I would like to be excited about this

But it just makes me think we have farther to fall this season. Stay tuned for more Calhoun related news in the next day or so . . .

This is What I Do At Work

Ok, kinda. I am an ethics attorney and I do train a lot of people on ethics. When I showed this clip to my office, we discussed including more song and dance in our upcoming annual training, but I think we may just show this clip instead.

This is What My Friend Megan Does At Work

No really. Not to reveal the man behind the curtain, but she's Blair and sometimes she's British. And she made really awesome Gossip Girl finger puppets. Check them out. You know you love them. . . . XOXO

More Homecoming Photos

Here are two photos that April just sent me -- the left is us anxiously awaiting our husbands' arrival and the right is me with my husband, probably about 15 minutes after he got off the plane. Thanks for the photos April!

He is Home!!

I am not ready to put into words what this past weekend was like. Even just recalling the welcome home ceremony now brings tears to my eyes and chokes me up. It was definitely one of the most emotional days of my life and one that has been a long time coming. Hopefully, with some time, I can try to find words to even just write about the ceremony, let alone what my feelings were at that time. For now, here are some photos - early ones, from my iPhone. I hope to have some better ones from a real camera within the next few days. My husband is home and safe. He is still demobing in NC but hopefully will be in VA within a week or so. We certainly can't wait.


A big 451 family shout out to the McFarland family - April and Mr and Mrs. McFarland - Jeff's wife and parents. We combined intel and made it through the weekend together - even if we were signless. Thanks for waiting with me and it was so great to finally meet April - our husband's have been together since June but this is the first time we met and it brought a nice symmetry to the experience. (If only she had brought Montgomery. . . )


Photo #1 - the crowd waiting for the 18th Airborne Corps unit that came back on my husband's plane. The 451 contingent hid in a corner - we were not as mighty and didn't have any signs. (We did have flags thanks to Mrs. McFarland.)

Photo #2 - They are in formation during the ceremony - here they are saluting the National Anthem. (Yes they come in, stand in formation and you have to stand and wait and you can't get to your husband.) I know the photo isn't the greatest, but my husband is the one without a beret one. He claims he forgot it, but I think its his last act of protest against IRR :)

Changes Around the Blog Page

You may notice that the world clocks are gone from the bottom of the page. That's because my husband is not in Afghanistan anymore!! As of this morning he was in Kuwait - going through customs and getting ready to get on a plane that will eventually bring him back to US soil!!! No offense Afghanistan - I know everyone loves you after reading the Kite Runner and I know Obama is all about sending more people there - but I hope to not give you another passing thought.

Waiting, and not so patiently

I am home today, resting and trying to relax before my husband comes home this weekend. The stress and anxiety of his homecoming has made me feel under the weather this week, so I decided to stay home and rest to ensure that I felt 100% when he returns. Staying home is also allowing some shuffling of things around the house - in a move that can best be described as nesting. I know it seems like there should be nothing but joy surrounding his homecoming and it is a very joyous event, but the getting ready and the waiting is really hard. I feel like there is an endless list of things that must get done before he gets home. I think B-cat is pretty excited to see me take off tomorrow to head to NC just so I stop driving her nutsy. I went through these same feelings when he came home on leave and was sick for the week before he came home - probably for the same reasons - and I know they will all disappear when I see him get off that plane. Unfortunately until then I will still be searching for the perfect place in the apartment for Bailey's squishy box.

Breaking Up, It Turns Out, Not Always That Hard to Do

As the new tv season started this year, I was mindful that the Tivo was not going to be just mine. My husband will be home and we would have to agree on what to record when to assure that both people were satisfied. Mondays, are tough, but I have survived the new schedule, though I've missed a good amount of DWTS. When the season was about two weeks old, I realized there were some shows that were on my Tivo, but I just didn't seem to have the time or inclination to watch. And so I started the process of breaking up with some television shows. The first to go was Grey's Anatomy. I've talked alot about how the show really annoys me but I felt the need to watch it, forced by some pop culture peer pressure. The first week I hadn't watched the season premiere but saw a clip on The Soup - when Sandra Oh was stabbed by an icicle. And the lightblub went off and I realized I needed to erase the episode from my tivo, cancel the season pass and have a clean break. So I don't want to know how Gray's is doing - I'd like a clean break and let us both go on with our lives.

