Actually, the dogs are fine. I’m the one that was sick today. On the bright side I did spend between 16-18 hours sleeping – between visits to the porcelain altar of illness – so I should have managed to catch up on my sleep debt at least. The baggage under my eyes appears to be decreasing.

Some days I get the feeling that I’ve selected the wrong career path. There’s slim pickin’ in my field. I even went so far as to apply for a technical position this evening in the hopes that I can fall back on what I used to do ‘back in the day‘. I’ve been in training and education since 2003 and that’s a LONG time to be out of the networking and software support world. Best I can hope for are junior positions.

Not that a junior position is bad. Especially not ones with travel involved and a minimum salary similar to what I’m leaving. We all know I love to travel. It’s just that I can understand some prospective employers might think my skills are too old and rusty to take the risk of hiring me.

Hopefully they won’t be too put off. I’m a quick learner and a dedicated employee. At least I like to think I am. One thing about work-a-holics raised in the ‘absolutely, positively, whatever it takes‘ mantra of my favourite global shipping conglomerate (and first contract employer). We’re very hard working.

Some days I suspect that the fall back position of EI and school is about to become a reality. Not that I would mind going to school full-time for a year to finish the degree. I’m just not sure how we’d afford it if I’m not working. Ok. Must stop thinking now. Thinking leads to worrying and I’ve promised myself that I’m NOT going to worry this time around.

Off to do some homework. Perhaps that’ll cheer me up. Or at least get my mind off of the work situation for a while.

Bit worried I may never manage to catch up in my Stats class these days – good thing I have many moons left to go before the end of the course.  Got grades back for my first two assignments in Mil Psych and they’ve made up for the disappointment last week with my Experimental Psych grades. Two nice shiny A’s to take away the sting from the B.

Managed to apply for another job today. The usual “right up my alley” comments come to mind when I reviewed the posting. Here’s hoping I hear something soon.

I’ve had a few people express amazement that I’m relatively sane about the situation. They know me well. Normally I’m a huge worry wart and Drew is constantly having to talk me down off the ledge before I fall off the deep end. Drew’s far more happy-go-lucky and optimistic than I’ve ever been. I worry about damn near everything. However, this time I’ve decided to finally listen to Drew. Well, once I’d  had a giant bawling session in my basement and sniffled my way to freaking out the dogs and cats. I’m sure Drew’s right. We’ll be ok. Worrying won’t get me anywhere. We won’t lose the house. We won’t have much wiggle room.  Entertainment and all other non-essential expenses will be completely out of the question. But we’ll have a roof over our heads and the bills paid.  If worse comes to worse and I can’t find a job before this one ends, I can fall back on EI for a year and finish my degree (here’s hoping the budget holds out). I can work part time serving coffee to cranky soldiers – in Edmonton, not KAF – or sell shoes or something like that.  I just need to keep reminding myself that we’ll be ok.  There are many others in far worse situations.

While I still can pamper myself I’ve decided to be completely lazy and order pizza for dinner tonight. It’s my standby when I get tired of soup and sandwiches.  Left overs can keep me going for days.  Now the only challenge is deciding which type of pizza I want to order and for how many days do I want to be eating leftovers (determines pizza size).

Since it’s getting close to the RRSP deadline for this year and Drew needs to get some $$ into his so we can repay part of his share of the $$ we both robbed from our retirements funds as part of the first time home buyers program, I made an executive decision and transferred some $$ into his RRSP at the bank.  Hopefully I transferred enough to cover it.  If not, I can throw some more in on the last day if need be.  Almost forgot that this would need to be done since I pay into my RRSP year round. Although, considering the state of the markets, I probably would have been better off putting my RRSP contributions into my sock drawer this year.

Today I’m dedicated to catching up on my Experimental Psych course readings. I want to be caught up with them before I head to bed.

Tomorrow I’ll be tackling Stats.

I’m avoiding the last load of laundry today. There’s still tomorrow … If I’m wearing anything brown at work on Tuesday then my co-workers will know I buckled down and finished the last load.

I’ve caught up on my readings for my Mil Psych course but am still behind in my Experimental Psych and Stats classes. There’s two more days in this long weekend so I hope to make a bit of a dent in them tomorrow.

While I was busy not studying I managed to get some house work done. I think that previous sentence may cause Drew to have a heart attack. Floors are swept (I’ll tackle mopping tomorrow), cat litter is changed, groceries are put away. Laundry is almost complete. Sorting out the bathrooms and finding my spare bed must wait for another day. There’s only so much cleaning I can do before I feel the urge to stop procrastinating and go back to doing homework.

The biggest house work related accomplishment of the day? Laundry. I know some people find doing laundry therapudic but I don’t. I’d rather clean the bathroom tiles with a toothbrush than do laundry. That likely explains why I enjoy sneaking clothes into Drew’s uniform loads or bribing him to get him to do it. I don’t mind sorting or folding laundry – just the carting the basket to the basement (while avoiding being tripped on the stairs by the dogs), figuring out which settings to use on the machines, determining proper measurements for laundry soap, crawling half into the washing machine to get the clothes at the bottom out, and trying to transfer the wet clothes to the dryer without dropping them on the floor.

Despite the overwhelming urge to go shopping for new socks and gitch just so I could avoid doing laundry I managed to beat my urges into submission and got three loads done. The lack of colour in my wardrobe might drive Drew crazy most days but having 98% of your clothing fall into one of five colours it makes getting your laundry done pretty simple. Today I made my way through the blacks, blues/greys, and whites. Tomorrow I tackle my browns and then all my laundry will be done.

Today has been all about mundane things. Tomorrow and Monday likely will be as well. And homework. Can’t forget that.

Weekly call from Drew concluded last night with his reminder that he’s close to 1/2 way through his tour. Good thing too. Apparently when I’m not the one traveling I miss him more than expected. Granted he was gone for a long time before he left for KAF what with the course in Montreal and his quick stint in Calgary. So by those standards we’re closer to 80% of the way through his time away rather than 50%.

Mostly I miss the conversations we have. We talk about some of the silliest and fun things. Serious stuff too. Sure we get to talk for 30-40 minutes a week but it’s not the same. Mostly, it’s just too short and there’s too much yawning going on during than calls.

Military families get notices of the types of things to talk about (or avoid) during calls to keep up morale. Avoiding fighting or whining is supposed to be rule #1. avoiding fighting is easy. We rarely argue. Too rational I think. Mostly we just rant, listen to each other and move on. Avoiding whining is harder. Our previous daily routine was to come home and rant or whine about work for 10-15 mind. Once out of our systems we moved on. A shared burden is an easier burden to carry.

For the moment we’re carting around extra shares of our concerns lately.

Perhaps that’s why I blog my whinging (not a spelling mistake, Scottish for whining). It let’s me share my day with Drew while he’s half way across the world. That way I can move on to whatever the next day brings. Tomorrow, I’ve got to head into work early to attend a meeting. Will need to try and get to bed early tonight. Not a good idea to sleep in…