My poor husband has to deal with me over Skype for the next few weeks now that he's at a larger FOB and off the little COP he's been on. I almost feel sorry for him.

I've noticed a trend over the last two deployments and it's that the end of the deployment is as emotional or even more so than the beginning for me. We're less than a month away from his homecoming and now it's like the days are both weeks long and only hours long, simultaneously. I have so much to do and yet, still no motivation to do it (His coming home after a year away isn't motivation enough?!). I need to finish decorating the house that still doesn't feel like a home, either detail his Jeep or find someone to take it to a detail place for me since I still am not comfortable driving it (stick shift). I need to have someone fix the drainage problems created in the front yard by trying to fix other drainage problems. Plants need put in the ground, boarding arrangements need set up for the dogs, my business stuff needs wrapped up so I can take his leave block off with him before he checks into his new unit and jumps head first into training for his next deployment, not to mention all the girly prep things we wives think we need to do just before they come home.

I had a bad day yesterday. Nothing extraordinary happened, it was just one of those days. My husband logged onto Skype before he went to bed at midnight and wound up staying online for an hour trying to cheer me up, despite his own exhaustion. (I swear, I have an awesome husband.) The poor guy felt bad for not being very effective over a crappy webcam connection with choppy audio and barely discernible video, but what can you do? He mentioned that he wished he were here to just wrap his arms around me and hold me, complete with extending his arms toward the webcam. That did it. I had to turn the webcam off so he wasn't forced to watch me cry. All I could think was "that's all I've needed for eleven months" and the waterworks started.

Yeah, I definitely feel sorry for the guy over the next few weeks. And anyone else who has to deal with me. Is it August yet?