5 Weeks and 1 Day Later...

Today is five weeks and one day since our moving truck pulled away with our household goods. Today is also the day that we received our final delivery of our household goods. If you count the days that the movers were packing us up, we actually went five weeks and three days before finally receiving all of our stuff. Oh wait. We have some missing things so I guess I should say most of our stuff. To say that I am a dissatisfied customer would be a massive understatement. Let me tell you how today went.

I got up at 7:30 am because we were told the local movers (they called last night to set up a delivery time) would be here between 8 am and noon. No biggie. Then I get a call at 10:36 am (I checked my caller ID thankyouverymuch) from our moving coordinator, Tonya. She's calling to ask how the offload is going. This is part of her job. She calls during packing, loading, and delivery. So I tell her, "It's going great seeing as how nobody is here." Insert awkward pause. "Nobody's there? I'll give the local company a call to see where they're at." Yeah. You do that. I don't bother to tell her we'd already gotten notification of when they'd be here and they weren't late. As a coordinator, she should have already had this information. She calls back a couple minutes later to tell me they'll be here by noon. Yup. I knew that.

So, the local moving company gets here about 15 or 20 minutes after noon. I've already waited over five weeks. Being a little late isn't something that even hits my radar but the driver explained that they went to the wrong house. I actually tell him that I've been waiting for five weeks so don't sweat the extra few minutes. Then he's all, "Is this an overseas move?" Despite the fact that our stuff is in wooden crates (Overseas moves always involve crates. Domestic moves usually don't.) and we've been waiting FIVE FREAKING WEEKS!!!! No, this isn't an overseas move. I don't say that in an all caps tone of voice. This poor schmuck has very little to do with the end results of this move. He just had the misfortune of being the third party company that was called to deliver our overflow. Seriously, our stuff was in storage so long that it had dirt and cobwebs on it. Not.Kidding.  >:|

At this point, we coordinate our lists, go over some paper work, and then the main guy and his helper dude start prying open the crates. We had two with a little over 1,000 pounds total. The first things that get in the house are our two bookcases. Out of all of our furniture and with the exception of the beds, the bookcases were the things that I was looking forward to getting and the things that I missed the most. My books are still in boxes lining the wall of our sitting area. As he unwraps the shelves, I immediately see damage. They're pine bookcases but they have that thin backing on them if you know what I mean. The backing on one has been torn completely off and there's a gigantic gouge on the back. The other has two scuff marks, a huge gouge on the front, and the backing is loosened. They both had drawers that go into the bottom that we use to keep DVDs in. Only one drawer was delivered. The other drawer has a chunk missing out of it too. I don't think the damage that has been done can be repaired. Structurally, the one can't even hold books in the condition that it's currently in. Cosmetically, they both look like crap now. I don't even want them in my living room. I'm so upset. I really loved these book cases.

Zoomed out view of bookcase 1

Up close pic of damage to bookcase 1

More upclose damage to bookcase 1

Damage to bookcase 2

Damage to bookcase 2

This is the same damage to bookcase 2 but how it looks from the inside. It's a hole.
It was really hard to get a good angle for pictures. Just so ya know.

We also had a mystery box delivered. On the inventory, it was listed as "pots and pans". We have the kitchen completely unpacked and couldn't, for the life of us, figure out what was missing that would be in this box. I open it up, and it has a really old griddle pan in it...to be fair. But then the rest of the contents was old soap making stuff:  the stick blender, kelp, rosemary, lavendar, and other colorants and additives. Yeah. Pots and pans. Sheesh.

So far, we're filing claims on two book shelves, the sofa, the Youngest Child's bike (it was delivered today minus a brake line), a broken computer monitor, a scrape on my bed, a box of missing DVDs, some missing bedding, and something else that I can't think of right now. Also thinking that an espresso finish on wooden furniture might be a bad idea if you're a military family. It shows every scratch and scrape. Then again, I don't treat my furniture like crap and it was in perfect condition before Stevens got a hold of it.

I'm happy that I can now turn on a lamp instead of using the overhead ceiling fan lights. They delivered our lamps in the first load but not the shades. But I still can't unpack my books. :(

This move has been a nightmare. NIGHTMARE. And it's not even over because we have to go through the whole claims process. I never want to move again. DO NOT HIRE STEVENS WORLDWIDE VAN LINES. PLEASE!! Not once, not one single time in the last five weeks have we gotten an apology or explanation for anything. It's shameful and I fervently hope they lose their military contract.

Our Move: The Ongoing Saga

Our packers arrived in San Diego on June 10th. We drove into Pensacola on June 15th. We got the keys to our house on June 17th. Our movers arrived on June 24th...with the first load of our household goods. That's right! They couldn't fit all of our stuff on one truck so we have to have two freaking deliveries. I said in my previous moving post that this is probably our #1 worst move. There is no longer any probably about it.

When you have professional movers, you get two teams of people. The first team consists of packers and loaders. The second team consists of drivers and unloaders. Every move we've had, these two teams have always been different people. So, Team One is responsible for wrapping your stuff up, packing it into boxes, and inventorying everything including the large items that don't fit into boxes like bicycles and sofas. As far as we can tell, Team One was full of illiterate idiots possessing no common sense whatsoever. Our things were packed in ways that made no sense. We opened one box labled "spices" that had one pepper grinder in it and the rest was all plastic storage food containers. Another box was labeled "lines" which I had to interpret as meaning linens. We open the box and the top actually had linens in it but underneath was all miscellaneous junk out of the office. And it goes on and on. Honestly, mislabeled boxes aren't that big a deal except when your things are being delivered in two shipments.

Team Two captain told us upon arrival that he didn't have all of our stuff. That's right. Our moving coordinator who calls with updates and schedules pickup and delivery couldn't even be bothered to tell me this when she called to set up delivery. Her name is Tonya and she sucks at her job. Anyway, Team Two captain apologizes and said that he tried to bring everything that he thought we'd need right away, leaving behind items that he thought could wait a week or more. It's a nice thought and makes sense unless you have a Team One that doesn't know how to pack and label boxes in ways that make freaking sense!!! Oh. And in his infinite wisdom, he didn't think a lawnmower was necessary to a family living in Florida where it rains everyday and the lawn needs to be mown at least once a week. Mmkaythanks.

Also, thanks to the lack of foresight and terrible scheduling of our moving company, our stuff sat in storage in San Diego and then again here in Florida before they finally delivered...most of our stuff. That means that our belongings were loaded and unloaded a minimum of five times that we know of. We've never had that happen before. Usually, the company gives you a tentative date for delivery until you give them a destination address. Then the driver arranges to be there around the same time that you are. When we moved from NC to CA, the driver got to our house minutes after we pulled up with the keys. Minutes, not days.

Some of our boxes were in such bad shape that they were entirely crushed and open and things that were just wrapped in packing paper had the paper completely ripped away. This is the first time we'll be filing damage claims with any of our moves. We've had damaged stuff in the past but didn't think it was worth the hassle of filing a claim. This company, Stevens Worldwide Van Line, will not be getting off so lightly. A computer monitor is broken. We're missing glass shelf clamps that were specific to the furniture the glass goes in and can't be replaced. One of my bookcase drawers has a huge chunk broken off of it. One of the recliners on my sofa appears to be broken as well. It functions, but looking at it, you can see that it's sitting out of line with the rest of the sofa. They also broke a piece off of my Dyson. It's not essential to how it functions either except that now when I have it in the upright position, my hair gets sucked down the wand thingy. And on and on.

To top it all off, I have a fling flangging cold and I feel miserable. This move definitely takes the top, #1 spot in our list of bad moves. One time when I moved, I was pregnant and outrunning a hurricane. This move is still worse than that one. And it's not even over yet. I still haven't heard from the moving company on when they'll be delivering the rest of our stuff. Please. If you ever hire your own moving company, do not choose Stevens Worldwide Van Line. This is our fourth professional move and we've had different moving companies for each one. Stevens is unprofessional, their employees are incompetent, and they have horrible customer service. Just read their reviews on Yelp and you'll see I'm not the only one dissatisfied with this company. I wish there was a way to ensure that they lose their contract with the military.

