Our OCONUS PCS experience.

As I've stated before, this has been a long journey for us. By the time that we actually touch the ground in Germany, it will be nearly 8 full months since we received orders telling us of the move. So much can change (and did! and will again!) since then, so I wanted to tell you about our experience up until the actual flying date. That is still a wee bit away for us.

1. EFMP     I've blogged about being possibly placed on EFMP before (and I eventually was placed on it), so I'll just start from the point of my 1st appointment after finding out that I was being flagged. I went to my PCM but was told that to have them fill out the paper work it would be a $75 form filling out fee unless I had orders. Since I need the EFMP paperwork filled out to even placed on the orders, they let me use my husband's orders for the appointment. I went in and was so nervous that this was an all-or-nothing type of appointment. If she didn't word the orders how I needed them to be ordered, then there was a good chance of my command sponsorship not being granted. Thankfully, the appointment was quick and painless. The hardest part of that was waiting for nearly 10 days for the paperwork to be filled out completely. I then took them straight back to the EFMP office at the hospital and they took care of the rest.  About 3 weeks later, we knew all was okay because my husband got a message on his AKO "welcoming" the  EFM to Germany". So, yeah. Really anti-climatic.

2. Command Sponsorship (CS)    It was approved, as you can see above. However, actually getting it printed on orders for me and the kids was very hard to do. Once we found out that it was approved  we called to get our orders printed off. We stupidly assumed that it would be that easy. We were told multiple times that even though it was approved, and was visible in the system that it had been approved, that our orders wouldn't, nee, couldn't be printed off until we were within 30 days of arrival at the new duty station. We explained (multiple times) that we were given the option to arrive early, and we wanted to take advantage of that. "Nope" we were told over and over. Ryan spoke to a woman one time who said that we would be "lucky" to get them printed off in the 3 weeks before we left base on leave because there were 20 or so people in front of us on the list, some of whom were scheduled to arrive to their new bases before us, and we needed to wait our turn. (**This office's only job is to print off orders. That's it. Not to amend orders, or re-write orders, or stop orders. Nope.  Their only responsibility was to physically print off the orders and call us to have them come pick them up.**)  Ryan went to the actual office (as opposed to calling on the phone) and spoke to a supervisor after all of this run around because he was days away from going on leave at this point and transportation was coming the following week to move our stuff. The supervisor feigned embarrassment and told him to be back there at 1300 when they opened up after lunch and she would have them ready for us.  I went with him to that appointment, and though the orders weren't done as promised, they were done within the hour that we were sitting in the waiting room watching her type them up. When she handed over the orders, I hugged her. Hard. For longer than was appropriate. And I don't care. After getting these orders, we immediately walked down the hallway to pick up our No Fee passports and then walked downstairs to Carson Wagonlit to order our plane tickets. Yahoo! We were even able to choose the date and time of the tickets that we wanted, which was great. My husband wanted the ticket with a 40 minute layover in a huge international airport between connecting flights with 3 kids and 6 carry-on bags among us.  Um......no. Thankfully I was able to have some input into that decision and picked on with a tad bit longer layover.

3. Passports     My first recommendation for the regular passport is to not take your picture at the post office. It was more than double to get it taken there, as opposed to Walgreens or Walmart, and your children may or may not wear a superman shirt to school under their hoodie, and you will then have to try and figure that situation out in the car. Or something. My second recommendation is that you print off all of the paperwork before hand and take it with you. However, you may be stuck in the waiting room like we were for seemingly forever, in which case you may have more than enough time to fill out the paperwork there. There were 5 of us to get passports for but once we got out of the waiting room and into the actual office, it took about 30 minutes to complete all five, including having pictures taken for everyone. The pictures that were taken included 2 pictures (of the same image), and we used the 2nd "extra" one for our No Fee passports. We had to pre-order special birth certificates that are required now--they are the "long" forms and we only had "short" forms for everyone--and all together, including birth certificates, pictures, fees, and copies, the total cost was about $900.  O.U.C.H. We got them back in about 10 working days.

The No Fee passports had a little bit of different information needed on the paperwork, and that paperwork HAD to be completed online. They needed a special bar code printed off on the paperwork to be turned in. We turned that paperwork in, along with the passport photos from above, and that office took care of the rest of that. We were able to pick them up physically only once we had orders and they had sent us with specific paperwork to have the travel agency sign off on. They look nearly 100% identical to the regular passport. The only difference is one page has a ginormous SOFA stamp on it, allowing us to be able live in Germany more than 90 days. For the regular passports, each of the children and and Ryan and I had to be there. For the No Fee ones, the children didn't have to be present.

