Having lived in the same house with my parents for all my childhood (and some of my adult) years was a solid foundation for me. It gave me that one thing in my life that I could always count on. Home would always be right there at Dukharan Avenue and if all else failed, I could pack up my meagre belongings and head home for Mom and Dad to help me get back on my feet.

In fact, that is exactly what happened on at least 2 occasions. When my first marriage failed, at first I shared an apartment with a friend for a year. Then we just couldn’t afford the monthly rental anymore and she found something smaller and I went home.

The next time it happened was after another relationship failed and I had no where to go. Again, home with Mom and Dad was a haven that I was able to depend on to recuperate and rebuild my life one small step at a time.

Marrying my soldier husband and moving over 3000 miles to be with him, has changed that fact. Mom and Dad and Dukharan Avenue are too far away now, for them to be a haven. So how did I go from depending on that haven to being a military spouse with so much uncertainty and impermanence? I had to re-adjust how I thought of home. Instead of home being a familiar and known PLACE, I aligned my thinking with the concept of home being a PERSON.

I tried thinking of home as where my husband laid his head to sleep. For many reasons, that concept was a bad one. Firstly, the independent being in me revolted at that thought since my husband is an entity external to me and depending on him to be in a particular place seemed to me to be somewhat feeble and needy. Secondly, that concept was severely challenged once we received orders and were assigned to Texas and had to drive halfway across the country from Kentucky.

On arrival here in Texas, it became increasingly real to me that he would be deployed and that my concept of home would be gone for a year and leave me living in a house that was not home. That in itself was enough to cause a high level of anxiety. I had to re-think the concept.

Now I spend my time trying to re-align the concept to home being wherever I happen to lay my head down to sleep for an extended period of time. Home constitutes having all my personal creature comforts with me: my kindle, my iPhone, my iMac, my Macbook, my kettle, my mug that proclaims “Army Wife – toughest job in the army”.

My strategy, then, is to think of home as the place where I can be comfortable and occupied and content until the next move.

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Unpacking and settling in – a long protracted process.

First let me give you the run down on what has happened since you heard I was sitting in a hotel waiting to hear whether we get a house or not:

We got in to see housing on Tuesday or so. They told us we could get a house near the end of August and not before and that they could set us up in temporary lodging. So of course, we told them about our indoor cats and what temporary lodging would have us do with them. Thankfully, she looked empathetic because with a blank look on her face after I said to Scott “Oh well, you and me and the cats in the truck then hun”, started off the same way they do in the movies “Ok – I am not supposed to do this but …”

The long story cut short is that she got us into a house the very next day – albeit a house where as enlisted we aren’t supposed to be, but since we aren’t your typical enlisted anyway, I think we’ll be fine. I am just grateful she could work magic like that and did so so readily.

The house is … well, if I was a senior officer, I might be inclined to be offended. Stuff isn’t working. And today I am especially pissed … but I’ll get into that a little further down. It’s smaller in terms of the number of rooms we had, but probably a little larger in general. The kitchen is about half the size in terms of cabinets and walking space.  The bedrooms might be the same size but the living and dining areas are twice the size as is the utility room AND that utility room has TONS of shelving! Wewt!

Hubby gets a closet for his gear, we have a spare room – albeit quite devoid of your typical spare room furniture at the moment – and a living room that can accomodate both the living room and the study without a squeeze. Of course, being the “homemaker” that I am, I must find a way to separate the 2 somehow – working on that still. Until then, they are kind of integrated – hope I don’t have to entertain too seriously just yet. ::heh::

Our household goods got here finally on Friday morning – so 2 nights on the air bed in the master bedroom with cats crawling all over us both. Hubby, of course, can sleep thru a hurricane if necessary and so didn’t even notice. Me? Yea. Nuff said.

