Look What I Can Do!!!

So, my kitchen is a disaster, my bathroom is flooded with laundry, and I really couldn't tell you where our shoes are. But I have a living room. Lookie!!!!

(I know where my camera is. I just can't get to it. So I had to use my phone...)

FYI ~ Moving Sucks!

We moved again today.

I have interent that works.

I also have a bed, with blankets and pillows.

I'm going to bed.

(It is my personal goal to bore you with my very dull life every day till Christmas. You are welcome.)

This Is My Life...

Guess what 4 people who actually read my blog and are not friends with me on Facebook... We're moving again! Thankfully, this time, it is not across the globe. Technically, it's just across town. We were offered an apartment on base and have decided to go ahead and take it. This means I will start doing daycare again, we will only fill up ONCE a month in gas normally (Paulo's work is approximately half a mile from where we will live), and we won't have to drive to a park. It's so exciting! Or something. It again will not be a move I have to do myself, we will have a moving company come in and move all our stuff from this house to base. But, I have about 15 organizing projects sitting around the house that I need to finish up, or find a point where they can be shoved in boxes. It will be lovely. And I could possibly lose my mind one more time.

Let's Play Catch Up...

I was going to (and could have) written many posts about the rest of our move. Instead, I will condense the days, because I want to move on from the whore-or that was the last two weeks. Tuesday, Little Z's eye situation reached a head when I noticed she had a fever and was shivering. Even though it was a million and eight degrees outside. I wasn't feeling well either, but then again, I never do when I travel, so I thought nothing of it, till my back started hurting around 7 pm. By 9 we had called a taxi and were on our way to the ER. As it turned out, I had a kidney infection and bronchitis. As for the little one, well she's a talented little bugger. Did you know, if a child's sinuses are backed up enough, the snot can exit the body from the eyes? And that that fabulous condition then leads to conjunctivitis? I know that now. Even though I never wanted to. (Which is why I share with the group!) On Wednesday, we went to check and see if there was any on base lodging available, and were told that there was not, but the government didn't want to pay for us to stay in a hotel without a kitchenette, so we were forced to find another place to stay. Which is where we still are. In a little "apartment" that has no phone in the room, no Internet, and a lot of dust. But the view is divine. (And on the third floor!) Oh, and we got our luggage on Tuesday, so at least we got to go to the ER in clean clothes! Seems they left the entire cargo container in Baltimore. It never made it on the plane, even though they swore it was probably just lost in the luggage of the other people, who were taking the same plane on to another location. ************** In the military, when you move to a new place, you get 30 days of TLA (temporary lodging assistance) which means, they pay for where you stay for 30 days. During that 30 days, you have to aggressively hunt for a house. And fill out a paper saying why you didn't accept the houses that you looked at, and the reasons school district, location, and size are not valid reasons for not taking the house. Although, we learned that if you don't take a house because the front door cannot be fully opened and therefore your furniture cannot fit in the house, that's a valid reason! We looked at, and said we would like to live in 6 different houses. And out of those 6, 4 turned us down because we have kids, 1 said that we were too young, and the other? Well, we spent three hours at their house last night hanging out, getting to know our new landlords*!!! So, for the last two and a half weeks, I have hated Germany. It's hot, we're in a junky hotel, and my kids are making me crazy. But, our car arrived yesterday, we move into our house on the 10th, (it has no kitchen at the moment) and I finish in processing for my job on Monday. (I got a job at the CDC on base, because we didn't think we'd live close enough to the base to be able to do in home daycare and we were right!) I think this is going to be an okay assignment after all! *Who sent us back to the hotel with a bottle of wine. Which just all kinds of rocks! (Even if it is really dry, and not my cup of tea at all!

Mondays Always Suck!

