Moving Company update.....

Ok so here we are a month later since the claim was filed......

I found out today that the company has no intention at all of coming to see the broken items that we were told had to be kept. We have been storing them in a rental unit at 100.00 per month for 2 months....so now we have lost 200.00.

We would not have found this out had we not contacted them as they had no intention of letting us know either. Nice, very nice.

So now not only are we out the cost of the building, but we have  to now come up with a way to dispose of said items in storage by the first to avoid paying another month of rent on it....ugh.

This whole move has been incredibly ridiculous to say the least.

But there you go for those of you following the claims process for your own future PCS moves.....

broken....

Do you ever just feel broken? Or like maybe you just want to disappear or maybe hide under the covers and never come out until things are the way you want them to be, whether it be waiting on a bad haircut to grow out or acne to clear up or whatever is bothering you whatever is making you feel like you are just not enough that day?

I will not lie, I am a huge walking contradiction. I will be the first to tell you that everyone is beautiful simply because beauty comes from the inside and not from the outside. But for some reason I just can not see the same in myself. Ever, no matter how hard I try. (and please do not begin to compliment me as I am not fishing for that) In my rational brain I know that I am not a hideously disgusting creature on the level of Gollum....but my irrational brain takes over and drives me to pick out every ridiculous flaw in my figure or face...."You have a lump there or wow your rear is saggin today, or holy crap what have you done to your hair?" and I have found that my internal voice is cruel and merciless and it screams louder and louder at me some days......

I have tried everything in my own power to shut them up , i worked out till it became a problem,all in a vain attempt to firm the parts I deemed saggy. My OCD extends to every aspect of my life....I am always an all or nothing person, sadly. Go big or go home may not be my best motto anymore....hiding in my house on bad hair days is just silly and I made way to big a deal out of my acne for years.......I guess I never felt the inside was good enough and worried too much about the outside.

But I have just realised in the last few weeks the worst thing I have ever let the voices do to me. And it has harmed me the most and may be the biggest battle I ever fight with myself and it turns out I am one tough person to beat (But at the same time , to quote a friend, it's hard to decide who to root for). All those times I begged to disappear and to just no longer exist or to simply be invisible, I guess my subconscious was listening. I already had an issue with food bothering my stomach. Something Docs have been trying to figure out for years.....but in times of stress or pain, my brain would just shut down all cues for hunger or the need to eat. To the point that I now feel I may have a full blown eating disorder.

Wow...... you just do not know how hard that was to type much less how hard or humiliating it was to say to my Dr. or my friends and Hubby, to admit that I had allowed my mind to do something so crazy to my own body was just so embarrassing. Especially knowing this is the only body I will ever get........

My Hubby and some friends say that all i need to do is just eat a lil more and I will be fine....but I can not tell them how messed up my mind has become. That rationally I can look at a picture of myself or at myself in the mirror without clothes and see that I have become too thin and the plan seems so easy to follow........but then later when showering or dressing or something where the mirror isn't screaming at me, I look down at myself and see cellulite in places it shouldn't be or fat where I feel it shouldn't be. So I now know I must be sick. And I need help. Because who in their right mind could feel fat just as the size zero pants fall off ? Clearly I have lost it.

But please don't freak. I am actually seeking help as I type. I have begun seeing the Dr. I will start seeing a nutritionist and therapist as soon as they can fit me in and my PCM is awesome! And seems like she really wants to help me.

I am not really sure why I am even typing this out, other than getting this out makes me feel better. And maybe with prayer and these new dr's I can and will get through this. In one piece. On one hand I feel so weak and defeated already......but on the other I really think I can do this. And luckily I have good support in place and a friend who has been there. But I will not lie, the thought of purposely gaining weight is so scary. And against everything women are raised to believe they should do. But I want to look pretty and healthy again. Mostly healthy. And I want to be strong again.

I realise now I am more than my looks. I am learning to be a whole person. Not just a pretty girl, or Mom, or wife. I am learning to be Mandie. I am going after my dreams. And I want to be healthy enough to do it.



So please pray for me. I have realised I can not do this alone......

Finally......

I am finally unpacked. Every last ridiculous box is opened and gone through and put into its proper place. I am personally responsible for any hikes in Ikea stock and at Home Depot (your welcome if these are in your portfolio).

