Thursday, March 11, 2010

Living in Chaos

I wouldn't quite say that life in our home is unbearable, but we are definitely living in chaos. In January, my husband received his orders for his next duty station...South Korea. While our move to Texas just over 2 years ago was pretty uneventful, a move overseas is proving to be otherwise. Even though my husband got his orders, the family was not on them. To get the family authorized to accompany him to Korea, we had to fill out paperwork, have each dependent (me and the girls) screened to make sure none of us had any serious medical condition which would prohibit us from traveling and have all the above sent to Korea. We were told that it would take two weeks to hear back from them. A few days later, we received an email that an additional document was needed and we signed, scanned and sent that off. Last Friday we got our approval for Command Sponsorship.

In the meantime, we attended a brief for transportation and scheduled our HHG (House Hold Goods) to be picked up. One of the restrictions with moving to Korea is that we are only allowed to take 50% of our HHG allowance. So when the movers come, they will be packing and picking up three different shipments. The first is unaccompanied baggage. This is a small shipment of essential household items that will be sent first and a little quicker. The second shipment will be all of our things we will take with us to Korea. The last shipment is the other 50% of our stuff that will be stored for the next two years. Trying to decide what is important enough to take has been a bit overwhelming. I don't want to leave anything behind that we might need because it will be held in a storage facility in Texas and I will not have access to it...unless I choose to take a long flight from South Korea back to the states, just for something that is in the storage unit.

We are trying to break things down into different rooms or piles in a room of what is storage and what will come with us. I feel like my house is in such disarray. Yesterday, a friend of mine came over to help with whatever I needed to get done. We took down curtains and rods, pictures and wall hangings. The house looks so bare. We have just over one week before the packers come for the first shipment and there is so much to be done.

I think with all that is going on, I am going to take a break from homeschooling just so I don't drive myself crazy. With all the chaos in the home, morning sickness and so much to be done in so little time, I need to prioritize what's important and what can wait. At this point, getting ready for the movers is important and we'll just double up school when we get to PA in a few weeks.

As I mentioned earlier, we have our approval for all of us to move to Korea, but the downside is that my husband has to go to Korea first and find our family an apartment on the Korean economy, as they do not have military housing in the area that he is assigned. We are hoping that this doesn't take too much time. In the meantime, the girls and I will stay in PA with my parents until we get the green light to fly to Korea.

I guess living in chaos isn't soo bad. At least my husband is here with me and we can go crazy together :)

Monday, March 1, 2010

You know your a military spouse if....

I came across this on someone else's blog and had to repost it. It's so true!

You might be a military spouse if...

...You live on your own, by yourself more after you're married than before you were married.

...You know all of your husband's coworkers by their last name, and rarely know their first name or even gender.

...Your husband's work and dress clothes cost more than yours do.

...You only write in pencil because EVERYTHING is subject to change.

...You know that a 2 month separation IS short, no matter what your civilian friends say.

...You have enough camouflage in your house to wallpaper the White House.

...You don't bat an eyelash at 22:45 and 0300 duty times.

...You are asked to stop talking in acronyms and translate it all to English.

...You've done more oil changes than your spouse, and even when your husband is home the mechanic asks to speak with you.

...You ask someone to hold on a second by saying, "Stand by."

...Military homecomings on TV bring tears to your eyes because you can relate so well.

...You've ever checked your email multiple times an hour in hopes your spouse has written you, and know how horrible email being "down" is.

...You wouldn't dream going anywhere without your cellphone, and all your other numbers forward to it.

...You've researched ways to surgically attach your cellphone to yourself.

...If you have a power of attorney, USE it, and freak out when it expires.

...If you know that not everyone accepts a power of attorney, despite the fact it gives you permission to practically BE your spouse.

...If you've ever argued that fact with someone in person or over the phone and gotten nowhere.

...Your husband spends more time getting ready for a formal function than you do, and on an average day spends way too much time ironing, polishing shoes, and shaping his beret.

...You can literally hold down the fort while your spouse is deployed or in the field.

...You know that 'dependant' means anything but dependant.

…the floorboard of your car is littered with french fries, yellow foam earplugs and chem lights.

…you lean to the right while driving on post so the MP’s won’t see you talking on your cell phone.

…you’ve ever wished your husband would get the Medal of Honor so you could get front row parking.

…you know better than to shop the Commissary on the first or fifteenth day of the month.

…you have a “favorite gate guard.”

…you don’t feed your kids before FRG meetings but plan to let them fill up on brownies and Sprite once they get there.

…you watch “Army Wives” just to yell at the TV whenever something is unrealistic.

…you’ve ever stopped your husband on the way to work because of pair of your panties was stuck to his velcro.

…you plan a special day because of the words “Case Lot Sale.”

…you’ve ever had a nightmare that involved not knowing ”your sponsor’s last four.”

…you know all the words to “Blood on the Risers” but still cringe when you hear it.

…you save an especially stinky shirt to get you through a deployment

…you think the only thing sexier than ACU’s on a man are ACU’s off a man.

…your sentences start containing more [acronyms] and numbers than actual words.

…you refer to everyone not in the military or dating someone in the military as a Civilian, you can rattle off the time in perfect military time without having to think.

…you start referring to all girls & women as “females”

…you tell the timeline of your past through deployments.

…you think 6 months away from your husband is “not bad”

…you can’t remember the last four digits of your own social security #

…you constantly have to explain to businesses on the phone that your husband can’t call to fix the problem because he’s in the middle of a desert somewhere