After getting onto the gigantic airplane that was to fly us over the ocean, the girls decided bedtime was a good thing. But not before the stupid, ugly lady from the row in front of us turned around to yell at me for my kid kicking her arm rest into the head of her daughter, who was lying on the seat next to her with NO RESTRAINTS. Now, my kids weren't in car seats, so that is not my complaint. My complaint is that this lady didn't have the military PURCHASE her child a seat, and instead, they listed her as a lap child. But she was sharing a seat with her older brother, and the lady thought this was acceptable for take off. And when the flight attendant asked her to please put her seat into an upright position (WHO moves the seat before take off? Seriously!) and that she needed to HOLD her child she got mad. And then? Then the kid started screaming, with dad giving the excuse "oh, she doesn't like to be held!" Are you freaking kidding me? Your kid doesn't want to be held, so you seat her on some one's lap for an 8 hour flight? This is why I hate people. The only "memorable" part of the meals on the flight were a peculiar bowl of non-cohesive items. In one little Styrofoam dish there was a piece of ham, an olive, and two slices of honey dew. It made me say "Huh?". After getting off the plane and getting the "this is how you go through customs" speech, we headed to the baggage claim. And if you are my facebook friend, you know what we discovered at the baggage claim. NOTHING we checked in Baltimore came down the baggage carousel. Nine items and not a one made it to Germany. It wasn't just our stuff though. There were 8 other families that didn't receive anything. And no one could tell us why or how. Just that we needed to check back in a day or two and see if they had arrived. So we spent all of Tuesday in the clothes we put on on SUNDAY. (I did go to the BX and get clean underwear. Because, um, that would have made it worse than it already was!) Not even our beautiful hotel could make up for not having luggage. Well, it did, but not much. Wanna see our first hotel?

(I stole this photo off the website. My camera is dead, and the new battery charger had to be shipped to my dad.)

To make matters worse, Zoe's eye boogers got a little bit worse. And we don't have a primary care doctor yet. And all the TV is in German, except for the really bad MTV reality shows. Rock of Love Charm School anyone?

Sunday was Not a Fun Day!

Continuing story from here... Have you ever checked baggage for 4 people MOVING to another country? It's not a pretty picture. We were WAYYYYY below our allowed baggage. Like, at half of what we could have had. In all, we checked 7 bags, out of an allowed 8, and only carried on 3 of the allowed 8. It is a durn good thing we had the double stroller, to carry the car seats, but holy carp if that wasn't a pain to get through security. And explaining to Hubs why I was putting my mascara, and itty bitty bottle of hand sanitizer into a zip top baggie was fun. (Because you know, Hefty zip top bags are going to single handed-ly prevent explosives on a plane...) Once we arrived in Atlanta, we were excited because we were going to get to see Paul's cousin at the airport. Except. We had car seats. And were forced to deplane last. Giving us all of 35 minutes to get half way across the Atlanta airport to our next flight. Ever try and rush through an airport eating a snickers bar, wrangling car seats, carry on bags, and two children who were hell bent on doing everything THEMSELVES? It's not something I recommend. We did NOT miss our flight, although, with the events of the next couple of days, I could have handled a few days in Atlanta while waiting on another connector... Once we landed in Baltimore, and my children were praised for being so well behaved...(this flight was at nap time...) it was getting to be dinner time and time for the kids to take a break! Military moves like this are trying on little bodies. We stopped at the USO after collecting our checked baggage, and decided to hit up a hotel for the night, since we had a 24 hour layover. And that is when I noticed...we didn't have the Hub's medical records in our possession any longer. His hand carried, must be delivered in person medical records. And since they had not made it to Baltimore, it was only obvious that they were left on the plane from Atlanta. (We are still attempting to track them down. Time differences are making this rather difficult.) The man in Baltimore, at the AMC terminal, or Military Terminal for all you civilians, said that without his records we may be unable to board our flight the next day. Cause you know, that's what we need...more stress! That night at the hotel, we discovered Little Z had green eye boogers. And not just sleep crust. Snot was coming from her eyes, or so it seemed. (Yes, I know, this is gross, but vital to the story later...) In order to clear this up, we squirted her with saline solution, flushed her nose with salt water, and made her sleep with a warm rag on her eyes, in hopes that it was "merely" pink eye, and we could combat it. The next morning, we checked out as close to 11 as possible and headed over to the airport to hang out in the USO for 5 hours till it was time to be ticketed for our flight. That went fairly well, other than some lady kept trying to kick us out of our comfy seats, and send us to the "family" room, that was already occupied by a family, with no room for the 4 of us to boot, plus, you know, we had a child with snot in her eyeballs. Nope, wasn't budging. And with some bribing, and the Nintendo DS, my kids were perfect for the first time ever. Other than when they are sleeping of course. When we went to board our flight, the guy took a look at our car seats and said "Nope. Not FAA approved." Now, I had checked, and there was nothing that I could see on Little Z's that said it, and since her and Big Z have the same seat, just one a little older than the other, I assumed they were fine. But old guy looked at Big Z's, and it said it was NOT approved, so he said no to both of them. GRRR! So we had to check them. After checking our stuff, we wandered through the airport in search of something to eat. Even though we were having 2 meals in flight, I was starving, and so were the girls. Our concourse had NOTHING to eat at it. And we had to clear security an extra time JUST to find something edible. Did I mention we had a double stroller? And kids? And security makes you remove your shoes?

