Let's ease back into this...

...I'm back, and with somewhat of a certainty this time.  Last time I checked in, we had internet temporarily set up, but then somehow the transfer from temporary internet to permanent internet didn't go quite as planned.  Moving into a house is one thing...moving into a house that you own is quite another.  The past couple of times we've moved, the extent of my work was just to unpack.  Which wasn't easy, but easy enough considering I've done it about a thousand times.  But when you move into a house that you own, it's a completely different game.  We've had to fix toilets, install sinks, install faucets, paint and put up base boards, paint the front door...you name it, we've done it.  And the to-do list is not getting any smaller. 

So, even though I'm not exactly sitting around with loads of time to spare, I'm going to ease back into this whole blogging thing.  For at least a while longer, I unfortunately won't be doing anything deal related or freebie relate, simply because I just don't have the spare time to dedicate to that right now.  The blog will take a temporary lean towards organization and stuff like that.  I will be doing CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid deals again, but just not right now since I've got more pressing issues (like getting my house presentable in time for out-of-the-country guests in the middle of April). 

Thanks for bearing with me through all of this!

Nearly there!

Finally, after about a week and a half of no internet whatsoever, I'm back online. Sort of. It's a complicated mess, but it's better than nothing. I will have a reliable connection starting March 4th though (hopefully).

And in the meantime, we've moved in, had our stuff arrive, bought a new truck for hubby, and bought a refrigerator and dishwasher for our house. But the hot water in the kitchen leaks (and thus was turned off). And 2 out of 3 toilets in my house doesn't work. And the downstairs sink only leak if you pull up the stopper and then let the water go...if you just run it normally it doesn't leak. Oh, and my backyard is so muddy that I basically have to give the dogs a bath every time they set foot outside.

But it's our house, and we're all here in one piece, and all of our stuff is here in one piece. The kitchen is nearly done, and this weekend we hope to get everything functioning again. It's all just unpacking from this point, which in comparison with everything else is a easy piece of cake.

I've already done my scouting around, and it looks like there are not one, but two CVSs around. And a Rite Aid. And a Walgreens. Soon I can start stocking my HUGE toiletry/towel/spare closet again. The storage space in this house is scarily amazing...!

Update

We're finally here. Somehow, we managed to pack up the house. It was hard though. We went 48 hours without sleep and was quite literally moving stuff at 3am in negative degree weather. But it got done, and at this point that's all that matters.

Remarkably, we survive the 2100+ mile trip without too much incident. The little princess didn't even cry that much. Back in July when we drove from SC to IL, she screamed pretty much the entire way and had lost her voice by the time we got there. This time around, she didn't really cry too much. I'm thinking that it was a good idea of putting Chloe and Chip beside her instead of behind her.

Anyway, we are here, but we're busier than ever. We were supposed to close on the house by Tuesday, but through no fault of our own it's now been delayed to NEXT Tuesday. The sellers keep pushing back the close date, and it's driving me crazy. We got our first glimpse of the house a few days ago, and it is everything I dreamed of and more. It's going to be a LOT of work, but it's all work that we can do casually and enjoy. I love my red kitchen, and the rest of my tan house. We're going to have to replace the carpet though, amongst a whole bunch of other things. The house needs to close ASAP, because my stuff will be here in a week, and we need to get that carpet replaced BEFORE we start moving furniture in.

And since we got here, we've been trying to find a second car for my husband that's under our budget. We're looking for a truck (so we can haul stuff from Home Depot or Lowes for our new house), but with our limited budget, we really can't afford to go to a car dealership. I've been looking on craigslist, but it's hard. I've gotten 3 scam replies already, and the one non-scam local car turned out to need over $1000 of work on it. Tomorrow morning hubby starts work, and we are both very excited. So far, this new command seems to be pretty understanding and decent. I just pray that they'll continue to be tolerant and understanding until the end of the month, because my ability to take him to work is non-existant, since we now live 30 minutes away instead of 5 minutes away.

