Tennessee or Ten-i-see?

I'm determined to get back on to the blogging horse. The Mrs. was right when she said it's hard when you've been away for a while!

I finally quit the unglamorous second job (Linds, nights are free again! Drinks, dinner?) and feel a huge weight off my shoulders. I was going to wait until a week before the move but after going back and forth about it, I decided the small amount of extra money it would give me was not worth my sanity. Hopefully having nights free again will also allow for more blog time seeing as I'm not working 14 hours a day anymore.

Right now I'm in Tennessee, the place that will soon become home, which is certainly a nice thought :). I was driving through the small town I live in the other day. It's like a lot of small towns, two stop lights, the local lumber yard and hardware store advertises the high school events on it's marquee. We have one restaurant you've ever heard of. Everything else has been passed down through families or built up by those who have finally saved enough money. We serve a lot of Mexican food in my little town. We have a small lake to the left as you're driving out to my house. The lake was just emptied for the first time in 15 years so that everyone could repair and rebuild their property along the lake. Small town gossip reports that Mr. Greedy pants built a ten foot extension onto his land and, oops!, built it onto his neighbors property so the next time they drain the lake (in the next 15 years) he'll have to tear it down. It's the kind of small town where the local gas station still does charge accounts.

These are the things I will surely miss about this place.

I suppose you notice things like that more often when you're preparing to leave. And, while I have no hesitation in the decision I've made, an ending is always a little sad.

Seems to be more than a fair trade though. Two stop lights for him. As the spring is starting to approach it's easy to remember all of the excitement of last year. Preparing for him to come home on leave, hearing about Green to Gold, him finally coming home for good. A year goes by so fast yet so many things change, it's sort of exciting to see! Makes a person wonder what all could change in the year ahead. A year ago on Valentines day (and you can read the post from that day last year as well) Sgt. had just come back in and I was finally able to talk to him after nearly two weeks. Now, here he is, sitting behind me on the couch reading.

Last night we went out to dinner and he surprised me by taking the evening off from work :), a year ago, taking a day off from work was impossible and being together was even more of a stretch.

I remember last February becoming more anticipatory of his leave. We hadn't seen each other in a year... what would be different? (and his leave was still 3 months off!) And now, in just 3 weeks I'll hang clothes in the closet and clutter the bathroom counter with too many beauty products I hardly use.

A year ago I was in the same small town with the same two stop lights, and soon enough I'll be in a new town, on a different adventure, yet with the same person. So like I said, it's a fair trade, the two stop lights, for him.

Happy Valentines day everyone!