Squeaky’s Blog

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.

As you all know we just moved and with that, we have to unpack and put everything back together.  Well the movers do all of that for us.  So, I let them.  This is where I made my mistake.  They took our furniture the beds and a few other items apart and put screws in a box labeled hardware.  I thought that the hardware was labeled with what it belonged too.  NO!  They just threw it taped together in a ball into a box and then one tube that was from the garage.  Here is the problem.  They took Giggles crib apart and handed me a taped ball of screws and said this is to the bed.  I asked which bed and they clarified that it was the crib.  So, thinking I would need that right away I kept it with me.  When the movers had finished unloading everything all I asked for them to do was put the beds together and my TV because it is too heavy for me and D.P. to lift.  I thought that when I handed them the screws to the crib and everything that they would let me know if there were any problems.  NO!  I forgot to tell them that the crib mattress had to be on the lowest setting and they put it in the middle.  Well, I wasn’t taking a chance and Giggles has been sleeping in his Pac N Play or with me.  I even moved the crib and thought that it seemed wobbly but that it didn’t matter since he wasn’t going in it and D.P. would fix it.  Yesterday D.P. finally moved the crib back down to the correct slot meaning all he had to do was unscrew the inside slot that held the mattress.  So, today I thought I would put the crib bedding on and Giggles can go back in his bed.  Hell NO!  Those JOKERS didn’t bother to tell me that they were missing a screw and the back frame wasn’t connected on one side of the crib.  All they did was slide a screw in but it didn’t have the adjoining screw to clamp it in place.  So it’s like a pin that is just slid in but not doing anything.  If you push on that side the whole frame comes off the rest of the crib.  This is how a lot of babies have been trapped and strangled in their cribs.  So, you can see my frustration.  Never again!  The next move we have I will make it very clear that nothing is to be taken apart without me present and that I will get the hardware for every item!  It will travel with me and when things are put back together I will be there to watch and check if they have to do it one item at a time!  I have just learnt a hard lesson to learn and the “what ifs” going through my head are too scary.  I will not be making this mistake again and I hope that this keeps it from happening to anyone else.

Well, after a long move and trying to get settled in to a new house I am back online.  Things have been turned upside down in so many ways.  We are starting to get back on track.  It is a process that is going slow.  Things are different here that is for sure.  It’s really nice to have every store I could think of in one area.  It seems to be nothing but stores here and places to eat.  I guess that’s what you get when you come to a high retirement community.  Oh and let me tell you the old people in the golf carts are a trip.  They are everywhere and they just zip through parking lots like there’s no tomorrow.  I had a parking space stolen by grandma in one yesterday.  I was so glad W.C. was at home or I would never have heard the end of it.  He would have gone on about how he wanted to ride one and been trying to climb in them the whole way in and out of the store.  But anyway, I need to get moving I am tired and have to go find some boxes buried in the garage.  I am missing a few important papers.  It always seems that the movers mislabel boxes and we have to go searching for things.  I guess the saying is right “some things never change,” and I should be used to it by now.         

I have been neglecting my site more and more lately.  I just don’t know when I will have the time to write.  Then when I do I am tired and just want to go to bed instead of writing.  It’s now 2:30 in the morning.  I am taking a break from running around trying to get things done without the kids getting in the way.  The packers are coming on Monday to start packing us out.  I am so, not ready for them but yet I can’t wait to get it done.  I have noticed as time gets closer that I have some really good friends I don’t want to leave.  I guess that is something that is always hard with moving.  I must say though having all the instant messengers is nice and will allow me to keep in touch with them.  I am bad about emailing people back so, they are great for me.  I just don’t have the time I used to before the kids to sit down and write emails to everyone.  I think once you have kids everything changes.  I must say though even when I am stressed out and just want a few minutes without someone needing something they always find a way to make me smile.  They the best thing in my life and I would never trade them for anything.  It’s the coolest thing in the world being a mom and time consuming like you wouldn’t believe.  So, here I am in the middle of the night thinking I have so much left to do and should I stop for now?  I do need to get some sleep the kids will be up in the morning as if nothing happened.  The next few days are going to be big coffee days.  I will be happy once we get to Friday it will be a sleep in day and relax.  The family will need that before Sunday when we start our drive to FL.  Once we get in and settled I will try to start writing more and until then my posts will be scattered. 