4. Transportation     We called them and set a tentative date (after we had already turned in notice to housing of our moving date) based upon when the children could check out of school* for the semester while still getting full credit & how much time we wanted to take before we flew to spend time with the family**, and they sent someone out to do a pre-move inspection. This woman basically walked through the house making a list of everything that we had and if any special crates were needed. They made 2 crates for us - one for a glass curio cabinet and one for a $5 Ikea vase. She said that the moving company wanted to pack on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and then move on the Monday after. I put the kibosh on that because I knew that it would take longer to pack then just one day and  I didn't want the movers to feel rushed about only having one day to pack before the movers came. They scheduled then to have packers there on Monday & Tuesday, and the crating to be done on Wednesday after Thanksgiving. On Monday, 3 ladies came to pack the house and they were incredibly slow. Painfully slow. Dreadfully slow. It took one woman nearly all day to pack my china hutch. To put that in perspective, we don't own a china set & 2 of the 3 drawers were already empty. Ahem. (Side note- did you know that on an OCONUS move, they take all of the clothes off of the hangers and lay them flat in the box? I didn't know that until they started to pack. It was....odd. Also- they didn't pack our dresser drawers. They just laid a piece of paper over what was in the drawers and called it a day.)  Well, at nearly the end of that 1st day, the slowest lady (china hutch lady) started making comments about our belongings that she didn't think that we could hear ("I would never own that!", etc) and I got pissy and verrrry passive-aggressive. The next morning we learned that she was fired (not from us complaining) so then we were down to 2 packers. They got there at about 9 am. That second day they worked till about 6 pm. Both days, the ladies took nearly 2 hour lunch breaks. I tried to be gone nearly all day, both days, because it is so incredibly awkward to stand and watch someone pack up all of your things when I know that I am capable of doing it physically. It's just an odd feeling. We questioned them about some things that hadn't been packed and they said that the craters would pack them for us the next morning. What? Turns out the packers didn't pack our 3rd full bathroom, or the laundry room shelves, OR 2 cabinets in the kitchen. The packers did pack it like we were told that they would, but 6 huge burly men were not pleased to be packing from under the bathroom cabinets. The craters took about 9 hours to crate up everything and it took 12 crates. 12 jam-packed crates. We were underweight, which is nice, seeing how our orders didn't specify an Un-Accompanied Baggage shipment prior to the HHG arrival, so we had to mail ourselves part of that shipment to the tune of nearly $300. We've been told that since we were underweight, what we mailed to ourselves will be reimbursed up to the point of our weight limit. We shall see.

We were also called about 67894793743 times by transportation with them wanting the amended orders. We didn't have them for forever (see #2 above), so that was fun to deal with everyday. I was very happy to turn that packet of paperwork over to them.

5. POV Shipment     We financed our vehicle so we had to go to our lender and get some paperwork from them stating that it was okay that we were taking the vehicle to Germany and a certified copy of the title. The closest place to ship the car for us was in Dallas. First, we had to rent a car and transfer everything over to the rental in the parking lot. Then, we had to find the shipment place which is in an obscure location. It had been raining and was FREEZING cold that day. While I took the kids to get something to eat, Ryan took the car to be vacuumed out. However, since it was still spritzing rain, no car washes were open. The 2 (or 3?) places near-by that the shipping place had recommended when we called before we got there were either closed due to weather or had broken vacuums. Awesome. This did not bode well for Ryan's stress or mine and I had a HUGE freak out in the parking lot of Chick-Fil-A. It was not my finest moment.  Finally he found a place and then I met him at the ship yard. The attendant then required Ryan to go get a full car wash, even though it was still raining.  It is standard for them to require a full car wash prior to shipment, but the rain was on and off all day and a car wash in the rain just sounded crazy. Anyway, Ryan went back to the place where he vacuumed it out and then finally was able to in-process the car. It took about an hour after the car wash to get all of the paperwork fully completed. The place had a large room inside with a TV playing kids shows and lots of toys for them to play with and also lots of tables to sit out. We only found this tidbit of nugget of information after I had set outside with the kids in the van for 1.5 hours, and about 15 minutes before Ryan was done. Fun.

6. Money     This is a very taboo topic, but I'll be honest with you. I have no idea if we have enough money to move to Germany. I'm sure that we do, and that all will be fine, but no one really talks about financial specifics and there are so many unknowns with a move like this. I would say that we have put in about $4000+ into this move. Passports, and winter clothes and snow boots and things for the car to be ready and moving out of Ft Hood (carpets cleaned, house cleaned, repairs, etc) -- it all just added up quickly. We are moving from a place where we are wearing flip flops 4 days before Christmas, to a place where we will be trekking through the snow routinely in the winter. We have money still in the bank, but truthfully, if we hadn't sold our paid off SUV, I'm not sure how we would have afforded it. We don't routinely have large amounts of money hanging out in our bank account. And by that I mean never. We did get some money from the Army to help with expenses (and we haven't spent that money...yet...) but it's still very stressful to not know about money, especially when switching from Dollars to Euros. It isn't a 1:1 conversion, it's more like a 1:0.73 conversion, which isn't ideal for and OCD-type, such as myself.

*School     We have 2 kids in elementary school and 1 kid in middle school. We initially looked at our report date, and agreed upon a 2 week span that we would like to leave base to be able to spend some time with family before we flew. I went to the school and spoke to them about the end-of-semester rules that would apply to us as far as credits go for the kids. The told me the last date that the kids HAD TO attend in order to receive full credit for the 1st semester, and I chose a date based on that. This chosen date then helped to dictate the rest of our move because we scheduled movers and cleared housing based off of this date. I turned in paperwork to the school register to hand carry their records and what their last day would be approximately 1 month ahead of time. To be honest, one of the schools still didn't have their paperwork completed, which was very irritating, but in about 30 minutes they were able to get it all together. I had to specify and PUSH at each school that I would be hand-carrying the records and that I didn't want them sent over. Sure, it's more work for the schools (they have to put all of the paperwork into a manila envelope! AND-sign and seal it! It's amazing they make it through.....), however, I know that when registering them for school over there it will be easier so I "gently" insisted this would be the way that it would happen.

