I stayed up late last night with Caleb. Like past midnight late - that's really late for me - and then woke up tired and groggy this morning.  Glad I took the day off work.
He was dealing with last minute stuff this morning and then we headed over to my ex's house to pick her up and then headed off to the airport.
U.S. Airways, charges for each checked bag. We got away with only paying for the large bag at $25 and then his smaller bag he was allowed to take on board the plane, so didn't have to shell out another $35, which was really good cause' I am counting my pennies right now.

Off the subject for one line of sentence, we should be getting our end-of-fiscal-year bonus within the next month or two, that will help immensely.

Well, we got his bags checked in, his boarding pass, all that stuff and then off to sit down and spend our last hour plus talking. At close to an hour before the flight leaves, Caleb was picking up his stuff and heading down the aisle.  Mom was like, already?  Yes, we had sat there talking for a long time, Caleb  was obviously ready to be done with us and Phoenix and all of it - not in a bad way, he's a very respectful kid but he's totally psyched about going over there - so I said yes, it's time.  He should be going through that security checkpoint at least an hour before the flight leaves, at least, that's how I do it.  Make sure there are no issues and if there are, you have time to deal with it.

Remember the days when you could just go with the person all the way to the waiting area to board the plane?  I wish it was still that way.  If a person wants to bomb or blow up a plane or use a plane as a bomb and if they are motivated enough to do whatever it takes - such as 9/11 - they they are probably going to be able to do it regardless of security checkpoints.  It might make it harder for them, but not impossible.  Whatever, I'm sure that will never change now that it's implemented so deal with it.

Watched him go through security and then he walked right off without looking back, he was gone.
Took the ex home, we had a conversation about some things going on in people's lives - pretty serious stuff actually, nothing I am going to go into here - got her home and me?  Got back here and sat down.  I'm am exhausted from staying up too late last night.  I have nothing pressing to do today, which is a good thing.

Still, I happened to look up at the clock a while ago and realized I could go outside and watch his plane taking off!  I can't see the runway but you can definitely see planes leaving the airport and heading up into the sky.  At 1:59, a US Airways jet took off, it looked like a 757 and it was at the exact time it should be there. Another plane on an adjacent runway had taken off a minute or so earlier, but it was a Southwest plane - you can pretty much easily identify the brand even from 4 miles away.  I watched that plane flying up and up - then level off a bit - and then it disappeared into the clouds.  There goes my son!

Momma cried, I had a light misting in my eyes. I realized I had gotten all - or most of it anyway - out of my system at church on Sunday.  God really dealt with me about some things after I had started thinking him leaving, so the tears were on Sunday, today it was just cool to see my boy heading off into a new life, an unknown adventure, what does God have in store for him?  Took me back to my missionary days when there were many times you didn't know what was going to happen next or how God was going to provide.

Lately, Africa has been put on my heart.  I don't really know anyone in Africa, I know of some missions over there but don't know the people running them personally. My gosh, though, there has got to be more to life than clocking in 5 days a week at 6 am and doing the same thing, day after day after day.  I know I shouldn't worry about such things because the Lord is our provider, but I think about going back to the mission field but then I think about my golden years and how it will be to be totally broke, no money, just getting social security checks to live off of, which aren't even a guaranteed thing anyway.

Well whatever.  2 more days of work and then a 3 day holiday weekend.  I don't think I will do much of anything, I'm ready to just stay home and mess around the house and yard.  Just checked, it's almost 3,000 miles to Hawaii.  I was curious because it's a 6 hour flight, much of it over open water.  I'm envious!! I want to fly overseas, too!

G'day.

ben