Who left the gate open?!

Well, someone did.

'Cause I'm back.

*exhale*

No, really this time. I mean it.

And now I can finally tell you why I was gone.

See, BD's job is kinda awesome and then it's kinda not sometimes.

He was deployed for four months. And that kept me very busy.

Not a long time in the military world, I know, but I'm one of those spoiled newbie wives who never had her husband away for more than a few days. As a matter of fact, the longest we were ever apart previously was the 12 or so days when I was away. When we met, he had a desk job and then our first move together took us to a place where he could go to graduate school. So, in five years, most evenings he would beat me home.

That all changed on August 30, 2010.

Playette and I, along with a group of motivated friends who share our sense of humor, saw him off for a 6am flight, complete with amusing (to us) signage and hugs and overreacting fall on the floor craziness a little emotion.

The days went by slowly, the weeks passed, the months eventually added up.

We were able to talk by phone once or twice a week and email almost daily. Unfortunately, Skyping wasn't an option at sea, but we were able to do so before he got to the ship (Bahrain) and during the last port stop (Greece).

Playette and I heeded the advice of more experienced folks like Michelle and Renee and stayed busy. That's why we seemed to be moving around so much. We went to Sheree's and Michelle's and Andrea's and a total of three Buddy Walks and experienced many, many flights (yay for coupons that needed to be used!). We visited friends and family in Arizona and spent a mama-daughter few days in San Francisco over Thanksgiving and soooo many things in between.

I ran my second half-marathon and we even made it into a front page article of our small town paper. I lost my final 15 pounds over those 16 weeks and achieved Lifetime status with Weight Watchers. Grand total: 52 pounds.

And because I know I would want to know, it took me 20 months.

Since then I've fallen off the wagon a bit because...

Then BD came home! WOOHOO!

But the day before he was due, my herniated disk (occurred totally randomly and reared its head after I had finished the race, thank goodness) flared up on me and I ended up in the ER. They IV'd me (ACK!) and gave me bueno drogas (ahhh) and an epidural (WHOA) and kept me overnight. Luckily, I had a sitter over at the time everything was going down and she was able to help me before friends jumped in and took care of Playette while I couldn't.

By the time BD walked in our front door after hours of traveling across the country and way too many delays, I was home and feeling a little better, yet heavily medicated. With the big guy back, we've been doing tons of eating out in the midst of happy, family-together-again time and then there's the whole "I can't exercise" thing, so, well, I'm not planning to step on a scale anytime soon. My pants are tight, yo.

And in case that wasn't enough, we thought we'd throw a cross-country move in there.

[INSERT STRESS HERE]

Now, the three of us are living in a hotel room, waiting for a place to call ours. Exotic, right? Darn tootin'.

In between moments I'm not entirely proud of, I am taking this all much better than I anticipated. Alone with the kiddo while my typically very active partner was away? Scared me. A lot. But I did it.

I've wanted to write so many times, but my words kept reaching into "I'm overwhelmed because my husband isn't here" territory and I just didn't want to allude to us being alone in the house. I couldn't do it.

I'll tell you more about how Playette did during that time in my next post.

Thanks for sticking around.