The little princess also had her first appointment today with her new civilian doctor. And FINALLY...someone is doing something about her weight issues. I definitely wasn't happy about the 8 (yes EIGHT) vials of blood that they took from my little girl this afternoon, but they are pretty much getting every test under the sun. We're going in a few days to do a sweat test, and they're even doing a chromosonal test. I have always been willing to accept that she's just petite (because after all, so am I), but I just can't sleep at night if they haven't even TRIED to find out what's wrong. I'll gratefully and willingly accept the fact that she's just petite AFTER some tests have been run, but not before. I am thanking my stars for the option to see a civilian doctor here.

It's hard, and my days are currently non-stop 12+ hours long running around town. But I'm so happy to be in our home state, and I cannot express how grateful I am to be able to step out in a t-shirt and jeans instead of having to bundle up like crazy. In fact, we have the biggest laughs when we see people walking around with gloves and scarves...!

I really really miss blogging, deal hunting, and budgetting. My goal is to be able to get back on a schedule by March 1st. It seems like forever away, but it's important to have goals...!

An open letter

Dear CO of my overworked & underpaid hubby,

'Sup? This is his neglected, abandoned, and much-abused personal secretary (commonly known as "wife"). I am writing to you today because I think I'm missing something. You see, when you handed me my dependent ID, I think you forgot to give me my allotted super powers. Y'know...the super strength so I can lift a sofa, a hutch, a bed, and various other heavy furniture items by myself since you refuse to give my husband the time to do the job. We're doing the best that we can, but since you keep him for all the daylight hours, it's getting a tad bit hard to move heavy furniture in the dark of the night when it's a lovely 10º out and our fingers are freezing off. I regret to inform you that I was born a normal human being who cannot lift a 200lb hutch by herself. It's a shame that I live with on a daily basis. I cry myself to sleep every night over my pathetically weak genetic makeup.

And I still have not received the clone of myself, which I so desperately need because you refuse to give my husband time to otherwise make arrangements for moving his family cross country with just 6 weeks notice. It probably doesn't help that the housing wait list is 8 months old, and we've had to find either a overpriced closet to rent or buy a house. I really don't appreciate you keeping my husband busy with unimportant tasks like sweeping the floor or watching 8 hour marathons of CSI because he's got nothing to do but you just want him around. It's okay to admit it...you're smitten with him. I am too. I want him around constantly too. It's okay...join the fan club. We have t-shirts, and the hats will be in next week.

Anyway, I digress. You've kept him so "busy" that he doesn't even know the address of our new home. Poor fella doesn't even know the kitchen is red. He wouldn't even recognize the house if it was animated like Frosty the Snowman and then proceeded to uncharacteriscally hit him in the nose.

I'd appreciate it if you could send my missing super powers and clones to my house ASAP. Oh, and if could send a little love note over to personal property, I'll be real grateful. See, if they could have just scheduled a household goods move in time, we wouldn't be in this mess. By the way, just a word of advice - if supporting offices (i.e. personal property, housing...etc.) cannot support short notice orders for a permanent change of duty stations...here's a wacky idea...DON'T GIVE SHORT NOTICE ORDERS.

Thanks so much for your time.

Hugs and kisses,
Me.

P.S.: Enjoy the enclosed batch of homemade cookies. Know that I sympathize with the fact that you are a heartless bastard with a heart of stone and no family or other human ties to the pitiful unimportant outside civilian world. So here, have some cookies, and try not to have a heart attack when you finally feel what it is truly like to be human and have someone care.

P.P.S.: i promise i didn't poison them. i promise. taste test them if you don't believe me.

FOUND: House

Don't knock those shooting stars...because they really do work.  WE HAVE A HOUSE! 

Someone out there must be looking out for us, because we got the original house that we wanted.  Last week I told you that our offer was "unofficially" declined, and it was - they accepted one of the other two offers and gave the house to someone else.  But those buyers ended up backing out...and so they accepted our offer instead! 