Hitch In My Plan...Like Always...

We were "forced" to move out of our nice hotel because the government thinks it's too expensive. So now we are in a crappy little "apartment" with no internet access and no phone in our room. It's an utter DISASTER! I will be back with tales of woe, hopefully tomorrow, when we come to the library and I make sure I have a fully charged laptop. (Only a few minutes left on the charge right now. House hunting update: We are calling a lady at 10 tonight to see if we are the "chosen" ones for an awesome house that we adore! (3 story town house, high speed internet available, all the good stuff!)

Where Have I Been?

Well, for starters, I was in St Louis. Then Atlanta. Then Baltimore. And now, the KMC. (Kaiserslautern Military Community). That's right folks, I am blogging to you from Germany, and it's about time! However, I would prefer to be back in Colorado, in my house, settled in. I do not like the feeling of being unsettled, and at the rate we are going we are NEVER going to be completely settled in. I just have a feeling. To help you get the full effect of what we've been going through, the next few days I will be blogging about the last few days. (Saturday through Tuesday) It's really been that HORRIBLE of an experience. And I think I hate Germany. (For now!) ******************************************************* We were scheduled to leave for the airport at 3 am, because it was 5 hours away in St Louis. (Stupid military rule about flying out of the same place as you ship your car...) I ended up packing at the last minute like I always do, and got maybe an hour and a half of sleep. And of course we left closer to 430 than 3. Which was fine, because our flight didn't leave till early afternoon. We stopped at the "usual" coffee stop just before getting on the interstate, and HOLY CARP that was the worst decision of the hour. I have tasted some pretty gross coffee, and so has the Hubs, but this stuff was gross and bitter after 4 flavored creams, and roughly 8 packets of sugar. Since we had gotten onto the interstate, my dad placed my cup of nasty coffee into the cup holder upfront. Paul's coffee was ALSO not drinkable, and it was the stuff out of the cappuccino machine. The bagged stuff! It was sitting in the cupholder too. (Which is really important to know in a minute.) We were driving along, and about 35 minutes into our drive, I'm in that state of awareness where you aren't really asleep, but you aren't awake either, and all of the sudden the car is swerving, tires are squealing, and curse words are flying. All I can see from my spot in the back seat, crammed next to Big Z's car seat, is what looks like a building flying towards us. I could have sworn we were about to crash. Turns out, some jerk decided at the last second to NOT exit, and ended up actually touching the front tire of our car, causing us to spin out. Luckily, Paul was driving, and did a great job of only letting us spin around twice, and not hit the semi that was behind us, and also, not dying. The coffee on the other hand, thought Paul's shower wasn't sufficient. But at least it wasn't GOOD coffee!

And the Jesus towers have the best signals!

