing roads. Our ditches were full of water and the road by our house had minor flooding - nothing like what we had in November but enough to slow the traffic down some though. I looked out the window around 11:15am and noticed the ditches had suddenly dropped then at 11:30am the snow started flying. At first it was a combination of rain and snow. Gave me enough warning to run outside and lift the windshield wipers on the cars though. By noon the wind had picked up and was driving the snow sideways - the side of our house and cars caught the brunt of the snow. As the snow thickened up and got heavier it started sticking to the grass and the back deck. Never did stick to the roads or sidewalks.

We did venture out for a few minutes today so the teenager could go into the library to get a couple of books. Instead of putting the dog in her cage for a few minutes, we put her jacket on her and took her - I always regret taking her because she just has a hard time calming down. But we made it home safely - the creek about a half mile from our house was just about to go over the bridge so our timing was good.

My wife had the chance to relax a little today as her group didn’t have class - but first she had the unfortunate chore of cleaning the bathrooms in the barracks. Even in the best of situations, few things fall lower on the yucky scale than cleaning the bathrooms and trust me, in the military there is no worse chore! But she sounded well rested. A little later in the day we were able to try Skype and that was very nice getting to see her. One warning about Skype though – your video tends to freeze in some rather unnatural positions!! It was also kind of weird talking to her and seeing her at the same time – had kind of a Jetson’s feel to it (yep, dating myself now!). I had read an article that some parents locally were using Skype during last week’s snow storm so their kids could talk and see their friends – pretty good idea there! But the girls enjoyed seeing their mom and she enjoyed seeing all of us! Once again, I am just amazed at what teenagers find important to talk about!!

Since we didn’t get out too long today, we had plenty of time to take care of things around the house. We started the day with a good breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, eggs, bacon and milk. Both girls got their own vitamins this morning without being reminded! In fact, the teenager had a great day where she was actually looking for things to do!! The dog got a bath, the bathrooms were cleaned and I cleaned under the sink in the kitchen and re-organized a couple of drawers in the kitchen as well. I didn’t touch the treasure drawer – you might call it a junk drawer – that’ll have to happen another day!

After a lunch of hotdogs and chili fries, the girls went outside to play in the snow for awhile. I told them it was quite cold out there and bundled them both up rather well – the youngest daughter is just over having the snotty nose so I don’t want a repeat of that – was almost like she was producing 2 times her body weight in snot daily!! No fever or anything though. They took the dog outside with them and they went in the field next door to build a snowman. Sure enough, 20 minutes later I heard them in the garage and they were done for the day. Before they went outside I made them put a change of clothes, socks and house shoes in the garage – that way they could strip down, put on the dry clothes and leave the wet clothes and boots out there until I could deal with them. If I didn’t do that, there would have been a puddle or two on the hardwood floors and I would have had to mop again – I don’t mind if the concrete floor gets wet, different story inside.

Had a chance to watch a little of the Kentucky basketball game but it was a blowout. After supper (girls had pizza and I had a salad with chicken on it – not a big pizza fan) we worked on the 2nd grader’s project on Eleanor Roosevelt. Did you know her maiden name was also Roosevelt? Her father was her husband’s 5th cousin – sounds like a country song, doesn’t it? As my wife jokes “I’m my own grandpa” – must be a Kentucky joke because I can’t figure it out but it cracks her up so that’s okay! But after researching Mrs. Roosevelt, I’m quite impressed with her and all she accomplished. My daughter did all of her own research and decided what she was going to put on the “walking through time board” – I just helped her with the popsicle puppets of Mrs. Roosevelt and gave her some ideas on what to draw. It was a three paneled board – she started when she was born in New York City so she drew a skyline and the statue of Liberty (she used the Liberty Tax lady as her character motivation – they have those people dressed like Lady Liberty dancing on quite a few street corners); when Eleanor was 8, her mom passed away and she stayed with her grandma who sent her to boarding school in England so she drew Big Ben and a boarding school. I was hurt; she said the boarding school looked like my grade school with those big scary windows!! St. Lawrence does have boards on many windows now, it is quite rundown. For the puppet we took two photos of Eleanor from when she was 3 or 4 and one when she was 16 – we glued them on each side of the sticks. The middle board had their White House years so she drew that. Since Mr. Roosevelt had a form of polio and couldn’t travel much, Mrs. Roosevelt did most of his traveling – we found an old cartoon from the 1933 New Yorker magazine and put that on there as well (they were making fun of her going everywhere and it had two coal miners saying “Gosh, here comes Mrs. Roosevelt). I guess that cartoon really did tick her off; she visited the coal mines in 1935!! The last panel was after FDR passed away. This was the time Mrs. Roosevelt became more of an advocate as well as the ambassador to the United Nations. She was one of the forces behind getting the US to join the UN as well. She received 45 honorary degrees and she was an advocate for civil rights. My daughter drew the United Nations building and a diploma to represent this time period. Mrs. Roosevelt was also named one of the most important figures of the 20th century – not bad for a lady who thought she was ugly and craved attention and affection when she was a little girl! The puppet for the last two panels was a photo of Mrs. Roosevelt in the White House on one side and the other side had her at the podium of the United Nations. After a couple of practice presentations, my daughter has it down very well so off to school it goes on Monday!

