So it's been over a week now since Captain Husband made his safe return home last Thursday; I managed to have the house cleaned and decorated for his welcome home (Sandy even "helped") and successfully took care of the couple of surprises that I wanted to greet him with. Surprise number one was an antique pocket watch that I got engraved with a sappy, sentimental message (the jeweler thought I was nuts) that was happily ready the day before CH was due back. Surprise number two was a little more difficult: arranging for a 2010 Mustang in which to pick him up at the airport. Why a Mustang, you might be asking yourself? Well, when CH was home on his leave back in May, he spotted the new 2010s at the dealers and it was love at first sight. He even took one of the information folders on the car back to Afghanistan with him to obsess over. So I thought it would be nice, not to mention completely unexpected, to pick him up in one. Fortunately for me, Hertz rents out the Mustang as part of their "Fun" line, so it was just a matter of making some phone calls and last minute tweaking (CH kept changing the date and time of his arrival on me), but I was able to score one. Check it out:
I have to admit, it was a lot of fun running errands in this car. And I was able to successfully throw CH for a loop when I met him at the airport; it helped that he didn't even realize it was me pulling up in it until I got out and ran over to him. At first, he thought I must have traded in my car for the Mustang...but then I jokingly told him that I had traded in his truck. I'm evil like that. We kept the Mustang for an extra day and CH had a blast driving it around and really getting a feel for it. I realize that I opened up a giant can of worms here by actively feeding into his obsession with the car, but hey, I wanted his welcome home to be special.
We're currently in the process of reintegrating, and I'm not going to lie; it sucks. Once the initial euphoria of having CH back started to wear off (at about day three), I became acutely aware of having to share my space and habits with another person. Neither of us slept well for the first week because we'd gotten used to other sleeping arrangements; there are little arguments here and there about how things are done (or not done)and most of all, I just want things to be "normal" again, even though I have no idea what the new normal is for us. It's definitely a roller coaster, but I'm sure everything will be worth the ups and downs in the end.
It's more like the stupid economy, but regardless, I just found out that I'm going to be on the receiving end of a rather large, albeit temporary (hopefully), pay cut. Le sigh. Oh, and the icing on the cake? It's not a pay cut in the form of furlough days, it's a flat-out salary slash, which means I'll be working my regular five days a week, but will be getting paid for four. And come September, I'll be working every other Saturday, which means some weeks I'll be working six days and being paid for four. Joy!
Apparently, it's somewhere at the bottom of the Potomac River. Looks like the ducks are off to a head start. IT'S ON, DUCKS.