You know it's going to be a LONG car trip, when you hit the road THREE HOURS late. Okay, it was really only two hours after we planned to leave, but still. It was still late. I went to the Walmart to get new tires right when they opened at 7. It then took until almost 9 to get them put on the car. I was very not happy about this. There are few things worse than driving through Kansas. VERY few. I mean, I would rather have a root canal than drive anywhere in Kansas. I would rather have laser eye surgery than drive through Kansas. (Are you getting the point here?) This was the first time we've driven through during the day, and really? It was WORSE than driving through in the dark. The only thing to look at was the wind farm that is approximately 5 1/2 hours into the drive. 5 1/2 hours into our trip before there was anything GOOD to see. And then there was nothing for the next 2 1/2 hours! There are no radio stations. There is nothing to look at. And had the girls not had entertaining books (and the Nintendo DS) I think we would have all lost our minds!! (More on the drive tomorrow. I'm going to take a PM pill, and try to adjust to Indiana time. ...and for those of you who are wondering how the girls did during the 17 hour car trip...we lived in Colorado Springs, and by the time we got to Peyton, they were asking if that was the town that Grandma lived in. A distance of 24 miles...

It's What We Do...

(comic by Julie Negron, Jenny Spouse)

And really, after that, there's not a whole lot left to say.

**The rest of the strip is cut off here, but you can see the rest of it by clicking here.**

Okay, Lemme Tell Ya!

We have been moving out of our house for the last two weeks. All of our stuff is in crates, somewhere between Colorado and Germany. Somewhere. I have no idea. Today we were scheduled to turn in our keys and all that jazz. Of course, they decided that the house wasn't clean enough, so I am going to go over in the morning and sweep and mop and scream and yell. (Think Annette Bening in American Beauty.) (If you don't get that reference, I may have to stop speaking to you...) I spent yesterday cleaning as well. The big stuff, fixing a few things, and making sure that nothing was so horribly broken we'd have to pay for it. And that my friends, is where things took a hilarious turn for the worse. I glued a shelf back to the pantry wall. With Gorilla glue. And then I noticed that Holly's stroller wheel hadn't attached like I wanted it to. So I took the glue and fixed the wheel. Except it didn't end as well as I had hoped. The lid popped off, and the glue dripped on my pants. And I thought nothing of it. Until I stood up, and my pants were glued to my leg.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Reason 9,976 That I'll Miss Colorado

(Will Roger's Shrine of the Sun) For more WW go here and here!

Life, It's a Rollercoaster!

Y'all. I can't write a decent post today. So much I must tell the Internet, and yet, no words will flow from my finger tips. No Daily Convo that I never want to forget, no public service announcement to keep you from whatever stupid thing you need to stay away from, and while I could tell you a story about MY Joshua, I just don't have it in me. (Holy Run On Sentence, Batman!) There is a lot going on now. We've hit the busy part of our PCS. We have 2 weeks left. And I definitely do not feel ready. (Probably because , oh, we're NOT!) I'll try to be clever and fun tomorrow. But the movers are coming at 8, so I'm going to bed.

I Am So Proud...

The movers will be at our house on Friday. To ship all my stuff to Germany. This means I will be spending the entire week making sure the things we will need are safely locked in the office. I was talking to the girls about what we can take with us, on the plane, and what needs to be packed up on Friday. I told them that they can take two pair of shoes each, because that is about what will fit in their suitcases. The look Big Z gave me could have killed me. She said... "But I CAN'T have only two pairs! We have an extra bag we can use, just for shoes!!!" Oh, the joy this brings me, and the gray hairs it gives her father! **In September, I went to Indiana for 4 days. I took 5 pairs of shoes...**

Not Standard Issue!

