Door One Or Door Two

Do you ever feel like you're doing everything you should be doing and somehow life still doesn't seem to be working out for you? That's how I've kind of felt this last year. I feel like saying "Okay Heavenly Father what am I doing wrong? What do you want me to do?" Just a little FYI Stephen is pretty much on the verge of losing his job. He works hard but things aren't exactly working out with him in Sales (he's just not a desk jockey) and so they are thinking about moving him back to Customer Service which is a pretty substantial pay cut, at least for us since we are kind of living paycheck to paycheck already. Last year when he worked in CS it wasn't so bad because we were living in my brother-in-laws basement apartment paying $255 less rent than we are now. But with higher rent, food and gas prices rising we are looking to what our other options are. For those of you who knew that Stephen had tried to get into the California Highway Patrol, that is pretty much out of the picture now. Which makes me really really mad because last year when his brother Nathan was in the CHP academy they told him they weren't really going to be hiring this year. But when we talked to Stephen's background investigator we asked if that was true and if there was any point in spending money for him to keep coming out to finish his testing if they weren't hiring. Well, Stephen's background investigator who took 2 years to complete Stephen's application process said those were untrue rumors, blah blah blah. Well, they were true. What a waste of two years. So, I've been looking into other Police Departments in different states that we might be interested in living. We looked in Oregon, they aren't really hiring right now, Washington you absolutely have to have a WA driver's license, and the same for almost every single police department in California as well you need a CA drivers license. (We also looked in Idaho but the pay is really bad, except for Boise, and Utah only had one opening where the pay was acceptable, but Stephen doesn't want to live in Utah anymore, he really hates snow) I could only find 3 in CA that accepts out of state applicants (not including L.A. but I really really don't want to live to L.A.) those 3 are Marina, CA, Simi Valley, CA, and San Diego, CA. The first two are very expensive areas to live, and compared to those first two San Diego isn't so bad. Plus look how pretty it is.





I lived in San Diego when I was really little and Stephen loves palm trees. I talked to a recruiter today who said he could take the first test in June and if he passed with all flying colors he could be in an academy as soon as this upcoming October. So that's door #1. Here's door #2...the military. Anyone who knows Stephen, and I mean really really knows Stephen is like "Oh yeah, I could totally see him in the military." At first we thought the Air Force because he has a friend in the Air Force who told us all about it and it seemed like a good idea, the only problem is if he were to apply now, the soonest he could get into the Air Force as an officer would be 2 years from now, and we don't have that much time, at least not anymore. (He's too old to go in as an enlisted) So then we started looking at the Army. They said that if he were to start at the next local board/test in July and passed he could get in as soon as September. The military has excellent benefits, but the three types of training that he'd have to go through alone is about 10 months of us not getting to see each other at all, except for at two of his training graduations. Not to mention if he were to get deployed right away...but at least to apply to the army he doesn't have to fly anywhere or take time off from work to take tests like he would have to applying to the San Diego Police Department. But in the Army we have no control over where we live, I don't necessarily have a problem with moving because I moved so much growing up, but not being able to pick where we had to move is more difficult. However, Stephen and I have talked about how cool it would be if he got stationed in Germany, or Italy. So, those are our options right now. If anyone has any suggestions as to other job openings they know of that Stephen would like, I'm all ears.