Our devotions tonight were very good. The girls read about “Second Chances” from Matthew 18:21-22 and that one was how God gives all of us second chances plus how we should be forgiving. My devotion was a continuance of yesterday’s “Are you ready to be offered” but this time it was 2 Timothy 4:6. My devotions are from Oswald Chambers lectures from 1911-1915 – they are a little hard to understand sometimes but he must have really been a man of God. I doubt Oswald Chambers ever felt his words would live on into 2010 and beyond but they have. It makes me think and wonder if anything I am doing will be influencing people in 2110 and beyond? And if not, why not? A dear friend of mine dropped me an e-mail the other day – we both subscribe to the same daily motivational e-mail and this particular day she paid me a compliment by saying it reminded her of me – I was thinking the same exact thing about her! The quote was from Bob Nelson and it said “You get the best efforts from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.” If I had to sum up the intention of our leadership programs at The Arc, this statement would be the one.

Day Six is in the books. Tomorrow morning will be a rough one personally – Wednesday night services and Friday teen programs are one thing to get through, but Sunday morning service is something completely different. I can still see my good friend Roger from Central Baptist sitting alone one Sunday morning without his wife as she was at home sick; we sat in the same row but he sat on the right side of the church and we sat in the center; 4 rows from the back, 12 rows from the front - I loved that seat, I never heard God's word clearer than from that seat. Roger looked rather sad and during the handshake I made it over to him where we shook hands and this particular mornihg he hugged me and said "nothing tougher in life than a missing spouse on Sunday morning” – I have to agree with Roger - 35 Sunday’s worth.

Day Five - February 5, 2010

2010-02-05T17:17:00.000-08:00

We had a short break from the weather the past few days but it is back in full force today! Started raining shortly after 11am and hasn't let up all day. Thankfully it is just rain and not the snow our friends in DC and Philly are getting - this area just can't handle snow at all.

Our routine went well this morning and all went as advertised. One minor disagreement with the 2nd grader though - as we were waiting on the bus she kept tugging at her hat, saying it was crooked and not on right. I assured her it was okay and both ears were covered but for some reason she just wouldn't believe me. To say she has the family stubborn gene would be an understatement and she will not let something go until it is resolved in her mind. What had actually happened was I braided one side of her hair into a modified pony tail (right side) and it just didn't feel right to her. I finally had to pick her up and hold her in front of the Expedition mirror so she could visually relate to the situation! Poor baby got a double dose of stubborn from the gene pool!

Rest of the morning went well. I've run a total of 17 miles this week and only lost one pound - not happy with that but I'll just go with I'm at a plateau!! I had a very positive interview this morning and I've been invited back next week to do a 30 minute presentation on my "personal mission statement." Think it would be okay to say "my current mission is to get a job!?" Maybe not the best angle to take, is it? I also have an interview next week with a group of board of directors for a non-profit in Virginia Beach. That position is an executive director opportunity for a non-profit that has been operating for little over a year and they are ready to make the step up. I've just turned the whole job search over to God and I'm at complete ease right now so I feel zero pressure - gives me a terrific advantage when I go into the interview.

I did get to talk with my wife a couple of times today and she is tired, bruised and sore but surviving so that is positive. She has some downtime this weekend so that will be good for her. She qualified with the machine gun today - does the Army really think it is a good thing to let a Navy Operating Room Nurse have access to an M16 and a machine gun?? I hope they've planned ahead and have some testosterone antidote for her (chocolate) - won't be a safe place for the squirrels in the pacific northwest to hide if they don't!!

Girls both arrived home from school safely. First thing the 2nd grader said was she was upset she only got to go to school 2 days this week. First thing the teenager said - "thank God this week is over!" But I will give the teenager credit - she was lugging two really thick chemistry books home with her - anyone that says being a nerd isn't a physical sport should try to pick those books up!!

