El Paso pics!

Finally, I got around to it. Here are the pictures from our first week in El Paso.

First off, here's Erin outside the Ft. Bliss housing office. No, we do not live on post, but we went to the housing office to use the computers to find off post listings, through which we found our house, so it worked great! This was last Monday, the first weekday we were in town.


And later that afternoon...... drumroll please....... WE GOT OUR FABULOUS HOUSE!!!

Here it is! (Yes, I'm aware this first pic is horrible. I took it late in the day, so the sun was directly to my right, and made it way too light on that side, but you get the idea. Cute terraced lawn, two car garage, court yard, etc...)

The outside:

Inside the courtyard:

The living room:

Dining room, which we use as an office/sewing room:

Eat-in part of the kitchen, which we do, in fact, eat in:

The kitchen, and by far the most functional one I have ever had!


The master bathroom! Check out the shower! It's so cool. The tub is basically like a pit. It has steps down into it, and it's all tile. It's big, too, way bigger than it looks!

Yes, the sink area is in a separate room from the shower/toilet area. The door to the left is the closet, which is HUGE, by the way.


The bedrooms just look like any other bedrooms you've ever seen, except that the windows are huge, and our ceiling has some cool little detailing of it, not unlike our master bedroom ceiling in Georgia.

Here's the really cool part! The big back yard which is entirely enclosed by a stone wall! It's so nice to be able to let Erin and Frank out, and not have to worry about them being in the next county if I look away for a second. Stone walls in backyards. The rest of the country should take note because El Paso got this one right.

Oh yeah, and we have a huge covered patio, which is AWESOME!


The one I took of the other side of the yard didn't come out well because the sun was so bright, but the right side of the yard looks a lot like the left, in that we have another raised area, and it's still sandy, but with grass roots which will grow in again as soon as we begin watering it. What's cool about the other side is that you can see the mountains from that direction. Literally, you want to see the Franklin Mountains? Open the back door of our house, and look to your right. There they are. Awesome.

That's our house! We love it!

Two sick kids... and some pics

Well, apparently I spoke too soon about all being well with Orren. All is not well. He seems to have caught what Erin had. He vomited before bedtime, then he has only slept on and off, which is what she did last night. Now he has diarrhea, and is just not feeling well, and currently is screaming while Thak attempts to rock him to sleep in his room. There's nothing more for me to do at this point, so I figured, I'm up anyhow, so blog. This night won't be an easy one. I figure we'll be taking turns with Orren and Erin, who's still pretty achy and whiny, for the rest of the night. Erin was going to start school tomorrow, but with her being so sick today, there's no way. She'll start Tuesday if we're lucky and she gets better the rest of the way. She can keep food down now, so it's hopeful. Orren is (KNOCK ON WOOD) keeping things down just fine at the moment, but he's really uncomfortable. We'll see what tomorrow brings. It doesn't look good.

At least this is happening now that we have our house, and Thak is home rather than deployed. Dealing with sick kids alone sucks. I know better than I want to. I don't want to know what it's like to deal with sick kids while living in a hotel. Thankfully, I don't have to find that out at this time.

Anyhow, I'm up, so why not have a few pics.

The move:
First off, Thak securing the car to the trailer in preparation for the big move. Also, a picture of our house in Georgia for those who hadn't seen it:

Now we have a pic of the crock pot on the floor of the truck. Yes, I really did ride to Texas sitting cross legged, cooking dinner at my feet as we went. It worked pretty well.


Next, here's Erin being silly in Mississippi:


Erin and Orren hanging out in our hotel room in Louisiana after a LOOOONG day on the road. We got Orren that John Deere onesie at Cracker Barrel in Oxford, AL. We actually got him two. Green really is his color!


The next day, we arrived in TEXAS!!! We were practically bouncing off the walls when we stopped at the Texas Welcome Center!



Then as we drove across Texas, we made our way through the beautiful Hill Country, the cities of Dallas, Ft. Worth, Midland, Odessa, and every tiny town in between. We saw wind turbines and oil wells side by side. As we passed Odessa, the terrain got more and more desolate, and the oil wells got bigger and bigger. For a while, there were oil fields as far as we could see. West Texas goes like this:

Wind turbines, oil fields, open range, the most desolate desert you ever saw, and wind. The wind here is insane.

Look behind her. You may be able to see the wind turbines. (Click the pic to see it bigger, and you can see several of them!) This was in Sweetwater, TX, the wind energy capital of the US.


