Flat Daddy is a pretty great navigator! We departed West Texas yesterday and knocked out 610 miles (in one day! By myself with two Tiny Humans and a dog). We stayed the night in Dodge City so we got to have breakfast with my dear friend Heath and his lovely wife Sheri. We also ate at IHOP to celebrate the one-month of deployment down mark. Right as we were getting ready to depart for the final 5 hour stretch of driving to my parents, it started to snow. I’m pretty sure I heard Flat Daddy urgently whisper say, “We gotta go! Let’s get the heck outta Dodge!” PS: We have safely arrived in SE KS! PSS: All my Kansas peeps, hit me up if you want to hang out (and meet Flat Daddy).
Flat Daddy and I had quite a Flashback Friday… we got to eat Thanksgiving Dinner with Charis in the cafeteria. It was absolutely carb-a-licious. (And people were quite curious about the uniformed floating head on a stick I pulled out of my purse…)
Deployment Diary, Day 30: Brought to you by the one-month-down mark!
1. Hooray! One month done. Eight (ish) more to go. And it’s weird– it really flew by. #NotComplaining #AskMeAgainAtMonth5
2. The kids are, well… kids. Some days rock, other days they completely lose their minds over super trivial things, like wearing socks or the intro song to a Netflix show being over.
3. Malick’s fave show right now is “Tayo the Little Bus…” And I identify WAY too much with the show. The other day, he was watching an episode about the little bus wanting to be a “grown up.” Tayo gets his wish then soon realizes that being an adult isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. My favorite line from that episode: “Being a grown up is so hard. I was so busy today and there is STILL more work to be done! I just want to go to sleep.” #SolidaryBus
4. Communication with my Beloved is still kind of meh, but we are sending pre-recorded videos back and forth– which is awesome and makes my heart sing!
5. Thank you, thank you to everyone who continues(!?!) to send items for our blessing box! I wish I could send you all thank you notes, but I have only written my husband two cards/letters (our first deployment together pre-kids I was cranking out a multi-page typed letter at least 1X per week… Sometimes more) if that gives you any idea of the “spare time” I currently have.
6. God is doing some SERIOUSLY awesome work in my fitness heart… Revving the Word (Revelation Wellness) Podcast. Check it out. And prepare for it to rock your world. I wasn’t really even a podcast listener before discovering it! Other than Army Wife Talk Radio. Monday nights. 8pm EST. #ShamelessPlug
7. Everyone is all “Hey, what do you want for your birthday?” And I’m all like, “I want to sleep till I wake up. And a lower back massage, because hauling around my chuck roast with legs (Malick) wears me out.”
8. I am trying to care less about my statistics class (good theory, not working). It’s a hot mess express, folks. The other person in the group who I thought was like legit/hardcore for doing the best we can said via email the other day that “it was ok if we submit late– we will just lose some points” or we could “skip” the required web conference since it’s “only” 25 points…
9. You should be proud of me. I did not respond in YELLING CAPS LOCK TYPE with “NO WAY AM I GIVING UP EASY POINTS. I AM GOING TO SAVE MISSED POINTS FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING THIS STATISTICS HOOPLA.”
10. Kids and I are prepping for our trip back to Kansas. God beckoned me to change my trip dates a bit (extend them) so I can be sure to see as many people as possible and not be rushed. Plus, it’s important that the juice is worth the squeeze if I’m making a 28 hour round trip with two tiny humans and a dog by myself. GAH. #ItsFINE
11. Prayer requests: Traveling mercies, safety, to feel God’s presence, rest and joy with mi familia, and for me to be fully caffeinated and abundantly patient. #MyNewSlogan
11. Parting thought for tonight:
“For you are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with songs of victory. The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.“ Psalm 32:7-8
This picture about sums up our deployment life: Always some level of chaos, me smiling because it’s either that or start getting twitchy battling the temptation to devour the large, fancy cupcake in a single emotional gulp, one sibling thoroughly enjoying pestering the other, the other sibling thoroughly annoyed by the pesterer, Flat Daddy the only one focusing on the camera as we celebrate my birthday (early) with an improvised candle of a chem lite since I’m the first one with a birthday post-PCS and we haven’t purchased any candles as moving companies won’t ship wax because rumor has it Texas is hot. PS: I know that was a very long run-on sentence. Because really, isn’t that what a deployment is? PSS: Thank you to my dear friend Melania for surprising me with the early birthday celebration before our departure to Kansas.
