Looking for a Home Sweet Home

Let's talk a little bit about finding a place to live, shall we?

We've been in country now for more than six weeks. I couldn't even begin to guess how many places we have called trying to find a home. We called realtors, home owners, the housing office, current tenants...it took us five weeks to even get an appointment to see a place! I've heard a bunch of people say that they had to look at 20+ houses before they found the right one--man, I wish we had that problem. We have been inside of three houses since we arrived. That's it.

About two weeks ago we found a house on the housing site that we thought would be perfect. We e-mailed and called the landlord (he is American and lives in the states) and he said he would forward our information to the tenants. He claimed that we were the first on the list and that they were planning to let us see the house the following Monday. Great! We kept looking around but we both figured that we would be taking that house. It was very close to base, big house, lots of room--pretty much just what we were looking for.

Sunday rolls around and we still haven't heard from the tenants. We e-mail the landlord and ask if we should go ahead with the time he had told us for the next day or what? He tells us that the tenants are very busy right now and that we should just wait for them to have the time to let us see the house. It could be awhile.

Um...really? They don't move out of the house for another six weeks. They can't take 20 minutes out of their day to show us around the house and hand us a lease agreement? We've PCS'd from Germany before so we know how it is--and I'm telling you, they aren't that busy.

It was at about that point that we started to sour on this house. (Well, on the landlord anyway. It's not the house's fault it has a &%*$& owner.) We didn't cut things off with him but we did start to look a little harder for a house. The very next day he e-mails us again: Oh, hey. My bad. Someone else called before your initial call and left a message on the voicemail. It was only fair to show them first since they called first. The tenants showed them the house already and they took it. (I might point out that our initial call was also a voicemail. I guess he didn't listen to them all the first night? What-freakin'-ever.)

Question: Does that strike anyone else as a jerk move? Because I really think poorly of him over the way that he dealt with this situation--if that is indeed what happened, which I totally doubt. I'm pretty sure that what he's saying really translates to one of two things: either someone else just showed up and knocked on the door and the tenants decided to just get it over with OR someone called after us and offered the landlord extra money if he bumped them to the top. Is that jaded thinking? Sorry. It's been a little frustrating having none of our calls returned, realtors who are RUDE and just hang up on you, and just dealing with the overall lack of housing of the type that we're looking for. It's hard to maintain that eternally optimistic glow under the circumstances--especially since I'm not an optimist to begin with! Ha!

We did see a house last week (like, we saw the actual inside of it!) and it looks like we are going to get this one. We think. We hope. Family and friends think we're moving into a different house (Surprise! We're not!) but at the very last minute we decided that it wasn't a good fit for our family. We still have about six weeks before we have to move and we decided that we didn't want to settle for an 'okay' house when we still had more time to look. I didn't update my personal FB page about that because, quite frankly, I had been whining about the house-hunting situation for awhile and figured that they all needed a break!

So yeah. To recap: house hunting in Germany sucks. And now you know.

We're on a Roll!

Sorry for two negative posts in a row. I'm a little behind in my "scheduled posts" so you are getting in-real-time junk right now.

One of my least favorite activities in the world is going to the doctor. (The one exception to that would be OB appointments involving ultrasounds. Those were always a lot of fun.) I put off going to the doctor for as long as possible--sometimes much longer than I should. The point of this being that it takes a big scare or a really freakish symptom to make me set up an appointment. I might be something of a hypochondriac, but I'm a hypochondriac only in the privacy of my own home.

Back in November I hurt my knee while running on our treadmill. At the time it really felt as though it was a tendon or ligament problem. The pain was pretty gnarly when I put weight on it or moved it but became pretty tolerable under the combination of basic pain relievers and immobility. I decided that it just needed to rest for a bit and then would be fine. So that's the plan I went with. Ever since then, however, I have developed a slightly strange symptom. Every time I get on the treadmill I end up with a dull ache-y pain around my kneecap and my calf swells up. It's the swelling that freaked me out. My calf on that side swells up an inch or more--I noticed it initially because my right calf was straining against my jeans while my left was just normal. You can tell just by looking at it. If you do an internet search for "calf swelling" you will probably understand why I bit the bullet and made myself an appointment.

I wasn't going in there looking for a cure to this problem. I just wanted to make sure the swelling wasn't an indication of some really nasty problem. I was also hoping for some tips on how to keep my self-injuries to a minimum, but I know that this sort of thing is common when one is overweight and trying to exercise. I might be fat but I'm not stupid.

The doctor was incredibly short with me. She did not introduce herself or say anything about the doctor who was shadowing her for the day. (The shadowing doctor managed to explain her presence to me when it became apparent that the "main" one wasn't going to do it.) Even though I stressed that I really just wanted to know whether or not to be concerned about the swelling, she was uber-focused on the knee pain--which is practically non-existent at this point. I can tell you with absolute certainty that she thought I was ridiculous for coming in for something that I could control with over the counter pain meds. Her tone was condescending and she did everything short of rolling her eyes at me.

Her brilliant tip for how to keep my self-injuries to a minimum? Lose weight, of course.

I really want to rant and rave here, but I'm going to try not to. (I've already held back considerably in what I've said about the doctor. Let's just say that I'm not a big fan and leave it at that.) Right now I am stuck in this vicious cycle. I can only get to a certain point with my weight loss through diet. My metabolism alone isn't getting the job done; I need to exercise! However, every time I start exercising I hurt my knee because of my weight. In other words, in order to exercise without hurting myself I need to lose weight but I need to exercise in order to lose the weight.

See what I mean? Vicious. Cycle.

