Merry Christmas, everyone!

Hope everyone had a great Christmas! We really enjoyed our quiet first married Christmas. Since we have just moved, and I have been travelling so much, we decided to stay put and enjoy our first married Christmas alone in our new house. We were so busy, that it was hard to get into the spirit until the week of Christmas, but we did! We had decided against having big presents this year and splurge on our honeymoon. But I did end up getting my husband the PS3 he's been wanting all year, especially since I hadn't gotten him a wedding gift (he got me by surprise there) or even a birthday present (his birthday was 2 days after we moved, and the day we got our delivery from TMO, so we didn't really celebrate it). We had a lot of fun playing Call of Duty together, and watching the first season of MadMen on blue-ray (my gift from him) and relaxing together. We both had Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday off, so it was awesome! Looking forward to this week (we once again have Thursday afternoon, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday off for New Year's).

Hope everyone got a chance to spend time with loved ones!

Prioritizing

Ever since I went back to work full-time, I realize more and more how hard it is to be a dual career couple in the military. I know we face some of the same challenges that other dual career couples face at one time or another; but the lack of choice and flexibility in the military makes it that much harder for the non-military spouse to have a career as well. It's easy to find a job-- but maintaining a career is a special challenge!

It seems that in most modern dual career couples, both the husband and the wife make some sacrifices with flexibility to make it feasible for both of them to have a meaningful career. We don't have that luxury, and it makes it that much more challenging for us to balance our career and family life. Luckily, I have an amazingly understanding employer who's willing to work with me. I am able to work from home in North Carolina/wherever we happen to be at the time, telecommuting to my office in New York City. But the downside is I also travel a lot, which really limits the time we get to spend together. I never thought I'd be living and working in different cities! For example, we moved to NC on December 1st, and I that week off in order to coordinate the move. On December 6th, I was in DC until December 12th; then on December 14th, I left again and was in Boston until the 18th. Until recently, I was due in Atlanta on December 27th-30th (thankfully Santa intervened and cancelled that trip). Essentially, out of the 21 days I've been living in NC, I've only spent 10 of them actually in NC. And in January, February and March, I'll spend more time between New York, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta than I will at home with my husband. This is not even counting the 6 weeks this summer that I have to spend in New York City.

Another big difficulty is managing not just our family life but our family life within the USMC. My impression is there's almost an expectation that wives are just around to do things (like deal with the movers during a PCS). In civilian world, it's absolutely accepted, and these days, expected for a husband to take a personal day, for example, to deal with the movers 9or the cable guy, or the plumber or a sick child) if the wife has something important going on at work she absolutely cannot miss. Thus far, it seems like the military is far less flexible with things that just come up, and it's just assumed the wife will take care of it. I'm not saying at all that all military wives stay home (quite the contrary; there's actually a larger percentage of military wives who work than civilian wives). It's just that it's expected that the wife's job -- and life-- will come second. I feel sometimes like we've gone back in time, and it's been a HUGE adjustment!



I really want to spend more time with my husband; simple things like having dinner at home together seem like such a luxury. But of course, it's a huge trade-off. My salary allows us a lot more flexibility financially (not to mention. all those student loans I racked up in law school have to be paid off sometime!). And I really like my job a lot-- it's very fulfilling and rewarding, beyond the money. I just wish the people at the USAir counters in Jacksonville and Wilmington didn't recognize me already!

Uncomplicated Stuff Made Complicated, Part II

We'd read somewhere that the average military family loses around $700 at each PCS move, between setting up a new household and normal travel/not having a place to live expenses. Before we started, we decided we'd try to minimize that as much as possible, which is why we didn't want to just ditch stuff that the movers left behind. After we cleared out the apartment, we took our time. We had been promised delivery on Wednesday, December 1st, so we figured there was no need to get there before then. We stayed at a hotel in Alexandria on Monday night, since we had gotten a good rate. On Tuesday, I called the moving company; they weren't going to deliver on Wednesday after all. They were aiming for Thursday. So we decided to drive until it got dark on Tuesday, stop and spend the night somewhere, then continue.  Detail-- we had the kitty with us, so we had to either find a place where we could sneak her in, or a place that accepts pets. Luckily, we found a slightly shady Jameson Inn and were able to pay $10 to have her in the room with us. The next morning, Wednesday, I called the moving company to confirm delivery for Thursday. Oh that? It's now coming on Friday. And technically, they kept telling me, they had until Monday to deliver. Um, really? It's not like we're moving cross-country! It's 383 miles!

At any rate, we got to our new house, and decided we'd just camp out at the house rather than pay for another hotel. We did have some supplies-- a couple of towels, two pillows, a set of sheets, and a quilt that I had grabbed when the movers accidentally started packing my emergency bedding. Detail-- upon examination, I saved a twin-sized quilt. So the hubby and I ended up spending 2 nights on the floor, sharing a twin-sized quilt!

Finally, on Friday, our delivery showed up! Once again, I was surprised. And not pleasantly. First of all, they told me to expect them at 8 am, and they didn't show up until 10. Then, I noticed they'd sent us two guys with all of our stuff-- including an older guy, who looked (and turns out, he was) weaker than I am! I ended up helping them carry the couch into the living room, for example. Around noon, they were done unloading the truck, and I asked the guy who looked like he was in charge if they wanted to take a break before we started unpacking and organizing everything. After all, we'd opted for the full-service move, rather than taking money and doing it ourselves. At that point, the guy told me that they didn't unpack, that they were just "authorized" to unload the truck! I tried calling my hubby, but he was busy with his check in process and wasn't allowed to keep his phone on him. I freaked out. I told the movers that they at the very least needed to make sure the boxes were in the right rooms, since they had put boxes wherever they felt like. They begrugingly agreed to move boxes, but wanted me to point to every single box I wanted moved!