** Family     We wanted to see our family before we left, obviously, but I've come to realize that there is a fine line between "seeing you before we leave" VS "how many hours till take-off?" when staying with family for an extended period of time. We left on a Friday from Ft Hood and traveled up north to visit home-bound family and spend a few days with them. On the way back south to our final destination to see our family, we dropped the car off in Dallas. When we got to town where all of our parents live, we dropped off our rental van, thus leaving us without a vehicle for the (considerable) amount of time that we are here. We are at the mercy of family for everything. We split the time that we are here at "home" between staying with my parents and staying with his parents. It's not so much fun. We are getting on our family's nerves, and vice versa. We have to schedule everything we would like to do, or places we want to go, with multiple people. It's a long, drawn out breath of anticipation for the move that makes everyone walk uncomfortably on eggshells. Ryan and I have been arguing more because of the stress. Also? You would think it doesn't cost a lot of money to stay with family, but I would say that we've spent probably $1500 on food and items that were needed that our parents home of 2 didn't have. Also- we have to live out of suitcases for approximately 2 months. TWO. LONG. MONTHS. Also- Germany doesn't have the same weather as South Texas in the winter. Shocker, I know. This has meant lots of laundry and lots of unused items left in the suit-cases that will be better suited for winter in Bavaria, and not Texas. My advice would be to carefully weigh, realistically, the amount of time and money you can (and want) to spend with family before you leave. Don't romanticize the time you will spend with family too much, or you'll surely be let down. Expectations should be lowered and you should just try to survive the time. At this point, our car is shipped, we have plane tickets out of here to a new life, and there isn't really anything to do but "relax". And that is hard to do when you aren't in your own home anymore and the anticipation of the big date looms large for everyone.

WHEW!

 If you are here, you are my hero. I know I said I would post this the day after my last post, but holy crap, this is a long post. There is so much more to our move than I am putting in here and much, much more that I am surely forgetting. Also, there is more to this post to be written for us, as we still haven't gotten to our destination yet. I hope that everything is smooth sailing from here on out.


*****Disclaimer -- this has been our experience. This may not be your experience. That is okay. In no way am I speaking badly about Fort Hood, or any of the offices that we worked with. They all had rules and regulations, and that's what makes the world go 'round. We may not have liked what happened with us at every turn, or decisions that they made, but that doesn't mean that any of the people we encountered weren't doing their jobs. *****

Well, Helloooooo!!!

I had grand plans to start a new blog and keep up with that and update it all of the time but life ran into that plan and frankly, I didn't want to put the effort into it, and so I'm back here. I'm going to try to put some more effort into this one, so bear with me as I try to re-navigate blogging. 349 days since my last post here, so let me update you on some things that have been going on!

1st off, Ryan made it home from the sandbox safely. He's been home for seemingly forever now, but realistically, it's been almost a year. If we weren't preparing for this overseas move to Germany soon, we would be preparing for Ryan to deploy soon.

Speaking of the big PCS move, I plan on writing tomorrow (2 blogs close together?!) about where it is at and what is going on in that situation.

In my last blog (11.5 months ago), I talked about enrolling for school. College Algebra didn't work out for me, however, in August I enrolled in self paced classed to go towards a certificate at the college. the certificate program is for a Medical Secretary, and at the end, all of those courses will be applied towards an AA degree, should I chose to go that route later. I was able to knock out 2 before we left base at the beginning of December, and I will be able to finish the rest of my classes online from Germany. Zip. Zap. Zoom.

Lots more going on right now, but if I told you all of that today, I surly wouldn't come back to update anything because I wouldn't have anything to update. And you wouldn't have anything to come back for! ;)

An update & new blog among other things...

Just wanted to send a quick update of things that are going on around here...

1)  I enrolled in college early this morning!  I had planned to step back into school slowly by just taking 2 classes, but one of the classes that I wanted was already closed at the times I could have gone, so I just went for  the one class instead.  I may not be grammatically correct all of the time, but I am even worse at math.  It's awful for me.  I'm in the 3rd developmental class that I've taken (out of three) so after this it's off to College Algebra. I seem to be able to take notes in class okay but when I get home it seems as if my book always morphs into Ancient Greek text and I have no clue as to what it is trying to tell me.  Studying for me is extremely hard. Ugh.  I dread this already but I have to get it done, so onward and upward.

2) Housing.  Let me just show you a couple of pics.

So they sent out workers to fix it (whom had already been here and had done this crap job above) to fix it.  It was a clusterfuck kind-of a day. 1) They insisted they didn't have to fix the ceiling as nothing was wrong with it. 2) Old man got pissy with me when I insisted that they did have to replace it and we had words. 3) They fixed the ceiling. 4) Even though they already had pulled out the insulation the last time that they were here, *coughcouchbullshitcoughcough**, they "humored" me and "pulled it out again" to replace it with new insulation.  I took pictures of the "old-but-just-recently-installed insulation" because it was, in fact, moldy.*  5) The taper/floater came in unannounced & unexpected (read: without knocking and hours after the other 2 had already been there). He asked if he could come the next day to do what he needed to do.  I told him a) No, as it was Delanie's birthday and we had plans, and b) you have already been to my house and told me you would show up on the following Monday and never showed. He acted all kinds of sorry and eventually we settled on Monday, the 3rd for him to come back.  He then comes to "verify" and tells me the 4th & 5th, and then the 5th & 6th.  Grrrr.... THEN he BEGS me repeatedly to let him come the next day -- something about taking his girlfriend to Colorado this weekend and he would have to fly back just for me, blah blah blah -- so I tell him fine.  9 am.  Be here or don't ever come back.  He shows up without a ladder.  Kept calling me pet names like "sugar" and "honey", and then?  He walked out the door, presumably to put his stuff in his truck.  But he never said a word to me and just left.  No, "Hey! I'm done. Wanna take a look?" or "Thanks for letting me come - I'm done and out of your hair now."  Nothing.  Weird-o.   A few hours later, I walked out to my carport/driveway and noticed a HUGE oil leak from their truck.*  FUUUUUUUCK.  I called housing and told them I would not pay for that when we moved out and someone needed to come clean it up.  No one has come yet, surprise, surprise.
* I can't for the life of me find the pics on my computer, but I know they are there. They better be.

