I have been so delinquent in writing, and boy have I missed it. I hate that my first post back after so many months was a sad one about the loss of my beloved rescue kitty, Tetsu. Beyond that tragedy, I have so much to say and to share. I only work part-time, so I truly have no good excuse to have deviated from my Gypsy Kitty Diaries. But you know, it is what it is.

Chuck deployed back in April, and won’t be back until October. While it’s true that deployments are never fun, this one is sure as heck less stressful in many ways than the last two. I mean, Australia beats Afghanistan any day of the week and twice on Sundays! (Where did that expression even come from, by the way?!) As far as I can tell, he’s been productive but also having a blast. I actually went to visit him a couple of weeks ago – more on that later.

As for me… well… each deployment has been so different. The first hardly counted, because although we were legally married, nothing practical about my life actually changed. I stayed in DC with the same job and the same friends and the same buzzing social life.  By the time the second deployment rolled around, I was fairly established in North Carolina and the only hiccup was when my landlord made a major error in renewing our lease and I had to pack up, find a new short-term place, and move all by myself. Okinawa was deployment-free (although Chuck traveled frequently), so this is the first long-term assignment in a while.

While I am not as concerned for his safety and I have everything I need practically, the past few months have not been without their woes. My cat Momo was mysteriously (and expensively) sick for about a month, my estranged mother popped back into my life (twice), and of course, I have already written about the trauma of losing Tetsu. But otherwise, things have gone reasonably well (knock on serious wood.) Although I miss him, time is moving swiftly and we had some really fun adventures before he left.

We vacationed in exotic Los Cabos…

Frolicked in Flower Fields…

And celebrated his 34th birthday with palm trees and mimosas.

All in all, a great start to the year and a fabulous send-off!

Anyway, we are officially past the halfway mark of the deployment. My work is going well, although the “real” job search/career transition is not. I have pretty much decided to slow my roll. San Diego is not the market I thought it would be, my master’s degree is not closing the gap in experience that I hoped it would, and at this point I am ready to embrace the lifestyle that I have and just chill for a sec. If anything, I need to re-evaluate my approach. Even if my networking hasn’t presented an actual job just yet, it has surely provided enlightenment and clarity on what I want and what my options are. Besides – change may be on the horizon for Chuck’s career, too, so as always, we need to wait and see what that brings in the meantime.

I have plentiful adventures to write about and personal rumination to share – but I wanted to simply re-establish myself with an update first. More to come and thanks for listening!

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