Stepford here I come...

In an effort to find things to do during the day other than sit on the couch and eat copious amounts of generic Lucky Charms, I joined the local spouses association today.

It's an all ranks club so hopefully I will be in with a diverse group of women, not just the Stepfords. I barely joined a sorority in college so large groups of women just aren't really my thing. As long as I don't have to grow 5" and lose 30 lbs overnight to be "in" I guess it will be fine...otherwise you will have to roll me off the couch and pull the marshmallows shapes out of my hair.

Jinx...

The hubby swears this place must be jinxed.

• He buys a craft table to work on models it's missing half the parts.
• We get our car only to have a hit and run in the Home Depot 4 hours later.
• All the doors in this place have bolt locks on them that need to be removed.
• The shelves of our furniture go missing (but were finally brought to us by the carrier).

The list goes on but then there was last night...Its been raining a crap load around here. Sadly our basement floods. Floods really bad. It comes in one window, travels under the wannabe wall into his model making room, under a second wall into the main basement, behind the washer and dryer and then finally down the drain.

What was even more fun was that the harder it rained then it started coming in through a second window and of course finally started trickling in the from the third window. I called the service folks who told me he'd put me on a list but that there was nothing they could do for me right then. All of his model boxes are wet, we moved them to a different part of the basement. Luckily I read some where that folks might get damp in the basement and shouldn't leave anything on the floor. So other than his models nothing else got wet.

We still have standing water in the basement this morning so I will be giving the service folks another call to ensure they come out here and fix this. Why? Oh maybe because there is a hurricane on the coast and will end up sending more of this evil rain our way.

So is this house jinxed or what?

ETA: I called and apparently they do have my name and address. The sad part was as I spoke to the lady telling her my situation I heard a little gasp. You know that "Oh shit" gasp. I commented that she had already been yelled at this morning. She sniffled and said yes. I promised her I wouldn't yell but wanted to verify that our work order existed. She was so happy that I didn't take her head off. Poor lady, its taken me what 34 years to learn how to direct my anger to the right person - the work order clerk isn't it. I really hope she has a better day than how its started.

Will you be my friend?

For weeks now we've been waiting and waiting for a MWR (MoraleWarefareRecreation) event on post. There was a beer tasting at the confrence center today and we went. It was pretty fun. There were two local breweries, a KC brewery and for some silly reason Bud also showed. We had a few samples, tried some of the finger foods and up pops people we knew were here in the same class as the hubby.

We will call her Texas the man's wife. Texas when I first met her almost 3 years ago I thought was a bit snotty and self absorbed. She seemd to only focus on going back to TX regardless of what it might do for her hubby's career and on these silly special type of headlights for the BMW she ordered. Usually I am right on with my first observations but tonight I was proved wrong.

Talking was a little strained as we both worked through the conversation. Its been a while since the time I last saw her but things went well. We both talked about things we wanted to do and what we were doing to keep ourselves busy. I asked if she scrapbooked which was well a little but that she could do more. I then asked if she wanted to hang out some time and go look at things etc. I then mentioned the Starbucks we found and her eyes lit up. Aha! I told her where is was and then I gave her my number. She is much more down to earth than the last time we met. Maybe time or maybe I just met her on a bad day when just like me I was so ready to just go home back to a real place with real things and our family and friends.

So I pretty much asked her if she wanted to be my friend...its like 5th grade all over again but this time I have killer cookies I baked myself in a tin right behind the Senseo coffee maker!

Ummm hey mister can I have a job?

So I was given the directive to blog more as now I have a ton of free time on my hands. Even with all this free time I haven't been feeling all that bloggy. Things are picking up here though in the sense that we've been doing a few more things than normal.

I met the school commondant last night. He is a 3 star general but apparently feined (he may have been genuine I'm just being a brat) interest in my graduate studies. While chatting to the same friend that ordered me to blog her smart remark she madewas that I should have said to the general something along the lines about why I don't have a frickin' job yet. I did mention that I am jobless but in a little more politically correct fashion. When speaking about my graduate work his wife mentioned that she hoped I would find a job comiserate to my degree. I then mentioned how I worked as a GS-11 in Germany and hope to quickly find a position comiserate to my prior position. He seemed amused about the conversation.

