secrets of an Army wife

Sorry for the delay in updating! A LOT has happened so this may be a really long post!

Steven and I have been working on the finances and doing some math and decided a few weeks ago that not only were we in desperate need of a new computer but we could finally afford one! My laptop is awesome but it's been my main computer for four years now, running all the adobe programs and since ALL my design work has been produced on it it's just gotten really slow. Even despite my efforts to keep it clean, constantly dumping files onto an external hard drive and deleting them from the laptop. We're going to keep it and I'll use it whenever I need to take my work away from home, but I'm hoping that by buying a new "main" computer and doing a majority of my work on it that I might be able to extend the life of the laptop by a few years. And when it goes completely dead I'll probably get a new laptop, just perhaps a smaller one or something just for the purpose of taking work away from home when I need to. Anyway, I said all that to say that we finally found a few hours on Sunday to go to the Apple store!! We made our first major purchase in "cash" and it was so exciting (and a little nerve racking)! The Volker's are now the proud owner's of a 24 inch iMac!!! I've spent the past few evenings figuring out how to transfer files between the two computers (I actually figured it out all by myself, be proud!) Last night it took three hours to transfer all the music and about half the photos from my laptop to the desktop! Apparently I have more than I thought :) Now we're just trying to get a hold of the new CS4 programs, hopefully Kristin can get them for us for a little cheaper!

I did a little research yesterday pertaining to the cost of homes in and around the bases that we could be stationed at after Steven completes SF training. (in the US at least that means: Fort Bragg and surrounding areas, Fort Carson and Colorado Springs, Fort Campbell and surrounding areas in both KY and TN, and also Fort Lewis in Washington but I didn't do any research there b/c I'm seriously hoping we don't get stationed there!) We've been told that we get the "opportunity" to name where we want to be stationed, but we know that's kind of an empty promise. But if we get the opportunity then we should take it and make an educated decision. We just can't get attached to that decision, because ultimately they are going to send us wherever they deem necessary!

As of right now, my research has made Fort Campbell (which sits on the state line between Kentucky and Tennessee) look pretty good! The only town close by to Fort Carson in Colorado is Colorado Springs and the cost of homes there is just as expensive if not more than the cost of homes in Raleigh, which is A LOT. Which was a little bit of a bummer because I thought Colorado would be a really cool place to live for a while, but we may not be able to afford a house there. At least one that I would be willing to live in! If we get stationed at Bragg, I refuse to live in and around Fayetteville because I just don't feel safe there even in the daylight. And we can't afford to buy a house inside Raleigh which kinda causes a problem. I'm quite positive that we could find something but it would be really difficult and probably require one or both us to drive a ways to work everyday. But we'll do whatever have to do to find a place to live wherever we get stationed at!

But back to Fort Campbell. Clarksville, TN is like five minutes away and in the listings on just one website a found a TON of houses in what I'm estimating to be our price range. And I'm talking like three bedrooms or more, some with garages, and ALL of them sat on LAND! Only like one or two were all up in their neighbors business which I can't stand. A vast majority of the ones I saw actually had a yard worthy of playing ball in. I couldn't believe the prices! The same size houses in Raleigh or Colorado Springs even were listed for AT LEAST 20,000 if not 30 or 40,000 more! I was in shock, and so excited! I've never been there but you can tell a lot about a place by the way the houses look, in my opinion anyway. I have an aunt and uncle who live right outside Nashville which is only an hour or so away from Clarksville so I may have them investigate it for me! My uncle used to be in the Airforce, so I'm sure they wouldn't mind giving me their opinion on the town and the base.

We still have more to discuss, obviously, but we had a goal to be in a house by the time we were restationed so the cost of homes will play a major role. Fort Campbell would also be a good choice for us because it's only three hours away from Dalton, where my ENTIRE extended family lives so that that would be nice for us. And it's only nine hours away from Raleigh so we would be able to visit our parents and friends and vise versa, without having too much trouble. But like I said, these are just preliminary findings there's still more to talk about! But so far... I really like Kentucky/Tennessee! (At least as far as the US bases go)