In the Home Stretch

23. November 2010 · Comments Off on In the Home Stretch · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I’m stealing this picture from Dave and his latest blog entry. Tonight we loaded up a U-Haul trailer with his model train layout. By leaving the legs up on the two parts of the layout, we have a plethora of space underneath that I found no problem filling with a couple dozen bankers boxes with assorted papers, liquids, and cleaning supplies.

It’s going to be VERY cold tonight, so I have held off on loading my violin or my worm bin, both of which won’t do well for too long when it’s <50F.

Tomorrow we will do the final packing while the boys are at school.  Dave checks out of the base, I will turn in the cable box and turn off the cable/Internet and then we’ll get the kids from school and hit the road.

This is our first serious cold-season move, so we’re working with very limited daylight right now.  I don’t want to do tag-team driving in the dark, so we’re trying to give ourselves enough time to get down to Overland Park, KS before dark (about 3 hours).

My next post will be from on the road!

From 2010 11 11 PCS2010

Almost Homeless….

22. November 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

So here I am, sitting in an empty house.  It took about 3 1/2 days, and it filled 2/3 of a 53′ trailer!  But it’s done, and we now are living with a minimum of stuff in our house.

Folks have been asking “Why aren’t you in the Transient Lodging (on base hotel, more or less)?” or “Why aren’t you staying with friends?”

Several reasons.  First of all, we enjoy our space.  We held on to sleeping bags, cots, air mattresses and camping chairs and are doing pretty well.  We kept our small TV, our Wii system, and laptop computers.  We still have our WiFi going (and will until 6 hours before we leave!), so I can still come to you from our empty house.

Secondly, we know Howie does much much better when the family is with him.  We could have kenneled him, but he doesn’t sleep well at the kennel, and he tends to not eat.  Better for Howie, for sure.

Finally, unless it was filled up, we’d have had to use Offutt AFB’s lodging, which we used on our way into this assignment in July 2008. They’re gracious enough to have a pet-friendly lodging room that we were able to get, but it was very small and very old. The 4 of us, plus Howie, weren’t too comfortable, so we decided to save the government some money and stay in the house until we vacate it on Tuesday.

So here we are in the house. I’m down to just odds and ends…we have all utilities set to turn off later this week in our current house, and our Florida house will have utilities coming on early next week.

Enjoy some pictures from our packing up…and our life in an empty house:

I ran an errand to Kohl’s to use some Kohl’s cash that would expire while we were on the road.  I came home and saw this ENORMOUS truck parked in front of the house.  I was tickled by the map of Florida painted on!
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
Those who were packing our boxes did a nice job stacking them neatly so we could still maneuver around.
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
The dining room.
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
The furniture pads helped protect the larger items while crammed into the truck.
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
This is the fridge getting loaded up onto the truck.
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
The packers were kind enough to leave two chairs for us until the very end.  That computer table wasn’t coming with us, we’re leaving it for the next tenants.
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
The fridge coming down the stairs out of the kitchen.
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
As one of Dave’s Facebook friends pointed it, seeing our stuff get loaded was like watching a game of “Tetris”.  That’s our fridge, washer and dryer across the bottom there.
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
Howie’s old hat at this — this will be his 4th move in 10 years!
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
This is from this morning.  My boys have a “Breakfast with Spongebob” tradition on the weekends.  Today was no exception.
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010

Packing Progress

16. November 2010 · Comments Off on Packing Progress · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

The movers are here — they’re packing up.  It’s a slow start, since it took some time to bring in all the packing materials.  One of the guys had just rolled in this morning from a delivery to Arkansas — so he’s nursing the cans of Rock Star while he packs.  So far they seem to be thorough.

I think the head packer is nervous about getting this done in time for the truck on Friday.  There are two guys here today, he’s asking for two more tomorrow.

The Do Not Pack room has been obviously marked.  But they aren’t on the top floor of the house quite yet.

From 2010 11 11 PCS2010

As for the Do Not Pack signs I had the boys cut out for me, you can see them in practice here:

From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010

Welcome to Omaha, Trader Joe’s!!

15. November 2010 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Okay, for me personally, it’s a day late and a dollar short…since we’re leaving in a week.

I’m a huge Trader Joe’s fan!  I can’t say exactly when I first went there.  I know it was about 10 years ago and it was either the one in Commack, NY with my in-laws, or else in Falls Church, VA with one of my childhood friends, Naomi.