Having Finally Arrived in Florida

This move is probably at the #1 spot for bad moves. It has been the most unorganized, ill-prepared, rocky, full-of-surprises move we've made in 16 years.

On the California side:

Our movers were idiots. They showed up to our house 1 1/2 hours late and with only one guy to pack. Every other move we've made with movers, they were able to pack us up in one day because they bring at least three people. This took two entire days.

Then, they were told that we were estimated to have close to 12,000 pounds of household goods. We ended up with just over 9400 pounds and they still didn't bring a truck big enough to hold everything. 1/4 of our stuff was hanging out the back of the truck, strapped in and open to the elements. I can only assume (and fervently hope) that they loaded our stuff onto a bigger truck before they left for Florida. But this means that our stuff went from our CA house, to a small truck, to a big truck, and eventually, to the FL house. Ideally, you want your belongings loaded and unloaded as few times as possible to avoid damage.

They were done packing and loading on Wednesday, June 12, but still haven't called to let us know our delivery date and time. They were supposed to have (and told me they would) call on Thursday. This has me worried.

We also decided to have my car shipped rather than drive two cars in tandem. This company, too, has been incommunicado. The Mister sent them an e-mail on June 10 and we still haven't gotten a reply. At this point, I'm figuring my car is in Mexico at a chop shop. Oh. And the Mister accidentally left his keys in my car. Not that big a deal since I have copies.......except for the key to the cartop carrier. We only had one of those. Luckily, I was able to find a place that could make us a duplicate key for only $35 versus the $200 it would have cost to buy another one.

Lastly, the military housing people forgot about our moveout inspection. When you live in base housing, you have to have one of their people walk through and make sure you cleaned and didn't leave anything damaged. This caused us to get on the road 1 1/2 hours later than we had planned which caused us to get to our first stop in El Paso, Texas pretty late. Asshats.

And to top it all off...The Oldest child came down with this really weird rash on her leg. People on Facebook thought it was my rash because she was embarrassed for people to think she had ringworm. It def isn't ringworm. Anyway, a couple days after the rash, she got a really inflamed throat. It's absolutely disgusting. I've had tonsillitis a few times but my throat never came close to her grossness. I managed to get her into the doctor on June 12th, the day before we left San Diego. The doctor wasn't sure what was going on but guessed it was viral and that whatever was causing the rash was also causing the sore throat. He took throat cultures just to be sure. He called me today, SUNDAY, to let me know she actually has strep throat. Can you believe he called me on a Sunday? AND, he called in a prescription to a nearby pharmacy here in Florida. I so love him and am going to miss having such a great doctor. :(

On the Drive East...

The car drive east was relatively uneventful considering the 1977 miles we covered. We ran into some weather in New Mexico which spurned dust storms. The Youngest child now hates New Mexico. Then we ran into some rain in San Antonio. Then some really bad traffic in Alabama. The traffic added about an hour to our last day of driving. And wow! Louisiana drivers are rude asshats and that's saying something from someone who is used to California drivers. It's like they sent people from Louisiana to LA to learn how to drive like an idiot.

Now that we're here, things are going pretty good. Kinda got a shock at the hotel when they told us the price for the pet fee. As a result, we snuck the cat in. So, I'd feel bad about that if the pet fee wasn't MORE than the room fee. Plus, our pets are trained and do their business where they should. We're staying in a brand new Hyatt Place. It's really nice. After three days in the car, we appreciate having a living room area in addition to the bedroom area. The bathroom door has a tricksy lock though. Tricksy, tricksy lock. The Oldest child called me this morning (the Mister and I were getting lunch) asking me, "How do I get out of the bathroom?" I laughed so hard that it was a minute or so before I could answer her.

Navarre Beach at sunset

Last night, we drove out to Navarre to see the new house. It's in a great, private neighborhood. It's so quiet and all the houses are well maintained. The yard has flowers and plants in it that I'm sure I'll kill in the next month or so but they look nice for now. From what we could see from peeking in the windows, the inside is clean and nice too. Oh. And there's a whole stack of firewood in the backyard so we'll be set for when it gets colder. Right now, it's in the high 80's with tons of humidity. I love it.

We drove along the coast back to Pensacola (which was a really long drive because much of it was in 20 mph zones for nesting birds, heheh) and ended up getting dinner in Pensacola Beach. I had forgotten how crazy Pensacola Beach is in the summer with all the tourists. C R A Z Y!!! We ate at a really neat restaurant that backs up to the beach. Our table was literally right next to the sand. I could put my foot in the sand from my seat. When we were done eating (and we had awesome food) we just stood up and walked out to the water. You know. After paying the bill. It was so cool!!

So, assuming that our household goods haven't fallen of the back of the truck and my car isn't in pieces in Mexico, things are good on this end of the trip. We're hanging in the hotel until tomorrow morning when the rental manager guy will finally let us in the house. (Apparently, they don't work weekends.) Even if everything is lost, we're insured. We only own a handful of things that are irreplaceable so it won't be total devastation. Even so, my next blog post might be from jail after I do violence to some people if this turns out bad. We've never had our shipments be so up in the air before. It's disconcerting.

Bottom line, I'm thrilled to be here. I've never lived so close to the beach before. Maybe I won't be saying this should a storm roll through, but for now, I love where our house is located. The dog and cat we most excellent travelers. Better pets don't exist. The kids were good. No flat tires this time. Life is good.

Moving Update: Edition One Trillion and One

 I started cleaning and organizing. Finally. Last week. Nothing like leaving things to the last minute, right? We still want to try and have a garage/yard/moving sale before the packers get here. This means that it has to happen this coming weekend because our crap is getting boxed up a week from today, Monday. We have tons of girls clothes to get rid of. Mostly sizes 5-8. I don't know how I'm going to organize and price all that. We also have three TVs, one camera, a home surround sound system, car stereo and speakers, a lawnmower (maybe two), computer monitor, blender, coffee pot, two sets of dishes, etc etc etc. We don't get rid of anything. It's pathetic. You never realize how much of a pack rat/hoarder you are until it's time to move.

And to add to all the fun, I fell. On my butt. Again. This time, it totally wasn't my fault. I didn't trip over my feet or wear dumb shoes. I don't really want to say what happened because out of all the times I've fallen on my ass, this is probably the most embarrassing situation. I really did a number on my tail bone this time though. It has made organizing and cleaning SOOO much more fun than it would've been otherwise. The timing just couldn't have been more perfect. And if you know me at all, you know the stress is manifesting as insomnia. I was up at four this morning. I rolled over, hurt my butt moving, then my mind switched on and I kept thinking of all the things I need to get done. Sleep was over.

Speaking of inconvenient timing, the Mister, Oldest child, and I went to the Imagine Dragons concert Saturday night. The venue was SDSU's OAT (open air theater). It was a great venue. We've never been to an outdoor concert before. It was a lot of fun for me to climb up and down the stairs to and from our seats...which were concrete, by the way. Aside from the pain, and you don't sit for a concert anyways, it was a fab show. Out of all the concerts I've been to, this one was the most entertaining in that it was more than just listening to music live. They had a really neat light show that went along with the music. And they had this gigantic drum that when they pounded it, I swear, my eyeballs vibrated. This was the Oldest child's first concert and she had a really great time. I'm glad that the Mister and I were able to take her to her first concert. Good thing we like a lot of the same music, lol.

In other moving news...

