We’ve been in this house now for three weeks and one day. It’s beginning to feel like home. But lawdy, it’s a mess. We have too much stuff. But that’s another post.

We’re gradually developing a new kind of normal in a neighborhood ripe with wild banshees. Close your eyes and stab your finger outside in any direction and when you open them you’ll find yourself pointing at any number of one or two half-a-dozen children, all ten and under, mostly boys, all within shouting distance. Sometimes even within whispering, if you don’t watch your step.

Living near so many other children is a mixed bag, for sure. I’m gradually getting a feel for some of them, and they’re gradually getting a feel for each other. At least three other families within rock-throwing distance moved in just weeks before us. You might say this is a transitional neighborhood.

I knew we were taking a chance by living in military housing, in such close quarters to multiple families all in the same stage of life of moving around and raising children and coming from goodness knows where. Having lots of kids nearby for your kids to play with can be good, and it can be bad.

For the most part, things are working out. Although just today Peter stomped into the house and yelled, “I have had it with that kid!” Keeping in mind he’s talking about a 5yo next door that he’s known for all of three weeks.

Aside from being so, so very tired that he ended up falling asleep in his room where he was sent after stomping around and kicking his shoe across the room (narrowly missing a drink sitting next to this laptop) we’ve had some other adjustments to living in the Land of Children Plenty, prompting me to quickly write out some rules for Peter and tape them to the front door. (And no, we still don’t have our printer hooked up.) (Although at this rate, I may just tattoo them to his eyeballs.)

 Peter

1) Do not leave the yard without asking.

2) Do not leave the house without asking.

3) Do not cross the street without asking.

4) Look both ways before crossing the street.

 

And yes, I realize that he would need to ask to leave the house before asking to leave the yard. This was done impromptu-like, people. Plus, I wrote them in the order as Peter remembered them, so often had I been telling him these things, repeatedly, to no avail. “I just keep forgetting!”

One more very important rule that still needs to be added:

“Never, EVER, go into someone else’s home without asking your mom first.”

This one is for Peter and Olivia, much to my surprise: very out of character for her. But why the emphasis on “your”?

“But his mom said it was okay!”

After I explained that their mom is not in charge of my children and nor do I read minds or have x-ray vision that allows me to see through walls, I attempted to explain to my children why moms worry when they look outside and their children are no longer there. It’s difficult, that one, when you’re still a bit freaked out and wanting to drive the point home without scaring your children. As it was, I almost had Olivia in tears. I think my uber gentleness upset her more than if I’d used my normal mommy voice.

So many instant playmates is great, it really is. Except when it isn’t. We didn’t come from a neighborhood with so many children they seem to leak from the walls, so it’s been a bit of a shock as well. I admit it will be a bit of a relief when the local school starts and we develop our own routine of homeschooling. And I have to chuckle when I think about concerns that people have for homeschoolers and their “socialization.” I, for one, wouldn’t mind a little less of it for a bit.

The movers are coming next week and I find myself alternating between excitement and dread.

Needless to say, I have a lot of things yet to take care of and separate and cull through before I’m ready for the bulk of our stuff to get thrown into a truck and driven cross-country.*

*Just a reminder: we're moving from Ohio to northern California.

Whenever I find myself needing to chill my mind out, I remember what another, seasoned, military spouse once said, years ago now, when she was getting ready to PCS yet again. Her husband was a commander — which means his career required them to move even more than the average military bear — and they had four young children in tow.

“People keep asking me if I’m nervous about the movers coming, but what’s the big deal? They’ll come, they’ll pack up my sh!t, and they’ll leave. “

Excusez-moi for my [her] French. But it’s simply a brilliant way of remembering that, at the end of the day, it’s all just stuff.

That being said, I still need to have my act together by the time the movers get here, or they will gather my act for me.

I vaguely recall my first experience with (contracted) military movers: I was a newbie in the Air Force myself and all of 22-years-old. I had just graduated college and had moved back in with my parents while I waited for my enlistment date. I piled what belongings I considered mine in the middle of my parent’s living room floor and a couple of guys showed up and threw my stuff in a few boxes and were gone within minutes. They could have been anyone. Okay, not really, but honestly: I had no idea what I was doing or what to expect.

Eighteen years and some nine-plus moves and three kids later I have quite a bit more experience under my belt, which doesn’t make it easier necessarily, but somewhat better. If anything is easier, I’d say it comes from confidence I’ve gained in dealing with the packers that comes from Having Done This Before and I know what they should and should not do and whether or not they’re giving me a load of crap about how they’re supposed to handle loading up my crap.

Oh, crap, there I went with my French again. Pardon.

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Some Things I’ve Learned Along the Way…

1] Don’t make a list and a timeline of things you think best done around the house at the last-minute.

If you think of something that needs to be done, do it now. Cull through those closets. Take those loads to Goodwill. Get those Honey-Do’s done. (Or do them for him.) Plenty of last-minute things will come up… at the last-minute.

