An Update..... FINALLY!

Okaaay

I get it.




It has been awhile.







I have learned that time seems to stop moving at a certain point during deployment. Every day is just a day fading into another, over and over and over again.


Very boring stuff. Nothing you'd want to read blogs about. Looking back however, I have been up to lots of little projects in an effort to stay busy.


In no particular order here is a brief synopsis of April, May and June...






April brought my birthday. This was a very difficult for me. Luckily I received some very thoughtful and time consuming gifts to distract me.



ROSES!



Any of you who know me are familiar with my love affair for roses and here are the new additions to our house


The first from my mother-in-law

"Spring Fever" will bloom dozens of tiny white and pink miniature roses.








From my mother

"Elegant Lady"





and also from my mom


"Mardi Gras"










I was inspired by my new rose bushes and decided to attack the yard with some serious late (very late) Spring landscaping. The grass had long since died and been overtaken by weeds and bare spots long before we arrived here. I started there and purchased soil testing kits, a lawn aerator, lots of grass seed and lots of chemicals.


My parents with their fully organic lawn and garden would be so ashamed.


I purchased two more rose bushes I've been wanting for years and started with the side yard. Here are the results so far...


"Black Magic" I purchased for myself LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!







BEFORE















AFTER













I'm still having trouble with the grass in the side yard but I have to wait until fall seeding to work on it.





I created a little pad of mulch around two oak trees in the side yard and planted my Elegant Lady and Mardi Gras bushes there. I call it "rose island"








Now to the front of the house

BEFORE









drum role please.... dumdudmdudmdudmdudmdudmdudmdudmdudmdudmd

AND AFTER








*TADA*










That concludes my adventures in landscaping. I cannot even begin to describe to you what our water bill looks like these days.


Other events over May and June include killing a snake.

I pulled into the driveway one evening after work and this little bugger takes a strike at my foot. I was wearing my trusty Dansko clogs thankfully and though I yipped and jumped around like a sissy in my driveway I was secretly hoping the damn thing had chipped a fang on my hard leather clogs.

Once I finished my "that scared the crap out of me" dance in the driveway I walked into the garage, grabbed a shovel, and cut the head off.

I was quite proud of myself.





Until I took my trusty camera, snapped a photo of its markings and starting looking around the internet.








..... and the verdict is........













A completely harmless milk snake.




If anything this little guy was probably doing me some favors and taking care of any field mice in the surrounding woods.


I still feel pretty guilty about the whole thing. I don't mind non-poisonous snakes at all, they don't bother me.


You have to admit though, this guy had some pretty scary markings. I took one look at him and instantly I remembered a little tune that went something like... red on black get back jack, red on yellow lucky fellow...??


I'm not sure how it goes but this one had all those colors so it had to be bad right?

Here was the photo I took






For future reference the rhyme actually goes "red touch yellow, kill a fellow - red touch black, venom lack"


HEY! I was pretty close to that!





June brought with it my first cake commission here at Ft. Bragg. A fellow Army wife in my FRG was about to order a cake for her husbands promotion party when she heard I made cakes. I showed her a few photos and she told me what she wanted to order, it sounded pretty simple so I agreed to do it.

Her husband is with the Army Engineers here at Bragg so I had to cut out a perfect red, engineers castle logo. It was a 14'' round cake that weighed in at over 20lbs and I only charged a dollar a slice because I was so terrified it would not taste or look good.

It looked good in the end, simple but good. My piping skills still leave A LOT to be desired. As far as taste, her husband requested a lemon cake with raspberry filling which was a first for me. Apparently it turned out great, I never tasted it myself (I know, I know, big no no) but I did bring a second tier I had made, just in case the worst happened, to my work and it was devoured.

People are still talking about how good it was so I'm pretty excited.

Here is the result, I added red, white and blue chocolate stars to bring in some more color.









So there you have it. The past two and half months I have been incognito but now things are really picking up.

Nathan could possibly be bumped up onto an earlier chalk that might leave as early as Wednesday next week! I'm trying to keep my excitement to a minimum but I've already gone out and purchased my "homecoming" outfit.


To date it has been over 22 weeks since I've last seen Nathan.


These last days are turning out to be the most difficult, I just want to sleep the whole day away, perhaps because time seems to pass by faster that way.


If he does end up on this earlier flight he will be flying into green ramp on a C17 so I may be able to coax another waiting wife to trade photo duties with each other. Although taking photos may be the last thing on my mind by that time.