A good day

There are good days and bad days during a deployment. Yesterday appeared to be a bad one. Nothing earth-shattering, just one of those days. I left my house at 10:15am and it takes about 12 minutes to get to work. So imagine my surprise when I was still sitting at the gate to get on post at 10:55 am. I finally got through the lights, the gate and was headed to work when I realized there was NO parking. Anywhere. Not close to, not far away from the bank. Not ANYWHERE. I drove around post for another 10 minutes before I finally found a spot outside of a maintenance bay that's about a 4 minute walk from the bank. Of all days, this is when I decided not to be a slave to the snow and wear cute shoes. An unfortunate decision, since I had to walk four minutes in the snow to get to work. And it turned out to be unfortunate again when that afternoon I had to walk QUICKLY to my car to avoid towing. It may have been an idle threat from the MPs, but I definitely did not need to deal with that. I had a parking ticket, which we don't pay for if it's on post; it just goes to our commander. I called Staff Duty to give them a heads up on the ticket, and to protest its validity. Situation is as of yet unresolved.

It had been a long day, but I did have a fun evening to look forward to. I made a cheesecake Monday night and before I left for work, I put a spinach lasagne in the crock pot. I came home to a delightful smelling stairwell and a silly baby boy. A few girls from work came over and Erica brought a fabulous strawberry-spinach salad with her homemade dressing, and we were in heaven. After dinner we played a few rounds of Scattergories with some hilarious results, and started to teach some of the girls to play Spades. Our game was interrupted by an unexpected phone call from Jay, which was awesome! I hadn't talked to him in a week or so, and it was really nice to hear his voice. Hayden woke up to play with the girls for a few minutes, and was in a super snuggly mood. It's amazing how quickly a day can turn around thanks to good friends, great food and a wonderful family.

Welcome, 2010!

Happy New Year, all! We rang in the new year with our friends at Adrianne's house full of food, fun and a ton of loud kids. Hayden had a BLAST with all the big kids, and showed off his supreme walking skills. He also showed off his climbing and not-napping skills, as we were still in the midst of the messed up schedule. We stayed inside at midnight and watched the fireworks at the window since it was cold and rainy. Germans love their Silvester (new year) and celebrate with fireworks in every neighborhood. The next day, they are all out sweeping up the the debris because they are a clean people. Unlike the filthy Americans I live with, who can't be bothered to pick up their own trash or sweep a stairwell. I digress.

So far in 2010, we have had 2 days of snow, a flat tire on the Fusion, a dead battery on Jay's car and TWO phone calls from Jay. I'll take it. Today I learned that the Skins fired Zorn and that the Heels lost to CofC in overtime last night. That's a Monday for you. I had an oil change today and have my fingers crossed that my new tires come in this afternoon so our road trip to Ramstein commences tomorrow. I really need to get out of here just for the day! Right now I'm riding on my spare, and you truly do not realize how slow 50mph is until that's as fast as you can go. Needless to say, I'm steering clear of the autobahn to avoid having my doors blown off. And the minimum speed is 100k or 60mph, so I'm not even ALLOWED. How will I ever drive in the states when we move back?