countdown to a hug.

I just realized after posting a comment on someone else's blog that the profile picture that I've got on here is over a year old...so I decided to remedy that. I love that picture of Adelle...plus it makes me think of Jesse because that's his hat with all of his Army mumb0-jumbo embroidered on it...you know, C Co, 2-112th, etc...haha. Apparently he didn't need a winter hat in the desert...go figure. ;)

I got to talk to my husband on Easter, which was really nice. Even nicer was the surprise that I got that day...finding out that Jess will be coming home a month before I expected. Hopefully I don't bore anyone with specifics, but apparently they have to take a 30-day "leave" before the end of their one-year tour of duty...before we thought that he was going to have a 30 days of paid "leave" once he returned home in at the end of his tour of duty in September. Anyway, that's the word on the street for now...but as I've learned throughout the past few months of being and Army wife, nothing in the Army is ever real until it actually happens because everything's constantly changing! So while I don't want to get my hopes up too high in case something changes.........I'm WICKED EXCITED that I will get to see Jesse in August, especially since that means that we'll get to share our wedding anniversary together!

According to a virtual countdown clock I just googled, that's 124 days away. Yes, it's still like four months away...but it feels SO much better to know it's a month less than I was preparing myself for. :) At the same time, it's hard to be patient and to realize that we have been apart so long and that there is still so much to go...but we'll get there eventually. I have quite the busy summer planned (three grad classes, short roadtrip/concert with my best friend, family vacation at a state park, and all the stuff Adelle has planned for us to do too...Pittsburgh Zoo, Erie Zoo, swimming, Idlewild, etc....oh, and she wants to go to the Okefenokee Swamp which we read about in one of her books lol), so that should help.

This year, I'm not counting down the days until the end of school...I'm counting down the days until I get a hug from my husband. <3

patience.

I just went through probably one of the longest weeks of my life thus far.

Without trying to sound too dramatic, it was agonizing waiting for the phone to ring. There's an eight-hour time difference, so I kept half-expecting that the phone would ring at some point during the night while I was asleep. It didn't, so I went through a few nearly sleepless nights waiting for a phone call that finally came today. I know that it was just a plane ride to a place not so near here and that he wouldn't be in danger yet, but it was still hard for me to not know that he got there safely or that he was getting acclimated to the new environment or that emotionally he was doing all right. When it's your husband and best friend, it's just hard not to know. So when I heard his voice today it felt so good and so heartbreaking at the same time. He's okay, but he's not here and he's probably feeling the same way.

I don't think that I'll ever really get used to this, but you can bet that I'll be so thankful to put my arms around him again.