Patience is a Virtue

"Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure. Patience creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success."    

~Brian Adams

We're sitting and waiting! There's all kinds of rumors going around and we don't have any idea what's the truth and what to go off of. Eric has been told that he should know something by April 8th which is coincidentally the same day that the stop-gap that was passed on March 18th runs out. Although there are several others Marines in the same boat (Marine is the only branch with this problem) that have heard that Eric may get an email from MATSG (Marine Aviation Training Support Group) admin about a new update. I'm trying to find the good in this but it's double-sided. On one end I couldn't ask for a better place to be "stranded" for a while. We've got an amazing beach, great sailing, great place for the dogs, friends here, and Eric's ultimately getting to train to fly Jets!

Now on the other end. We're running into problems with our  future landlords (and rightfully so). They're saying that we have two options. If I can't tell him on Monday the 28th (2 days) when we're moving they're going to keep our security deposit ($850) and put the house back on the rental market. So we ultimately loose a lot of money and no longer have a place to move to. Or the second option is we can start paying them rent on April 1st even though we don't know when we're going to be moving. Then we'd be forfeiting our BAH (basic allowance for housing) for the house we're in now and paying another rent as well. We really can't afford to do that especially because we don't know how long we'll be waiting.

I'm going on Monday morning to discuss our options with our housing office here and will be talking to the legal department on Tuesday (it was the first available appointment) to find out what we're legally obligated to do for our future landlord. I'm going to try and do all I can to try and keep the house because it really is a great house for the rent that we'd be paying, especially in Meridian!

Now for a quick summary on why we think we're in the predicament we're in. From everything I've read and heard from other spouses it seems that we haven't actually had a budget approved for a long time. They've actually passed 6 stop-gaps instead of finalizing a proper budget, so we're still working at the 2010 budget. Apparently what that means for us is that since the Marine Corps has grown over the last year the costs are more than what the government is giving us. So since the last stop-gap was passed on March 18th they've suspended some civilian jobs so military members can still receive their pay and their other "living expenses" (BAH, BAS, etc..) and so our Tricare is taken care of as well. What that means is that since PCS (permanent change of station) orders are made by civilians and they're on suspension right now they've allocated the money it takes to cut orders to other departments. So we're not sure if they're going to bring civilians back before the April 8th cut-off date or if it'll be after that. Then what happens if Congress doesn't agree on a budget by April 8th and they pass another stop-gap...not sure if we'd get orders then either!?!
So this is a classic Marine Corps example of "Hurry Up and Wait" and also "Semper Gumby".

As always, I'll keep everyone updated when we know something but with the Marine Corps..we only know what they want us to know, and right now that's not a lot!
At least we'll get some sailing in and some good seafood before we move to the middle of nowhere Mississippi!