For me, the last .2 miles of any race is the hardest. I want it to be over. I can see the finish line and I begin to push myself harder than I have throughout the entire race.

The same can be said of deployment.

I have found myself in the last week trying to take on much more than I have all deployment!

My friends, like me, are finding that Murphy's Law of Redeployment is in full effect for the last two weeks of this seemingly endless year! If you have not heard of this law, it states the following:

1. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong and it will affect the most expensive and most difficult to fix items in your life.
2. All of the kids will lose their minds and everyone will plan something for every night for those last two weeks.
3. You will be called on to make decisions that you have no business making and you will misunderstand almost everything that your sweet soldier tries to tell you.
4. The redeployment ceremony time will change no less than ten times in 24 hours.

So, if you are reading this and still waiting (almost impatiently) for your soldier to return, do what I do at the end of a race. Turn on the fire!

Push through with everything you have. In your mind (not out loud for heaven's sake), scream at the top of your lungs that you will make it! You will get there! I will get there! It is time to push harder than you have all year!

Don't take on things that you don't have to. Don't make decisions that you don't have to. Keep breathing in and out. Your sweet soldier doesn't care how clean the house is. He doesn't care what you are wearing. He cares that you show up!

I hope that I have received my 24-hour notification of his arrival by the time you read this, but hang in there! He's almost home and it is almost time for a new beginning!

Strength, Courage and Patience ... sby