We are having an open house and I am so not ready for it.  I have been running around cleaning trying to get ready and I still have so much to do.  The baby has a cold.  He has been so fussy and clingy.  I have spent most of my time holding him over the last few days.  He is finally sleeping in my bed by his self.  I had to lay down with him and sneak out.  I am hoping that tomorrow he will be feeling better so that I can get things done.  I am ready for him to go back to his normal playful self and sleeping in his crib.  W.C. on the other hand has been really good over the last few days.  We had to trade in our SUV since we were repairing it constantly it wasn’t worth it to keep.  I got a Mini Van!  I am a soccer mom now.  I don’t have any kids in soccer but hey, that’s what they call moms with Mini Vans.  My husband is glad he gets his truck back now.  He even had it washed and waxed it the second day he took it.  Then made a point to tell me how good it looked when you put a little work into it.  I wanted to smart mouth off to him about how he did it since he was driving it.  That maybe if I wasn’t so busy making 3 meals a day, doing dishes, laundry, taking care of the kids, the pets, and the house that maybe I would have time to do my own.  But hey, feel free to do it for me.  I think sometimes people don’t realize how much you have to do as a mom.  I think that having the house for sale has made me become more domesticated for lack of a better word.  I spend the morning gathering everything that was messed up the night before hoping the baby will be happy in the highchair long enough for me to get most of it done.  Then depending on the time the kids play for a little longer while I try to get some more done.  Then it’s time to nurse and get the baby’s nap in.  If I am lucky at that point I can take a shower if I didn’t get up at the crack of dawn and take one.  Then it’s lunch time and we either keep cleaning or hang out until Papa gets home.  Then we have dinner to make and bed times.  After that it all starts over the next day.  I can’t wait until my house isn’t for sale.  I can play with my kids more, leave with a few dirty dishes in the sink, not vacuuming the floors, or worrying about the toys strung thru the house.  Is that so wrong?  I think it’s a lot of stress.  I can see how people can keep a spotless house but wow, what do the kids do all day?  I mean W.C. is into things every minute of the day and now the baby is on the move.  I feel like I spend my time cleaning or holding the baby.  I took a break from cleaning to write this and the baby is already awake for a night feeding.  Poor W.C. rarely gets any one on one time with me, and I almost never get any alone time.  Ha, listen to me I sound like a little brat.  I guess I just needed to vent.  I really do love being at home with the kids.  They really are cool kids and that is not something everyone can say.  I think that we are just so short (Army saying for about to move) I am ready for it to be done.  I want to get settled in a house and have my calendar filled up with things for the kids and not packers, carpet cleaners, and all the last minute things that need to be done before a move.  I am so glad that we will only have one more move after this.  Then it will be civilian life for us.  That sounds funny now though since we are moving to a duty station that doesn’t have a base.  It’s going to be a little bit of culture shock for us I think.  Hopefully, though it will be good, and we are planning on trying to stay out there.  We think a duty station can be whatever you make it and we are looking forward to Florida.  We didn’t want to move here and we really don’t like it here but we do love our house so we have made it work.  I think this time around we are so happy about the location that things will be good for us.  I just hope that it lives up to everything that people have made it out to be. 

I started packing again.  I was just so sick of W.C. having toys everywhere that I went through his closet with toys and started boxing them up for the move.  I know that the Army will do it all for me and they may have to repack the boxes, but I don’t care.  The room was getting messy again and he has so many toys that it was just insane.  I took the ones he doesn’t play with on a regular basis and packed them up and he was okay with it since he got to help.  Then my husband went in and started to help him finish cleaning it.  I made him take all his toys that were all over the living room again to his room and they put them away.  It was nice they had a good time and I didn’t have to do it.  I have also started going through the boys clothes and packing them up, mostly because they are too small for them.  I am hoping this will help me narrow down what we are taking in the suitcases.  I started on my clothes too but I still have to go through them more.  I have been losing weight and that is great.  I am hoping that it will continue to come off with time and not add during the move like all our other moves.  I still have a way to go on the weight and my closet figuring out what I am taking and not.  But at least I have started.  I am going to continue to go through things up until the movers come and hopefully I can get it all done.  I even started on my kitchen and bathrooms.  Oh, I am so ready for this to be over with it’s not funny.  I just want the movers to come in and pack everything.  Then we will finally be able to make our way to getting settled in a new house.  There won’t be any more of this in the air trying to make plans and arrangements.  We were supposed to get our orders and packing dates tomorrow but now it looks like it might be on Monday.  But hey, I get a few more days to pull my hair out and try to get things done before its crunch time.   