I managed to get the kitchen and bedroom sorted enough to sleep and eat by Friday night. I was sore as hell, but it was worth it to be able to take a shower, have a drink and sleep in a bed without boxes crowding us at ever turn. Hubby was off on Saturday, and so I had help in unpacking a ton of other boxes. He organized his gear AND the computers. Whilst I finished with the bedroom and the kitchen. We topped the day off with a trip to Walmart to get stuff to eat and drink and make merry.

The night was finished with us toasting ourselves with a bottle of champagne – albeit not the most expensive on the rack, but that’s not what counts.

Sunday was an off day – I wasn’t feeling well at all – so we spent the day gaming and watching movies. Monday was sort of the same for me since I still was under the weather. I did manage to make contact with Time Warner, however, who then charged us an arm and a leg but promised us to be plugged in by the latest 8pm on Wednesday. And true to their word, they were here and plugged us in by about 4pm.

That was yesterday – hubby came home and let me tell you, we headed straight in-game and didn’t look up until it was time for bed.

This morning, I am having an allergy attack for some reason. I got up to get my jammies off and found the kittehs licking water from the a/c which was leaking all over the hall floor.  This heat is something else, the kittehs go through a bowl of water every 3 hours or so. I have to either find a bigger bowl or try that fountain thingy again – and hope they don’t start treating it like a toy this time around.

I called maintenance, but of course it’s not an emergency for them until it’s in THEIR house so amid promises of someone coming out today, I am told to turn off the a/c and wait. Easy for you to say … mumble mumble … you have a/c at home. hmph!

As it is, I strike and refuse to empty the last 4 boxes until they fix the a/c. I know it’s not going to hurt THEM, but shucks – I am just pissed. When we moved in, the agent said he’d note the water and call in a work order. One week later we are going to suffer for their incompetence. Grrrr….

All in all, despite the foul odor that wafts up from the toilet intermittently, the dishwasher that doesn’t quite wash clean (soap dispenser is finicky about when it opens and when it doesn’t), the screen door that has 2 broken hinges (and which they will remove and not repair or replace if we report it – god help the kittehs in that case) … this is a pretty decent house.

Nala is already comfortable, Bear is coming around and hubby and I are as comfortable as can be considering.

Now if only I can get acclimatized already …. ::pant-pant::

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Flash of panic! Heart rate quickens, surge of a feeling of steel in my chest! I realize it’s August 1st and the departure date is days away. What is causing me more anxiety than anything else is the idea that come Monday night, because movers are idiots, we will have to sleep on the air mattress and will continue to do so until we get our house at some unknown date in the medium-range future. Air beds and hotel beds … for weeks. I’m not sure I can stand it. I will have to, but …. missing my bed will be the worst of this ordeal.

Of course, hubby as usual, is unphased. “It’s not for long”. I don’t know how he does it – so cool, so calm, so collected. Not a hair out of place. Me? I feel like Maxine on a bad day.

Well, anyway, today is a mandatory day-off designated by the resident man-a-yaad. So I guess I better squelch that anxiety and just chill.

/sigh

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So, our PCS (Permanent Change of Station) is underway. We are pretty much done here and just waiting for transportation to come get our stuff, load up the stuff we’re taking with, and hit the road.

Pretty much.

We decided we’d try doing what is called a partial DITY. Funny … it’s pronounced ditty.  Do-IT-Yourself. What that means is that we chose to take SOME of our stuff with us; we estimate how much it’ll be in terms of weight, pack it up and haul it with us on the drive down. The rest of our stuff gets packed and moved by professional movers and we won’t get that stuff until we get a house there. So a partial DITY is actually a GOOD thing since we get to keep essential stuff and the army knows we have it so in case something happens to us or the stuff .. well, you get the picture.

For the most part, we’ve been packing these last few days. We’ve packed almost all the essentials – only things left are the stuff we’re still using – and a good deal of the “nice-to-haves”.  We still haven’t decided whether I am driving or not yet. Frankly, I’m not sure I can manage that just yet. So if it’s all the same to all concerned, I’d rather just SHARE driving duties this move – thankssomuch.

