Sunday Night Randoms

I just realized we only have 19 days left in Georgia and my head exploded. There’s no time to write coherent posts with all the stuff we have to do, so here’s some random updates:

1. Silicone caulk is the devil. We spent a good 5 hours removing it from around the shower so we could clean it and recaulk for the renters.

2. Someone else made an offer on the house we wanted in Maryland and the seller accepted Now we’re looking for a new house.

3. I got a job offer in DC!

4. We ate pizza for dinner four of the last six days. (Two nights of those were homemade and not entirely bad health wise. The other two days were Mellow Mushroom – terrible for you, but so so delicious.)

5. The hockey fan in me is loving that the Stanley Cup playoffs are still going on. The Kings fan in me gets a little more nervous the longer it drags out.

6. My brother and one of my sisters will be here in 17 days! They’re going to help us move and play tourist for a bit. I’m so excited to see them

7. We’re still trying to find a renter. If you know anyone heading to Fort Gordon and looking for a house, send ‘em my way!

8. As if getting our house ready to rent, moving a few states away, and starting a new job weren’t enough, I decided to resubmit for the next Navy Reserve board (I’m a glutton for punishment). So two weeks after we move up to DC, I get to drive back down to Atlanta for interviews. And then coordinate my package with my recruiter in South Carolina via email, phone, and fax. Fun times!

And now I need to go bake some cookies and go to sleep.

Close, but Not Close Enough

You may remember that we’re getting ready to PCS.

Stttrrrreeeesssssss.

We’re trying to buy a house in DC and we KNOW the house we want to make an offer on (and the price on it just dropped $24K yesterday!). Our Realtor in Maryland is ready to make an offer for us as soon as we give her the ok. We’re preapproved for a mortgage contingent on either having a signed lease for our house in GA or me having a nonconditional job offer.

If one of those conditions works out, the rest would fall into place – if I get a job, we don’t have to worry about renters (although they’d be nice) and we can still get a house. If we get can get renters, we’ll be ok even if I’m not working for a bit longer and we can get a house.

I’ve signed letters of intent with a company contingent on them getting a contract awarded to them, which they should find out soon. I’m also talking to another company that is very promising. But no firm offers yet.

We’re working with our property manager, prepping everything in our house, and showing our house to potential renters, but no lease signed yet.

I’m going crazy knowing that everything is so close to working out, but just not quite there. If some people would just sign a lease… if I could get just a job offer… if we could put the offer on the house… problems all solved.

No more stress.

But there’s nothing I can do about any of this.

So I’m just making my house as clean as I can, polishing up my resume, and hoping no one else likes the house we like.

And maybe I’ll magically get a job offer this week. Or renters.

Toss me some good luck if you’ve got any extra laying around please! We need all the luck we can get.

I Live at the Gym Now

So a month or so ago, I remembered UFC*. Some of the Gracies live in my hometown and I remember my dad watching UFC when it first started. I’ve watched a few fights since then, but never made any real effort to follow it until recently. And then I decided I wanted to start kickboxing, so I looked up local gyms.

I went to check out one, which was both hella intimidating and awesome at the same time. Intimidating in that it’s an MMA gym where people are actually training to be fighters. It’s completely no frills – there’s an area with mats for sparring, a ring for boxing, and an area with a bunch of punching bags and free weights. That’s it. And while I was touring and getting my free intro lesson, they decided to throw a little physical assessment at me – 1 minute of sit ups, 1 minute of push ups, 1 minute of burpees. Yuck. We won’t talk about the overall results – though I will say that I did 37 real push ups!

Since then, I’ve been at the gym almost constantly (hence my lack of posting). I’m taking beginner’s boxing, beginner’s kickboxing, yoga, and a class called cardio kickboxing that incorporates circuit training with kickboxing (it is HARDCORE. So hardcore that I may have thrown up halfway through the first workout… but I still finished the workout!). I’m also considering taking the beginner’s Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class, but I haven’t worked up the nerve for that yet. Plus, have you seen people do BJJ? They frequently end up with their heads near the crotch of their opponent. And that’s just awkward (especially since guys usually significantly outnumber the girls in the classes I go to).

