So I have the donut.....the donut of misery.

and many of us don't admit it often that we use the donut....do you know what the donut is......?

If not let me explain it to you.  The donut of misery is an excel program that will calculate the amount of time you have left of your deployment.......or any other important day.......I've had the donut for a long time. I used it for the last deployment. Before I discovered the Donut, I used Karen's Power Tools ~ Karen's Countdown Timer II. I used it during my husband's deployment to Kosovo and his first deployment to Iraq. I still have this one, because it sends me notices for my kids appointments online so I don't forget them...of course I need to make sure it's running first.....

I have a love/hate relationship with the Donut. I mocks me, laughs at me and taunts me....even though I have changed all of it's colors to make it cuter, when I open it for it's tap dance across my heart....the bottom line is, the DONUT SUCKS, or it did until today!

The Donut of Misery, for those out there who have no clue what it is, is an excel program that calculates the deployment time based on the information you enter. It will give you the percent done and the percent to go before the end of your deployment in a circular graph that has a hole in it's center. I have two of them running right now...one until R&R and the other to the end of the Deployment (based on 15 months). Of course it was based on 12, and at extension time, I had to basically begin again.....but atleast I did not go back to the beginning, I think it went down like 12%, because of the time it calculated in that we had already completed, but it sure felt like we had started over.....

So my husband, smart man he is, around oh, say month 4, says to me, "Babe, they have this excel program, called the donut of....." at which point, I of course stifle a giggle.....he pauses and says, ..."so how late am I on this topic?" My response was "oh about 16 or 17 months.......and I informed him of where we stood on our percent complete. I think that kind of depressed him.....he never asked again.

So then I found a new program that runs on my computer.....have we all gotten that I am really a person who is wrapped around knowing how much longer her husband is going to be gone? Cause I am, I hate it....I miss him and anything that reminds me of how close we are to him coming home is wonderful. So this one is called Time Left 3. I don't leave it up all the time. I run it when I need an exact amount of days to give him until R&R or when he comes home. The date for homecoming is of course a guess.....who knows when it really will be. I take the date he left and found out exactly, according to days, when 15 months is, because it's not really the date of one month and 15 months later on the same day that month. It is actually off set somehow......

So back to my Donut...which I had not opened in over 9 weeks.....well today, I opened it....and it was even. A complete line separating my yellow side of my Donut from my pink.....we have hit the top......WE HIT 50%......I can finally say, It's all downhill now.

I don't know what to do with myself or the donut, except to hug and kiss my donut, which is gross because my laptop is in need of a cleaning....but I was happy......and so I then opened up my R&R one, cause I am sure that one was going to make me even more ELATED, but it still said 14%.....and I thought to myself, puzzled, how can that be? And then I realized it is based on a whole......and that whole is only 9 months long, where as the other is 15...so the difference would be markedly noticeable......but I just look at the days and I'm good with that. Still ELATED with the Donut!

So check out the Donut, download yourself one. Even if you are not into keeping up with the days now, you maybe as the time goes on. It also calculates separation pay, per diem, the months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds since they left and until they come home.......and on days you need to be mad at something, blame the DONUT!

~smiles