December 7th 2010

It has been quite a gap between posts.  No real reason but I haven’t felt like writing lately.  This time of the year is tough.  Thanksgiving was nice with the day off and everything, but it really was like the opening gun to a marathon through the holidays.

I’ve tried decorating my office with a little bit of Christmas cheer but it’s hard to get in the mood.  It feels like the holiday is happening but not here.  I thought by sending out Christmas cards that it would put me in the mood but that didn’t work.  Then I thought that I should put together my Christmas list but that didn’t work.  Then I thought maybe I should buy my wife something for Christmas but that didn’t work because her list was basically already picked over.  It also feels like Mother Nature is working as well by having the temperature dropping every day, which is not really working but it is making me cold.

Not all is a loss though.

The last few weeks I’ve felt a lot of love from folks back home.  I cannot describe to you how much joy I’ve had lately getting packages from people back home.  It feels good to know that someone is thinking of you and takes the time to put together a package and send it on an 8,000-mile journey to the other side of the world.  

I’m sticking to my guns that the time difference compounds a lot of the problems of being so far away.  It really drives a wedge between me here in Afghanistan and everyone back home.

I’ve been trying to read in the evenings the last week or two and it’s been nice.  I had read a ton of books the first 8 months of the year, but ever since the deployment started my reading pace had crawled to a stop.  It’s nice to start spending some quiet time reading.  

That’s about it.