Tonight was our Teen Program. We've titled the program What's Cooking? and so far it has been well received. The weather kept some of the kids away but we still managed to have a good time. Trinity is only a small church in numbers only - some great things are happening here and God really is at work using this church for His glory in the community. The What's Cooking? program came about because our pastor's wife wanted to work with some of the teens from her job - she wanted to combine teaching the kids to cook with a chance to just talk with them. The pastor came to me and asked me to get involved as well as giving the message. I can't speak for anyone else but it has been a great blessing to me, causing me to get deeper into the bible and really challenging myself. Tonight we had mexican food to nourish our bodies and to nourish our souls, the subject of the message was "Take care of the golf balls first." The message had nothing to do with golf, it was about worship and the three things we are actually doing when we worship God (recognize God's worth, an expression of the heart, & a choice). Mainly it was about how our priorities sometimes get out of whack and we are too busy for worship - too many of the wrong things take up our time and we run out of room (or time) for God. What does the golf balls have to do with it? My illustration to start was the story about a teacher who had a large glass jar. First he filled it up with golf balls - he then asked the class if they thought the jar was full and they agreed it was. He said okay, then put the beans in the jar an shook them around the golf balls. Everyone now agreed the jar was definitely full now. He said okay, then took the rice and started pouring it in the jar - as he shook the rice filled in the gaps around the beans and the golf balls. Now everyone agreed the jar was full. If he did the three in this order, they would all fit. If he had filled the jar with rice first, neither the beans nor the golf balls would have fit. If he had filled the jar with beans first, the rice would have fit but not the golf balls. The golf balls represent God, Family and Self; the beans represented things like your job, cars, house and all kinds of monetary things. The rice represented all the other stuff we find to stay busy like partying, hanging out, tv and all that. Some people fill their life with rice and beans, leaving no room for God yet they are still not satisfied. Even if they only put golf balls in their life, they have all they need to be satisfied - the rice and beans can become idols in our life that separate us from God. Remember this was geared toward the teens. The total message was a blessing to me! I am happy to say that the pastor has given me the opportunity to present this message to our congregation Sunday night!!

After the message, the pastor made dessert for everyone. He made an amazing dessert that was very easy - he let our 2nd grader help him and it turned out very nice. First they crushed those chocolate covered mint cookies (grasshoppers)in a baggie. On a small plate, he squirted a nice supply of Hershey's chocolate syrup - this would work as the "glue" to help hold down the next ingredient! Then he cut an ice cream sandwich in half, took those two halves and cut them corner-to-corner to make a triangle. He stood the four triangled ice cream sandwiches up, drizzled a little more Hershey's syrup and finished the dish with a healthy sprinkle of the crushed grasshoppers!! They were very good and kid friendly!! Yes, my wife would probably add Cool-Whip and it would be good - just remember she is perhaps the nation's number one consumer of cool whip so you catch where she comes from!!

The girls devotion this evening was "choosing obedience" and referenced Romans 6:11-15. My devotion was "are you ready to be offered" and referenced Philippians 2:17.

Almost forgot to make my meat eating friends jealous - the leftover meatloaf from yesterday made a GREAT sandwich today for lunch!! I love my veggie friends as well, you'll just have to trust me it was good! Even better, Phineas & Ferb just came on as I sat down to eat - if your wife has to be gone, about as good as it gets is a meatloaf sandwich and P&F!!!

The rain is really pouring down, the ditches all around our house are full again. On the positive side, all the snow from last weekend is finally gone and the cars are clean! Day five is done, I'm going to finish the Capital's hockey game and look forward to Day six!!

Day Four - February 4, 2010

2010-02-04T19:01:00.000-08:00

The streets appear to be mainly clear and the girls are back in school today. I’m very happy with our morning routine for the most part – as I continue to experience this deployment, I am finding I really enjoy being a “routine-ish” type person. Things just feel right and calm. Last night was my second consecutive night of a full sleep – I think by ending my day on my knees in prayer and giving the burden to God, that relieves so much. I have been staying up later than I normally would though – my main reason is to ensure the girls are sleeping soundly and all is okay. I’ve also been turning on the inside alarm just in case someone tries to get in or someone tries to get out – just an added level of peace for me.

I was able to talk with my wife last night around 10:30 eastern time. She had just gotten back to the barracks from a long day on the shooting range. Trust me when I say she is girl through-and-through – she said she had never been so dirty in her entire life from her day of crawling and shooting from the prone position. But it sounded as if she had a decent day and was adjusting.

