No pressure or anything. My husband's last pass prior to his final weeks of training begins this weekend. This will likely be the last time he will set foot in this house for over a year. No pressure.
I have a tendency to create a monstrous and ridiculous to-do list when my husband is due home from deployment. I'm promising (in writing no less) NOT to do that this time IF, and only if, I can pretty please have some karmic intervention to accomplish the following to-do list before he leaves in a few days.
Okay, let's see. The list:
- Take off M2's training wheels (actually, just 'wheel' as the other fell off, the toolbox is locked and I can't find the key) and teach her to ride her two-wheeler finally.
- De-weed, re-mulch and otherwise prepare our flower beds for summer.
- Go through our adoption paperwork with a fine tooth comb and be sure everything he needs to be present to sign, notarize or otherwise swear to is signed, notarized and sworn. (No pressure!)
- Clean the gutters.
- Clean the dryer's venting tubing.
- Paint the bedroom.
That last one, painting the bedroom, is very fanciful wishing. After all, it has been on my to-do list since I moved into this house almost ten years ago. It was on the to-do list before he came home from his last overseas deployment four years ago. PLEASE can't we just have a freshly painted bedroom!? EVERY room in this house, no lie, has been painted (at least once, if not twice) but never that darn bedroom! Will it happen soon?
Probably not.
I figure we will make it through the first three things on the list. Sigh. The rest will be up to me.
We have discussed a lot at SpouseBuzz what we do when the deployment is coming to an end. Huge task lists, fancy outfits, favorite things in the fridge, etc. But, I'm in the midst of the Final Countdown, if you will, and one part of me just want to say, "Forget it" and do absolutely nothing. The other side of me says, "You have a few things you can't ignore, so don't!"
What was on your Final Countdown list that you were so thankful you checked off before your spouse left? Anything lingering on that list you wish you would have checked off? Is there something I'm not thinking of that I will wish I would have asked/figured out prior to him leaving? Help a sister out, please. Share your wisdom in comments!