2] Six months out is not too early to start getting ready.

Unless you just moved six months ago. In which case you should already be (mostly) ready. Not that I would know this…

3] Be ready for the Moving Inspector.

This is the guy (yes, or gal) that comes to check out your stuff a few weeks ahead of time. He wants to know if the packers need to come with any special materials (for marble tops; oversized mirrors; appliances; delicate models; etc). He’s the one who decides how much stuff you have; how nice your stuff is; how many packers to schedule; how many packing days to schedule; etc.

• Look him in the eye, let him know you’ll be serious and not easily messed with.
• Clean your house before he comes. Tidy up. This shows him you have respect for your stuff, and he should, too.
• Listen to his instructions and ask questions. Military hires local contractors for these moves. Every company is different. What was policy for one company may not factor in with another but something else may. Asking questions also shows that you’ll be serious about doing your part to prepare for this move.
• Moving Companies will often estimate packing weight based on number of bedrooms and square footage of your home. If you are stuffer-organizer extraordinaire, emphasize that you have more to pack than may first appear. Show him your closets. Under those beds. Those hidden nooks. Better yet, show him stats from previous moves, if you have them, and point out anything you’ve acquired since then. I can’t tell you how many times Mr. Moving Inspector scheduled too few packers and packing days for our stuff and then last-minute they’re scrambling to finish on schedule. This doesn’t bode well for their moods or for your stuff.

4] Clean Your Stuff!

Do I really have to say this? But yes, you need to clean your stuff. This mean wash your rugs, or throw them out. Wash your trash cans, or throw them out. Wash your sheets — even if you need to sleep in them another night or two — or throw them out. Do you sense a trend here? Trust me: dirt you think nothing of on this end will look like the trash it is on the other, and may very possibly contaminate whatever else it’s packed with en route.

5] Take your stuff off your walls.

Stack the frames nicely along one bare wall or corner in a room with plenty of surrounding floor space. I speak from a home that has a lot of wall decor.  Seriously. People will come to our home three months after we move in and gasp, “You have more stuff on your walls than we do, and we never move!” It’s our thing, people.

Oh — and hang your stuff up already! What are you waiting for?

I will de-clutter our walls (indeed, I’ve started) even though the moving inspector told me not to. He doesn’t know: he won’t be doing the packing. The packers are always appreciative that I’ve done this for them. I just nodded knowingly this time when the inspector told me to “just leave your stuff on the walls” like I totally agreed with him that “it just gets in the way” if I take it down myself.

Stripping your walls serves multiple purposes:

1. It gives one packer a working space with a clear understanding of just how many glass frames there are to pack. It’s not unusual for one packer to spend an entire day doing nothing but packing up our frames and wall decor.
2. It keeps like with like. Having items such as glass frames all in one place helps to keep a sloppy packer from stuffing heavier things in with something more delicate. Like, say, your husband’s precious modeling boxes. Not that I would know this.
3. It allows me to spackle the nail holes (and touch them up with paint) ahead of time. I will have plenty to do while the movers are here. And Lord knows I will not have the presence of mind to do this after they’re gone. Ditto for not having the time. See #1 above.
4. It helps mentally prepare my family. Even though the kids know that the movers are coming, and that this is our last full week in this house (Olivia’s eyes got a little wide on that one), what does that really mean? You may be a seasoned mover, but your current home may be the only one your younger kids remember …
5. Movers means that all of our stuff will seemingly disappear. And then we’ll be gone. Our wall decor is a huge part of what makes our house feel like a home. Taking it down is like undressing for another act. It’s time to get this show on the road, people. Emptying my walls is like telling my kids, “This is serious; we really are moving.” And then when I tell them they need to do something because we’re moving, or that we can’t do something because we’re moving, they’re more apt to take me seriously. Seriously.

6] Did I mention take your stuff off the walls?

Oh, yea. I did.

This includes your curtains. Wash them if they need it, then drape them over a hanger and stick them in a closet. They’ll be packed with your clothes in a hanging-box thing which will minimize wrinkling. Then they’ll be all ready for you to hang at the other end.

7] Be nice to the packers!

• Have drinks available for them. Coke and other sodas are nice, but in my experience they mostly appreciate cold bottles of water. Especially in the summertime.
• Some people like to treat the packers to lunch — order pizza, or slip them a $20 (or two) to go pick something up. I’m on the fence about this of late. We’ve done it in the past, and we haven’t done it in the past, and I’m not sure it makes a difference either way. If you have good packers, ordering pizza doesn’t make them any better. If you have bad packers, bribing them with food doesn’t somehow make them good.
• Sometimes I’ve had packers flat out (sincerely and nicely) refuse the offer of lunch. This time, I think I’ll just be prepared with a couple of bills tucked in my pocket, and make my decision of what to offer once the movers are here.

Thoughts on this?

8] Do not assume they won’t pack something just because they shouldn’t.