We finally found a house. It's a four bedroom with a his and hers closets and dual vanities in the master bath. It has a nice kitchen with a breakfast bar, and an absolutely fantastic back yard. Our pets have been approved which has been a major issue. AND, it's located between the Santa Rosa Sound and the East Bay. At least I think it's the East Bay. It's some body of water. And it's minutes from the ocean beaches. It's also in one of the highest rated school districts. There's only two things against it:  1 - It's a bit of a commute to the Mister's base and 2 - The property manager seems to be a bit of a dillwad. Despite those things, we're probably going to take this house because it's the only one of out many, many, many houses that I've inquired about that has approved our pets. Do we take our chances turning this house down and hope that we'll find another in a good school district that will approve our pets when we move in a little over a week? Those are long odds in my opinion. And the lease is only for a year. No. I don't relish the thought of moving again in a year, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. And who knows. Maybe this guy will turn out to be an ok guy. Miracles happen, right?

I've slowly been checking things off of my to do list. I called the vet to see about getting the cat sedatives. I also called to have our water filtration system picked up. It's gotta be out of here before our move out inspection because I didn't get permission to have it installed. Sorry. I'm not drinking dirty California tap water. I'm working to get my car shipped. Just waiting to get some estimates. I can't decide if I want to cancel my cable or just turn in our equipment and cancel it from Florida. Why, you ask? Because I have the TWC app and will be able to watch the season premier of True Blood. I'll also be able to watch Nurse Jacki. I'm sad and obsessed, I know.

So far, we've cleaned and organized the master bedroom, the garage, and the craft/game closet. Still to go:

• Master Bath
• Upstairs Bath
• Oldest Child's room
• Youngest Child's room
• Office
• 1/2 bath
• Storage closet
• Outdoor storage room
• Laundry room (a bigger job than it may sound like because it has a lot of cabinets and storage space)
• Kitchen
• Living room

Looking at that list, I need to get off of here and get something done for the day besides making phone calls.

16 Days and Counting

 We hit the road in 16 days. Time is flying. I think out of all of our moves, I am the least prepared going into this one. Just a little over two weeks before we go and we don't have a house in Florida yet. We are almost 1000 pounds over our max weight and haven't solved that problem yet either. We were (maybe still are) going to have a garage sale but nothing has been organized for it yet. I need to make arrangements to have my car shipped. I have done absolutely no cleaning or organizing within our current home. It's pretty ridiculous.

Even so, the closer we get to our move date, the more anxious and excited I am for it to finally get here. Once you know you're moving, especially a big coast to coast move like we're doing, your life is pretty much put on hold. It's hard to make plans. Every time I see something that I might like to buy for the house like new curtains or bathroom stuff or whatever, first I think, we're over our max weight and we don't need anything new and then I think, what if it doesn't fit/match/go with the new house?

After that, then I start fixating on all the stuff that I don't like about where we're currently living.

• My refrigerator barely functions and I hate it but if I let housing give us a new one (this one can't be fixed) then I have to take a smaller one. Stuff already falls out on our feet, this one is so full. My freezer melts stuff.
• The cable/internet here is horrible. 
• I hate the traffic. 
• All four of us have allergies so bad that it's like we constantly have the flu or a cold and none of us were like that before we moved here. 
• Both of my adjacent neighbors smoke and they do so outdoors (and really. If you do something or have a habit that you won't even do inside your own home, is it really something that you need to be doing at all?????) so that when I have my windows open, I can smell it and I truly hate that. Badly, severely hate that.
• I'm tired of all the barking dogs. 
• I'm tired of not being able to find a place to park at my own freaking house. 
• I'm tired of the beach being inconveniently far enough away that we've only been a handful of times in the three years we've lived here. Then, when you get there, there's no where to park and it's so crowded that you share towels with complete strangers. 
• I'm really tired of the traffic (did I already mention that?) and California drivers. Not every trip on the roads should be a competition of who can drive the fastest and the most reckless but it is.
• My carpet is an ugly poop brown color that housing probably picked out so that it would hide pet stains. 
• And we're crammed into 1500 sqft of poorly laid out space where about 200-300 sqft of that space is unusable. One room is an oversized closet laughably called a fourth bedroom. 
• A yard that takes ten seconds to mow because it's so small. If we had a riding lawn mower, five seconds. 
• Out of seven ceiling fans, only three of them work right. 
• Out of 3 toilets, only two of them are usable right now. 
• I'm tired of living in a neighborhood where we're packed in like sardines: no yards, no parking, and streets aren't wide enough. And for the privilege, we get to be treated like idiot, charity cases by Lincoln Management (base housing people).
• San Diego Unified School District. The schools here are atrocious. Terrible. Just horrible. I have a lot to compare them to and wow.

Then I think of the things I'm going to miss.

• The scenery. 
• The city. 
• Shopping. 
• Nearly perfect weather. 
• The canyon outside of my back fence (which is probably the source of our allergies but it gives us a modicum of privacy that we wouldn't otherwise have at all).
• Free utilities. We pay way too much rent for a place this size, but it comes with free electricity, water, sewer and trash. I like having my windows open with the AC running, bwahahahaha!
• Base housing doesn't care what size dog you have (one of my neighbors has a Great Dane. It's the size of a pony.) as long as it's not on the aggressive dog list i.e., pit bulls, dobermans, chow chows. They don't consider Boxers to be an aggressive breed which is about the only logical thing housing has ever done. 
• The things you only get in large cities:  Professional baseball, concerts, downtown, awesome restaurants, shopping (did I already mention that?), cultural stuff like museums and zoos, amusement parks.
• Bevmo and Paso Robles wine. We have a hard enough time finding wines from Paso Robles here. I seriously doubt we'll be able to find any at all in Florida. And Bevmo is just awesomesauce.
• The Pacific Time Zone. Weird, I know, but I like living in the Pacific Time Zone. The Central Time Zone sucks. 
• Miramar's Exchange. It's so nice. I'll miss MCAS Mirarmar in general. I love that base and it feels like home. The Mister has served eight of his 16 years at this base.
• Jennifer S. and her family even though I got to talk to and see more of them and her when we lived on opposite coasts. 

In my heart, the list of things that I'm not going to miss outweighs the things that I am going to miss and it makes it a bit easier to be going. Don't get me wrong, I'll miss California. I love it here and San Diego is the most fabulous city, but we've had a rough three years here and I think it'll do all of us good to be somewhere else for a while. We had really high expectations when we moved back here three years ago and I think we set ourselves up for disappointment before we even got here. Will we ever move back? Only time will tell. Who knows how we'll feel about things four years from now. Maybe we'll discover that Florida perfectly suits us and we'll buy a house and settle there for good. Maybe we'll find out that moving around for 20 years is in our blood and we'll be bitten by the moving bug and move somewhere totally new.

Been Around The Block

States I've Visited. 32 down, 18 to go.

You know that you move a lot when you can drive from one coast to the other and not hit any new states. This is a first for us.

This move has been the most surreal of any of our previous moves. We've had the movers here already taking inventory of our stuff. We put in our notice at the military housing office and have scheduled our pre-moveout inspection. We've been looking at houses in Florida since January. And still, this move doesn't seem real yet. We're almost 1000 pounds over our max weight, by the way. That's another first.

Looking over our route, we won't be driving through any new states on our way to Florida. Big bummer for me. That's my favorite part of any road trip, driving through a new state. I guess, considering that this is our third coast to coast move, it shouldn't be any big surprise. We'll actually be driving the exact route, only in reverse, on our way to Florida. On our move from North Carolina to California in 2010, we went out of our way to drive through Pensacola so that the girls could see where we had once lived (back in 1999), never considering we would be moving there in three years. Ironies.

From today, May 7th, we hit the road in 37 days. It still doesn't seem real.

