Dear Djruuh,

I want to talk to you about some ideas I've had for the rest of our lives. Well, not the rest of our lives so much as the next fifteen years. Your contract is for about another seventeen years so I figure that while we will re-evaluate the situation regularly, I would like do toss some ideas out there of how some things might go.

I like stability and a place for our stuff where we feel comfortable. We've discussed building here and keeping it and I would like us to do that. It will be what I consider our main house and home. When we post out, we will take some things but I would like us to lead a double life. I would like us to have a home of meaning here. Nothing goes in unless it is important to us: the furniture, the design, the colours, the materials. I would like this to be where we hole-up and escape to. And when they post us away from here, we take some things but not many. I would like us to fill the house minimally but with those things which we would not like to live without and which have meaning to us. To me, this means there wouldn't be a plethora of electronics everywhere but thoughtful placing of electronic piece which serve a utility, not just as a distraction or a show piece. I want us to have nice things but not all the new things.

We've talked about buying places and renovating. I would love to do this with you. I would like us to spend the rest of our time posted here learning the basic skills we'll need to buy a fixer-upper at the next posting. This is another reason why I'd like us to not move with that many things from our home. I would like us to live in comfortable wreckage while we renovate to flip. I will make anywhere we live comfortable for us, but I almost-fear having too much stuff.

In every house in which we live, I would like a room for the majority of your work stuff. I love you and in loving you, I must love The Army because it is your other wife, your first wife. But it is not your most important wife. And for my peace of mind, having a contained area where The Army can live with us helps me because I will be able to close the door and keep The Army to itself.

I would like to travel. I would like to travel a lot. I love travelling and you will be doing a lot of that with your career. I am excited about being posted to different places. I'm not hugely interested in staying in places for a long time. That being said, where you are, I will be. If we stay posted here for five years, we stay posted here together for five years. But I would like to be a nomad. I know that right now I am in a period of schooling and that I will not be able to nomad during this tour but I would like to go on tour when you are on tour and be temporarily attached when you are temporarily attached. For example, on your next course, which is likely a three month residential course, I would like to move to a city near your course and rent a room and find a part-time job to cover expenses (unless *more on that later*) and see you on free weekends. Not every weekend, but all that are practicable. When you are on tour, I would like to find someway of living abroad or in a different place while you are away; like France or Nelson, as random examples. Again, working to cover expenses and some left to travel on to you.

We have discussed how we enjoy being alive in this era but feel that some of the attitudes and practices of previous periods are also important to us. I see The Army as your career and your career as my career. This does not mean that I am going to eat bonbons and watch "my stories" while I wait for you to get home from work so that I can heat up TV dinners. This means that I would like to find ways to minimise our expenditures to maximise our value for money. When I start looking at our finances, with some careful budgeting, we would actually likely be better off financially and effort-wise for me to not work where I am when you come home.

I do not know what I want to do when I am done school and you are back from tour, but I do know that I am tired of my job. It isn't interesting. I do not feel appreciated. I feel stuck. I am tired of it. I am planning on staying there as long as I can, until you come back, and seeing where we go from there. But this comes back to the *more on that later* note. I would like to generate income by doing things of an entrepreneurial nature. I love ceramics and English. I would like to find some way of incorporating those into generating revenue. I do not know what that will look like but please bear with me. I would love to write and I would love to be a ceramicist. I do not know what that will look like but I would like to figure that out with your support.

I have always believed I can have it all and now that "I" am "We", I think that still holds true. I see no reason why we can not have it all. We will just need to figure out what it is that we want and what the best way is to get it. I know that I have a large debt-load right now but I would like us to live debt-free except where we can make our debt work for us, like a mortgage. This is something I would like us to sit down and discuss multiple times once you are home. I would like us to have a preliminary meeting and then regularly scheduled meetings at least monthly to discuss finances until we have a better grasp of where we are with budgeting and then quarterly and then semi-annually after that.

Please let me know what you think of all of this and if there is anything you would like to add or see amended.

I love you.