Anyway, I haven’t lost any more pounds, but after only two weeks, I can see muscle definition in my arms and legs that wasn’t there before and I’ve lost half an inch off my waist. Unfortunately, we’re leaving Georgia in about 6 weeks, so I don’t have much time left to take classes here, but I’m interested to see how much more progress I can make before we leave here! And I’m hoping I can find a similar gym in DC and make a seamless transition.

Probably a stretch… but anyone out there have recs for a good MMA gym in the DC area?

*This, like so many things in my life, may have been linked to the reading of a romance novel.

A Virtual Career Fair

{This was cross-posted at SpouseBUZZ.}

I’m not a huge fan of career fairs. Interviews make me nervous, and a career fair is essentially a bunch of mini interviews in a row. Plus the last time I went, I handed a lady my resume and she scanned it and told me I had nothing to offer. To be fair, there were other people at the fair who were plenty interested, but she was one of the first people I talked to, so it was slightly traumatizing. (Tact, lady! Even if you’re not interested, I have SOMETHING to offer.)

After I saw an ad for a milspouse oriented virtual fair and a couple of my friends sent me an email for another virtual career fair, however, I decided to reconsider my aversion to career fairs. I’m pretty personable online. (At least I think so.) I asked around to see if anyone had any experience with a virtual career fair and no one really did, so I registered and figured that even if nothing there caught my interest, it would be worth it just to see how a virtual career fair works.

After I registered, I received an attendee guide in my email with a brief overview of the event and explanations of the different features on the site. The day before the fair, they emailed out a link offering a sneak peek to get familiar with the set up. You could set up your profile, upload your resume, see a list of participating companies, and even save their handouts to your briefcase. (Yes, the virtual career fair came with a virtual briefcase.)

With the handouts saved, you can use the night before do your research to help prepare for the actual fair: What positions are available? What skills are they looking for? What are the companies all about? You know, normal prep stuff to help you figure out where you want to spend your time and what questions you might have for recruiters.

The day of the career fair, I entered the website and found myself in a virtual lobby directing me to various places. There was an auditorium with presentations, which were recorded videos from current employees discussing their work and companies, and an exhibit hall with booths, where you could visit different companies and download handouts, see their lists of current vacancies, talk to recruiters in a group format with other interested applicants, or talk one on one with a recruiter. There was even a lounge where you could go when you needed a break and wanted to talk to other people browsing around the fair!

The group chats made me a little dizzy at times because so many people were talking to so many other people about so many different things at once, but there was a lot of good information in there once you sorted out the conversation threads. Recruiters explained what they were hiring for, what made people competitive, and how to apply if you were interested. But my favorite feature was the one on one chat – I introduced myself to a recruiter for one of the positions I was interested in and after talking to me, she asked me to apply online for one of their vacancies and email her my resume so she could keep it handy.

I’m going to call that a successful career fair. It was a positive enough experience to erase the trauma of the previous experience and definitely something I’d be willing to try again!

(P.S. Keep your fingers crossed and send some good hiring juju my way please! I need a job.)

I Might Be a Terrible Person

Things are looking up around here! We have orders up to DC. I’ve started applying for jobs up there and with all my connections and education, I’m sure I’ll find something (eventually). Having a job should make it easier to *finally* get picked up by the Navy Reserve. I’m already in touch with a recruiter up there who is way more on top of stuff than my recruiter down here (who forgot to inform me about the upcoming board until it was too late for me to put in for it). It finally seems like stuff will work out and I can start preparing my happy dance!

But Chris came home from work the other day and announced that he had a new plan since STA-21 is apparently continuing on its path of only taking one person for his community each year. He’s going to finish up his degree — which won’t take very long since he’s only a class or two short — and put in for OCS instead.

