Job of the month finale

It's been almost a year since our job search began.  Jared was recruited by E-Source recruiter after we attended a meeting about general franchise ownership. I remember sitting in the meeting I was the only female present that was not running the meeting.  There were people that had been in corporate jobs and people out of work and laid off and a few privately owned business owners and investors and even some people that owned sports franchises.  From there we were encouraged to meet with a friend of the speaker that had some prior military experience and enjoyed working with other Vets.
From this point over the past two to three year the following had been franchise ideas that Jared tossed around. some only lasted a week others longer.  Here is the breakdown of the non- military jobs of the Month ideas we have discussed.

Edward Jones- Financial planning, Interviewed and was offered a position. Met with many other Edward Jones financial planners in WA, MN and California.

Dickey's BBQ came after Jared found a wanderlust for BBQ, while at Chinook training in the South and became a BBQ extraordinaire.  He came home and had to have a smoker and we talked about opening a business here. Looked into the FDD.

Photo booth Ownership and rentals. We decided against it because it is mostly a weekend only business and didn't want to have weekends booked.

Bricks for Kidz- A lego based Learning and fun franchise would take up any of our vacation time during afterschool hours and school breaks. Also did not see a great return here for making lots of income, parents cut kids extra activities when Money is tight.

Once he met with Jim his mentor, he did some personality testing to see where Jared's strong points are and where he should maybe look for hiring someone to fill in other areas.  It also took into account his interests. Then he sat down with Jared and I to discuss the results and also what I wanted from this.  At the time he was wondering if a healthcare industry would be a good business for us as I am a Nurse.  I said that I honestly have had so much involvement in Jared's career up till this point, I really analyzed every career move Jared made and how it would affect our family and my career.  So I really wanted something that could be his. 

From there Jared was given homework assignments and he had to do what was called due diligence to look into each business that Jim recommended.  Jared researched and spoke to owners and we met with regional developers for some of the larger companies.  The main ones we looked at were Certa Pro Painters, AdvantaClean, Archadeck, Handyman Maters, Window Genie.  The idea that we heard throughout was that this does not have to your passion but a means to and end.  Which went against everything I believe and have been taught.  I am a Pediatric Nurse and I certainly don't run all day, skip lunches and carry a huge emotional burden everyday because I think I will make good money at something. It is the people and the stories and the intimate moments that people share with their nurse that they have only known for maybe an hour or a month or a year that make my job so special. 

After doing his validations with each company and narrowing it down we looked at Certa-Pro in WA, and CA. We went down to California to look at schools and neighborhoods and talk to someone in the California National Guard about transferring.  There actually was a territory right near Jared's family in a prevalent area that had established accounts and we could buy into an already functioning brand. 

The reality of the cost of moving, the cost of living in CA, trying to change guard units and plan out mandatory training while starting a new business and me now being the main steady income having to get a new job seemed a little more challenging than we could afford at this time.  We also would not have the benefits of the military being so close to base here, we have reasonably priced daycare, free gyms, and some nice benefits of working at the Medical Center for easy access to care.

Here is WA we met the owner of Certa- Pro painters and he talked with us about his career and after looking into it we just felt that the market was a bit flooded for painting and too seasonal for WA.

We met with a Window Genie developer that was in Portland and Jared looked into AdvantaClean. These were our final two.  AdvantaClean had some benefits to our area.  There is a lot of mold and water. Also if the market turns down what service would continue.  People want to live in healthy environments and are concerned about mold.  If you have mold or water damage you really do have to get it taken care of regardless of if you want to.  Your windows on the other hand could wait or you could do it safely and correctly yourself if you have the time.  Mold is a specialty and requires lots of expertise to do it correctly.  We also have had lots of personal experience with water damage in our own home and property. 

So a year later here we are still in Washington, owners and operating the AdvantaClean of the South Sound.

Mold and Water Remediation

Farewell to a Warrior

 

The army is downsizing and with it goes the Kiowa.  This is one of the last photos I have of J with his helicopter.  He now is transitioning to Chinooks but he is no longer an instructor for this aircraft. We will miss Daddy's fly-bys at lunch and out of the lake.  Only Maycen will look to the skies and think that's my Dadda flying.  Brody is barely aware of how cool his dad once was!

