Ok, I'm beat. Tired. We moved this week. As of tonight, we are about 98% unpacked and settled. Our movers packed us up Monday and moved us Tuesday. Starting Wed morning we pushed hard to get it all in place.
I took leave Wed - Fri, but wound up going in to work anyway on Wed and Thursday because of a big project I am working for the CAIB. I'm serving as the exec this month pushing through the Community Action Plan. This is my last major project at Andrews. Plus I had another report to work that was coming due. I shared this with my chaplain candidate: if x is due on a certain day, it is due, leave or not leave, sick or not sick etc... the mission must be done.
This is the first I've sat down to just sort of veg out for a few minutes. The week before I moved I was working 12-14 hour days and still making the gym after work. I'm on a profile for my knee which was a bit sore (feeling much better now) so I've been working my upper body. Saturday a week ago was very busy. I had a funeral for a Navy Chief (retired) who served in the North Atlantic, the Med, and South Pacific in WWII. That evening I attended the 70th birthday party of one of my parishioners, and incredible man I look up to. He was a POW for 7 years in Vietnam. He is an incredible man to learn leadership from. The party was a hoot. His wife hauled me out on the dance floor. I was so embarrassed. But it was a good time.
Last week I was finishing up paperwork and training for the Chaplain candidate that I was assigned to supervise. I had training at Arlington. Some of the tricks of the trade for wearing the uniform struck me as a bit odd, but they do make for a sharp look. The marching elementals are somewhat different: slower and more deliberate.
Sunday will be my 2nd to last Sunday at Andrews. I plan to preach on followership. After the service I am going to take a couple of hours and do the final tweaks on the CAIB meeting for next week. I don't normally have to work on Sunday afternoons, but since I was on leave to move and some folks needed a bit more time to get their ducks in a row, I decided to wait until Sunday to finalize the product. Besides it will be fresh in my mind. I am briefing the Wing Commander early Monday morning on the meeting. Sunday night I'll celebrate my 42nd birthday with my family. It seems like it was only yesterday that I was sitting in Montgomery doing field training on my 40th birthday. Time really flies when the pace is quick.
Next week my major tasks are taking care of the CAIB meeting, completing my outprocessing checklist, my continuity binders (so my replacement can be fully spinned up), and hopefully getting off my profile so I can run my PFT on Friday. The week after I have 3 days at Arlington for training and then a final day of outprocessing.
I'm learning the drive to Andrews for the next few weeks will be a bit of a stressor from here. I'm close to my job at Arlington, but it took me 45 minutes to drive 18 miles tonight back to Andrews. Traffic for the bridge going over the Potomic is at a crawl. I was thinking to myself I could run the bridge faster than I can drive it. Gotta love some things about DC!
Arlington is already growing on us. We went shopping today for a few items for the house. Every major chain store was on a strip not to far from the house and for once I didn't feel like I was running a risk of getting mugged. The neighborhood is very quiet with many retired folks, some of them military. Quite a few of our neighbors have stopped by to say hello. It's going to be quite cozy, but I told the family not to get too attached. In two years we'll probably be doing this again.
Blessings!
