Getting closer!

The time for our departure is careening towards us! We were planning on leaving Friday, but the Jeep was one of a few vehicles that the shipping company over scheduled. We'll ship it Friday and leave Saturday. Our container was supposed to be picked up today, but another scheduling snafu has pushed it to tomorrow. We are about a day behind all around! We still have plenty of time to do the drive.

I have no pictures to post since we packed up the desktop, sorry folks. A rundown of our week should suffice!

• Found a screw in the tire, took to friend's shop to have it fixed. He said, "Um, that would have been bad." Who knows how long we be-bopped around with that thing hitching a ride, but it went all the way through.
• We picked up medical records and our truckload of prescriptions that should keep us medicated until we find the appropriate compounding and home health pharmacies.
• We've been in touch with a case manager in Springs, who has another interim CM for us to contact once we "belong" to Ft. Carson (we belong to Elmendorf's hospital and use their nurses lines until we report)
• We had our last play date with Mia's little friend Lily at the zoo today. I wasn't even able to take one picture before I got the dead battery sign, so my friend will be sending me the pictures that she took. They had a blast, the height of the visit being the polar bears. Mia was going to see herself a polar bear and didn't let anyone forget it! Mia mostly wanted to pick up the rocks. She's fascinated with them; we have a budding geologist! She was very impressed with riding
• Mia tried apple for the first time and stalked me for the rest of the day, asking for more. We only do about a table spoon per day. I tried to give her applesauce and she wasn't having it, only wanted a crunch apple. That is actually good, I was afraid she'd reject the texture but she seems to crave it. Day two has shown very little change other than MAJOR gas that woke her up several times during the night. On one hand it's a red flag but not enough of one to pull it. It's also expected, I mean, you eat apples to get things moving, you know? Not that she needs help in that department!
• We turned in our last little stash of library books and said goodbye to our library friends. That was sad, we really enjoy the Eagle River Library. I hope the next one is just as friendly and has a little hidey hole for her to sit in. She had a routine that involved helping put books into return bins, running back to the children's section and camping out in the hidey hole until we went to check our books out. Then she would stack and unstack the baskets by the counter until we were ready to go. She even began to recognize the landmarks on the way. Even if it was a trip to the grocery store she'd see the turn and ask if we were going to the library!
• We had to say goodbye to her GI and her Dietitian. We didn't get a good adios in with Dr. Pratt but we saw Julianne when we were at the infusion center on Friday. I wish we could take her with us!
• We also said goodbye to her nurse at the base hospital. Erica has gone beyond for Mia on countless occasions, she is the epitome of everything a good nurse should be. We would really like to take her with us as well, but she's going to Japan which is pretty cool so I suppose we should allow her that opportunity!

Now we are trying to get the house cleaned up. We will get the ball rolling on the rental front tomorrow, now that things are not looking badly kept! Our handyman came and worked on the deck today. I think Mia really wants a paint sprayer now. I scrubbed the cabinets and the kitchen walls, not that you can tell. Those cabinets are very old and they certainly look their age. We'll also have the walls and trim painted so we have to start taping everything off tonight. I have a copy of Patsy's final cleaning checklist that the base housing office gave them to help keep me on track. Those guys get pretty detailed and I hear that they are brutal when it comes to the inspection. I'm glad we don't have to go through it, but I'd still like for it to be clean for the renters.

We freecycled like crazy today. Gary was in the toss-n-go mode yesterday, ready to chunk out a big garage size toolbox and several other items that I managed to have picked up all in one day. A couple of the guys were so funny. We had a pile of things that either had to find a new home or they would end up at the dump (very much not my preference) before we left. They had a use for almost everything and if they didn't, they knew someone who did! They certainly had the true spirit of Freecycle, and I'm glad because I wasn't happy about taking all of that stuff to the dump. Not that Gary was gung ho about it, he hates to throw anything out if it is still held together with chewing gum, but you get frantic when moving day is so close!

Okay, enough about our junk. I'm off to tape up some windows!

This is the way the toddler packs...

We have our official paper orders now, so we are on full power move mode. We've been scrounging boxes and paper from craigslist and other leads. Right now the moving box business is pretty cut-throat! There are so many moves happening right now that boxes and packing paper are an endangered resource, and probably responsible for deforestation everywhere. I know my own carbon footprint is probably the size of Canada right now, just for the sake of ease!

We are on the hunt for a property manager at the moment. We have a couple of good candidates, one being ex-military and highly recommended for his aggressiveness. I'd rather sell this place and get out from under it. We are already looking at housing in Springs and while it's cheaper than housing here, we still have to get as low as possible because we are going to be paying for the nutritional therapy out of pocket until and if we can get medicaid in CO. We qualified for TEFRA here no problem, but these things are state mandated and do not just transfer. The minimal level of care may be different. She's a medical gem up here, but she might be old news elsewhere. Plus there is preschool and my classes. We might end up in a tiny apartment with most of our big junk in storage, but it can be done!

We don't plan on going so low rent that we end up in the ghetto, plus there are environmental factors to take into consideration when you live with Mia. We'll get enough housing allowance to get a "nice" place, but we don't plan on maxing it out just because we can. If we can get rent and utilities covered with a little more than half of it, we'll be able to save the other half for the therapy payments, or for emergencies with the house in Alaska. We also have to consider Mia's standards of living. Pets= bad. Carpet=bad. Old=bad. All of the housing that we've looked at on post seems to have been built circa 1960's, though there are certainly newer units. Their housing is subcontracted like it is up here, and that is VERY unappealing. If it is anything like the housing company up here, we are running full speed in the opposite direction. It really depends on what the housing office can do for us. If they can get us into a place that has minimal or newer carpet, eh, okay. We'll just have to get a very good vacuum cleaner. If they are unwilling to even try and help us keep her safe, it's outside we go. We're overwhelmed with the housing questions right now, as you can see! Helen says go for the academy if we can, but when Gary tried calling the housing office today (and I mean tried more than 20 times, no joke) he got no answer. If that is an indicator of the service, sheesh. We may do well to try and find a rental that is just close by.
I'm rambling and "thinking out loud" at this point, so on with the pictures!

It is important that every pile of boxes is tested for impact resistance. The toddler was just resistant.

"Decorate the boxes! Make them pretty for moving!" This bought roughly 25 minutes of packing time.

"And now for my next trick..."

The girl is in box heaven right now!