Things in SATE land have been quite chaotic to say the least for the past several months.  Summer vacation, as parents everywhere know, never is and with the PCS Fairly gazing lovingly upon us it has been a little worse.  Throw in an adoption and adding a teenager to the house and the crazy meter pegs.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

May 2:  The Czar moves in permanently.

June 6:  Last day of school for all parties involved (‘cept me – I was done May 28 with all my work for the semester)

June 6 – 8: The Queen B and I spend a lovely weekend at Route 66 Raceway getting a nitro fix.  Oh how I love my nitro.

June 13 – 15th:  Father’s Day Camping Trip.  When we commence on our big adventure this Friday, the plan is to go to Ft. Bliss by way of South Dakota because we’ll have a week before our housing is available and because with three kids and two dogs in the cars, we thought short stretches would be best.  So we took a couple of trips to make sure that everything in the camper works and that the newness of camping had worn off a little bit.  All went well and a good time was had by all.  I should interject at this point that the campers next to us were obnoxious.  From the 10 or 11 year old kid that cried to his mom that my boys were “picking on him and calling him names” that I subsequently heard calling a little girl on the beach a “fat bitch” to his mother who is one of those people that tells you not only her whole life story but those of her children within the first five minutes of meeting her AND THEN proceeds to drink all our beer by the campfire and including the husband who’s only audible presence all weekend was arguing with his wife on Sunday morning.  “Will you just use your fucking head?”  Sounds like an asshole, but the wife didn’t seem real great at thinking for herself so I understand that frustration.  On the bright side, her four year old daughter and our five year old son got along famously all weekend and that’s always fun to watch.  The five of us had a nice time.  The weather was great and no one got hurt.  Perfect.

June 20 -22.  WORST. CAMPING. TRIP. EVER.

This weekend was our first trip with the dogs.  It would have have been fine except for a few little “issues”.  First, like a good proactive dog owner, I treated the dogs with flea and tick repellant the morning of the trip.  Well, Champ proceeded to lick the stuff off Maddie’s neck.  Now I know what nerve gas works like.  He got so sick that he was throwing up in the truck ten minutes after we left the house (after seeming okay when we left).  By the time we got to the campground (about 50 minutes later), he was in a full on “episode” thanks to the nerve agent in the tick medicine.  Including eating leaves and dirt, extreme thirst and a mini-seizure.  I honestly thought my dog was going to die right there.  He recovered quickly after some more water and a little time but in the middle of the night, the nausea returned.  Can I ask you what is a more wonderful sound to hear in the middle of the night while laying semi-awake in a pop-up campier than the sound of a dog  barfing his guts out?

To improve upon that, with gas nearly $4.00 a gallon, I have to drive the dogs home in the morning because they’re not allowed on the hiking trails.  UGH.  To all you useless pet owners who don’t clean up after them and thus ruin it for everyone I say a mighty “Fuck you!  Thanks for ruining everything for the rest of us.”  But I bite the bullet and take the puppies home and return to the park for a day of hiking, fun and sun.  Another day with perfect weather.

One small problem:  The Khan.  See, he’s five, right?  And eating and drinking are not his priority.  Playing and running are.  Well, with temps in the mid 80′s that’s a bad idea.  He proceded to get dehydrated or a bit of heat exhaustion or something.  Saturday night of this big adventure HE was the one throwing up in the camper.  To make it worse, The Khan feels really bad about things like throwing up.  After he was potty trained – the very rare accident would cause a meltdown -”I’m a bad boy!” kind of thing.  So it’s the middle of the night and his majesty is vomiting and crying and apologizing and all I want to do is sleep in my nice comfy bed in my house instead of my camper.  UGH.

June 28 -29th:  Niece’s wedding and Twins – Brewers game.  Very fun.  I have determined that every time I see the Twins play in the dome two great things happen:  The Twins win and the Yankees lose.  Granted this is based on only two observation opportunities, but the potential is there.  If it is true, I wish I had season tickets.  I hate the Yankees so much.  I don’t hate the Brewers but the way they played that day definitely earned them the loss.

July 1:  Queen B goes to Houston.  I miss her so much.

July 3:  Finalization of the Czar’s adoption and cookout in Tunnel City

July 4:  The farewell tour continues at my mother-in-law’s house.

July 5:  Repeat July 4 at my mother’s house

July 6:  Repeat above except as a welcome-home party for a friend’s kid that just got back from Basic and AIT.

And here we are:  Tomorrow the movers show up to pack our stuff.  Thursday the truck is loaded and Friday we start driving to El Paso.  So despite this teaser round of bloggy mediocrity (I know bloggy goodness and this isn’t bloggy goodness), you’ll definitely be blogless until the 21st.

At least the matter of how I’ll amuse myself in El Paso is settled.  I applied for admission to the PhD program in Management at NMSU and have been accepted.  Classes begin August 18.  Get ready for two years of my bitching about that!