I've felt a loyalty to ER since I have watched almost every season since the beginning, and this is the last season. But in watching the first couple minutes of the season premiere and realizing they were killing off another character, I realized I didn't have it in me to watch this season I am sure I will tune in for the series finale to have some closure - but I think that's like going to an ex's wedding - no remaining feelings, just a good way to acknowledge that everyone is going their own ways and we are all ok with it.

I continue to try to weed out some of the deadweight of my tv schedule. I still tivo Private Practice but haven't watched it any episodes yet, I am sure that will be next to go. I cut out Ugly Betty - I enjoyed the first season but think that last season was just more of the same. I guess this is all part of a natural transition as my life is changing - no longer an Army wife at home waiting for a phone call, but now a wife with a husband and a kitty and soon to be a puppy - and I know I have a lot more things to fill my evenings and weekends than the latest shenanigans that Betty or Meredith gets herself into.

Adorableness in Puppy Form

I can't promise B-cat will be this excited when my husband returns next week. But I think she'll be pretty close.

Things I Can't Wait to Do When My Husband Gets Home

The list is really infinite. Everyday I see silly little things that go on in everyday regular life and think, wow, I can't wait until we can be that normal couple with normal worries and normal conversations and normal bedtimes and all those things that go to be normal. My Husband likes to say, well, what's normal. I'll give you a hint - being long distance for almost four years, having been married for almost 18 mos and never living together, never having spent more than fifteen days together - all those things are not normal. It is who we are and even better, who we have been, and I am really excited to move past it. To not feel that my relationship needs to be explained or have an asterisk after it. We'll just be another twenty-something couple living in Alexandria with a dog and a cat and two jobs we enjoy and we'll do all that silly stuff that couples who live in the greater DC metro region do on the weekends and it will be fabulous.

So all of this is to really say, everything is becoming too real to keep listing what I want to do. I'd say I'm like a kid on Christmas - but that kid on Christmas can't sleep the night before Christmas. I have been on the edge, just waiting for this to happen, for weeks now. I have one week left and it feels like I have miles of quick sand to walk through before I can reach the end. Listing all the awesome things I can't wait to do makes me more jittery, more anxious - so my lack of posts on the many things I can't wait for does not mean that I am not excited for my husband's return. Its just that I'm so excited, I can't even put fingers to keys to begin to express it.

Things I Can't Wait To Do When My Husband Comes Home #17

#17 - Celebrate his birthday. October 7 (which it already is in Afghanistan) is my beautiful husband's birthday. I am so sad that he will not be home for it and that there is nothing I can do to make it a very happy birthday - especially since it is his last birthday in his twenties!! I have big plans for trying to make up for missing his birthday when he gets home THIS MONTH and I hope that lessens the blow of having to spend it in Afghanistan. I hope they have cake, baby and I can't wait to have that Bloomin' Onion you so love to celebrate. Happy birthday, we all miss you so much here and are thinking of you today!

(B the W, this is a picture of us celebrating A's birthday last year, at a Redskins' victory over Detroit. I think the Skins starting 4-1 is their present to him.)

Things I Can't Wait To Do When My Husband Gets Home #16

16 - Get dressed. Yeah, it sounds funny but I spent about 5 minutes dancing around my bedroom this morning trying to button the top button my skirt. No, its not that it didn't fit - its that the button is in the back and I had to be a contortionist to get to it. I've run into this more and more the past few weeks, even returning a dress that I realized I could never wear without someone to zip me up. I look forward to having every button buttoned before I leave the house each morning once my husband is home to assist with such things.

Our Blissfully Short National Nightmare Is Over

Thankfully Kim was voted off DWTS. She stated she hoped she had made her father proud. I am sure if the sex tape and the Playboy spread hadn't made him proud, her second round exit on DWTS definitely did.