First off, all spotting and bleeding has officially stopped for Jen, and we are both happy that her body is back to normal once again. However, now instead of stressing over a miscarriage, we are stressing over our impending PCS, or Permanent Change of Station for those military illiterates out there. Broken down, it means we are moving to another base.
After having spent three years and one month at Fort Bliss, I am being reassigned to Goodfellow AFB near San Angelo, TX. Yes, this is a whole 6 1/2 hour drive away. Much better than when we moved from Germany. It is time for me to be an instructor and mold our young Soldiers’ minds into something of worth for our military community. This will be good for my career and give me that rounded out experience I need in order to continue advancing through the ranks.
During the last week, Jen has been on a cleaning and organizing spree around the house, trying to get everything ready for the move. This has resulted in an influx of trash for our bin as we realize there is a lot of stuff that we’ve held on to that was not needed. Unfortunately, it also means that the day after trash gets picked up, our bin is nearly full already, and getting fuller as I also weed the back yard so it’s not a jungle when we leave.
The biggest cause for stress is trying to figure out where we will live for the next few years. Base housing is too small for our family, so we are looking off base again like we did here in El Paso. The first house we looked into, and actually drove all the way to San Angelo to check out, turned out to be a no-go. The house was built in 1950 and the landlord is refusing to have a lead and asbestos assessment done on the house. This is against Texas law, and I have already reported him to the Goodfellow housing office. Luckily, a few more houses recently appeared on the market, but will be unavailable until we’ve already been there for about a week. Not to worry though, we already have a month reserved in the base lodging while we look for a house.
Tonight is our last official night sleeping in our current house. Tomorrow we will pack everything into the cars, get them weighed full, then go to the Ft. Bliss hotel. We will come back and eat dinner at home here one last night, then unplug the fridge so it is prepped for the packers later this week. I would say that yesterday we reached about 75-80% readiness for the move, and should finish today or tomorrow.
It is a bittersweet move, and John is upset about leaving El Paso, but this is all part of the military life. As I’ve been saying all week, and everyone seems to agree with me, leaving is nice, but moving sucks. I’m ready to leave this unit, for many reasons, not all of them bad, and get to somewhere new. I will sorely miss all of our friends here in El Paso, especially my Brother Knights who have provided so much support over the past years. I know that San Angelo has a heavy Catholic population, though, and has at least four councils and one assembly for me to join. One of our first missions as a family will be to find the right congregation for us.
Until next time,
~Bryan
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