January Update...only 5 days late

I'm not doing too bad at my New Years resolution to update the blog at least on a monthly basis. I'm only 5 days late :)

January was a whirl wind month! We spent New Years here in Rapid City with friends, both returned back to work and before we knew it January 17 or Deployment Day was upon us. The week of deployment was pretty stressful. Lots to do, pack and make sure we had done. Todd traveled from South Dakota to Maine to Germany to Kuait to their final destination in "Southwest Asia". It's been just about 3 weeks since he left and it's definitely taken some getting used to but I'm managing. Work keeps me busy as does marathon training, the dogs and the frequent social 'events' that the squadron organizes. Other than deployment, not a whole lot happened in January.

February brings the Austin marathon February 14 where I'll travel to Texas for 4 days to see family, hopefully a few friends and run another marathon. This one will be quite different since Todd wont be there and I've never run one completely by myself.

I'm also having 2 of my major projects that I'd like to get done while Todd is gone completed starting next week- finishing our garage and painting the inside of our house. The garage will be insulated, sheet rocked and painted which will be HUGE for the frigid winters up here! I know it's a cop-out that I'm not doing the interior painting by myself but painting is just really not something that I want to do. I have no motivation to tape, move furniture, drag out all the stuff and paint over 2,000 square feet of house from top to bottom. And I figure I work hard, we're getting some nice bonuses for deployment and tax return is headed our way so we can afford it. I'm REALLy looking forward to the non-white out looking walls we have now. The other big project that I'd like to get done is re-carpeting the upstairs but we'll see when that gets done. I'd also like to do some little things like add knobs to cabinets and change the door hardware. I think it would be nice to get our punch list of home repairs done before Todd gets home so that we can just enjoy life when he gets back.

The weather up here continues to be depressing- cold and snowy often. I've found that shoveling snow has come to be one of my least favorite chores to do and I find myself being being very jealous of my neighbors with their spiffy gas snow blowers. I think I'll write a book entitled "101 things they should tell you before moving to South Dakota". There might not be 101 things but maybe I'll blog about a few of them sometime.

Well that's all I have for January!