3) Delanie turned 8 yesterday.  We went and saw "Gulliver's Travels" in 3D, got new shoes for soccer for her and Landry, and went to Applebee's because she wanted them to sing a specific Happy Birthday song to her.  We told them 7859475497 times it was her b-day and how excited for the song she was and the waitresses kept saying to hurry up and eat so they could sing to her and then? Some random waitress brought her the ice cream and walked away.  No song.  I cried.  Delanie got sad.  Then the waitress saw the mistake and they all came and sang, but still.  The moment was ruined (to me anyway). She got Butterscotch the pony, after asking it for the past 4 years.  I got it off of Craigslist for about 1/4 the original price and she loves it. She says that she had a great day, so I will take that as a success. Happy Birthday, Baby!!

Delanie at about 10  months old.

Delanie at age 23 months.

Delanie in one of her dad's old uniforms. 

4) My Donut of Misery says less then 10% to go of this deployment.  I would be happier if Ryan and I weren't constantly arguing.  It's our standard MO, I suppose -- always fighting just before a deployment, right before his return, and in the middle.  So this tiff wasn't completely unexpected, but they are always still rough none the less.  However, I am still looking forward to him being home, please don't be confused about that.

5) I've started a new blog.  I've needed to make some changes for a long time and I wanted a place to document the changes I want to make and need to make and hopefully, do make. I do want all of you to come and see it (if you'd like!!)!  I've enjoyed interacting with some of you on here so, so much.  I'm not sure how I will keep up with this blog.  Maybe not at all, maybe at the same pace, maybe more.  I suppose if I want to blog about the kids, and whatnot's, I will do it here. There isn't anything posted on the new blog till tomorrow, as that's New Year's Day.  I hope you will come along and tell your friends!  All the more motivation for me!!!

Introducing...

The Year of Me {Abbey}

You are beautiful.

**Originally posted on my mySpace account on July 29, 2008 for my dearest daughter, Audree**

Different

Current mood:indescribable

As we walked through the hallways, people popped out of the woodwork to comment on her hair.  "What a beautiful color it is! It's so wonderful! I love it!"  3 times you heard these words from three different people today alone.  Delanie is beautiful and stunning and different.  She is easy to make friends and laugh.  The further we walked, the more comments we heard. "Oh my! What fantastic curls your son has!"  2 times today, people's words pierced your heart.  People seems to always notice the two of them, you said, but they never notice you.  Light skinned, blue eyed beauties your siblings are.  Golden curls for one and fiery red hair for the other.  Stunning combinations.  Landry has a laugh that would melt the Devil himself.  But friends are harder for him.  He's different in a way that we can't understand.  His mind is his own little world.  But still he is beautiful.

You don't possibly remember, but once upon a time you were the beauty for which people stopped for.  Your thick dark hair, full of ringlets, stopped the staunchest people dead in their tracks.  Women felt like they had to touch your beauty, like you were the "Chosen One" here in the flesh.  Your skin was the smoothest, creamiest color.  Like an iced coffee from Starbucks.  Your brown eyes sparkled. Your laughter filled the room with happiness.  

And then, one day your eyes didn't have the same sparkle.  There was an incident that changed all of our lives, most of all yours.  It was like a fog had clouded your shine.  Ever since then, 6 years now, you have been changed.  It wasn't your fault.  It wasn't your fault.  It wasn't your fault.   You have become like an old woman's soul.  Your moody, and edgy, and fearful, and scared. 

But there's something you don't know.  You are JUST AS BEAUTIFUL as Landry and Delanie.  When we go in the sun, it is your skin that is tanned to perfection, while they have burned little cheeks.  Your hair is like warm chocolate, thick and full of life.  Your brother and sister don't have that luxury, and yes it is a luxury.  People don't stop you to tell you how beautiful you are because people think at your age you already know it.  The younger kids are, the more people stop.  But that doesn't diminish how fantastically, wonderfully beautiful you are.  Your life will be much different from your sisters.  She will stand out because of her red hair.  And you may hate her for that, but she will want your hair as much as you want hers.  You will think that Landry's curls aren't fair, and maybe they aren't.  But on rainy days, he will wish that he had your straight as nails hair.  This I can promise you.  You are beautiful.  You are special. You aren't your hair.  Your are so much more then your outsides.  I swear to you with everything that I have that it is ok to be you.  However that looks, however that sounds, however that feels, it is ok.  Because there is only one YOU. 

And you're perfect.

My rant about Housing Maintenance.

Here's a funny little ditty about living on base, if you're so inclined to read it. I just need to vent some of the anger somewhere, since Ryan's still deployed.

Ah, Military housing. My GOD how I hate the housing maintenance department right now.

