For my regular readers (those who don’t come here ONLY for MilSpouse Friday Fill-In) may have noticed that I haven’t written a real post in… oh, about a month. Of course, I still blog once or twice a month over at SpouseBuzz.Catch me over there, too!

On the job front.
I started my new, full-time job on July 25th. I’m working for a tech company and am creating and heading their public relations and marketing department. The hope is in the next 12-18 months that I’ll be hiring one or two people under me.

It’s less than 10 miles from our house (yay! no 3-4 hour roundtrip commute to Seattle!) and the pay is quite good, especially for this side of the sound. Hopefully, we’ll be able to pay off all our debts except the house and Huzzy’s truck within the next year. That would be SO nice!

I’m still doing the respite care approximately 16-20 hours a month and then, of course, my reserve duty. With all three jobs, I end up doing 18-20 day stretches with no day off. Quite the change from only working 2-7 days a MONTH that I’ve done since March 2010. But, again, it’ll be good to pay off bills. We are going to continue living on the same budget that we did when I was on unemployment, with one exception… we are going to get $100 each a month for “play” money to do whatever we want with it.

This is something I’d suggest for any couple to do: if you can afford it, give a set amount of money to each person each month. Each person can choose to do what they want with it and spend it on whatever they want. I’m a saver and will save the money and Huzzy is a spender and will spend it that month or the next month. He can buy MORE fishing gear or things for his motorcycles or whatever he wants and I have NO say in it as long as it comes from his personal money. Same goes for me. That way, there’s no arguing about “wasted” money from either side because… hey… that was their money to do what they want with.

Case-in-point: Earlier this year, Huzzy bought an Army trailer for $400 that he thought he could sell for $1,000 (since that’s what they were going for online). It’s still sitting in our yard. It hasn’t been sold. So while I can bemoan the fact that it’s taking up space in our yard, I have no reason to complain that we spent $400 on something and haven’t gotten our money back. That’s Huzzy’s problem because it’s his money.

I also started volunteering back in May as a kitten foster mom for the local humane society. To date, I’ve volunteered for 536 hours. I foster kittens and so kittens without moms the humane society says to log 10 hours a day and for kittens WITH moms (like the ones I have now), I log 8 hours a day. Woo-hoo! I love volunteering and there’s nothing better than coming home to cute, sweet kittens who make you laugh by their playful antics and then make you smile by the way they fall asleep in your arms.

On to my medical fun.
I saw an orthopedic surgeon in June at the Naval Hospital and he basically said he thought the radiologist report from my MRI in May was “overzealous” and that he wasn’t going to do anything with it (which, from talking to many medical type people… doesn’t happen. All orthos they’ve seen defer to the radiologist report). So he gave me a cortisone shot because he said all that was wrong with me was inflammation in my shoulder. Guess what? It didn’t work. Surprise, surprise. If it was that easy, my body would have fixed itself in the last 18 months.

So I went to a second opinion out in the civilian world. And that ortho wanted me to follow the radiologist report and get an MRI with dye contrast. He ALSO said I showed signs of neck problems and ordered an MRI for that (helloooo… I’ve been asking for that since the beginning, too!). My MRI was yesterday and we’ll see what the report says when I go back to ortho #2 next week for a reading. FYI… having dye injected into your shoulder joints is NOT pleasant. And it’s much worse after the procedure and the next day. Yay, fun. Hopefully this diagnoses it, though, but Ortho #2 said he doesn’t expect it to… he expects it to just rule things out.

I just need this thing fixed. Or the darn arm to just be cut off. One of the two would help. I wake up a minimum of 3-4 hours a night from the pain/discomfort and have to find another sleeping position. The only reason I haven’t been kicked out of the Navy for it yet is because it’s an injury that happened on Navy time. But there is still that possibility if this can’t get fixed or if it can’t get fixed well enough. Joy of joys.

On to Navy fun.
Huzzy was supposed to join his crew in the middle of their patrol (deployment). That never happened since the boat ended up having missions that prevented them from surfacing. So, in order to make up for that, he’ll be joining the opposite crew (non-fast attack subs have two crews) for THEIR patrol and then turning around and doing his own crew’s patrol after that.

So, yeah… between now and next May when Huzzy gets off sea duty and on to shore duty… not going to see him more than a couple of months total. And not all at once. Par for the course, I guess since this will be our third set of holidays married and I still have yet to spend a Thanksgiving or Christmas with him. We did end up spending the 4th of July with each other and that day, combined with ONE Easter in the 2 ½ years that we’ve been married, constitutes the entirety of our total holidays spent together since we were married.

So that’s where I am right now. Three days into a 19 day stretch with no days off from work (since this weekend is drill weekend) and loving being back in the working world and making money to get this family out of all debt. I have come to HATE debt of all kinds, though I can see the need for mortgages and SHORT car loans (I will never have more than a 3 year car loan again and want to get to the point of being able to pay outright for a car).