They will pack trash. They will pack up those half-used containers of olive oil and ammonia cleaners (oh, yes they will) and rubbing alcohol you left in your pantry or under your sink or in your vanity thinking you’d deal with them later. Oh, they’re not supposed to pack them, of course, but not all packers are created equal.

And they will pack valuables (or steal them), so don’t leave them lying around.

One move when Conner was about five, I poured out a pile of pennies for him to count to keep him busy and out of the movers’ hair. He tired of that after a while and moved on to something else, and the next time I turned around a packer was wrapping and packing those pennies up, even though I’d been told “they wouldn’t pack money or valuables.” Now, I really didn’t need those pennies not to be packed, but it did surprise me.

When you meet with the Moving Inspector, you will have the impression that this is a professional company and they know what they are doing. And it is. And for the most part, they do. But not all packers are created equal. Especially during the summer months, you will have college students hired part-time just trying to make a buck. Oh, they (might) mean well, but they haven’t always been trained well.

9] Did I mention that not all packers are created equal?

Oh, yes, that’s right. I did. They’re not.

10] For Heaven’s sake, put your purse in your car!

And anything else that you don’t want the movers to pack! This may require you to pack up the car like you’re driving off the next morning (even if the packers are scheduled for a few days) then bring your overnight stuff back inside again once they’re gone for the day, then put it back into the car again in the morning…

You get where this is going? It’s worth it. Trust me.

Lock the car and put the keys in your pocket! Last thing you need is for one of the kids to go searching for their favorite blanket or stuffed animal they desperately want now and go walking around with it for a few minutes until they set it down somewhere and forget about it and next thing you know it’s packed up but good. This will make everyone very, very sad. Especially the packers when you ask them to unpack until they find it. Because you weigh their annoyance with the lack of your child’s Lovey for the next two weeks/months/eternities during this time of upheaval and choose accordingly.

11] If you don’t have a car to put your stuff in, or you have too much stuff you don’t want them to pack, cordon off a “safe” area in your home.

**But I have to backtrack here: why, exactly, would you more stuff than would fit in your car? Are you shipping boxes to your destination yourself? Do you still have piles of stuff you’re going to give away locally? If at all possible, see #1 above **

• If it’s already too late for #1 above, then pick a place in your home and designate it off-limits to the packers. They will appreciate this and it will not insult them. Empty out a closet of everything that’s going, then fill it with the stuff that’s not. Then tape the door shut and hang a huge sign, “Nothing in here goes!”
• If it’s just a few things and a car is not available, put them in your oven — if it’s not going. Or in your washer — if it’s not going. Then tape those doors shut with a sign that says, “Nothing in here goes!”

Notice a trend here?

Even if the packers will be there for a few days, and even if they tell you that they’ll pack the bedrooms last, don’t leave anything lying around that you plan on taking with you.

Packers are like locusts: you just don’t know what they’ll touch.

12] Have friends help watch your kids.

I am so glad the military / moving companies don’t try to make this mandatory, because this is not always possible. But it’s a huge stress relief if it is.

Even now, I am trying to figure out just how, exactly, I’m going to get rid of my kids once they’re done with school. I’ll probably parcel them out to different friends so I’m not asking just one to drive all over hither and yon to collect them. (They go to different schools and get done at different times in the day.)

Since my husband isn’t here, I won’t be able to collect them off the bus and then drive them somewhere myself: It’s imperative you stay at your home and watch the movers.

This should go without saying; indeed, the inspector should stress this point. Even if you trusted the packers? (and no one expects you to) – it’s vital that you’re available to answer their questions. And they will have questions, no matter how much you prepare. And if they don’t, they probably aren’t doing their job very well.

Now that I’m typing this part out, I’m realizing I really ought to get this whole kid-issue thing figured out in the next couple of days. Thankfully, I’ve had offers of help from different directions; I just need to organize my thoughts around what’s going to work best for everyone involved and then make it happen.

13] It is possible for the movers to pack up your stuff even if your kids have nowhere else to go.

We have done this before. Luckily, it was just with one kid, Conner, again, when he was five. We’d lived in Texas less than one year and everyone we’d met and trusted (all military)  had just packed up and left, literally, the week before us. So rude. Aside from counting pennies (see #7 above) I also sent Conner outside and let him use a hose to clean out the trashcans. I really didn’t care if these trashcans were clean. I didn’t care if they moved with us or not. But it kept him busy — and out of the house — for hours. And he was happy. And the movers were happy. They told me so.

That was ten years ago and well before the advent of miniature electronic babysitters, which I will readily use now if need-be:

• Gameboys; DSi’s.
• Computer games on the laptop (that you’re taking with you).
• Handheld electronic games normally just for road trips.
• A quiet corner with special snacks just for this occasion.
• This might even be in the car with all the windows open, if weather permits. But be careful and see #10 above.