 

 

 Although this news link refers mostly to our 4/6 CAV brothers it also affects the National guard fleet which is now composed of UH-60's and Chinooks.

http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/05/19/jblm-kiowa-helicopter-squadron-to-be-inactivated.html

Follow up from 160th

Jared spent several weeks training and getting in shape and submitting paperwork for the Special Forces 160th SOAR flight program.  He was then sent down to assess and the National Guard paid him TDY to fly him down, board him and any other fees that went along with this.  After a rigorous week he was given the handshake that meant he had the green light to be part of this special group of soldiers.  I was looking up Chinook missions on You Tube and little bird pics.  He came home and submitted his official paperwork to get back in to active army.  This at a time when the base was experiencing sequestrations.  I was working as essential personnel without the guarantee of pay and Jared was getting Furlough Fridays and 2 weeks off no pay at this time. (later update: Ironically Jared did not have to go to work but got paid and I had to work and cover the work of non- essential employees, so working twice as hard and my pay was delayed.  Go figure!)
Jared began to budget for our life in Special Ops, I might not have to work, We began looking at homes for sale in some of the more elite neighborhoods.  Jared would fly over new developments to check out places we should look. We starting Pre-Qualifying and getting our credit score information on track.
Back in the reality of the Military, the paperwork was getting backed up and tracking it all down was challenging. It wasn't until after we went to a friends wedding and saw the person that we needed to sign off Jared's packet to get back in the Active Army, and he said it had passed his desk weeks ago.  We soon later found out that due to down sizing of the Army and Jared being so close to retirement that the Army did not feel that with his advanced age (36 at the time) that picking him up would be a benefit so they turned down his packet to get back in which then ended our options with Special Ops.

Job of the Month, February!

Job of the Month, February!

 

 

Update on the Job of the month... Jared has been off orders since Counterdrug went bust in WA state due to funding so he was doing the Daddy Daycare thing and flying missions here and there for the guard.  Now they have him filling in for a pilot that has been grounded but he is not on military orders they just picked him up as a contractor so he is the same as me right now a government employee.  Although he is on a contract I think he said it was for 4 months but then they extended him for a year but I honestly am not sure because of all the budget cuts if that will really be for a year.  I know confusing!

 

Anyway, this Job really does not help us to get closer to our goal of retiring in 20 years since he is not fulltime Guard right now, he is just doing the one weekend a month right now. This fill-in pilot position does nothing for our time in service.  

 

Right now the military is down sizing and although he has really good reviews they are not taking more pilots in the Active Army at his rank unless you go special forces, so he just submitted his packet for a unit called the 160th, they are special aviation opps and we are hoping that will get us to the 20 years mark.  Although we both are not big on the idea because it is a lot of away time and weird schedules.  We have had several friends in the past that have been part of this unit and it has not been favorable on marriages.  Not our first choice by any means!

 

Not sure at this point if it is even worth it to stay in 20 years active duty because they are cutting the funding to so many programs and medical.  So we will see where this road takes us. 

 

 

Handeling the Job of the Month!

I have joked about it in my family blog and with friends, the "Job of the Month".  This is what my husband does when he gets antsy with his current job position.  I think I understand a bit better where it is coming from as the Army has it's own fair share of jobs of the month.  It used to get me all worked up when J would come home and say I think I want to go to school for this class and do this.  Which would then put him away from us again for months at a time.  I am not a stay home Mom I am working and I have a job that requires 12 hour shifts, on call and weekends, so daycare is not easy to work around with this schedule and I rely on Jared a big part of the time to help in picking up M and B before it closes on days I work.  When you do not have family near these little details can really become stressors that play into your family and your marriage.  I have learned over the past six years married to Jared that some things don't need an immediate reaction. In fact I have found it best to say that is great honey and I will support you if that is something you want to do just let me know when its official and you have orders.  So many times it just never plays out.  I am not sure if it is the typical wondering mind of men trying to add challenges when their jobs seem mundane or if he is just testing me.  However there is another side of this a few years ago Jared felt very strongly that he wanted to do something different, get out of the Army for good and be a financial planner.  This all at a time when the market was in deep trouble and people were not giving up a cent.  I fully supported him, after several interviews he got a job offer and we talked about moving to be closer to family in MN.  Wouldn't that have been my dream:)  Jared only has about 7 years left till retirement and Me, the wife that upon saying "I do" was hoping he would end his military career was now more certain than ever that staying in, in this economy when we had one child and planning to have more, was the best thing to do.  Jared will only be in his 40's when he retires a perfect time to test any career path he may fancy and he can succeed or fail at it with really little concern on our finances at that point.
Another thing of Jobs of the Month which more wives can probably relate to is military directed.  I am not sure if it is budget cuts or what but in this past year Jared has been told that he will be taking a job in Seattle with the DEA, which we discussed moving north to be closer. Teaching in the school house which may cause him to be gone at training and afar teaching opportunities.  Instead he has sat on a hiring board and done small jobs around his office. There have been talks of moving the unit to Spokane which would be a big move for our family, this was expected for 2015 or so but now someone put the word out it may be sooner.  They also are sending him to two schools one to fly a new helicopter that they have no plans of him flying once he returns.  This could make him miss the birth of our child and me home with a toddler and working in late stages of pregnancy with no help. The most recent job of the month news came this past week in a phone call inquiring if he could go down and help on the border.  None of these have happened yet but it sure makes it hard to plan life.  We need to buy another home as we have outgrown ours but with the possibility of a move we can't think about that now.  I am planning to go back to school and get my masters but because there have been so many "possibly" moves or uncertain career paths I have since put that off.  Spokane has a great program for my degree desires but who knows when or if that will actually become official.
Like I said the best things is not to get too up in a tissy about all these what ifs.  Most of them don't seem to pan out but it doesn't mean that it is any less stressful and challenging trying to make a life for yourselves.

