Phase eine vollstandige

Phase one is finally complete... Months of planning, agonizing, sorting, arguing, laughing and crying, and I am happily sitting in a half empty room smiling. The Army lets you plan your overseas (or OCONUS) move in three phases - hold baggage, household goods, and storage. Hold baggage is a small shipment that is packed in a crate and put on a plane. This small shipment should arrive in Germany 30 or so days. These are the items you can't live without (well, can't live without for about 30 days...) The household goods shipment is everything else we want to bring to Germany. This shipment can take up to 60 days, hence the reason for the hold baggage. Then there is everything else that you do not really want to get rid of, but cannot justify shipping across the ocean. All three of these shipments are included in the weight allowance, which is just the Army's way of saying, we include all three shipments in the amount of goods we'll transport before we'll make you pay big bucks. Luckily we are no where near our weight limit...at least, I hope not!

Based on sound advice we got from many, we decided to have the movers scheduled for the hold baggage and household goods this week. Big R is less than two weeks from his move to Germany, and we have been warned it'll take at least a month to secure housing. Big R's goal is to have housing squared away, have our household goods unloaded, and then have me and little r show up to a nicely furnished home. This is a fabulous thought, and one I hope becomes a reality.

We decided to leave some of our furniture behind in storage, so the house isn't completely empty, and I'm not having the storage picked up until the end of July. We have borrowed things from friends, family, and the Army to fill in for the next two months that little r and I will be living in Virginia. I have to say, we have somehow managed to find a way to make a fully empty house seem somewhat homey. We kept a large rug in our front room that I've owned for nearly 10 years now. This large room seems quite cozy with this rug in it - guess you could say, it really brings the room together :) (Couldn't help the "Big Lebowski" reference!) I borrowed a crib from a neighbor and some toys from a good friend, so little r would be relaxed in this intermediate stage. So far everyone seems pretty happy. Even Lucy cat has finally calmed down (she's been on so much catnip the past few days to help her relax, we weren't sure if we'd ever get our cat back to normal).

So, we only have two weekends left before Big R takes that one way flight to Germany with the pup and our crazy tiger cat. Little r and I will be riding out half the summer here in steamy Richmond snuggling with Lucy cat. We have been fortunate to have some leads, albeit it small, on some housing located close to the Army post. We, of course, have a wish list, but more than anything we are hoping to find something suitable close to Big R's office. Three years of commuting just over 30 miles each way has worn us thin, and with the gas prices being nearly prohibitive in Germany, it seems like a logical goal to find something within 10 km of the post.

Now that phase one is behind us, we are breathing a huge sigh of relief in our super empty house. I haven't had time to get my head around the idea that Big R is leaving the country soon, and I'm focusing more on the little bit of time we have left here in this town that we've enjoyed so much. We have a couple of really fun weekends ahead with friends and family, so we're going to be sure to send Big R off with a bang!