We have lived in the Ft Hood area on and off since 2000.  My hubby got out of the Army for about 18 months in 2004-2006, but basically we have been here the entire time. We have lived multiple places around the area for multiple reasons. Once we had just moved into a home - lived there just barely 2 months - when I got a knock at our door telling me that the home was being sold in a foreclosure set for the following month. Ryan was in the field for that fun little experience.  (That incident turned into a nasty mediation (that we WON) because the night before we were supposed to move out, the rental agency called to inform us that the owners had rectified their foreclosure.  Since it was no longer preceding forward, we were no longer going to be "let out" of our lease. Good times.)  Sometimes we simply just outgrew our home. Anyway..... our lease was up on our previous home just before Ryan left for this deployment, and they were raising the rent to a price we were unwilling to pay. Plus it was quite a little drive for Ryan to work each morning with traffic, and he really hated it. Now we are just a hop, skip & a jump away from his work.  So we moved on base 7 days before Ryan deployed. I haven't really had many problems with maintenance since we have been here.

However,  they screwed up royally this time.  Let me try to make it simple for you because if I don't I will write about it for a month (and you will never come back to visit me because I will bore you to death with the inane details).  In early September we had a bad rain storm which  = water streaming down our walls and bubbling the paint between the paint and the drywall.  200+ homes affected on base = they will be here when they get here.  3 weeks later = "Oh ... that looks really bad. We really need to get this taken care of immediately."

 "Insurance adjusters."

 "New roof."

 "Replace entire stairwell."

Then nothing for a month. Then appointments where no one shows up or calls. Then another insurance adjuster who had NO idea anyone else had been here and came to the same conclusions (new roof, new siding, new stairwell, new insulation, etc.) Also discovered was the damage in my daughter's room. Housing didn't agree with what that adjuster had to say = another appointment with housing and the community manager for more pictures and his comments.  Surprisingly, the same as the adjusters.  Then...no call for a month. Then an appointment with the adjuster AND housing to change it up a bit. Then I got pissed. Somewhere along the way I called a supervisor and some workers came (with NO idea anyone had ever been here!!) and who argued with me and ultimately ripped out about 1/4 of the damage and half-assed replaced it and called it a day.  I protested. Called the supervisor's supervisor. Got nothing to happen. 1st supervisor came by to "visit" even though I told him I wouldn't be here and yet he came anyway, and he left me a message on my door with a woman's contact number who had no idea who he was.

So yesterday I finally went to the community manager's office and I tried to file a formal complaint. She said she would try to get it fixed that day & she would meet me at my house @ 1130 so please, let's try and work it out first.  At 1115 the jackass who came and gave me the wrong number came by, walked in and said "Oh My God.  I'm so sorry that you're house looks like this. Blah blah blah... bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.  I get pissy with him, etc, etc.  Finally we scheduled an appointment for next Wednesday for 3 workers to come and fix all of the issues. So imagine my surprise when I was awakened this morning by a worker coming to ask if he can see what needed to be fixed (he has already been here!!! and promised me he "best workers" would be there the following day and they NEVER SHOWED!!) and try and set up a time with me to have someone come and work on it.  I laid into him and I am embarrassed now that I was yelling at a housing worker at 910 am, but I am soooooo over it. He claimed to have just left a meeting with the supervisor that had come yesterday but that gentleman had passed on no information what-so-ever about what had been done/what needed to be done/what my issues really were.  I think they think that I would just roll over and be happy that it is finally getting fixed but that's just not my way.  Once I'm pissed, I'm over it and I'm over you.

OOOHHHH!! "Funny" part of the story... last week, we came home from school pick up to see a ladder up to my roof and no one here.  I initially thought of calling the MPs because there have been a couple of (attempted and actual) child abductions in the Killeen/Ft Hood area lately, but instead I decided to move the ladder to my back yard and put my dogs in the back yard.  Bailey is 7 months old and 80 pounds and Daisy is 5 months old and is about 65 pounds.  About 10 minutes after I did this, the doorbell rings and it is 2 contractors working with Ft Hood.  One asked if they could come in to look at my water damage, and I declined as I NEVER let people in without prior notice. Ever.  If I don't know you're coming, you aren't coming in.  He looks shocked that I would say no, and we scheduled for him to come back on Monday the 20th. (Surprise -- he was a no show to the Monday morning appointment.) His helper sheepishly asked me if I had seen his ladder.  I said yes, that it was in the back yard with my dogs.  I explained to them that I have no clue who they were and why the fuck would you leave a ladder on the side of someone's house, next to their kid's room, and not leave a note saying who you were? They didn't have an explanation.  As I walked to get the ladder for him, he casually asks me where exactly the roof needed to be fixed.  Hold up.  1) Your ladder was on the side of my home, presumably so that you could go and look at it and you don't have an idea about where it needs to be fixed? 2) I am a housewife and mom, not a roofer.  I don't ask you where the parsley is for dinner, you don't ask me about roofing. 3) I had to point the places out that needed to be replaced TWICE and then I just started getting angry and told him to figure it out.  There's only so much I can put up with, and that was about my limit.

I explained that I am still going through with my formal complaint because this process has been screwed up way to many times. The supervisor that came by yesterday said that sometimes houses just "fall through the cracks" and unfortunately for me, I was that lucky house.  I don't take that as an apology. That's an insult. I explained that even though I am a stay-at-home mom, that doesn't mean that I just sit at home. I have things to do and I am not willing to sit and wait for multiple appointments for people to come and look at the damage that has been there for nearly 4 months and there have been multiple reports/pictures taken about it and then not have them pass that information on to the people who are coming to work on the house.

