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Robert is 100% better now...just sleepy, but he can catch up on that this weekend.
He came home from work yesterday with all sorts of good news too share.
From next week till the end of June we will be going to various appointments and seeing different people to help us transition out of Germany and back to the States.
In fact we see the Transportation folks on the 13th and hoping they will come get our main stuff (the things we want to be there when we arrive in Texas) the end of May. They should be able too, there aren't a whole lot of people left on this base.

On the 16th Robert has a farewell dinner within his unit that he has asked me to join him on. It's at some German resturant called Cubana's. I hope it's good.

We have an appointment the end of May to take our car in (to have it shipped to Dallas). Now I will say, we can't just drop it off and leave. Oh no...these car inspection people are really really really picky about the cleanliness of the car and scratches on it, and stuff. If it's not clean enough, they will make you take it back and wash it until they think it's clean enough, or vacuumed enough. Trust me, when we shipped our car from Dallas to come here, we had to wash it 3 times!!!! And then we had to pay someone to drain the fuel as we were only allowed 1/4 of a tank, and needless to say it was insane...not counting it was near 100 degrees that day and there was no air conditioning in the inspection bays...
Many people we have talked to said they are more harsher over here as far as standards are concerned than in the States when it comes to inspections. Oh joy...and they are all Germans doing the inspections which is going to make it quite a day when it comes...

Robert has various appointments for job fairs, for getting his resume typed up, for job etiquette this month along with I think medical (it's nothing really, just kind of like a physical and a mental evaluation).

We also got our itinerary for our plane tickets!!! Woohoooo!!!
On July 4th, our plane leaves Germany at 10:30 a.m. and we arrive in Dallas at 2:30 p.m. and it's non stop which is good. Still it's a 10.5 hour flight...but...it will be the last long flight we will ever take again. :-)

The Army is going to be giving Robert separation pay which will be anywhere between $22,000 - $25,000. He has an appointment soon to get that worked out.

Also we will still have military benefits till March 2009.

Robert is planning on joining what's known as the 'inactive Reserves' and what that means is if the Army needs you, they will call you, but otherwise you can live a normal civilian life. I was in the inactive Reserves till 2007 and never got called upon so it's not a big deal.
He will get $21,000 for signing up for 3 years. I told him to get that in writing.
The Army likes to talk a lot of stuff so we want it in writing and stamped if we can get it. :-)


Now...unto our soon to be lives in Texas.

Originally we were supposed to go through USAA for our $30,000 mortgage loan, they pre approved so we figured we would get approved as well.
Yeah right! We called them on the 1st or 2nd and they said we couldn't get it because Robert didn't have a job lined up when we got to Texas. We told them we would still be getting paid by the government till September and that he was going to have a job by July, August the latest but they didn't care.
We told them we have a savings account with a large 5 digit number in it which proved we had money to pay for the mortgage for several months, they didn't care.
The person on the phone told Robert he needs to have a job already and he got mad and told the person 'how exactly would you like me to do that if I am still in Germany. Agencies want to hire people now, not 2 or 3 months from now'. The person on the phone was silent.
Then the person suggested that I go to Texas now, get a job and maybe after 6 months they would approve us for a loan...lol..oh my goodness...what planet are these folks from????? Oh sure, like we have the funds for me to buy a $700 plant ticket, and go buy a $5,000 used car and purchase an apartment for $600-$700 a month and all that doesn't include food, bills, gas, etc...
I mean HELLO!!!!!!!!
Mind you, USAA is mostly consisted of prior military folks so some of the stuff they were throwing our way made us wonder what branch of military they used to be in...lol.
After more yapping they asked if we had anybody to co sign a loan for us. Uh...that's not a bright idea..to put that burden on someone else's shoulders....
Both of our families are not that qualified to co sign for a house.
Robert started getting mad and yelled into the phone 'WELL WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO DO THAN?" And the person was silent.
I mean, we had no options. They were acting like he was going to be some dead beat slug who wasn't going to work. All we were asking for was a $30,000 loan. They were making it seem we were asking for a $100,000 loan.
And we have had USAA for 7 years for car and renters insurance and have always paid them on time...
Robert told them they need to update their website than and not make it look so deceiving and hung up.

Then he started freaking out...
I got him calmed down as I wasn't worried about this, and told him to give Beverly our Realtor a call. She knows more about this stuff than we do...

So we called her and she said this wasn't the first time USAA had stiffed her clients like that and she knew just who to call for us to go through another agency (in Texas). I heard Robert on the phone go 'oh Beverly, I can just hug you right now'....LOL. :-)

Right now we are working with another agency who understands our situation. They said if we are approved, the interest rate will be a little higher (8%), but that's because of our circumstances and they said something about refinancing or whatever once the job situation was taken care of.
So, now we just sit and wait and see what they say.

I think if we were still stationed in Oklahoma instead of Germany, this would be a lot easier to deal with because we could have easily gone down to Texas and Robert could have had some jobs possibly lined up, know what I mean?

So...that is that as of yesterday. :-) Who knows what Robert will tell me today (if anything) when I pick him up from work today...

You all have a good day...I need to start going though the house again and gathering more stuff to sell on eBay. :-)

God Bless You!
~Dawn