{"id":484,"date":"2010-11-22T05:03:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T05:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/11\/almost-homeless.html"},"modified":"2010-11-22T05:03:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-22T05:03:00","slug":"almost-homeless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2010\/11\/almost-homeless.html","title":{"rendered":"Almost Homeless…."},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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?”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Finally, unless it was filled up, we’d have had to use Offutt AFB’s lodging<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Enjoy some pictures from our packing up…and our life in an empty house:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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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!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Those who were packing our boxes did a nice job stacking them neatly so we could still maneuver around.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The dining room.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The furniture pads helped protect the larger items while crammed into the truck.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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This is the fridge getting loaded up onto the truck.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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The fridge coming down the stairs out of the kitchen.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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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.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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Howie’s old hat at this — this will be his 4th move in 10 years!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
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This is from this morning.  My boys have a “Breakfast with Spongebob” tradition on the weekends.  Today was no exception.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
From 2010 11 11 PCS2010<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[97,49,50],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-7O","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3155,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-memories.html","url_meta":{"origin":484,"position":0},"title":"Howie Memories: It’s Those Little Things","date":"23 April 14","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been 5 days, and I'm pleased to report that we can now write and talk about Howie without bursting into tears. But it sure was a tough 5 days...for Jacob, it was the worst first thing in the morning, when he usually kisses Howie good morning, and at bedtime,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"death\"","img":{"alt_text":"June 2013, at Howie's last family reunion in Lancaster. Jacob loved him so much.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/DSC_2927-1024x677.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":290,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/01\/howie-my-forgotten-baby.html","url_meta":{"origin":484,"position":1},"title":"Howie, My Forgotten Baby","date":"04 January 09","format":false,"excerpt":"I just realized that I never blogged about Dave's and my first baby, Howie.From HowieThe day we got him, he had to wear the leash for about 24 hours straight and the crate was his home for the first 18 months or so.Or Howard.Or Howie-the-Wonder-Dog.From HowieHowie is our 8 1\/2\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"family\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":615,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/07\/howie-our-photographic-challenge.html","url_meta":{"origin":484,"position":2},"title":"Howie – Our Photographic Challenge!","date":"16 July 11","format":false,"excerpt":"Photo by Fotomom.While Maryann AKA Fotomom was here visiting last week she took a really sweet picture of Howie in our kitchen. \u00a0After she got home this week, she took some time to dress up the picture and wrote a lovely blog post about him and how she made the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fotomom.smugmug.com\/Daily-Photos\/My-Best-Daily-Shots\/i-QzGZBj7\/0\/S\/IMG0734AutoContrastTexture3Cro-S.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":330,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/03\/howie.html","url_meta":{"origin":484,"position":3},"title":"Howie","date":"04 March 09","format":false,"excerpt":"So many of you know and love our Howie-the-Wonderdog.From HowieFrom HowieHowie apparently blew out his knee while running around in our backyard on Tuesday night. We\u2019re guessing he was chasing squirrels, they are the bane to his existence! He was hit by a car while chasing a squirrel in 2002.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"deployment\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3148,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-2000-2014.html","url_meta":{"origin":484,"position":4},"title":"Howie the Wonder Dog: May 2000 – April 19, 2014","date":"21 April 14","format":false,"excerpt":"This past weekend was very sad for our family. We lost our beloved family dog, Howie. He had developed a liver tumor that grew incredibly quickly. We first discovered it in February while he was getting pre-dental blood work done. On Saturday morning, after 36-48 hours of not eating, he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"death\"","img":{"alt_text":"Howie lying in the snow, one of his favorite places to be. This was taken on April 13th. The last picture I took of him.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_9001.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3159,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2014\/04\/howie-slideshow.html","url_meta":{"origin":484,"position":5},"title":"Howie Slideshow","date":"28 April 14","format":false,"excerpt":"This is a work in progress, but I've been consolidating Howie photos from my Google photo albums into one location. For those photos that are already in Google, this has been quite simple. Select the group of photos, and select \"Copy into New Album\". However, I didn't start using Google\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"dog\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}