I also think it makes it hard to form strong friendships outside of the military.  If you are constantly dropping bombs to your friends that you are going to be leaving or moving it makes it really hard on both ends to form a strong bond.  Understandably, who wants to invest time in a friendship that may fade away to distance in a few short months.  It has it's own set of challenges and often I think as military wives we cling to like minded friends.  I know this was very common when I was a travel nurse.  You could make instant fast friends with other travel nurses but a lot of the permanent staff did not really want to get to know you on a personal level.  I guess you just have to try and reach out and hope that if it is a good friend they will be understanding that the relationship may need to be flexible to change and that can be hard when you are looking for Mom's of toddlers for play dates and coffee.

Sad News for Kiowa Aviation Families at Ft Lewis

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57341979/army-copters-crash-on-wash-base-4-dead/

News like this is so sad to all of us in the aviation community.  The loss of a soldier is sad in itself but we often take training missions for granted.  Jared has not flown since he broke his ankle and last night was the first night he was flying again with an IP they flew in from Arizona and another pilot. The news flashed about the crash just as Jared pulled up the driveway and my heart sank but also a sigh of relief.  It is a sad reminder that their job is dangerous rather they are here or deployed. 
During deployments people would always say don't you worry, he is in such danger. Really the biggest worry I had was that I didn't get that immediate, I am on my way home or I am flying today message, although with Skype that improved with the last deployment. He wasn't on the ground and that made me feel a little safer about deployments.  His job is dangerous. Flying in a little tin box, with exercises like night vision flying and the weather here at Ft Lewis can be challenging with fog and lots of low clouds.  It amazes me that these things don't crash more often.  Have you seen this thing torn apart when they do maintenance?  It is like a mess of cords and metal. The other worry I have as a wife of a Helicopter pilot is he is an IP (Instructor Pilot) so he flies some of the newer pilots and gets them trained to fly and progresses them through different phases.  It always made me nervous when he would fly with someone that I may have met at a party who seems overconfident or careless, this wasn't very often in his current career path but more with the younger soldiers that had just come out of flight school.  Sometimes he would share that he didn't like flying with so and so because they don't make good decisions and that is a bit nerve racking to hear when you know they will fly together again.

Whatever the reason for the crash it is still very sad.  I think now that Jared is a daddy with another on the way he can put it into perspective more than I have heard him relate to a crash before.  He said, "Some one's little kid isn't going to see their daddy anymore, that would be so sad if M woke up and I wasn't here anymore."

Breaks your heart because it is close to home, we know families that have lived with this pain and now there are more that have to experience this loss.

What is all this I'm a Wilma

For those of you that don't know Jared and I very well we are part of a special group of people that belong to the Military family. I never thought I would meet and marry a soldier coming from Minnesota, but travel nursing and the military seemed to follow similar paths. After traveling to Hawaii and being surrounded by soldiers in the Army, Navy, Marines, National Guard and Coast Guard it was nearly impossible to not meet a military man.

Jared was a newer helicopter pilot with the 3/4 Calvary in the 25th infantry at Wheeler Airforce Base. When I met Jared I was not overly impressed by his job but more his own personality. However after spending much time together I soon realized that I had become part of his military family. I am sure people find this in all walks of military life but I was surprised as I had very little experience with the Army.

However everywhere that we have been and met Aviators I find more similarities and common ground with these families than I would have imagined. One thing I have learned being in the Army is it is hard as a wife to separate yourself from the job of your spouse. I know more about my husband's career and going ons than I really care to and way more than he will ever know about mine. However even if you have your own life outside of the Military and your husband you truly are "Married to the Military" which I might add was one of my first books given to me when Jared and I became more serious.

Anyway, after making it through two deployments, trainings far and near and several classes apart from one another, I have learned the lingo, heard the delay of DSN phone calls from Iraq, shared hugs with other wives awaiting their military aviators return, , shed tears for our losses and found respect for a wonderful group of woman that love their soldiers.

So to support this mission that girlfriends and wives carry on I have created and Icon to relate to our military family. If a Betty can be a hot chica than a Wilma can be us! A Woman in Love with a Military Aviator. We are a group similar to many military wives but yet special in our bond and pride for our loved ones job as he or she serves our country.