And for some reason it always feels a lil like I am in the witness relocation program every time we move, because everything is always so different. It seems we always end up with different furniture and different things, etc. And then I always then feel the need to change how I look as well, so of course I ran out and cut my hair all off and dyed it dark brown.

 So now when I look in the mirror it feels weird and then when i come home it feels weird, lol. It always takes so much getting used to.

But I have pics of the new house for those who want to see =) I won't show them all so as not to bore anyone....but here you go. Otherwise ignore my blatant bragging and scroll down.....

It is beyond cute and in the cutest lil neighborhood!

I repainted the kitchen and even put down a new renter friendly temp floor (feel free to ask me how:)

fully decorated

Living and dining room....please ignore the purse, lol

The Living room

My mom will be proud, I finally hung a clock....but who could resist Rainbow Brite?

My bedroom, opted for a change with do it yourself purple nightstands, mine is a lil girly and his a lil more masculine, the lamp shades are actually a really pretty green background with white leaf pattern (I pulled a lot of green in this time for the hubs, it is in the curtains and lampshades)

I just had to have this , it was just too much fun to pass up!

It stores shoes and has my dream travel bucket list on it....i decided to take a new trunk and make it look a lil more traveled and vintagey with vintage travel labels reminiscent of a more glamorous age of travel =)

My hubby gave me my own dressing area worthy of an old Hollywood movie star :)

I even get my own girly bathroom and walk in closet, what more could a girl want?

The boy side of the room

The Girl side

Our powder room had travel themed wall paper , so where better to place all of our travel souvenirs? and Pictures?

and anyone who knows me knows I loveeeee my pics of family and friends and need to have them close, so of course there is the wall of fame :)

and last but not least the toy room in the basement =)

And now things have finally settled down here a bit and it is finally feeling like home (I actually started this particular blog a few weeks ago) it still feels weird. I feel weird. I keep hoping I will find my groove and get over the loss of my hair. Or at least learn to style it without it taking a frakking hour everytime.....but this week I am in a funk. 

But the move and the stress took their toll on me. It brought up issues and personal demons I thought I had been over and gotten past.....luckily though I am in the process of looking for new dr's (although so far the 2 I have seen have not been impressive, here is hoping number 3 can help) And hopefully my son can get the help he needs as well. So we will see....but some days are such a struggle for me to maintain it all together.

And I did get to visit Savannah last week which was wonderful, but now I miss certain people and things even more than I did before.....I even got to sing my favorite song in the choir! (a big thank you to Nathan!)

Oh and another update on the movers reimbursing us. We are now almost 2 months out and are still waiting on them to come and finish taking pictures of the damaged goods :( ......oy. So I plan on annoying the daylights out of them come tomorrow morning.

But okie dokie.....i will finally shut up for now, lol.  Muah! <3 you all!

Update.....

So just a quick update on the whole claims process (by the way we have already been storing the broken stuff for almost 2 months) . They called , finally, to schedule the time to come out and take pictures of the broken things. Hubby let them know in advance the items were in 2 separate locations and was told it would not be an issue.

So he played phone tag for 2 days to get the appointment scheduled. They settled on 7-10 am on a Friday morning. The man showed up barely looked at broken items and took a few pics, did not want to see my pictures at all. Then when asked if he would then be going to the storage facility for the rest of the pictures he said that he would not, that we would need to reschedule another appointment for that. Which infuriated me as it took us 3 weeks to get them out the 1st time, what if it takes another 3 weeks >.< that will be another month at 100.00 I have to pay to store broken crap! Plus now we are back to playing phone tag for an appointment at all.......

So there you have it. The joys of trying to get reimbursed for your damaged household goods when you let the army move your things. Which of course is what they all recommend so that you are protected in the event something like this happens........(face palm)

The countdown begins....

Ok so the paperwork is in.....we finally managed to get into the impenetrable website to file the claim on the damaged furniture.

Hopefully it was filed correctly since the movers very ninja like took the master copy of the damaged items they had had me write with them....so we shall see. But I thought I would document just how long it took for reimbursement so that any newbies could see what this is all like from start to finish.

So here we are at day one. We have at least been notified the claim was received. I will update as soon as we hear something :o)

Wish us luck.....
Oh and please say a prayer for me, my clumsy butt tripped out the back door last night and sprained my ankle pretty badly. So now imagine a 4 story house and me on crutches , which by the way bruise your armpits......and of course I had to go to the ER with hairy legs to boot.....

