How the Bluegrass Belle Becomes a Georgia Peach

Wednesday afternoon went a little something like this:

Setting: Home office of Chez Miller. Monsieur Miller has been working diligently and tirelessly on resumes, cover letters, and repeated job searches. Madame Miller is beading, glazing, and generally trying to fit round pegs into square holes. Smooth jazz plays softly in the background (I'm so not joking about that).

The clanging of Neal's phone nearly sends us both into heart failure (this is completely my fault. He used to have a gong as a ring tone, which he never heard...especially when I was calling for something important....like his shirt size. So, he changed it. If anyone ever finds us dead in our house with Neal clutching his G-Zone phone...you'll know what has happened and that it really is all my fault.)

I hear a bunch of "uh-huh," "I see," "Oh, that's nice," and "Hm. Yes ma'am, OK" before I finally heard "well let me talk it over with my wife and I'll get back to you sometime...today!"

So, now you know as much as I did. And just for effect, Neal will be in regular text and I will be italicized (mostly because I think italics adds drama with a slant of elegance and what Neal probably does not need right now is to be referred to as elegant).

What was that about?
It seems this lady is desperate to fill this AGR captain's slot.
AGR? I thought you weren't even eligible for AGR. That's what they told you last week. (PS: AGR = Active Guard/Reserve)
I guess desperation does funny things to a person. She needs to fill the slot.
Where is it?
Macon, Georgia.
(In my head, I have started doing the little Joey-from-Full-House Dance of Joy). Really? Macon? Georgia? When?
Well, it seems my report date would be May 17th.
That's.....SOON. That's only 2 weeks after Derby! (Because that's how we roll in Kentucky. Everything is calculated by the first Saturday in May. I'm gonna miss that.)
Um...yes. But that's not all. This unit is set to deploy in December with a month of training in June.
Awesome. (I think there was a fair amount of eye-rolling here. My mother would have been so proud.) Like a year-long deployment? Overseas? In the sand? With sandstorms and tents?
Yes.
Lucky number 3. I did it before, I guess I can do it again. At least my laptop has a built-in webcam now.
So, yes? We're going to do this?
What do you think?
Yes.
Then yes. I'll go find some boxes.

Now granted, I have graciously omitted about 9 hours of discussion regarding the house, a baby, a deployment, and whether or not we're going to keep the hammock...but that's it in a nutshell. Between Wednesday and Friday, I drove Neal to the point of justifiable homicide trying to get exact dates and plans. The only thing the Army doesn't have is an unchanging plan. Neal gets this. I am still fighting it after all these years.

So, here's where we are now: we have to report to Macon on May 17th. If you don't count today or the weekend we're driving down, that's 20 days from now. We are going to be out of town for various things for 15 of those days. If you've had new math, you can deduce that we have exactly 5 days to pack the house. Six feet over the line, Sweet Jesus. How are we going to do this? Oh, I know! I'll just sit down and blog. Neal's drilling anyway. And then I'll watch an episode of Cagney and Lacey and make one more run to Hobby Lobby before camping out and making jewelry to wear next week.

Translation: I am so overwhelmed, I have no idea where to even freaking start. So, maybe I'll just not....

We head down next week to check out housing on Robins Air Force Base, which we've heard is well worth the look-see. Once we know if we'll be in a house or an apartment, we'll be able to determine how much stuff we need and/or want. This is all complicated by the fact that if I'm pregnant in December when Neal deploys, I'll come back to Kentucky to deliver at UK again. So, then what? Do we still sell the house? Do I rent an apartment? Do I move in with my dad? Oh...scratch that last one.

We are about 5 steps into a 20-step process and this is about the time that I'm just waiting to find a vial next to the bed that says drink me. However, many awesome things can come of this...my sister lives four hours south of Macon (and she is about to come unglued at the seams she's so happy), we will only be 90 minutes south of Atlanta, and 4 hours west of Hilton Head (I was thinking last night about how we could actually go to Hilton Head for the weekend. *Gasp*). But we will go through another deployment, we will have to try to sell our house from 7 hours south of it, and Neal may miss the delivery of his second child. So, sacrifices? Yes, we will make a few.

I will try to update as often as possible. I think this is a very exciting, yet overwhelming new chapter in our lives and if I don't get to write about it, my head could spin right off my body and crash into the kitchen cabinets. I also think that if I don't pack at least one box today, Neal will deny me my cupcake craving. One box down....many, many, many more to go. I remember when I used to move in milk crates and big, black, garbage bags....