My parents flew down there this afternoon to look at the house before we finalize things, and it will be a very nice home for our little princess to grow up in.  The neighborhood is gorgeous, safe, and relaxing.  My mom described it as a "breath of fresh air".  The house itself needs some minor work, but in general it's in move-in condition and we can take our time and enjoy working on our home.  The layout of the house is everything that we wanted, and after 2 years we will finally have a fenced-in yard again for the puppies.  Granted, it's a far cry from the ¾ acres that they had while I was in college, but at least there are no coyotes here to eat my little Chip dog.

And best of all...my kitchen is RED.

That might seem weird that I am deliriously happy that my kitchen is a bright red, but after living so long with the military housing white walls, any color is a very welcome change. 

Technically, it's not official yet because I don't have the keys in my hands.  But if all goes well, the keys will be waiting for us next week when we roll into town.  We're leaving this frozen wasteland on Friday, and hope to cover 2100 miles by Tuesday.  We will be without our stuff for a week, but that's just a minor detail at this point.

The end is truly in sight now.  I will be non-existent for the next week as we finish up packing the house and drive cross-country.  I will give updates whenever I happen to luck upon a wireless connection.  Thanks for sticking around, and it won't be long before I'm filling up my new house with freebies...!

WANTED: House

In 11 days, we will officially be homeless. Okay, technically in 16 days, because we'll need to spend somewhere between 4 to 5 days driving cross country. According to google, it's 2100 miles. Guesstimating that we average 70mph and drive 8 hours a day, we'll get there in 3.75 days. But of course, that's not accounting for the fact that there will be 2 dogs and a baby in the car.

And our lack of a home isn't because we're not trying, mind you. We had our search narrowed down to 11 houses, which were VERY carefully selected after viewing the insides and checking out the neighborhoods on google maps (I love that street view). But out of the 11 houses, only 2 came back as actual possibilities. Some houses were just way too squished together, others overlooked freeways and the noise was terrible, and then there were the curveballs. One house had over $80,000 of foundation issues, and another house had a previous tenant that decided to go on a destruction rampage before he was evicted.

And just as our luck would have it, one of the final two houses already had 8 offers on it, which really only left us with one house. We offered on it (along with 2 other people), and as of right now the "unofficial" word is that we didn't get it. The "official" verdict hasn't been handed down yet, but unless a small miracle happens I doubt we're going to get it.

We're not giving up - we're still looking. I mean, we really don't have a choice but to keep looking. The wait list to get into military housing is 8 months long, not to mention we'd be in a teeny tiny townhouse. We found 4 more houses that look promising, but I'm trying to not get so excited about them. After all, our original list of 11 got chopped down to just one actual plausible house...that we didn't get.

And in the meantime, we've been packing up house like crazy headless chickens. We're going it camping style and eating off plastic plates right now. All the toys are packed up, and we're about 80% done. We just need to dismantle furniture and move things out into the containers. Then we can be free of the terrible housing here. I'm not looking forward to shacking up in a motel for a couple of weeks, but I AM looking forward to getting out of housing.

I know that right now it looks like I'm just going to abandon this blog, but that is so not the case. I really miss blogging, and can't wait to get back into the swing of things. Soon....!!!

Quick note

Just a quick note to let you all know that I didn't freeze to death in the sub-zero temperatures here. I've been working overtime trying to find a house, and I must say that it's looking good so far. We have found 11 houses that fit our criteria and price range, and my father-in-law is going to see them on our behalf this weekend.

If everything checks out, hopefully we'll be able to put down an offer and have it accepted by the end of next week, which leaves a total of 3 weeks for the closing process before we hop into town. I'm praying and wishing that it will work out this way, because then we wouldn't be homeless for weeks on end staying in some hotel.

And in case anyone is wondering, buying a house online is possible. We used the wonderful website ziprealty.com. It requires that you sign up (it's free), and then you're assigned an agent, but you're under no obligation at all to use that agent. We're using an agent that we found through Military Moving Station. I also suggest using google maps - once you type in an address, for certain locations you will be able to see a street view. It's like taking a drive down the actual road, and you can "drive" around a corner or "drive" out to the main road. It was a priceless tool for us to see the surrounding neighborhoods.

