1 YEAR TO GO!!!!

That's right!! Today means I have 365 days until I am home for good. Okay 364 but who's counting? There is a Microsoft excel program someone put together for us that you put in your arrival day and your departure day and it figures out the number of days, weeks, minutes, and seconds left. They call it the "donut of misery." It is called that because as it figures your days left it also begins to color in a circle. It is fun to look at and always know where you are in the pain. We are having a "patch" ceremony this morning. Let me tell you how silly this is...we are going to get in a formation (everyone line up in equal rows), a band will play, and someone will get on a microphone system and give commands "Put on Patch." I can't tell you how silly this is going to be. We will look like fools but our Commander wants to do this. These are our combat patches. When you are in combat for over 30 days you get to wear a unit patch on your right sleeve or arm. When you see Army guys walking around in uniforms with patches on their right sleeves they have been in combat. Anyway I hope I don't laugh out loud at the stupiditys of the ceremony.
Something that was fun - I got to actually see Bobbi and two of my great friends (Tami and Lisa) on a video teleconference yesterday. Bobbi is officially the Occupational Therapy Consultant or was officially sworn in and this organization called "Freedom Calls" (http://www.freedomcalls.org/) arranged for me to view the ceremony. That was really alot of fun. I have been using Skype to talk to her and others but unless you have a webcam you don't get to see who you are talking to. So we have not seen each other since May. My Mom and Dad have a webcam so I get to see them when I talk to them. Well time for me to run. The ceremony is at 7:30 (which is 2 hours from now). I can't believe we are going to be doing this? Too sad.