Here we are east of Odessa. There is one oil well in the background, and if you look close, you will see a big refinery on the horizon. Good old American oil! We need more of that and less of this foreign crap we buy so much of! Also, you can tell in this one how hard the wind was blowing.


And that's all for now. I have a ton of pics of El Paso, and of our house here, but they're all still on the camera, and I'm not uploading them right now. This is a little bit of our trip out here. It was an experience, but 4 days on the road with 2 kids and 2 animals is not something I want to repeat anytime soon!!

Oh, and we have just figured out what is wrong with Orren. He appears to be teething. Yes, at 3 months old, he appears to be cutting his first tooth. We can feel it below his gumline, and this homeopathic teething gel we have on hand seemed to help the situation a little when nothing else did. He's having a really hard time with it. For now, he has gone to sleep on Thak (he is such a daddy's boy!!) I'd take a picture for you since it is pretty adorable, but the flash would wake him up, and I think Thak might kill me if I did that! So that's it for tonight. I think we may see if this boy will go to bed, and then try to get a wink or two of sleep ourselves.

We're back in business!

We have been in El Paso for a week and a day, and have internet again as of a couple hours ago. There is so much to update it's not even funny, and we have tons of pictures to post, but I don't really feel like doing it right now, so it'll wait until tomorrow.

We've been busy. We had 250+ tagged items come off the moving truck, and each one of them had to be put into its proper place. A good 120 of those items were boxes that had to be unpacked, and we've gotten all but about 10 of them done and over with as of now. Thak has done most of the unpacking. I have tried to stay on top of the laundry and dishes. Our dishwasher doesn't work, so we're back to doing them by hand for the time being, but it's not so bad since it's temporary.

Erin was sick today, and we spent much of the day cleaning and sanitizing the house, including steam cleaning the couch cushions where she vomited, and most importantly, keeping Orren as far away from all that as possible. We still don't have a pediatrician here yet, and if he got sick, we'd end up having to take him to the ER, and that would suck for everyone involved, so the best medicine is "don't get sick". We've been cleaning, and disinfecting, and keeping his distance from her, and so far, knock on every woodlike entity in sight, it's worked. Oh, and by the way, the Target brand disinfecting wipes are better than the Clorox ones, and way cheaper. Just a good money saving tip there.

But anyhow, we love it in El Paso. The people are the nicest we've ever met, the food is outstanding, Ft. Bliss is beautiful, probably the nicest post either of us has ever seen, far less set foot on, and other than one run-in with a purely idiotic military wife who was hell bent on telling us how bad this place sucks, we've been pretty damn charmed ever since we crossed the state line.

TEXAS, MY SECOND HOME!!! WE ARE BACK, AND IT IS AWESOME!!!

We're pretty much ready!

Well, we're as ready as we're going to be. We've got most of the stuff we're taking with us consolidated into the closet of our office/sewing room, and most of the laundry is done. Thak and I don't plan on getting much sleep tonight since we'll be up doing the last of this laundry for at least the next couple hours. There will, of course, be no catnaps with Orren after Erin's at school in the morning either. The movers arrive at 9. We'll be tying up loose ends until they get here, disconnecting appliances, and all that other stuff.

What I do know is that tomorrow is going to be hard. Orren's stuff is all packed into the closet so that the movers don't take it, so we'll be doing tomorrow without his bassinet, without his play mat, without really much of any of his stuff that we use all the time. I don't know how we're going to do this, but I'm sure we'll find a way.

At some point tomorrow, I also have to go up to Erin's school and talk to the office people about getting her records ready for when we disenroll her next Tuesday.

Friday, as in day after tomorrow (well, technically tomorrow since it's after midnight already) the movers are coming back to take all our stuff away and drive it to El Paso, where it will go into storage until we call and schedule delivery to our new house which we don't have yet.

The weekend, we'll be spending trying to occupy the kids despite all our stuff being gone. We'll probably spend Saturday at the Irish children's festival in Savannah, and Sunday, maybe we'll head out to Tybee Island just to see the Atlantic Ocean one last time before we go.

Monday is going to be hectic as well. We may just keep Erin out of school that day. Early in the morning, the carpet cleaners are coming, and not long after that, we have to go to Savannah for my very LAST appointment at the birth center. While we're up there, we'll head to Chatham County Public Records, and get Orren's birth certificate.