And while we're doing all of this, it ends up that we're going to have to move ourselves. The military is compensating us for it, and advancing us most of the money, but this is a BIG deal. When we've moved in the past, they hired a moving company to pack EVERYTHING and load it into a truck. I literally didn't have to lift a finger. This time around, we're responsible for packing everything AND load it into a container. Then the company will drive it, and at destination we need to unload everything.

Packing everything is going to be challenge, especially with the baby. Loading everything is going to be a bigger challenge, considering that the snow comes up to my knees in certain places, and it's constantly negative 20-something.

The actual move is going to be a PAIN, but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and with a little luck we'll be able to get there safe, sound, and sane in a month...and then I can get back to blogging in full force. I have REALLY missed blogging and sharing awesome freebies and deals, but this ordeal is nearly over...!

Good News & some resources

Finally a tad bit of good news amongst the chaos.  We're staying here for 2 more weeks than originally planned, thus wiping out our previous housing rent issues.  But it's rather ridiculous how we lucked out into staying 2 more weeks.  After housing basically refused to speak with us anymore on the matter, hubby decided to go to his boss.  And here's the pathetic part - his boss decided to change his orders instead of just calling housing.  I have a feeling that it wasn't the first time that someone had approached him with the same issue, and I guess it was easier to just change hubby's orders than to speak to housing.  I'm so grateful for the extension, but seriously...how pathetic is the fact that military orders are bending around military housing...and not the other way around?  It's pretty sad, but I'm not complaining too much since we do get 2 extra weeks now.  I just feel sorry for everyone before and after us that have been sucked into the same hole but didn't have such a nice (or resourceful) boss, and I really do wish I could have done something to change housing's attitude so this would never happen again to someone.  But right now, I've got bigger fish to fry.

Today it's official that we did not get the house we offered on.  Not really a blow or shock to me, considering we weren't expecting to get it anyway.  But I have already found another agent, and as soon as I'm done with this post I've got a few houses to look at.  Obviously, buying a house isn't something you can do online or over the phone, but the point is to narrow the field down before we even get there, so hopefully we'll be able to be in a house within a few weeks. 

Just to respond some comments quickly - we do have a year lease, and the orders allow us to break the year lease without penalty but not the 30-day notice.  We do have a DLA, and travel advances, but the problem with tapping into those allowances to cover things like pointless rent is not exactly a good idea - considering that money is given to you for a purpose.  For example, the DLA is supposed to help out with any security deposits that you'll incur in a new place.  And travel advances are so you can pay for hotels on the way there, and gas, because they do understand that not everyone has money to front.  Since we are buying a house, we could technically tap into our DLA without feeling the pain afterwards, but the problem is that we'll be in a short-term rental, and will still have to provide a deposit.

And I thought I'd just take a quick moment to share some of the resources that I've found so far, in case anyone else out there ever needs it:

PCS/Relocation Allowances FAQ - all you ever wanted to know (and then some) about available allowances

Navy Housing OneStop - technically for housing, but you will find all other gems of information on here about your area from schools to childcare.  They also have nice little calculators to help with money matters.

Operation Homefront - provides emergency assistance and morale to troops, and also sponsors some fun community programs.  We haven't used any of their services or been to any of their events yet, but they've been a great resource in providing some vital phone numbers and suggestions.
 
Military Moving Station - will set you up with an experienced real estate agent to help you either buy/sell a home.  These agents have worked with military in the past, so it's great not having to explain every single bloody thing.  Not only that, but you have a coordinator that will keep in touch after the referral is made to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Military Homefront - look up any and everything you ever wanted to know about your destination base.  I mean, their phone directory is so complete I have the phone number to the flower shop and McDonald's. 

Guardian Angels for Soldiers' Pet - a great organization that fosters pets for deployed military members or families in an emergency hardship situation.  There is no cost (beyond regular pet car such as food or vet bills) to the military member.  I mean...how great is this?  It's bad enough that these people are basically dropping their lives to go fight for us...they shouldn't be forced to abandon their pet at a shelter to possibly die. 

