I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Today, I am going to cheat a little bit (and no, I’m not talking about the fact that I ran at 6.8 today instead of 7.0 on the treadmill and ate at least 10 of the delicious and homemade rugalach that Dan sent me :))

Today, not only will I introduce you to a blog of one of my very good friends, but it should also hopefully make you smile, at least a little bit, as it made me. This is the blog of Elizabeth Steel, a very dear friend and one of my sisters in Chi Omega. Lizzy has an INCREDIBLE blog, it is very creative and artsy and updated at a MUCH greater frequency than I update mine.

I am very proud to have been Lizzy’s “shout-out” in one of her recent blog posts. She posted some very funny pictures and told some funny stories about me and it made me laugh and smile and cry (just a little bit, goodness knows almost anything makes me cry these days J) and I am so honored to be her first shout out. So thanks Lizzy, for making my day and bringing back some good memories and reminding me once again how grateful I am to have so many wonderful friends & family supporting me from afar.

http://thebeeandlee.blogspot.com/2010/01/shout-out.html

And for my readers, hopefully they too enjoy her post and perhaps you will grow to be a loyal follower of Lizzy’s blog too!

Well, that’s actually about it for me too. Not much to write here. The internet has been down the past few days, which has made it less fun for me because I have not be able to surf the internet or catch up with what is going on in everyone’s life on Facebook. I’ve been reading a lot, as usual. I am just about to finish ANOTHER patricia cornwell novel. For those of you that have not read her books, she writes about a woman named Dr. Kay Scarpetta who is the Chief Medical Examiner for the commonwealth of VA and works in Richmond. It is all about her work, usually in criminal cases as a medical examiner. But she was also has a law degree and works with the FBI and her niece goes (or went to, depending on at what point in the series you are reading) to UVA so it’s like CSI meets Law & Order meets awesomeness, all set in VA. I highly recommend her “Scarpetta” series to anyone that enjoys these types of books, they’re very interesting and surprisingly educational- I’ve learned a thing or two about criminal medical investigating now. Thanks mom, for getting me hooked on these books :)

As for me, I think about Homecoming/Tiger Cruise at least 39,583 times a day. No seriously. At least that many times. More if you count everything I’m excited about after Homecoming too. Then it’s more like 154,398 times a day. Like the fact that Dan just suggested a 3 night Carnival cruise out of San Diego the weekend after we get back, making a stop in Mexico. But, since I will have just spent like 6 months on a boat where I see the sun like twice a month, I am begging for a room with a balcony, so I have no problems finding the sun once I get home J (and preferably it’s the ship with the water slides too). And I’m excited for yogurtland. Every.Single.Day. And a million amazing Italian restaurants just outside our apartment. And San Diego weather. And exploring our new city (ok, my new city, dan’s been there awhile). And going to the Farmer’s Market on our block every Saturday. And trying samples of everything humanely possible at said Farmers Market. And cooking dinner. And going to Balboa Park. And a Padre’s game. And San Francisco. And Napa Valley. And driving my little baby Civic. And my iPhone. And 3G. And making our wedding album. And planning our trip to Hawaii. And FINALLY decorating/unpacking/organizing/getting settled in the apartment. And red wine + sunsets from our balcony. And seeing family and friends. And taking a shower without wearing shoes. And to not having planes crash over my head. And yeah. I’m ready.

I have to tell myself to not get TOO TOO excited- 2 months still is a ways away. I don’t want to burn out too soon. I think this excitement for heading home will last long enough til we get to Thailand and then after that I will just keep looking ahead to each port visit.

I finally got to talk to Dan today (we have an outside line phone in our office, but the past like week it hasn’t been working. Well, turns out, it wasn’t that it hadn’t been working, but rather, I had been dialing the wrong combination of numbers for a week! Today I asked someone why the phone wasn’t working and they were like “well did you dial 9 first?” and I was like “nooo….”) and Dan and I discussed that 2 months doesn’t seem so long when you say that we’ve already done FOUR months. And wow- what a lot can happen in four months! In four months I’ve:

• Flown to the Middle East
• Lived on an off-shore Iraqi Oil Terminal
• Spent the first two months of my marriage on skype
• Worked with Iraqis
• Ate schwarma and bought Persian rugs in Bahrain
• Landed (puke bag in hand) on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean
• Went sandboarding and hookah smoking in Dubai
• Found my way around a carrier
• Went to the world’s ONLY seven start hotel with my HUSBAND (!)
• Qualified in 2 new watch positions.
• Learned my new job with no turnover.
• Overcame my 6 year fear of running on treadmills to a point where I run 3-4 miles a day
• Made new friends
• Kept in touch with old friends

Wow- what a crazy 4 months it has been! Looking back, if I only have to do half that much, well, then I’m ok with that! As for me, it’s off to sleep. Tomorrow is our first “non-5th fleet Sunday”- in 5th fleet (aka- the middle east) their “holy day” is Friday, so our “holiday routine” as well is on a Friday. Tomorrow is our first Sunday since September 17th that we rest on Sunday, with the rest of the Western world :)

Well, bye-bye Middle East! Bye-bye Operation Enduring Freedom. Bye-Bye dhows. In the worlds of the song played on the 1MC tonight as the last plane landed- “Eastbound and down”- we’re heading HOME!!!!!