Other ideas:

• Books — of course! If you have a reader, give them a beanbag or a comfy chair (that you ask the movers to save for last) and again, a quiet corner (maybe the car) with special snacks just for this occasion.
• If you don’t have a reader, now is not the time to try to make your kid be one.
• Bubbles! Get a big-old jug and let them loose with it in the yard. Preferably without spilling it in five minutes. And preferably away from the movers’ truck.
• I’m too distracted to think of more right now, because I am realizing that I am spending too much time writing about this move and I really need to get busy with the reality of it. Ideas?

14] Details, Details, Details.

Inventory:

• The Head Packer (who will introduce himself on the first day) will be tracking the inventory of your stuff as it goes from room to box to crate to truck. The inventory details what they packed; what condition it was in; and other necessary vitals such as serial numbers of electronics, etc.
• At the end of the day (or three or four) it will be your responsibility to sign off on this. You will be tired. You will no longer care. Your kids may be due home any second. They may already be underfoot. Everyone will be hungry. It’s a good idea to read these inventory pages throughout the packing days, one at a time, as he finishes them. The head packer dude may even suggest this himself. If he doesn’t, you should. You’ll be glad you did.
• Do not be afraid to disagree with the condition in which they state your stuff is in. It’s not uncommon for the packers to write out a blanket description of “used, worn, rubbed or marred” for every piece of furniture, even if it were brand-new out of the box. They’re just covering themselves. Or lazy. Call them on it, nicely at first. But be firm if they resist. This will matter at the other end if the item comes out damaged. It’s a good idea to take pictures of certain items to prove what condition they were in before you moved.
• Check each room behind the packers as they finish. They might not be as finished as they think they are. We’ve had the contents of a drawer completely untouched. A cupboard overlooked. We’ve had packers leave before we’ve even thought to make sure they were done because it was so obvious to us that they were not. That was not a good moving experience. (We were PCSing out of Las Vegas that time, for what it’s worth.) (Remember my point about not all packers being created equal?)

Take pictures of your valuables.

This is the easiest way to document serial numbers, model numbers, etc. Keep the pictures on your camera that you take with you. Or in a memory card that you take with you. Or download them onto a laptop that you take with you. Or onto an external hard drive — say it with me — that you take with you.

15] Have you checked with your insurance company?

They may want to alter your coverage while your stuff is en-route. Home ownership insurance is not renters’ insurance is not moving insurance. Did you hear about the cargo ship that went down in the middle of the ocean loaded with crates that included all the household goods of several military families? Yea. Let your insurance company know you’re in the middle of a move. It may alter your coverage. You may even save a little money, which has been our experience.

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As much as you can, prepare. Then take a deep breath and remember: at the end of the day, it’s all just stuff.

What tips would you add?

Are you getting ready to move yourself? Are you a novice? Or a seasoned PCS’er? What have you learned along the way?

1957-2011

I heard that from more than one direction this morning from my active facebook friends, when I was getting online to check for news alerts that had nothing to do with terrorism; rather, I was wondering if the all-night rain had caused any flooding that would affect my daughter’s school opening, the only road leading into it having a tendency toward high waters.

Misuse of witchy vernacular aside (don’t they know that a man is a warlord, not a witch? Yea, yea, not quite the same ring…) it seems all of social networking and the American world in general is in a state of Jubilee over the death of Osama bin Laden. I feel like I was the only person alive who unplugged last night before the news broke.

I hold no illusions that Osama’s death means the end of terrorism, or that all of a sudden our troops will be able to come home and my husband will never have to deploy again. I do think his death is a good thing — as much as anyone’s death can be a good thing. It’s been (almost) ten years since 9/11. Before that day, most Americans had no idea who Osama was. In the blink of an eye, he became our greatest enemy and the symbol of all who hate America.

Now that symbol is dead. But the threat is not, not by a long shot. We’ll have our moment of celebration, but then the media will scramble to put a new name on our threat, a new symbol. Much like when The Wall came down and the Cold War became no more, in no shape or form did all our enemies disappear overnight. They just weren’t quite so easily pigeon-holed anymore, although it took the general public and even our intelligence community a while to grasp onto that.

Like Cutting off the Head of a Hydra

I am waiting to see what knee-jerk reactions our military will have, our intelligence community, our media. Will this alter our defense focus? Will our leaders really believe that the threat of terrorism has diminished? That we’ve cut off a chunk of its brain and it’s just a matter of waiting for the body parts to decay?

I think of the mythological creature the Hydra, a serpent with multiple heads, who couldn’t be defeated by chopping off a head because two more would grow in its place. Did we just chop off a head of Al Qaeda? Definitely. Question is, which head? According to mythology, Hydra had numerous heads — some stories say eight or nine, others say as many as 10,000. But only one was immortal, and that was the one you had to get to kill the creature. Would that Al Qaeda would be the same, and Osama were that immortal head.

Short-term at least, it is clear that our defense is on even higher alert because of his death – fearing immediate retaliation; or an attempt by terrorists to prove their on-going validity, no doubt. To prove that we just cut off a head; we didn’t kill the creature.

