First of all, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. I haven't been an active blogger, writer, or photographer the past few weeks, but fear not! We've just been busy. Between moving, appointments, shuffling back and forth between two properties bringing boxes and furniture, and me trying to get my application in for school asap, I just haven't had much free time to do much other than that. And when I did, I had no lighting, so no pictures. Now that we're mostly moved, I've been taking pictures like crazy and there will be plenty of posts coming of our new house, the moving process, and whatnot.
Anyway.
A few months ago, I had an excited husband come home telling me he was in charge of planning the Brutal Challenge (the annual TACP challenge up at the unit here) and, "You're going to be in love the idea we came up with." He's usually right on target with these things, and this was no exception.
I have a love for the Hunger Games, it is true. I dragged James along with me when it came out in theaters (and thank goodness he turned out to be a fan of the movie and had many questions afterward - I knew I married the right one), he sat and watched me read the series many times, and I even offered to read the book aloud to him because I wanted him to know the whole story so badly. Yes, he picked a book nerd. Proud of it.
So, obviously, when he told me that their whole plan was based off the Hunger Games series and that he felt like Seneca Crane as a Gamemaker, my excitement for an event I couldn't even participate in was through the roof and I wanted to help as much as possible. Unfortunately, because I'm not a TACP, I couldn't be of much use, but I still enjoyed listening to all of the developments.
Like any event, though, excitement turned into stress and worry as the date got closer. It only amplified immensely within the last two weeks, and the day before was spent with him dropping ammo cans in the range all day, coming home for a brief time to down some ramen for a quick dinner, and then passing out on the couch only to wake up at 0330 to be out in the field all Monday, Monday night, and half of Tuesday.
Feeling inspired and wanting to do something to show him how proud I was of him putting on such a big event and putting so much effort into it, I made him a little "welcome home" basket! And no, unlike Seneca Crane, I didn't put poisonous berries in there. But, he did find his surprise as soon as he walked into the door like Crane did, so there's the similarity.
Anyway, no poisonous berries. There were Cabbage Patch Kids (his favorite candy), though, along with some notes of kindness from his siblings (big thank you to them for that!), his favorite drink from Hannaford (the grocery store we shop at here), a special envelope with special wife gifts, and a little box full of tiny pieces of paper saying different things I love about him, why I'm proud of him, things I admire, etc.
The basket was a success! An exhausted James arrived through the door and gave me a huge smile. He loved everything, especially all the notes. He's yet to read all of the tiny slips, but that's okay because there are many, many, MANY of them. Little words of kindness for a rainy day. A big perk to this, too, was that it was cheap. Most of the things I bought were only a dollar, and my "big spender" items were 4 or 5 bucks, max. A little money can truly go a long way and make such a sweet, sentimental gift. I'm so glad he enjoyed it. With how much work he put into it and then having the disappointment of not being able to participate in the best Brutal Challenge in while (biased opinion, I know), he really deserved it and everyone deserves to feel a little appreciation every now and then, especially my man friend (again, biased opinion, I know).
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