Way too long....

...since I wrote. I know. I'm sorry. Between job, taxes, and jewelry, my evenings have been pretty busy. No excuses...

The plus side is that I have quite a few pictures to share...

First up is another massive bead order from Fire Mountain. Thanks to heroic efforts by Adrian, it arrived in TWO flat rate boxes that Barbara and I were only too happy to tear into. It took many hours of sorting - just take a look at the picture to see why! To be fair, Barbara had the larger portion of the order, but it was still fun tearing it all down. :) Quite a few of the beads are a "younger" style than I would normally choose (we bought some large assortments) but I figure that's just a chance to try out a new style...


Next up is a HUGE thank you to the Blue Star Mothers of South Carolina. This is the same group that made sure we had a Thanksgiving feast as we were getting ready to leave South Carolina. I received the largest box of Girl Scout cookies from them I've ever seen! This picture doesn't even do it justice - you still can't see the bottom of the box! Surprisingly, it wasn't too hard to find others willing to take a few boxes off of my hands. :) I shared with my office, with a few other offices, with the Rhino team (the guys that do the convoys between our base and others), and we mailed a few out to legal offices at the more remote bases. Everyone was very appreciative (and yes, I might still have a few boxes stashed away...). Thanks so much!!!


OK, the garden update. I'm afraid it's not looking too good. I took this picture on Easter morning, and you can see it's a little beaten down. Blame the rain. It's rained almost every day since my last post - literally! One day we even had hail, and the day after that we had SNOW! In April!!! Strange, strange weather... At least now we're getting breaks between the rain showers, but it's still pretty wet around here...

I know this picture looks pretty similar to a few I've posted before, but I took this to prove the snowfall. Granted, nothing stuck at our altitude (about 6,000 feet) but it certainly did in higher elevations! The mountains were completely bare the day before I took this picture...

We had an incredible opportunity at one of our nearby bases a week ago. Sarah Chayes is the author of "The Punishment of Virtue" about life in Afghanistan after the Taliban. It was one of the books I read in preparation for coming over here. She did a terrific job of putting everything in context, and she makes a complex situation somewhat understandable. She is now a Special Advisor to the Commander of ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) and spoke at a meeting I was able to attend. Unfortunately, she had to run to another engagement right after she spoke (I could have listened to her for several hours!) so we didn't have much one-on-one time with her, but I did manage to snag this picture while she was autographing her book for my boss. She still lives in Kandahar, which if you follow the news you'll know is not the safest place to be, but it's obvious she truly cares about this country and wants to see it succeed. She's also not afraid to speak her mind, so it was refreshing to hear a fresh perspective. :)



We had an opportunity to shop at a different bazaar - now that we don't really have one, we take advantage when we can! This is a picture of the booth that Parsa displayed. Most of the wares are made by women in Afghanistan, and the profits from the sales help fund education, training, and other forms of assistance. The clothing is beautiful, and all of the scarves, tablecloths, etc. are SO hard to choose from! It's absolutely mind-boggling how much time and effort go into some of these pieces, and we were only too happy to help support the cause...


Yesterday, I had one of the best surprises of my time here. I was at another base wandering around before a meeting and ran into Will. We graduated from the Naval Academy together in 1994 (hard to believe our 15th reunion is coming up - wow!) and saw a lot of each other there - glee club, musicals, etc., but I don't think we've seen each other since graduation. Really, really nice to run into him and catch up. He only has about a month left here, so hopefully we'll have another (not so rushed!) chance to catch up.



Well, that's all the pictures for now. Taxes are filed (just waiting on that refund!), Adrian is in Japan (wish I could be there with him!) and I have a "firm" date for leaving here less than two months away. At times, my time here seems to fly by, and at other times it feels like I've been here way too long, but I will definitely never forget this experience. I promise I'll try to post more often so that I don't let those memories slip away...