Way overdue...

Geez, I'm so far behind, I don't know where to start....

I don't remember how much I've told y'all about our next move. Darrell was originally on orders to Korea, with a follow-on assignment to Ft Lewis, Washington (meaning he'd do his year in Korea, then come back to Ft Lewis rather than where we are now). Then he was told by his branch manager (the guy in charge of where he'll go) that they were deleting his orders, since they needed all the SFCs (Sergeants First Class) stateside to go to deploying units.

Okay. So then we waited to see where he was going to go instead of Korea. Darrell thought at the time that he'd probably go to Ft Stewart, Georgia, or Ft Lewis. Those were the two posts that had units deploying a month or two after he'd arrive. Then his branch manager said that because so many units were either deployed, were deploying soon, or were moving their scheduled deployment time forward because other units were leaving sooner than originally planned, that he'd probably get involuntarily extended for a third year as a drill sergeant here.

But last week, he checked online and found that he was BACK on orders to Korea, only with a follow-on assignment to Ft Hood, Texas. Like I've said before, I just want to know for sure where and when. Ya know? I can deal with whatever, I just want to know.

Darrell isn't going to call the branch manager again until March. There's no point in even asking what the heck is going on at this point, since there's so much time between now and when anything will actually happen. He's not leaving until late summer/early fall. Plenty of time for it to change another half-dozen times.

I'm just going to assume the boys and I are staying here. If it changes, we'll deal with that later. Even if he does end up going stateside, if he's just going to deploy a month later, we'll probably stay here since we already have the house and I already have a job.

Something I'm planning to look into, however - I want to find out if we could move into housing on post if he goes to Korea. That would allow us a year to sell the house, since I'd be able to move into housing after closing. We could let it take as long as it takes, rather than take the first low-ball offer we get. I'm not sure if we can do that, with the timeline I'm hoping for. The wait-list for those of Darrell's rank is 9 months for a three-bedroom house. That's the minimum number of bedrooms authorized for his rank. However, the list said that for a TWO bedroom, the wait time was zero months. I'd gladly take a smaller house if it means we could make the timing work for us.

I applied to four different schools/programs for Justin for next year, in case we do end up staying. I asked him if he wanted to go to a new school, even if we stay here. He said yes, so... Three are magnet programs, one is just another elementary school (with a better academic record). I just don't like where he is now. I'll have to drive him, but actually, the timing works out pretty well. I could leave home at 7am like we do now, drop Justin off at his school, take Kaden to the daycare on post, and then get to work by 8am. Rock on.

Kaden is starting to fit into the 12 month stuff I have from Justin! He's scooting like a champ. I have some video for y'all; I'll hopefully be able to upload here soon. He's now able to hold his bottle by himself. He's trying to pull up on stuff, but he can't figure out how to get his legs under his torso. He's getting all over the house, though, that's for sure!

Darrell got that stomach bug BAD. He ended up staying home from work two days. That's unheard of for him. Right after that, his soldiers had their week-long field problem. I told him that it would be miserable, since I figured they'd probably get it too. Can you just imagine? About 250 soldiers? With only porta-potties to use? He said a lot of them got it. Gross. Poor kids! It's bad enough when you're able to lay on your own bed all day, just getting up to run to the toilet. Totally horrible when you're out in the field, trying to do soldier stuff all week!! Luckily, somehow Justin never got it. Kaden had a weak case, I had it a little worse. Glad it's gone gone gone.

In other news...I won the Employee of the Quarter competition! In fact, they liked my written answers so much, they're going to publish one of them in the next newsletter. I'm not very happy with that (it's really just a bunch of brown-nosing , but what can ya do? I'm sure my co-workers will give me all kinds of crap about it) I also got a quarterly bonus award ($$) because of those two months where I was doing double duty. Not as good as making two paychecks, but much better than nothing.

During the same award banquet, I got my five year service award. They were probably pretty sick of my face by the end of that. My boss's boss, Ms. R., is awesome. She's the one that put me in for both, since my immediate boss seems to not care a crap about any of us. She's the same one that hired me while I was 7 months pregnant. In fact, she hired another very pregnant lady last month. She's also the one that told me I could take advance sick leave after Kaden was born.

And since she's been so helpful, I asked her this morning if she'd take a look at my resume. There's another opening upstairs, and gosh darn it, I want to at least get an interview this time!! She said that the powers-that-be were surprised I didn't make the interview cut last time. She said I have a great shot at this one, as long as my resume makes it through the initial screening. With the changes she suggested, that shouldn't be a problem.

While I'm sad that I wouldn't be working for her any more, I'd be thrilled with the raise. It'd be about $5k more. Apparently, between the double-duty thing, the previous interview I did, plus now the employee of the quarter thing, they know me pretty well upstairs. That's all good news for me!

Now the bad news...I got an email from my step-mom Thursday. My dad's mom is not doing well and isn't expected to last too much longer. *sigh* She has had very very bad arthritis for most of her life. I'll be glad when she's not in pain any more. I'm so glad my dad moved back to California and was able to spend time with her.