Car Bombs and Commissaries

Our base here in Dayton was on a higher alert this morning, for instance: THREATCON (“threat condition”) BRAVO rather than the usual ALPHA. On a practical level, this means that parking areas near major buildings are cordoned off. You can’t pull your car up under the overhang by the commissary, for instance, to load your groceries into your car, a bit of an inconvience for the baggers on this (yet another) rainy day in Ohio.

The reasoning behind that, naturally, is that a terrorist might pull right up next to the building under the pretense of loading groceries, except he’d have a bunch of explosives loaded in his trunk instead. You know, to kill a bunch of moms and old ladies grocery shopping on a base in the middle of Ohio.

But we gotta have our precautionary measurements, and I guess the Powers That Be decided that was one of them, so we all just deal. Oh, we grumble and mutter about common sense, but mostly we understand this is just part of base regulations and military life in general. It’s not always going to make sense. And if you think it’s supposed to you might as well go and bang your head against a brick wall for all the good it’s going to do you.

Pashtu?

John has been in California since last Fall, studying at The Defense Language Institute in Monterey. He was selected for this great Air Force foreign affairs program and then put in the not-so-great language of Pashtu.

Huh? Yea. That’s how we felt.

No, these are not chicken scratches.

Pashtu (aka “Pashto/ Pakhto/ Pushtu/ Pushto” or “Push-wa..?”) is spoken (and not usually written) in scattered mountainous enclaves throughout Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India. It’s the language flavor du jour for the military. Back in the 80′s, it was Russian. The 90′s started the rush to Arabic…

Thing is, the military has a history of sort of neglecting to update their language training as quickly as the changes in the political landscape. The Russian emphasis lingered on well past its prime, and Arabic took a while to catch on. Pashtu seemed to be an afterthought considering how long we’ve been involved now in Central Asia. Granted, it takes time to form these programs. (Where do you find educated souls who are fluent in Pashtu? I’m still trying to figure that one out.) But still.

When John got this language, we were less than thrilled. We’ve joked that we’re just too old for this sort of thing. The young Marines in his class? (We call them “kids”.) They are totally motivated. (And extremely bright.) They look at Afghanistan as Their War, and they consider Pashtu incredibly relevant. They will, after all, likely hit the ground running, literally, and use the language in-country.

John’s purpose is not so clear. Will he work at an Embassy? Over there? What about his family? (What about meeeeeee?)

There’s talk of a school at a base in Florida that uses Pashtu linguists for part of its cultural instruction courses. Meh. The whole point of this foreign affairs program was for us to go overseas again!

But now I feel like I’m whining, and I really don’t mean to. John is very proud to do what he does, even if the purpose isn’t always clear. And I am very thankful that he is not in harm’s way as a matter of course. Like the Special Forces. The Navy SEALS. Can you imagine a life married to someone who routinely risks his life in service to our country? It’s true valor, I tell you. And a calling to serve, that is. I admire it, and value it. But I’m not sure how I’d do being married to it.

I think of that guy, the one who put the bullet in Osama bin Laden’s head. I’ve no doubt he did not hesitate. Their training is too rigorous, too thorough, for that. He had a mission, and he completed it. As a facebook friend (and military officer himself) commented, “Luckiest Guy in the World: The SEAL that got to double-tap Osama.”

That sounds so cold, so harsh. But that’s what war is. “Somebody’s got to do it” sounds so cliche, but I suppose it fits here. What I wonder is, after he did it? After he “double-tapped” Osama? Did the realization finally hit him of what he’d done? That he was the one who pulled the trigger on America’s greatest enemy of the last decade? Did he revel in pride at the role he played? Did he shrug it off as being just one of team who had a mission to do and succeeded? Did he get the shakes? Did he get drunk?

I may never know, and I’m okay with that. I’ll just continue to be forever thankful that there are people who are called to duties such as these, so that I may continue with my own. And if it makes the language John is studying irrelevant for our national defense…? We can only hope.

Or maybe they’re all wrapped up in one? See, now I’ve gotten myself all confused again.

We swore we’d never be long-distance landlords again.

We’re considering renting out our house, something we swore we’d never do.

Some local friends/acquaintances are wanting to move out of the home they are in, for very personal reasons that are none of your business, and they would like to rent a place in this part of town for the next three years, after which they are considering moving out of Ohio altogether.

I hadn’t seen this particular friend in quite awhile. For our first couple of years in Ohio, our sons were inseparable. They became fast friends, literally, Conner’s first day of sixth grade, which he started one week later than the rest of the school because we were still scrambling to close on this house and settle in to our life here after moving from Italy.  Conner just needs that one, good friend, and he’s good to go. And Mitch became it day one.

But Mitch also plays soccer, “Lifestyle Soccer,” I call it, because Ohio has hard-core year-round soccer teams that travel for tournaments all over hither and yon and it really does consume your life. We’ve donated our fair share to the door-to-door fundraising cause.

So the boys remained friends, but they don’t see each other much outside of school anymore. Mitch got busier with soccer and his soccer friends, and Conner started hanging out more with another friend in the neighborhood, who has since become a semi-permanent fixture in our home. (When Conner’s not at his.)