Oh the Joys of an Army Move

Ok, so once again it has been a while, but you try blogging from a lil tiny cell phone since it took Verizon over a month to get my internet installed. >.< And that is just the tip of the iceberg with this particular PCS (or in layman's terms army move). This one has been, by far the most trying both on my nerves and marriage as well as my family.

I was right to be worried about my belongings they just simply tossed into the moving truck during Hurricane Irene in Savannah, as most of it came off the truck here in lil tiny pieces. I have the pics to prove it, lol. Not to mention the brand new sleeper sofa and love seat (the first nice pieces of furniture we have ever bought in our 10 years of being in the army) were still wet when they unwrapped them. So who knows what sort of mold is growing in the cushions now. And they tore the cushions and sides.  So now I am paying out of pocket for a storage building to House all of these broken things , since you are not allowed to get rid of them until the claim adjusters see them all.

Well we thought ok, this means the army will have to buy us new things. Well oh my, how things have changed since our last move as far as the process is concerned to file a claim to get reimbursement. You used to be able to file an immediate claim with the delivering company for the items they saw were broken and then a separate claim later for broken items you unpacked out of your boxes. You can not do that now. It must all be one claim filed to a website that we could not even access. Brilliant, huh. If you ask me, it seems as though the Military has done this on purpose so as to get out of paying for your stuff their movers break....yet if you move your own things they do not reimburse enough to cover the move, hmmmmmm. So you're over a barrel metaphorically speaking. Not to mention the movers had me write down all of the broken items on a sheet, only to very sneakily take that sheet with them when they left, thus leaving me to try and decipher the hieroglyphics on the packing sheets to figure out item numbers, etc needed to file said claim. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Plus since my property changed hands through 3 different companies there is going to be a fight over who has to pay. That should be fun and long drawn out, thus extending the amount of time i have to pay for that expansive stotage unit.....good times all the way around people.

(Hubby's dresser, or was at one point)

(my dresser was so broken they were afraid to unwrap it all the way for fear they would get injured moving it, they would not even take it in the house)

(was a cute pink dresser, that is of course discontinued now)

(brand new dvd cabinet)

(nice huh)

(the dark spots are where it is still wet....and they were all over both pieces)

(this does not even include the pics of the little things they did, like packing fragile things at the bottom of boxes and then placing heavy items on top , thus crushing or destroying them, this was just the furniture, awesome isn't it)

I am so ready to go on a homicidal rampage that lands me on CNN it is not funny. The only thing holding me back is I need my hair done so that I would at least look pretty in my mugshots......because I so do not want one of those Nick Nolte or Lindsay Lohan type shots making the news.

Unpacking has been impossible up until this point which is driving me nuts since we had no furniture to put things in, and I am one of those that usually knocks this out in 4 days tops.....so the chaos is more than my meds can handle for sure....so my poor Hubby has had to see my constant meltdowns which are driving him to the point of wanting a divorce I am sure. It has been awful. No other way to describe it. Poor guy.

Plus just finding a house up here was a lot harder than we had anticipated it would be, and so was getting my son enrolled in school. So double Grrrrrrrrrrr.

I have tried to stay positive, but frankly I feel I am hanging off a cliff by the end of a shredding rope about to fall and I am not even sure I do not want to.

There has been some good things though, so do not let it seem like I am forgetting all of the blessings in my life, we did finally find a lovely , yet insanely quirky house. But it is well below what the army is giving us for housing, so Yay for that. And we still have our good friends the Queen's here, who have welcomed us like family and have allowed us into their home for meals and internet usage, not to mention that Windy has allowed us to take dance classes. Which dancing much like singing (in that I am not very good at either) calms me and makes me feel alive.

Moving is so hard as it is, without all of this added stress happening to us too, it is beyond frustrating. I miss all of my Savannah friends so , so much. And missing all of the lovely things going on out by my old house this time of year only makes me want to cry more. T.T

This move is costing us so much money and I have no idea when i will see any of it back.....Hubby's job also cost us money as they were supposed to supply vouchers to cover his transportation to work when we arrived, but of course for the first few weeks that office was closed and we had to cover it (and of course they do not reimburse, gotta love the army) and then the new furniture and just your basic moving things, and we are still fighting with the previous landlord to secure the rest of our deposit simply because I am sure she is the devil reincarnated.....

But I guess I will end my rant for now.....thanks for letting me get it all out as this keeps me from unleashing on any undeserving parties, i.e. my Hubby,kids or the mailman.  LOL.