Thank you so much to those of you that have offered your help and support during this time.  I really appreciate it.  Hopefully, no one else ever has to go through a move from hell.  Moves are hard, but it's a part of military life that we're prepared for.  Moves from HELL, on the other hand, are a different story.  But hopefully these resources will be able to help someone else out. 

Update

Just so you know that I'm not completely abandoning this blog, I wanted to give everyone a quick update on what's going on.  I first shared some of the troubles we were facing in this move on Monday.  And as much as I will it to be, I just don't really have anything positive to say.

When we were on vacation, we took some time to go house hunting.  We actually found 2 houses that my parents put an offer on.  Except one house wasn't available - it was a foreclosure and one bank had approved it for sale but not the other.  What it was doing on the market I don't know.  We put an offer on another house following this, and my parents made the decision to put the offer down in cash and for 20K higher than the asking price.

Then the agent calls us 2 days ago and asks us to up the offer to 50K higher than the asking price.  Unless we complied, there's a 90% chance that our offer was going to be declined.  Now, it's a lovely home -it has the potential to be absolutely gorgeous.  However, that's just a bit more than we were planning to spend, not to mention 50K above an asking price is a tad bit far-fetched.

So, where does this leave us?  In 22 days, hubby needs to show up for work.  We currently have no address to go to, but obviously this doesn't excuse us from going.  Our best options right now is to move into a furnished apartment or crash with relatives, and find an agent who will house-hunt with us 24/7 until we find a home.  Our stuff will have to be put into storage, because frankly there is no way I can handle doing this again anytime soon.

Obviously, being practically homeless for a couple months is not something that I want to subject my family to.  But really, there is no choice.  And it gets even better.  We are still trying to tackle the housing issue, and hubby is getting some limited form of help from his command, but if it doesn't work out we will be paying about $600 in rent for a house we're not living in.  Oh, did I mention the $500 cleaning fees?  Technically, it's not a requirement - we can choose to clean the house ourselves and hire our own professional carpet cleaners.  But when you have an 8 month old child that you need to feed every second and you need to be packed up and on the road in less than 2 weeks...the actual possibility of doing that stuff by ourselves is extremely low. 

Combine that cleaning fee with gas and lodging to get there, we're looking at a $900 tab.  Include the $600 rent for a house we're not living in, and it's $1500.  And of course, this isn't including the actual moving of our stuff, and definitely doesn't include the rent for any type of temporary housing situation we enter into.  It's true that we will be re-compensated by the government for this, but that takes time.  Mind you, if we're renting some month-to-month place, there will be a deposit to handle too.  It took 9 weeks for us to get our money when we moved here in July.  We just don't have that kind of money to pay off credit cards while we're waiting for them to reimburse us.  The Navy can tell you to wait, but you can't tell the credit card companies to wait.  Yes, we can take out a loan, but that puts us into debt.  And I'll be damned if we're going into debt through no fault of our own.

And that pesky thing of needing a place to live once we get out there.  They will pay for 10 days of temporary housing, but I somehow doubt we'll find, buy, and close on a house in 10 days.  And speaking of, we will need to find temporary housing that's furnished (because remember our stuff will be in storage somewhere), is close enough to his work, and will fit 2 adults, a baby, and 2 dogs. 

Some people have asked me why I bother with the dogs.  Our lives are so unstable, and everyone these days are so pet unfriendly.  Why bother?  Because they are family.  It's true that when we took responsibility for their lives we had no idea how crazy things would get.  I never imagined taking them on a plane.  But just because my life got a little bit out of hand it doesn't mean that I'm going to abandon my family.  If you go by that logic, why not abandon the baby?  She needs SO much stuff (box of diapers, pack and play, mountain of food, feeding chair, mountain of clothes...etc.), and she's less portable than a dog.  At least the dog walks itself.  And she's a lot more expensive too.  By that logic, I guess I should drop my kid off at the local shelter too.  She's cute, she'll be adopted by a loving family soon enough.  She won't know the difference, right? 

