What I Did Today

* I got up and fed my kids breakfast.

* I did a bunch of laundry and housecleaning. It never ends, but you all know how that goes.

* I rejoiced some more that our command sponsorship (it was supposed to take 6 months) got approved after only 2 weeks. That means we'll all be moving to Korea together in October. Yay!

* I finally faced reality and got on PlanMyMove (most fabulous site if you're doing a military move) to make a day-by-day plan of what needs to be done between now and when the movers come on September 26th.

* I grimaced that by putting it off this long I am already several weeks behind where the calendar thinks I should be in my preparations by now. Oh well.

* I noticed one of the to-do items is "Find Age Appropriate Books on New Locations Overseas." Sure, I can do that. To Amazon.com!

* I picked out several children's books on the Korean alphabet, picture books of Korean geography and culture, and a few Korean folk tales. I stopped to read the reviews about one book I wasn't sure I wanted- and read a review left by a mommy who said they lived in Korea for a year when her kids were small, and how much she loved how the book helped them to remember the experiences they had there.

* I started to cry, realizing that someday I will be that mommy, hoping to preserve the amazing experiences my kids will be almost too small to remember, and having it really, really set in for the first time that we are going to a whole new world for two whole years- new food, new customs, new culture, new language, not to mention new sights and new friends and neighbors that come with any move... and I cried some more. Happy tears, sad tears, excited tears, anxious tears.

* I bought the books and checked that one lonely item off my 3-month long To Do List.

* I blogged about it, sighed, took a deep breath and then got back to the laundry. Next on the list: the treadmill, groceries, passport photos.




Here's a waterfall on the island of Cheju, where I hope we get to spend our 10th anniversary next spring.

The Question

Life is full of questions- the big ones, like "Will you marry me?" or "Is it time to add to our family?" There's the little ones too, "Do you want Spagettios or Mac and Cheese?" or, as we are asking right now, "Who colored on the rug?"

The tricky part is how complicated the answers can be sometimes. Our big question right now is simply this- What should we do?

There are several options ahead of us, and we don't have a lot of time to decide. Moreover, once we do decide, there's no going back. The Army doesn't tolerate waffling, for obvious reasons.

There are a million little questions involved in each of the options we choose, too. There are really no easy answers here.

Do we opt for the command sponsored tour and risk not having it approved? That would leave us apart for at least 4-6 months, possibly up to 24. We don't know if we could live on post, we don't know if we could bring Skeeter, and we understand that non-soldier hospital care (i.e. having another baby) is outsourced locally. I feel weird about that.

Do we opt for a hardship tour and just spend the 12 months apart? The kids and I would stay in the US, we would have some additional separation pay each month...but we would be apart for a year! Not to mention, Daddy might be back in the deployment bucket by fall of 2013.

Regardless , we will be apart for some amount of time- what do the kids and I do? Stay in Virginia? Move back to Utah? Move back to Idaho? Just be a nomad and visit everyone I can think of?

Do I try to keep working? Do I retire from nursing for now? Or forever? Can we even afford for me not to work yet?

*sigh*

My parents always taught me that Heavenly Father helps those who help themselves. So instead of waiting around for the answer to fall in my lap, I suppose I better get to work- the more information I can get, the easier it will be to decide, right?

Don't worry. I'm still going to be praying like crazy for the guidance we need, too.

I am thinking a lot of Elder Christofferson's talk from this last conference, and keep hearing the voice of the gardener cutting down the currant bush: "Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be." I think I've had some branches cut back and I'm looking and seeking for how the Gardener would have me grow now.

I have the calming influence of the gospel in my life, so I know without a doubt that everything will turn out as it should (however that may be), and the growing/cutting back pains are only a temporary time.