Shave and a haircut... 2 bits!!!

What a flippin' week I have had.

Monday started out with the packers showing up late - 10am when they should have been there by 8 - and they packed my entire house. I get that things happen and they were delayed, so it was no biggie. They managed to finish by around 8pm. My dog and cats were in an uproar, with Raf, the fat cat, hiding under the sofa the entire time. Boxes littered my house! Who knew we had so much stuff, even after I managed to sell a lot of it or give it away??!!

Tuesday was brutal! The driver called and said he was having battery trouble and was going to be late. They showed up around 1030am - again, they were supposed to be there around 8 - and they proceeded to load all of our belongings. Took them to about 7pm or so, and then they took the truck to weigh it. Turns out, all of my household goods weigh 9280lbs!!! For hubby's rank, we are only allotted 9000lbs, but a good note is that all of his TA-50 (Army gear) doesn't count against our weight - so we lose 500lbs for that! Whew! We are under and don't have to pay any extra. ;)

Once everything was out of the house Tuesday night, hubby and I started cleaning. Now, I know that when you live somewhere that isn't yours, you obviously have to clean in order to avoid charges etc. when you move out. Well, here on post, it is completely different. And the standard isn't followed by each residential community. What one does, the others don't. Not really fair, but James and I knew we had our work cut out for us. Yep - we cleaned. (I did have a lady booked to come and clean for us, that way she was guaranteed to pass inspection and she would have been there the day of inspection... unfortunately, she called to cancel because her mother fell and either broke her hip or dislocated her hip. Either way, my thoughts and prayers went out to her.) And so with such short notice, there was no way we could get a cleaner to come in at the same or close to same price we had been quoted.

So, we tackled the cleaning like a couple of champs! Learning from other people, and going to the housing clearing brief taught us that each community center judges things differently. Our friends Misti and Durwood - cleared with no problems. Our friends Ana and Ralph - Good Lord, they were given a hard time! So, we started out with the things that would go quickly. James tackled the windows and cabinets while I motored around the house with my friend Colleen's vacuum. Colleen - she is a life saver! She helped us so much, I don't know if we are ever going to be able to repay her!

Wednesday we woke bright and early and headed back over to the house. Colleen met us there and we went to town on the bathroom and kitchen. Now, to be fair, I clean a lot normally, so there wasn't a whole lot of extra to do - we just had to make sure that if they came in with white gloves, that we would pass the inspection. We hit one small bump... I placed a rubber sheet in the bottom of my bathroom cabinet - the kind that is holey and bumpy... anyway, when I pulled it up, most of it stuck to the cabinet! Ugh! So I grabbed the backs from our 3M hangers and started scraping the crap out of the cabinet. Colleen got in there with me and we got most of it up, but alas, some of it remained. No matter, we finished the bathroom and moved on to the kitchen. Colleen and I hit the fridge next. She gave me all of the pieces to clean while she worked on the inside, then we traded out and I did the freezer. We knocked it out of the ball park!

Colleen then took me around to drop off my frozen goods at Janet's (where we are now staying) and then what didn't fit we took to Colleens. Her husband Matt is so funny! He said he didn't need to grocery shop now because of all of the food we gave them!! Haha

After that, I went back to the house to finish off the little bit that was left, while James drove the steam cleaner around the carpets. They were our biggest worry. Learning from Ana and Ralph, Rhicard Hills are arse's about the carpets. So James hit it good with the steam cleaner. Another late night for us!

Thursday - Clearing Day!
We got up and went to the house to do a final once over before the ladies showed up to look at the house. We were ready to go. A thunderstorm rolled in and poor Daisy had to stay in the truck. She couldn't come in the house after we had already did the carpets! How ridiculous would that have been? lol So finally, the lady showed up and started the walk through. She opened all of the blinds, turned on every single light in the house and proceeded to look through everything. We were worried about one spot on the carpet in Mike's room, but James covered that up by standing on the stain and acting like he was texting.

Finally, the lady turned to us and said "Everything looks great. No charge!!!" w00t!!! We are actually getting money back! Pro-rated for the last 4 days of the month! We are sooooo excited. haha! (Note my sarcasm) lol

So yep, now we are crashing at my friend Janet's house, driving her insane, making her wish she never agreed to this. Oh - and we have proof because she locked us out yesterday afternoon!! Not intentionally of course. Force of habit has her locking her doors, just like I do. ;)

Now we are waiting out our time to leave the North Country.
I wonder what trouble we can get into? lol

I almost forgot - last night James' Platoon took him out for dinner in order to present him with a plaque from Maintenance. We all went to TGI Friday's. It was a great time!  When they presented James with the plaque, James blushed. Ventura said a little speech, so did Malik. Then SSG. Lemon stood to say something about James and I was choked up. Her words made me so proud of my husband. I love Maintenance... and you can answer every single question with Maintenance! We Bust Nutz!!!!