Day 102

Wow. Triple digits. Now we’re just a hair over 25% complete with the deployment.

Aside from being 30, work stressing me out, and I think the dog ate something he shouldn’t have and has a tummy ache now – things are pretty ok. I’m headed to South Dakota for the weekend to finally see my niece. I can’t remember the last time I saw my sister and her family. I know it’s been a while. I think it might have even been my wedding which was over a year ago. Aaron and I are god parents and I’m excited. Except all the good baby stores have cleared the cute religious baby gifts off the shelves so they would have more room for all the baby Christmas stuff. I think its rather sad that we’ve all excepted that Christmas starts the end of October. My grocery store cleared out its collection of Halloween candy in their seasonal aisle and had Christmas Candy in its place the morning of Nov 1. When I went to Home Depot to get paint for my bed room in the middle of Oct - they already had the fake trees out - BTW I finished painting my room and have half the furniture moved back in - The color is super soft and soothing. It was good to change from the electric teal 1950s diner color to a key lime pie / soft summer green color.

Aaron is doing well. I can’t stress enough how nice it is to hear from him almost daily. I know in reality he is far far away, but being able to chat online for a few minutes or get an email a day makes him feel much closer – kind of like he’s back in NJ and not in Iraq. I still have my days where all I want is a hug and I just get ticked and mad and sad about the whole situation – but for the most part it feels like it’s getting a little bit easier.

298 days to go.