We chose to sedate the kittehs – whether we both go in the truck and do something with the car, or we drive separately, that is the best option all round.  Both of us in the truck with active and scared kittehs is a bad idea – so is me alone in the car with active kittehs running around in back seat – in a cage or not. The route is pretty much worked out. So all that is really left is to pack the truck and car, get in and drive. Well, sort of. Hubby still has a few more things to get cleared, and then we can be off.

At this stage, I’ve left the “not looking forward to this” phase behind. Now I am at “let’s hurry it up already. I wanna see the other side of this.” phase. It might actually turn out to be fun. So I am trying to be positive.

Although, getting into the whole packing deal was a bit much last night – I had to turn in with a migraine. The first I have had in …. MONTHS. Maybe more than a year. I’d forgotten how they make me feel crippled and sickly. I guess I was a lot more stressed than I realized. It made me realize what the experts say over and over. You sometimes don’t FEEL as stressed as you actually are, sometimes you don’t feel stressed at all. There are signs, increased irritability, fatigue, flu-like symptoms, malaise … but sometimes there are none.  And the thing is, that nothing I have done this week has come CLOSE to some of the ish I’ve dealt with on other moves.

We’ve gotten enough done that I can pretty much do almost nothing this afternoon – hence the time to blog. Hubby went into work and will be gone most of the afternoon. Then we have a dinner date tonight. Tomorrow is a big day, so I guess rest isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound. In fact, this may be the last chance I get to relax for at least another week. So I guess I best get on with it.

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I feel SO tired and achy this morning. I know it’s because I am not used to working these hours. I know it’ll pass especially if hubby keeps his promise to insist we walk every other day. I know I only gotta hang on, hang in there, bear it out … but frankly, I just really wanna crawl back under the electric blanket and cry.

Why?

Well, 10 am to 6 pm is a VERY long day if you spend about half of it sitting around, chatting and waiting… and that is just about all I did yesterday. Sit around, waiting and chatting. I processed 3 customers, 2 were final returns with no saves, 1 was a “let’s start it and I’ll bring the rest of the paperwork in by Friday”. It’s hard for people like me to sit around doing nothing all day. I can get online, but I they say they track our activity and I don’t particularly want them knowing about all my little haunts and stuff online. Altho, I could just sit and read Lifehacker all day =)

So anyway, it’s hard for me to sit and do nothing … you guys know I get into all kinds of stuff here at home when I am here – I am either taking a low activity day and reading for the majority of it, or I am exploring stuff online and playing with my sites. Or, I am playing WoW. Which sometimes I feel I could do with while sitting there … just so I can urge the day to go faster. (Oh yea – want the day to go like lightening, play WoW).

So anyway, I got another call from the local cable provider yesterday. I don’t think people read resumes, since every single person who has contacted me has asked me to go over what I did in my last couple of jobs. Sometimes I wanna say “don’t y’all read?” but that kind of attitude isn’t really conducive to getting hired, is it? Thing is, I get the feeling that no one is really interested in me and my skills, they’re just going through the motions and moving bodies along like cattle in a branding shop. And I guess that goes against my whole being …. seeing that I am a little on the sensitive side of things.

I have to be completely honest, and say that I won’t be heartbroken if I don’t get a high-profile, high-tech job … I don’t feel like joining the US version of the rat race. I’d rather keep the work simple and uncomplicated. But we all know that beggars aren’t choosers, and it’ll be awhile before *I* can pick and choose jobs .. so for now, I take what I can get.

So ok, that was pretty much my day yesterday. I am dying to hear about Yolospat’s few days in Colorado. I didn’t hear from her once, so I am going to assume she had a ball and will call me as soon as she can and give me some updates. Can’t wait, hun. Hurry it up already.

And on that note, going to swallow my many pills and start getting ready to go.

YUSH

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