It's not that I'm surprised at the outcome of this appointment. I'm just frustrated. I'm frustrated with the medical system and with myself. This whole situation sucks. I'm going to be spending the next few days trying to come up with a good game plan.

Anyone else have a good whine or feel like venting? What's frustrating you today?

Ranting and Raving

Remember back when I said that finance had our money all correct and fixed? Remember how shocked and thrilled I was? Yeah.

A few days after I wrote that post, finance suddenly realized that our COLA hadn't stopped on time. (I still don't understand how that was the case because I saw our bank account but whatever. Jason and some finance guy went over it and that's the final call.) Starting at the beginning of November, Jason's pay was low due to this mix up. I highly recommend having a pay issue right after a move. It's very fun. If you can manage, make sure it's right before the holidays too. That's a freakin' blast. Of course, it's not worth throwing a fit over because it happens all the stinkin' time to practically everybody when they move, especially when said move involves flying over an ocean. Right? (So why am I? Keep reading. It will become clear.)

So we dealt. And really, it wasn't like it was the end of the world. Bills were paid and everybody was fed so we're still doing very well, especially when we looked around us and considered the economy. Christmas was a little tight this year but the kids have too much crap anyway so that was almost a blessing. (I'm really not kidding there. I see more small Christmases in our future.) Yeah, we were sweating a little at the end of every paycheck (something that we haven't had to do in a long, long time) but we had enough and things were going to be fixed as soon as Jason's pay straightened out.

At the end of November, a vehicle in front of Jason kicked a rock into the windshield of the truck. The small chink in the glass swiftly turned into a crack that goes all the way across. Insurance covers it, but there is a deductible. We put off fixing it until the beginning of January. Then we got our gas bill. (Sigh.)

Sometime in the middle of January a vehicle in front of us kicked a rock into the windshield of the van. The small chink in the glass has crept about halfway up the glass. Another deductible to deal with but now we're dealing with birthdays. So we put it off until after the 1 Feb paycheck.

(Can I add here that we have never, in 15+ years, had a cracked windshield. Two within two months?! Good grief.)

Jason got a notice at work that week stating that he had an unpaid balance on his government card. WTH?! No way. We checked that sucker after his travel voucher was paid to make sure there was a zero balance. And there was! We were good. Apparently something went through very late (very, very late) and we didn't get the bill. (You know how they don't send you a bill when there's no balance on that thing? Yeah, that might be a stupid idea on their part. We weren't expecting a bill so when none came...well, everything was as it should be.) (And, oh! We got the late notice in the mail two days ago--and the bills for November and December today. Good times.)

Now Jason's truck is making the most God-awful noise on the planet. There are a bunch of things it could be, ranging in cost anywhere between $300 to $6500 and most of them require not driving it until it's fixed. (Good-bye tax return and all of the fun things you were going to represent! And good-bye freedom for mom as we're down to one vehicle until said fixing happens.) Oh! And, of course, we have to take it to the mechanic and pay $100 just to have him tell us what is wrong with it.

Oh, people. Really? I'm so freakin' tired.

Let this be a lesson to those of you who are getting ready to move. Save, save, save. We had a huge nest egg for this move and we still got bit in the butt. You can never have too much. That's all I'm saying.

We're still fine but it's frustrating to be at this "treading water" place. It's been a good long while since we had to do that and I hate it! I have projects I want to start and would like to replenish the savings. None of that can happen until these little waves quit hitting us.

Also? I'll try to rant with less parenthesis next time. Sorry.

Military readers: How on earth does one make money on a move? I've heard of this phenomenon but have never seen it in action. Nobody I know in real life can do it either--with the exception of the join spouse couples. Educate me, oh wise ones! I'm freakin' clueless. Civilian readers: How on earth do you finance a move? So much of this one came out of pocket but we didn't pay for anywhere near most of it. I can't imagine having to foot the whole bill.

could someone please hold my hair back for me?

So Christmas was...kind of depressing. Is it too soon to admit that? I've been trying to hold back until everyone got all their holiday cheer expressed. I want to be that drunk girl who puked in the bushes after the party was over, not the one that puked in the punch bowl. Know what I mean? (Okay, terrible analogy. I admit it.)

Here's the thing: I really thought that I was going to be over-the-moon happy this Christmas. We're back in the states! Malls and Target and Christmas lights and all those awesome cartoon Christmas specials that we haven't seen for seven years--things should be great, right? Right?

So how come it wasn't?

Putting up our decorations was difficult because I know where they all go...and where they all go is in a townhome nearly 6000 miles away. I had the worst time getting the sugar cookie dough to cooperate...I think it was too hot here. I didn't want to bake because we don't know enough people to give stuff out to. It was just one thing after another. I tried to stay ahead of all these feelings but I have to admit, I just wasn't feeling Christmas this year.

Over the course of the month, I kept thinking about what we "normally" do this time of year and guess what? A good 75 percent of those things are specific to where we've spent the past seven years; pictures with Santa at the Community Center, Christmas markets, driving out to Frank's basket factory to see the newest Christmas ornaments, fighting the crowds at the BX: those are the things I am used to. I'm not exactly homesick, but I'm having symptoms. Does that make sense?

I'm also dealing with some family-oriented feelings this year and the holidays just amplified all the things that aren't. It should make it easier knowing that all those things that aren't are also all the things that have never been, but it's not right now. I'm trying to remember that you can't be angry with people for being who they are; sometimes they just can't help it. It's hard though. There is a part of me that must have glorified how things would be when we got back to the states...and the reality is that things just aren't that way. And I should have known better, even on a subconscious level.

So yeah. Christmas = blah here. I'm putting on as much front as I can for the kids, but I'm really looking forward to the holidays being over this year. Am I the only one?