Neverending Saga of Home Time

Shhh....it's the wife sneaking in a post again....

One of the recurring themes in our house and on our cell phones is "Home Time." There are many things to consider when planning home time.

What days do I have off?
What big events are happening?
What events would hubby enjoy being home for?

We generally schedule home time for every 4-6 weeks. If we really need him home then he'll come home earlier than that, but it's hard. He needs several days at home so that he can rest, unwind, restock and hit the road. So, 4-6 weeks out with 5-7 days home works for us.

We've had lots of "events" to work around lately... Josh's graduation, Eagle Court of Honor, Doctor's appointments... so we just had to schedule around one event at a time.

Well now, here come the holidays. Thanksgiving is so late this year that if he comes home for Thanksgiving, it will be hard to come home for Christmas. We talked it over and decided to suck it up and schedule him home for Christmas. It means he'll be out closer to 8 weeks and 8 weeks is REALLY hard. We both seem to struggle and be tired of the whole thing around 6 weeks.

I won't bore you with the details but we had this discussion about Thanksgiving and Christmas many times!! The silver lining to waiting until Christmas is that he might actually be home when I'm off work. (The year that I had a ton of time off and he got home the day before I went back to work because of a snow storm....wasn't soooo happy!)

So here was the plan... Request home time for the 24th and hope that it really happens and he's home for Christmas. If he's late, he'll still be home while I'm off. (I go back to work on the 5th).

WE DISCUSSED THIS.... and DISCUSSED this.... and I thought we had a plan....

and then.... hubby called me yesterday and said....

"I called my dispatcher and left her a message so I could find out how much the bonus is this year if we work on Christmas so I could decide whether it was worth it or not."

to which I responded

"Work on Christmas on purpose and you can come home long enough to fill out the divorce papers."

Was I too harsh?

Don't worry, he knew I was joking, but seriously.... I think the man gets bored in his truck and has nothing better to do than re-think about things over and over again just so he has something to do.

I think I made it pretty clear that I don't really care what the Christmas bonus is... It's a bigger bonus to be home. Besides, knowing his track record, he'll be a couple of days late, get the bonus and still be home for my vacation... and he'll still be married.... well maybe that's not such a bonus to him. ;-)