Tuesday, we'll be cleaning the house from top to bottom to get ready for our move out inspection, which will take place Wednesday morning at 9. Also on Tuesday, we'll pick up our trailer from U-Haul, load the car onto it, and get our initial weight tickets. Then we'll come back here, load up all our stuff in the car and truck, and weigh it full to get our final weight tickets to turn into the transportation office at Ft. Bliss for our partial DITY move.

As soon as the move out inspection is done, on Wednesday morning, we'll be on the road, and hopefully will arrive safely in Jackson, MS where we'll spend the night. Thursday, we'll arrive in Dallas, and by next Friday, we ought to be in El Paso. With luck, we'll have a house by Monday, but who knows.

We'll be busy for the next week or so, but we can still be reached on both our cells. We're not going to change our numbers until we're absolutely done with everything from here (as in, we've received all our deposits back, gotten every payment for the move, and all that) so we'll probably have our Georgia phone numbers for at least a month after we arrive. When we do change our numbers, we'll text everyone with the new ones.

Last day!

Thak might still be at the Change of Command ceremony for his Company Commander, but after he's done there (which he may or may not already be) then he's heading on over to final out. He has to turn in his clearing papers, and get his bulldog stamp, and then he's good to go. Tomorrow, he'll sign out on leave, but as of maybe right now, but definitely sometime this afternoon, he's no longer a member of 3rd Infantry Division, no longer assigned to Ft. Stewart. We're officially in limbo, and will stay like this for 29 days, but hey, it's not bad. It means nobody can bother us, although I'm sure someone from the platoon will find a way anyhow. They always do.

The movers come tomorrow to get our stuff. I still have done absolutely nothing with packing away the things they don't need to take, or with getting all the laundry done, or with putting all our sensitive documents and valuables in the car (that's instruction from the moving company. No valuables in the house while the packing is being done.) I also still have to call a company to come and clean our carpets sometime before next Wednesday. I still have to go get Orren's birth certificate, too.

There's a lot to do, and we're running out of time. I'll just be glad when it's all done and we can get out of here. I'm tired of talking about the move, and ready to just do it and get it over with.

Walk through in the morning

This morning, Thak got a phone call from Statesboro Storage. That's the moving contractor that's going to be packing our stuff up for shipment out to Texas. They're coming to pack it all on Thursday, but they're coming tomorrow to do a walk through of our house to see what all they need to bring in order to pack us up. I didn't know they did that, but if you think about it, it makes sense. Sure, they could calculate a rough estimate based on the fact that we have a 4 BR house, or the fact that we have two kids, or the fact that Thak is a Staff Sergeant (and as such, is allowed a certain amount of stuff to be shipped), but that would be inaccurate, so they're doing a walk through. I just had never heard anyone talk about that part. I've heard a thousand times about the movers and the packers, but not the walk through, so this is new.

I guess it's just that much more real now that we're leaving. They'll be here in the morning, checking out our stuff, and getting ready to pack it up 48 hours later. I still have no idea what we're keeping out and taking with us. I guess tomorrow, I'll have to actually go ahead and figure that out. Thak and I work best at the last minute, though, so I guess this is just our style. We'll see how it all goes tomorrow.

Thankfully, Thak is almost cleared of post now, only has to clear two more things within his unit, and then final out and sign out on leave on Thursday, so he'll be able to be here when they come by tomorrow. I don't like to deal with these things on my own if I don't have to. He may not know much about this stuff either, but he's better at this type of thing in general than I am, so it's good that he'll be home to deal with it.

Halfway cleared, and five work days to go.

Thak got his installation clearing papers yesterday, and was auto-cleared from most of thing things listed. He had only two pages' worth of agencies to stop at and clear, which isn't bad considering that there are more than that on the papers total.

He set out yesterday to get maybe one or two things done, but everything went so quickly that he ended up getting done with an entire page of things he needed to clear. That means he's halfway done! No wonder, when you consider that the only thing he had to do with any of this stuff was stop into an office, which by luck, never had a line of other people also clearing, and get a signature on the paper. The dental clinic took a little longer since he was due for x-rays, but he got that taken care of, and was able to clear from there, too.

He's going to clear most of the final page today, so next week will be pretty chill for us. That's what we're going for. Since the movers are coming next Thursday, we really want the days leading up to that to be pretty much ours to get ready for all this. What kind of sucks is that Thak finals out from Ft. Stewart on Thursday, too, so there's a really good chance I'll have to supervise the movers on my own for at least part of the day while he goes and finals out. I'm NOT looking forward to that. I'm bad at supervising anything or anyone, and I hate when people mess with my stuff, so combining those two things is my own personal nightmare. We'll do what we have to do, though. At least by this time next week, all the anticipation of at least that part of it will be over.

