Fashionably Late

Today is 2 November...which makes me officially late to the NaBloPoMo party...also known as that month where bloggers work feverishly strive to post once per day, everyday, for a month. This is an ambitious goal that I have set for myself, during one of the craziest months of this year. The only one that has been slightly more ridiculous was January. But over a bottle of white wine and under the setting sun, I was reminded of how much I love to write...how upside down I feel when I don't write regularly. And it's been sporadic over here lately, to say the least. Partly it's because I want each Paris post to be perfect with pretty little Photoshopped pictures and links to the museums we visited...but that takes time. I know the Paris posts are lengthy and I have one friend who has admitted to reading them in installments...but they take 3 times longer to write. And with The Pink Campaign running during October, I simply ran out of hours in the day.

November is not going to be much better. This weekend there is a Yellow Ribbon event in Savannah (where we and thousands of P.F. Chang's 1/2 Marathon runners will battle it out for dinner tables on River Street), Neal returns home, and then we're headed to KY and up to Chicago. Pile on that the Christmas orders that are rolling in and the fact that I'm contributing to Cathy's Movember event...and well...it's hairy. But maybe hairy is exactly what I need right now.

I sort of feel like I'm coming apart. And I always feel better when I write it out.

The date for Neal's arrival has changed about a 1/2 dozen times. And it has changed drastically. Even though it's fairly firm now, it could still change. And it's more than just annoying, it's frustrating...because you can't make any plans. In a fit of tears and anger I asked him why it's always like this (re-deploying has been a hot mess every time) and he said it's because sending units home is like a puzzle. And if one piece is put in the wrong place, it throws everything else off. And not only are pieces being put in bass-ackwards, they are missing pieces altogether. Want to understand the ripple effect? Talk to someone in the military.

So you get a date. An hour later something changes. The next day something else changes. Add to that the spouses and family members on Facebook and email who have "heard" things about what's going on there, about how it's all going to go down and are spreading what I can only define as rumors. I was never a cynical person...until our first deployment. If it did not come from the commander's very own lips, then I don't believe it. Even Neal, who is in the know most of the time, doesn't know the whole plan. I have made plans based on his intel, only to find it fall apart as I opened an email from someone who knew more.

Foolishly, I did it again last week. I got a date, I made a plan, I almost bought tickets to an event from my 101 list. $120 tickets that I would have never been able to sell. And then everything changed. And I did the only thing a girl could do...sit down and have an ugly face cry about the whole thing, then pour a glass of wine, and pull my big girl panties up. Because this is how it goes. I'm certainly not the first milspouse to deal with it, nor will I be the last.

It has also been pretty quiet around here since they've cut communication. I know that not every spouse in our unit got to talk to their Soldier everyday, but Neal sacrificed his after-work time to call as often as he could. He could do that because he wasn't on the road this time. Although, we did that deployment once...where he ran missions and I got a phone call when he got to a place with a phone. Sometimes it was a few days, sometimes it was a few weeks. But desk jobs, however boring, have their advantages. So, I'm certainly spoiled to a phone call everyday. And this evening, the washing machine died. I did everything Neal has taught me to do...I Google searched until I found the right forum with a relatively reasonable answer...which is basically "the control panel is fried." That's a $400 fix to have a Maytag guy come in and do it...or a $200 fix for Neal to do it...which he totally can. So, I'll wait. And try not to spill anything on myself. But I really miss relaying the story and getting his advice.

I am certainly not lacking for topics. I need to finish Paris, talk about my amazing weekend with Hutch and Shana, post the pictures from "Sit Down Lexington" and a million other tiny posts that are sitting in the notes section of my phone. I just need a reason to stop during my day and write. And now I have it. A day late...but better late than never.