Chance Encounter

All this to bring me to a random encounter with Mitch’s mom a week or so ago, after not seeing her for ages. We talked about this and that and the other, like women are good at doing, and I thought she was just being thoughtful when she sent me a message later telling me how nice it was to chat again, how sorry she was that we hadn’t been able to sell our house, and had we thought about renting it out?

Well, she wasn’t the first person to ask us that question, so I replied, “Why, are you interested?”

Ha-ha, and all that. Turns out, she was.

We’ve been talking back and forth for the past week, about numbers and other important things. I’m expecting to hear from her today to find out if they’re officially ready to move forward. She and her husband have been working on some details on their end, to make sure this is going to work for them and it’s really the best thing for everyone involved. Theirs is a sad and complicated situation, and moving would give them much-needed hope and a desperately needed fresh start. And just to clarify one thing, their problems do not involve a bank or any other financial institution.

Whether or not this moves forward we will find out soon enough. If it does, I feel like we will both be helping each other out, and I can’t help but wonder if this is why our house hasn’t sold… What are the odds we run into each other the week after we take the house off the market?

 If we decide not to go forward, we’ll simply return to the originally scheduled programming and put the house back on the market, as soon as next week.

In the meantime, I’ve been checking on the housing availability in Monterey, and it’s not looking good at the moment. However, it changes daily. We’ll just have to keep calling to see if anything new becomes available. In true government form, there is no waiting list or any other system in place that allows us to secure housing any other way. Even once they get to know you on a  first-name basis because you’re calling every day, they are not allowed to take the initiative and call you first. First-come, first-serve, baby. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. Welcome to the military, we hope you enjoy your stay.

John flew in last night from San Francisco to the Cincinnati airport, non-stop, with *only* a three-hour delay. That darn fog!

• One round-trip ticket: $490.90
• shuttle from base to airport (round-trip): $69.00

Thank you shuttle for your services, without which John would have paid almost $300 to park at the San Francisco airport. And that seems like a fairly good price for a non-stop flight at Christmas time?

Naturally, the first thing on the agenda the morning of his first day back was a showing. So where did we go?

Of course! And then to Home Depot for a bulb to replace the burnt-out light over the kitchen sink, and for five bags of salt for the water softener. Or was it four? Who cares! I didn’t have to lift them.

Ah, the good life. It’s nice to have him home.

Just a few thing$ that have been going on around here lately…

• I found out that there wasn’t a lag for John’s new BAH (housing allowance) to kick in; rather, there was a mistake. He submitted the paperwork, but the paperwork was never submitted, if you know what I mean. It just sat there. And we never got the money. He’s still working on it. We’re talking over $1000 here. Well, it’s not here. But it’s supposed to be. Follow? This happens a lot to us.

• A lot.

• Did I mention it’s Christmas?

• John got his first power bill from PG&E: $15.80. That is cheap! I guess it doesn’t cost much to power up a hole in the wall…

• It does, however, cost a lot to rent a hole in the wall. In Monterey, California: $1300, to be exact. We’re not in Kansas anymore.

• John has experimented with services that provide internet in lieu of a long-term plan: Virgin does month-to-month for $40, and that worked pretty well… In December he started a $10 internet plan that is supposed to last 10 days, or 100MB of transfer. Five minutes later he got on and checked facebook and one other website, and it was down to 70MB. That one’s not working so well.

• John comes home for Christmas on Friday! Cost of RT flight from San Fran to Cincinnati: $490.90. That’s pretty good, isn’t it? For a non-stop flight? At Christmas time?

• And yes, we charged that on the credit card. Which I then promptly paid off. Still working on racking up those points for my DSLR camera…

• I recently put my whole family on Juice Plus. Have you heard of it? I’m so sick and tired of being sick and tired. And of my kids catching every cold that comes around. Already my energy level has greatly improved. Not that you’d know it from the dearth of posts around here… It costs $41.75/month/adult. Anyone else out there taking Juice Plus?

• I was talking to another mom the other day while volunteering at Olivia’s Elementary School. Turned out they’re military, too. And they’ve lived here for three years, too. And they’re getting ready to sell their house and move next summer… They recently had a realtor come over and estimate the market value of their home: $30,000 less than what they paid for it three years ago.

• Thirty thousand dollars.

I completely recognize that I’ve been incommunicado around here, though totally of my own doing. I’ve contemplated the whole blogging thing of late and have decided that this is the beauty of it: the natural ebb and flow and the freedom to take a break when you want and need to redirect your priorities.

But I’ve missed it, and I’ve missed you. For all of you still reading and sticking around, thank you; I appreciate it. My short-term goal is to write less, but more often, and with less concern about polishing up the rough edges. This is a blog, after all: not a dissertation. Finances are messy, and so is life. My blogging may start to reflect more of that from here on out, but I’m not ready to give up on it. Wish me luck.

