Argh

Ok, well tomorrow has now turned into Monday. I'm not too disappointed, this gives me a few extra days to clean and make room for my son's return. What started as a simple (cough, cough) job has turned into a clean 3 rooms, rearrange furniture and make a room out of what used to be storage. Hmmmm 7 years worth of stuff in a room and I have to find some place to put it. I've been working on it since Friday, and I still need more time. I don't even want to go to work so I can take care of this. That's not going to happen. Oh well, time for a gin and tonic and put the rest off for tomorrow. Been working all day so I get to relax and wait for The Unit to come on. I love that show.

Whooo Hoooo!

So tomorrow my son starts the journey from New York to home. My baby is coming home......ok maybe not my baby but you moms know what I'm talking about. Now Mr. Proud Army Dad is happy but he's wondering how long he'll be staying....lol forever, I must protect my child, ok I know that's going a bit too far but I'm just happy to have him home. I know after a while, I'll be asking him so you're working where, and moving out when??? lol Honestly, I'd like him home long enough to make sure mentally he's ok. This last tour was not as clean and nice as the first and I suspect he may have nightmares on this one. I could be wrong and I sure hope I am. I'll be looking into PTSD so I can recognize the symptoms if they arise. But at the moment, I'm just happy to have him coming home.

Now he did mention he wanted to enlist in the National Guard to finish out the rest of his contract, which of course my husband and I smiled because that means he still gets to go to the PX, or should I say we still get to. Can't help it, love that place.

Update on the fires.

Unfortunately two co-workers at my job lost their homes. Work is taking up a collection for the two to help them. My heart goes out to them. Especially to one of them, the last fire that went through that area forced her to evacuate, but we were relieved to know that her house survived. Not this time. Another house that my husband and I used to look at burned to the ground. The only remains is the fireplace. It was odd, the house was up for sale two years ago, but we couldn't afford it, loved it though, thought it was beautiful. Now there's nothing left.

The smell of burnt wood and smoke fills the air around here. Sad feeling in the air.

Yikes! Fires

So I'm on my way to the airport to fly out to Tennessee and the freeway had a lot of stopped traffic. So I tell my husband lets take this route (a different one) and so we did. I could not miss my flight, it's a business trip. As we started down the new route the police have that blocked, so we double back and hit the freeway. What we didn't know is that taking this route put us in front of the road block and off we went. Apparently, the police forgot to block that part as well. This is our journey. I do apologize for the blurred pictures but I didn't have my normal camera and these were taken with a camera phone.


A first we were wow and how beautiful.









Shortly we realized we were about to drive right through the fire. The fire had jumped the freeway and we were surrounded. It was breathtaking. Then the burning embers were flying right past the windshield and we could feel the heat from the fire on the windshield. There was only a couple of other cars on the road with us and hazzard lights were turned on and we slowed to a 20 mph crawl. We couldn't see much more than 2 feet in front of us. You could smell the smoke and I became a little nervous. You could see new fires burning on the side of the freeway and I was hoping we weren't going to get stuck. The freeway was block from every route that could lead into this freeway.

We made it but wow. When I made it to Chicago, I watched the news and the fires are still out of control. I called my husband to see if he made it back home, he did but it took him 4.5 hours to get home, it would normally only take 1 hour. But all is well with him.

Things that make you smile...

When you give birth to a child you wonder what will become of this child. It's almost impossible to picture them many years later as an adult. As we all know when raising a child there is no manual, it's a cross your fingers and hope for the best.

I feel sorry for the mothers of serial killers or molestors etc because no matter how horrific the crimes are they are still someone's son or daughter. I would feel horrible knowing the child I raised did something like that, but do you stop loving that child? I couldn't. Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning the actions, I just don't think I could stop loving my child.

Having said all of that, I thank God for giving me the child that I have. Is he perfect? No, but neither am I nor anyone I know...well there's one person I know, he used to be a carpenter but that's another story. Anyway, my son has made his mistakes and sometimes I did want to smack him into the next universe but isn't that what most teens make us want to do? I used to tell my husband, the reason why teens are allowed to live is because we mothers remember them as sweet, angelic little beings when they were younger. Now I look at my son and I think to myself, I did something right, he can be a knucklehead at times but he has a heart of gold. I personally wouldn't trade him for anything and would raise him all over again if I had to. The Army has been good for him, he's become a man, with a sense of duty, honor, respect, loyalty and responsibility where it matters the most. HOOAH!

Army Mom Out