Still no orders.

CPT Dick starts on Monday. We will still be here. No word on when the orders will come down so we can actually join him.

It is making me a little crazy.

I'm not even thinking about the fact that (a) my husband deploys this fall, (b) prior to that he'll go off twice for at least a month each time to train up for the mission. No, right now I'm totally wringing my hands over (c) the fact that since he has to report before the Army bureaucracy has caught up with him, he'll spend a few weeks away from home until it all gets sorted. Time that will involve moving. Time that will involve a lot of deadlines. Time that will involve a very cranky Munchkin. Time where I will slowly go more and more insane until I have no choice but to take those around me along for the ride.

But the other thing that annoys the crap out of me about all this is my rental agreement. Until we have orders -- or at least assignment instructions -- I can't break our lease. And our lease states that we have to give 30 days notice once we have those orders. So by my count, if CPT Dick is correct that we will move by the end of this month, we will be paying 10 days of rent, but probably more, out of our own pocket. Just because the Army can't figure out a way to print out a sheet of paper on time.

When I think sometimes about how much money the Army has cost us over the years -- between destroyed furniture from moves that they say isn't worth what we paid for it, the uniform changes, the 90 days of training that they mistakenly took as leave and can't seem to fix, all of those painfully overpriced balls and Hails and Farewells, and now, perhaps, a month of rent -- I get angry. I'm grateful that we can afford to take some of these setbacks but what about others? How will they cope? And why doesn't it matter more?

I just want this move done and over with. Complaining about annoying phone calls is much more satisfying and so much less detrimental to my personal self-esteem.