Stay safe and come back in two weeks for the latest.  Peace.

1. With the foreclosure/short sale event comes an overwhelming sense of failure. This failure began when I took the family to Michigan for the shit-job in the first place. Yes, this is my fault. No I am not overstating that and the feeling is literally soul-crushing.

2. I am a business professional with a God-Damn MBA. This should not have happened and now, given the fact that most positions for people of my theoretical stature include a background / credit check, I am now untouchable from an employer’s perspective. Would you trust someone to manage your assets that can’t even manage their own? In a nutshell, all I got for that fucking degree was a bigger pile of debt. Go. Me.

3. In two months and two weeks I will be out of a job. Again. My early recon of jobs where we’re going is less than positive. Let us also not forget the whole credit check thing. I hope the AAFES Burger King is hiring. ¿Le gustaría fritas con eso?

4. My husband has no control over his earning capacity. Therefore, this financial recovery is all on me. But I have to change jobs annually for who knows how long and at who knows what salary? Anyone care to speculate on how long it will take to rectify the foreclosure loss to either the VA or the Bank at yet another 50% or greater pay cut? I’d give you the projections but both the loss amount and disposable income available to allocate toward it are unknown at this time. I would speculate it is somewhere in the ball park of for-god-damn-ever.

On the plus side, though, he’s got job security and is progressing merrily along his professional path. Go. Him. As long as he’s employed where he is, at least we don’t need to worry about health care. The insurance company is a complete pain in the ass to deal with but we don’t worry about losing coverage.

5. Despite the fact that I’m stupid enough to not take down the ASFK blog, I know deep down that another adoption is completely out of the question. There is absolutely no way that we’ll be able to accomplish both a long-term financial recovery and another adoption. Probably a good thing because what kind of parents lose their house? But the desire to do it is something that never leaves you. I can tell you that I will die still thinking that there were more children in this world waiting for me to be their mother. Sometimes, truthfully, I wish that day would be soon. Don’t even start, okay? I’m not stupid, well, I am stupid. I am not suicidal. I would never leave my kids for anyone else to raise. That would be inconceivable. I just want to not hurt anymore. I need some good things to finally happen and that’s not very god damn likely.

6. In a nutshell, I am no longer in control of my destiny. I must resign myself to the fact that because of 20 years of bad choices, I no longer have options. I go where I’m told, do what I’m told and make the best of it. I will proceed the rest of my days settling for whatever pieces of joy that the laws of karma and serendipity grant me. How great does that sound? I will learn to throw tea parties no one attends and how to be seen and not heard. I am not in control. I will never be in control again. Lest you rear your ugly head at me, I will clarify that marrying my current husband does not fall into the classification of one of those bad choices. But there has been too much settling. Settling for the shitbag I married the first time. Settling for the easy option for both my undergraduate and graduate degree and, apparently, teaching my older children to do the same. If they ever read this damn blog, I would tell them right now to quit. fucking. settling. Push yourself to the limits while you can before life does it for you. I learned that ten years too late and it didn’t sink in fully until now. If you push yourself now and put yourself first, you will not end up in the position I find myself in today. That position, kids, is screwed and it is not pleasant.

This is what it feels like to watch your hopes and dreams die of the cancer that is the mortgage crisis. Keep in mind that we deliberately didn’t buy more home than we could afford and we didn’t think we were bad people. We made a move because the Army wanted us to. We lost our BAH, we took a pay advance to make repairs to our house that we hoped would make it sell faster. The net result was a loss in our monthly income of $2800.00. We moved. I went to work. Daycare and commuting costs meant that we did not recoup any of that income loss. We were struggling before we left Michigan because I needed to be working but could not find work (after recovering from that year with 20/400 vision, that is). Unemployment in Michigan is 7.1% people. Compete in that market. I dare you. Also during that time, the bottom fell completely out of the real estate market. There are over 700 foreclosure listings in the zip code where our house is located right now. 51% of home sales closed in February 2008 were short sales. You cannot compete against that kind of market pressure. Our house is great to us but nothing special to a buyer. Why would a prospect buy our house when they can get a better deal elsewhere? The answer is they don’t. Never buy when you can legally steal. That, amigos, is called common sense.

The really sad part is that with all our other creditors, we have a good relationship. We just paid off our credit cards with our tax refund and most of our monthly payments are automatically paid from checking. We just closed a shitty credit card with an exorbitant interest rated (Fuck you Barclay’s!) and everything else is in a good place – at least for now. Doesn’t do much good though with the F-word on your credit report.

Sometime today I need to answer an e-mail from the broker selling my dream business. How do I truthfully respond to the question of whether I’m interested in that property? Do I tell the truth or just leave it at a polite “Unfortunately, now is not the right time”?