Somewhere in Pasadena...

There is a raccoon sleeping off a major sugar high. 
A raccoon got into our trash last night.  Thankfully, there was only one bag of trash since our trash gets picked up on Tuesday mornings.  The bag that went out yesterday evening was some basic kitchen trash and lots and lots of leftover Easter candy.  I picked up lots of empty wrappers during clean up duty.  All I could think was that I hope this poor raccoon isn't diabetic.  It didn't really like Fun Dip, but loved the chocolate and the lollypops. 

Switching gears now...Orginally, there had been some talk about NGC paying our mortgage on our Pasadena house for a few months after we moved.  This was supposed to be some sort of compensation for the fact that our moved got so delayed.  Well, NGC ended up saying no way, so Jay went to the program manager and tried to see if there was any money from the contract that could help us out.  If Jay was going to Australia by himself, our mortgage would be paid, along with lots of other perks and money.  This was offered to Jay, but he wisely turned it down.  No way I am staying here with the boys for several months, trying to sell our house while he lives high on the hog in Australia.  No way!  So we were offered something else that neither of us is real thrilled about: extra time on per diem.  What this basically means is that we can have extra time on per diem and don't have to worry about paying anything additional out of pocket than we would normally.  We'd still pay our mortgage here, but would be renting cars and living in hotels so wouldn't have to worry about rent for a house.  This is a way to stretch our budget in hopes of getting our house sold quickly (unlikely, I know).  What this also means is that we will have an extra week in Maryland and two extra weeks in Australia.  Sounds okay, right?  But here's the rub.  An extra week in Maryland means that we don't leave until the 14th of June, but the movers still come on the 24th of May.  That's three weeks in a hotel!  Granted the hotel we will be staying at has a little kitchen and all, but still, that's just a long time.  Joe will still be in school, but I will have two kids I have to entertain everyday with only the supplies we have in our suitcases.  Two extra weeks in Australia makes a full 4 weeks there.  It's nice to have extra time there because that gives us longer to look for a nice place to live.  The rub on that end is that if we find something we like, we can't rent because our extra funds don't go into effect until we are off per diem.  That means we can't buy a car or rent a house.  How is our stuff going to be delivered if we have no address to give them? 
We aren't sure that we are going to do any of these options, but the extra money would be nice.  Jay just procastinated his way out of $300.  The rental car for after his wreck would have been reimbursed if he had submitted a claim within 30 days of the accident.  Despite many reminders, he didn't do it.