Moving. Ugh. For the third summer in a row, the Army has called upon our family to pick up our tent stakes and move. 2009 took us from Fayetteville, NC (where we had been living for 8 years!) to Fort Leavenworth, KS. 2010 sent us on a rather short trip from there to Fort Riley, KS where we lived in Manhattan, KS (also known as the Little Apple... no, I'm not kidding.) This summer sent us out from Kansas and back to the south. Ah, the south. Land of SEC football, sweet tea and warmer weather. Where an outdoor shopping area makes a whole lot more sense! (Never understood Kansas outdoor shopping areas... nice in the summer but EEK! in the winter). We were hoping to end our journey in Florida but we are settling in Columbia, South Carolina.
Columbia, SC. Land of SC Gamecocks (or as I like to call them, Fighting Chickens) and the Clemson Tigers. Chris is actually stationed at Shaw AFB near Sumter, SC but we decided to hang our hat here and he is going to commute. (Thanks Sweetie!) Less than 2 miles from our house here is a large outdoor shopping center with (drum roll please) 2 Starbucks, a Panera, Red Robin (yum!), Target, World Market and more. Not to mention there are 2 Publix's near my house. Unless you have lived in the south, you might not understand but as far as grocery stores go, Publix is the best. LOVE it!
So we are setting in here but have hit a few hiccups. Instead of our plan to have our new furniture (yeah!) delivered today and our household goods on Monday....well, I need to back up a bit to explain how we got to this point. Flashback to August 26. No, back up a bit further. Dinosaurs roamed the earth... OK, maybe not that far back.
This move was under the Army's new and more efficient system. No, stop laughing...it really was supposed to be more efficient. First they came to pack our stuff on Monday and Tuesday. Then, we got to sit and look at boxes until Friday when they came to load the truck. Long story short (too late!), our stuff was put into two different trucks. The load that was already on our first truck was 5000 pounds more than they thought it would be. We won't even go into how you could possibly be 5000 pounds off. SO, they put as much as they could on the first truck and loaded the rest (4 hours later) into another truck. They assured us it would come together before we got to SC.
Two thoughts here... once they realized the first load was 5000 pounds over, don't you think they should have come with a different truck to my house? One that had room for all our stuff? Second, if they knew when they showed up that morning that it wasn't all going to fit, don't you think they should have made some logical division to our stuff. Nope! We have a shipment with half of Jake's bed, chairs but no table, half of an entertainment center.... the list could go on. That shipment is coming on Monday. The second shipment finally left Kansas the other day and is now scheduled to arrive "hopefully between Wednesday and Friday". How's that for a scheduling window? You thought the cable company had a broad range of when they might arrive!
I'll keep you posted on what happens next... I'm trying to embrace the attitude of "Semper Gumby- Always Flexible".