And hey if I turn up on CNN now you will know why.....but I promise to avoid the pawn shops and gun stores for at least another few weeks.....and then there is the mandatory waiting periods anyways.

Moving......again

It is that time again....the time most Army wives either LOVE or absolutely HATE. I HATE IT! With a passion. I think now part of it is because of the Aspergers (it makes it very hard on me to deal with change) and part of it is because, by the time it is time to go , which usually for us is about every 2 years,  I have just settled in and made friends and a life. And then BLAM-O , Uncle Sam says it is time to go ....again.

Just the process of watching strangers touching my things and putting it into boxes and then not knowing where it is going to be , kills me. I may not have fabulous or expensive stuff not it is my stuff. You know. Hence the panic attacks that begin weeks in advance just thinking about these events......and then the day of the actual loading turned out to be our turn with the lovely Hurricane Irene. I of course was completely all alone at the house with the movers (and strangers make me nervous) and just as they are loading my Granny's antiques onto the truck the bottom fell out and we began to get a downpour of sideways rain....so my furniture was getting wet, the boxes on the porch were getting wet, etc.  Needless to say the movers began to just throw my things onto the truck or into my house.....which made me really freak. And I was all ALONE! Oy, the joys of being an Army Wife......they then decided to leave and come back another day as they could not risk getting flooded onto the island overnight. Which of course pushed back our clear out date with the landlord from hell. Good times all around. So I of course put my big girl panties on, sat at the table took my meds and opened the new bottle of wine. And then allowed myself to bawl like a baby for 10 min. Then I said to hell with it all and got to cleaning what could be cleaned and moved on with life.

But thank you Baby Jesus for wonderful friends! They took us in that night (well basically forced us in, as I was going to ride it out on Tybee) and we all went bowling and had a fabulous night......till I made one of my famous cartoon like falls , which of course ended with me and Beks hangin at the ER all night long and me with a nasty concussion....but I did get up and walk it off for the sake of the kids and not ruining their night. My game suffered a lil, but all in all it was a blast. And you know I love to be the center of attention.....especially if I can make someone laugh doing it.

I made some amazing friends in Savannah and I will miss them more than words can ever say. They were my family when my Hubby deployed and when my family members were dying.....or when I needed someone to whine to or when I needed somewhere to go and clean to relieve stress. They gave me hugs and support and shook me out of my shell. They loved me inspite of me being me. There was nothing they would not do for me and vice versa.  I think now that I am gone, God put me there because he knew that I would need all of that while Brandon was gone and that I would need to be close to my family during such a painful year. And while I am so sad to see it end.....I can truly smile because it happened and I know that those friends I made are the kind that are more like family or or that one high school photo your Mom pulls out all the time...you will never be able to get rid of them....but why would I ever want to. In fact I fully intend to drive back and kidnap them if they do not visit really soon.....just saying. (Might want to warn your hubby's that their is a crazy wild woman who may steal you from your beds one night......duh duh duhhhhhhhhh, lol) At the very least I plan to facebook stalk you all. I hope you all know just what you mean to me....and oh how I will miss singing in the choir. Nathan and the FBCI choir literally helped me find a voice and gave me courage to sing onstage.....Sundays will not be the same without you all.

The drive up to DC was not without it's own calamities...but it would not be us if it all worked out , now would it....lol. But the Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg was a perfectly timed just needed oasis in the middle of this craziness.....so if you ever get a chance go there. Best service ever and it was so much fun for all of us.

But we are now back in lovely DC....and literally within the 1st 10 min of being in the hotel i set the smoke alarm off (apparently 73 in VA is way colder than 73 in Tybee) by using the heater.....and house hunting has been pretty unsuccessful. But we did get the most amazing reception from our family/friends here in VA and my baby girl took her first ballet class today! And apparently she rocked at it, but the teacher is her Godmother and maybe a lil biased, lol. But she looked gorgeous doing it so I am one happy Momma! And Indiana begins break dancing classes on Thursday :)  and i too get to take classes, yippee so while a lot of things make me want to crawl under the itchy uncomfy hotel bedding and hide till hell freezes over once again great friends know just how to pull me out and make me function.

So now please just pray we find a house asap! And a church looking for a new choir member..... I think prayers are all that has gotten us through these last few weeks so THANK YOU! Hugs and kisses to you all. And I miss you .

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