A DAY IN THE LIFE....

Hubbalicious started “regular work” while I was working in Las Vegas last week. It was a good time for a transition, since decisions were made during my meeting that resulted in my work picking up as well. That and the fact that our car is here (and therefore I can drive it) has resulted in a little “routine” of sorts around here.
Usually, I drive Hubbz to work and then I get to keep the car for any errands I need to run. Then I go back to the room and work until it’s time to retrieve him. We meet at the post office on base, since it’s close to his office and parking at his office is sparse. The first one there gets the mail – then we head to dinner someplace (either driving there directly, or parking at the hotel and walking to a neighborhood spot.

I usually don’t have too many errands – because living in the hotel makes the need for groceries and cleaning items obsolete. We buy bottles of water and toiletries, but that’s pretty much it! Sometimes I pick up dry cleaning or take our hotel bill to be verified for reimbursement. There aren’t any projects for me work on or household goods to purchase. All in all, any errands I have take less than an hour to execute….in theory.

In reality, I’m still doing most of these actions on a military base…actually two bases. This fact adds some wrinkles to the efficiency of my planning. The base exchange (our target-like store) is on a separate base from the commissary (our grocery store). Both establishments are relatively small, although between them, they supply us with just about everything we need. But, for example, yesterday the commissary had everything on my list except hand soap. So that created an extra errand to the exchange. No biggie – but the other big wrinkle is that these places have varied and confusing hours of operation! This is best described in an example:

My list of errands is as follows:
-Mail box to US
-Pick up 6 toiletry type items (contact lens stuff, shower soap, hand soap)
-Drop Hubbz off at work.
Easy, right?

Hubbz has to be at work by 730, so I drop him off and then park the car at the commissary and read my book in the car until it opens at 8:00. By 8:20, I have everything on my list except the soap. So I now know I need to get to the other base to pick it up from the exchange. The only other thing on my list is the post office. There are post offices on each base, and the opening time is 9:00. So the options are to wait until 9:00 in the commissary parking lot, OR drive 10 mins to the other base where the Exchange is and do the post office there, while waiting for the exchange to open at 10:00am. I decide to drive to the other base, because the drive will soak up time and get me closer to the 9:00 opening time. Plus, the exchange has a food court with a place to get a coffee – so I can soak up any extra time between post office and exchange there, while reading and enjoying a tasty beverage. So – I get onto the other base, park and discover that the post office on that base DOESN’T OPEN UNTIL 1100!! So – I now double back to the Post Office on the original base, which is open since it’s now after 9:00, and mail my items. I then drive to the other base for a second time, read in the food court for only about 15 minutes and finally purchase the hand soap. I get back to the hotel at 10:30. It has taken me 3 hours to mail a package and pick up 6 items at the store. :)


It’s silly on paper, but it actually isn’t so bad in terms of making the day go by quickly – and MAN am I reading a lot of books these days!!