I tried my best, but they just kept calling me over to the different rooms and asking questions (hello? the boxes were labeled! Is it really that hard to figure out that the boxes that say Master Bedroom go in the master bedroom?!) Finally, they moved most of the boxes. I thought we'd gotten all of them, but as hubby and I unpacked over the weekend, we realized the boxes were still all over the place. Our desktop computer was in the living room, for example. I then asked him if he could please place our TV on our TV stand. He said-- surprise, surprise-- that he wasn't authorized to place the TV on a TV stand! Just put it in the general area where I wanted stuff. Are you kidding?

After much complaining, we ended up having the company send 2 women to help me, a week and a half later, of course. At first, I got the same treatment-- "Oh, no, ma'am, we just unpack, we can't actually put books on a shelf. Just tell us where you want them to generally go." Um, they're books-- I want them on the bookshelf! They were somewhat more reasonable though, and we did get somewhere. At least now we don't have any boxes left in the house, even though it's still a mess.

My husband's office told him that the movers were notorious for trying to take advantage of the wives in moves. And the two ladies who were sent to help me unpack after my husband freaked out on the moving company (they actually took HIS calls, though they ignored me) told me that, because the military pays the company by weight and not by the hour, we had to be really specific when booking. As in, ask for 2 days to pack (we discovered that the packers had just thrown a bunch of random stuff in boxes, and mixed up things like my husband's suits with a toolbox, resulting in damage); ask for the unpack and debris removal in writing; etc. Lesson learned! Hopefully the next PCS goes more smoothly!

Uncomplicated Stuff Made Complicated (or, Our First PCS Move)

If you've read some older posts, you know I've moved quite a few times. However, my eleven moves since college did not in any way prepare me for our first military move! As usual, I realized how simple things can become enormously complicated when you lose that element of control. This move has by far been the most stressful; it even beat moving into my first real New York City apartment. And I thought that had been the consummate crappy moving experience, since my roommate and I, having spent all our money on the deposits and outrageous brokers' fees, ended up renting an economy car for the day and making over twenty trips total between our respective sublets and our new apartment...and then proceeded to sleep on hardwood floors for a month. Somehow, our fully paid for, full service military move managed to be more stressful.

Full disclosure...some of the stress was brought on myself. I admit it! We had to check in by December 3rd. My husband graduated TBS on November 4th. In between that time, we also had the small matter of our wedding on November 20th, and decided to take a honeymoon the following week. Suffice to say that we flew back from Mexico on November 28th in the evening, only to have the movers show up at our apartment at 9 am on November 29th to start packing. Yes, you read that right.

As you can imagine, our apartment was pure chaos. Just to give you a snapshot, we had an entire room (formerly my office) devoted to wedding gifts and random boxes and other stuff (ranging from scuba gear to boxing and rock climbing gear to an actual, stand behind bar) that we never found room for in the tiny Virginia apartment. Our living room was lined with guest welcome bags left over from the wedding. Our closet was a complete disaster. We barely had time to unpack from Mexico, do the 5 loads of laundry that needed to get done, and pack a suitcase of essentials to take with us in the car before the movers started throwing our stuff (literally) into boxes. I ended up spending the entire day making sure the packers didn't accidentally pack things we needed to take in the car (like my work files and laptop and my husband's Alphas and a set of cammies, just in case the shipment got delayed) and trying to convince them to pack things they weren't authorized to pack (apparently-- even though in all of my moves, I've never encountered this issue-- they couldn't transport liquor or wine. A small issue when your husband has a bar and you have a Honda Accord to transport you, your husband, your cat and all your stuff that won't go in the moving truck the 363 miles between the old duty station and the new one).

Sidenote: If I never hear another mover use the words "I'm not authorized to do that, ma'am," it will be too soon.

But the bulk of the stress was definitely not caused by anything within our control. Ever since the unfortunate economy car move, I've hired movers. Usually, we've had at least four guys working. This time-- you know, because everything involving the military makes so much sense-- we had 2 guys show up. Yup. They sent two guys to pack an entire house. Oh, and detail --- they said they should finish packing, inventory, and loading the truck in 5 hours! As the morning wore on, I could tell the movers were concerned. One was still packing up our kitchen, and the other the office (a.k.a., the storage closet).  They still had our bedroom and the closets to pack up, the living room, the bathroom, and all the furniture to deal with, not to mention the inventory portion and loading the truck. They were also running out of boxes! It was outrageous-- they'd done a walk-through!

After we had three additional workers and loads more boxes show up, the long day finally wrapped up-- around 6 pm!  Of course, after the movers left, my husband and I found that they'd added some extra stuff to our take with us pile-- all of our cleaning supplies, our iron, a giant pack of toilet paper, and, inexplicably, our scuba gear. So now we had to get 4 boxes of booze; two sets of scuba gear; a giant pack of toilet paper; a plastic bin of cleaning supplies; a bucket; a swiffer; an iron; the cat's gear, including a litter box for the road; two suitcases; a tote bag of important papers; a large cooler containing the contents of our freezer, including the frozen top tier of our wedding cake; 3 garment bags of uniforms; two adults; and a cat in a carrying case in our Honda Accord. Yeah, it was as comfortable as it sounds!

To be continued...

Craziness!

Hello everyone,

My apologies-- it has been a very long time, I know! I started a new job with a  lot of travel; we got married and went on a fabulous honeymoon; and my husband graduated from TBS! Oh, and we had our first PCS move to Camp LeJeune. We're now in our third home this year-- needless to say, it's been a crazy, crazy year! And I don't see things slowing down for the foreseeable future, either.

But I'm going to stay on top of Suits to Boots! Promise!