I hate moving

What a lot for a military wife.

We've been at this duty station for 6 years next week. Six long years. Not bad. Just long. And we're now settling into our third house. Each house has been an upgrade, from two bedrooms, to three, and now to 4 (with a shade tree and rock wall fence!). I'm grateful for the housing, but moving can be quite messy.

Today we (and by 'we,' I mean 'I') cleared our old quarters. Although we paid for a cleaning team to come in and ready the house for military-standard inspection, we had many things to clean ourselves. Try doing that with 4 kids undoing everything you've just done. Quite a challenge. Add to that a staff duty assignment (24-hr duty), which means we lost 2 days of cleaning time. Then Barry flew out to Buffalo to spend time with his brother who is on R&R (2-week vacation from Iraq). What do you get? Frustration. Exhaustion. And a mental breakdown.

[In Barry's defense, our inspection was supposed to be last Friday. And he'd rescheduled the inspection because of the aforementioned mental breakdown. (Mine.) He wasn't planning to leave me alone to clear quarters.]

A friend of mine going through the same thing, Kari D., prayed for me last night. Not that I wasn't praying myself. I definitely related to Paul when in 2 Corinthians 12, he talks about pleading with God to remove a thorn from his life. Well, I knew this thorn couldn't be extracted. I'd have to go through it, like Paul did, whatever his affliction may have been. But I doubt it was clearing military housing.

The inspection terrified me. One of the cleaning points I knew I'd failed involved removing marks from the walls. Ten Mr. Clean Magic Erasers hadn't been able to dissolve the colored wax my art-loving children had imposed on them. I'd tried to cover up the crayon marks using other means, but the touch-up paint given to me by the leasing office was the wrong color. The walls looked like a graffiti job gone bad. I was so obsessed with making it right that I'd spent $20 on two different cans of paint--neither of which matched even though I'd taken paint samples from the walls and had the colors professionally mixed. (Side note: Coloring on the walls is now an offense of the highest order resulting in swift discipline and harsh consequences. Already I'm hearing cries of, "Where are my crayons?")

Had we done enough? What stupid blemish would we be charged for? Would the inspector be nice or mean? We've been through this before and failed miserably. That resulted in fees taken from Barry's pay.

When the kids and I arrived at the old house, a paint van was parked in the driveway. The paint contractor was entering the living room. "I've already started patching holes," he told me.

He hadn't stolen my Windex, so I didn't care.

I walked through the house to make sure we hadn't missed anything and noticed all my sweeping and mopping had been undone. In fact, you couldn't tell I'd done anything. But the contractor did pull the stove out, under which I found beloved Dale Jr. and Lightning McQueen cars.

The dirt pit (a.k.a. yard) wasn't up to standards. The dogs had run a ditch along the fence line essentially building a tiny mountain at the edge of the yard. My weedeater broke yesterday, so the weeds weren't completely cut, either. I decided I wouldn't touch it unless the inspector threatened to add charges to our $200 cleaning bill.

The inspector knocked on the door.

After I greeted her, I said, "I'm very frustrated."

"Really? Why?"

Then I relayed the fact that the painters had already been in the quarters and that the touch-up paint provided to me was beige--the walls are definitely eggshell/soft/antique white. Or maybe a soft yellow.

"Don't worry about the walls. And since the painters have already been in the quarters, I can't hold you responsible for anything. Just sign here."

Wow. I turned over the keys and met her back at the leasing office to complete our BAH recon (basic allowance for housing refund, basically).

So our prayers were answered. Kari had specifically prayed something would happen to make this task easy for me. And I'd prayed that God would calm my detail-obsessed mind and show me how to rest. I've been shown yet again that God's grace is sufficient. And that He can use disobedient paint contractors to ease the pain of military families attempting to clear quarters.

Our next projected move is in 2 years--to a different duty station. I think we'll let the Army hire movers to pack & drive our household goods. We'll definitely hire a cleaning team. And I'll finish the organization and storage systems I started constructing last summer. Regardless, it'll be a challenge.

Relocating is exciting. New homes can be wonderful upgrades.

But I'll never love moving.