Second Impressions

Okay, so obviously no house is perfect, and you know we had to have a complaint sooner or later, right?

So far, we're still VERY happy with our new house overall. A couple of minor things have come up though.

1) My wife says we need to install one of those library ladders in the kitchen that will roll back and forth along the cupboards. The first floor ceilings in the house are pretty tall, and the cabinets are so tall my wife can't reach past like the second shelf up. Methinks the step stool is going to become a permanent feature of our kitchen.

2) The shower nozzle in the master bathroom made a racket that sounded like a jet engine taking off, and had the water pressure of water dripping off an icicle in the sunlight. (I replaced the shower nozzle and it at least doesn't make the noise now, but the water pressure isn't much improved).

The boys continue to be super helpful in our settling in by building forts out of boxes. Now they've upgraded to cutting holes in the boxes for windows and doors.

The latest fort.

By the way, I love it when my kids decide to play "opposite day" and don't warn me about it in advance. For example, I walked into the kitchen where the boys were eating their lunch from Wendy's. ES took a bite of his hamburger and said, "YUCK!" and YB took a bite of his frosty and said, "Ahhhh! HOT!" I was SO confused for a second. I mean, although they were saying unhappy things, they were both wearing grins like a Cheshire Cat. Then ES said, "It's opposite day, Daddy." Ahhhhh! [Light goes off over head.]

More PCS Move Lessons Learned

I offer my humble apologies to anyone who thought I was proclaiming myself the salty-experienced know-it-all PCS mover in my previous posts offering moving pointers.

Clearly I am not.

(No comments about the movers packing the ribbons for my uniform are necessary here, okay?)

Each time we go through a PCS move, I add more things to my "Note to Self" list to remember for the next time. A couple of moves ago, I made a Note to Self that I needed to pack the electric drill somewhere easy to find on the other end of the move, just like the silverware and the bed sheets and the towels. When you arrive at your new house, inevitably you want to hang hooks and stuff on the walls to start putting things in their place.

Okay, so we brought the drill in an easy to find location. Check. BZ.

Only one problem...

It's a cordless drill.

It uses batteries.

The batteries are D.E.A.D.

The battery CHARGER iiiiiissssss... somewhere in a box.

Yep, it was in there somewhere.

Allow me a brief moment here to vent on the box-labeling talents of moving company employees. Do they send these guys to a special box labeling school? For example, we had a box labeled "toiletries" that was full of clothes. We have several boxes that have NO label AT ALL.

Daydream Tangent: Flash to image of Bob Barker, microphone in hand, "Well, Kevin would you like to keep your lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni, or would you like to open the box labeled "electronics," the box labeled "kitchen," or the MYSTERY UNLABELED BOX???"

Getting back to the story at hand...

The last time I saw the battery charger for the drill, it was sitting on top of my tool bench. I opened and unpacked EVERY box that said anything like "Garage" and/or "Tools" and found EVERYTHING that went in my tool bench EXCEPT the battery charger for the drill. So I kept unpacking every box in the garage.

Of course, in the LAST box I unpacked, tucked in between some totally unrelated gardening stuff that was somewhere else in the garage, I found...

Ta-da!!!

Note to Self: Next time, pack the drill and the drill battery charger and LABEL the box yourself. OR! Buy a regular drill with a cord that plugs into the wall.

My next impossible mission is to find the IRON so I can iron my uniform before going to work on Monday. This one's really going to be tough. We kept the iron hanging in a rack on the back of the door to the storage room under the stairs.


What do you think? Should I unpack the boxes labeled "Family Room" or "Dining Room" or maybe try a mystery unlabeled box or two?

Wish me luck.


Next, to be filed under the category of "Things That Don't Do Well in Moves" right after pressed-wood furniture:

#1) Desk chair floor mats. This one isn't new. Each time we move, they destroy the desk chair floor mats that our office chairs roll around on. This time though, the mover guy swore up and down that I just needed to leave it out on the driveway in the sunlight and the sun would heat it up and flatten it out.
Tried it. Nnnnnope! No change. It's still a mangled gnarly mess that's going on the claim form and going in the trash.

#2) This is a new one. Noodles.

Yeah, the movers bent them in half and stuffed them in a box. They don't appear to be resuming their previous shape either. Unlike the floor mat though, I don't think the noodles have really lost their functionality. Their main purpose is to FLOAT, and that I'm sure they'll do. The floor mats are totally useless.

Ahhhh, the joys of moving.

Keep in mind, in the grand scheme of things, these are very minor issues. In spite of my gripes, this has been a very good move for us overall.