Move update

Thak talked to the movers this week, and things are set. They are coming to pack and take away our stuff next Thursday and Friday. The following Wednesday, we'll be on the road to El Paso.

There's really a lot left to do, but I don't even know where to start. Neither does Thak, so he basically putzes around in the garage a lot. I think this will be one of those things we stay up all night the night prior to our packing and shipping dates, and get everything done that we need to do. We work well like that.

Plus, why the hell not? We've still got that same Natalie Merchant CD we listened to the night we moved into our first house in Hinesville. It's like our "up until ungodly hours because we're moving" soundtrack, and it happens to be sitting center left of my monitor right now. Must be an omen.

We don't intend on procrastinating, but if it happens that way, well... we're certainly not the first, nor will we be the last, and things will be ok.

Busy kiddo day!

This morning, Orren had his 2 month appointment. It went well, although it's sad that it's our last visit at Dr. Ramos' office. I don't know how we're going to find a pediatrician this good in El Paso...

The visit went well, although Orren didn't get any shots since they were out of Hib vaccine. That's the only one he was going to get today (Again, we're doing a spread out vaccination schedule. He will receive all his vaccines by the time he enters Kindergarten, but they will be given to him in a very slow and spread out manner.) The best part about the visit is that Orren's umbilical granuloma is history! It took three sticks of silver nitrate to get it to come off, but it did come off, and Orren has a normal belly button now. Yay!!

Orren's not the only one who's had a busy day, though. Erin got out of school early today because it's countywide parent/teacher conferences today. Ours is at 3:30.

Thak is in the Household Goods briefing right now. That's where they'll tell him everything he needs to know about our move. We'll find out who our mover is, the way to make claims if things are broken, the number to call when we arrive in El Paso and have a house, and other pertinent information. We don't know if he will be out of the briefing in time for Erin's conference. He wants to be there since he likes to take an active role in her education, but if the briefing runs longer than that, there's really nothing we can do. At least I'm able to attend, and can tell him what her teacher has to say.

Speaking of things at Erin's school, the book fair begins tomorrow! I despise all school fund raisers EXCEPT the book fair. We always go, and we usually spend a lot. Erin gets really excited for it every time because she knows she's going to get a lot of books. We're going to have to take her tomorrow, or she's going to bug us about it until we do. It's best to get these things out of the way on day one!

Anyhow, so far, Wednesday hasn't killed us. We're almost through it. Now, if I can just get motivated to clean the hell out of this house so that we won't be caught short if we have to show it, that will make life a lot better. Thak did a little bit today when I was at the doctor with Orren, so that helps a lot. I'll do more after Thak comes home from his briefing. We'll get everything done yet!!

Feel better, Orren.

Orren has not been well these past few days. We were afraid the poor thing caught Thak's plague, but I don't think that's what it was. Thak had a fever for days, but Orren's temperature never got above 99.4, and was only that high for a couple hours on Sunday, so I don't think it was the same thing. What we do know is that our little boy has felt like crap lately. Last night, he spit up most of his bottle after his 6 pm feeding, and then he wouldn't take another feeding before we put him to bed at 8:15. He also slept all the way through until 6:30 am. That's a first. He usually wants at least one middle of the night feeding, but not last night. He just wasn't feeling well.

When he woke up this morning, he was happy and smiling. Today, he's eating fine. He's taken one feeding so far, and while he took one ounce less than he normally does, he still ate a lot, and didn't spit up any significant amount of it. That gives me hope that he's feeling a little better. He also hasn't been as whiny as he was these past couple days, so maybe he's finally doing better. I hope so. We've been worried about him. I hate when they're so little and get sick.

What's worse is that tomorrow is Orren's 2 month doctor's appointment. He's supposed to get one shot. We are doing a delayed and spread out vaccination schedule with him, so at least he's not getting a whole ton of shots, but he is getting his Hib shot tomorrow. Well, he's supposed to be anyhow. I'll tell the doctor about how Orren's not been feeling well, and see if he still wants to do the shot tomorrow. We'll go with whatever he says.

