And he's.... SAFE!!

Greetings, faithful blog checkers!

Matt says "I made it to my destination safely and once I accomplish my mission I'll return in an equally safe fashion", but "I have to take a ground convoy as part of my mission, so prayers would be good" even though "it's not very far and it's in a very safe part of Iraq, but still, less safe than behind a desk".

So, there's your update, and we very much appreciate your prayers.

More changes...

Yup, I finally made the site automatically adjust to your screen size, so hopefully that will be helpful. I also added the Verse of the Day thing to your right, courtesy of BibleGateway.com. If you view the blog using Firefox, it will look the best. Internet Explorer will show gray bars around the Verse of the Day thing, despite the fact that I told it not to. *sigh* That's Microsoft for you. What can you do? I also finally decided to get rid of the italic thing when you hover over the links. I thought it looked ever so slightly tacky. Anyhow, I hope you like the changes, be sure to let me know if anything doesn't work properly.

I made Chocolate Chip/Chunk Cookies!

See? And I placed them in my glowing light orb bowl, which was clearly far too small, despite it's magic light orb properties. Oh, and that's Charles (or Miles.. I forget.. He is currently holding the Brothers of Karamazov, which I intend to read, intimidating thinkness and unpronouncable author aside). Despite the fact that cookie-making was not on my very detailed to-do list (the paper one OR the handy-dandy widget one that I spent an hour finding instead of doing something on said to-do list), I made chocolate chip/chunk cookies! What makes chocolate chip/chunk cookies different from regular chocolate chip cookies, you ask? Well, when half of your bag of chocolate chips melt on the way down from Waco, you end up with half chocolate chips and half block of chocolate that can be converted into chunks with the strategic use of a butter knife. It's amazing how much milk one can drink under the right circumstances!

Right, so, now for some meaningful content... let's see.. Oh! My current important life question: How do you love your husband from a million million miles away? Talk amongst yourselves...

NO, HELEN IS NOT PREGNANT...

...silly Stephen, the secret is for MEEEEE :-D

Matt <><

What Helen ISN'T telling you...

...is that she is the most fantastically wonderful wife ever!!! I love her absolutely to death. She has been so good to me while I've been out here. Well, before that too, but you know... Anyway, she is incredible. She's beautiful, and she's sweet to me, and she sends me boxes of things that I need, or that she just wants to send me. She is absolutely the most beautiful and lovely and wonderful and excellent wife I could ever have hoped for. I'm so glad to be married to her. She is my joy and the delight of my life. I love her a whole lot.

I will actually be going on a business trip soon! This is, of course, not the "get conference goodies" kind of business trip, so your prayers will be welcome. This will be the most dangerous thing that I have ever done since I got here, but considering that up to now, the most dangerous thing has been getting carpal tunnel syndrome, that's not saying much. That being said, it honestly isn't remarkably dangerous. This kind of thing happens all the time and accidents are very rare. So, yeah really exciting! Anyhow, your prayers are welcome, but mostly for traveling mercies. Even though it's not very dangerous, it can be very inconvenient. My MSgt (short for Master Sergeant) went a week or so ago and lost his baggage, but we prayed for it and the guy who accidentally picked it up was miraculously on the same flight that he was! So, losing my baggage, finding a place to sleep, finding the place that I need to do my work, getting around, all that "small" stuff can be pretty stinking huge when you're living out of a bag and never in one place for more than a couple of hours. So, anyhow that's what's happening with me.

Oh, and that's not what she "can't tell you." That secret is for meeeeee :-D

Daily Life: nothing of interest

That's right, there is NOTHING going on, hence the lack of posts. That's not entirely accurate; there is something but I can't tell you what it is. What I can tell you is that I have two packages from V... well, I have two packages that are supposed to be arriving soon. When I got home today, there were two packages on the porch and one in the mail box... all of which were for Mom! So she's on her honeymoon AND she gets three packages in one day! I could at least get a consolation package!

