Happy Mother's Day - and Happy Birthday to my Main Man!

Happy Mother's Day to our Moms -

Susan, circa 1990 up in Maine at Camp Wyonegonic...

...and Jan, circa 2004, with a young Spectre -
and Happy Birthday to my Guy - may you have many more.

I love all three of you.

Some things are easy to be thankful for

To me, fair friend, you never can be old

For as you were when first your eye I eyed,

Such seems your beauty still.

~William Shakespeare

One of these days...

We'll have a friend like this beautiful Cleveland Bay we met up in Vermont a month or so ago.

We'll be able to see him when we look out from our porch, watching the sun go down -

or when he hangs his (huge!) head over the half-door that leads to our kitchen - just like Paul Revere had in his house.

In fact, legend has it that "Brown Beauty" (that was his borrowed mare's name) used to get her own bowl of porridge in the mornings when he kept her for his friend Larkin.

All I know is, if we're lucky enough to have a child in our life at some point...they'll be raised on horseback.

And they'll share their porridge with our own "Brown Beauty" on cold winter mornings.

Nice Muley

Yes, I'm a Hunting Widow every Fall.

But I'm really proud of him.

She's a Beauty

1967 My Green Beret

1972 My Buick Skylark

2003 My Labrador Retriever

Black Dog, White Classic Car, and Cool Guy.

My cup runneth over.

:)

They Bear Watching...

...every one of 'em...

(John's team here in Qatar)

First HOME-cooked Meal and Yep, He's Ignoring You, John

John's favorite appeteaser: steamed artichokes with lemon-butter...I had to take a picture of the first "cut" in my house. (Up 'til now it's been subs and pizzas. I am SICK of eating out.)

And I had to include these next three.

Here's my hubbo, trying to get Deadeye to pay attention to him while Mom and I cooked...

Deadeye is more interested in the steak I'm trimming.

"Deadeye.

"DEADdddddeye!

"Hey, Buddy!"

...and yet, He is Unmoved.





Deadeye's thinking: "Better luck next time, Bucko.

Youth and Enthusiasm are no match for Old Age and Treachery."

I just love these pictures

Patience is a Virtue...for John, it turns out.

John is here for a couple more weeks before he ships out for Aghanistan, and until I can meet him in Bahrain a couple weeks after that.

Since he's been home, he's (and he'll kill me for posting about this) been discouraged that Deadeye seemingly wants nothing to do with him. In fact, Deadeye only wants to sit on my lap, and sleep next to me. It's funny, because ever since John came into my life, "my" cat prefers John...and I've had Deadeye since I rescued his sorry little bony carcass from The Pound outside of Ft. Hood in June of 1992 when I was just a 2LT, and had much better things to do with my money. (I guess.)

Anyhoo - it seemed that since he had come full circle and preferred me after all, all was right with my world.

And then, tonight, after cleaning up the kitchen, I rounded the corner of this Godforsaken Apartment to find THIS:



So, I moved in for a close-up to see if he'd look me in the eye...the Little Opportunist...and of course, he wouldn't.














So, I got a little closer...and he still avoided eye contact!

Deadeye, that is a classic sign, Buster.

A classic sign that you know you're wrong.















So I gave him a little space - thinking...he can't keep this up...as I noticed his tail wrapped around John's arm - all snuggly and conspiratorial-ish.
















Last chance, you old persnickety Feline - let me down Mano-a-Mano, Baby. I can TAKE IT!

But all I got was this:

So I hit 'im with the flash and ran out of the room. (Because I am a Grown Up.)

Hmmph.

First Meal I actually COOKED for him...

Here I am, in the little apartment, saying: "Jooo-ooohn! Give me the camera so I can take a picture!"

And here's what I cooked for him...grass-fed, hormone-free Ribeyes. Yum!

And here's why I cook for him...I can't resist these two.

Welcome Home, Babe.

Happy Birthday to My Favorite Person

Marrying him was the best decision I ever made.

For next Fall's Hunting Season

When I was up in Afghanistan, Max turned me on to knitting again.

For one thing, she’s a cool chick, and it just looked a lot less nerdy than I remember when I watched her do it.

For another thing, I loved the yarn she was using (so much so that she sent me back to Doha with 4 skeins of it) and thought: “What a great idea for a nice warm hunting scarf for John!”

So – what do you think? I think he looks quite handsome – that blue Dubai T-shirt really sets it off.

