On Again Off Again On

I'm in high school again, crying in the bathroom during 3rd period but bubbling with glee in the cafeteria by lunchtime... except the saga I'm recounting over stale peanut butter isn't of the gangly boyfriend who has declared his love or crushed my heart,

I'm flapping my gums about how our move to the Azores is still happening.

maybe.

probably.

possibly, if the orders don't get rescinded between now and July.

Our orders sat in limbo while the AF scrambled to get the first cycle of ill-fated assignments sorted.

Because a new list of stateside jobs was due out in January, I began considering the possible assignments that could be available.  Florida? Idaho with the oldest son and DIL?

I counted down to the date and it finally came!
And went.
When will I ever learn that I'm in a different time zone than the headquarters? The oldest texted us after we had gone to bed when the list finally did come out.

With four disappointing possibilities to choose from, I worked up some faux excitement over two duty stations.  First stop: Shop for a house...

I quickly discovered there was a slight need to rearrange my priorities since I'm obviously never going to find a home near a USAF base with English character, age, garden or style (wow have I become spoiled!). But I found a house that exceeded my expectations for the area, the home that I could be very happy in.
Next: Begin to hope the AF would see fit to send us to THAT duty station so that I could make an offer on that house.

And then came the phone call...the one that would tell us if we were going or not. The answer we had waited not so patiently for was a little anti-climatic, "We don't know what's happening with families like yourselves who already were assigned to go there."

Well. There you have it. Thanks for that.

I've stopped house hunting (LIE, but I'm just looking at rentals on the island now). 
I will still continue to purge, after all,  I am going somewhere this summer. Must keep moving...



But hey ho, it's life and to be honest I wouldn't know how to do it any other way. How do you people live in one place longer than two years? How do you survive without the roller coaster of uncertainty? What persuades you to get rid of extra "stuff" if you don't move regularly?