If you aren’t in the know, then you deserve a little background.  Trader Joe’s is a grocery store chain, with most of their locations on the east and west coasts.  They are unique in that they market their own brands of many foods, many of which are very unusual.

Such as pad thai kits, curry sauces, and pasta.  Beer, wine and organic milk.  They’ll carry other brands too, but again, mostly on the unusual side.  It’s so much fun to shop there.  The prices are very reasonable, and you know you’re getting good food with minimal processing.  Their fruit and nut section is so much fun.  Their coffees are fair trade, many of them are organically grown.

About 6 months after we moved to Apex, NC, a Trader Joe’s opened up right up the road from our house.  I was so excited to make TJ’s our family’s local grocery store.  It was awesome!

Then we moved to Omaha, and were once again without TJ’s (although being near a commissary again helped).  I saw a page on Facebook called “Bring Trader Joe’s to Omaha” where several folks were trying to work with the company on bringing the store to the midwest.  I guess TJ’s need to put a distribution hub somewhere near here first.  Because of that page, I knew this past winter that TJ’s had taken a lease on a property in Western Omaha and on November 12th they had their grand opening.

A store in West Des Moines, IA had opened a week prior, and in 2 weeks a store will open in Lincoln, NE.

So here I am on November 13th, happy about there being a Trader Joe’s nearby.

From 2010 11 13 Trader Joe’s Omaha Grand Opening

And this is what greeted us when we walked in:

From 2010 11 13 Trader Joe’s Omaha Grand Opening

Yeah, it was crowded! Fortunately, we knew EXACTLY what we needed: coffee, pasta, nuts and wine. Large volumes of each.  We really enjoy the Charles Shaw wine and picked up TWO CASES of the stuff!  Plus Jacob’s favorite veggie ruffle pasta, an assortment of nuts for cooking and baking, and several large containers of their coffee.

So I have my fix, which will carry me for several months as I make my way back into a Trader Joe’s drought.

Back to packing!

Goodbye KNEBELLE12!

14. November 2010 · Comments Off on Goodbye KNEBELLE12! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Whether you knew of it as the APRS station DW3809 or as Wunderground Station KNEBELLE12, this afternoon we disassembled the weather station and will set it up in a couple weeks in Navarre, FL.  I’m in the process of deleting our Wunderground tags from this blog and our Vollmer Family homepage.

I hope you enjoyed this window to our world, especially in the winter when we could show off how much snow we got here.

Not sure what kind of webcam view we’ll have from our new house, we’ll see!

Operation DO NOT PACK

14. November 2010 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I actually blogged about this a little back in 2008.

Moving preparations continue. We are at T-3 days until the packers come. T-9 days until we leave the area.

We are starting to gather the items we don’t want the movers to pack. Some of the items are for our personal use for the week of homelessness. Clothing, towels, school-related items, paperwork, DVDs, a small TV, some lawn chairs. Many of the items are for security reasons: jewelry, photographs, my violin, our Wii system, insurance policies.

In North Carolina, it was easy to put the items in a room: Timmy was outgrowing his toddler bed, so sold it. We then moved Timmy’s stuff into Jacob’s room and the guest room we had. You can see the picture in the link above of how full it got.

It wasn’t so easy here. Our current “Do Not Pack” room has our full-sized guest bed disassembled and propped up it’s edge. It’s going into the living room just before the movers come. So far our room has the important paperwork, sleeping bags, air mattress, my violin, my worm bin, some cleaning supplies.

From 2010 11 11 PCS2010

When the packers arrive on Tuesday, the room will be closed off, with a giant blue masking tape “X” across the door.

There will be some other items that can’t necessarily go into that room that also won’t be packed. Dave’s train layout, Howie’s dog dish, the couch we’re trying to sell on Craig’s List. That’s where these will come in handy:

From 2010 11 11 PCS2010

I printed them out the other night — 4 “DO NOT PACK” statements to a sheet — and had the boys cut the strips for me. They had fun with this. I’ll probably let Jacob go around the house taping them in place on Monday.

The Vollmer PCS Binder (TM)

12. November 2010 · Comments Off on The Vollmer PCS Binder (TM) · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

T-10 Days and counting….

I was thinking about new things to blog about regarding this particular move and it was a friend from North Carolina (Hi Faith T.!) who inspired me about my next post: The Vollmer PCS Binder (TM).

So, I’m sure you’re wondering, “Major Mom, what, pray tell, IS The Vollmer PCS Binder (TM)?”

It’s how we keep sane! It’s how we have all the answers at our fingertips!