However, I did have a nice experience at the new Chinese restaurant that opened in that Kroger shopping center near our house. I got beef and broccoli to go, with fried rice. It was very, very tasty, and a LOT of food. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna get three meals out of it. Nice atmosphere (even though I got free take out), friendly staff, lunch specials, and free delivery (with minimum dollar amount order). And I felt consumerically (no that's not a word, but go with it) suave because I ate at a local restaurant and not a chain (right, Stephen?). At least I'm pretty sure it's not a chain.. Good thing I don't believe in fortunes, though, because mine was "A new business venture is on the horizon." I earned at least $16 today holding a sleeping baby. I don't want a new business venture!

Oh, and my car momentarily broke down, which defeats the purpose of having bought a new car! Matt says cars always break down, that's why there won't be any cars in heaven. Yay for warranties! They'll come to my house tomorrow and fix it or tow it to the dealership... for free! And then the dealership will fix it... for free!!! That's probably why we bought a new car...

Like I said, mere daily life.

Mom is getting Married!!

So, my mom is getting married! This is very exciting. She deserves to have some love and companionship in her life. I approve. Of marriage in general, and this marriage in particular. That is all I have to say.

-Helen

'Insipid' is My Favorite Word...

It has the perfect mixture of "bland" and "harmless" with just a hint of "disgust." If you've been following the blog, this is what I expected from the chapel services. Well, I finally decided that the Bible never said anything about "go hear good preaching" or "go sing good songs," it says not to forsake gathering together. So I went to gather. It was not at bad as I expected. The sermon was a little bit difficult to follow, and it didn't seem to have a discernible direction overall, but it was scriptural and true.

I'm also back to my regular schedule. I'm really glad that I'm able to go to the gym with my lifting partner again. Going by myself has been excruciating. No, I still haven't gained any weight. I'm holding steady at 130.

Anyhow, that's about the most of it. More later...

--Matt <><

My Arch Nemesis...

She has been on TV all day and it is driving me BONKERS!!! Paris Hilton is the absolute antithesis of my most beautiful and charming wife, Helen. My feelings for PH are equally polarized. I have a great deal of disdain for that... female. Which is why I was glad to hear that she was drageed from the courtroom kicking and screaming when the judge reinstated her 45-day sentence when he had planned on reducing it to 23 days. Apparently, there is at least one person who will not tolerate driving drunk... on a suspended license. She served 3 of 23 days and was released to house arrest, which the judge had explicitly forbade. So she was sent BACK to jail for 45 days. But enough of that...

Anyhow, I'm still doing fairly well. I'm really missing my sweet Helen. I'm thoroughly addicted to her precious companionship. She is so good for me. I love her a whole lot. So yeah, that's pretty much the extent of my status at the moment. I miss my darling and I really can't wait to get back to her.

--Matt <><

But Helen is Never Ugly...

Yeah, the fight was not fun, but it wasn't nasty either. We are back to being madly, desperately, hopelessly in love with each other. We actually managed to learn a lot about each other, which is always fun, and mitigated the un-fun part of the whole unpleasantness.

Anyhow, that's the most exciting thing that has happened since... well since I got here, I think. Such is the beauty of marriage: even when Helen sees my real self as ugly and sinful as I may be, she still loves me.

Helen is an awesome wife.

Sin... it's ugly!

So Matt and I had what I consider to be our first real fight today. Guess what it was about? That's right, how little we had to fight about. Oh, the irony! Don't worry, we're back to being disgustingly married.

In other sins, never get a car with a speedometer that is set low! It says you're going 70, but you're really going 73. This way, you set your cruise control to 70, and you get to fly past the "old geezers" who are, in fact, actually going the speed limit, AND you get to be righteously indignant when you get stuck behind said "old geezer!" Clearly, the temptation is too much for mere mortals. Instead, you should get a car with the speedometer set high (says 70 when you're going 67) so you can justify speeding.

-Helen

Tragedy Strikes!

Alas!! When you think of deployment tragedies, you generally consider things like death, dismemberment, torture... Oh, well, maybe our situation isn't that tragic after all. You see, what happened was that the website we use to instant message each other (our primary form of communication) was no longer available, so we couldn't chat. So he called instead. And the website is back up now. Right, so, please disregard this post.

-Helen