I really don't know where we're going to end.  It is my belief that families need to stick together, especially in trying times like these.  A simple solution would be for him to stay on-base (they obviously have housing for him.  It's us that don't matter, remember?), the baby and I to stay with relatives, and the dogs to stay at a kennel.  But honestly, how happy would we be in that situation?  So unless the only remaining alternative is to sleep in our car, that solution is one that we will not even entertain.  And call me crazy, but I would rather sleep in a car with my family than sleep in a king-size bed without them. 

I guess there is a silver lining to this quickly darkening cloud.  I've been on the phone nonstop with various people and organizations, and from what I can tell so far the folks at our destination are a whole lot nicer than the folks here.  They're a lot more put together, a lot more efficient, and just a lot more willing to help.  They're also very considerate and comforting.  Not once has someone told me "get used to it".  It's not exactly comforting to know that this is going to happen again, or that it's going to get worse. 

We also found out that hubby probably won't be leaving "home" (where that is...mom's, hotel, back of the car...etc.) for any concern-provoking amount of time for at least a couple of months.  After all, it's kind of hard to choose a house you're living in for at least the next decade without your husband.  He might even be able to take time off to look for a place to live, which in my book makes a lot of sense.  I'm working hard to keep my excitement in check on that though, because it's always better to be pleasantly surprised than to be let down. 

So, it looks like I'll be away for a bit longer than I originally anticipated.  But by no stretch of the imagination will I be abandoning this blog.  This is the one thing that I am determined to keep for myself through everything.  You always need to have a little something to keep you sane - and after my family, blogging keeps me sane.  So bear with me, be super extra nice to the wonderful blog sitters, and if you catch a falling star...whisper a much-appreciated wish on our behalf.

Honey, we can't afford your job...

Warning - incoming rant...but I really do need to get this off my chest before I blow a blood vessel and bleed to death.

Before today, I thought it was impossible to financially be unable to afford a job. After all, a job pays money, and thus increases your level of afford-ability. Well, that is...unless your job happens to be the military.

Today, I found out that although my husband didn't even get 30 day notice of his orders, housing that we are living in are still holding us responsible to the 30-day notice. And this is with orders, while living in military housing. Someone please explain to me how we were suppose to be able to give a 30-day notice when WE didn't even have a 30 day notice.

According to housing, we were supposed to give notice as soon as we had an inkling of an idea that we would be leaving. They "conveniently" provide 30-day, 45-day, and 60-day notices. Uh...hello? This is the military life...we're ALWAYS leaving. If you go by their logic, we would sign the lease, and then sign our intent to vacant form immediately afterwards.

The only situation in which a 30-day notice is NOT required is if he got orders to Iraq or Afghanistan. Which makes absolutely no sense because those orders would mean HE goes to Iraq or Afghanistan, not his family. We would stay here. And considering they ONLY rent to families and will not even rent to single people...that "exception" is really not an exception at all.

And it gets EVEN better. According to this lady, she meets weekly with the higher ups at the command, and she says that they know all about this housing policy and it is their responsibility to let hubby know about it. Well, no one ever said ANYTHING. No one said anything to him, and no one said anything to me either when I went to all those pointless but voluntary "informational" sessions. Somewhere, the ball was dropped. But you know what? It doesn't hurt the housing lady. It doesn't hurt the higher ups. It hurts us...the little guys that are scrapping by eating rice and beans.

Where we are at right now is that we will be charged a month's rent, but wouldn't even be here for more than half the month. We're not talking about pocket change here people...we're talking about hundreds of dollars. It might be pocket change for those higher ups that forgot to pass the message, but for us that's a couple months of food.