I am moving in 29 days. To a foreign country. TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY. I have no passport yet, and we are having issues with things. So here is our "debacle" to date! And I should have LOVELY daily updates about how FABULOUS this whole thing is going to be. Or something. Yes, I'm gonna go with or something! Yesterday, we had to take our passport applications to some lady named Roxy. Who works at the passport office here on base. Roxy informed Paulo that he was to come by at his earliest convenience because MY work schedule can be hard to predict and schedule things around. (And it's only thanks to Holly that we could even go YESTERDAY as it was!) When we got there, we had to sign in, and wait to be called. So OTHER lady, who was not Roxy came to the door and began to attempt to lecture Paulo about not having an appointment. Didn't bother to ask WHY we didn't have an appointment, just to tell us there was nothing SHE could do without one. After FINALLY getting it through to her that it was VERY important that we get these applications processed, she called us back. And this is where she proceeded to MAKE ME CRY. (You know, if you ever meet a military wife in person, give her a hug. Or buy her liquor.) This lady, who does not bother to read the paper that says we are just now filing our applications because of a clerical error in Mississippi, and the fact that because of Hurricane Katrina we've only been "allowed" to get Big Z's birth certificate for just over a year, goes OFF on a tirade. And her tirade was something that in my world NO ONE SAYS OUT LOUD. You know those things that you just don't say out loud in order to make them appear less real? The ones no one admits to but everyone knows about? She said "the military doesn't care if you ever get to Germany. The only thing they care about is that your husband gets there at the date on his orders, and if you don't get your passports in time, oh well. They don't care. Your expedite letter probably won't mean anything and they will most likely not accept it." OH MY GOD! I have known this for YEARS now. YEARS. But again, you don't say it out loud. It's an unwritten rule. And this lady? She was not in the military. She was a civilian. And we have filed an official complaint against her. Because really? Like I don't have enough stress going on without her telling me that no one cares? I am a "good" military wife. I'm in the club of, YAY! We're PCSing!. Not OMG, We're PCSing!. I don't flip out. But now? I think I'm going to start. It's the expected behavior. Our unwritten rules about family is this: If the military wanted you to have a family, they would issue you one. Sad, but true. That was yesterday...now to today... *************************** We had an appointment with the people who move our crap. The ones who come in and pack everything while I do what I do best a supervise. You are supposed to give them 30 days. We are at 29, cutting it close, but we've only had "official" orders since Tuesday. Not a WHOLE LOT we could do until now. Our base is currently undergoing a HUGE inspection. It's yearly. We expect it. We plan for it. Usually, there's not a LOT of interruption to our daily lives. (By "our" I mean spouses and such. I know there are a TON of people who are putting in long days unfortunately.) Today, we drive to the building where our appointment is. Well, we ATTEMPTED to drive to the building were the appointment was. Every road was being guarded by a cop with an M16. Each guard informed us that there MIGHT be another way to the building, but that they couldn't let us by. So we have YET to schedule movers. Because they are pretending people are trying to blow up buildings. And I am not happy about this. Not because I don't think we should make sure our troops are prepared. But because by checking to see if the people here are prepared to "complete the mission" it is interfering with them ACTUALLY completing the mission. Someone get me a drink. Or a Xanex. Or heck, BOTH at this point!!!

Well, It Could Be Worse

Many people have asked how I feel about this move to Germany (which is getting more and more complicated as the Hubs goes to work each day!) I am okay with it. For one, it's not like I can do anything about it. And B, I knew what I was getting into when I married a military guy. I am also NOT okay with it at the same time. I was mad when we got the "orders" to move to this base, because we have been in the area so long. I wanted to go somewhere else. As soon as I finally "accepted" staying here, we get this next set of orders. So that is VERY annoying. I am a mixed bag of emotions about it. And it all depends on what I'm doing at the time. Knowing that yesterday was *z*'s last birthday party with this particular group of people was sad. Knowing this time next year I will be shopping in an IKEA? Ecstatic! You only get one life to live, and I'm not one to NOT live it. This will be a once in a lifetime opportunity for us. And we'll take it. *Z* is happy she'll get to go to Disney. EuroDisney will be a short drive for us!! And I'm happy it isn't orders to Minot. I NEVER want to go to Minot!!

News...

7 months or so ago, the Hubs came home, and told me he had gotten orders. From one base in our town, to another. A move that made his commute all of 10 minutes shorter. So we moved on base. Because it's always the best option for daycare when you aren't sure how long you'll be in a location. They told us two years. Guaranteed. Someone lied. Someone lied big time. We leave for Germany in 6 months. Which makes it okay to tell you that the government is moving me. I was going to tell you yesterday, that I am so lazy I planned on having the government move me from this house, to the new ones that are being built. It's approximately a quarter of a mile. And I was going to refuse to do it myself. So, now, I get my military move and it's NOT because I'm lazy. It's because we're moving far away!

