Ch-ch-ch-changes...

Over the last few months my life has been one big chaotic ride.

There are so many things going on, and many of them are not fodder for my blog.  Maybe one day. Maybe not.  They are just too personal and too raw at the moment to really be discussed in this forum.  These things are not resolved. They are not better. They are not near a resolution. But life goes on, so I will keep moving forward until I can know any differently.

One change that I can talk about is that Chip, starting tomorrow, will be full-time military.  His National Guard unit is deploying this fall, and he is going on full time orders tomorrow to do paperwork and processing and whatnot to ready the unit to make a trip to Afghanistan for a year. This is always a possibility with the military and recently has been a very real possibility for our family.  It is now confirmed and although I do not know the date, we are facing deployment.

However, on an positive note - that means starting tomorrow he will be full-time employed by the Guard and will be reaping all of the benefits - including full time pay, housing allowance, family stipend, free insurance (drop him from my policy) and time counted as "active" toward his retirement. And once he is deployed, he will also receive Hazard Pay and all of the deployment pay will be tax free.  So there are some benefits that don't make it worth it, but are benefits nonetheless.

That means that our debt repayment, which has been limping along very slowly over the last few months since we starting paying for Abigail's schooling and the kids' extracurricular activities (dance and Tae Kwon Do).  Now we can push this along and MIGHT even be debt free (except the mortgage) by the end of 2013!  Hooray!

Additionally it means we can look at replacing at least one of our cars soon.  His car has been a money pit for a long time now, but we really haven't had the resources to either repair it or replace it. Mine is nearing 300K miles (it's a Toyota - what can I say...they last FOREVER) so it will be at its end before much longer I assume. The plan is to replace his sooner rather than later and then get rid of the second car right as he deploys so we won't be sitting on an unused car for a year.

 I cannot wait for financial freedom so that we will be free to spend our money as we please and not be enslaved to credit card debts! 

So that's where I rejoin you today.  More details will follow regarding all of the above at some time or another, but I just wanted to give a quick, "Hello. My name is Kaye and I..." for those of you who might have forgotten who I am. =)