Back to the morning routine. The alarm goes off at 5:00 am. After turning off the alarm I thank God for another day as well as a peaceful night. From there it is off to my desk to read the Bible. I have one of those read through the bible in a year books – some years I’m pretty good at it, other years not so good. I’ve had this particular study since 1985 – the year of my first Navy deployment. After finishing the daily reading, I check e-mails and send out the daily “Make a Difference” reading for the day – a large group of people from various companies and some of my friends get a daily (Monday through Friday) e-mail where we read a book together – actually it is an executive synopsis of a business book. I read these books first and then share them with friends and others. From there it is off to get the 2nd grader up and going. She’s not a problem on school days – she pops out of bed and is ready for the shower. We wash hair and she takes care of the body, then dressed, dry hair and she’s off downstairs. She’ll wake up the dog and get her ready to go outside while I get dressed. Once dressed, it is time to wake the bear – nothing like a grumpy teen ager in the morning!! Once I’m sure her feet are on the floor (usually takes two trips) I’m downstairs – the dog meets me at the door and we go outside so she can do her business and I get the paper from the driveway. By the time we get back inside, the youngest daughter has turned the TV on, poured herself a glass of milk and is at the table waiting to tell me what she wants for breakfast. Today was chocolate chip waffles – I am so thankful they started making those things again! I’m not a coffee drinker so while the waffles heat up, I give the dog a piece of dog bacon (not made from real dogs), get a glass of water and open the paper. At 6am, Phineas & Ferb come on so we enjoy that part of our morning. P&F go to commercial break at about 6:12 or so, I use this as an opportunity to run upstairs to remind the teenager that we need to save some water for the rest of the world!! She is very, very, very slow in the morning! While upstairs I make the bed and sort laundry. Instead of having one big, giant mess of a laundry day I do a little every day – on my way back downstairs to watch the second half of P&F I take a load of clothes to the washer and get them going. By then my daughter is done with her breakfast so we take our vitamin, drink a glass of water and watch the end of the show in the family room. Once P&F go off, we check the daily lunch menu at school to see if she is having hot lunch at school or we are packing a lunch – this is not as obvious of an answer as you would imagine!! She loves pizza but she’s found out so does the rest of the kids at school so if she stands in line for pizza, she doesn’t have time to eat, talk and enjoy – at least she is using her reasoning skills! After the second big food decision of the day, we’re back upstairs to finish her hair and then she flosses/brushes her teeth and makes her bed. Even though we have the school bags packed the night before, we go through it one more time just to make sure library books don’t mysteriously make their way from the book bag to the bed for evening reading! By now the teenager is out of her bathroom and dressed – for some reason she is now able to speak so I ask how she is and how she feels then she trundles off to the bathroom to dry her hair. At the same time, the youngest and the dog have begun their morning fight so once that is broken up, we go back downstairs and get ready for the bus.

About 6:50 the teenager comes downstairs for her breakfast. I’ve already put away the dishes from the dishwasher from last night and checked the dinner menu for tonight – meatloaf tonight so I lay out the meat to start defrosting. The clothes in the washer are ready to go into the dryer and we go outside to wait on the bus.
Thursday is trash day and that was one of my wife’s favorite days – she knew she only had one more day of work to go!! Never saw anyone so happy to see the garbage cans out front as she was! We also have a routine outside before the bus comes – the two of us walk around the house to make sure all is okay with the property, no garbage found its way onto the lot and our trees are doing okay. Of course we can’t really tell about the trees because, well I don’t speak tree! I’m just happy they are still there and relatively straight. We planted 3 japanese maples in our front yard, 2 japanese cherry trees in the backyard and 12 fruit trees in the backyard last fall. The look just like sticks now but I have faith they will be beautiful soon. I also have two buckeye trees planted on the back corner of the lot – if I hadn’t seen the roots on these before I planted them, I would testify the guy had sold me twigs!! I don’t have a lot of faith in those two trees! I do believe the fruit trees have done something to anger the clouds around here for some reason though – three days after I planted them our area had that serious flood from the nor’easter in November and they were covered in water for three days. Then we had a snow storm like the area hasn’t seen in 20 years so they were covered for three more day. If the bad weather keeps up, I’m not that attached to the trees yet that they won’t be pulled up and used for firewood!

Once the bus comes and the youngest one is gone, the dog is waiting at the door. She runs outside and sniffs the ground then finds the perfect spot. I would let her stay outside with us until the bus comes, but that just leads to more problems so this is easier for all concerned! Our youngest is a good kid but if she's going to get in trouble, it is probably dog related! Afterwards, we’re back inside and I sit down with the teenager as she finishes her breakfast. Amazing the things they can talk about!

