ctm

I am really surprised at how slowly these last few days have seemed to pass despite our lists of things to accomplish.  But my attempts to stop time by stealing batteries and unplugging all of our clocks still won't stop Eric from shipping out in just a couple of days.  And at this point he really needs to go because otherwise we won't know if he was a good teacher or not in ways of the manly, smelly house chores that I fervently avoid when he is home.  My home tour concluded today with information on the furnace filter, water shut-off valves, and a demo on how to actually start and use the weedeater thus hopefully averting anymore minor concussions. (sidenote:  Eric did ask me this afternoon if he should cut that pointy thing off of the garage.  But I told him that I have hit it twice with my head and I ought to know that it is there by now....and yes, I did give myself a minor concussion with the incident that occurred a couple of weeks ago.)

During the past month while Eric was gone we were able to text in the evenings before bed.  And we did test out our skype capabilities a couple of times.  We are told the delay with the video calling is quite delayed but we should be able to call using skype fairly easily.  It is very difficult to not get stressed and emotional during such a stressful and emotional time.  So we worked very hard over the last few months preparing and I don't think much time passed without making plans and talking about the next twelve months.  So while he was training we tried to make our texting fun and not stressful.  Texting verbage often involves shortened words or simply letters like ttyl or lol.  Eric sent me a text with the letters, ctm, at the end.  I'm pretty tuned in but I was unfamiliar with what that meant.  So I finally bit and asked,  "What's ctm?"   He replied, "Well, I don't usually lol...'cause I don't laugh out loud so I don't text it but I do often times ctm....chuckle to myself".   And that actually made me lol!

We have had some pretty awesome support over the last few months while preparing and I want to say some thank yous that are on my mind right now...I know I will have many, many more through the year and will remember even more kindnesses shown our family.

 * To our Christ Renews brothers and sisters who have been amazing support:  You were the first ones to learn of Eric and Brady's deployment and have stood by us in friendhip and prayers.  You totally shocked us with a gift of a laptop for Eric to take with.  I cannot tell you how much that will help us communicate.  Not every soldier is so fortunate to have their own.

* To my awesome girlfriends who already have lunch scheduled for Friday:  Thank you for holding my hand, watching my back, and always making me laugh! 

* To our neighbor Jason Johnston:  You blessed my husband immensely by filling the external memory with movies but esp. with all of the music.  The music was such a surprise to him and brought tears to his eyes.

* To all my family and friends:  Thank you for your unending expressions of love and support.  I hope I only get to call you through the year for no particular reason at all.

Tonight we celebrated Eric's birthday a couple of days early.  We gave him a gift-certificate for a year free of doing dishes!  I tried one more time to stop the clock by passing food counterclockwise.... and I hope you all are experiencing a little cty at the moment...chuckle to yourself. 

Love,
Monica

Prayer Requests:
1) Please pray for the sending ceremony Thursday which is also Eric's birthday.
2) I still need to purchase a lawn mower. But praise for my neighbor Yvonne who has been so kind to let us use hers in the meantime.
3) Pray Eric gets everything packed like he wants. 
4) And please pray that there isn't even one thing that we've forgotten so we can move on to getting Brady ready and shipped. 

Joshua 10:13b  The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down for about a full day.  (see..time stopped in the Old Testament...it could happen today!  :) )