ZOMG. Are we done yet?

So the house is now 95% finished (roughly... that may or may not be a bit of an exaggeration designed to make me feel better) thanks in large part to my awesome Mom's help. But as I sit here at my shiny new desk in my awesome living room (I will post photos for the more curious of the lot)... I feel bummed when I think I should be excited. We are back in the home stretch, again, and I think I just feel like none of this is what is should be until he gets home, none of this is worth getting excited over until he's here. Does that make any sense?

I'm not weepy or sad about it... I'm past that, but I am just ready to be done with it. I've been ready for months and months and months now. I'm exhausted and weary of it all at this point. We hit the "home stretch" 2 or 3 weeks ago and then got word of an extension of sorts. So I guess that has made me feel like we aren't making any forward progress on this deployment and that, for lack of a better term, sucks. Forward progress is all you've got to keep you going, am I right? I'm tired of folks saying "So close now!" because in no other world is this amount of time apart, even just what time we have left, considered a short time to be apart. I hate that. I hate that this is "nothing" in light of what we've already done. No one else would think 5-ish* weeks is a short time to be away from your husband. They just wouldn't. Don't get me started on the other 11 months.

But I digress. I guess what I am trying to say is that, like most of this deployment, this stage doesn't feel anything like I thought it would. I thought this is when I would start to get excited. I thought the nesting would keep me upbeat. I thought living back on Post would make it feel more real, closer. I thought logging 11 months of this would make the last bit feel like a walk in the park. Newsflash: Not a one of these things makes it any better, any easier, or any less sucky. The only remedy to this malaise (other than more cowbell, obvs) is Swiss coming home, safe and sound.

I miss my husband. I am over worrying about him. I am over a 15 minute phone call as our only means of communication. I am over e-mail correspondence. I want him home already. I want him to get to know Fletcher. I want him to see the new digs and all the cool stuff I got us for it. I want to be able to call him, whenever I feel like it. I want to have face-to-face conversations with him. I want to hold his hand and do things together. I want to curl up with him on the couch- god, do you know how long it's been since we've done that? I want to cook for two, I want to see his boots in the hallway, I want to have ACUs in the laundry, I want to tuck in next to him in the middle of the night. I don't want to be flying solo anymore, its been too long.

Anyway, that's where my head is at. I'm most definitely in the "put your head down and just keep going" mode, and I know there is a HUGE payoff waiting for me in the weeks/month+ ahead. It just feels like our pace is on par with molasses on a cold Minnesota day. Trust me, its S-L-O-W.

But hey, today I get to go buy a bed for the guest room (the PX is having a sale!) and finish putting together our bathroom (Good Maude I have a lot of cosmetic/lotiony things!) and my studio. We FINALLY found the paintbrushes in the 5th to last box we opened and I bought a boatload of good acrylics with my birfday money from my parents (woot!). So the painting will begin next week when my Mom heads back to winter and home (sad). Have a great day y'all!

*Obvs OPSEC is at play here. That isn't the real number. I'm totally lying to you. Still like me?