It’s Milspouse Friday Fill-In again, so head on over to Wife of a Sailor if you’re a milspouse (or girlfriend) and want to link up! And thanks to Wife of a Sailor for hosting again!
1. What is your favorite MilSpouse blog (not including Wife of a Sailor who we all love, or your own)? submitted by Our Crazy Life (Wifey note: whaaaat? You can’t say my blog? No fun! LOL, just kidding)
Oooh, what a tough question! I read so many milspouse blogs!! Instead of favorites, let’s go with the ones I’ve been reading the longest, which (aside from Wife of a Sailor) are probably To The Nth, Marrying the Navy, and Our Navy Nest. For more favorites, look here.
2. What are your favorite perks about your s/o being deployed (we all know there are perks)? submitted by Ramblings of a Marine Wife
I can eat cereal for dinner! No one cares if I wake up at 5 and go to sleep at 8 and I take myself out to lunch once a week at Panera 
And no one complains if there’s dishes in the sink (although there usually aren’t because I just wash the bowl after I use it).
3. How long did you date your before getting engaged? Married? submitted by Utterly Chaotic
Umm. We started dating the week before Valentine’s Day 2008 and we got engaged/married August 2009… so that makes 18 months and 5 days of dating before getting engaged. And 18 months and a week of dating before getting married
4. What do you think your would do if s/he wasn’t in the military? submitted by Adventures of M-Squared
He would be doing the same job he does now, just as a civilian instead of a Sailor.
5. If you could talk to the Secretary of (fill in your appropriate branch) what is one suggestion you would like to bring to their attention in order to improve the lives of military families? submitted by My Life as His (Air Force) Wife
Hmm. I think I would suggest that they work to make bases more stable and not force people to PCS every few years. We actually are fairly stable right now (Chris could spend his whole 20 years in GA if he stayed enlisted), but it seems like the number one problem I hear about and the biggest hurdle we’re trying to deal with if Chris goes officer. It’s going to be hard to hold down a job in my field if we have to PCS every 2-3 years.
We’re obviously rooting for STA-21 (I may have bragged about your awesomness to Mr. W), which is a hold different animal. It’d be nice to stay in one place for the s/o’s sake…but it’s sometimes worth it to PCS.
It took me 5 wks to find quality work in VA.
It took me…umm….a few months to find quality work in CA.
And if we don’t stay homestead’d here…it’ll be back to VA in a few years (thank goodness for connections back there!).
But ya…that’s the worst part about it. Not even a cardboard cut on the finger can compared.
Aww, thanks for the STA-21 support!
I agree that sometimes it’s worth it to PCS. I would give anything to leave GA. I would have happily stayed in Monterey, however, for the rest of my life, and I’ll feel the same way if/when we get to DC
And as for finding work… I was unemployed for over a year after we got here :\ Though I freely admit that I was uber choosy about what I would and would not do.
Aw, thanks for the love in the first question.
I would dearly love not to have to face the possibility of PCSing every two or three years, but I do understand some — just some — of the reasoning behing having officers move around that often. The Navy’s goal (whether or not that matches the individual’s goal) with the “typical” URL officer career path is to train the person for command, so they put them in a ton of different situations and somehow that magically develops leadership. Or… something? On the aviation side, at least, I know tons of JOs who would cheerfully stay in the cockpit for their entire careers and forego being skippers of squadrons or carriers, but that just isn’t an option.
Anytime
And yep, I can see the reasoning of moving officers around, but I don’t know that I see how it applies to enlisted, or why you can’t move around on the east coast or the west coast versus back and forth all the time. I know it’s not entirely reasonable, but I want to be able to work in DC and have Chris be able to stay in the Navy AND stay near me, dogs, and future children.
Oh, I hear you about the career thing. This last PCS it was too painful to try to look for work. So, I shelved the masters degree for a few year and now I’m making some sweet cash as a massage therapist. Just kidding about the sweet cash, I would qualify for food stamps (seriously) if I wasn’t married to OccDoc, I’m kind of proud of that little factoid.
Heh. I finished my Master’s degree in Monterey before we moved to GA. It didn’t help in locating a job in the area :\ I finally gave up and I’m moving to DC this summer to work. I wish I had some skills like massage I could use to get by!
First time visitor to your site! Love it
I hate the PCSing! We just finished ours and they are already looking for our next station. I gave up a great job at our old station and it took me four months to find work in my field. It’s so frustrating! While I understand (kind of) the need to plop them around to different bases every few years, it’s still frustrating and annoying!
Thanks for stopping by! PCSing is definitely frustrating, even though they say it’s necessary. On the other hand, being stuck somewhere you hate with absolutely no job possibilities also sucks. Maybe I should say that I wish they had a better job relocation/search system for milspouses…
Thanks for bringing my attention to some Navy wives – so excited to check them out
You’re welcome!