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I have greatly enjoyed watching the variety of birds that visit my back yard. They constantly remind me of a verse I was given in the summer. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” I have seen blue jays, nuthatches, robins, doves, bluebirds, woodpeckers, cardinals, hummingbirds, a Cooper’s Hawk, and an entire flock of red wing blackbirds. My Mom declared my yard a bird sanctuary. On Saturday, as I watched the 4 and 20 Blackbirds, I was feeling blessed like the king with his dainty dish. Today, I went out to refill my bird feeder and broke it. I suddenly felt like the maid in the garden who got her nose snipped off. I had dropped the feeder and snapped the center plastic pole that links the top with the base. I looked at the feeder and told myself, “Just throw it away, Mugs. You’ll never be able to fix it.” But I am stubborn in my pursuit of trying to learn to fix things. Soon, Gabe and I were trying to repair it with twine and packing tape. As the task got more and more frustrating and I got more and more frustrated, Zeke decided it was a good time to come over and ask again and again and again and again and again and again and again that I help him with something else. I lost my temper and everyone in the vicinity got yelled at. Josiah was the only one spared as he was off somewhere else dealing with the pain of new braces. Our Pastor spoke on Sunday on how the fruit of the Spirit should be our initial response. It should come from within. It should not be an outward control that we use to suppress our innate response. Self Control and Patience coming from within. Here I thought I was doing a passable job and then I’m shone that the bar is set so much higher. Gabe and I finished jerryrigging the bird feeder and went outside to hang it back up. I filled it partway and lifted it. It seemed to be holding, so I filled it all the way up with bird food and lifted it. Crash! It broke again. Gabe looked at all the bird food spilled on the ground and said, “Well, that was a waste of money.” Apparently, he is greatly concerned about the price of bird food. So, God will have to feed the birds for awhile. I will, of course, buy another feeder. You see, I still want to help God with His job. I enjoy displaying my goodness outwardly, because allowing Him to create His goodness from within me is a much more difficult work. It requires that I recognize my righteousness is as filthy rags and the only thing good in me is Christ.

While I love changing jobs and locations every couple of years, I can’t stand the physical process of moving. Mugs can tell you how I try to avoid having to be there on the days the movers are putting boxes on the truck or taking boxes off the truck. To me, it’s a very painful experience. I was able to avoid it this year by deploying to Iraq. So Mugs, once again, got to unpack all of our worldly goods. Abby sent me a Christmas ornament that depicts how I feel about moving.

For the past couple of months, a contractor has been building a new camp for MAO. The old MAO facility is located on FOB Diamondback. This location happens to be in the flood plain for the Tigris River. You may have heard the Mosul Dam mentioned in the news. If that dam were to collapse, FOB Diamondback could be underwater, along with many other parts of Mosul. Just across the street from FOB Diamondback is FOB Marez. As you drive out of the gate from FOB Diamondback, cross the street, and drive on to FOB Marez, you start going up hill. The new MAO location on FOB Marez is above the high water line in the event of a flood.

Construction is complete on the new camp, so for the past two days, we’ve been in the process of moving. One day was devoted to office trailers, while the other day was for living trailers. These living trailers are also called CHUs (pronounced “chews”), which stands for containerized housing units. So of course, I procrastinated as much as feasibly possible. On day 1, I woke up at about 0630, got ready, drank some coffee, boxed up my office stuff, and loaded it into my truck. The contractor was responsible for moving the office furniture. So once we cleared out, they began loading things into a connex, which was loaded onto the back of a flatbed for transport to FOB Diamondback.

Robert, the USACE logistics specialist in MAO, was overseeing the contractor for this move. Just picture a crew of about 10 guys grabbing things from numerous trailers and packing it all into a connex. At one point, the contractors brought a couch out and set it on the sidewalk. It gave Robert and me a nice comfortable seat to watch the contractor’s crane operator load the connexes onto the flatbed. I had never seen the couch before and mentioned that to Robert. It’s amazing the things you find when you move.

We spent the rest of the day getting all of the furniture moved into the appropriate offices and arranged. While this was happening, Jeremy was working on reestablishing our communications links. Our internet and phone service is provided through a satellite system. So Jeremy, along with Vickie and Nate (USACE IT folks from other locations) had fun aligning our satellite receiver. I think they were having fun, but they weren’t laughing or smiling.

Anyway, Day 2 was dedicated to moving the living CHUs. So once again, I waited until the morning of the move to throw my stuff in some duffel bags and put it in my truck. Extra sleep and coffee are much more important than preparing for moving! It’s the end of Day 2 now and this is what my new office looks like.

Of course when Mugs prepares for a move, she always purges. As you can see, the purge didn’t happen. You can’t see it from the picture, but just to the right is a blue couch that somehow ended up in my office at the end of the move!