A good flyover

Within the first few days after we moved to Colorado Springs there was a welcome home parade for the 4th Infantry Division, including my husband's unit, the Brigade Reconnaissance Team - later the 2nd Brigade of the 9th Calvary. It was an emotional time for us, our little family of three had just reunited after being apart for a year. We were adjusting to being together in a new place where it was just us for the first time, we knew no one.

This was not a parade of marching bands and little league teams. It was a parade of proud and exhausted soldiers marching in their newly issued boots. Rows and rows of uniforms interspersed with equipment - up-armored Humvees and Bradley fighting vehicles. No music, no candy, just a steady stomp and cheering crowd.

Colorado Springs is home to the Army base Fort Carson, and also home to the Air Force Academy, Peterson and Schreiver Air Force bases. When there is a welcome home parade, they bring out every piece of aircraft that was used during that tour of duty for a flyover. Imagine the giant C130, Chinook helicoptors, etc. flying low and fast overhead. There are few tall buildings in Colorado Springs, no one wants to impede the view of Pikes Peak, and so the aircraft fly in low, shaking the ground. The soldiers are stoic and unnerved by the flyover.

I'm sitting on the curb with our three year old daughter standing between my knees, taking it all in, looking for Daddy. She sits down when the aircraft start to come through, unsure of the noise. The C130 soars overhead, seemingly 100 feet above our heads. I can feel the rumble in my feet, pride for my husband, pride for the soldiers he walks with, pride and camaraderie for the families surrounding me. We all made it through this rough year-long tour together. I bury my tear-filled eyes in my daughter's soft, straight hair. To this day a good flyover gives me chills and my eyes well up with tears.

Our hometown July 4th parade this year had a flyover by a two jets from the local Air National Guard unit. Instantly filled with the old feeling of pride in the few seconds it takes for them to fly over I feel like something needs to be said - all I can muster is "I love a good flyover".

There's never a dull moment around here. Even trips to Hobby Lobby are lots of fun.

I am feeling terribly unproductive lately. Seems to be a really awful spell of it. I sit here at the laptop and look for something in my favorites only to see that I have a couple crafty pattern websites saved that I have bought fabric for but am unmotivated to work on. I also have Shutterfly waiting for me to finish a photo book about our vacation last summer as well as figure out how to share pictures. There are two half-read books on my night table - noticing a pattern yet? I blame Etsy.com and too few hours in the day. I could get a lot more done in day if there were just a few more hours to search Etsy for insipiration and still manage to get the boring stuff done.

High points of the day: menu drawn up for the week, grocery shopping all by myself, laundry folded and put away thank you darling daughters, a $4 bouquet of flowers arranged quite prettily and some peace and quiet as the before mentioned darling daughters play nicely upstairs. [emphasis added on the best parts]

It’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day of it all. The business of being an adult is at the same time a welcome routine and a burden. The balance constantly changing – home, family, work, friends. Many relationships to manage and never enough time in the day. And then there’s you.

Keep a little time for you. Write, journal, doodle, daydream. It’s true that your children grow older every day but so do you. Today is the only January 18, 2011 you’ll ever have in your whole entire life. Are you going to spend it giving away every minute to someone else or are you going to take one or two – even 15 just for you. Brew a cup of tea, listen to a favorite song, re-read a favorite passage from a book, lay down on the living room floor put your feet up on the couch and stretch your arms out to the sides, find a quiet spot. It’s not selfish to take a break and re-charge yourself. Come back ready to rock, or at least muddle through, the rest of the day.