Sorta kinda back...

So, the move is going slowly. And giving me lots of things to tell you about. I'm going to cook dinner and get ready to go to a bachelorette party, so I SHOULD be back tomorrow. We'll see.

If it's not one thing...

Today was day 1 of moving, and it has been one of the longest days of my life. It started last night, well, early this morning. I hadn't gone to bed yet, so technically, it was STILL YESTERDAY. (Baby Sister and I came up with that years ago. Made us feel better about sleeping till noon.) I was putting my pajamas. For some reason (probably because I am a true blonde) I tripped on air. Or the waistband of my shorts, who knows. What I do know, is that to catch myself, I put my leg down on the ground. Instead of my whole foot, only my big toe hit, and all of my weight on it. The toe is most definately broken. It hurts so much I think it would have hurt less to chop it off. (I also think that I should cut my head off when I get headaches.) We then got up early and got ready to start the move by going to the housing office and picking up our keys. While driving to the house, I tell the Hubs that if we end up with the blue counters I will shoot myself. I should have NOT said that. Because about a minute after being in the house, Hubs said "Nice knowing you!"

The other thing you will notice in this picture, besides the flourescent baby blue counters, is that there is a giant plug,, and a hole where "something" should be. We didn't have a FRIDGE!!!! To make it an even better story is that the housing lady (who was making sure that we could get in) said

"Well that's funny. It was here yesterday."

Yeah. That's really funny lady! She said she would "get back to us" about the fridge. I was NOT going to go very long without cold storage. I have ice cream to worry about! She called back a bit later, telling us that the maintenance people had noticed the motor had gone out in the other one, so they were planning on replacing it before the new tenants were scheduled to move it.

Who are these new tenants? And I hope they don't snore.

Not only did we NOT HAVE A FRIDGE! (Yes, I know that people buy houses without appliances, but we have no other options for on base housing) My ID was missing. Is missing actually. Big Z is pleading the First born. She didn't do it. z chimped it up and threw it away. (Chopped) We can't find it.

Then there was a HUGE issue with getting a replacement one. Involving me (again) threatening someone with bodily harm, or pulling the "my husband outranks you" card. I hope I never have to play that in situations like that. I can't stand people who do that. That's another rank for another day. An uneventful day.

I moved three loads of stuff and will move a bunch more tomorrow. With help. Because my friends are beyond awesome. It's why I keep them. Their awesomeness.

There will be pictures tomorrow. Of the house. And I'm going to need y'all help. I'm going to have an extra room. Input will be appreciated, but not till tomorrow.

(Little Z pooped in the tub again too. Because it wasn't a crappy enough day!)

It's about that time...

We start our move tomorrow. Because I'm crazy. However, tomorrow is just painting and little moving, and a Wii party, and probably some brownies. (I like to christen ovens with something GOOD!) The painting will be a blog post in and of itself, as Erica and I are going to undertake the fantastic job of doing the girls' bedroom in Cinderella themed colors. (Their room is Princess themed already) Oh. And lets not forget how we are NEVER eating in the apartment again. At least not anything I have to cook on the stove. Tonight, while making my favorite rice dish, my entire living room filled with smoke. Because there was a GRAIN of rice on the burner. I hate electric cooking surfaces. I still can see smoke lingering. Or I'm imagining it. I could be delusional. Maybe I should go to Wallyworld for a laptop podium. A pink one. Or, I should suck it up and get to straightening out the boxes as to what needs moved now, and what can wait, and what "furniture" I want to take over there tomorrow. But that would not be as fun as sitting here and complaining to you all about it. Now, if one of you want to come over here and take care of all of it for me, as I sit here and supervise, with my pint of peanut butter chocolate Hagen Dazs THAT would be phenomenal!