Where have I been?

Bill's parents visited for a long weekend.
We went out to eat...a lot.
I went to work.
Trey went to school.
Leah went to the hospital with a bout of croup.
Bible study.
MOPS.
Church.
Birthday party.

Busy busy busy.

Leah is fine. Now Trey is sick. I think I'm getting something. Hmm. Never a dull moment.

Bill starts three weeks of leave after this week is over. It's not going to be an easy week for him. The memorial is on Thursday for the sixteen men that gave their all to their country and I know that's going to affect him more than he's willing to admit. Counseling should be mandatory for each and every service member who returns from the battleground...but it's not. At least it's offered now.

We are too broke to go anywhere on his vacation so we'll be doing more of the same. I've offered to unpack an acquaintances home. I'm crazy. I don't even really know this person. I talk to her at church and I know she's a military wife and I know she just moved but that's it. She asked how things were going with Bill being home so I reciprocated and asked how her husband, who is currently deployed to Iraq is doing. The floodgates burst. He called her and said he was packing his gear and couldn't tell her where he was going, that he'd call her when he got the chance. How scary is that? She's got a school age daughter who is in daycare when she's not in school because she, herself is enrolled in college fulltime and has be in fulltime in order to get her GI bill (yet another thing I didn't know. She was in the military!?!) She's living out of boxes and there's military wife/military neighborhood drama and she's had it. She's going to go postal if she doesn't get some help. I can't watch her kid. I can't tell her where her husband is. I can't do her homework for her. Bill is going to be home and I can unpack. I've done it eight times in the last ten years. "Make me a copy of your house key" I tell her. Personally, I could never give up control of my stuff for someone else to unpack. She's going to take me up on it. Even asked if I had any interior decorating skills. She's trusting me to HANG pictures and homeify her house.
I had help when Bill was gone. This is my pay it forward.

Now on a totally different note...Go here and fill her comment box with encouraging words. I've been harassing her to start a blog for months now. This is my crazy friend Amanda who I went to high school with, who survived belong side me while both of our husbands were in Iraq in 2003, who was my neighbor on base for a while and who is ironically living in my husband's home town right now.