At tomorrow's appointment, I'm also going to have to ask what we're going to do about Orren's umbilical granuloma. (It's not as bad as it sounds. Google it.) Hopefully we can treat that before we move. I want to have it dealt with before we have to find ourselves a new pediatrician in El Paso. I've had no luck getting recommendations from anyone at Ft. Bliss. None of them have the same priorities as we do, so going to the pediatricians they think are just great would probably make me want to rip my hair out. So hopefully, we'll turn up something soon after we get out there, but for now, I just want to get as much taken care of as possible while we're here. I guess we'll find out tomorrow.

And the clearing begins!

This week is when Thak begins OFFICIALLY clearing Ft. Stewart. That means he'll be running around post like a madman trying to get every agency imaginable to sign off on papers that he doesn't owe them anything. I remember clearing post back when I got out of the Army, and it was a pain. Still, it's great that we're to the point of him doing this! Clearing Ft. Stewart has been four and a half years coming...

It's going to be such a crazy week, though. If we make it through Wednesday in one piece, I'll be shocked. See, on Wednesday, Orren has his 2 month doctor's appointment, and of course, we go to the doctor in Savannah, so that's an hour drive there and back, and then you factor in waiting time and the appointment itself, and I'll be very surprised if we're back in time to pick up Erin from school. She has early dismissal that day since it's parent/teacher conference day. She gets out at noon.

That's just the kids. Thak has his household goods briefing at 1:30, has to be seated by 1:00. So he will be able to pick up Erin, but I better be back before 12:30 so that he can get to his briefing on time. Then hopefully his briefing doesn't take too long, since at 3:30, we have our conference with Erin's teacher.

Like I said, if we make it through Wednesday, I'll be shocked. But the good part is that if we do, then the rest is easy!!

Well, let's see what we've got. I'm about to put the kids to bed, and then clean the house so that the landlords can bring people by to show it to, should anyone come by looking for the world's smallest 4 BR house. Oh what a week!! Haha!!

He gave notice.

Thak just called me on his way to the flight line. (Yes, he is still helping out the platoon with their inventories for the change-of-command that's coming up even though he doesn't truly have to. He's too nice.) He had stopped at our landlord's office on his way out there to turn in our 30 day notice on the house. We're pretty lucky they accepted it for the date we had originally planned, because it's actually a 28 day notice, but they were cool about it. We would have been ok with staying the extra two days if they'd been sticklers for policy, but it's great that we don't have to.

So now it's official. We're really leaving. Well, it's been official for a long time what with the orders being cut and in hand, the clearing papers issued as of yesterday, and Thak's diminished responsibilities at work, but now it's just got even more of an official air to it since this time next month, we won't have a house to live in. That's scary. It's actually the first time in my life I've had to do it this way. I've always either been a barracks soldier, or had one house squared away and ready before leaving another. This time is different. We will technically be homeless for a minimum of four days, and that's even providing we find a house the first day we are in El Paso. It could take longer, although hopefully it doesn't. It wouldn't be our preference to live in a hotel for longer than a few days.

The landlords briefed Thak that they're going to begin showing our house to perspective new tenants immediately, and that they'll be giving us about two hours notice before they do so. We also have to let them know if we're going to be gone for the day or something. This won't be much fun, but it's only for a few weeks. We can deal. The hardest part will be getting Erin to keep her room in some form of order. That's always our battle, but it's ten times worse when we're guaranteed to have who knows how many strangers walking through our house on a daily basis. Hopefully the place leases quickly, and we won't have to deal with this for long.

I have to also call a carpet cleaning service and set up an appointment to have that done after our stuff has been picked up by the movers, but within a couple days of our final inspection so that the carpets have enough time to dry before then.

It's real. We're leaving. I'm going to kind of miss this place in some ways. I'll miss looking out into my back yard and seeing a cyprus tree amid pines... and grass, for that matter. There's not much grass where we're going. I'll miss Spanish moss, the Atlantic ocean, the occasional tropical storms we get here, and humidity. I like Texas, and will be glad to go back, but this place wasn't all bad either.

Closer

As of yesterday, the truck is done. Three days and several hundred dollars later, it runs better than it ever has, and we thoroughly enjoyed our test drive to Jesup last night. I've got to say, the kids look so cute in the back seat of the truck together. I keep envisioning them back there with the animals on our drive to El Paso, and it's just adorable. Now that we know that our truck is ready to make the voyage, I'm just that much more ready for moving day to come. We have a month and two days until we leave Georgia behind, hopefully forever.

