Fast forward an entire month. My household has been moved. My family and I are now in Texas with all of our stuff and settled into a new rental house. The house we were going to buy fell through and I had to get a rental quick. It was a blessing in disguise because this new place is awesome and the house we were going to buy required a lot of TLC. Unpacking the crap we had was enough work, I can't imagine now having to re-sod an entire back yard and all.
The road trip wasn't too bad. Two separate cars, one night in Meridian, Mississippi, a lot of snacks and minimal bathroom stops. We hauled ass and made it to my parents house in a little under 19 hours of drive time. We lost an hour from the time zone difference but it really didn't affect anyone too bad since we all lost plenty of sleep from the night before and the night of the hotel. Thankfully the hotel was great. I specifically chose it because on Google maps it was the most expensive in the small town and the concrete on the sat image was almost brand new. An educated guess that paid off.
We spent I think 5 days at my parents house. It wasn't too bad but occupying ourselves was a bit of a task since we couldn't mess with my parents during the day while they worked. My dad worked in his own room/office but my mom's station was in the living room. Thankfully the boys behaved pretty well for all they had been through in the last few weeks. Our household goods arrived on time and I had a hell of a morning unloading it all. We practically sprinted unloading our stuff off of this 18-wheeler. It was a 10-hour pack and load job but we unloaded all the boxes in less than 4 hours. Sadly that was the easy part. The hardest part was putting all the crap in boxes into places in the new house. That of course comes after setting up all the furniture. Which before that happened I had to cut carpet cutouts to fit the boys rooms and the living room. I had a long couple of days with me an my wife wrangling the kids and putting stuff in it's place. We got our stuff the 21st and as of right now the only thing left for me to completely set up/unpack this house is to mount our bedroom TV.
I met my station commander yesterday and got a good look at the office in the mall. The office is still in the same mall out of which I was recruited but it is in a different suite in the mall. The new suite is much more spacious. Plenty of cubicle desks, a whole ping-pong table, a deadlift station and room for extra seats. My station commander talked with me shortly. A shorter but stout SFC, white skin and pale blue eyes. He was intense but kind. I wouldn't say he was intensely kind but he's a man you know has mellowed out over the years but could revert back to a former version of himself given the right circumstance. He said that family came first, then the mission claiming that without taking care of me and my family that I wouldn't be able to complete my mission. Fair enough, I hope and pray he was telling the truth.
In my sparse free time in the evenings, I have been hand making business cards for recruiting efforts and finishing the book "The Fountainhead." by Ayn Rand. One of the best pieces of literature I have ever had the pleasure of reading. While I don't agree wholeheartedly with her philosophy, I can say that I admire the ideological principles behind her so called Objectivism. Perhaps one day I'll write more about what I think about that.