It starts your car! It butters your bread! It scrubs your toilets!

Okay…maybe not.

Here is the binder from when we arrived here in 2008.  We probably didn’t have to be so fancy with the cover…but it was fun to do.  I wish I had a picture of the one from 2005 with Mr. Wuf on it.

From 2010 11 11 PCS Binder

And here’s the binder now (ran out of color printer ink).

From 2010 11 11 PCS Binder

It’s a 2″ ring binder with those clear pockets on the cover so we could easily change out the cover for each move. We’ve been using this particular binder since our move between Ohio and Florida in 2002 and we just change out the cover each time.

What’s inside? We populate it with indexed pages and clear document protectors.

Our current divider tabs are for:

1.) Orders: Everyone who needs to know about your move will want a copy of your orders.

2.) Household Goods (the items the moving company will pick up): This is where you can store the Government Bills of Lading, the itemized lists of boxes packed and items loaded onto the moving truck, and claims forms.

3.) Do-It-Yourself-Move (the items we’re moving ourselves in our vehicles): In our case, we are renting a U-Haul trailer, so the paperwork related to that will be stored in here.  Also, you have to weigh your vehicles empty and full…we’ll keep the weight tickets in this section.

4.) Travel Documents: Passports (if we were traveling overseas) and hotel reservations for our stops en route.

5.) Lease/Utilities: This is where I keep verification documents related to turning off utilities at our current house, and verification of turning on utilities at our new house.

6.) School Documents: We have medical paperwork for the boys’ new school registration, as well as paperwork related to the boys’ new school.

And you simply fill the document protectors thusly:

From 2010 11 11 PCS Binder
From 2010 11 11 PCS Binder

If you’re a military family member, consider this tactic for keeping all the important documents in one place.  We’ve relied on it for 8 years now and it’s helped us out so much!
NOTE: I have to admit, with our iPhones, Dave and I don’t keep quite as much paperwork in this binder as we used to.  I have an e-mail folder called “PCS” and that’s where I’m dropping all of our utility confirmations and hotel reservations.  We can access this information from our iPhones even while on the road.

3 Times in 26 Months!

14. October 2010 · Comments Off on 3 Times in 26 Months! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,
Okay, let’s all sing along (to the tune of Gene Autry’s “Back in the Saddle Again”):
I’m back in the O.R. again
Out under anesthesia, which I dread….
Where doctors take their knives
On what remains of my G.I.
Back in the O.R. again

I’m writing this corny little song from the surgery waiting room at University of Nebraska Medical Center near downtown Omaha.  Dave is in the middle of a basic hernia repair. This is a pretty common procedure, and for the most part I’m feeling pretty confident that everything’s going to be all right.

It’s worth discussing that there’s something about Nebraska that’s been driving Dave into the operating room every 13 months. First, there was his emergency appendectomy about 3 weeks after we moved here in August 2008. Then, in September 2009, Dave’s gall bladder removal. Which apparently I didn’t write much about, I was in a blogging drought in late 2009. Don’t know why.  I just looked at my blog posts from August/September 2009 and there wasn’t much at all.

Anyway, here we are, back again, for Dave’s 3rd surgery in 26 months. All of these procedures are pretty routine, and Dave recovers pretty nicely. You can’t even see his laproscopy scars from the first two procedures anymore. This one is an open procedure, so he’ll have a no-kidding incision on his lower abdomen, but that’s okay.

Dave’s health has been an absolute nightmare since we moved to Nebraska. We aren’t sure if it’s the air here, that our house is haunted, or the stresses of Dave’s job. Or just that his gastro-intestinal system was due to take a nosedive right about when we moved here. We don’t know for sure. It’s certainly frustrating, especially for a guy who didn’t really have any big medical issues right through age 30! The occasional twisted ankle, bout of the flu, etc.

We’re glad he’s getting this taken care of quickly, but it still takes away from the normalcy of our lives. But our life is anything but normal, right? Dave’s convalescent leave will take him right up to his trip to Florida to pick out a new house, then my Reserve 2 week tour in early November, and then we go right into the movers coming to pack up our house for our move!

We aren’t sure if we’ll be contracting with the “Big Orange Truck” company again for this upcoming move.  We’ll probably know this week.  They did a good enough job between NC and NE.
From 2008 07 10 Moving Pictures

In the meantime, I’m in “get ‘er done” mode at the house, wrapping up some projects so I can start preparing for the move. This is stuff I can do while Dave’s recovering at home. First off, finishing the boys’ Halloween costumes, then finishing up my HAP crochet projects so I can put away my sewing/knitting/crochet supplies with my other craft supplies. Then, I can get started on the garden: I have to disassemble our compost bin and dig up Dave’s hops. We plan to take rhizomes with us and get them in the ground as soon as we get to FL. I have to do it before Nebraska’s first hard freeze.