I can't wait for this to be all done with!!


Aaaaaaaaaannd scene.

Raining but not yet pouring.....

When it rains, it pours, right??? NOOOOOOOO!!!!! Don't say that.  I don't want to hear anything about Murphy's Law either.  ***Fingers in ears*** LALALALALALALALALALA** I can't hear you!!!***

The extended warranty on my Yukon is about to be up so I decided to take it to the dealership for one last "once-over" from the ol' diagnostic machine.  I knew that if they found something, that it would just be the cost of the diagnostic test and that they in-turn would use that $100 for my deductible should they find anything wrong.  Truthfully, I wasn't really expecting them to find something wrong.  It had been hesitating lately - sort of like when you have a standard car and you push the clutch in & you feel that slight letting up of the acceleration, but I didn't feel like it was anything too serious. Turns out, my transmission was on it's last leg.  Thank the Lord I took it in before our scheduled trip to San Antonio this week for Thanksgiving, and that I had 800 miles to go before my warranty ran out.  There's that old saying about how everything goes wrong with your vehicle once you pay it off, and I am here to testify that it is a TRUE saying.  We hadn't even gotten the title of the Yukon in the mail before it was in the shop for something. (I should remember, as it was like 7 months ago, but I can't for the life of me remember what the problem was!!)  I am sooo thankful that we have Ryan's car here so that I can tootle around in it. I can not however drive it to San Antonio.  It is way to small, and it needs some maintenance work done on it before I can drive it for a long distance. My extended warranty covers rental fees of $35 a day with a max of $175 for the repair.  It also states in the fine print that I will be provided a "comparable" vehicle.  $35 a day doesn't come close to the cost of renting a full sized SUV - that was, if there was any available.  It's Thanksgiving week after all, and it's slim pickin's at Enterprise Rent-A-Car.  Well, everywhere for that matter. Enterprise just happens to be in the dealership's parking lot.  When I spoke to my service advisor tonight, she told me that tomorrow they will get me into a rental once they know they full extent of what all is wrong with the car.  I told her that we were planning on going to SA for the holidays, and that we would need something big as I also have to take Daisy & Bailey (53 pounds and 67 pounds, respectively, at 4 1/2 months and almost 6 months, respectively) to the boarders on the way there.  I told her that I had already looked at the car rental website, and I know that they are out of vans, and SUV's and she basically told me that I would "get what I get".  We shall see how this goes tomorrow....

Also fun today....

I woke up to my cell phone being blazing hot.White hot. Hot, hot, hot.  Muy Caliente. Anyway... I turned it off thinking that I would let it cool while I got ready for the day and then I would turn it back on and all would be good.  It was NOT, in fact, all good.  I pressed the power button to have nothing happen.  I held down the button for 10, 15, 20, 25 seconds... all to the same result.  I tossed it into my purse and took off and eventually got to Verizon.  They asked to keep it for an hour to "charge it" and I said fine, whatever. As long as I can have my phone back.  I came back 1 1/2 hours later and they met me by telling me all hope was lost, and that they had already ordered me a new one.  Something about a charging port is bad, yada yada yada. Amazingly, the phone turned on & it in instantly turned hot again and they advised me to not use it at all because of the BURN RISK.  The hell?! They then told me to transfer my contacts to the contact manager program on their website asap and to figure out what to do with my pics, which aren't stored on an SD card.  I sat off from there thinking that I had hours, a day maybe, to get this done.  The phone died again without warning about 15 minutes later and hasn't turned on since then.  It's been charging for 8 hours.  I'm very sad about it.  I am hoping that I can charge the battery on the new phone, switch the battery over to this old phone, upload the contacts and e-mail out the pics to myself before activating the new phone and sending this one back. I'm hoping beyond hope that it will work out.  I also pray that it gets here tomorrow.  Verizon said that it was early enough in the morning that the order should be over-nighted out today, but there is a chance that it won't get here until Wednesday.  Which is when we are supposed to leave.  In our teeny tiny rental car.

EEK!!

A Day To Remember

Memorial Wall at the Fort Hood shooting site.

Today marks the 1 Year Anniversary of the mass shooting here at Fort Hood. It's not a day, in my opinion, to point fingers at the alleged shooter.  It's a day to remember the victims that were hurt - both mentally and physically.  It is a day to remember the 13 soldiers (14 lives total if you count Pvt. Francheska Valez's unborn child).  Yesterday I took my kids out to the site of the shooting so that they could try to understand the meaning of the situation. I want them to really think about what they are taking a moment of silence for today at 1:41 pm. I want them to have a visual to think about when they hear Taps being played just after the moment of silence, and just before Retreat is played for the end of the day.  But mostly, I just don't want them to forget.  

The site itself reportedly has 1000 mini flags along, and attached to the front of the fence. They were a reminder of the ultimate loss that was heard in the bristling evening wind. There are 13 small memorials to each of the people killed embedded along the fence.  Mostly wreaths and crosses.  There were hundreds of small, handwritten notes from people written to soldiers - current and deceased.  We walked along and read them and talked about them if the kids had questions. Honestly, they didn't have many questions.  They just read the notes and looked at the pictures and got a little quieter. 

