Hey Murphy, How's It Going?

Anybody who knows us, knows that we just can't do things easily.

Not in a tragic way....but in a "you won't believe what happened THIS time" kind of way.  An eye rolling way.  A "you have got to be kidding" way.  (But again, not in a tragic way -- through everything we remain incredibly blessed.)

And transitioning from military to civilian status has been no different from anything else. (Anyone remember Anatomy of a Frymark Move?)

So lets count the ways that Murphy has shown his presence this time around.

1.  Yes I did pay for the full years premium of health insurance. After all we had the money and I know that I know that if I didn't something would happen and we wouldn't have the money for the quarterly payment and we would have a huge problem.  No. Let me save us that.

And of course when we tried to use said insurance it was in the computer as the wrong kind. As in the "you can't have an appointment because you have the kind of insurance that you have to use off base".  Uuummm.  Nooooooo.

To make a long story short, it turns out they denied us as ineligible (!!) BUT they cashed the check and kept the money.  Now, that's theft in my book. How about yours?

But after a wasted afternoon on the phone that has been fixed....which is good because....

2. Child number three decides to get good and sick and be transferred to a civilian hospital. And it was very hard for me to sign those forms KNOWING they will somehow be denied or processed wrong and we ARE going to be hit with a bill that we should not be hit with.  You know it. I know it. Murphy knows it. Another time waster on the horizon.

And what makes that extra scary is....

3. The jobs that were available for Hubs when he retired, Disappeared when the 500 Million in Defense Cuts were announced.  We went from having choices to having nothing overnight.  And to date have been unable to find anything.  No job.

Which is scary because after three months

4. The military paycheck is now all gone.

Well, actually we got shorted our last check.  It never hit our bank.

Which means rent and life insurance are not paid.  Need I say more?

And sure this will be fixed.  If Murphy is distracted maybe by next week.  And they were all kinds of sorry and have no idea how this happened.  But that doesn't pay the bills my friend.

5. And  I still have no idea what kind of money we will have to work with when we start our retirement check next month. Which I fully expect to get lost somehow also.  Why stop now?

If we have it figured out right we will be able to pay all our bills.  And have $26 left over to live off of.  That means food, gas, school lunches and everything else under the sun.  But the bills will be paid.

If our numbers are right.

If.

And finally

6.  We are having problems replacing Hubs life insurance.  We lost most of what we had the day he retired. We are in the process of replacing it with civilian insurance.  Its been one error or question after another.  So my safety net is gone.  And I know many people don't even have a safety net, but I have no college degree and am worth about nothing in the job market in this economy.  The safety net is important.

Luckily we are pretty familiar with Murphy so we do have anti-splatter protection.  We are fine financially for a little while so the money issues are more of an annoyance that cause a lot of wasted time fixing them - but otherwise do not cripple us.

The hardest part of all of this is really how it affects the girls to go from a normal life to being very restricted on everything...including food. They have never had to live anything other than a carefree existence up to this point. Now the dinner menu is dictated by cheap foods (And if you know Mouse you know this mean lots of tears and agony at each meal).  There are no extra's for going out with friends or other things that come up. So if you think about it, say a little prayer for peace of mind for my girls.  They could use some extra love.

And since this is on a schedule to post, I'm hoping I will be able to update it with some kind of good news when it posts.

A girl can dream, right?