Squeaky’s Blog

I must say I am going to miss my sandy backyard and playing with the boys in it.  We don’t have a lot of neighbors and have been spoiled with the big yard.  I don’t think I knew how relaxing and fun it could be outside flying a kite for the kids until we did it.  We did have a few hiccups, like WC lost control of the kite.  It actually went pretty far before getting caught on something and DP managed to untangle it for us.  Then we lost another one on the roof, which came down the next day.  All in all though, it has been really nice playing at our private little beach.  I must say I won’t miss the mess it brings and the constant baby powder and showers required to remove the sand or the constant dumping sand out of shoes.  We will though begin a new journey with a covered & screened in back porch where they can play even in the rain.  We will have an Orange tree and a Tangerine tree that we can pull the fruit off.  I am looking forward to that since I love Tangerine’s and so does Giggles.  We will have less room and a few other trees but we will be able to walk to the lake.  I think we will be having little picnics and fishing at the lake a lot.  WC wants a Rocket fishing pole so much and my mother bought him one.  The only catch is he has to learn to write his name.  He is getting there little by little and is writing some numbers on his own.  I think it’s only a matter of time and he will be out there shooting the rocket fishing pole into the water and I just pray this time we don’t lose it in the lake like before.  It would make for a long walk home.  The stories we could tell though may be worth it in the end.  After all if we don’t have a few hiccups along the way are we really enjoying life? 

We are moving at the end of the month yet again.  We get the keys to the house and have a U-Haul all set up to rent on Saturday.  The only problem is we haven’t packed a thing.  DP is going tomorrow to get the paper work for the Army to move us but we don’t know if there will be time for them to get us in.  We finally found out that the Army is stepping in and helping with people who are renting and the owners are being foreclosed but the woman who does it was out last week.  The thing that may kill us is we have to be moved out by the first and since we are so far a way we just don’t know.  Tomorrow will be the day we find out if it’s going to be an easy move or a pain.  If we have to do it then I will be visiting Wal-Mart to get boxes and I guess spend the week packing everything I can.  I am hoping it won’t be too hard since we are just going across town.  I am also hoping that after this we can actually just settle in and things calm down.  We will also have new renters in our house in Oklahoma and we were able to up the rent a little too.   I am keeping my fingers crossed the Army will be able to get us in.

There is a young girl that went missing not long after we moved here and her name was Haleigh Cummings.  She has been missing for 3 months now and they still have no signs of her.  She has stopped being reported on the news.   The news reported on her for only about a month.  I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a child.  I feel for her parents and family.  My heart goes out to all people that have lost a child.  The thing that I don’t understand though is why we spend so much time listening to the news talking about Casey Anthony.  The news reports on her every time they air.  They call it the “Case against Casey.”  I understand that it’s an ongoing case but isn’t Haleigh’s case still ongoing.  I know they found Casey Anthony’s daughter and unfortunately it was too late to save her.  But when did we become so obsessed with a woman who may or may not have killed her own child when there are still missing kids out there.  Why is one child’s story more interesting or important than the other?  Why do we stop reporting on any missing child?  I think the news needs to stop talking so much about one woman whose daughter won’t be brought home safe and spend that time on the still missing children than maybe we could bring a few of those home.  It’s so bad now that the lawyers are talking about how Casey Anthony won’t get a fair trial because she is so well known.  I really think that sometimes the news stations don’t stop and think about the consequences of what they air.  I have heard them air stories here of a man in witness protection that just was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I stopped dead in my tracks that day and thought I did not just hear that.  While it may be interesting didn’t anyone think of the consequences of what they just said?  If that was the case then it wouldn’t be too hard to track the man down now.  Which I would think that the man would need to be relocated now and who pays for it the government that’s already poor.  There have been many times I couldn’t believe what I heard from the news.  There have been times that they aired things about soldiers and deaths where the family hasn’t been notified first.  There have been times where they aired things about first responders and if the families had been watching the panic that would have come from it just doesn’t seem worth it.  I just don’t understand how some things make it on the news and why the news seems to have no common sense on some subjects.  I think that someone needs to step in and say as interesting as it maybe that some things should just be left unsaid and the world might be a better place.