A year ago today, Ryan was at work on base.  He was located on the same street as the shootings, but not close in proximity to it.  I was at home when the news broke in with the story of a possible shooting at base.  I tried to call Ryan but got no answer.  Then calls started coming to me.  Family and friends from all over were calling to check on me to make sure that we were okay.  What seemed like an eternity after the news broke, but probably more like an hour and a half, Ryan eventually called home and said something to the effect of "I'm okay. Can't talk. We're on lock down. No idea when I will be home.  I love you."  He got home that evening at like 9-ish. We didn't know anyone that was killed or hurt. But since the murders were done at such a typical place for a soldier to be at, it very easily could have been Ryan.  

If you feel inclined, Fort Hood is having a base wide moment of silence at 1:41 to last for one minute. 

Killed on November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood

Lt. Col Juanita Warman

MAJ Libardo Caraveo

CPT John P Gaffaney

CPT Russell Seager

SSG Justin Decrow

SGT Amy Kruger

SPC Jason Hunt

SPC Frederick Greene

PFC Aaron Nemelka

PFC Michael Pearson

PFC Kham Xiong

PVT Francheska Valez

Michael Cahill - Civilian 

Pumpkin' Patchin'

Why does all of their hair look so weird? 

Delanie with the selected pumpkins.

We went to the pumpkin patch today at a local Methodist Church.  School got out early and it was a little overcast outside and I thought that it would be perfect to take them today.  We got there and it wasn't busy at all and so I thought that it would be so easy!  I was wrong.  Let's just say that we were practically the only people there, and that at one point of  major frustration on my part, I may have said some choice words in the generally direction of the kids (but I surely did NOT think that I was within ear shot of anyone and what I said wasn't really that bad) and then suddenly a man appeared and gave my children bibles.  If you look in the picture with the Charlie Brown cutouts, you will see small, orange bibles with the kids.  Make of it what you will with that little gem of information. 

So, you may remember a few weeks ago when I posted about a certain mom at the kids' school. Well... life played a funny trick on me this week. Audree has been walking home with the sweetest girl for the past few weeks. They are apparently new "BFF"'s. Her name is K-.  This particular car had a "K-" sticker on the rear window.  Do you see where this is going? Yes... turns out that the mom from the school is K-'s mom.  I went up to her today and introduced myself and she was the nicest person ever.  She has 7 kids!! Anyway... I thought that it was funny how life turned out in this situation.

I got an Old Navy gift certificate for my birthday and I went there to cash it in the other day.  I got 7 pairs of flip flops for the family, ($0.88 each!!) and 5 boxes for Christmas ($0.17 each!) a shirt, 2 sweaters, another pair of shoes for me and my total was $24.  It was a total score in my book. All of their clearance items were an additional 40% off the ticketed prices. Things were so dirt cheap.  Unfortunately they were out of everything in the kids sizes, save from flip flops in every imaginable color.  They also were out of everything in Ryan's size (I think because I didn't technically look there, but I did walk by that section and looked in the general direction and didn't see a thing in his size).


That's about all that's a happenin' in my world these days.  School and life just chugging along.  

The End Of Another Week

Ahhhh..... almost nothing sounds as good as a Friday morning alarm clock.  Why?  Because you get to turn that hussy off tonight and (hopefully) sleep in a little longer in the morning.  I mean.... I don't generally sleep in that much longer on the weekends. But the possibility of me sleeping in later still lingers in my head.

I am currently sitting in my bedroom next to one of my bedroom windows.  It is about 84 degrees outside and I have the window open and the semi-breeze that is blowing in is refreshing.  I love Autumn the most out of all of the seasons.  I love the smell of it the most, I think.  You know.... when it smells like it feels nice outside?  The smell of comfort rustling through the trees.  Mmmmm.....

Found out this week that we are missing boxes and boxes of Autumn decorations.  Halloween decor is what is specifically missing.  Naturally, we settled most of our claim that we had with Transportation 2 weeks ago from our move in February.  We are still fighting with Transportation, though, over a computer monitor/t.v. that they broke, and refuse to pay the almost $800 to replace it, so maybe I will just add the missing decorations to the list.  I was sad when I realized that the boxes were missing.  They had been decorations that we had been collecting for years and years.  Some since Audree's 1st Halloween 11 years ago.

My dearest beloved has finally taken the walk on the wild side and joined FaceBook.  I knew about a month ago that he was attempting to join because I signed on one morning and it recommended him as a friend.  Ha! Way to be sneaky, Babe!  He said at the time that he was beyond frustrated with it and didn't "understand' it, but apparently he has given it some more thought and tried it out for a spin.  Today he wrote his 1st status update:  RYAN P -  "I am not allowed to decide on anything. Ask Abbey."  Truer words have never been spoken, my love.  ((He is clearly kidding.))


I have nothing planned for this weekend.  I need to finish up some laundry, which I should just add is on my to-do list every single damn day, and tonight I am going to try mopping the downstairs with a new mop that I just bought.  Exciting stuff, really. 

Eh...