And when I called the family help center here, the "help" I received was a joke. First, I was told that only HE has to report, and we can move up to a year after he leaves. Uh...okay...we already tried that 6 months ago, and that resulted in a 2 month delay, $4000 of stuff broken, and a shoddy house. We are NOT going down that route again. And then I was told that the government gives us MORE than enough money, and we can make up the difference from the gas, hotel, and temporary lodging money they give us. I don't know what government she was talking about, but it definitely wasn't ours...because gas money is for gas, hotel money is for the hotel, and temporary lodging money is for temporary lodging. They barely give you enough to cover your expenses...under no circumstance will you ever have a couple hundred of dollars just left over like some holiday bonus check.

Frankly, it's becoming very clear to me. We simply can't afford for my husband to keep his job. He works 100-something hours a week, but yet we can barely maintain a savings. We would see more money if he was working minimal wage at McDonald's flipping burgers. Any money that we can save is pretty much whisked away from us in a few months. You're supposed to have a "moving fund"...kind of like an emergency fund, but set aside for moving. Well, once upon a time I had one...then I moved 6 months ago. It takes TIME to build a fund back up, especially when the moving company broke most of your stuff.

I can deal with not having my husband around. I can deal with the fact that he's sent to god knows where to do god knows what. I can deal with having to move around constantly. What I cannot deal with is the fact that the very people who are supposed to help us are hurting us left and right. Through no fault of our own we are now in-between a rock and a hard place, and all anyone ever wants to do is tell us it's our fault and to get used to it. I work VERY hard every single day to keep this family out of debt...and I refuse to let the Navy put us back into debt.

At this point, we really have no clear options. After some guesstimating math-work, the total sum of money comes out in the thousands. This is including the required professional carpet cleaning and flea and tick spraying of the house upon move-out. But the funny thing is that this is only required since we stayed less than a year. Someone explain the sense in that to me.

And to make things even cheerier, today I got news that the house we put an offer on is in limbo. They didn't reject our offer, but they're waiting a few days for more offers to come in. Obviously it's not the worse news, but honestly the agent didn't seem too optimistic about it.

I am so sick and tired of people telling me that this is how it's supposed to be. Call me delusional, but moves are not supposed to be this way, even government moves. I don't believe that there's really a "smooth move" out there, but things should not be this ridiculously crazy. It makes me furious that people are trying to make me see this as a "norm".

As of right now, I really don't know where things are going to go. I JUST stopped having nightmares about the last move, and I am in no way (mentally, physically, emotionally, financially) ready for another move. When it comes time for my husband to re-enlist, I really don't think we can afford it.

Moving is an unavoidable part of military life, but no one ever said anything about debt being an unavoidable part of military life.

I'm not dead!

We're on our last night of our little whirlwind vacation, and I thought I'd just take a short break from packing to post a small update. I haven't exactly been around, and I wanted to let you all know that I'm not dead (though I feel real close to it).

We had a wonderful time hanging with the in-laws, and trust me...there's PLENTY of them to hang with. That's what happens when your hubby's parents get divorced and then remarried. Just to give you an idea, we had THREE Christmas-s. Yes, count them...THREE. Three separate occasions where we gathered around a Christmas tree and opened presents. And the little princess now has more toys than some daycares. And forget libraries - she's got more DVDs and books than most city libraries.

I can't wait to get home - leaving Chiploe is harder than it looks. Poor things must have thought we abandoned them by now. And the little princess can't wait to get home too. She's tired of playing "hot potato"...and she's the potato. Her schedule is all thrown off, and I'm not even going to try to get her back on a schedule because it'll just be thrown off again in the next few weeks.

As of right now, in partnership with my parents, we have an offer on a lovely house in San Diego...that I haven't seen yet. It's a long story, but we actually did spend a day house hunting, but this is a "back-up" offer house that became the front runner due to some technical issues (i.e. a house being on the market when it's not supposed to be). My parents have seen the house and can't stop raving about it, but we haven't seen anything other than pictures. From what I hear though, it's an AWESOME house, and we'll be really blessed to have it.

Well, actually, even if it's a broken down leaky shack we'll be really blessed to have it. Because without it, we'd be homeless. The wait-list for base housing is 6 months long, not that we even want to consider it since we're so done with the utter crap housing has handed us the last 2 bases we've been on. Trying to find a place to rent that's somewhat close by, allows pets, will fit all of us, and affordable is frankly impossible. And especially on so short of a notice, considering we have to be there by the end of the month...meaning we'll need to be on the road in 20 days at the latest.