This shouldn’t bother me at all. He’s been talking about commissioning for two years now, and I’ve always accepted that he will be an officer someday since I have no doubt that he will be picked up. It’s probably petty of me — ok, it’s definitely petty of me — but I guess this bothers me because OCS was my thing. My thing that I never finished, but he will. It’s frustrating to be reminded of all the ways I’ve effectively sabotaged my career before it even started while his has been happily and steadily progressing for the past two years. And it’s all the more frustrating because he’s doing things that I wanted to do. Things that I was SUPPOSED to do.

I wish that our goals weren’t quite so similar, so it wouldn’t sting quite as much when he achieves something and I’m still just at home baking cookies for him to take to work. Not that I blame him for any of this. He didn’t ask me to drop from OCS and of course his career is going to move forward in 2.5 years — he works hard and he deserves it. I’m proud of him for that and for all the things he’s trying to accomplish.

OCS Graduation (via OTCN website)

But I’m fairly certain that if I’m still only a civilian when I have to go to Newport to watch him commission, I will probably be bawling the whole time.

Does that make me a terrible person?

Thought of the Day and Book Recommendations

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts lately about my life and my ambitions and my abilities and eventually I’ll probably blog about my conclusions but for now it’s still too swirly in my head to put into coherent thoughts.

So instead, I’ll leave this quote from Rye Barcott’s “It Happened on the Way to War,” which I strongly recommend, especially if you enjoyed Nate Fick’s “One Bullet Away” and/or Eric Greitens’ “The Heart and the Fist.” And if you haven’t read any of them, then I suggest you check them all out. If someone asked me to list off the top 5 books that impacted my life, those 3 would probably all make it on there. But if you’re only going to pick one — this is a hard choice, but Barcott’s book is probably my favorite (which may have something to do with the summer I spent in Kenya).

But I’m getting off topic now.

The quote: “It’s good to help when you can.”

Thoughts on the quote? What books would you put on a list of most influential in your life? Or do you have a favorite quote that really just makes you think?

Wordless Wednesday

My Husband Has No Imagination

The other day, Chris and I were talking about the possibility of my enlisting in the Reserve again. One of our friends had been talking about potential billets for linguists, and I got a little excited. And then I started thinking up scenarios. Things like “What if I deployed with a team of SEALs and I did a really good job and they were like, ‘Hey, Sespi, you can be a honorary part of our SEAL team,’ and then I was basically a SEAL?”

And Chris just looked at me and said, “Stop imagining.”

Then today, I was talking about that again (because obviously I can’t stop imagining) and I said, “Oh my gosh, what if one day they were like, ‘Hey Sespi, it doesn’t matter if you’re a girl, come out and kick in doors with us’ and then they let me kick in a door?” Chris, for some reason, decided to play along and said, “Do they actually kick in doors or do they use some kind of ram?” Then he probably instantly regretted it, because I said, “I have no idea! Oh my gosh, what if they use a ram and I tried to do it with my foot but I was too weak so I just bounced off and they were all, ‘Duh, we use a ram. Stupid.’”

It suddenly occurred to me that Chris doesn’t worry about things because he doesn’t have an imagination and I worry about things because I do. I shared this theory with him and he looked unconvinced, so I gave him the following example: “Someone tells you they need a briefing on some topic, so you say ok, prepare, give the briefing, and don’t think about it anymore. But if someone told me to give a briefing, I would say ok, go to prepare and then start thinking… What if I misspeak and no one catches it because I’m the ‘expert’ so they just take my word for it, but I’m not right and then they go to war? We could have spent 50 years avoiding war with the USSR and then I give a briefing and suddenly we’re in the middle of a nuclear war with Russia.”

Chris just stared at me.

I can only assume that it’s because he finally understands how stressful it is to have an imagination and was giving thanks that he doesn’t have one.

*Yes, I do say “was like” and “was all” and occasionally “was all like” when I talk. I’m from Southern California, give me a break.

