Summer Run-Down

It appears that I blog in cycles. I didn't realize it had been this long since my last post, though! Here's a quick recap since the end of June:

• I am now working 30 hours a week and volunteering at the USO center here on post. I enjoy it and feel a lot more connected to the community.
• I went blonde and am now back as a redhead...that's ultimately what I want to see when I look in the mirror.
• Spike and I got to go on vacation! We had less than a week's notice to plan it, but we weren't about to allow an opportunity to escape get away from us, so we went to Winter Park, Colorado. LOVED it. 
• We painted an accent wall in our living room and in my office, so our space is a little less generic. Take that, government housing!
• For the past two months temperatures have regularly been around 110 degrees. I had NO IDEA that Kansas was this miserably hot! Finally, we're down in the 80s.

On a more somber note, it's been an emotional summer.  As you may know, Spike became a rear-detachment commander for a unit two weeks before it deployed to Afghanistan. The deployment has taken a terrible toll: five soldiers killed and over 50 wounded to date. My good friend's husband was one of the wounded...on two separate occasions. It's one thing to know that this happens in the abstract, and another to attend memorial services and interact with family members. Spike has been the notifying officer for most of the injuries and delivers eulogies I help him write at the memorial services. He has also made several trips to Texas military hospitals to visit wounded warriors from the unit. Because Spike is the rear-d commander and has these responsibilities, I think I know more about the situation downrange than many families who receive generic updates through FRG channels. Sometimes I wish I were much more ignorant, as there is a possibility that after this command Spike might be assigned to a unit that is deploying next spring.

Those are the facts; I really don't know what to say about how I feel about this other than that these incidents make me angry, terrified, devastated, and other gut-churning things I can't accurately identify. And that is with my husband home, however crappy his job might be. To say that I admire the families whose loved ones are downrange is a vast understatement.

Let's end on a good note, though. Tomorrow is our one-year anniversary! It has definitely been the best one of my life.