day 23: guarding my time

I find that I'm being quite particular about my time lately.
My weekend time.

My time at home that coincides with time that Aaron is awake on the other side of the world.

I know he can call my cell phone.

But I'm now tending to protect that time, to stay at home.

To plan around it.

And the truth is, when Aaron calls my cell and we're out somewhere, it's just harder to make everything around me stop, be quiet, and listen, and talk. And the girls, in that case, find it hard, too, to block everything else out and focus.

Every time the phone rings at home, I do the quick mental math, adding 8 1/2 hours to our current time. Could it be Aaron? Even though I teach English, I manage to do that math before peeking at the caller ID, which tends to spoil my anticipation. Because so very rarely has it said IN NATL GUARD (the DSN line that he's able to call out on).

(and, by the way, this is technically day #159 since he's been gone from home, only the 23rd day he's been out of the country)