Friendships and the Military way of life

Last night I fell asleep before 9 pm, mental exhaustion does that to me. I was so stressed out from worry over those albums...what if the pages all look the same, have the same feel and so forth. Since I was on such a tight budget for making four 12x12 albums, I couldn't get too elaborate in my layouts. I have my name out there on a project, a big project and with that goes a certain level of expectation from people...people who know my dedication to making quality scrapbooking projects. If I didn't give a rats hiney about what others thought of my work, that would be different, I could slap it together in a heart beat and be done with it. But it wasn't like that for me, I was making these albums for people that I liked, cared about and respected. If you know anything about the military and farewells...the gifts are from the local area. Here in the Black Hills you will get more than your fair share of items pertaining to "Mount Rushmore". A couple of years ago at a farewell dinner that my husband and I attended we saw the couple that was being farewell-ed given endless gifts of photo's of Mount Rushmore, books on Mount Rushmore and bookends with of course the Mount Rushmore heads on them, yup they received 3 sets of Mount Rushmore bookends- nice! For me I wanted this gift from the group of us to not be of the area but of the military people that they saw on a regular basis. To be of events that we went to together. Cheryl cried when she saw it sitting there on her chair, I saw her look up and look around for me. When she came walking towards me to to thank me for the album, I saw tears welling up in her eyes and rolling down on to her cheeks. She told me that the album was the best gift that she and her husband could have received, that this is how they wanted to be able to look back and cherish the memories of the past 2 years here at Ellsworth AFB. Personally speaking...compliments don't get any better than that!

But when friends move and it's inevitable that while in the military (any branch)they will. Don't look at it as being for forever...because you will see them again at another assignment, it's just a matter of time. Take the base commander and his wife...Jeff and Cheryl, Cheryl and I both have sons named Andrew who were in the same kindergarten class together while we were assigned to Dyess AFB in in Abilene, Texas. Our boys have now finished the 9th grade together, wow! Another couple of friends that I made while living in Texas were assigned here and are now leaving for other assignments, Georgia and Kristine. Will I miss them? Of course I will, but there's that wonderful things called e-mail and of course a good long distance plan is always a good thing Ü. Here's one for ya...my dear Jayne, a friend I made at out first assignment in Maine back in 1990 was stationed here when we first arrived. We lived down the street from one another and our daughters who had never met one-another became fast friends. Our sons were babies when we parted and left for assignments in different parts of the country. It all comes full circle, making friends, friends moving away and then meeting up at yet another assignment.

Okay so 2 of the steady members of my scrapbooking group are leaving soon...I'm having us all make a scrapbook page writing something meaningful to one another. I had someone take a pictures of the 4 of us at a function not too long ago and I'm going to design a layout where we can all write on it. It'll be a simple layout but sweet none the less. I plan on doing this for each friend that moves away, I feel that by giving them something personal like this that it lets them know that they do matter to me and my family.

Alright, enough of the warm fuzzies, I need more coffee!