Keeping up with us...

Tomorrow will be three weeks since Brian said goodbye. I've been SO busy with projects that I've about worn myself out! I need to give myself a day off. My mother was shocked at the state of my house, because I'm such a neat freak. But she could also tell I was doing well, especially considering the emotional wreck I was last deployment. I'm proud of myself, and so far keeping my sanity.

My first project after Brian left (besides having the deck cleaned and sealed and replacing the garage door) was building a makeshift desk. We've moved many desks in our nearly 11 years in the Army, and they don't stay together very well. I wanted a desk that could survive move after move, but also give us some free space to do what we wanted with it. What's better than a simple open design? So, I took two pieces of furniture we already had - a 10-year-old black filing cabinet and a dark wood cube bookshelf - and bought a piece of plywood and made a desk! It took me a week to prep, paint, seal and finish off four pieces of furniture (I also painted a 12-year-old bookshelf my Dad my me in college to match the desk). Then, with the help of our friend Cody (two days before leaving to join Brian in The Stan) I lugged it all upstairs, put it together and even got the computer hooked back up with everything working correctly! I'm so stinking proud of myself, its ridiculous. So here are some photos of the finished project.

Another thing I've been doing is keeping busy with friends. Here is Sam playing in our backyard with my friends' kids before we had dinner one night last week.


Random pics of Sam being goofy. He was showing off for Grandma Bullard.

Finally, Sam's preschool is drawing to a close. On Wednesday they had a short program of songs they had learned throughout the year and then an awesome "water day" afterwards where the kids got to play in their swimsuits all over the lawn. It was a blast for them. Here are some pictures and a short video of Sam's performance.



This is Sam playing with Ronin. Their Daddies are together in a land far away!

Yeah, that was it. The teachers warned me he had refused to sing. I thought I had him talked into it, but during the entry parade, he never made it past my legs. Sigh.

OK, so my next project is a guest bed. Where the old desk was in our office/guest room/exercise room/playroom, I now have a brand new queen size bed. I'm building an upholstered headboard for it that I'll attach to the wall above it. That should get done tomorrow. And I'm putting together my new patio furniture. So hopefully next week I'll have some more awesome photos to show you!

BTW, got to talk to Brian on a web cam this morning! It was the first time I'd seen him since he left and he looked really healthy and good. His bed is 3 inches too short for him and he lives in a space the size of a toilet stall, but he's alive and doing well! Praise the Lord and keep praying for him and his friends, please....