Breakfast dishes done and I'm back upstairs, getting dressed for a run. The teenager takes care of her room and she is responsible for getting all the trash bags out of the cans upstairs AND replacing the bags. We’ve lived here since June 2009 and every day since we’ve been here, I tell her wouldn’t it be smarter to bring up two or three bags per can and put the extra’s under the bag inside the can? That seems as if it has finally started to make sense to her and making her life easier.

Unlike the youngest daughter, the teenager doesn’t want me to stay out front with her until the bus comes. That I can relate to, I wouldn’t want my parents waiting with me either! Whether a teen ager is cool or not, they still have to pretend like they are - remember those days? So as she leaves, I’m off to the treadmill for my morning run. 30 minutes is about all I can stand running on the treadmill – I’d open the garage door but the temperature right now is too low for that. Won’t be long and I can start running on the streets again! Once I’m done running and do a half-hearted abs and shoulder routine, I’m back inside and the clothes are dry ready to be folded. This allows me to cool off before my shower.

The rest of today was spent preparing for tomorrow night’s Teen Program and taking care of some Navy stuff. Last week’s Friday evening teen program was very good and I enjoyed it very much – I think this week’s will be pretty good as well! Our associate pastor called this morning letting me know his grandsons would be there and that is a great blessing. We are starting to see some real growth in this program and that is something so wonderful. I thought our church in Rockville was a blessing, but this church has really been something special. I still cannot get in touch with the Master Gardener in town to work further on our community garden.

Both girls made it home as they should have. They both ride the same bus, just at different times. Bus 190 brings the 2nd grader home at 2:40pm and the teen ager home at 3:57pm! We live 2 miles from the elementary school and 3.5 miles from the high school. It won’t be long before the teen ager has her driver’s license then I’ll have to decide if she should be able to drive to school or not. She has her learner’s permit right now and has passed all the school requirements. She still scares me too much to let her drive too often. We do need to practice more often though. I will warn you – she has something personal against 7Eleven’s – twice we have done high speed turnoffs into their parking lot – first time I nearly puked! Second time I saw part of my life flash before my eyes and I was convinced we were going to take out the gas pumps! I told her for now on we’d go the BP for gas instead – maybe we won’t die before filling up!

After supper (meat loaf, mashed potatoes, peas, carrots, salad and water) we got to go to Norfolk. Thursday night is the 2nd graders’ dance/singing lessons at Hurrah Players. They have just moved into a historic building next to the Scope and Chrysler Hall in downtown Norfolk. Takes us about 25 minutes to get there and about 15 minutes to get home – we avoid the highways on the way up because the class starts at 6:30 which is still rush hour around here. We have several drawbridges in the area and a few tunnels that go under the water – seems each of these tend to really get plugged up daily during rush hours. Back to the class – my daughter loves the class and I would never dream of taking her out of it – I’ll just say we are totally out of our element in this group of people!! Ever seen that show on TV where the momma’s spend small fortunes on their daughters to win a beauty pageant? Well, acting/dancing/singing lessons is where these momma’s hang out to prepare for pageant season!! They are all about getting their children (boys and girls) noticed – one poor little boy tonight had eye make-up on!! He was maybe 8 or 9 and none too happy about it! Those of you who know our 2nd grader realize she is perhaps one of the most confident children and full of personality kids you’ll ever meet – we thought this would help develop her a little further and keep her busy while her mom was gone. I’m sure it will do that – plus I get free entertainment watching these parents – it is like a little league baseball game on estrogen overload!

I had a chance to talk with my wife twice today and she is settling in and doing better. Tomorrow she gets to use the machine guns so if you’re anywhere in the Pacific northwest, be warned! But she sounded better than she has at previous combat training courses so that is good.

Our high schooler brought me her homework tonight to check it – she’s taking AP Chemistry this semester so once again I’ll be little to no help. I did know one of the answers though – does that make me an uber-geek??

We finished the evening as we always do – the girls’ devotion was “Linnea looks back” and referenced Luke 9:57-62. It was about being homesick so we had a good discussion about all the great stuff mom was missing – the little one even remembered that she loved garbage can day which was good and the teen ager complimented the meat loaf – wow, what can I say to that?! It was good though and will be a great sandwich tomorrow! My devotion tonight was “The overmastering majesty of personal power” and it referenced 2 Corinthians 5:14. It talked about bringing everything to Jesus – quite appropriate!

Not a bad day, looking forward to Day Five!!

Day Three - February 3, 2010

2010-02-03T18:04:00.000-08:00

Good evening!! Another no-school day for the girls today, so a full day of entertaining for me! Could be worse jobs though. The schools have already notified us that they will have school tomorrow - the 2nd grader is happy and the high schooler not so much.

