Waiting.
Over the past few weeks i have been living in a limbo of dates, information, changes, and rules. Yes this is like everyone else in the world. But my world is about to flip upside down. 100% My husband’s in the Navy, he’s a Submariner. Which in other words means what he does is top secret. So I won’t be talking about that here at all. I have got to follow OPSEC at all times. I can’t put any dates or official timelines of what he’s doing or when/where he’s going. All that is classified. One big secret. I can’t even tell his family what is going on when they call or ask. But just like all people in the military we will eventually PCS (move). This PCS will be a major life changer.
You see we’re not PCSing with him to his next location. We are going to Geo-bach. Geo-baching is where the service member lives in one place and the family lives in another. Because of circumstances that I can’t go into, this is the best option for our family. I cant say anything about where he will be or for how long he will be there. But, I can say anything i want about where I will personally be living. That is not against the rules, because I’m not in the military I’m just a spouse. So where am I moving you may ask, I’m moving to Missouri.
Now some people in my family and and his family are going to be kind of ticked off about the fact that I’m moving to Missouri. Because they want me to move where they live or where I’m actually from. But I don’t want to move there. My hometown is not the best location anymore sorry to say. I love my family, I love his family there isn’t any lack of love. I am just choosing the best possible location for my children. Not for me, BUT for my children. I have to think about cost-of-living, I have to think about daycare, I have to think about school, I have to think about school for me, I have to think about distance away from/to get to my husband. Missouri offers me a lot.
Free childcare…. how could I possibly get free childcare? Well all three of my children will be in school this coming fall, so thats 8 hours a day M-F of them being taken care of. And my mother happens to live in Missouri. Who else would you trust to watch your children if you can’t be there, than your own mother. So that’s free childcare.
Cost of living….. the cost of living in Missouri is drastically different/lower then different places along the coast. I will be able to save money by moving to the middle of the country. Enough money that my husband will have extra spending cash in his location.
Schooling for the children… the school in this new town is small enough to give my children the one-on-one attention that they need, but it’s also funded enough to give them the support that they need for the educational programs that they are in.
Schooling for me… I have looked into it and I have been accepted to a school in Missouri to better myself and to further my education. This will help my husband with the costs of our household after he gets out of the military. And allow us to have extra spending cash/start saving before he gets out.
Where will your husband live? Split paycheck? ….. if I’m not with my husband at the base he is located at the military will give him a barracks(dorm) room. Everything he will need will be covered. He will even get three meals a day from the military. He will just need spending money for all the things that he needs that are ‘extra’. His bills will still be paid because I will be paying them with the paycheck that is funding the family. He will get a percentage of the money that we are saving on rent to use each month for his personal 'extras’/what’s. His paycheck will still go to cover the family’s monthly needs/bills. But because the cost of living for where I will be is so drastically different then where he will be we will be able to save money each month for him to have cash as well as me.
Sooo, It seem like I have a plan if you looked at everything i have post so far. For the most part I do have a plan. Then there is this 'wonderful’ thing called Attendance. The issue of attendance for my children at school is what’s holding all of this in limbo. Plus, military housing has some 'wonderful’ rules and with those 'wonderful’ rules you have to apply to stay in housing if it goes over a set time frame( at least that’s what’s happening to us). An extension of residency must be filled out and approved by housing. There are stipulations that you have to follow or meet. Plain and simple I’m not going to meet the stipulations and I know that 100%, soooo I will have to leave here sooner than I thought. But having to leave means my kids are going to miss days.
And people ask/say:
why don’t you just put them in the new school when you move? It’s not that easy. Schools where I’m located run from September to June. The schools where I’m moving run from August to May. If you look at that calendar, its a month difference in attendance. Example: child started school in September moves june 1st and still has 15 days left of school according to current District.. the new district ends school at the end of may… thats 15 days missed.
So why don’t you just wait till the end of the school year? Is kind of hard to wait to the end of the school year if your homeless! (remember i talked about the 'wonderful’ housing rules above) Plus the town we live in here is a tourist attraction during the summer/fall and I can’t afford a hotel for 15 days at $150+ a night.
So now I’m sitting here talking to two different school districts in two different locations in the country. Trying to figure out how I’m going to move my children across the country and not have them fail and have to repeat their current grades. And Waiting is all i can do. Waiting for answers. Waiting for information. Waiting for official dates. Waiting waiting waiting.