Finally. Home.

Well, I'm back home now, and I'm so excited. My trip here was kind of sucky, but it was definitely worth sitting on an extremely packed bus for 12+ hours and not sleeping more than an hour at a time for a 48 hour period.

 
 

I've got a lot of stuff to accomplish, and right now, things are going kind of slow and not always the way I want them to, but that's life, I guess.

 
 

One of the very first things I wanted to do when I got back was to get my cell phone turned back on. I have Sprint, so when I deployed my first time, I called them up and had them put my numbers on the military suspension program. When I got back, I called them back and they gave me back my numbers, no problem. This time, however, they said that their system canceled my numbers and gave them away. So, I have to get new phone numbers. That sucks, because everybody I know has the old phone numbers, but I guess this might be a good thing because it's forcing me to change, and I'll be getting phone numbers for Ohio, where I'll be living for the next few years. I have to wait a few days before I get my new Blackberry though. (I'm really excited about that! Yeah, I know I'm a geek!)

 
 

Whenever we redeploy, the first seven days consist of a bunch of briefings and stuff so we can get our paperwork and medical stuff squared away. Most of it is death by Powerpoint, but the days are generally short, so it's not too bad. After that week, we should be able to go on leave shortly thereafter.

 
 

Thanksgiving is coming up, and I really have no clue what I'll be doing for it. Since I'm spending Christmas with Sean's folks, I get to plan what we do for Thanksgiving, but with the way things are, I don't know what's going on with my leave, so the decision will probably be made like the day before Thanksgiving, and I might have a super long drive ahead of me. Ugh.

 
 

Gas is really surprising to me now. The lowest price right now in my town is about $1.73. It's kind of hard to believe what I saw on the news when I was in Iraq about how expensive it got earlier this year. When I left last year, I think it was somewhere in the $2.50-$3.00 range. We've been driving Sean's car a lot lately, and I'm keeping my truck at a friend's house, because it's kind of a waste to drive separate vehicles all the time, but I'm really happy about these gas prices.

 
 

There have been a lot of changes in the past year…I went to the PX yesterday and I was going to go to Clothing and Sales that was right next to the PX, and the building was GONE! I'm gonna have to search for it today, I guess. It looks like they've completed some major road work in my area as well. One road, I know they've been working on for about the past three years or more, and now it's all nice and finished!

 
 

The weather is going through a pretty icky cold spell, I guess. It's snowing all over the place and it's absolutely freezing here. I really would have preferred to come home when it was a bit warmer, but oh well. I'm home, and that's all that really matters, I guess.

 
 

Ah, that reminds me of shopping! Last night, I went clothes shopping for a little while and got myself a pink peacoat at Gap. It's really pretty, and I'm really excited about wearing bright colors again. I'm probably going to end up buying a lot of sweaters too. I didn't shop for too long because Sean gets bored with it quickly.

 
 

I went to Wal-mart my first night back to pick up some necessities, and I got really overwhelmed by the selection. After reading this book, the way I look at making choices has changed dramatically. I was shopping for a new deodorant, and the selection was so vast, I ended up spending way too much time trying to pick out the best one for the best price. Luckily, I realized fairly quickly that the excessive amount of choice was eventually going to make me give up and leave without making a choice, so I just picked a deodorant that was good enough, and I'm a lot happier with that.

 
 

Well, I better get going because I'm getting distracted by other shiny objects, so I better get going. I'll be posting a lot more fun stuff now that I am back in the "real world!" I can't say enough how happy I am to finally be home!