Weather wise, it was a beautiful day - we had some rain over the night yesterday and combined with the warmer weather (low 50's) a great majority of the snow has melted. On our way to church this evening, we only encountered one small patch of road that still had ice on it. Our yard is about 75% clear of snow - at least the dog can go potty without too much drama.

Had a chance to talk with my wife as she went to breakfast this morning so that was a positive start to the day - of course with a three hour time difference, we were getting ready to fix lunch as she called. But she had a few extra moments and was able to talk with both of the girls. This week she is spending her time on the rifle range, qualifying with the issued weapons. Her normal job as an OR Nurse doesn't usually call for a rifle in the daily scheme of things so she's struggling a little - I'm sure her country girl roots will kick in shortly and she'll do fine.

The past two days have been a little out of the norm so today I was able to get back to more of a routine. After breakfast digested a little, I was able to get on the treadmill and have a good workout. One of the things I strongly suggest to anyone going through a deployment is to invest in a heart rate monitor. You have to be able to maximize your time and get the best out of each workout and chore you do so a heart rate monitor will do that for you. Depending on what is going on in your life, you will either work out too hard or not hard enough - an investment of less than $100.00 will get you a quality monitor that keeps you on track when you work out. I ran for 30 minutes today, kept my heart rate between 124 and 132 and still made it almost 3 miles on the treadmill. I prefer to run outside but the icy sidewalks and roads early this morning prevented that. I also suggest you have a blood pressure machine and keep track of what is going on with your body - you know the first thing a military doctor is going to ask you if you have to visit is "how's your blood pressure" and "have you been working out?" I just give them a list of what I've been doing with resting heart rate (heart rate first thing in the morning), my heart rate range during a workout and blood pressure readings. The machines you use at home will register differently than the ones in the doctor's office - it doesn't do any good to argue their machine is incorrect, trust me.

Our food choices today were good. We also worked together (the three of us) on meal planning for the next few weeks. Of course I got a lot of "corn dogs, hot dogs and burgers" - oh wait, that was me saying those things!! No really, we have a very good plan but we still struggled with the veggies and fruits. I tried to get the website to accept fruit roll ups as a fruit but alas, it wouldn't. That would certainly make things easier!

Our breakfast today was a sausage, cheese and egg omelet, yogurt, banana, english muffin with butter and jelly and a glass of milk. Everyone took their vitamins as well. Lunch was a grilled ham & turkey with cheese sandwich, watermelon, carrots and soup with a glass of water. I'm really proud how well everyone is doing with the water consumption! Supper was a mixture of chicken, rice, broccoli, carrots, onions and peas - we swirled them all into a chinese sauce and it was relatively good - we'll use a different sauce the next time we have this dish. For an afternoon snack we had kiwi fruit; the evening snack was grapes and a cheese stick.

The one thing I did forget to bring up that we took care of before my wife left was a visit to the drug store - we stocked up on children's cold medicine and some adult stuff as well. It never fails the moment you need cold medicine, there is never any in the house and of course it will be either freezing cold or pouring rain outside as you run to Rite Aid or Wal-Mart. I'm kind of hoping having adequate medicine in the house will help ward off any colds. I also scheduled dental appointments the first week in January for the entire year so that is done - we just need to show up in March and September!

Some very positive news on the Youth Group front today! Dr. Walter Yoho has agreed to come speak to our teen group on Friday, February 12th! I am the Youth Director for our church and we have started a new program for the teens. Actually the credit goes to our pastor's wife, it was her original thought - she wanted to teach a group of teens at her grocery store to cook and then sit around and talk. We morphed this plan into a fellowship program and it is working well so far. The teens work with the pastor's wife on a recipe and once it goes into the oven to bake, they all slide over and I get to give them a devotional talk. Dr. Yoho is simply fabulous - down to earth with an incredible amount of biblical knowledge and he is so great to listen to. Our family has the wonderful privilege to support his Missions 300 group and I look so forward to seeing him again. On the 12th, the teens will cook lasagna for the church fellowship, we will all listen to Dr. Yoho and afterwards have a nice supper together.

The Wednesday night prayer meeting was excellent as always. It is always an honor to spend time with this group of people in our church and glorify God. We are currently building a baseline of knowledge within the church as the pastor is leading us in the ABC's of Christian Growth. Tonight was our 4th night in the book - the previous 3 nights were an overview/primer and tonight we talked about the letter A - Assurance. It is so comforting to know that we have God's assurance of our salvation and salvation is something we can never, ever lose once we freely accept His gift. If you are going through a deployment or a rough stretch in your life, open your heart and go to a good, bible believing/preaching church - you cannot go through this alone.