After a long and horrible few months things are finally starting to look up.  I have been so preoccupied by everything that I haven’t wanted to do anything.  The house is a mess and so today cleaning is on the agenda.  I don’t even know where to start, so I will start at the beginning.  When we moved here in February, we asked the realtor about every house we looked at, if it was possible it would be foreclosed and finally after two weeks of searching we picked a house.  It was a roller coaster of emotions.  We were all crammed into a hotel the 4 of us, the dog, 2 cats and my brother in law for a bit.  Then when we moved in and had our things were delivered and it was starting to look good.  We love the yard which is a big sand dune.  The house is nice, it works and I like it.  I wouldn’t buy it but it’s a really nice rental.  After about a week in the house Giggles started getting sick and then WC too.  They had 4 trips to the doctors in 2 weeks and both made a middle of the night trip to the ER.  At the end of the month they were finally getting better.  Then thinking March will be a good month, things started to go wrong again.  The people that were renting our house in Oklahoma started complaining about everything.  It was sad and stressful thinking that a screw was loose and they wouldn’t pick up a screw driver to tighten it.  They thought that we should pay a repair man to come out since it wasn’t their house.  They didn’t understand that it is their responsibility to maintain the house.  Then I get a letter that says Giggles doctor’s appointment wasn’t covered by Tri Care.  So, still being the beginning of March I called Tri Care and the doctor’s office every week at least to try to correct the problem.  Then we are in April and I am still trying to fix the Tri Care issue and start to work on the house in Oklahoma, it needed a new fence.  I had gotten an estimate before we left and had the measurements, and knew what I wanted done.  The rental company didn’t want to pay any money up front so they called around and got estimates.  Then when they had them I asked does it included the walk through gate, the drive through gate, and the 116ft of fencing that was forgotten the first time around.  Just as I thought they didn’t have the gate’s added in the price and so I asked again if they had the 116ft of fencing added in.  I was assured that was the correct price.  That was about 3 phone calls in one morning and a few hours later when I am sitting in the post office with the cashier’s check getting ready to seal the envelope that my cell phone rings and it’s the rental company.  They are telling me that they forgot the 116ft of fencing and that the company putting it up is going to give me metal posts for the price of wood because of all the confusion, but they still need just under $1100 more.  I wanting to scream through the phone to them just said okay and back to the bank I went.  Once it had all been mailed I called the realtor back to let them know the money was coming and the amount of the checks.  That’s when I wanted to lose it for a second time that day.  The realtor then told me that I had sent too much and they would send back $500.  I once again just said okay and let it go.  I figured when they realized they were wrong they would call or I would get the money back.   My poor husband though got to listen to me vent a few times, but the fence was going to go up.  It was going to be a few days though since the rain had been so bad the ground had to dry up a little.  The middle of April was upon us and I was still fighting with the doctor’s office and Tri Care, the fence was up at the Oklahoma house and things were going to start looking up.  I was changing doctors office’s because it was one thing I could control that was easy to fix.  That’s about the time the realtor called me to let me know the renters were breaking the contract and moving out.  I was pissed because the market is so bad we can’t sell it and even get what we bought it for.  Then I just paid over 3 thousand for a new fence that could have been put to a mortgage payment if no one was in the house.  I spent a week on the phone with everyone I could think of really.  I called lawyers, realtors, the bank and loan officers (trying to find out about refinancing or selling) and it was just the worst week, at least that’s what we thought.  Then it was Monday morning the following week and a little after 8am there was a knock on the door.  I was shocked to be told that the house was going into foreclosure and that we were going to have to move.   I spent another week on the phone with every one again trying to figure out what my options were and was told I didn’t have any.  Then at the end of the month I went to pay the rent that was pointless since the owner wasn’t paying his mortgage and that’s when things started to go right. They were going to let me out of my contract and let me move.  Though for some crazy reason the owner of the house had my security deposit so I was never going to see that again.  So, I get to stay here for a month basically for free and we are house hunting again.  I think I spent a week looking at houses and had finally narrowed it down to 4 houses all having fences this time.  My realtor from Oklahoma called me with good news to let me know that my house had rented and for the higher price.  Things should have been looking up for us but that night I actually lost it.  I thought I was going to pass out when the room started spinning and I could barely get to the bathroom since I was about to throw up.  Somehow I made it there and DP got me water and a few minutes later I was better.  Scared out of my mind but better and the next morning we were going to see houses so I just went to bed.  When we got up I still felt funny and had decided to look at the houses since it was our only chance and I would go to the doctors later.  We finally made it to the realtor’s office to go look at the 4 houses and found out they forgot to ask if we could take our pets.  The news was bad only one house was then an option.  We drove out there and it just wasn’t a real option there was no fence like said and it was small.  Our last resort was to check out 2 other houses one having no fence, a small yard, but in a great area.  The other house was small but had a fence and apparently backed up to an alley and a back entrance to some stores.  That house was then not an option either.  We decided to take the house in the nice area with no fence.  We signed yesterday and will start to at the end of the month.  I am hoping this will be a new start for us a chance for things to actually go right.  We will be 15 minutes from DP’s office instead of 40 and we can walk to a few different lakes in the neighborhood.  We won’t have a sandy back yard but we get fruit trees and a screened in porch.  I go back to the doctors on Friday and get test results back.  Hopefully it really will be stress related and by writing this I will have relieved some of that stress I have been carrying around.  Though, moving will bring on a whole new stress but they are things I can somewhat control.  I am looking forward to a new start with no worries.  I get to meet the owners of the new house next weekend and hopefully everything will work out for a change.  We have new doctors that I like, even if it is a little bit of a drive it’s not a hard drive and all worth it.  It’s a lot like the clinic we had in Germany before we left.  I like that small town feel where you have everything in one location.  I am hoping to be able to get this move over and done within a week since that’s all the time we have to do it in.  DP is going to talk to the Army since the DOD is starting to help out soldiers that are being forced to move because of the rental house being foreclosed.  If we are lucky they will move us or pay for us to do it.  So, once again I will start calling on Monday for answers and hopefully they will be good ones.  In the mean time I guess I have cleaning and packing to do all while trying to limit my stress level.  The joys of life sometimes they really do make us stronger.