I have been nonstop talking about moving.  Depending on what part about the move will depend on how I feel about it.  W.C on the other hand has been nonstop negative.  He gets upset and says he doesn’t want to move, sell the house, get a new one, and make new friends or anything.  He is my child that doesn’t like change.  He never has.  You have to give him time and make it something he really likes in order for it to go over well with him.  W.C. loves horses and we keep hearing that Ocala, FL where we are going is horse country.  Everyone is telling us that it is some kind of horse capital.  I was hoping that this would encourage W.C. to like the idea and want to move.  It has helped, but didn’t do a whole lot to change his mind.  So, this is the really bad part.  I nurse the baby and ever since I started W.C. has become obsessed with boobs.  Well when you think about Florida you think spring break, beaches and girls in little bathing suits.  I am sure you see where I am going with this.  I told W.C. that Florida had lots of girls with big boobs and little bathing suits.  I think this was almost a week ago now and that is what did it.  He is telling everyone and excited, he asks everyday if we are going yet and when.  He tells my mom and my mother in law every time they call “We’re going to Florida, you know Florida? They have girls, I like girls.  You know boys like girls.  Girls have boobs.  I like boobs.”  Then if they are lucky he will ask if they want to come too.  This was also the topic of conversation at the shot clinic today.  Yeah it was great the ladies loved it and he had them rolling.  I know it sounds horrible but I had to do something to get the kid to be happy about it.  This is what worked and it’s not like it’s that horrible, just not great.  But hey, maybe it will make the transition easier for him.  After all that was the purpose of telling him.  I guess we will see what happens in the next few weeks. 

It’s been a while since I blogged and I have so much to say.  I don’t even know where to start.  I have been thinking over the last few days what I was going to write, when I finally got the chance.  Now, I am wondering where to start.  I guess I will say I am pissed that the economy is so bad.  The whole housing issue has totally made me want to cuss a lot of people out.  I bought a house last year and now I have to sell.  The Army has a new path set for my family and had we known this we would never have bought the house.  But, hey W.C. has been healthy and breathing easy for the last year.  I still think the rental house we had was the cause of his illnesses.  So, I am glad for that but still pissed about the whole situation.  Someone is going to get my house that I love.  They are going to get my big Galley Kitchen, my huge backyard, my dining room with the fireplace, my bathroom mirror I love, and my cool old/vintage doorbell all for a steal.  The market is so bad right now they are going to get a bargain, while I get the short end of the stick.  So, I would like to thank all the dumb asses in the world that said yes I can afford this house.  When they knew deep down that they really couldn’t.  I bought my house and I pay my bills and yes at times it’s tight, but that’s life.  That is where you stop eating out and spending money where you don’t need to.  I mean how hard is it?  I don’t know maybe they really didn’t know and maybe it is the bankers and greedy people on Wall Street.  How many times are we going to pass the blame on everyone else?  How are we as people ever going to learn if there is always a back burner?  It’s like being in the Army at times life is rough and not what you want.  Then you realize you are an adult and make the best out of it.  You do what you have to and keep going.  How are we going to stand on our own two feet if someone is always bailing us out?  It’s doesn’t matter if it’s your parents or the government.  So, once again my house is for sale and I am pissed.  There is nothing I can do but sit and let things play out.  It’s finally official now the sign is in the yard and the only thing I can do is hope and pray we sell in time to move.  We will see and I am sure I will be blogging a lot about the situation until it’s over. 