Speaking of devotions, I owe you an update from last night on the girls' reading - on 2/02 they read "Telling it like it is" and the reference was 2 Corinthians 4:1-6. Tonight they read "Bearing Fruit" with a reference of John 15:1-5, 8. My devotion was subtitled "The recognized ban of relationship" and referenced 1 Corinthians 4:9-13. I've been deep in the bible today preparing for Friday's teen devotion - the working title right now is "Filling the container in the wrong order" - I know what all of you bible scholars are saying "Your title is too long, it should never be more than five words" - I say tough and stick with my argument that 7 is the perfect number, just don't tell Dr. Carroll!!

It is well past 9pm and everyone is in bed for the evening and the dog is snoring - for as loud as she snores you'd think we had some kind of mutant mutt in the house, not a 20 pound eating, pooping and sleeping machine! Here's looking to Day Four!

Day Two - February 2, 2010

2010-02-03T03:15:00.000-08:00

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!

Day One - February 1, 2010

2010-02-02T19:06:00.001-08:00

Good evening and welcome back! Day One is finished and in the books - I'm not going to start counting how many days are left, that will just drive me crazy!

Actually Day One happened a week later than it was originally scheduled to happen. My wife was scheduled to fly to San Antonio for a week of training beginning January 23, 2010 but that course was cancelled. She was supposed to fly to Ft. Lewis on January 30, 2010 but we had a snow-event in the Norfolk area that caused the airline to cancel all flights. They pushed her flight back from 6:00 am Saturday morning to an evening flight Saturday then later cancelled. She finally departed around 6:15 am Monday February 1, 2010. She did call to say she was safely in the barracks and all of her luggage arrived with her so that crisis was averted!

We left the house this morning just after 3:30 am to go to the airport. As I said, it snowed Saturday and the roads were still an issue Monday morning. We had 8" of snow at our house. From what I was able to gather, a snow like this only happens in the Norfolk area once every 20 years or so - I don't really blame them for not having a ton of equipment or supplies to clear the roads. The highways were relatively clear but other than that, the roads were pretty well iced over.

Dropping my wife off at the airport went amazingly smooth. The girls had a chance to say good-bye to her and she was able to get into the terminal. We've been through military related separations in the recent past so, if there is such a thing, we are relatively used to seeing her leave for extended periods of time. It still hurts to see her leave.

Monday was an in-service day for the teachers at the girls' school so once we returned home, the girls crawled back in bed and grabbed some more sleep. I tried but without much success - had a lot on my mind, going over things and making sure we were really ready. I found myself checking the United flight schedule and following the trail of her jet periodically through the day. We were also able to keep in touch with texting on our cell phones. I realize there will be a day when we will no longer be able to be in contact so these days are better than those will be.

The weather actually warmed up Monday and made it to 51 degrees. I had already shoveled the snow and ice from our driveway, deck and porch Sunday afternoon so we took it easy most of the day. With the streets still covered in ice for the most part, the city shut down most of the services in the area like the library so we stayed home.

Laundry never rests and I took care of those three loads, put away all of my wife's things (clothes, jewelry, jackets etc..) and kept the house neat. We do have an unofficial schedule where we work hard on one room per day just to keep ahead. Our house has 8 rooms and 2.5 baths - the bathrooms get scrubbed thoroughly every other day and we rotate through the rooms - two of the smaller rooms are combined on Friday and the spare bedroom is done in conjunction with the master bedroom on Saturday.

Of all the things we have done to prepare, I think the most important thing is that we've found a wonderful church home. Trinity Baptist (www.trinitybaptistchurchva.org) is a small independent baptist church but filled with the most loving people we can imagine. I cannot imagine going on a journey like this without the support of a group of people like we have there. I have been blessed many times over in the fact that I get to lead adult Sunday School and together with my wife, we are the Youth Directors. Church and a strong prayer life will be critical to our success. I'm doing a daily devotional from Oswald Chambers titled "My Utmost for His Highest." Today's reading was subtitled "The Call of God" and referenced 1 Corinthians 1:17. The girls are working in a daily devotional as well - their subtitle tonight was True Power and referenced Psalm 18:27-32.

I had the chance to speak briefly with my wife in the evening as she was in the barracks. That will be the hardest thing to get used to - not being able to talk to her when I want - her schedule dictates that. We do have Skype installed and ready to use once she is able to get to her computer, perhaps this weekend - for now we are using either text messages or quick phone calls.

