Imposed Restriction

So it has been over six months since I posted last. I can’t believe it has been that long but I guess time does fly especially when you’ve been busy. We’ve been VERY busy so I’ll try to give you a quick run down of what has been happening.

The main reason I’ve been so busy is a little thing called Imposed Restriction or as most people call it – IR.

IR is where the military member moves to the new location and leaves the family at the old location. My husband moved to Toronto to work at the Canadian Forces College and the kids and I remained here at CFB Trenton.

I know to many civilians this might seem crazy and this isn’t our preferred lifestyle but we did take into account many factors. If your family is considering IR, read on and see how we made our decision.

The Job

My husband’s job entails a fairly busy weekday schedule and nothing much to do on the weekends. This would allow him to come home almost every weekend.

Living Away From Home

My husband chose to live on rations and quarters. This means he has a room, similar to a hotel suite with a small fridge, coffee maker, microwave, toaster and kettle. He can eat 3 meals per day in the Officers’ Mess. Simple and easy for him.

Commute to Home

On the train, it takes 1h50 to travel from Trenton to Toronto. The cost is less than $100 per trip. The cost of the train home every weekend is less than owning a second car. Taking the train is also significantly less stressful than driving.

Children

With one kid almost done secondary school and the other almost ready to start secondary school, it wasn’t the best time for them to change schools. Also, the school here in Trenton has less than 300 kids from Jr. Kindergarten to Grade 12 – it is almost like private school! The kids know all the teachers and the teachers know all the kids. The big bonus is that our kids walk about 200 meters to school.

In Toronto, the schools are very large and the kids would not receive the one-on-one that they receive here. In Toronto, they would very likely have to take a school bus every day through Toronto traffic.

The children also have extracurricular activities they enjoy here in Trenton – ones that we could not find (or afford) in Toronto.

My Work

After being here for over 2 years, my business is doing really well. I would have to start again from scratch in Toronto. Something that I would not be interested in doing.

Disadvantages

It has been hard these last few months being a single parent all week. Between work, school and activities, sometimes I feel like I’m never home (actually I’m often NOT home which is why I have had such a hard time posting on this blog!) Also, I know the kids miss Daddy and vise versa.

Overall things are working out well but if the commute were any longer, we would have moved.

 

Have you done IR? How did it work out? What was your decision making process?

 

 

Change of Command Ceremony

It was just a short 23 months ago that I wrote about the Change of Command Ceremony where my hubby took command of the Canadian Forces Land Advanced Warfare Centre (CFLAWC). Today I attended another ceremony where he handed over the unit to another commanding officer.

Even though the program was essentially the same as it was 2 years ago, for me the event was quite different as this time we were saying good-bye to co-workers and friends we had made.

Although we’re sad to be leaving the unit here, we’re starting a new chapter in our lives that will I’m sure be full of happy surprises.

We’ll never forget our friends and experiences with CFLAWC and we wish them all the best as they go ALL THE WAY!

Long time no blog

So if you’re wondering what happened, here’s a quick run down of the past couple of months.

We successfully moved into the new house. It took about 2 weeks to get things in order. As I was still teaching at the local community college it took a little longer than usual. The basement still isn’t set up the way I want it but…

About the time the house was almost in order, I took on a full-time corporate client and I’m working there until the end of July.

Unfortunately my husband is on holidays for the month of July and starts work in August just as I’m finishing.

The kids are going to be enjoying some local day camps (golf, equestrian and sailing) over the summer.

Hopefully things will slow down soon.

Army is crazy! I love it!

Twas the night before packing

Okay so I’ve been way too busy to post for the last few days. Things are well underway here.

All the curtains (except the bedrooms) are down, washed and packed in a Rubbermaid bin. I pre-pack curtains in a labeled bin so that I can find them easily at destination. (We actually have 3 bins of curtains). If these curtains don’t fit any of the windows in the new house, I can just leave them in the bins and I know that they are already cleaned.

All the pictures are off the walls and piled in a corner of the living room. It is much easier for the packers to have all of the framed pictures in one place. They don’t have to drag the special boxes all over the house and the fragile items can stay out of the way of everything else.

The weird closet at the top of the stairs has been emptied. Normally I let the packers empty the closets but this bizarre closet is located at the top of the stairs and you have to open the door pull something out, close the door then put it in a box. Very time consuming and dangerous as there is a risk of falling over the railing and down the stairs.

The shower curtains have been taken down and washed. All the towels have been washed. All the bedsheets, mattress covers and blankets have been washed. There is one  more load of clothes to wash – what we were wearing today. The appliance guy comes tomorrow to disconnect and block the washer.

All the garbage pails in the house (except the kitchen) have been emptied. Goodness knows I don’t want garbage packed on the truck. All of the recycling has been gathered and placed OUTSIDE in the recycling bin. The kitchen garbage will go out tomorrow after breakfast.

The kids have their clothes packed in suitcases. When they get up tomorrow, they’ll add their pyjamas and toothbrushes then the suitcases will go in the car.

As for me, I’ve got to pack my own suitcase, wash the dishes and finish that last load of laundry – and here I am updating this blog!!!

Back to work for me! It will be a long day tomorrow!

5 Days to Go

Things that got done today

I had my riding lesson and purchased a minimal amount of groceries, just to get us through until Monday.

The moving company sent their representative to do the estimate. She toured the house and prepared a list of how many boxes would be required to do the move. She also informed me of the list of items that the moving company will not pack. These items include:

• liquids
• corrosives
• batteries
• explosives
• flammables
• alcohols
• compressed gases
• live houseplants

We have 3 glass jars of salsa, 2 bottles of wine, a can of WD-40, liquid laundry detergent, shampoo etc. that we’ll have to transport ourselves. If we had more warning about this move, or if it had been a longer distance, I would have made more effort to get reduce the amount of these items. However, we are lucky we can make several trips with our own car.

Now we return to our regularly scheduled program of laundry and dinner preparations.