Moving

Remember a few months ago when I showed you what my house looked like? No? Here's a quick refresher:



Part of the life of the military family is moving. A lot. Usually about every 3 years, but often as much as every 12-18 months. It's such a hassle. We've done 2 short tours, one 18 months and the last one a mere 10 months. Oddly enough they were both the longest tours ever because they were in truly wretched places. The 18 month tour was at Ft. Stewart, GA (shudder) and the 10 months was at Ft. Huachuca, AZ. I've mentally blocked much of that though. When the military packs and moves you it can be very disconcerting and very surreal. A bunch of strangers come to your house and touch all of your stuff while you just sit there and watch. Weird.

After it's all packed, tagged, and inventoried, they load your stuff on a truck and take it away. A few weeks (or months) later it shows up on a different truck and different strangers unload it. They'll even unpack it if you want. I usually have them unpack the kitchen because I need to get all the packing material out of the way so I can put stuff up. My philosophy is that if the kitchen comes together the rest of the house will follow.

We spent 2 months sleeping on an incredibly uncomfortable bed waiting for our stuff. Actually, I wouldn't even call it a bed. It was more like a be...

Given this, you can imagine how happy I was to see this a week before Christmas:



Germans are clever and have quite a system. You wouldn't want to haul 7 crates of furniture and boxes up to the 3rd floor would you? NO! And neither do they. They took the screen from one of our windows (the master bedrom) and hooked up this awesome elevator system that with the push of a button, brings boxes up from the truck directly into the apartment. Cool, huh?


Things were unloaded. Life was good. I was getting my stuff! I was getting my bed! Life was wunderbar! Oh, but it wasn't. Go back and look at the first photo of the truck. See the box lying on its side towards the front of the truck? Know what it contained? I'll tell you. My beautiful, brand spanking new entertainment system. Need a refresher? Have a look see. Isn't it lovely?


Oh, yeah. Go look at the box again. Do you see the damage to the bottom of the box? Guess what happened? Guess? They put a forklift through the box. Yes. Through. The. Box.
Know who wins when wood and fiberboard meet a forklift? Yeah, that would be the forklift. Exhibit A:


Exhibit B:


It's lying on its side because there was no structural integrity to the sides and it couldn't be put upright. Interestingly, the glass doors, which were just above where the forklift hit, are in perfect shape.

I don't have a photo, but they also put our dish packs (really heavy in case you were wondering) on top of my desk. My desk with very thin legs. The desk now bows in the middle and the drawers won't open without a fight. Well, there went my wunderbar day.

The shipping company will pay full replacement value, which is good, but now we have paperwork to fill out, we have to wait for a check, and blah, blah, blah. Other than that we had pretty much no damage, which is actually quite good for a military move. Now we just have to go buy new side pieces for the entertainment system. Know what that means? IKEA!!!! Woohooooooooooo! You know how I loves me some Ikea.