Do you do this?

Please tell me I’m not some sort of freak, although you might think so by the time you’re done reading this.

I love doing endless, often pointless, research on where we might be living. And I mean might. We are not due to leave here for at least another 18-24 months.  I have no earthly clue on where we will go, but this is my way of dreaming. In my own defense we do move a lot, I’m always in awe of the folks who have stayed at the same duty station for more than 3 years.  And this whole mess started when the darn branch manager came to visit.   Usually it begins when dh mentions something offhand, like, “You know, I’d really like to take an overseas assignment next.”

Me: “Oh? Where do you think you’d like to go?”

dh: “I don’t know, I was thinking somewhere cool, like Belgium or England, maybe. Where would you like to go?”

Me: Now out of the room and already searching things about Belgium on the internet.

Seriously, I need school to start because I have already wasted entirely too much time looking at where we could live (Brussels! Mons!) and then at schools and what the towns look like, what expats say about living there, and on and on it goes…

Don’t get me wrong, I would love England, too, I just happened to research that one already a few years ago and I still have my links (is this sad? I think it must be).

I have a lot of fun thinking about a place and what it would be like to live there.  Since I know this is off in the future it doesn’t have the same pain attached to it as when we’re making our list and hoping and praying for an answer we can live with.  It also helps if said place is on the exotic list.  You wouldn’t find me doing this about Ft. Irwin, say, or Ft. Polk.  Nevermind that usually if I’ve taken the time to research something, the Army sees fit to send us to the exact opposite place.

For someone who grew up in the same small town my entire life, and had the same schoolteachers as my mother did,  I am startlingly well suited to the military life.  And just let me know if you’re moving to Belgium anytime soon, do I have some links for you!

Awash in boxes, and questions.

Our stuff got here today!

They started unloading at about 0745, which was kind of crazy. I’ve never had such an early bird truck driver. I was kind of worried when the first few boxes that came in looked like they had been sat on, or maybe driven over…but only a few things were broken or damaged, nothing irreplacable. The piano made it unscathed, so now it has successfully crossed the country three times. I should send Yamaha a letter.

The biggest thing I have to report for today is that after all these years, I finally tried having the movers unpack some boxes for me. That’s part of the deal with the moving companies, they will unpack you if you would like. I was warned about this as a new Army spouse: that they will unpack but usually it’s not a good idea because they will literally just unload the box and set things down on any flat surface available. As you might imagine it creates a gigantic mess to sort through. I never knew anybody who actually did that.

However, at the last duty station, one of my neighbors actually tried it and said it worked out well as far as kitchen stuff. So I thought I might give it a try. I hate unpacking the kitchen. The dish packs (boxes) they use are pretty big and full to the gills with breakable things all surrounded by 102 layers of paper. It takes me days just to get the kitchen done.

And my report? I think it was worth it. I only had them unpack the dish packs and boxes of pots and pans. It does create a mess, and if you are squeamish at all about the movers touching your dishes (which I am not, particularly) this is not the method for you. I was able to stand by and put stacks of some dishes where I wanted them, and now I have a good visual of everything that needs a home. Once I have stuff cleaned and put up, it will be done. And the movers took the paper and boxes that they unpacked.

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. So for any military spouse readers, I’m curious: do you have them unpack? And also, does it freak you out to have the movers touching all your stuff? do you wash everything?

We’re here!

Ahhh, at last we have an internet connection! I thought I’d post today, to say that we’re here and we’re alive.

The journey out west was uneventful, we took our time, only driving about 450 miles or so a day. We stayed at mostly motels because of our dogs, but we did stop one night at Scott AFB (near St. Louis) and I have to say that if you ever have the chance to stay in their TLF (temporary lodging facility), you should do it. In a stroke of brilliance, they use old housing as TLF, so we were able to stay in a fully furnished house, complete with a fenced area for the dogs. It rocked.