To Miss or Not to Miss: Episode 1

Since 1998, we've made the following moves:

Ohio to Florida
Florida to Ohio
Ohio to California
California to Vermont
Vermont to North Carolina
North Caroling to California

And now we're getting ready to move from California to Florida. Never in all those years have I had such conflicting feelings about moving. Usually, I'm just plain excited for the change, to go somewhere new, or to leave behind a bad situation. This time, I'm extremely sad to be leaving San Diego. I love this city. Sure, there are things about it I could do without, namely the traffic and rude/idiot drivers, but for the most part, it's a fabulous city. Fantastic, fabulous, FANTABULOUS! I'm convinced that people that don't like it either:

A) Have Mommy Syndrome - The inability to live far away from their mommies.
B) They just didn't give it enough of a chance.
C) They came here with preconceived notions of what California is like and held onto their close-minded, judgmental attitudes.
D) Plain dumb - Just couldn't deal with living in a city with hundreds of things to do, places to go, people to see, and nearly perfect weather.

On the other hand, living in a trailer park base housing has been nothing but Suckville. To the point where the thought of actually being able to live off base, in a real house, in a real neighborhood, balances out the sadness of leaving. So, for the next few weeks, I'm going to highlight something that I'm going to miss versus something that I'm not going to miss about living in San Diego.

Episode One:

Miss:  Balboa Park. It's the nation's largest urban cultural park. It's full of museums and gardens, a play house, hiking trails...You name it. It has gorgeous architecture too. I know. The San Diego Zoo is also part of the park but I never think of it that way. The zoo is the zoo, the park is the park.

Not Miss:  At least once a week, I nearly run over a little kid, and I'm talking two years old or younger, playing in the street (not exaggerating) while their parents sit on the front porch and watch. I'm not sure when the street became an acceptable playground. I missed that memo. Next time it happens, I'm going to get pictures so you can see I'm not making it up.

Welcome Back! We're Staying Put

This is a long overdue post. The Mister arrived home from Afghanistan safe and sound February 27th. If we are Facebook friends, friends IRL, or family, you already know. But for those of you that don't want to be friends with me on Facebook :( this is news to you. The homecoming was pretty neat. Their flight didn't get back until about 9:30 at night so I wasn't expecting anything special at the base but there ended up being a band and lots of people and fanfare so it was nifty.

As for our contest, the Mister won by less than 1/2 a percent. He opted to get a new set of golf clubs as his prize. I have to wait until at least May 27th before I can buy a new purse, lol. I made up for it by buying some new sunglasses though. ;) Honestly, I was disappointed and surprised that I lost. He ate ice cream every day for dessert and had steak every Sunday and barely worked out. I, on the other hand, dieted and ran at least 12 miles a week on my elliptical machine and I also did aerobics at least once a week. I really expected to win. AND!!!!! Since he's been home, I've gained freaking four pounds back. Sheesh, gosh, and holy freaking moly! I am so not happy about that. He's such a bad influence, lol.

Also, we had decided that we were moving out of base housing while he was deployed. Our property was vandalized twice in three months. Not to mention that base housing just sucks in general. So, one day after the Mister touched down on home soil, we started looking for a new house. We didn't really tell too many people about this because I didn't want to get a certain somebody's hopes up. Now I'm glad that I didn't because finding a rental that would accept our two Boxers was harder than I thought it would be. So, we gave up and decided to stick it out in base housing for a while. I finally unpacked the rest of our boxes this past week. An entire year here and we still hadn't finished unpacking. I think this contributed to our overall feeling of dissatisfaction with our living situation. All of the things that makes a home a home, knickknacks, whatnots, photographs, etc., we had left packed up in boxes. Living like that gives you (at least it does me) a feeling of instability and being temporary. I missed my things and I'm glad they're out and about now.

Anyway, that about brings everyone up to speed. The youngest is doing well. The oldest is taking her 8th grade trip to Washington D.C. and NYC next week. The Mister is back to work. And I'm up to my same old shenanigans.

The Grand Scheme of Things

We have finally arrived in San Diego. At the very least, this move has been an adventure.

I last left off when we were in Texas. No offense, but I don't care if I ever see that state again. It's HUGE and the western part is BORING. I liked San Antonio though and would like to go back and actually see some of it. Seeing our friends again would be nice too.

Our next stop was Tucson, AZ. A very good friend of ours lives there so we made dinner plans and met up with him, his girlfriend, and their three daughters for dinner. You know someone is a good friend when you haven't seen them for six years but when you finally do, you pick up right where you left off. We went to this place called Chuy's for dinner. Pretty decent food and they make really good, really cheap margaritas. After dinner, we went back to our friends' apartment for some more visiting. I hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. Josh, our friend, said it was his goal to see me laugh/cry which I did several times. Best of all, we woke up without a hangover, lmao.

We made it to San Diego on Thursday. The very first thing we did was drive around Lakeside and Santee which is our old stomping grounds from when we lived here the first time. Very little has changed in Lakeside. They gated our old base housing and there are some new shops and stuff but other than that, it looked exactly the same. Santee has a lot of new shopping but it's mostly the same too. After that, we drove downtown to our hotel.



I booked us into the Sheraton because the room rate was decent and they were pet friendly, not charging any pet deposit. I had no idea it was such a nice hotel. I didn't look at the pictures online, I just read the reviews. I was a bit intimidated walking in. This is the kind of hotel where they take your luggage to the room for you. We had never stayed in such place before. The hotel lobby is on the 12th floor and our room was on the 24th. Our view was pretty great. The youngest parked herself in a chair in front of the window most of the time and watched planes land at the airport. San Diego's airport has a unique approach route with planes landing over the downtown buildings. It's neat to watch them land.

Thursday night, we walked to a place called Brian's 24 for dinner. The Mister chose it out a magazine because there was a picture of fried chicken and waffles. Fried chicken and waffles was one of the things we laughed about with Josh so the Mister had to try it out. He said it was a unique combination but probably not something he'd want again. I had the meatloaf which was yummy. I also had a Ruby Screwed which is like a Screwdriver but with grapefruit juice. It was GOOD.

After dinner, we walked back to the hotel (I love big city living) and left the girls in the room while we went to the Sky Lobby Lounge in our hotel for a few drinks. I had this:

Ciroc Champagne Cosmo
Ciroc Vodka, Grand Marnier, cranberry juice and
fresh lime juice topped with champagne and gar-
nished with an orange twist.

It was so good. The bartender was really nice and made them really good if you know what I mean. This night resulted in a bit of a rough morning on Friday. Perfect for having to go to the housing office for our lease briefing, lol.

So Friday takes us to signing our lease, picking up our keys, and checking out the new digs. Sounds simple enough but it was a process. First we had to go to 32nd St Naval Base for our lease briefing. This consisted of reading this HUGE binder and then going to a conference room with a bunch of other people so that the binder could be read to us. Something unique to signing a lease for military housing that civilians will probably never encounter is the explosive ordinance addendum. We had to sign a paper acknowledging the fact that our housing was built on the site of a former base and finding unexploded ordinance is a possibility. Fun times. After all that, we had to go to our local housing management office to pick up our keys and a folder with a bunch of info for schools, utilities, a coupon for a free pizza, etc., etc. We drive to our house and the keys wouldn't work. By this time, our movers were waiting in the street to unload our stuff. We had to tell them to wait while we drove back to the housing office to get keys that would actually work.

Finally, we get to see the inside of our new house. What do I think? It's base housing. That's pretty much it. It has walls, ceilings, rooms, blah blah. Oh yeah. And it has bugs. FREAKING BUGS!!! The water pressure is non-existent. The kitchen in miniscule. It says it has four bedrooms but it's more like two bedrooms with two oversized closets. But, it has brand new carpet and the living room/dining room is very nice-sized and we're using it for a living room/reading area. The kitchen is an eat-in kitchen so I have no need for an additional dining area plus it's all carpeted and I don't like eating on carpet. The view from the backyard is nice. It opens into a canyon which overlooks the 163 so we're high up and we don't have any neighbors behind us. Other than the bugs, which someone is going to get an earful when I'm done here, I can live with everything else. It's base housing. IT'S BASE HOUSING!! I expected everything else. I can live with it. That's my mantra.

