change . . . will do you good

Or apparently Sheryl Crow thinks so. I'm not sure how much she understood change in military life though. . . Realities of lots of change in the next year are hitting us this week.

1. Philip got information about his deployment. He's off to Iraq. He'll leave in January and will be scheduled to come home sometime late summer. His combat training may interfere with some of our plans to see family over Christmas - so that's feeling a bit chaotic (plus he'll be at another training in the US the first two weeks of Dec anyway - so he may need to go to training, see family (not quite sure how, where and when yet though), fly to the UK to collect weapons, fly back to the US for training and then start living in the sand)

2. In the next two months, a LOT has to happen
* Philip will be applying for another job in the AF
* I will complete my beast of a research class and start on my LAST MA class in Nov
* I will be taking my comprehensive exams

3. I'm starting to look at / work on applications for doctorate programs. This is getting me SUPER excited. I started my first one last night. Ask Philip, I was absolutely giddy. HOWEVER, I can't allow myself to be excited BECAUSE we won't know what base we're going to until next spring or summer. However, in the mean time I have to be applying for the places I want to know (knowing full well if I get in, I may not be able to go). The thought of being in a classroom a year from now is SO exciting. We're just so scared that something's going to happen with assignments that this won't be an option.

4. We are going to try to move into base housing in the next two months. We love our house but CANNOT deal with our property management company anymore. It's getting silly. In light of the fact that I'll be alone for a majority of the rest of this assignment, I'd like to be a bit closer to our "military family". In the middle of January, it'll be easier to have some "people time" by going across the street rather than summoning the motivation to go out in the cold and drive somewhere after a long day of work. HOWEVER, the moving process is something that we don't really have time or energy for. Poor Philip doesn't even have a spare moment in the day to go to the stupid housing office to get the paperwork! We think that this will be the best in the long run, but it's going to take a lot of prayer and divine orchestration to actually make happen in and amongst all of the other chaos.

5. We essentially have two more months to get things sorted before Philip has to be ready to leave. When he returns, 85% of the people he has built relationships will have left the country. I'm not looking forward to goodbyes this next year AT ALL. We were laying in bed last night talking about who will be there to "take care of me" while he's gone. As we went through the list, he had to keep saying, "and what about when they're gone?" All I could do was cry.

6. I'm trying to determine what arrangements to make for my spring placement for my MA. I've actually applied for a couple of jobs that I would reeeeeeeeally love (but am not hopeful about getting). All of this could potentially bring about even more change in the coming months.

I just want to click my heels three times and have things fall into place. AHHHHHHHHHH. The nice thing is that I've been rotating the things I've been dwelling on. There's enough in the immediate and far future for me to have a different topic making me dizzy each day. Spring placement. Work. Moving. Doctorate. Next Assignment. . . and so it continues.