What could be better than chocolate? Chocolate yarn.... chocolate soft-as-a-baby's-behind Jo Sharp Rare Comfort mohair to be exact. My order from Elann arrived Friday. In a word, "YUM!" This will go into a beautiful throw for our living room which is in sages and browns. I want to find something silky to knit along with it.
Actually... there is something better than chocolate. Getting a package from my SP4! Thanks so much Gracie! A bunch of goodies. "Life's a Stitch" pen, tea, bookplates for my knitting/spinning books and a luscious kit from Spirit Trails Fiberworks. Included in this kit is merino/tencel roving, beads and the pattern for a scarf. I hope I can do it justice, Gracie!! The timing of the package couldn't have been better after last week's news.
I've wanted to make the Pacific Grove Pullover from Just One More Row for a few years now. I bought Elann's Pasticcio cotton in a denim blues for it. So soft.
Now for the non-knitting... I have the best readers. Really. Thanks so much for all of your support and kind words. It might take me a few days, but I'll write each of you who commented personally.
Those that asked about Jeremy... he's due back at Ft. Lewis, WA in early October. He'll have about three months and then he's getting out, moving to Indiana and going to college (which he'd be done with if he'd listened to his mother in the first place!) Even though we'll have a great distance between us, it'll be good to have him back in the States again.
It's not so much that I'm a strong woman... it's that I'm just plain used to it. Our two years 
during this tour in Germany is the most time Dan and I have spent together in our 12 years of marriage. We often joke that it's the reason we made it this far. We only knew each other for three weeks when Dan proposed and a little over a month later we got married (we were both in the Army at the time and it was the only way we could be together once we left the class we were going to at Ft. Devens, MA (God, I wish that post was still open). He was stationed in San Antonio and I was at NSA in Ft. Meade, MD). I know. Crazy. It's worked out for us though. We are still happily married and I'd choose him all over again in a second. He can be an ornery pain in the arse, but he's a lot of fun and he's one of those guys that very few people dislike. Here he is with his three favorite things... A beer, a cigar and his Pancho Villa Mexican Revolution T-shirt. lol. What a catch! ;-)
At any rate, military families stick together in times like this. Especially overseas. We become each other's families over here. Besides two other major deployments, he was gone TDY (temporary duty) 2-3 weeks out of every six doing body guard duties for the Secretary of Defense and others. When Dan went to Bosnia, I was in a little tiny town (the only American) here in Germany and Daniel was two.... now **that** was a rough deployment. That was when the whole autism thing was really starting to become apparent. It was the worst winter Germany had in years and I was on a little country road that they didn't plow often. When Dan went to the Pentagon on the afternoon of 9/11/2001, Daniel was seven and Joe was two. Granted, that one was only for a little over a month, but I've never been so worried about him. Emotionally, that was the hardest deployment for him because of the things he saw inside of the Pentagon and for me because the second night he was in the building it collapsed and caught on fire again. It was such an uneasy and scary time in our country and he was away from us. I could actually watch the TV and see where he was the entire time. Then he went to Afghanistan four months later for eight months. We were at Ft. Campbell, KY and people just aren't as close in the States. I felt very alone, Daniel was a huge handful in the melt-down phase and Joe was still so small.
:-) So you see, this one should be a piece of cake comparatively. The boys are older. They are both in school this time, so I'll at least have my days free. I have great friends here. I have the satisfaction of knowing Dan is somewhere that he knows. The hard part is for the hurt the boys will feel. Daniel will be hitting his pre-teens. He needs his Dad even though he doesn't know it. Joe is completely the clone of Dan and they are best buds. Joe ADORES his father. When Dan came home from Afghanistan the last time we had to drive to Atlanta to pick him up. Joe wouldn't let go of his hand. He told Dan, "Dad, promise you won't ever leave me like that again" I almost had to pull the car over I was so upset. He was 3 1/2 at the time.
One of the things I don't like about Dan being CID is that I won't have another wife around to join in my misery for the deployment. All the families here in our community had each other to lean on and keep each other company while the entire community was in Iraq. With CID it's one guy from this office and one from another office..... It's not a whole unit going at once. I know I can count on my friends, but a lot of the support functions are gone and it is a lonely time. Trust me, there'll be days when I won't want to get out of bed or I'll be so miserable I don't like to be around myself, but I'll have to work through it for the boys. On the good side of the coin, because Dan is CID he can contact me easily. He always has phones and computers that he can use. In fact, we probably communicate more when he's deployed than we do when he's home. Web cams, phone calls and email help immensely and being CID, it's much easier to come by for us than a lot of other troops.
I took myself out of the Send a Soldier To The Movies. I did it before finding out about the deployment for various reasons. There must have been some ESP at play. I'll help the group of wives that's going to take it on (a community about 30 min. from us was just deployed to Iraq). They'll be much better suited for it because they are a large group of women that can work together on it while their husbands are deployed.
All that said... I'm happy to report that Dan hits 18 years in March. Retirement isn't far off. With any luck, this will be his last deployment. :-)
Introducing my new nephew, Phoenix Daniel. He was born on the 19th of June at 10:37 p.m. Arizona time. He was 7lbs 10 ozs and 19" long. My brother, Danny, and his wife, Maricela, are the proud parents of this beautiful baby boy. The road was a little rocky for a couple of days when the birth mother was having a hard time letting him go. It must have been so difficult for her, but they got to bring him home yesterday morning. He will have a glorious life, of that I am sure.
The only knitting content in this post is that I had to frog an almost completed sleeve because I forgot which size sweater I was making for Dan and, of course, I chose the wrong size. Why didn't I get up and count the stitches on the body to make sure? Probably because I was too damn lazy.