I hate our cable. Time Warner is confusing. We have so many channels (it goes up to 1000+) that I can't find anything. If there's an organizational schema to how the channels are arranged, I can't figure it out. I've had Cox, Charter, Suddenlink, and now Time Warner and Time Warner is by far the weirdest.

The packers broke the flat screen TV we recently purchased for our bedroom. It turns on but we have no red. Red is black and skin tone is green. They took several screws out of the back of it trying to take the base off to pack it. I don't know if that's what broke it or if it was the actual transporting it 2700 miles, but it's broke. We'll file a claim but it could be years before we're reimbursed if they decide to reimburse us at all. We're only about 1/2 way unpacked and that's the only broken/missing thing so far. I guess I should count myself lucky. We know someone who was moving from Japan to the U.S. and they dropped his entire shipment off the side of a transport ship to the bottom of the ocean. So, things could be worse. They managed to get my Grandma's Italian table here with no problem and that's one of the few things we own that's irreplaceable. Other than that, our movers suck butt and I hope they rot.

My car was delivered after much hassle from the company. NEVER use Car Go Autotransport to ship a car. They suck ass. Suck as in S-U-C-K. I won't go into all the details cuz it's really boring, but in the end, they delivered my car sans the antenna. They swear it's in the car but my car is very clean (at least on the inside) and there is no antenna in there. I have to figure out how to get a new one because only one radio station comes in without it.

I have now moved into the, "I'm sick of moving, unpacking, living out of boxes, being so sore I can barely move at the end of the day, being so tired that I fall into bed exhausted but can't sleep because my back hurts so bad, sick of eating out constantly because I can't find enough kitchen stuff to cook with" phase of life. I'm irritable and I want moving, school, and work to go the hell away. AWAY! I've missed several assignments in both my classes so that a good grade is now an unattainable goal. I'm so far behind with work that the light at the end of the tunnel is no longer visible. And I don't think we'll ever be done unpacking. CRY, WHINE, COMPLAIN!!!

To get some perspective, we're back in San Diego after longing to be here for the last six years. The only complaint our old landlord had was that we didn't pooper scoop the backyard. (Go cry to someone else about that because we paid almost $1000 getting YOUR house ready to rent to SOMEBODY else and if dog crap is your only complaint, count yourself damned lucky dude.) All the boxes will eventually go away. Logically, I know this. Base housing isn't choice, but it's in a pretty perfect location, it's free (basically) and we don't pay utilities. As long as they get an exterminator here to kill the bugs, I can be happy here. In the grand scheme of things, life is pretty good.

Don't Mess with Texas

We’re a little over halfway done with our trip. We really spread it out so that the driving wouldn’t suck and so that we could see people along the way.

We spent our first night on the road in Atlanta. I’m sorry to say it, but we didn’t take the time to be tourists in Atlanta. We considered stopping by the Olympic park Saturday morning but decided not to because we wanted more time in Pensacola, which was our next destination.

In 1998, the Mister was in Pensacola for his MOS training. I moved down there, even though the Marine Corps frowns on family living with you while you’re in school, with the oldest child into a tiny apartment with nothing but what I could fit into two suitcases, my purse, and a diaper bag. Still, it was the best time. We made awesome friends there and despite being broke all the time, it was all fun and we have only good memories. I really wanted the kids to see PCola and where we used to live.

We drove by our old apartment first. Neither the Mister nor I remember it being so rundown, lol. The whole town seemed run down. I don’t know if it’s life experiences that changed our perspective or if the town really has gone downhill over the last 11 years, but if I had the choice of moving there, I wouldn’t.

Anyway, next we took them on base to NAS Pensacola. After driving around looking desperately for the NEX (Navy Exchange) cuz I had to pee baaaad, we drove to a sandy/grassy area so the dogs could stretch their legs. The base didn’t seem like it had changed all that much.

After the base, we drove out to PCola Beach. This has always been my favorite beach. Real, sugar-white sand beaches, warm, blue-green water, and a really nice boardwalk. I’ve always measured other beaches to Pensacola Beach. Not much had changed there either despite the hurricanes that have passed through since we lived there. It was collllld though. Some fool was laying out on the sand in a sleeping bag of all things. It was also really windy. Even so, it was packed with people on Spring Break.

After the beach, we drove to Gulfport, MS which is where I had made us a hotel reservation. FYI, we stayed at the Residence Inn at the airport. We had a king studio and it was NICE. Very nice. If you’re ever in need of a hotel there, I’d recommend that hotel. Anyway, we got in early enough that we had time to go shopping at the outlet mall. SO MUCH FUN!! We all made out pretty good. Lots of good loot.

The next day, we headed out to our next destination which was San Antonio. Somewhere between the Texas border and Houston, we got a flat tire on the I-10. Changing a tire on the side of the Interstate was very much NOT FUN. You hear news stories all the time of people getting hit on the side of the highway. In our family, we have a long line of bad luck when it comes to carjacks and I was pretty scared. Nevertheless, we got the tire changed and we were back on the road in about an hour. Luckily enough, I got the warranty on those tires so we’ll get reimbursed for the cost of a new tire.

We arrived in San Antonio late and exhausted but really glad to be there. Our very good friends that we’ve known since Vermont now live in San Antonio and we were very excited to see them again. We spent all of Monday at their house visiting. Again, we didn’t get to sight see in San Antonio. The only things we saw were a Super Target, Jack in the Box, Discount Tire, and an Italian restaurant that I can’t remember its name. No Alamo, no River Walk. And I could really care less. Catching up with old friends was wonderful. Now if only I could talk them into transferring out to San Diego…

Today, we drove to Van Horn, TX for the night. Um. Scary town. The only reason we decided to stay in this town is because San Antonio is too far from Tucson to drive in one day. This is a hole in the wall town. We’re staying at the Ramada, which is the nicest place in town…unfortunately. The water is cloudy. We bought bottled water to give to the dogs and to brush our teeth with and we’ll have to take showers in Tucson. Yeah.

We went for dinner at the Wendy’s which is inside of a truck stop. Some old, greasy-haired, truck driver was checking out the oldest. I pushed her behind me and he freaking leaned over to see her around me. The Mister had to give the guy the stink-eye so he would knock it off. I was close to making a scene. The pervert was old enough to be her grandfather. Sick. I can’t wait to leave in the morning.

Our next stop is Tucson. We’re going to meet up and have dinner with an old friend there. We’ve known him since PCola but haven’t seen him since our very last day in San Diego when we moved away six years ago. We’re all very excited to see him again.

Despite the hotel room, this part of Texas is very pretty. The view out of our hotel is a mountain. West of San Antonio though, it’s very desolate. At one point, we could only get in one radio station, lol. I bow down to Steve Jobs. If it weren’t for my iPod, we would have gone insane.

Now, since there is nothing better to do in this no horse town, I’m going to catch up on some work and schoolwork and read a book. We're going to bed early so that we can get up and leave early, lol.

Finally...Some Down Time

After not getting to sleep until after 2 am last night, I finally have nothing to do. I figured I would take this time to update properly.

Monday, the packers were here, on time, bright and early. They seemed to be doing a good job. The Mister, Youngest, dogs, and I sat out back on our patio furniture while they were packing and they kept coming out constantly to ask questions. "Do you want this packed?" "Should we leave this out?" They told us to leave whatever we didn't want packed on the beds so we did. This is so that we can sleep on the beds one last night and then the actual movers box up the mattresses and linens the next day. Well, they left my bed alone but packed up the girls' and we didn't discover this until that night when we were trying to go to bed. The Mister had to run out and buy a blanket for the kids. Oh well.

