Shhhhhh it’s quiet!

Yes, folks, Kurt has gone to work.  It’s so weird to have the house to myself.  Now if Grace wants something, I can’t tell her, “Go ask your dad!”

He’ll be home sometime tomorrow.  It was so hard for him to get up this morning to catch the 5:05am ferry.  He had to watch Family Guy and Robot Chicken last night, which meant he didn’t fall asleep till probably midnight.  I woke up with him at 4:20am, mainly because his alarm had been going off for several minutes, and he was showing no inclination to shut it off.  I don’t even think he heard it.  After he got dressed and brushed his teeth, he still had five minutes before he had to leave, so he crawled back into bed and fell asleep.  It’s amazing how quickly he can fall asleep.  I was awake the whole time, though, because I get paranoid when he’s got to go to work.  I’m afraid he’s going to miss the ferry and then end up really late to work.  It’s not a matter of “Oh, I’ll be there in thirty minutes” like it was when he was stationed at the other base.  Now it’s “The soonest I can be there is two hours from now.”

Living in Rhode Island will be so much better.  He’s thinking of biking to work since he’ll be so close.  If he drove, he could even come home for lunch!  Man, this will be so weird.

Speaking of Rhode Island, let me explain military housing a bit.  Kurt’s paycheck is made up of his base pay along with several allowances.  His base pay is not nearly enough to support a normal human being unless you’re not paying rent or a mortgage payment.  That’s why we also get a housing allowance, and that changes from duty station to duty station.  For example, it’s much cheaper to live in, say, Tennessee versus San Diego.  So his housing allowance would be a lot more in San Diego than it would be in Tennessee.  Also it’s cheaper to live on the west side of the Puget Sound, where we have our house, versus the east side where he’s currently stationed.  When he got transferred to his current ship, our housing allowance increased.

The housing allowance is supposed to cover your rent/mortgage and most of your utilities.  For us, it covers everything because our mortgage payment is only two-thirds of our allowance.  If we were to buy our house right this instant at the price we’re selling it for, it would barely cover just the mortgage.

It used to be when you lived in housing, you lived there “free.”  You did not receive a housing allowance, but then you didn’t pay rent either.  The only thing you had to pay for was your phone and your cable/satellite service.  Now the Navy has privatized nearly everything (which is a rant for another day), and so a civilian company is basically our landlord now.

When we move to Rhode Island, we will receive our housing allowance.  But we’ll have to immediately turn it over to our “landlord” as rent.  However much we receive is our amount of “rent” we pay every month.  If Kurt is promoted and gets more money, our rent goes up.  If he’s demoted (which is a near-impossibility now that he is a Chief Petty Officer), our rent decreases.  The size of the house we live in, its location, and its condition don’t matter at all; our rent is fixed at whatever housing allowance Kurt is entitled to receive.

But it’s still cheaper to live in Navy housing in Newport than it will be to try to find a regular house for rent.  I don’t think we’ll live there long enough to justify buying a house.  I can also bring my pets.  The only sad thing is I think I have to get rid of one of my cats.  The website says just two pets allowed.  I could never give up my dog, and my other cat is so psycho I would not wish him on anyone else.

Let’s hope my mom agrees to adopt my kitty.

Kurt bought Grace a yo-yo at Old Navy yesterday, and she’s been frustrated by it ever since.  She managed to put a big knot in the string, and she can’t figure out how to wind the string back into the yo-yo.  It’s frustrating for me because she will just whine when she can’t figure it out; I’ve been hearing little whiny cries all morning long because she’s having issues.

But at least I don’t have five children ages six and younger in my house all at once!!!  (Sorry, Caroline… *wink*)

Yesterday morning, Grace totally cracked me up.  Kurt and I were still in bed, snoozing away gently to my radio playing classical music, when I realized Grace was yelling for us.  Actually she was yelling for Kurt.

“Daddy!  Daddy!!!  Daddy!!  I want breakfast, Daddy!  Eggs, Daddy!!  Daddy!  Eggs!  Breakfast!!  Daddy!!!”

It was so funny to hear out of her, especially the way she was saying, “Daddy!”  She almost had an Elvis-type accent as she said it.

Now go outside and play!  It’s a lovely day in the neighborhood!