Overwhelmed

The countdown to days until J comes home is down to 1 hand (I can say this because it has been officially announced the date and time of his flight). I was trying to get boxes packed so that once we are able to move our stuff it will go smoothly. Probably not if what this little moving adventure has been so far. All I could do was sit there and cry.

I cried because I do not like the area we are moving to. It is the buttcrack of America. The only good part about it is that it is close enough to home that we can come home for weekends. I have a couple of good friends there, but this is definitely not the place I would like to lay down my roots. The only positive is that J will be there with me.

I cried because I feel like a failure. I had every good intention of having our place unpacked and it feel like home by the time J walked through the door. That is not going to happen. Instead of coming home and being able to climb into our bed, J will be climbing onto an air mattress. Instead of sitting on our comfortable couch or lounge around on our chaise, J will be sitting his butt on a futon. I failed to have a home for J to come home to, now it is just a townhouse with a few boxes and not very homey.

I cried because there is so much going on in my family. I feel like I am running when the going gets tough. I guess I will have to be a shoulder to cry on from a far.

I cried because there is so much to do and so little time to do it. You would think that I had 10 months to prepare for this move, that I would be ready and now I am down to days and don't know where to begin.

I guess this is just one of the many joys of being an Army wife. Time for me to pull my big girl panties up and handle business.

Crazy Crazy Crazy

So much has this week and its only Wednesday. My 2 year anniversary was Monday. YAY!!!!! We will celebrate once J gets home. 2 years in a row now J has been gone. When I talked to him he said that his next deployment has been moved back from summer to winter next year. Yay for that!

On Tuesday my Mom and I went to Clarksville to find a place to live. I found a cute little townhouse that allows dogs. We were able to get lights and water turned on. When the water was turned on the release valve had to be flipped, but no one had told me this so my hot water heater decided it was going to empty all the water so my living room flooded. All I could really do is sit there and cry. My mom was so calm cleaning everything up and I was hysterical. On a good note they had a maintence man there and he was able to flip the valve and get it to quit running. We got the water mopped up.

My baby nephew was diagnosed with Teralogy of Fallot on Tuesday, basically that is a hole in the heart, and stenosis of the valve leading to the lung. Back in the 70s it was called Blue Baby. His medical files were sent to Vanderbuilt and it looks like surgery will be in his near future. The Dr's prognosis is good so we are very encouraged about that and my brother has already spoke to some people that have had chidren with this and they are all doing well. It is very scary though to think that a baby that tiny will have to go through all of that.

Today has just been exhausting. I didn't sleep well on Monday and left at 430 on Tuesday and didn't get home till 0015 on Wednesday. Then had to get up and go to work this morning. Tonight will be an early night that will be for sure.

So frustrated

I am so frustrated with this whole finding an apartment thing. I call today to talk to the rental company. I let them know that I was able to get the correct POA. I told him that it was printed off the computer where he emailed it to me. They say they have to see the original, but I can have J email the original to them. Knowing my husband he probably deleted the email after it was sent and lost the original. I understand that there are rules and they are trying to protect the MM from pissed off spouses who run up debt and what not in service member's names, but this is really getting frustrating.

I will just be so glad when all this is over. When I have a place for us to live, when I have everything set up the way we want it, and when J gets home.

Realizations

I was talking to a friend today and she asked how much longer I had until J came home. I told her and it just hit me like WOW that is so close. Now I just need to go into over drive and get everything I need done before he gets home done.

Its such a bittersweet moment. On the one hand, my heart will be whole again. I will just be complete. I have been miserable without J here. I will be back with my Army friends and I will have that support that I don't have when I am with people that do not have any idea about the military.

On the other hand, it means another move. Moving away from my friends and family again. It means that I have to leave my nephews again. It means I will be unemployed again. It means that I have to live in Clarksville. Everyone talks about how wonderful it is, but I don't like it one bit.

I guess when you list the pros and cons of J coming home the good outweigh the bad. I will be standing there when he gets off that plane and I will be by his side as he readjusts back to being home.

Lesson learned

Today was the redeployment brief. YAY!!!!! We are this close to being done. After the brief I was going to go look at places to live. Yay that didn't work so well.

I go to the rental place and the lady asks to see my POA (power of attorney). I pull it out and hand it to her for her to notice that it is for government quarter only. WE DON'T WANT GOVERNMENT QUARTERS! I am sure the rental lady thought I was a real whack job all I could do was cry when she told me that wasn't the right POA. Then to beat it all my general POA (which would have worked) expired on Jan 1.

I am not sure who I am the maddest at.
1. The JAG officer for giving us the wrong POA, but then again maybe he wasn't told we needed a POA fr civilian housing
2.J for not getting a POA for civilian housing instead of government quarter. He is the one that is adament on living off post.
3. Me for not looking over the POA and making sure it was the one I needed before he left.

I guess the lesson I learned is double and triple check the POAs before he leaves next time. Because now unless some miracle happens and I can find a place that will take a copy and not an original we will be staying in a hotel when he first gets home, because I can't get anything in my name since I don't have a job in the area I am needing to rent in.

Bad dreams

As J's deployment was becoming more and more real I started having terrible nightmares. Stuff that you see on movies that happen to the bad guys. Think the movie "The Patriot" starring Mel Gibson when that one Red Coat's head gets blown off. They were terrible but luckily they didn't last to long.

Now that we are quickly approaching homecoming, those nightmares are returning with a venegance. They are 10x worse than before. I am not understanding why now that we are so close to being done they are returning.

I have enough on my mind, I don't need my mind wondering like that.

what to do

Finding us a place to live by looking on the internet has not been fun. Last night I sat down with pen and paper and just wrote down every place that would fit in our criteria (J says I am to picky) There were about 12 places (so obviously I can't be THAT picky). Today on my lunch break I called all but just a couple of those places and have now narrowed my search down to 2 possibly 3 places. I feel like a major weight has been lifted off of me. I am going next Friday to look at these places and hopefully one of them will be what I am looking for. Then that will be 1 more major thing to check off my to do list. The last major thing will be moving and getting settled in.

This morning I was trying to turn on the heat in J's car and I break off the temperature switch. The part is $335 brand new. I am hoping I can find a used one at the junk yard. I hope J doesn't get mad. I showed my nephew and he says he thinks we can use either pliers or a vicegrip until I can afford the part.