Six Word Saturday! (9/3/10)

My six words for today:

Marine Son™ will be stateside tomorrow!!!!


Talking to him online right now! He's out of Afghanistan!!!



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Foto Friday #7, OORAH!

I'm deviating from the archive photos today in honor of my son. He's our middle child, and he left yesterday morning for an 8-month deployment in Afghanistan with the US Marine Corps. One of these days this, too, will be considered an historical family photograph.

Godspeed, Steven.

In the job description

I was all set to sit right here and write out some Monday Musings and then it hit me. Today is Tuesday.

Well shoot, y'all. My days are all mixed up. We've had house guests ("We're not guests, we're family!") since last Thursday and my normal boring routine has been filled with chatting with my son and his wife and keeping our monster dog from squishing their little dog out of sheer enthusiasm. Ours is a 102-pound shepherd mix while theirs is a 14-pound Lhasa Apso. Fun times, you guys!

We have visited family, partied, celebrated his temporary homecoming and other things, visited friends, eaten out, eaten in, picked strawberries, gone to church, driven down to the Florida Keys for lunch, winced when we realized the daughter probably has food poisoning from it (it will be a long time before she eats another chicken wing in a restaurant), and prepared for one last dinner out tonight at the home of my oldest son.

Whew!

It has been a bittersweet whirlwind of not-quite a week. In the two and a half years he has been in the Marine Corps, he has stayed essentially the same good-natured kid I raised, but I find I no longer know what to have on hand for him to eat. And being a polite not-quite-guest, he was no help. "It doesn't matter, don't worry about it."

Hello? I'm a mom. I worry. It's in the job description.

They are leaving tonight to drive back to North Carolina so that he can report back to base on Thursday. Next week he and his unit will deploy to Afghanistan for 8 months.

Hello? I'm a mom. I worry. It's in the job description. (repeat ad infinitum)

I have faith. I trust God and his buddies to keep him safe, I really do. I know that as a sharpshooter with expert ranking he can do a pretty good job of keeping himself safe. But ...

Hello? I'm a mom. I worry. It's in the job description. (repeat ad nauseum)

It's a lifelong task, this job of mine to worry about my kids. I don't always say much about it but it's there, as any other mom will tell you.

I wouldn't change the job description for anything in the world.

Monday musings

A good day today, for a tropical deep freeze. We dipped into the low 40's last night and early this morning and I really could have used another cat to cover up with.

Hub went back to work and the daughter went back to school which left me blissfully alone for most of the day. The dog harassed me regularly, so I did have to go out and play 'fetch the frisbee' with him. Three guesses who does most of the fetching.

This afternoon I was finally successful in getting the church web site to look almost like it's supposed to, thanks to a code snippet from another web master, and some feedback from a few other sources. I know I'm on the right track with it now and will continue to upload and tweak and geek.

Our Marine Son™ took off for California this morning for a month of training, out in the Mojave. This is preparing them for deployment to Afghanistan in March. Still playing ostrich here. Or possibly Scarlett O'Hara, choosing to think about it tomorrow. I'm so proud of him but it scares the bejeesus out of me.

But tomorrow, as I said, is another day with meetings and all sorts of things going on. A nice distraction.

promises, promises

So. Marine Son's unit has been split up. Seeing as how he is in a different unit now, he no longer has the prior guarantee of being stateside for a year. That being said, this means he might be deploying to Afghanistan in March. He just came home from Iraq in September.

I have no words.

No, wait. Yes I do. Can we please get the hell out of the Middle East now?