I tend to do things for people before they can do them for me.  I crack the chubby jokes about myself so that they will know that I am in on the joke as well, even if they don't seem like the kind of person that would crack a fat joke.  I "compliment" my cooking so that "they" will know that I know it's probably inedible also. (Realistically, it probably is inedible, but let's not discuss that now mmkay?)  I clean the house before the hired cleaning would come to clean when we were moving out of our last house (and past houses, too).  I give myself a little mini-pedi before going to go get a regular pedicure.  I Google search my list of complaints that I have prepared to give to the doctor so that I have an idea of what I have to be looking at with his sure-to-be awful diagnosis.  Though to be honest, I've never ended up anywhere near what the doctor actually says is wrong.  I suppose it's kind of a worse case scenario sort of thing.  I have complete conversations in my head before I see the intended person I would like to have an actual conversation with.  Like... knock down, drag out fights that only occur in my head. It's generally awesome.  I hurdle just the right words at said person and they have no response towards me and I feel victorious and since it's a fake conversation, no one's feelings get hurt and I have no amends to make.  But by the time that I see the said person, I am generally over what ever the situation was and no longer have a desire to have any conversation with that person anymore.  Because I've already had the conversation in my head. ((God, I sound crazy. I'm not. At least I don't think I am. Let me talk it out real quick.  I'll be back.....))

Ryan has moved to a different part of the base where he's at and he no longer has access to the Internet in his room that works correctly.  Boo to that.  I was completely used to talking to him 5-7 times a week on his Magic Jack, but those days are over.  His roomie has Internet, but it is constantly breaking down and is choppy and he hasn't been able to make one call on it since he had it installed so Ryan and I decided that was not the best way to spend $70 a month.  Ryan is the acting XO right now as his Commander and First Sergeant are both on leave right now.  I went to my first  FRG luncheon thing of this Unit the other day and it turned out to be kind of not so good.  We met at a awful wings place called Pluckers at noon.  It was jam packed with soldiers all trying to get their food and get out of there at the same time.  We sat down and I ordered a buffalo chicken strip salad that was on the lunch special.  45 minutes later she brought our table our stuff and she put down a plate of buffalo chicken strips and fries.  I said that my order was wrong and she said "NO. It's not."  I argued that I did in fact know what I ordered and that this wasn't it, and my table mate chimed in to her to say "You have all these tables to remember their orders and she (me) only has one order to remember.  She probably remembers what she ordered."  The lady got all sorts of pissy and offered to take my stuff back and get me my salad but I have seen Waiting enough to know that you don't send your shit back after complaining.  I ate my unwanted food and drank my Diet Dr Pepper and she never came back to check on us. Not even once. FINALLY I went and found her for my check. I found out that even though she had taken separate orders for all of us at the two tables, she had oh-so-kindly added gratuity to all of our checks.  Yes, the tip amount she added was only like $1.42, but that wasn't the point.  So when she brought me the check she just stood there watching me which generally irritates me anyway. Give me a little space to decide what I'm going to do, and why do you have to stand right here when you haven't been here - at all - for the last hour and a half? (I just looked at the receipt and the tip she included was 17% tip. That was reallllly generous of her!!) I only gave her the $1.42 since she got the order wrong, argued with me about the order, and never came to check on us after taking the initial order and giving me my meal, and still my total for all that nastiness was still nearly $15.  Never again. 

Last week I deposited a check into the bank via the drive-thru.  I used a preprinted deposit slip and used a teller and not an ATM.  So when the money still hadn't cleared two days later, I got curious.  I checked the deposit slip again and it showed that the last digits of my account had been flipped.  For example: I had 7181 she had put 1718.  I called the 1-800 number for the bank and the woman on the phone made me jump through hoops to get my money.  She was reading me fraud warnings and insisting that I tell her all sorts of information.  I told her that I wasn't comfortable with saying my birth date and SS# over the phone and she tried to tell me that my information I was giving her  wasn't matching up with the computer's information. We've had this account for 5+ years so I'm pretty sure I know what our information is.  And legally if you tell them you don't feel comfortable giving out that type of specific information via the phone, they have to ask you other identifiable questions. Finally she said that we would have our money in like 3-5 business days.  Hellz NO.  I hung up and called the local branch where it happened and spoke to the manager and I had my money in the account in 5 minutes.  This isn't the 1st time that we have had troubles with this bank.  I go in there to change our address and order checks as needed because I don't feel comfortable doing that over the phone. And never once has it actually shown up on our accounts correctly the 1st time.  I generally have to make at least 2 trips in there to make sure that account information gets handled correctly. When I write that out I realize that it doesn't seem that it makes it easier for me to do that then just ordering checks via the mail and calling to change my contact information, but it makes me feel more comfortable doing it. It's a major national bank and we honestly only use it because my parents bank there too and we just transfer monies between our accounts if need be.  For example this weekend I went and bought my step mom some sunflower seeds from that commissary that were on sale and after I called her with the total, she just transferred the money to our account.  

I should get off the computer now.  I have been procrastinating cleaning my room and living room for a week.  More specifically the last 2 days.  I love it when it's clean, but hate to clean it.  Plus I need to do some laundry and supervise some chores of the kids, and start to make dinner, and shower at some point, and take the dogs out, and ......  well, you know.  All those things that we wives/moms/women have to do.  Ugh. Plus it's Sunday night which means that I need to make time for Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, The Amazing Race, East Bound & Down, etc.  What did we do before DVR's?  
(((East Bound & Down is on HBO and is it all about the Awesome. It's a little racy and has lots of crude humor, which made me love it even more.  It just started Season 2 last week and all of Season 1 is on HBO OnDemand right now and I definitely recommend watching it if at all possible. It's about a down and out baseball player which doesn't sound like it would be so funny, but he went back to his hometown to become a gym coach & has such an inflated sense of self that it's unintentionally funny.  Plus he has a mullet so it's obviously quality television.)))