That Job Thing Again

I don’t remember if I ever blogged about what came of that awesome job offer I had in DC, but I think I just lumped it in with my Sucking at Life post. So long story short, I had a job offer, accepted and got a delayed start date… got a second job offer for an ok job that I was less interested in with an immediate start date and turned them down because I was ok waiting for job 1. Then crappy economy, cut billets, no more room for me so job offer rescinded. Sucks.

So now I’m at two years unemployed. The Navy Reserve still hasn’t picked me up (another story behind the Sucking at Life post) and now I’m so mad at the Navy that I’m still not sure I even want to jump through all the hoops to even apply again. (Yeah, that’ll teach them.)

Except that if I can’t get a job — because two years unemployed is a pretty long chunk of time — my best bet for building up the skill set to get a job is either going back to school (noooooooo) or joining the Reserve. The Reserve that doesn’t want me. Unless maybe I go enlisted. (Or go Army?)

Before I start this next part, here’s my disclaimer: I have nothing against being enlisted. Heck, my husband is enlisted (though he hates being enlisted so much that he’s planning to get out of the Navy when his contract is up if he can’t commission before then).

Back in the day, my original plan was to enlist. In the Army! But I ultimately decided to go officer and go Navy, and I got picked up on my first application. Which means that at one point the Navy thought I was good enough to be an officer, and to tell me that I’m not good enough for that anymore? Well that’s a blow to my self esteem. Even though everyone tells me it’s not personal, at this point, it darn well is.

So if none of the job apps I currently have pending pans out, nothing will have changed from my last application to the Reserve (except for one online class that I took) and it doesn’t even seem worth reapplying for. And I still won’t have a job, which leaves me with the option to start reapplying to all the places that didn’t want me before. But that seems pointless because, again, nothing else will have changed.

Which brings me back to enlisting. Because that will change things. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that because it will mean that I got rejected from two more jobs… but if does, well. I’ll pick a rating with fast advancement (Chris wants me to follow in his shoes and rack up the foreign language pay) and hope I can get commissioned quickly.

We Now Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

I’ve been gone for a while, off globe trotting – er, US trotting. Here’s the whirlwind recap:

Stop 1: Palm Springs, CA for my sister’s bachelorette party!

My sisters, my sister’s BFF and me on the way to Palm Springs.

Stop 2: Halloween in Torrance, CA.

I was Rosie the Riveter! Too bad I left Chris’s coveralls in Georgia.

Stop 3: Coronado, CA because I love the area.

No words needed here.

We also played around at the Del – so pretty! Someday we will stay there… but this was the not time.

I met up with Kelsey and Elizabeth for lunch too! And by the way, at Stacked –the restaurant we ate at– you order your food on an iPad at your table! It’s pretty amazing. We had such a good time and it made me start harassing Chris to get orders to SD again. (Yeah, that’s not going to happen.)

Stop 4: Long Beach, CA for my sister’s wedding

I inadvertently made Chris look like a Hogwarts student. We called him Ron Weasley all morning… haha!

Isn’t my sister pretty? And you can’t tell in this picture, but her husband is actually over a foot taller than her!

Stop 5: Hollywood, CA to play tourist because Chris had never been before.

The Beatles (Minus Paul, who doesn’t have a star for some reason)

Gene Rodenberry – 10 points if you know who this guy is!

Stop 6: Back in Augusta for a day, then we packed up the dogs and headed to Nashville to explore…


We laughed at this sign for a while so I took a picture. Church street this way, Gay street the other way. (Yeah, I’m a little odd…)

Stop 7: Then off to my MIL’s house in Louisville for pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving and Veterans Day.

Applebee’s had a POW/MIA table set up. I thought it was such a thoughtful gesture, and I was glad to see all the non-military affiliated people stopping to read what it symbolized.

It’s been a busy busy month, so you can see why I haven’t been around much! But now we’re back in Georgia and I’m super glad I told Chris that I just want to stay here for Christmas and not go anywhere