I mentioned in a recent post that we started using our credit card for transactions that we were making anyway, but instead of waiting until the monthly bill is due, I’m paying off the balance every week.

For me, this method keeps away the mentality of, “I’ll just use the credit card for now and figure out how I’m going to pay for it later,” but still allows us the bonus of racking up rewards’ points. (That I desperately want to use toward a DSLR.)

(Okay, maybe not desperately. But I want one really bad.)

I would not recommend regular usage of a credit card for everyone.

Before you think it might work for you to use a credit card on a regular basis and swear you’ll never keep a balance on it, I think you need to have a few things in place.

An Emergency Fund: A credit card is not an emergency fund! At least, it shouldn’t be. If you don’t have a liquid/cash emergency fund already in place, guess what you won’t be able to pay off when you have an emergency?

A HABIT of tracking daily transactions: If you don’t know where your money is going, it’s difficult to know if you’re spending more than you would than if you were paying with cash.

Willingness to test your credit card mentality: Going back  to #2:  if you really think that your spending habits are no different if you pay with a credit card vs. paying with cash, then I challenge you to…

give up the credit card for at least a month

Track your spending (see #2).

Compare cash spending with credit card spending.

Think about how you felt when you made the purchases.

Be honest with yourself.

Do you think credit card usage is ever okay? Would you add anything to my recommendations above? Or is cash the only way to go?

Our Current “Emergency”

We have been spending money lately like it’s going out of style, what with John moving to California and all. He’s getting ready to plunk a $1000 deposit down on an apartment, for instance. And another $1300 for a month’s rent. This is not even mentioning the costs of the DITY* move itself. I’m still waiting for some dust to settle before I tally up that total.

*DITY: Do It Yourself. As in a move. In the military, you can do a “partial DITY” and then have movers move the remaining bulk of your stuff. In our case, the “remaining bulk” is waiting until we sell this house…

The good news is that he found an “affordable” apartment close to work that will do a month-to-month lease for him.

And yes, $1300 for a one-bedroom apartment is very affordable in California. Especially in Monterey. Can I get an amen from California readers?

This Is Why We Have a Savings Account

I’m getting ready to pull a significant chunk of change from our savings account to pay off the credit card, which John has been using quite liberally. And yes, this hurts. We have been working so hard on bulking up our savings for the past six months. I have to remind myself that, this is why.

**

I’ve been quite engaged this past week with a lot of load of this.

Pun intended.

And now that John’s gone, I’m looking around at the destruction left in the wake of someone preparing to be a geo-bachelor for… an as of yet undetermined amount of time, and all I want to do is take a nap. Is it a good thing that we haven’t had a call for a showing in over three weeks? Because right now it feels like it is, even though all I wanted to do when John left was get in the truck and drive off with him.

How Far Do You Push Your Car?

John got a very late start, even by our standards. He got stuck at the Toyota dealership trying to get the converter-thingie fixed that makes the trailer lights work. The part that was needed is no longer available. Quote: Wow, we haven’t seen one of these in a loooong time. They don’t make that part anymore for ones this old, boy how-die.

The guy was talking about our 1999 Toyota 4Runner like it was a machine relic. The thing’s running great, you know? Pushing 200,000 miles and still holding strong.

We’ll see how it’s faring after this trip, though. And after towing (almost? over?) 1000 pounds of schtuff. If he had to do it all over again, John’s already saying that he would have had the movers come and do a split move: take part of his stuff now and the rest of it (with us) later. Thing is, either way, we’re on the hook for the cost of his move in the short-term: he won’t get reimbursed for anything until we’re all moved. Time will tell when that happens…

How far do you push your car? Is 11-years-old really so … unusual?

Oh — and once they finally got a converter-thingie part jimmy-rigged so John could drive cross-country without getting arrested for not having rear lights on his 1000-pound trailer? They bid him adieu — with no charge, in honor of a military man with a trailer load of stuff fixing to move cross-country, geo-bachelor like. Thank you, Toyota.

That’s Temporary DutY for you non-military folks. Military-speak for a business trip.

Yea, yea… So he last went TDY, like, two months ago. But here are the numbers anyway.

• During his four-week TDY to Texas in August, John spent $1657.98 (excluding lodging).
• His reimbursement came in the next month at $2,300.45 (again, excluding lodging).

A difference of $642.47, obviously in our favor. This is pretty good considering a core requirement of the class he was attending seemed to be the socializing that went on after-hours. Oh, and also that the $1657.98 included $243.52 toward a new car stereo- so yay, for him!

Seriously, I’m not being sarcastic or begrudging him or anything. His car radio was just one of many things that has been falling apart in his 11-year-old Toyota 4Runner, still running strong though not without quirks that come from racking up some 144,000 cross (multiple-) country miles.

And about to rack up many more. How many miles between Ohio and northern California? I should look that up.

