Hot and Cold

Alan and I are running into quite a few little conflicts lately. They aren’t anything serious, fortunately. It just seems like a lot of stuff is still up in the air.

The first issue is me getting a job. Alan wants me to work, but at the same time, he really doesn’t. He loves the fact that I’m home and take care of things here because it means he never has to clean the bathroom or the kitchen and only occasionally does he have to do any housework at all. But money is, of course, a major issue when you’re living on only one income. He’s also worried that I don’t have friends. And it’s true that at best I have acquaintances here, but I’m not sure that would really change if I was working. When Pez and his wife first moved in, he suggested that I make friends with Katie, but apparently he’s not too into that idea anymore. He’s decided that she’s kind of trashy.

On the plus side, Alan just got promoted. He’s now a Specialist, so he gets a pay raise with the bump in grade. In November he’ll get another pay raise because then he’ll have two years in service. That should mean an extra $300 a month, total.

Conflict the second is the idea of moving. When our lease is up next June, Alan wants to find a new place to live. I’m both on board with the idea and not. Admittedly, management here is retarded. And I mean that in the most literal, diagnostic sense of the word. It’s like dealing with the learning impaired. But they’re pretty quick to get things repaired when we put in a work order and it’s a nice enough complex. Also, I hate moving and I’m already in for enough of it with Alan in the Army.  We’d also have to do the entire move ourselves because the Army will only pay for a move during PCS, so I’m not particularly keen on trying to find a new apartment. Especially since Alan could end up someplace entirely different just a few months after we moved.

The third issue is that the deployment for the unit is very uncertain right now. They could deploy as early as February, but we’ve been told that it’s 99% certain that it’ll get pushed back about 14 months. Unfortunately, if it does, that means we could get stationed someplace new before then. And if Alan gets PCS’d to a new unit, that unit could already be deployed, which means we move, settle in, and he leaves within the month. I’m fine with dealing with that as it comes, but right now, with nothing decided for sure, there are a lot of possibilities to consider, none of them all that pleasant. I think the best case scenario is that the deployment gets pushed back and we stay in Colorado for another year and a half at least.

The last conflict is that Alan wants to tell his mom about the baby while she and Kurt are here at the end of the month. I really want to wait until September or at least mid-August. He just thinks that Lisa will guess because I won’t be drinking, especially since she wants to go on a tour of the Coors brewery. I should point out that I rarely drink around them anyway and I never drink beer at all. I think it’s really just because he’s excited. The only problem I can see that might necessitate telling them is any morning sickness I might be dealing with then.

Anyway, just wanted to put that out there. Arrange it in my brain, sort of. Alan has leave starting on Monday and Richard and Kathy will be visiting next week. Should be good times. I’m pretty nauseous today. I’m going to try to go up to the gym, but I’m going to wait until the office is open so that the bathroom won’t be locked in case I need it rather suddenly.

~Liz