Suitcase Living

Well, we are officially homeless after today. In about an hour and a half we will be doing the final walk-through with our Property Manager and handing the keys to the house over. Hopefully, we will get our entire deposit back. We are also praying that we will not have to pay the 3 month rent "fee" for breaking the lease. The PM hasn't mentioned it yet. I am wondering if Indiana is like Texas and you can't charge that fee if you rent the home quickly (something about not collecting 2 rental fees for the same property at the same time.) I have given Richard, the PM, several opportunities to bring it up and tell us how he would like payment. I even started to ask him, "How do you want to handle getting the (here I was going to say the breaking the lease fee) and instead he interrupted me and said, "Getting your deposit back to you?". So, I said, yes, that. The 3 month fee is $3900, this is a big chunk of change that we could use. It will be very painful to have to write that check. But I guess we will see when we get there. I know the PM has already shown the house and seemed to have someone who may be moving in at the first of the month but I am not sure on that.

This last month or two has been very expensive for us and I can't wait until it settles down. First, we paid off the truck (ouch), then we traded in both vehicles on a Ford Escape. Then, we found out that in order to ship it overseas (with our finance company being Chase) we had to make 6 months of payments first. So we made that payment (double ouch) and then James did some research and found out that USAA would be happy to take over that loan and didn't require the 6 months of payments. (Since they have our checking accounts, saving accounts and vehicle insurance for Italy this made sense). However, we had already made the 6 months of payments so that money was just gone. It did bring our payments down quite a bit since it was refinanced for the same amount of time as the first loan. I am hoping once things settle down to put more towards the principal to pay the loan of in 1/2 to 2/3 the original time.

Those of you who are military or civilian and made a move like this before know that if we are careful we can bank a bit of money while we are living in the hotel. We will not have rent while we are living in a hotel and they will reimburse us for most if not all of our costs for eating out and all of the costs of the hotel. So that is a bit of money there we do not have to outlay. Plus, when we do start getting COLA our plans are to put all of that away into savings and just do our best to live off of James' pay without the COLA. It will be in some ways a bit cheaper to live overseas since our rent and utilities will be covered. Of course, there will be unexpected costs but overall we pray that we will be able to be good stewards of what God has granted us and be able to save quite a bit. We do have 2 boys who will be headed to college before we know it. And we are so hoping and praying that God's will is for us to have a home on some acreage when we return to the US. It is our dream to homestead and become quite self-sufficient even if we are not quite "Living off the Grid".

During the Great Pack-Out we were all sick and suffering from various cold/flu symptoms. Everyone had it a little differently and while two might overlap no two people were super sick at the same time. I think we went through about 5 or 6 boxes of kleenex with all the sneezing and nose-blowing going on. I kept telling the boys to knock it off and stop being so "snotty" but they just were listening. LOL. I think everyone is feeling better but I am still suffering a bit. Right now I have a scratchy throat with sinus drainage. I can feel my sinuses going crazy all through my head and down into my ears. I could hardly sleep last night for having to clear my throat and cough (plus when I was quiet James was snoring). So I will probably be wiped out tonight.

I made 25+ thank you cards for various people that touched our lives here. Last night I spent several hours writing personal notes to each person or family. My hand was cramped up and sore when I finished. But at least I did finish it. Most of those will be going to church with me tonight and I will hand them out. I hope to actually hand them out as people are leaving so they can read it at home. I don't know why I just don't want them reading it and then coming to talk to me. I will probably cry as this is our last service with them. We will be seeing a couple of the families on Friday night for a final dinner and that will be fun but tonight is the last time for most of them. Interesting and amazing (to us) sidenote here: This church in the middle of Indiana really welcomed us. James and I were just overwhelmed with the welcome we had. Any of you who are military or moved a lot know how hard it is to break in to a new place. Especially, when that area is not used to military coming in and out OR have hardened their hearts against those who will "just be moving on anyways". We had this happen in several places - we just weren't accepted whole-heartedly because everyone was related to everyone else is some manner and they knew we would be moving in 3 years so it wasn't worth their time to "love someone and be hurt when they moved away". Not so here at Columbus Avenue Church of Christ in Anderson, Indiana. The people in this church just opened their arms and their hearts and drew us in immediately. What a wonderful blessing these people were to us in this time of depression that we had while living here in the Midwest. Reverse culture shock and still living so far away from our families combined with a couple of other situations really caused our hearts to be so heavy. Many of these people are related to each other or known each other since high school or younger (and now they are in their 50s & 60s) and they still welcomed FOREIGNERS into their midst. Now, that is Christ's love being shown. If any of you from Columbus Ave read this blog please know that we do LOVE you and you will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Tomorrow, we will pick up the rental car and head to St. Louis to ship the Escape. It will take 2-3 months to get there in Italy, I think. Fortunately, we did ship our bikes in the unaccompanied (air) shipment and we will be staying on the base. We will be able to walk or ride our bikes any place on base. Now, venturing off base may require renting a car or borrowing a car but at least we won't need the car for every day use. Renting a car for a month at a time can get pretty expensive.

Then Sunday morning we willl be headed for the airport and ultimately Italy. First, we will have a 5 hour layover in D.C. (we do have friends whom we met while in Germany who are meeting us at the airport to visit so that will help pass the time). Then from D.C. we fly to Frankfurt, Germany and finally on to Marco Polo airport in Italy. We will arrive Monday morning. I am really hoping I will be able to sleep on the plane. Don't want to fall asleep first thing and be really off time wise. Jet lag can be really hard to get over if you sleep at the wrong time when first arriving. We will need to stay busy so that we can go to sleep at a reasonable hour that night.

Need to close this for now. James should be arriving any moment now to take us to our walk-thru. I hope to update this blog more frequently once we get to Italy and aren't so pressed with so many things to do.

Prayers for safe and UNeventful travel are really appreciated.

Angy