Finding Forever - So this is happening

I enlisted in 2003 and my husband already had four years of service under his belt. June 2016 will be 17 years of enlisted service to this great nation, and we will have been married for 11 of those 17 years. Our family will have moved eight times with our oldest son attending 4 different school in just 5 years of formal education.

Not all that wander are lost... With a combined 30 years of service, this wanderer is weary, but there is hope. There is always hope. Almost a year ago Big Sexy made it clear he wanted to plan for retirement at 20 in 2019 (that's 20 years of service for those not trackin'). He was overseas... again... and we were nearing the end of nearly a decade of Sea Duty (which equates to rarely home, as in 20-27 days out of the month they are gone not including deployments). Bottom line, he was tired, I was lonely and WE were done living our life via FaceTime, email and messenger.

We'd bought a beautiful home in NC. Our kids were doing well, I was looking for full time work now that our youngest was in school... we were actually in a pretty good place. The major issue we were having was poor morale at his assigned unit, and a lack of job opportunities for me. Big Sexy began to look for open billets near our home for his final tour and I up'd my efforts to reenter the work force. He found a great opportunity just 20 minutes up the road, and I was hired by an OUTSTANDING unit for the PERFECT job.

Then Murphy showed up in the form of a lovely detailer who had other ideas.

**For those unfamiliar a detailer is an individual who manages the duty assignments for a specific military job field. They have a great deal of influence and control over where a Sailor ends up**

I'll spare you the details of that wonderful experience, but let's just say karma's a bitch and she remembers everything.

So, instead of staying put, enjoying our home and sailing off into a well established sunset. We found ourselves heading to Florida for one final Permanent Change of Station (PCS) move. I'd finally found a wonderful job with great pay and people... and now I sit here unemployed in a rental house, back on the hunt for a job, 3 kids in a new school and a whole lot of ?'s on the horizon.

HERE is the HOPE I was talking about. HOPE is based on looking for the good. Searching for what can be. Taking advantage of the opportunities before us - instead of mourning what was left behind.

• I have my family, and other than a current stomach bug for two of the littles we are generally healthy
• This PCS has moved us 10 hours CLOSER to both sets of Grandparents
• I am registered for the Military Spouse PPP list (I'll write more about that later)
• Cost of living is lower here
• We've found a community we'd like to build in
• We have THREE YEARS to get our foundation set, so BIG SEXY can walk away from the Navy with confidence
• I have FAITH that GOD has a plan for us (Psalm 147:11)

 So... when you see "Finding Forever" in the title know that I'm going to be sharing about our steps toward retirement. I'm not going to preach to you, or give you some magical answer book; but I'll share what we are doing and how those actions pan out.

Have a great day y'all. Remember failure to plan is a plan to fail.

XO XO & Stuff,

Jinger