Tuesday, the movers arrived, on time, bright and early. They very efficiently started moving boxes to the driveway and furniture onto the semi-truck. The company I hired to ship my car was supposed to be there around 9'ish in the morning but they got held up at a truck inspection site and were pretty late. What is irritating about that is that they weren't supposed to come until yesterday but asked if they could come early. Then, they told me that because they picked up the car early, they would be delivering it early, on the 16th, which is 2 days before we get there. I had to ask a "friend" to accept the delivery and this person made me feel pretty bad for asking. Thanks.

As the movers were loading the truck, I started noticing a LOT of stuff the packers didn't pack. I walked through the house the day before but I guess this stuff was behind boxes or something. They were also very "by the book" and didn't pack ANY of my candles which really pissed me off. Sorry, but it did. They also packed half-full bottles of some oils (for soap making) and left some of the others which I have no explanation for. They packed half-full bottles of lotions and body sprays, but left others. It was just very strange what they would pack and what they wouldn't pack. They packed four bottles of sodium hydroxide with no problem though. Explain that one to me. OH! And then this. I have this old toolbox that my dad gave me when I was 15 or 16. I used it to lock up letters from boyfriends, my diary, and other things that I didn't want my sister reading, lol. I haven't taken anything out of this toolbox since I got it. I mean, I would take out a letter or two to reread, but overall, it's never been emptied. The packing lady took everything out and dumped it into another box. I was pretty upset by this. It may seem dumb, but I felt really violated. They did that with a lot of stuff; unpacked boxes to put them into their own boxes. Whatever. They also wouldn't pack jewelry, savings bonds, or loose change. Whatever again. I think in the end, I don't like them very much. And to be totally bitchy, one guy spelled "board" "borad" on all our boxes. Like keyborad.

Wednesday, we spent most of the day picking up odds and ends in the house, touching up the paint (which I said I wouldn't do but did anyway) taking apart furniture that we threw away this morning, and stuff like that. Nothing too exciting. Well, I guess I had a bit of excitement turning in our cable boxes to the cable company. When we get there, the woman (who is ALWAYS rude) made us stand there while she chattered to herself, then asked what we wanted. I told her we needed to cancel our cable and she asked me for our address. I told her, "**** Sweet Briar Ct" then started to spell it for her. Since we've lived here, NOBODY has ever been able to spell our street name and always ask if it's one word or two. Well, she looks up at me with this disgusted, holier than thou look on her face not bothering to type as I spell, waits till I'm done then types our address in her computer. Sooorrry lady. I was just trying to be helpful. After that, I was all short answered with her just waiting for her to ask for our forwarding address. I so was not going to spell our street name for her. I was practically dancing waiting for her to ask. Finally, she asks where she can send our final bill and I say, "**** Bordelon St." She's like, "Say that again." And I do and she's like, "Borderlon?" And I'm like, "No. Bordelon." And she's like, "Okay. Borderlon." Like she's all correct and I just don't know how to talk. I didn't correct her. We'll see if we get our final bill in the mail or not. Regardless, I'll pay it online, but we'll see. Bitch, hehehe.

Today has been an adventure. We got up bright and early to finish picking up inside the house and moving all of our luggage into the garage. I had Merry Maids scheduled to come at 8:30 am which would give them plenty of time to clean and be gone before the carpet cleaners come at 4 pm. We also scheduled the dogs to go to the groomers from 9-11:30 so that they would be gone for at least some of the time. Well, 9:30 rolls around and there's no sign of the cleaners so I call to make sure I got the time right. The lady tells me that they had a scheduling issue and that they wouldn't be there until between 1 & 2. And they hadn't even bothered to call and tell me this!!! WTF?!?! I tell her that that won't work for me at all because of the carpet cleaners. She puts me on hold and calls an outside contractor to come and clean the house. This lady finally arrives at 10 BY HERSELF and says that there is no way she can be done by 4. I tell her either she's done by 4 or she's going to have to dance with the carpet cleaners because everything has to be done today. UGH!! So, she calls the Merry Maids people, explains the situation, and they agree to send her some help. On top of all that, because this lady wasn't scheduled to come, I had to walk her through the house and show/tell her what needs to be cleaned which is something I had already done with the other lady prior. The lady that is cleaning the house is real nice but I hate Merry Maids. I will never call them again. It's one thing to need to reschedule but it's another to not even bother to call. They can bite me. And it's not as if they didn't know this was a move out clean ahead of time either. Grr!

Anyway, right now we're sitting in the car while the house is being cleaned. I still have my cable internet and my wireless reaches the driveway, heheh. The dogs have been groomed and they're all pretty and smell good. I just hope there are no issues with the carpet cleaners. They've been here before so I think it should be all good, knock on wood. After all the cleaning is done, we're checking into a hotel for the night. Then we'll meet our landlord at the house in the morning, turn over our keys, and hit the road. First stop, Atlanta.

I'm Still Alive

We're still in NC. Our stuff is not. We are sleeping on air mattresses but will be checking into a hotel tomorrow night. I'm having Merry Maids and the carpet cleaners come tomorrow. We still have some work to do around this house with taking stuff to the recycling center and to Goodwill. We're also taking the dogs to the dog groomers tomorrow in hopes that they won't stink up the car too bad.

Umm..We've been watching lots of Hulu on the laptop. It's just too darn quiet without the TV on in the house. We bought some pretty awesome air mattresses though.

We're exhausted but hanging in there. We'll be hitting the road first thing Friday morning.

I have lots more that I want to write about but I have to work now. Yep. 10:11 PM but this is the first opportunity that I've had all day to work. At least I can do so from my "bed".

Tomorrow is going to be a really hard day for the oldest child since it's her last day of school here. I'm dreading it. She could use some positive thoughts if you have any to spare. ;)

Keep Reading

I have lots to say. I’m thinking bullet points would be the best approach to how I’m feeling today, heheh.

• The Mister and I got a Nook. I LOVE it. He loves his. We’re responsible for the sale of four more Nooks. :D I think I’ll have a post on our Nook to go over what I like and dislike about it later.
• I’m sick. I just have a cold but I feel like I’ve swallowed razor blades. My throat is so sore it hurts to breathe. I’ve given up on getting a good night’s sleep.
• I have taken both my dogs to the vet this week. They’re both very healthy thank goodness. The vet was impressed with Hannah’s lean, muscular physique. We always worry that she’s too skinny but the vet said he’d rather see a lean, muscular dog rather than a tubby dog. Which brings us to Bailey. She gained EIGHT pounds since her last vet visit in March. She weighs 69 pounds to Hannah’s 53 pounds. Bailey needs to pass a few of her excess pounds to Hannah. Then they’d be perfect.
• We had the handyman out on Monday. He took care of a few household projects that the Mister and I didn’t want to do. Now, aside from cleaning, the house is ready to turn over to the new people.
• I have Merry Maids coming today to give me an estimate on how much it will cost to clean our empty house. I’ve never hired professional cleaners before but I don’t want to do it so here we go. I really don’t know why I’m bothering with an estimate. I have no idea what a good price would be to clean a house.
• I also have an appointment to take the Mister’s car into the dealer for a regular maintenance checkup. This is the car we’ll be driving to California so we want to make sure all its fluids and filters are good to go. I was worried about being able to get it in with all the recalls (it’s a Toyota) but I had no problem at all making the appointment yesterday. And as a side note, if I were in the market today for a car, I’d still buy Toyota. Just saying.
• I have both the carpet cleaners scheduled and the pickup for the Scion scheduled. The only thing left on my “To Do” moving list is to get the girls into the dentist before we leave. I’m calling today for an appointment.
• Our movers will be here 3/5, 3/8, and 3/9. That, people, is a week from tomorrow. Yikes!!
• Classes are going good so far. Even with my sudden trip to Ohio, I’m still on track. I’m totally loving my forensic anthropology class. I have no opinion of my E-commerce class. We haven’t really done anything in that class yet.