My husband had his last day at work today.  I am so excited that he is going to be on leave (vacation for the military) for the next couple of weeks.  Then it will be school for him to learn his new job as a recruiter.  We will get to move yet again and hopefully then we will only have one more move.  I say that without holding my breath though.  We had hoped to finish out his career here or at least be here for a few more years.  Since, so many people have seemed to come here and get stuck here we were hoping for some stability.  We also had such a hard time finding a house when we got here that after a year we bought, thinking we had at least two more years to go.  We should have known better.  We seem to get the crap end of the deals when it comes down to it.  We can’t complain too much, we have made a lot of great friends and have had two beautiful children.  The oldest is starting to understand it all and as long as we make it exciting for him he is okay with moving.  We were talking about it tonight and initially he was upset but easily changed his mind.  It became something that was exciting because he gets to decorate his new room.  Now the big thing will be to sell the house and find a new one.  That seems to be all I have thought about and talked about over the last two weeks.  It feels redundant.  I have looked at the map and all the areas we could go.  We, well my husband has to put a dream sheet (a list of places we want to go) together.  We get to choose 3 brigades (regions basically) and 3 battalions (smaller sections sometimes a state or a mix of states) in each brigade, which ends up being a total of 9 places we would like to go.  The problem we are having is that no one brigade has 3 places we want to go.  We have one or two areas in each brigade that we would like but that’s it.  We don’t want to be in any big city or crime ridden town.  We have the crime here and I am so sick of it!  I would love to go somewhere that has snow.  I want lots of snow.  I miss it so much and am tired of the heat.  I am from the east coast, outside of the D.C. area and have a hard time explaining how great the east coast is.  I would love to go up to Pennsylvania, or even further up.  Then I worry about being in Boston, or New York City where the cost of living and the crime is so high.  I guess in the end it doesn’t matter.  We will go where the Army says and will make the best of it.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that we get somewhere with snow and that we can all be happy at.

September is supposed to be a good month for me.  My birthday, my husband’s birthday and even the dog’s birthday is this month.  It should be a month of joy and celebrations for us.  Instead we have had one crappy week after another.  I have had bad news on top of bad news.  All I keep thinking now is that the month isn’t over and things come in threes.  We have had two deaths, and then all the bad news that seems so trivial compared to them.  The month started with a friend/co-worker’s husband dying from a car accident, to a really close friend losing her baby a few days ago.  So, now I have the stupid things going wrong in my life like my oven dying and having to move again.  Both of those things happened on the same day.  I went to make dinner put the food in the oven and turned around and the oven was off.  Thinking I had done it, I turned it back on to find it off again in 5 minutes.  My husband came home and we did the whole good news and bad news thing.  Me going first with the good news is dinner is in the oven and the bad is the oven won’t turn on now.  Moving on to his news the good was he wasn’t going to deploy over the holidays like planned.  The bad news is that he is going to be reassigned and has to go to school then move to a new duty station.  After he goes to school he will have a new job because the Army says so, and to top it off we get to move again with short notice.  Where I have no idea and it looks like we won’t know until the last minute yet again.  We will though make the best of it all and at times look forward to moving.  The worst part is that it’s all going to be over Christmas.  It seems now that we will get about 5 weeks to sell our house that we just bought a year ago, pack up move and find a new place.  I think if we knew where we were going then it wouldn’t be such a big deal.  We could just start looking at different bases now but the new job may put us anywhere, base or no base.  So, I have all this shit to deal with and I am drained.  I keep thinking what next?  What else is this world going to dish out on us?  It’s like some people have all the luck.  They get stationed where they want, find houses with no problem, and everything comes with ease.  Then there is us.  Who get lied to about how the paper work is in and we are staying where we are for another 3 years.  Ha, no instead we get orders and have to PSC (Permanent Change of Station) to Oklahoma, where we didn’t want to come.  Then right at our 2 year mark get orders again.  When, most married tours last for 3 years.  The bright side is that we are supposed to be in one place for 3 years now.  That will be nice since we have been married for a little over 6 years now and have had 4 duty stations and 7 houses.  My son, who will be 4 next month, will have lived in 5 houses, two states, and a foreign country all before he is 5.  This is the first year that he really wants Christmas and is looking forward to it, but won’t get a true one.  We are going to have to tell our family not to send anything.  Our house will be in boxes, if we still have a house by then.  The only thing that seems to have gone right is that we found an oven.  Now we just have to go order it and wait for it to be installed.  I just have to make it another week or two and we will be back in business.  I have this little cooker/rotisserie oven I bought a few years ago and had been thinking why?  It had just been sitting collecting dust.  I am so glad that I bought it now.  It has totally come in handy.  I just hope now that the next house will have room for all my kitchen appliances and toys.  If not I am sure we will make due like always.  No matter what the rest of the month and year may hold the saying runs true, “What doesn’t kill us will only make us stronger.”  I just need to have faith and it will all work out.