So I got a text from my husband the other day that his det was ending early.  Since he had mentioned a few days prior that they were getting so many X’s (completed flight syllabus events) that they might wrap up a day early, I thought that’s what he was talking about and perked up at the thought of getting to see him a day ahead of schedule.  It wasn’t until I got a call that he had made it through airport security and was waiting for his flight that I realized he had meant the det was ending right then and he was on his way home.  Surprise!

Now, our house had suffered the fate of many post-holiday spaces and looked a meteor shower of clutter had rained down upon it.  One of my goals for this det was to whip things back into shape so my husband could come home, marvel briefly at my sparkling organization skills, and promptly dump his boots and sea bag full of laundry on the floor.  I was pleased with my progress — the transformation in our bedroom was particularly notable — but I had expected to have several more days to sort through piles of papers and really make things look finished and together.  Hell, I hadn’t even started on the guest room/office/place we throw everything when we can’t think where else to put it.

I spent the next few hours with, ah, strongly renewed housekeeping motivation.  By the time I was ready to quit so I could catch a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I’m pleased to say that things looked pretty darn good in spite of the Navy’s insistence on sliding my whole cleaning schedule to the left by a few days.  Even though it was one in the morning by the time he walked in the door, my husband was appropriately impressed and appreciative of my efforts.  He even waited a couple days to dump his sea bag all over the floor.

I was, naturally, thrilled to see my husband a little sooner than expected, but it is kind of a bummer that they weren’t able to get in a couple more days of flying out there.  Everyone had been doing so well and knocking out more events in a low-stress, highly efficient sort of way, so it’s a shame they couldn’t squeeze in just a little more before it was decided that the airplanes were needed elsewhere.  Still, it was a nice surprise and I’m not about to complain about the short little getting-our-long-distance-hand-back-in det being even shorter and easier than anticipated.  I am well aware that while this fits in with the general rule of nothing military-related ever turning out precisely as planned, Murphy’s usual SOP is to extend military separations rather than reduce them.  We’re savoring this change of plans as a bit of good fortune — who knows when we’ll be lucky enough to have a surprise as nice as this again?