Je suis revenue!

I am back online. I am sitting in a house that is mostly in moving-in-disaster mode. Hopefully by this evening, it will be slightly less.

Positive things about our house:
-We are the first ones to live in it since is has been renovated
-It has CARPET!! (the last four years have been in 100% hard wood floors excepting bathrooms and kitchen and I am done with that)
-I have new appliances
-I have a laundry closet, with doors that close so no one has to look at my laundry (although we just bought brand new front loader types that are freakin awesome)
-Both of the kids will fit into one room (Lucy will sleep on the bottom bunk) so we will have an office/crafty/whatever I want room
-Our bedroom is so big that our cal king bed doesn't overwhelm it, and we have lots of extra space
-I have double the counter space that I used to have (which really isn't saying much because I had less than the average kitchen)
-I have a nice big dining area that again, our huge table doesn't overwhelm, and there is area around the table to walk without putting your back up against the wall.
-I should be able to hang things in our new house without having to repaint the walls!!
-The shower heads are a foot above my head. Awesome.

Negatives about our new house:
-There are new blinds on every window. My kids plus blinds equals not so great. I'm hoping to keep them in decent shape while we're here.
-The bathrooms are way small, with no medicine cabinets. How can they make a bathroom without a medicine cabinet?
-The water heater is brand new and seems to be having a few issues. I think we might have fixed it. Guess we'll find out when I take a shower today.
-Very little storage. We do have huge closets in every room, and one that is bigger than my laundry closet thing, but a very small storage place outside.
-Lots of cabinet space in the kitchen, but it is mostly on the bottom. Very little up on top. Have to go out and get those kiddie lock things. (had to put my pottery on the bottom. Very scary)
-Our bathroom does not have a bathtub. Just a shower. Which will make it difficult when it comes to shaving.
-It is a duplex, but I met our neighbor yesterday, and she is active duty, so she won't be home during the days. And the wall that separates our houses is a cinder block wall. I know that because they just painted over it. No Sheetrock. Won't be hanging anything on that wall....
-We are on a corner of the street. Only good thing about this is that the speed limit is 15 mph. (how do you go that slow in an automatic? way too hard)


So far, that is what I think of the house. Overall, I really like it. We got our Internet/phone/cable stuff installed yesterday. They really make it difficult here to do that. At Fort Sam, we just did it. Here, we have to have a maintenance guy here, he has to have a letter, we have to have it Okayed through the housing office.....such a stinkin hassle. Our backyard is open, no fences. But some people have theirs fenced in. If we wanted to do that, we would have to do two things: rent it or buy it. As we are here for one year, the answer is NO to both of those. Not worth it. I would rather spend my money other places.

One sad thing is that three of my pottery bowls broke. I had 9 of them to begin with, so I still have 6. And my friend that I got pottery from this year had gotten me more bowls, so I am still in good shape. I have kept the pieces of my bowls (Matt said that must have been the box he dropped....maybe he'll have to pay for me to find some more online....) and so if any of you crafty people out there have ideas, let me know. The tricky thing to it is that some of the pieces are curvy, not flat, so I may have to break them more to make them fit into something flat. Maybe find a wooden lazy susan and use them in it? A picture frame? I don't know.

So far, Lucy has woken up at about 4am every single night. The first night I was so tired that I let her sleep with me. Never do that again. The last two nights, I have gone with her back to her bed and laid with her until she was sleeping. She has some way cute sheets on her bed. And I still have my Little Mermaid ones, so she is set for sheets for a long time.

Fort Bragg is so dang big I need a map to get to the commissary. Luckily, the PX and the commissary are in the same building. But only in the south. There is another commissary in the north and another PX. But I think the one in the south is cheaper. I bought the same things at both, and the south has things for a lesser price. I know prices chance, but I was at the south one two weeks ago, and the prices are still the same, whereas the north had them for a higher price. I know where I'll be shopping. And yesterday I got a great deal on some new exercise shoes. Online I looked them up and they were around $120. I got them for $24. I love having an odd size foot. That means they always mark them down because few people buy them. Matt was even impressed. (they were asics gel nimbus VIII I think) He wanted to know if they had them in his size.....

Sometimes I have a hard time organizing our home when I know it is for such a short period of time. But I have made some goals and I am really going to try and be really organized. Or at least more so than I have been before. Finally get to use my awesome baskets and I will also be throwing out (or having a yard sale, or taking it to the many thrift stores I have seen) many things. When it is all in boxes, it doesn't look like much. But as soon as we start unpacking......its just going to start going crazy. I'll have to do stealth throwing away for some of the kids things. They don't want to part with anything.

The high here tomorrow is supposed to be somewhere in the 30's. I don't know if I can get away with not wearing nylons or tights to church. I think that might be where I have to suck it up and wear them. I have so few tights-appropriate church outfits.....I'm a warm weather girl to the bone.

Will post pictures of disaster move in house later. I will take some "after" photo's too, so you can see my new skills at organizing and getting rid of. I hope it is warmer at your house than at mine.