Thursday, March 22, 2012

Looking up

Wanted to write a quick entry on how thankful I am for the good things that have happened recently.  My mother has offered to come stay with us and watch the kidlets for me while Donald is off on his TDY's in April & May.  This really is a lifesaver as I was wracking my brain trying to decide how I was going to provide full time childcare (which we can't afford) while I was trying to complete my first Internship.  Mom's retired and so has much more ability to be able to come out whenever she likes or wants to help out.  I'm so lucky to have the relationship I have with my mother as an adult because as a teen I was not the nicest of daughters at times.

The kids are pretty much set on clothes for the rest of the spring/summer now.  I went to the Williamsburg outlet mall near us and pretty much did a shop til you drop day, but the kids are set now.  And I dropped that night LOL

Donald is locked into his current job until next January, so we won't have to worry about getting orders until next summer at the earliest.

Things are looking up :)

Friday, March 16, 2012

The currents of change...they keep on coming

So I finished my last official week of practicum and holy freaking wow....this whole finishing up school thing is going to be interesting.  There's two main reasons I haven't been working outside the home and they are:  the cost of childcare and the crazy military hours.  So...now that I'm working (for free) and paying for childcare (not free!) and still dealing with the crazy military hours it's a damn mess.  And I'm not Superhuman so I sit and wonder just how long this is going to keep working.  With a military exercise looming for Langley mid-April and Donald going to 13 hour shifts I'm almost guaranteed to get no hours in that week.  I MIGHT be able to work from 1300-1700 that week (which would give Donald just enough sleep to function on) but I don't really know right now.  It's disheartening to know that I may or may not be able to get enough hours to finish my master's.  But....it may happen.  And I'll deal with it one way or another as it happens.

Good news!  (Cuz geez have I been venting enough lately, or what?)  After the whole crappy experience of everything that could possibly go wrong going wrong in the house we own in NM, we are getting enough money back to fully pay for the repairs!  I'm excited by this since we won't have to foreclose on the damn house now.  So woohoo :)

I find that working with people right now wears me out.  Don't get me wrong...I do enjoy it.  But I'm exhausted every night I come home from work.  So if I finish this wondrous degree I think I'll be taking a break afterwards.  If we don't end up getting orders (please no) then I can work part time with people here cuz my supervisor ROCKS!!

And my kiddos are just amazing little wonders.  They constantly learn and grow and make me so grateful every day.  The youngest turned 3 today and I think part of me is in shock at that.  He was just a baby...but not so much now.

Lots of changes going on in my little world.  I'm doing my best to go with that current of change, but sometimes I just need shallow place to rest in.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Storm Moon

This has been one heck of a week.  There's been more damage found in the New Mexico house. Bess' progress report came back with a C in Math.  Lightning is arguing with me over everything it seems (typical 4 yr old I'm guessing.)  The boys are constantly fighting.  Bess got another stomach bug.  One of the interns I work with was having a really bad day (which I could totally understand) and then somehow became pissed off at me over something I still don't understand.  I'm ready for the Storm to be over now.  (The March Moon is the Storm Moon.)


The transition from Winter into Spring is always difficult on the kids and I.  When the temperature fluctuates as it has for the last two months we get sick.  And when the kids get sick it makes this whole working thing very difficult.  I can already tell the rest of this year is going to be just as chaotic as the last few months have been, with the small exception that the kids and I generally don't get sick in the spring and summer.  So I'm more looking at the rest of this year as something that just has to get done.  


On a completely different note....I came across a blog a week or so ago that for me was incredibly provocative.  You can find that blog here and if you know any military families you may want to pass the blog entry onto them.  The core of that article addressed an issue that is a particular fear of mine because of the relationship I have with my MIL the Borg Queen.  (I've written previous blog entries about our relationship and they all have the NPD label in them.)  Basically, if my husband were to die while on duty I would have to notify his mother of his death.  And my fear is that she would then try to gain custody of our children.  The blog entry actually talked about some cases of this happening with other military families.  So it opened up an avenue for me to talk to Donald about what would happen if he suddenly passed.  And he agreed with me that his mother trying for custody was a possibility.  So now he gets to at some point talk to his mother about what might happen should he suddenly die.  (What a morbid topic, right?  But these are the realities of being a military family.)  I've already spoken to my parents on the matter of my sudden death (because even though Donald has a higher risk job, it could still happen) and happily they indicated they would support Donald in keeping the kids.  So yay!  But I think both he and I are dreading the conversation he'll have to have with his mother.  So here's hoping it turns out to be a good thing for us rather than something that bites us in the butt later.