August was pretty tight financially, what with John’s TDY and the kids and I going to Maryland to visit friends and our nation’s capital. A whopping $85.01 went into our savings account that month. Seriously. When the $2300.45 travel reimbursement hit the account in September, every penny of it went into savings. It really annoyed me: I mean, we basically gave Uncle Sam a free loan for the month of August.

We’ve Resurrected a Credit Card

First, for the times when John is traveling and we’re footing the bill for weeks at a time before he has a chance to file for a reimbursement.

Yes, John has a government credit card. But don’t even get me started with the problems we’ve had with their inept billing and accounting services.

But I’ve also gone a step further: I’ve started using that same credit card again for regular purchases: mainly, fuel; groceries; and other regular, unavoidable, monthly bills.

Yea, yea, I know what they say about using a credit card…

…you use more than you would pay with cash. That’s why I am purposefully only charging purchases that I would be making anyway. Also. I’m paying off those purchases on a weekly basis instead of waiting for the credit card payment due date.

I got that idea from a reader comment (and I am so sorry I’m not taking the time right now to look again for which one of you made that comment. But if you recognize yourself when reading this? I thank you! And feel free to remind me of yourself and to take credit in the comments below) and I really can’t believe I never thought of doing it that way before. Paying off your credit card purchases as you make them totally takes away the mentality (for me) of putting off the purchases until the next month, but still gets you the rewards for using the credit card in the first place.

My goal? To rack up enough reward points to finally get my DSLR I’ve been jonesing for for oh, so, so long. Call it what you will: I want me my Nikon.

(And if you have a DSLR recommendation? Please comment away.)

…when you discover that one of them is actually a stalk of corn.

Corn and Life and Loose Metaphors

I have no idea how a corn seed blew into that our yard. None of our immediate neighbors have gardens. We aren’t terribly close to any fields. How did it flourish? We’ve barely had any rain in weeks. Is it edible? Is it corn for feed? No idea. But there’s at least one ear growing so we might find out.

Or maybe I should just yank the whole thing out by its spindly spider roots and be done with it. It doesn’t belong there: it’s probably an eyesore. But what do I know? Lately, less and less, it seems. And how long has it been there, anyway? Has it really been that long since I’ve paid attention to this side of the house?

This feels like such a metaphor for my life right now you have no idea. Oh sure, I sort of saw something large sprouting up by the house whenever I’d pull in to the garage from that side of the street. But I assumed it was just some weed gone wild. Not something that normally requires, you know, planting.

Bear With Me Here

We are trying to figure out what we will do if we do not sell this house by the end of the year. John reports to his new assignment in November no matter what. Do we join him in California in December as originally planned? Or do the kids and I stay in Ohio and wait and see what happens with the house? Do we *gasp* consider that perhaps this house could serve as (yet another) rental property, even though (yet again) that wasn’t our original intention when we bought it?

To Recap

We thought we’d be in Ohio for four years, at least. Four shrunk to three. And who would have predicted the continuing (and worsening) downturn in the real estate market? No one is buying, it’s as simple as that. Least of all military folks moving into the area. For some reason, everyone’s scared and wary. For those of you who have suggested we get a new realtor, I do appreciate the advice. We have discussed that and we’ve also looked around and talked to lots of people. Thing is, no one’s house is selling: not the $90k ones; not the upscale ones for $500k. It’d really be a stretch to blame this on our realtor. We’re coming up to the end of our six-month contract: if we wanted, we could take the house off the market and put it right back on and the results would be the same as switching. We’ll see.

For now,  we’re trying to figure out what our Plan B is. Or Plan C. Or K. It’s getting hard to keep track, in so many different directions do our minds take us.

Our Options as We See Them:

• Do the kids and I stay in Ohio until the house sells?
• Do we join John in California in December and leave the house empty until it sells?
• Do we stay until we find a buyer or a renter, whichever comes first?
• Do we put the house in the rental market and see what happens, but leave in December no matter what?

That Crazy Rental Business

The latter option requires so many details to plan and put in place it makes my head spin. One thing’s for sure, if we rented out this house, it would be with our eyes wide open. I know just how much work, and how many people employed to help you, that owning a rental long-distance requires. We’d really much rather sell the thing and be done with it. But are we just jaded from our experience with our Vegas rental? The market here in Ohio is much more stable, the people much less transient (to say the least). It may be that we’ve learned things the hard way and could apply that knowledge to a rental property in a market that’s not so volatile.

I am very interested in what you all have to say. I’ll leave you with just one more metaphor, from an image that has been greeting me near the entrance to my bedroom for the last several days.

John had some fun with some toys the kids left in our room, along with some acorns that were scattered across his dresser. (Doesn’t everyone have random stashes of wild nuts strewn about their house?) We both can’t believe the set-up hasn’t fallen or otherwise been knocked down. It cracks me up every time I see it. It’s like it’s saying “I will prevail!” and seems to portray the essence of taking lemons (messy toys) and making lemonade (a creation) that refreshes and invigorates.

Okay, maybe that’s stretching it a bit. But it does make me smile whenever I see it. And right now that’s enough for me.