Wow, what a month!

There's a reason I haven't updated very much. There's been sooo much going on that I've been in a kind of fog trying to figure everything out.

I think the last thing I posted was just after getting here at Fort Riley. Shortly thereafter I inprocessed up at Fort Leavenworth which is my District Headquarters. Those military folk out there will understand how unusual that process is since inprocessing usually happens at the post to which you are assigned, but for us we go to District. I have no idea why.

Then I came back down here and had a couple of days at home to get some major renovations done on the house. Currently Karly has been doing a wonderful job of continuing the upgrades and the house is really coming together. It won't be too long before we have the entire upstairs finally finished (per se) and ready to move on to the downstairs. All we have left is drywalling the new opening, some painting, putting up trim around the entire upstairs to make the ceilings look like they belong with the walls, and replacing windows. Then we have to do the attic which will take a serious cleaning, a new window, and a whole bunch of pink panther so we can keep the heat in the house over the winter. The attic space could probably be used for a room if we wanted to spend the money to finish it, but for now it's not on the list. We may, however, put in some duct work and create zone heating/cooling based out of the attic.

Then on to downstairs. That'll be the fun work (right). We have to replace all the carpeting, paint the walls, raise the ceiling back up to its glorious 9 foot level, do some molding, lay some laminate, and replace the windows. When all is said and done we will have an absolutely amazing house.

Then we move on to the yard and shed. Currently the shed is a 4 door pole barn with a 25x25 shop area. There are no doors on the stall fronts so in the plans is adding garage doors. The yard has little to no landscaping around the house. They put in rocks around the deck and a couple of big rocks on either side of the driveway but that's about it. So we have some work to do.

And that's just what is going on with the house. I haven't even mentioned my work.

I have three missions: Food Security/Safety and biosecurity, Government owned animals (Military Working Dogs, Caisson Horses, TSA dogs), and Privatly owned animals (Fluffy). Any one of these missions would be all that most officers in the Army have to deal with, but in vet services they expect more out of us and so they pack our lives full of way more than humanly possible. The absolute only way to excel in all of the areas is to have great management skills and a strong ability to delegate and trust that your staff is doing everything they need to do.

The last two weeks have been extremely hectic because my clinic manager (NCOIC) tore through his Achilles tendon, was rushed to surgery and then left the clinic for a couple of weeks on convalescent leave. Thus the technician and I had to fill in the hole and keep things running. Needless to say that was not easy.

On the happy side, within the next two weeks I will have another credential under my belt. I will at that point be credentialed by the military as a 3006 Commercial Sanitary Inspection Auditor. A.K.A. I will be able to go and audit commercial food production facilities and make sure that they are acceptable sources for military procurement.

I really enjoy the branch side of my job. I love doing the sanitary inspections and facility inspections. I have fun teaching people about food security and public health. Life would be great if I could do all of my mission and not have to spend so much time in the office. Getting out is the best part of my job.

All in all, life is good. No matter what the world throws at you, maintaining that knowledge that everything has its reason and purpose allows you to live the game of life without stressing about the little stuff. Remember that whatever happens today, the sun will rise tomorrow; whatever happens this week, next week is just around the corner; whatever happens this month, brings you ever closer to the holidays; whatever happens this year, next year will be another chance.

[Posted and edited courtesy of Karly. Haha....now your bad spelling and grammar in posts doesn't have to bother me in published form. ]