With the girls out of school, we had three full meals to deal with plus snacks. I'm working hard on this area!!! We don't have checklists or anything like that all over the house but we do have a menu posted on the frig - the down side to that is if you are planning something for supper the girls don't like, you get to hear it all day long starting with breakfast!! Breakfast today was cereal, milk and an apple for everyone. We all took our vitamins then had a full glass of water. Lunch - well, we cheated and had Sonic for lunch but with good reason - normally when we come home from taking my wife to the airport, we hit 7Eleven for a donut - we didn't do that today so we had a make-up lunch. Mid afternoon we had bananas for a snack. For supper I cooked breaded parmesan pork cutlets, green beans, corn, hashbrowns and we had rolls. Everyone had all their glasses of water during the day.

We are addicted to Phineas & Ferb on the Disney Channel - with our cable package we get regular Disney and Disney XD - they had two hours of P&F today and we caught about 30 minutes of that. We also have NetFlix and watched Evan Almighty - we all enjoyed it!

One of the main reasons we have been successful in the past is that I'm a morning person and she is an evening person. I pretty much feel life should end at 9pm and really felt the effects of the early start to the day. Looking forward to day two!

Getting Ready to Go!

2010-02-02T18:08:00.000-08:00

Welcome! This is the first of what appears to be a rather long deployment process for our family. First and foremost just let me say I realize I am not the first person to go through a military deployment as a "trailing spouse" and unfortunately I will not be the last. A few things will be unusual about this deployment:

My wife is actually the person deploying, not me.
While actually in the Navy, my wife will be deploying with an Army hospital as part of the military's Individual Augmentee program (IA).
We have only lived in the Norfolk area since June 2009. While it is a relatively easy place to get around in, we still haven't totally explored the area to find the outstanding restaurants and other local speciality shops that we knew in the greater DC area.

The purpose of this blog is not to complain or fuss about the Navy or the military. It is to give a real-life example to those currently going through a deployment or to help those about to go through a deployment. The true purpose of this blog is to give me a place to write and to provide some assistance if possible. For some reason not to be debated here, the military doesn't seem to be doing a very good job dealing with families left behind while our spouses are deployed overseas - at least in my case they don't seem to be. We found out my wife was going to be deployed late September 2009 and so far I have had only three contacts from the military:

First was a class we attended as a pre-deployment brief. Maybe 10 minutes of this class (2.5 hours total) was geared towards those remaining behind.
The second contact was a phone call from some person in Bethesda, Maryland (4 hours away) insisting I make an appointment to come into her office for a meeting. When I told her we lived in the Norfolk area, at first she didn't believe me - once I convinced her we did actually live where I said we did, she apologized and said she would pass our information on to someone else.
The third contact was in early January in the form of a phone call from the local IA Case Manager to make sure she had my correct e-mail address. So far, I have received two e-mails from her - one was to make sure she had the right address and the second was about all the great deals Disney and other fun places were having for the military this year - like I really want to go somewhere like that this year with my wife overseas!
Oh I nearly forgot the piece of paper the Navy gave to my wife the day she left her command -"The Role of the NMCP Command Ombudsman." Does that really count as a contact?? (NMCP stands for Naval Medical Center Portsmouth and an ombudsman is a link between the family and a military chain of command).

Why do I feel I can provide help to others in this situation? Prior to becoming a "trailing spouse" I was a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy so I was on the other end of the deployments - I was the one leaving for six or more months at a time. I have a good knowledge of the military and what my wife will be going through once she's overseas. I've never worked with the Army before but I have worked with the Marines and Air Force. Once I left the military, I have been taking care of the house, budget, a great majority of the shopping, dealing with the schools and being a taxi driver for the girls.

I do anticipate some struggles, mainly in the area of meal planning. The cooking and stocking the pantry won't be an issue but my wife was always my conscience when it came to proper nutrition and all that - after all, I am a guy and I personally could live on cheeseburgers and fries but I realize that's not a great way for kids to get stronger. I'm going to try really hard not to let eating out be a rule - I'd like to keep that to a minimum.

And finally, we have two daughters - a junior in high school and a 2nd grader. We also have a dog who is fully convinced she is a person. Just like many military families, our families do not live close by - my wife's family is in Kentucky and my family is in Ohio. Yes, they are just a phone call away so we'll see how that goes.

My wife was very good about following the checklist the military provided to her - all of our bank records, all of our bills and any financial issues are in both of our names and we have let everyone know she is deployed so I will be making all the decisions. She also left a power of attorney to deal with anything related to financial situations, taxes, schools, medical and the such. She also left a will and what she wants done in case of severe injury to her.

I hope this helps someone and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask - I'll answer as fast as I can or I'll add it to the next blog. I plan to do this daily probably just before bed! Enjoy.