Our SUV pulling the U-haul didn’t have any issues, which was one of dh’s biggest worries. My biggest worry was entertaining the dutchkid for endless hours in the car, since I had her with me. She did great, we’re turning that kid into a serious traveler. The only lasting side effect is that now whenever we drive somewhere she wants to know what state we’re in: “Are we still in Colorado, Mama?”

So here we are, in our beautiful new house. While I am glad to be here, I am feeling slightly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of tasks that must be done to get our life restarted. This is compounded by the fact that I have very few tools to accomplish said tasks because none of our stuff is here yet. I’m not a fan of being in limbo, and that’s really where we’ve been stuck this week since our truck driver is taking every last day he’s allowed (and one extra) to get here.

In other ways it’s been a nice week. It has given me time to sit around and just be with my family. We have been able to do some sightseeing because we really have nothing else to do. We hit the zoo and did a little hiking. I guess I should look at this week as time to “acclimatize”, just like those crazy mountaineers do for weeks at base camp before they attempt Everest. The trouble with that is the longer I stare at the mountain of my to-do list, the bigger it looks.

Things I will miss…

The packers are here, doing their best to put everything I own in boxes. I’m ready to move, but today I’m reflecting about living here. This post has its good and bad points without a doubt, but I think lately I’ve harped more on what irritates me (ahem, bugle and cannon anyone?). So here are my top ten things of what I will dearly miss about good old Ft. Benning.

1. My tree (and all of the lovely shade trees here)
2. Being able to walk or ride a bike almost everywhere
3. Playing with the dutchkid at the stadium

4. The wood floors in my house
5. Spending hours at the playground, out my backdoor

6. The fantastic library in town
7. My piano teacher
8. Our rockin’ church
9. The Riverwalk

10. The sense of history, living in an old house at an old post

Overall, its been a good year. I should probably get back to supervising packing before I drown in the river of nostalgia.

PCS life lessons

Nothing like a good old PCS to raise the stress levels. We are in full move prep mode over here. I’m a big believer in not tearing your house apart a month before the move, it just interferes with my quality of life. But there’s also the realization that so much of the prep I’m running around doing could have been done weeks ago…if it weren’t for the fact that I was in denial about said move. So it’s a fine balance.

I have learned things in the past few days that by rights I should have known already… like the autocraft shop will recycle old motor oil and transmission fluid for you, or that there is a dry cleaner right down the street but they take 4 days to process anything. Yeah, that’s me. I want to dry clean things that have been waiting for months right now.

Today I encountered one of life’s PCS conundrums. We have one trash day left. In order to clear housing, my trash can has to be hosed out and clean. So after early next week I can’t put anything else in the trash can. And of course, because both dh and I were in denial and procrastinating to boot, we waited until now to seriously go through my basement. My trash can overfloweth. And the trash men are zealous about not picking up stuff that’s not in the can.

Adding to this is the fact that most of my neighbors are already gone, which means that my fridge has been the recipient of everybody’s condiments. I’m going to have a ton more stuff to throw away. Argh. And I’m feeling guilty because I won’t have time to recycle the empties. I’m going to be knocking on random strangers doors and asking to use their trash can.

You would think that by now (I think this is move 7? I’ve lost track) I would have it all figured out. Valuable time management lessons, courtesy of Uncle Sam.

The Best Last Day

We aren’t moving today, but it was the last day for one of the families we were closest to during our year here.

We had dinner together last night, and they slept at our house because we still have furniture. The kids played together all day, and my husband and I looked at each other and laughed at how lively it was with 4 kids… we never realized our house was “quiet”.

It was a good day. Eating breakfast together, fighting over the magic wands, watching movies, eating picnic lunch on the playground and of course…swinging together one last time.

Goodbye good friends, Godspeed… and we’ll meet again someday, I know it.

Woo to the Hoo!

My wonderful husband graduated today.  He has to take one massive comprehensive final yet tomorrow for the master’s degree part, but then he’s done, done, done!  I’m so proud of him.

