All the New Things!

Brand new blogger and wife of a brand new FAO.

I've never blogged anything before. In the past several years, I've worked hard to minimalize my social media presence. I have a marketing degree, so I fully understand the potential damage inherent to publicizing your life. 

Having said that... well... hi. I'm Becky. There's a whole lot of background I could give you about how my life ended up at the point where I decided to start blogging at 39, but I think I'd prefer to let you get to know me and my story a bit more organically, so I think we'll just start in the now and give background where it may be needed.

My woodland sprite.

How did I end up here?

As things stand right now, my husband, Zach, has been accepted as a new Foreign Area Officer with the United States Army. We are more than 15 years into his career (with retirement possible at 20 years), and so this was a bit of a curve ball for us. We found out at the beginning of September, and for the most part, information has been flying our way like crazy ever since. We found out he was assigned to the region the covers most of Asia, and that he would be required to develop fluency in Japanese. We learned that language training would happen in Cali, which we are super excited about. And there should be more info coming in soon, although I may not know it for another week or eight days. (Zach is currently on a training trip and doesn't have access to his phone.) 

So we think we will be selling our house here in NC, as opposed to renting it out, I'll be leaving my job as a teacher (hello, all my erstwhile students, I will miss all of you terribly!) Our oldest, Hannah, lives here with her long-term boyfriend and is too old for the army to move her with us anyway, so we will be saying farewell to her. Our second, Emma, is a freshman in college here. We'll get to see her more often than Hannah for the next few years, but not by much. Our son, Connor, is 9 and is excited about Cali but very upset to be leaving all of the friends he made here. When we first moved to NC, he told me he didn't plan to make friends because he "isn't much of a friender, mom." And our youngest, Taylor, wants to move but at 4 years old she is very upset we won't be living in a hotel permanently. Also moving with us is our 8 year old pit mix, Odin, to whom we affectionately refer as a couch sausage. 

So... what's next?

Over the next couple of years, we will be making decisions on vehicles, downsizing, what to store, what to sell or give away, and so many other things. My emotions have been a bit scattered since we found out he was accepted, and it has really been a lot to process, even if I am happy about it in the majority. I looked and had a hard time finding anything, even online, that gives the perspective of the spouse in this situation. In other OCONUS situations, there's plenty, but not so much when it comes to a much longer-term commitment to life in foreign countries with children. So that leads me here. I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I do. 

Interested in keeping the conversation going? Leave a comment below!