Well, I think that’s it for now. I need to clean my house before Merry Maids gets here, lmao. I could really use a nap too. :/

Wild and Crazy?

Just crazed. I have moved into the crazed portion of the program. And before you tell me it will all work out, see the following post:  STFU It’s really not what I need or want to hear right now.

House hunting isn’t going well. Our number one favorite pick is a house that’s 4 miles from the Mister’s new base, it’s HUGE, the dogs aren’t a problem, and the rent is right. HOWever, they have someone that has already put a deposit down, sight unseen last I heard, so we probably won’t be getting that house. BIG BUMMER!

Our number two pick house is in San Marcos which is a bit of a commute from the Mister’s base but not terrible. It’s also a really big house but it’s nice and allows dogs. Couple issues:  It doesn’t have a refrigerator and the owner wants us to provide our own or raise the rent to buy one for the house. Really?!?!

Another house is the right rent, right distance, allows dogs, but wants us to start paying rent on it beginning on March 1 even though we won’t be moving in until March 19 and will still be paying rent on this house until March 12. I really don’t think that’s reasonable at all.

Other houses that we are considering are either too far for too much rent or too small. What I mean is that we would consider a longer commute for less rent and will take a small house if that’s our only choice. This really sucks out loud.

As for base housing, they won’t put us on the waiting list until March 10th. This means that we would have NINE days to get into base housing. Last time I checked, waiting lists were much longer than NINE freaking days especially for housing that allows dogs.

On top of house hunting for ourselves, our house we currently live in is listed for rent so I have to field calls from potential tenants and have our house ready to show at any time. That effing sucks out loud. On top of that, my semester starts on Monday, I still have work, and I still have homeschooling the youngest. You really gonna tell me not to worry? I wouldn’t risk it if I were you. Cuz on top of all that, I’m dieting and exercising again. Probably a bad time to start but at the same time, the exercise is good for my mind. I’m still sleeping at night and I haven’t killed anyone. Yet. However, denying myself chocolate and other comfort, fat-filled foods at this time is probably a risk to others, lmao. But, I've already lost five pounds in one week. Yay me!

 

Ugh.

Also, I need some sort of program that will sync between my laptop, my desktop, my iPod touch, and my Blackberry. I really don’t think such a wondrous thing exists but if you know of something I could use that would keep all my tasks, to do’s, calendar items, and e-mails up to date on all my devices, I would appreciate a point in the right direction. I need something that will work with MS Outlook.

Home is Where I Hide My Gun

We’ve started looking for a house in earnest this week. We have a line on four different houses that we like and I’m working with a “relocation specialist” (their term, not mine) in San Diego to help us find a house. Even so, we haven’t totally decided whether or not we want to live in base housing. Pros and cons of base housing:

Pros:

• It’s free. We don’t pay rent or utilities except for phone, cable, and internet.
• It’s safe. Unless we do something majorly drastic, we can live in base housing as long as the Mister is stationed out there.
• There will be no end to the kids that my kids will be able to hang out/play with.
• The housing area we are considering has it’s own Popeye’s (this could actually be a con, heheh), gas station, and convenience store.
• The commute is very minimal.
• It’s easy.

Cons:

• Most of the units are duplexes so we would have neighbors sharing walls.
• In my experience, people that live in base housing are gossips, busy bodies, and look for any reason to be in your business and to complain about you. Not all of them, to be sure, but a goodly portion of them.
• The square footage is small.
• We haven’t had to live in multi-family housing in six+ years. It will be a big adjustment.
• You’re not allowed to paint. Anything. At all.
• I hate base housing.

Three of the houses we are considering are in San Marcos which is about a 45 minute commute from the Mister’s base. But they are really nice. BIG. Of these three houses, one is really affordable and the other two, we can afford but we’ll have less money left over at the end of the month than we would if we lived in base housing. The fourth house is 4 miles from the gate to Miramar, it’s HUGE (5 br, 3 ba), and the owner is military. But it’s at the top of our price range being the most expensive rent of the four. Our biggest issues with these four houses are the rent and for the other three, the commute. The biggest “pro” of all though, is that they aren’t base housing. UGH! Not for the first time I wish that someone could tell me the future, lol.

No matter where we live, I have to have office space. I work from home and need an area where I can shut the door and work. No matter how disciplined I am, it is impossible to balance the books for an organization with kids and dogs pestering me. I need quiet for that and for the many other tasks I do. This could be a potentially big challenge in base housing. More often than not, you are given a unit based on how many kids you have. We have two so we rate a three bedroom. This doesn’t leave space for an office.

What to do???

It’s a Blustery Day in the Neighborhood

Nobody in my household got very much sleep last night. The wind is blowing so hard that the house is creaking loudly. The Mister and I have been up off and on since 4 this morning. The funny/bad thing about it is that today is trash day. The girls put out our trash and recycling last night before it started raining. We got up this morning and all THREE paper grocery bags of recycling are GONE! I feel really bad that all that stuff is blowing around the neighborhood but we had no idea the weather was supposed to get so bad. Cleanup is going to be a bitch.

The wind also blew over our grill and our patio chairs. The grill is way to heavy for me to lift by myself and the Mister is at work so I’m hoping the propane tank is ok. Ugh!

In other news…

We have worked out a semi-solid moving plan.

• 3/8 – The movers come to pack the house.
• 3/9 – The movers come and load the truck.
• 3/10 – I have cleaners come to clean the house.
• 3/10-3/11 – We do any repairs and/or painting that needs to be done.
• 3/10-3/11 – We have carpet cleaners come.
• 3/12 – We hit the road. Our first overnight will be in Atlanta.
• 3/13 – We drive to Pensacola, Fl for a bit of sight seeing then onward to stay overnight in Gulfport, MS.
• 3/14 – We drive from Gulfport to San Antonio to visit with Dana and her family.
• 3/15 – Visiting in San Antonio.
• 3/16 – Drive from San Antonio to El Paso, TX for the night.
• 3/17 – Drive to Tucson, AZ to visit with another friend of ours.
• 3/18 – Arrive in San Diego.

Of course, this is just a preliminary plan and I’m sure things will change, but this is my ideal idea. ;) This means that we have to have everything completely ready to go by March 7th. That means that including today, we have 58 days to get ready for the movers. Big UGH!! But really exciting at the same time.

We’ve started looking at houses for rent out west. Base housing isn’t off the table and is probably where we’ll end up, but we’re still looking. While reading listings, it occurred to me that people are pretty stupid. I can understand why people don’t want pets in their rental properties. However, some people’s reasoning isn’t reasonable at all. One listing said cats ok and small dogs will be considered. In my experience as a pet owner, small dogs do just as much damage if not more than large dogs when it comes to chewing and not being house broken. To say that this is the domain of large dogs is preposterous at best. As for cats, cat pee is way worse than dog pee and cats scratch walls and carpet and stuff. Chances are because we have two 55 pound dogs, we’re not going to have much of a choice but to move into base housing. Why? Because most people are uninformed twits.

Moving Progress

I was recently called out for not updating my blog regularly. Yeah well. I have very little of interest to say. So :P

We found out yesterday that the Mister will be checking out of his current command 15 days earlier than we thought. Our move date has moved up. Again. He checks out on March 10th now, not March 15th. In actuality, we have 26 days from March 10th until he has to check into his new command out in San Diego. We won’t be leaving NC exactly on the 10th because we’ll have movers and then the cleaning of this house.

::Side note::

I had to stop typing to take the oldest to school. On the way there, I got behind a school bus. After picking up a bunch of kids at a stop, it took off down the road going 45 in a 35 and in a school zone. What’s up with that?!?!

Anyway, essentially, we have 1 month and 27 days or so before we move. Yikes! I have so much to do and with our move date constantly being adjusted closer, I have less and less time to do it in, lol. We’ve opted to have the military pay for movers rather than moving ourselves so that takes a big load off but I still have organizing, cleaning, arranging to have my car shipped (we decided not to drive two cars cross country), getting the dogs to the vet for one last check up, finding somewhere to live in San Diego, taxes, and every day life in the midst of all that.