:~

And here he is, humoring me, when I asked him to show how long it is now - I'm thinking twice this size will allow it to wrap around his neck and anchor across his chest and down into his sleeves...it'll be nice and warm for him while he's out plotting some poor beautiful creature's death...

He will most certainly not be wearing it this way.

Next up...a sweater for my Dear Old Dad...in Red.

Merry Christmas from Holly, John, and Max

I'm sitting here in my office, going through emails and working on a project, and except for the slice of pumpkin pie next to my keyboard and the smell of coffee from the fresh pot I'm brewing in the next room, it could be any other work night...

I did serve in the serving line with the other officers for Christmas Dinner at 1130; that was fun and even though I only ladled giblet gravy, it was harder than I thought! The Nepalese workers who are normally doing that job were kidding me about my lack of technique and constantly handing me paper towels to mop up my spills! :)

So that's it from Doha; here are some pictures from Kabul:

Sleeping Peshak, belly full of sardines, courtesy of John's can opener...

1/2 of the foursome standing in the chow line to have, among other things, pheasant and venison...wow. Three Cheers for the American Embassy and for Max since she invited John over for Supper. John also had Roast Beast, Turkey, Ham, Gravy, Dressing, and several kinds of pie!

So here's the Missing Men formation: John, "Missing" Holly, "Missing" Ken, Max:


Max with her Christmas Loot! Can you tell she's got friends who know her? Look at all those Australian Cattle Dog and horse presents...

And we couldn't have a good Merry Christmas post without a cheesy Candy Cane picture...

Sometimes, you just need a Woman's Touch

John's room in Kabul is little more than a 10' x 10' square. Still, it's his own, which is a lot better than sharing with some sweaty guy who hasn't showered in weeks (believe me, they are here. Ugh.)

When I came up here, I realized that his room was hardly functional, so I got to work today (Friday is a Muslim holiday, so I had no meetings) on FIXING it.

I scavenged some cement blocks from the dumpyard and put his bed up on "stilts" so he'd have room underneath for storage (see the nice clean space under the window? Well, it was packed with gear - so much so that you couldn't open the drawers to the right of the picture and could barely use the phone.) Putting the bed on stilts was actually an idea I got from Max - though I would love to take the credit because all of John's unit thought it was ingenious.

I predict a shortage of cement blocks around here very soon...

In this picture, you can kind of see how crammed his shoes were underneath the bed.

Bless his heart, John is militant about letting his towel dry out ever since I fussed at him about mildew and stinky bath towels one day. I had to chuckle at his solution!

I saw a great home improvement show once about rubbing sticky dresser drawers with candle wax and sandpaper. It works like a charm. John's cabinets and dresser work great now, thanks to his hard work. (Don't worry, People. I was making the bed and reorganizing his folded clothes.)


I made John sit up here so you could see how much higher the bed is now. All the stuff that was previously heaped in a pile under the window is now neatly under the bed. He can also reach his books on those (ridiculously high) shelves without standing up on the bed. See Peshak?

The stuff on top of the footlocker is mine...so imagine the space here with a nice clean surface for John's laptop.

Peshak approves. Isn't that the picture of contentment? :) (Of course, she's breathing nasty mouse breath all over the clean sheets...)

Trio, Again

There was an Information Operations Conference in Bagram recently, and it coincided with a meeting with some embassy folks in Kabul this week - so I unexpectedly got to see John and Max again...God is so good to us.

Here are some pictures from our time together...


Before we drove to Kabul - this is Vic Kelly, one of John's guys -

Cool Lion outside the conference center...

Helo Jump

A man, his parachute, and a guy in a red baseball cap. It all made for a great airborne op on Wednesday morning...




Here's Spectre with one of the standby medics...playing catch. Everyone plays catch with this dog...he will retrieve anything. (He may have a curly tail and a wavy coat, but he is a great retriever. Hmmph!!!!)



Here's a couple of shots of John about to do the UH-60 jump. I'd never seen one of those, so I decided to come out with Spectre and do some "PAO" work (which involved me, standing around in civies, taking a bunch of pick-chahs...awesome job I have...) Anyway, I ended up using a shot of John on our EUCOM website (www.eucom.mil) and didn't feel a bit of an issue about the whole nepotism thing. After all, he was clearly
the best looking man out there and we have to put our best face forward, etc, etc... :)


Pictures like this make you wonder why you love your dog. I REALLY didn't want to let him in the car.

So we put him in John's truck.