Wednesday, July 22, 2009

the final countdown...

Well, we've got eight days left here.  I've not been worried... but now we're hitting crunch time and I'm wondering what challenges are in store for us.  

Last night as I was trying to go to sleep I started thinking about our rental truck sitting in a hotel parking lot, filled with all of our belongings.  What if someone steals all of our stuff?  Is it safe to just leave a truck with no one watching it?  

Brent was supposed to be able to start "out-processing" at Fort Jackson today.  That was our plan, at least.  When he went in this morning, the person from whom he needs to get his "leave" form was not in.  He was told that he might be able to get some help this afternoon.  Getting his leave form is just the first step in out-processing.  He needs to get a ton of signatures from a ton of different people.  Let's hope that he made some headway this afternoon!  It's pretty frustrating when he's only given five days to complete his out-processing, but the people who "process" him aren't working!

We had planned on loading the truck next Wednesday, the morning of Brent's graduation.  Yesterday afternoon he called me and said, "You're not going to believe this..."  Whenever I hear that phrase, I know that the next sentence will not contain good news.  He let me know that he'd just been told that he has to go to a "graduation breakfast" on Wednesday morning, rather than picking up the truck.  The young men of our church are scheduled to be at our house on Wednesday night, as soon as we get home from the graduation.  Thank goodness we'll be able to pick the truck up a day early!

I've been getting a lot of, um, pimples lately.  Must be the hormones.  I haven't had this many breakouts EVER.  Not even as a teenager.  So yesterday the kids and I stopped by Target so that I could pick up some "zit cream."  When I'm at Target with three wild kids (including a Cooper who was running up and down the aisles), I don't really pay attention to what I'm doing.  I'm too focused on the kids.  So I just throw what I need into the cart.  Well, I got home last night and found that the box which was supposed to contain the small tube of cream was... EMPTY!   So today we took another trip to Target.

When we got home this afternoon, I immediately headed to the kitchen sink to wash my hands and get a drink of water.  Unfortunately, nothing came out.  I thought, "you've got to be kidding me!"  A few weeks ago I called all of our utility companies and scheduled each service to be turned off on the 31st.  After several minutes on hold with the water company, the receptionist verified that the "water service employee" had indeed turned off our water today.  I actually heard him in the background with his deep and heavy southern accent saying, "I just do what the computer says to do.  It ain't my fault!"  I cannot express how grateful I felt when the response to my question of how long it would take to have our water turned back on was, "fifteen minutes." 

So now I just need to get through: a Fancy Nancy Tea Party (I wasn't feeling up to a birthday party in November, and promised Mercedes a party before our move), packing the rest of the house, CLEANING the house, and a three-day drive across the country (with at least 12 hours of driving each day).  

Whew.  At least I'm too busy with the move to fall apart crying every time I think of being away from Brent for a whole year. 

 That will come later.

1 comment:

Meggan said...

Oh lisa, hang in there. I can't imagine that. I'm so glad that you are going to be with your parents!!!

Where on earth do your kids get these gorgeous blue eyes??? And did you purposely name that all have cars or was that a total coincidence?