Did you know…

When you’re making a military move, you have two options. 1.) You can choose to have them pay to have a moving company come in, pack your stuff, and ship it to your destination. You get travel pay for mileage to drive your POV and for food and hotels depending on how many days they estimate it takes to drive to your new duty station. In our case, 8 days times 4 people. They always pay you way more than you need. We also get paid for the weight of our luggage that we have in our car. What that means is that we have to have our car weighed empty, pack it up, then have it weighed full. We get paid for that weight. 2.) You can choose to pack your own stuff and arrange to have it moved to your destination and have the military reimburse you for your expenses. This 2nd option is called a DITY move or Do It Yourself Move, pronounced, ditty. In all of our moves, we have done one DITY move and that was from Ohio to California. I packed up our very meager belongings which were at my dad’s house. We really had nothing. A bed with a plain metal frame, baby stuff (crib, changing table, etc.) a dinette set, sofa, 19 in. TV, a couple dressers and a few other odds and ends. I flew out to California with the girls and our families loaded a moving truck and drove it out to California for us. We reimbursed them with the money we got from the military and had some left over that we pocketed. I’m not sure if they have increased the money you get for doing a DITY move or if it’s just inflation, but nowadays, people get A LOT more than we did in 1999 for doing a DITY move.

A Marine that the Mister works with is moving out to Cali with his wife and some household belongings. They don’t have kids. They are getting $20,000 to move themselves!!! You may be asking yourselves why we don’t take advantage of such a deal. Well, I’m telling you that IMO, the money isn’t worth it. I would rather NOT have to pack up a 4 bedroom  house, all of our furniture and appliances, and the rest of our crap, and move it across the country. I’m not even sure they make a rental truck big enough to fit all of our stuff in. Professional movers come with a semi-truck. Plus, if stuff gets broken, you get reimbursed for the damages whereas if you break your own stuff, you’re out of luck. We moved ourselves across town a year and a half ago and that was such a major PITA that I think the peace of mind is worth $20,000. Maybe I’m just lazy. Yep. Movers are a wonderful thing.

Did you know::

This is how professional movers work:

1. They come in one day to visually assess how much stuff you have and what kind of boxes and moving supplies they will need to pack your crap.
2. On another day shortly thereafter, they come in and pack up your crap. Yes. It only takes them ONE day to pack EVERYTHING.
3. On the next day, they come  in and load your crap up on a truck. It only takes a few hours to load.
4. They make arrangements with you to have your crap delivered; a date and a destination address.
5. At your destination, they arrive on the prearranged date and unload your crap, putting together furniture and placing boxes where you tell them to. They will even unpack your boxes if you tell them to. We don’t because at this point, we just want them gone.
6. That’s it. You unpack your crap and settle in to your new home.

There. Now I’ve updated my blog. :P

Random Floating Thoughts

I have all this stuff floating around in my head so I’m gonna write about it and get it all out.

The other night, the Mister and I were going to bed and we were locking up the house for the night. We turned  out all the lights in the living room and were walking to our bedroom in the dark. Weird thing about is that while I was walking in complete, pitch black dark, the Mister said he could see well enough from the light coming in the windows to make out shadows of where stuff was. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how very bad my night vision is. I knew it wasn’t 100% but I didn’t know it was that bad. I guess it’s no wonder why I hate driving at  night.

The oldest child had a dance performance at her school last night. She did really great!! I am, of course, the proud parent. I’m going to put up video on my other blog which is private. I’m not comfortable putting video of my kids and other people’s kids on the Internet for all to see. If you’d like to view the video, leave a comment and let me know. I will need your e-mail address to send you an invite.

Something else I just realized is that we will be moving, actually on the road moving, in just over three months. The movers will be here around the 1st of March. I’m not sleeping again and since I’m not worried about anything else, I can only guess that I’m worrying about moving. I’ve also had the worst indigestion. Yes, yes. I know I’ve moved before and will make it through this one, but moving cross country with such little time to get ready is, I think, a perfectly legitimate reason to be stressed out. I’ve also never moved when I was both working and going to school. I’m also concerned about where we will live in California. I think it’s the thought of having to move back into base housing after living like regular people for six years that has me worried the most.

Another realization…I’m getting burned out on social networking. Maybe it’s just a phase and I’ll get back into it.

I’m tired of hearing about Tiger Woods. Move on. Next subject.

Yesterday, it was in the 50’s, today it’s in the 70’s (as I type it’s 72 with a heat index of 77) and tomorrow’s highs will only be in the 50’s again. Totally weird weather.

I’m still rereading the In Death books. Not counting the novellas, I’m on book 20 of 28. The last book, Kindred in Death just came out last month and I haven’t read it yet. I’m excited to get to it. I annoy myself though. Having reread the series as many times as I have, I can pick out a lot of mistakes that Robb made in the story line. Why do I have to be so nitpicky?

Finals on Monday were a nightmare. I took 17th and 18th Century British Literature and Concepts in Marketing this semester. I enjoyed both classes and learned a lot. I don’t know why my exams kicked me this year. I don’t have my grades yet. I probably won’t be posting about them either, lol.

I feel much better now. Don’t forget to let me know if you want to see the dance video and click on through to see my new blog template if you haven’t already!

Odd Behavior

I don’t know what’s gotten into me this year, but I’m so excited about the holidays. Usually, I’m a real bah humbugger about holidays. I don’t know what’s gotten into me!

We have all of our Turkey Day food ready to go. We’re not having anyone over this year but that’s okay. Not to be inhospitable, but I enjoy the time with just my family. Maybe next year will be different though. ;)

I’m also totally into Christmas already. I’m itching to put out my decorations. I saw someone yesterday with their yard already done up and it was nice to see. I also stop to listen to commercials with Christmas music in them. Hmm.

Maybe I’m in a good mood about the holidays because things are so good for us right now. With San Diego on the horizon, I’ve been taking things in stride a lot more than I usually do. There was a freakazoid in the carpool lane at the oldest’s school last week and instead of flipping my lid, I laughed at them instead. I only have to deal with that craziness for 4 1/2 more months. Yep, yep!

Well, I gotta meeting in five minutes, so I’ll stop my blathering now. I hope all of you are in the holiday spirit this year too!!

Beginning Our Newest Journey

Now that we are home from vacation, leisure time is a thing of the past. At least until after we move and settle in in San Diego.

Yesterday I began cleaning out our garage. I suppose compared to other people’s garages, it’s not too terrible. At least I can fit my tiny little car into it, lol. However, it’s getting to the point where I can fit my car in, but getting in and out of the car is starting to be a challenge. We have empty boxes, some broken down and some not, stacked almost to the ceiling on one side. They tend to topple over from time to time. On the other side, we have boxes and Rubber Maid totes full of things we didn’t unpack from when we moved into this house. That is where I began cleaning yesterday.

I turned four totes of the girls’ toys into one tote of trash, two totes that are full of toys going to charity, and one tote of toys that I allowed to come back into the house. The kids whined a bit but I explained to them that these toys had been in the garage for a year. If they hadn’t been played with in all that time, they couldn’t be that important and I didn’t want to hear arguments about it!!

I also found water in the garage and a big pile of sand next to the side door. I can only assume that it rained so much here from Nor’Ida that the side yard flooded and came into the garage. I have no other guesses as to where the water and sand could have some from. Only one box got wet (a box full of my books, CRY!!) and our rolled up area rug. Now the rug smells and I think I’m just going to throw it away. The box of books, I’m too scared to look and will take care of it in California.

Today, my legs and back are sore from all the lifting. It’s a good sore though because I did a lot of work and it was necessary work. I feel good about it.