Jet setter...

Ok, so maybe I'm being a little facetious about the "jet setting" but this past week has pretty busy with one trip after another, most of which I can't talk about unfortunately. But I left on the 4th, the day before my birthday, spent most of the day all around Kabul here, then on the 5th I celebrated my 40th birthday somewhere in the air over Afghanistan in a blackhawk helicopter. The next day was in another location here in Afghanistan, then the next 4-5 days were spent in Qatar. I just got back late last night - very jet-lagged - and now I'm getting ready to fly out again for a spell. Ugh. So let me quickly address a few things.

1. THANK YOU to all of you who sent me Happy Birthday eCards and care packages and emails! I was QUITE overwhelmed when it all happened. On the 4th, I had just enough time to check mail before heading out and I had 11 - YES 11!! - packages mailed to me! When I got back last night I had another 6 waiting on me! Wow I don't know what to say but "thank you" to all of you that thought of me in that way. *smile* My kids sent me cupcakes in the mail with a tub of chocolate icing to put on myself and I shared those with everyone. They were goooooooood! *smile* Thanks kids! The personal letters that were written to me really put a huge smile on my face too! I wanted to give a shout out to "Brooky" for her special letter to me too. *smile* You had me smiling and laughing and I felt very special. Thank you.

(pictured above is those of us sleeping on the long C-17 cargo flight and me writing a letter to my kids in the dark)

2. My last post on the blog here did not leave anyone who read it with a warm fuzzy, so my apologies for leaving you on such a "low" and then leaving the country for a week. I am doing fine - much better now - and I'm sure you understand that we all have "those days" here and that was one such day for me. The amount of encouraging email I got offline, away from the blog site, was simply incredible. I had a couple emails that just flat out made me "lose it" but it gave me the reassurance that I needed to hear in that moment. To all of you who emailed, Thank You!

3. I turned 40 on March 5th! AAAHHH!!!!!! As you can imagine, I have quite a few "opinions" about turning 40 and I'll share those insights in another post (when I get back). Nothing terribly profound, but 40 seems to be a good age for most to look back AND look forward on one's life, and I am no different. Thanks again to all those who sent birthday wishes. Those of you who have already reached that milestone perhaps can bestow some of your wisdom on me because I still seem to want to learn things "the hard way" even at this "mature" age! *grin*

Ok.... gotta fly.... I have NO clean laundry from this past week and I've got to head out here soon. I didn't want to leave you all hanging from my last "glum" post, so now you have something else to read in the meantime.

Outta here....


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