I’m dreading tackling the battery removal again.  Ugh…

Let The Games Begin — Vollmer PCS* 2010

27. September 2010 · Comments Off on Let The Games Begin — Vollmer PCS* 2010 · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

*Glossary: PCS: Permanant Change of Station

Don’t fret, we still have a few weeks.

Eight, to be exact. Almost exact: 8 weeks from Tuesday the 28th.

Yep.

My brain has officially shifted into “Prepare to Move” mode.

This is becoming old hat for me. Let me set the stage here. I grew up a military brat. This means I’ve experienced all or part of military moves 3 times as a kid. I was pretty young during those moves, but my sister can tack on the two she experienced in high school while I was in college.

In fact, I blogged during our previous move from North Carolina to here in 2008.

Since I joined the Air Force and married Dave, I’ve experienced 6 moves, and this move from Nebraska to Florida will be move #7. So goes life in the military.

I’ve developed somewhat of a routine to prepare the family for these moves. Today I will cover the first two of those items in my routine, and I’ll be blogging about the next several actions in the next 4 weeks or so.  Stay tuned for fun stuff like househunting, choosing/registering the kids for their new school, removing batteries from toys, getting the “do not pack” room ready, and arranging to transfer utilities/change addresses.

1.) Clear out the extra stuff. This meant meticulously going through clothing, linens, books, toys, and kitchenwares and purging the extra stuff. Clothing and toys are pretty easy…if it’s outgrown, it’s going. Same for books. Nothing breaks my heart more than getting rid of books…but it’s horrible on the weight (we have weight limits on military moves). So I have to get rid of all but the most popular books, reference books and professional journals. For linens and kitchenwares, I ask “Did I need this while we’ve been living in this house?” If the answer is “No”, it goes. The new climate needs to be considered too…obviously we won’t be needing space heaters, winter boots, sleds, snow shovels or 20,000 pair of mittens in Florida, so those items go also.

While I’m cleaning out the extra stuff, I’m also keeping an eye on out of place items. When the packers come through the house, they’ll arrange things by what room they’re in. So if one of the boys’ toys ended up in the kitchen, it would get packed as a “kitchen item”. I have to go through the house and get all linens in one place, all toys in one place, books in their appropriate places, etc. Especially the out-of-season clothing I’ve been keeping in our basement. I have to put it all together in their respective closets.

2.) Consider how to get rid of this stuff. Lots of options here. Take it to Goodwill, take advantage of one of those charitable organization’s trucks that will take items right off your porch, bundle it into lots and sell it on eBay or Craigslist, or have a garage sale.

I chose the latter. This is the 3rd home in a row where we’ve been able to have a yard sale to help get rid of our stuff, and I HAVE to give props to the Eastern Nebraska yard/garage sale subculture. They’re the most polite and most respectful of start and end times.

A week ago we marked off our garage into areas (i.e., “clothing”, “toys/games”, “electronics”, etc.) and set out all of the items we planned to sell. This past Friday and Saturday, I had a yard sale. In my opinion, it was very successful. We made nearly $600 and I had spent about $80 in advertising/signage and other supplies. This blogger has a great article with tips on successful yard sales. I just now read this blogpost and I can say that I followed many of these tips.

Day 1 (Friday) had fabulous weather and I was graced with several dozen parents who were dropping off/picking up their kids at the school around the corner. The only earlybird I had was only about 5 minutes before my advertised start time, and I had a steady stream of customers from 6:55am till 3:45pm. I was able to put about 2/3 of my stuff outside on the lawn and in the driveway and it made things really easy to show. We made about $450 of our money on the first day.

Day 2 wasn’t nearly as good. The day was plagued with thunderstorms and a chilling wind. My first customer didn’t show up until 90 minutes after my advertised start time! I could only put waterproof stuff outside the garage, and stuff everything else into the garage to keep it dry:

From 2010 09 25 Garage Sale
From 2010 09 25 Garage Sale

Only made about $125 on the 2nd day. I had marked just about everything down to 1/2 price, which was a contributor to the low total.