What did turn out to be more fun was at the end of the little meeting party dealiebobber as we were given the directive to start exiting, I cracked a joke to the person asking me to leave - " Uh so can I shout FIRE and see what happens?" Needless to say he was less than amused. Before he wandered off I noticed he was a LTC opps and didn't have much of a sense of humor. I still thought the joke was funny.

So we left our little shindig with my hubby going did you really telling him you wanted a job? I am just not the Army Wife I am supposed to be...I'm a little punk who likes to joke with 3 star generals about not having a job.

Please welcome Ms Lilah

ArmyArtilleryWife just had her little girl - Lilah Margaret. Her hubby got back from Iraq a few days ago to spend his R&R with his new little family. Say "hello" and send some congrats to the new Momma.

Well Done!

Bad Senseo, Bad Senseo

It's the middle of the night and I am awake, wide awake. Not from stress but from coffee. I bought a Senseo just before we came back to the States. The spouse asked if I would finally use the damn thing so I did. Well since we are trying for a bun in the oven I have really cut out caffine except for an occaional Cherry Coke. So at 2100 one cup of coffee has me totally wired and watching Celebrity Poker at the moment.

Ugh!

The elusive animal

On Friday I went down to the local CPO (Civilian Personnel Office) to register for a priority placement program. Its set up for DoD Civilians displaced either like me due to a spouse moving, due to the 5 year rule requiring them to go back to the States or due to a reduction of the workforce.

While registering and talking, she was polite but well to be honest she seemed like the doomsday sayer when she basically told me that work here at this base is few and far between. I worked for 5 1/2 years in Germany. I worked my way up from a GS-05 to a GS-11. Basically I worked from an intern to a journeyman. So it was quite the blow to hear that I would be lucky to get a GS-09. If I end up taking a job at the GS-05 grade level it will be about a $10,000 loss in pay.

The money isn't the issue perse but having to work my arse off to find a job in my career field of HR to only come to a new duty station to end up probably taking what ever I can get. See, the issue is that working overseas doesn't give you status in Federal employment. You then have 3 years once you hit the states to get a job, work three years and then you can come and go in the Federal workforce for the rest of your working life.

Why would I want to stay government or Federal? We have 9 years to go and several more moves. At least the GS world once you get your foot in the door you can usually find your job at the next duty station. My frustration is that even with my old boss, my current boss, my division chief and my director sending nice emails and my resume to two places here - there is no work and its not looking good.

The other issue is trying to find a job here in the private sector. Employers aren't stupid. They see the foreign address figure out that I am military and some how I just never get offered a position. It's really hard to prove that kind of discrimination and well its not that hard to blame a manager who may end up having me as an employee for what 1-2 years.

So I am in that stuck stage that I have read about and heard from a myriad of military spouses - so very often we are over educated and under employed. The Girl took six months to find herself a job in Germany and although its not quite in her career field she's happy to be doing something that uses at least some of her skills. It is so frustrating for those who want to work outside the home only to be told that you will always start at the bottom over and over again regardless of what you have been doing for the past six years. I guess I wish I had more of the notion to figure out something I like to do at home but until I find it I'd like find work that utilizes my skills, knowledge and education.

So work in my field may be an elusive animal and I Elmer Fudd waiting to capture my prize.

Forget the shelves, send karma to my friend

On Monday I was thinking about a friend of mine and her family. I picked up the phone and gave her a call to see how Germany was treating them. Unfortunately her husband is seriously ill. He's in the hospital under a medically induced coma with pneumonia. Yesterday was his birthday and hopefully she was able to see him awake. I am still a little slack-jawed over the whole situation and have been thinking about them ever since.

Please keep my friend and her spouse in your thoughts this week that he recovers quickly and completely.

Toils of a military life

Well the movers came Tues and dropped off our stuff. We are slowly putting things away. There are some pretty bad scratches on our furinture but the one that beats all is that the shelving for the brand new schrank we got just before leaving are missing. We can't find it anywhere.

I am hoping that the mover who took our wardrobe that we couldn't use has the shelves, otherwise we are screwed. Back to putting everything together and everything else in its proper place. Umm. hey if you pray whether it be to God, Buddah or Mother Earth could you say a little prayer that our shelves show up some way or another?