It has been a long year. Sometimes enjoyable, sometimes not. Walking into the ceremony today, there was a large sign instructing you to take a headset if you needed translation services, whether that be Spanish to English or vice versa.  I will not miss that part at all, I know it’s very culturally insensitive of me, but I am glad to be headed back to the regular world of the English speaking Army.  To not have to walk into a room and feel ill at ease because I am not fluent in Spanish (but I didn’t need the translator, I can understand the Spanish well enough, I just can’t speak it.  Don’t ask).

What was hard was realizing that we will likely never see some of our international friends again.  Well, I can’t say that I’m sorry to say adios to a few of them but many of them are truly wonderful people.  And watching our other Army friends already moving out of the neighborhood… it’s going to feel like a ghost town by next week.  The dutchkid is talking non-stop about how her bestest friend M.P. is moving to “Japam”.  She also asks if we will see her “when she comes back to her house.”  I don’t have the heart to tell her that it is likely none of us are ever coming back.

Sigh.  Welcome to the Army life, my darling.  On to the next place!

PCS checklist (Happy Milspouse Appreciation Day!)

Happy Military Spouse Appreciation Day!!

I think it’s only fitting that I am bumming around my house today, since that’s my favorite thing to do. I was in my pjs until just recently.

In honor of today and our upcoming PCS, I thought I would share my big bad address change and cancellation checklist with you. Updating our address is one of those things that I feel so scattered about unless I have a list. And inevitably, the cancellations get lumped in with address changes, because with things like utilities you get your deposit back and they need your forwarding address to send it to you. We have moved so often that I keep a master list with phone numbers and website addresses. Some things change, but some things don’t (you always have to update DEERS). And here’s my helpful tip for today: I try to update it when I call to set up the new utilities at the new place because I know I’m leaving wherever I’m living eventually.

I tried to make it generic enough so that pretty much anyone could use it, although obviously some things won’t apply to everybody. (Feel free to laugh at all those magazine spots, my dh is a magazine junkie). I hope it helps someone out in the craziness that is PCS season. Let me know if you think it’s useful (or not). Enjoy!

PCS Checklist

We have a winner!

We’re home, and we have a house to live in when we move this summer! 

I think this was the most painful househunting trip that we have yet to experience. They say it’s a buyer’s market? Why is it then that no fewer than THREE houses we wanted were gone before we could offer on them, and our house-to-be almost got away from us as well? (it had another offer in on it but thankfully our offer was better). I guess everybody is moving to the mountains.

Crazy crazy. Almost as crazy as taking your three-year-old with you to look at nearly 25 homes in 3 days.  Our realtor was fantastic, if you are moving out to Colorado, email me and I’ll give you her name.  She actually took the time to fill easter eggs, and when she would open up a house for us to see she would “hide” the egg so that the dutchkid could find it.   So sweet.  And she knows her stuff.  This is our 5th home purchase, so we’ve been around the block a few times with realtors, she’s one of the best we’ve ever had. 

In a bit of irony, after looking all over the place we ended up in our old neighborhood we lived in 8 years ago.  At first I was really resistant to that, just because it felt a little like we had been there and done that… but it’s close to dh’s workplace and well within our price range, along with having a great view of the mountains, a decent backyard and a newly renovated kitchen.  We only had our old crummy camera with us, and I’m too embarrassed to put those rotten images up here, so you’ll just have to wait until we get there to live and I can do it justice. 

I’m finally more excited about getting out there!  I still have to make a decision on the school situation for the dutchkid, but it feels like everything’s coming together.  As the saying goes: “Pikes peak or bust!”

Off to see the wizard

We’re heading out for our househunting trip this weekend, so the blog will probably be quiet for a while until we get back. I’m so excited to get out there and see how much the community has changed since we left almost ten (TEN!) years ago.  That makes me feel old. 

If you’re curious what I’m up to, I’m going to attempt to use Twitter from my dh’s iPhone. I’m just too impatient to try to write posts from the thing.  That makes my thumbs hurt thinking about it. My Twitter widget over there ——–> hasn’t always been working, but if you click on the title it should take you to my Twitter page.

Wish us luck on finding the perfect house!  Hope you have a great weekend.