Molasses.

Ugh. Our neighbor's husband is home. As in home from the deployment. He is in the same group of guys that Swiss is in... and I'm 95% sure he left after Swiss did. And he's home before Swiss is. My patience is wearing thin.

Don't get me wrong, I am super happy for them. (Honestly!!!) I won't begrude anyone their happy homecoming because deployments are hard on everyone and we've ALL earned our celebrations. But the past week has seen a steady stream of decorated cars, banners on bridges, signs on homefronts... more and more. I see them everywhere naturally, at the PX, the commissary, in the Home Depot parking lot, at the mall, next door, on my run, everywhere. And can I tell you that I am so sick of it.

I'm not sick of it because I think it is lame or overly saccharine. The first signs I saw made me happy and misty and left me beaming all day long. Now I'm just over it because I'm tired of everyone else having their homecoming but us. (Okay, that isn't fair, there are obviously other families in the unit still waiting) I don't know. I'm just ready to have our reunion. I'm ready for that to be us. I'm ready for the signs to be on our house and the decorations on our truck. I am ready to not be in this house alone anymore.

Perhaps all of this is just because my patience is wearing thin and the final weeks of this deployment have left we weary, they are moving oh so slowly- sometimes it is hard to believe we've been doing this for almost a year now. Sometimes it feels like less, but mostly it feels like its been a decade. I am tired and exhausted and so, so over it. I'll stop my whining now. But man oh man, I want that to be us already!

My own personal Surge.

Yes. A Surge. A Redeployment/Homecoming Surge of semi-epic proportions (can anything actually be "semi-epic???). I have a few weeks of geographical bachelorettehoodom to go, and I need to make the most of them. So in a relatively lame attempt to keep myself on track, I'm going to post my list of items that either a) MUST be done or b) should get done before Swiss comes home. Ready?

• Lose 5ish pounds. Not joking... holiday blubber must go! I could stand to lose more, but that is a long-term goal, short term is 5 lbs. I've been doing great eating healthy, I just need to work on my portion sizes... I have this teensey problem of when whatever it is I'm eating tastes really good (healthy or not), I want A LOT of it.

• Spruce up our yard/patio. We actually have a pretty nice space with no neighbors to the back, so it would be nice for lounging and dining and right now it looks like the sad last hours of a rummage sale. I'm gonna plant some things in the pretty pots I got back in MN with Emily (Hi Em!), hang some festive lights, rake up the neighbor's leaves and arrange the furniture so it looks less like Hillbillies live here.

• Organize our desk and get Swiss's computer set up. The beauty of having an iMac is that there is, literally, one plug to get the actual computer up and running. One internet cable and the USB stuff to the keyboard, mouse and external HD and I'm up and running. Swiss, on the other hand, has a PC (we are working on that) and therefore a rat's nest of cables is sitting next to me at our schmancy new stainless steel desk. And there are 3 small boxes of assorted crap- er I mean stuff- that needs to find a home before Swiss gets back. And we need a router. Wheee!

• Wash his truck, inside and out. It should be purty for when I pick him up, right now it looks like someone did a cross country road trip in it. Oh, wait. I did. Either way I need shine that baby up.

• PAINT! Yes, painting is my hobby, but right now there is a giant nekkid space above our couch on our awesome purple wall, between our kicky IKEA pendant lamps. It looks sad and lonely... and I finally got an idea of what to paint on my 2 24"x30" canvasses. Must get crackin' on this project rightthisminute if the oil paints are going to dry by the time the wheels hit the ground (SQUEEE!!!)

• Shine up the dog. Fletcher has taken on a permanent scent of dried grass and always seems to have mud/dirt stuck in his hairy little paws. If Fletch is going to have any hopes of winning over Swiss (they have only spent 5 fleeting days together the entire time we've had him), he's gonna have to look and smell the part!

• Finish the last minute home decorating details. Like reupholster the 2 spare chairs in the dining room with the hand painted fabric I just completed. Do I think Swiss will even notice? Hell no. BUT, I will notice and I will finally feel like this place is D.O.N.E. once this is finished. Also, I need to find homes for the last few scattered boxes of STUFF laying around. That should put the house in tip-top shape, which will make me a very happy gal.

• Make a sign! You know, a silly but helpful sign that says something like "Tucker!" with an arrow pointing down at me so that Swiss can find me in the madness of the Homecoming ceremony. But no glitter, no ribbons, no whackadoo tchotchkies. Just a simple and straightforward, yet highly effective, sign.

• Shave my legs and get a mani/pedi. The bonus to having your husband gone for a year is that you can let your legs get pretty furry if you want... because its just you and the dog. But no one wants to come home to Chewbacca in a dress (or this, yuck) so I need to shine myself up too!

• Lastly, I need to register us for the 5K we are doing in the Big City about an hour away. This is our Valentine's Day agenda (romantic, right?), so I can't screw this up and forget like I've been doing. Oh, and maybe get myself some cute running duds for the big day. I know Swiss is super excited about it and he's sweet enough to not want to "Run" this race for time (because he is a great runner and is pretty competitive), but rather run it with me, however slow I need to go. See? Sweet.

So there it is... my agenda for the next few weeks. Am I missing anything??? Know what is silly? Writing this post has made this homecoming feel more real than it EVER has before. And you know what? I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED I COULD PEE MY PANTS! But I won't.

HE'S COMING HOME Y'ALL! SOON!!!!! Squeeeeeee!!!!!