So, I'll be gone for a while longer, while I try to plan and pull off a move cross-country in 20 days. The last time I did this she was 3 months old. This will be my 8 month old's THIRD state (that she's lived in...we're not even counting states that we've driven through). We were a fool to believe that the Navy would take care of a sailor's family, or even the sailor...because the amount of help we've had in trying to go through with their orders on an impossibly short amount of time can be compared to the amount of help you can expect from your dog in trying to prepare Christmas dinner.

Thank you so much Ginger and Tricia for holding down the fort, and eventually I'll be back...if I'm not committed to an insane asylum by then. Pray and cross your fingers that we'll be able to buy that house, and we'll be able to get through this with our minds intact. Thanks for your patience, and I will be checking in when I can. Hope everyone had a wonderful (and stress-free) holiday season!

Let the chaos begin...

I apologize for being non-existent in the past couple of days, but I've been trying to keep some sanity in the insane mess that is otherwise known as my life.

We'll be away for 2 weeks during the holiday season, and during that time (and possibly longer) I will be completely out of touch.  Mainly due the fact that my laptop's screen is detaching and I'll need to send it in to get fixed.  And of course, hubby's laptop conveniently decided to completely die at the same time, so I'll be completely in the dark until my precious laptop is fixed.  I will be checking in every now and then when I can get access to a computer, but for the most part I will be out of touch.

But fear not, because two WONDERFUL ladies have stepped up to the plate and will be keeping the cobwebs away while I'm gone.  Ginger from Attention Target Shoppers and Tricia from 1stopmom will be holding down the fort and keeping the darkness at bay while I'm gone.  Thank you SO much for being my lifesavers!

I wish I could say that the only hurdle standing in the way is 2 weeks during the holidays, but once we get back I will be going stir crazy getting ready for another PCS move, hopefully my last for at least a few years.  I should be a pro at this, considering I've moved 7 times in the past 3 years, but it really doesn't get easier - you just figure out how much Tylenol you need to take beforehand.

Tomorrow will be my last day of sanity before I kiss goodbye to my precious laptop, so I will try my hardest to set a few things up so it's not completely chaotic around here. 

Thanks for all of your patience and support!

Our lives are about to be turned upside down...again

Yesterday as I was vegging out on the couch hopped up on Theraflu, hubby came home for dinner with some good bad news - we're moving to San Diego.

This is great news because all of our family is in Southern California, and frankly we could not have hoped for better orders. We'll be getting out of here before the really bad part of winter (read: constantly below zero). And the best part is instead of leaving immediately after we get there, hubby will be around for at least a couple of months before they even consider sending him out for a little boat ride.

The bad part to all of this is I have no idea how we're going to get there. We need to be there by February, and with everyone shutting down for 2 weeks for the holidays, we really only have a month to work on finding a house and getting movers out here. Mentally, I'm still trying to recover from the ordeal that was the last move.

This poor blog has been much neglected lately, and unfortunately there's more neglect in the near future. My main priority right now is to find a house and to get us all on time.

Once I get past the hyperventilating and sheer panic involved with a PCS move, I'm actually quite excited about it. The thing that I'm most excited about is the permanency of this move. Technically, the orders that bought us here for a grand 6 months were "permanent" too, but 6 months is not "permanent" in my book. This time, we're going to be there for a couple of years. My baby is not even a year old, and this is going to be her 3rd address in her 3rd state. The dogs just turned 3, and in their 3 years, they've had 7 addresses in 3 states. I'm so excited that we can finally put down roots, at least for a little while. We can actually attend family gatherings again! I can't wait to be close to all of my friends and family again, and the lovely weather will be a nice change. I won't have to replace my entire wardrobe after all!

I ask for your patience in the coming month - it's going to be crazy and completely insane. If anyone would like to write guest posts or be a blog sitter, I'm all ears!