Today, I converted the garage back to its intended purpose…a place to keep our vehicles. I packaged up the clothing (about 1/2 of what I started with), housewares and books and stuffed it all into the back of the truck. I was thrilled that everything I needed to go to Goodwill fit into the truck (with all the back seats down, of course!):

From 2010 09 25 Garage Sale
From 2010 09 25 Garage Sale

Tomorrow I’m off to the Goodwill shop right up the street to drop off the remains of my yard sale, then to the bank to deposit all the quarters and singles I’d accumulated over the weekend.

Until next time!!!

"We Hold the World Ransom For….FOUR…BILLION…STUDS…."

28. July 2009 · Comments Off on "We Hold the World Ransom For….FOUR…BILLION…STUDS…." · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

We have a Nintendo Wii. Some of you know that already…Dave got it as a graduation gift last summer when he finished his PhD. But of course the kids have all-but-taken-over it with some of their games.

From 2008 06 13 DavePhDDefenseWii

As a family we have a great time playing games on the Wii. We have a modest selection of games, most of which are family-friendly…the grownups can have just as much fun with Boom Blox as with Rayman’s Raving Rabbids.

Before our move from NC to NE last summer, after Jacob had a such a great time playing on his friend Daniel’s Wii last spring, we let Jacob take his own money and choose a game. He chose Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. Last summer we were outright worried about Jacob, he seemed obsessed with the game, and it wasn’t till he started school in August that his attention was diverted enough that we didn’t have to seek outside help. All he wanted to do was play Lego Star Wars, and he didn’t seem very happy with the world otherwise. I think it was his way of coping with the move. It wasn’t easy for him.

During the school year, the boys are only allowed to play Wii on weekends and holidays, and we’re usually pretty busy on weekends and holidays, so it wasn’t often at all. I think that helped Jacob come off this “I’m only happy when I play video games” phase.

Fast forward a year, and Jacob is still working on that same Lego Star Wars game! Unlike last summer, Jacob isn’t obsessed with it, but he still enjoys completing one or two tasks at a time that would eventually lead him to “finishing” the game: earning 160 gold bricks and all the cool bonuses. He doesn’t fuss anymore when we tell him he has to stop playing to do other things.

As of this morning, Jacob was at about 140 gold bricks, and was about 85% finished with the entire game. This has been about 300 hours worth of play time over the past year (the game tracks this for you, aren’t they kind?)

Timmy decided he wanted to start his own game. On occasion he’d play with Jacob, you can bring up a 2nd player to “help out” with tasks, and when Jacob was in a patient mood, he’d let Timmy participate. This week Timmy was delving into his own game, and he’s about 5% through with lots of help from the rest of the family. Timmy isn’t bad, he just misses some of the finer points.

Then the unthinkable happened this morning: Timmy started another game today and accidentally saved it over Jacob’s 85% worth of work! I was sitting right there next to him advising him NOT to save it in the game-save space that Jacob already occupied, and he did it anyway.

Jacob’s year of hard work is now gone. I checked online: once it’s gone, it’s gone.

Every single character: gone.
Every single spaceship: gone.
Every single minikit: gone.
Every single Power Brick: gone.
4 BILLION STUDS: gone.

(Did you realize that the video game tops out at 4 billion studs? You can’t get any more than that.)

All he had left to do were the Bounty Hunter missions and a couple of the bonuses.

While there’s part of me who is thinking “It’s only a game…”, to a 6 1/2 year old, this is going to be a HUGE deal! Jacob comes home from camp in an hour and I know there will be tears flowing, angry language and (if I’m not careful) punches flying. I’m dreading this like you wouldn’t believe —

I had called Dave in a panic, he and I discussed a punishment for Timmy — while it was indeed an accident, Timmy didn’t listen to Mommy when she was helping him. He’s been on a somewhat stubborn “I can do it myself” phase, and hopefully today he’s learned that sometimes he should listen to the grownups.

Timmy’s punishment: he won’t be playing Wii until Jacob has caught up. Jacob will not take anywhere near 300 hours to get back to where he was, thanks to cheat codes and completion guide websites that we can access to help us remember how to complete all the tasks. But it’ll probably still be several weeks.

If I had backed up the saved games, there might have been hope, but I honestly didn’t give thought to doing such a thing till now.

Lesson learned: for those of you with Nintendo Wiis, use that SD card slot on the console to SAVE YOUR WORK! You can back up your games. Just follow the instructions here, where this parent had a similar incident 1 1/2 years ago with Super Mario Galaxy.

If you’re wondering what that title means, just hit play here:

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