Friday, March 15, 2013

R & R Prep

Well, I was finally able to take most of this Friday off, with the exception of a few minutes on email.  So, what did I do on my down day today?  I slept in!  I awoke at about 0730.  After a couple cups of coffee, I went over to the MWR area and ran a few miles on the treadmill followed by a bunch of push-ups and various forms of ab/core work.  I am feeling much better than I was last week.  I’ve run three days so far this week, not long, about 30 minutes each time, and I’ve been doing the other exercises as well.  Like I said last week, I won’t be eating at TGI Friday’s again.  A colleague of mine ate at Friday’s the day after I did and he got sick as well.  He had to go to the aid station to get treated for his abdominal discomfort.


So, Terry told me this week that she just received the card I mailed to wish her a Happy New Year!  I cannot figure it out.  It only takes about a week for packages to arrive from the US but a simple card takes two months to get back to the US.


I leave for my second R & R on Wednesday.  I’ll be travelling for over 36 hours in order to get home to be with Terry.  I’ll first fly from Kandahar to Dubai.  I have a 10-hour lay-over in Dubai.  Fortunately, I’ll be able to spend the time in an airport lounge where I’ll be able to eat a little, nap, read, and access the internet.  Then I board the 14-hour United flight to Washington/Dulles.  Since United has no flights from Dulles to Manchester on Thursday, I have to fly home through Chicago, adding a few hundred miles and 3.5 hours to the trip.  I’ll finally arrive in Manchester late on Thursday afternoon.


I plan to bring home a suitcase full of clothes and winter gear I either no longer need here or never used while I was here.  My ultimate goal will be to leave here in August with just a small backpack of belongings so I am going to start reducing the amount of “stuff” I have here.  I will need my cold weather clothes still in New Hampshire anyway.  The daytime temperatures here are now approaching 80 every day and we’ve turned on the air conditioning in my office building.


I am really looking forward to just relaxing at home with Terry during this R & R.  I suspect we’ll go out to dinner occasionally, maybe take in a show or something but just hanging out together is on top of the to-do list.  I’ll have to do our tax return while I am home and it is time for Mikey to begin preparing for his move to New Zealand.  NZ has strict animal importation laws and they still require a period of quarantine.  If Mikey’s paperwork is all in order, he’ll only be locked up for ten days, but we have to start six months before he travels to have everything together.


I will probably not post anything while I am home so you can expect my next post to be published on about April 12th.  Until then…



No comments:

Post a Comment