Hurry Up and Wait

Anyone in the military will be very familiar with this term because it aptly defines life in the Armed Forces. I'll give you an example: despite the fact we were under pressure to make a decision to take orders to Germany, once we finally did, we were put in a holding pattern for nearly four weeks as we now continue to wait for said orders.

That's right, even though I have set up this blog in order to record our journey to Germany, the fact is, it could all fall apart right before our very eyes. You see, nothing in the military is definite without orders...orders we do not yet have. Both Dean and I are very anxious to get these papers in our hands, especially because NOTHING can be done without them.

This is extremely stressful since most military members know within 6-9 months that they will be moving overseas, and can plan their move accordingly. We have less than 4 months. And two of the major things that need to be done, no one will even take our calls without these orders.

Case-in-point: when you move overseas, each member of the family needs to go through what is called an Overseas Screening. This is essentially a physical to make sure you are in good health, before you move to a place that may not be able to handle any health issues you might have. Since my daughter is beginning Kindergarten in the Fall, I will already need to remove her in the middle of the school year. With this move (and impending jet lag), I know she will miss a lot of school, and I was hoping to limit that by getting her screening done before she starts. I called the woman in charge three weeks ago, I called her last week, I called her this week...still no word.

I didn't exactly tell her that we didn't have orders, I just asked if we needed them to start this process. I guess that was enough for her to ignore my calls. But believe me, once we do get those orders, the next call will not be a nice one.

The second thing we need to do but can't without orders is set up our move. But I'll go more into that later (oh yeah, I'll defnitely get more into that later) :) But for now, just keep your fingers crossed that we will get the orders this week. And stay tuned, because believe me, this is just the beginning of the drama!!