Updates and inspections

We had an inspection yesterday which was attended by the IG and company. Man had told me that we'd be getting an inspection to make sure that no one is living in the squalor they found a few high ranking soldiers enjoying in post housing. He just didn't know when. So I was a little surprised to answer the door to an inspector yesterday, and shocked to learned that it was the Inspector General, four of his attending sergeants, a nurse case manager, a representative from the Fire Marshall's office, an electrical engineer who was interested in wiring since two houses have burned down in as many years due to wiring issues, and a rep from the government housing offices (so, our housing office's boss).

And I hadn't yet made my bed or vacuumed. Oy. At least I got my 8 loads of laundry put away the day before.

Anyway, it was interesting that many of them had already heard of Man because of the issues we've been having with getting his orders drawn up. "Oh, you're the guy with 90 days of leave they're wrastlin' over?" Man has 73 days of leave, which is unusual. The IG assured us that despite the confusion everything would work out for us. He spoke with authority and consideration. I've shaken hands with congressmen and mayors who didn't project nearly that level of certainty that he would speak and be obeyed, and yet he was kind and listened. Overall, despite my minor messes, it was a good experience.

Today, we had our pre-move out inspection. We were told in a letter that we'd have to pay all damages by this Saturday which made me mad, considering that if I had to pay damages before I'd even had a chance to clean without furniture in the house that it didn't seem worth the effort to set things right at all. In short, it seemed like a disincentive to leave the house nice.

It turns out that we can just leave a check at the office on the day we move. Sweet! And the damages are relatively minor: 3 sets of blinds that were the sad victims of a runaway basketball, and one door with an inexplicable crack in it. I'm thinking of spackling the door since the crack is small and merely cosmetic anyhow. So, now I just have to rent a carpet cleaner and do some more priming and I'm good.

It's funny how things turn up when an inspector is there scrutinizing things. We found nail polish on one wall, the above mentioned crack, and pen marks on more walls than we have previously noticed.

The last few weeks have really been revealing to me: Man and I are indifferent house keepers. That's it. I love, LOVE these wonderful blogs about having nice, well decorated houses:

http://www.centsationalgirl.com/
http://www.younghouselove.com/
http://orgjunkie.com/
http://lauragunn.typepad.com/

And for us it's more of a fairly tale ending we'll achieve after the kids are older or even gone. I don't know the first thing about window treatments or "balancing" a room, whatever the heck that means. I've thought about picking one room at a time and finding something online to imitate, which may be the only realistic solution for my decorating short comings. In the mean time, I browse and sigh and make plans to buy the tools to rock this website:

http://ana-white.com/

 Ok, so updates on the orders. Man's leave has been approved, but someone wrote the wrong date on some papers that accidentally got signed off on which means things have been delayed even more while they decide whether to honor the real date or the accidental date. At this point we're thinking of putting the move off of a week or two since it's impossible to schedule a move without orders (despite the high ranking memorandum Man has been using to begin outprocessing this week) and it'd be extremely difficult to move ourselves since we're both gimpy and there are only so many missionaries and guys from church who aren't on TDY at the moment.

I've also been in touch with MilitaryOneSource for employment assistance. They've already researched my case and sent recommendations for employment placement agencies (both civilian and military) and information on the Military Spouse Preference Program, which gives me a slight edge when applying for a government job or any job on a military post. Sweet!

So, we may be moving in 8 days or not. Heh. Exciting, yes?