Choices

The past few weeks have flown by. December is here and I'm not sure I'm ready for it. Until today I hadn't even thought of Christmas gifts. I haven't written a single card yet either. I did manage to do most of my Christmas shopping today. I have a few odds and ends yet to buy or make... but for the most part I am done.

Work has been slow since the end of October. My closest friend at work is going to be leaving for a new position. He's going to be Chief Ranger at Smith Mountain Lake State Park over near Roanoke, VA. I'm going to miss him, but I'm proud of him and happy that he was selected for the position. To show our appreciation, Tiffany and I decided to 'assist' Andy with packing his drawer up at work. We cleaned out his drawer, boxed up most of the contents neatly and hid the box under a bunch of equipment, filled the mostly empty drawer with packing peanuts, (hid some of his favorite things in the peanuts too) wrote a nice card to him and placed it in the drawer, and then hung a FOR RENT sign on the outside of the drawer. We were pretty nice to him... after all, we did help him pack! He took the prank in stride, which is just like him. I've never seen him get angry about anything. Anyway, like I said, it's been slow at work. Has to be to have enough time to dream up and carry out a decent practical joke.

Back to December. For the past 6 months, it's just been me and the kids. That's going to change in a week or two (give or take... you never quite know with Navy schedules.) My husband will be returning and then we will go into a whirlwind of activity that I'm not too sure about. He's got orders to the other side of the country. I'm desperately trying to view these orders as a nice change, but having a hard time getting past the fact that I'll be leaving my family behind, my friends, all my community contacts, and my career as a Park Ranger. It's my wonderful, comfortable life, which I love very much! I knew as a Navy wife that this day was always a possibility, but the longer we stayed here, the more I began to think that we would never move. Of course, there is always more to the story... and there is plenty that I'm not going to write here, but the short of it is I'm not sure that I want to go. I'm doing my best to remain positive about the move. My husband thinks it is going to be absolutely wonderful. I want to think that. Some days I do think it will be a good change... other days I want to tell him "Adios, have fun in California and we'll see you if you decide to return."