There is one more thing Thak wants to do to the truck. He wants to replace the exhaust system, and found a kit to do it for relatively cheaply. It's still several hundred dollars, though, which is what gives me pause about it. He says there are holes in the exhaust system that is on the truck currently, and that it needs to be replaced. I say it sounds fine the way it is and he's using this move as an excuse to put loud dual exhaust on the truck, which he's wanted to do for years. With that said, we'll probably get the kit next payday.

So the truck is ready, and it needs to be. Thak even got the new hitch thingie for it. He didn't trust the one we had, and we need a good hitch since we're going to be towing the car on a trailer behind the truck.

Thak said last night that he's going to start cleaning out our garage today so that we can start figuring out what stuff we're taking with us, and what we're going to have the movers pack up and take. I guess he plans on putting the stuff we're going to take in the garage. That'll work fine, too. I know we're taking all the tools with us at very least. Plus, they're heavy, and we get paid for every pound we move, so that works in our favor. Plus, would YOU want to be caught out on the road without your tools? Thak wouldn't, and I don't blame him. He also is going to start cleaning out some tuffboxes so that we can start packing other stuff in them to take with us. We're going to put the tuffboxes in the back of the truck since they're waterproof, and lock, and put as much stuff in there as possible, probably mostly clothes, the kids' toys, Orren's pack-and-play, etc...

We have to go to the birth center this afternoon for my final appointment. Thak is at the hardware store right now. I don't know what he's getting there, but I guess I'll find out when he gets home. He knows he's got to be back by 1:00. I'm getting myself and the kids all bathed, dressed, and ready to go (Orren is napping, and Erin is done, which is why I'm blogging), and when we get home, I think Thak wants to start going through a lot of our stuff, and getting things sorted out. I can't say I'm looking forward to doing it, but I am looking forward to having it done.

The latest on the move

Since Orren is napping, I guess I ought to give the latest on the move. Thak's official orders came in yesterday, and he went to Transportation to set up our move. The movers are coming to pack up our stuff on March 12th, and taking it away on the 13th.

We plan to stay in the area until after St. Patrick's Day since it will be our last in Savannah (and Savannah has basically the best St. Paddy's Day EVER) and leave for El Paso on the morning of the 18th. This, of course, is subject to change, but right now, this is our plan.

Moving is a daunting task, especially considering that neither Thak nor I have ever done it this way before. Hard to believe considering he's been in 16 years, I know, but when you think about it, both of us spent basically our entire time in the military (until the past 4.5 years) single, and moving as a single soldier is easy. You pack everything into duffel bags, and go to the next post. Moving with a family is hard. Thak remembers some of this from when his dad was in the Air Force, but being along for the ride as a kid not the same as having to be in charge of it yourself.

We are doing what's called a "partial DITY" (DITY = Do IT Yourself), which means that we're being paid for moving some of our stuff ourselves, but the majority of our stuff will be moved by the Army. We're going to move all the kitchen stuff ourselves, as well as my sewing machine and all my fabric, at least one of the computers, plus most of our clothes, Orren's stuff, and some of Erin's toys. We'll be packing as much stuff into the truck and the car as we can. Considering that we're going to be without the bulk of our stuff for several weeks, we'll want to take as much with us as we can so that it won't be pure hell to be without the rest for that long.

The real issue is going to be separating this stuff from the stuff we want the movers to take. Army movers are notorious for just throwing everything in sight into boxes, and taking it away. If that happens, it's not the end of the world, because we will get it all back in just a few weeks, but we'd rather things went more according to plan, so we've got to figure out how to differentiate this stuff.

Also, considering that Thak will probably be at work while our stuff is being packed and taken away (Thak? At work? Huge surprise there!! Haha) I'm going to have to supervise this. I'm not looking forward to that at all.

We'll be really glad when this thing is over, and we've settled into our new home in El Paso. Thak is going to call the Ft. Bliss housing office today, and see what we can do about getting onto the list. We're open to the possibilities of both on and off post housing out there. The issue is that for senior NCO housing (designated for ranks E6-E9), the wait list is long because the post is so SNCO heavy. We may not get a house, but we don't know if we don't ask, so we're going to ask. Plus, they do off post referral, and can point us toward some reputable landlords. That will be a big help, too.

OK, now off to start boxing up some of my fabric that I'm not going to need these next few weeks. Maybe we'll throw everything that doesn't need to be taken by the movers into my fabric closet, and lock the door!! Haha!! That's a plan!!