The Reality...

In less than 1 week, we will be moving into our home on post. I can't even get motivated to start packing what little stuff we unpacked here in our apartment (thank God the majority of stuff is packed still and in storage). Maybe I can't find the motivation because no one wants to help me...maybe because there's not THAT much stuff to pack up, except everyday stuff...maybe because the movers that packed us to move here spoiled me a bit...maybe because my husband is leaving for a month 4 days AFTER we move...who knows. But it has to get done, that much I do know. It seems I work better under pressure, so maybe this weekend will be productive. Who am I kidding, it has to get done this weekend!

I went and talked to the housing office yesterday (because they do not like to answer their phones) and everything is still on for our appointment on Wednesday. I am terrified something is going to go wrong and we will be homeless. We pick up the keys on the 30Th and we have to be out of our apartment the 31st! Talk about cutting it short and having NO wiggle room, I think I secretly must love stress or something.

We even have an NTC briefing on the 30Th at 1800 that I don't think we will be able to make (I have yet to come up with that plan since I just found out about it, I'll probably just send the hubby and have him take notes or something) and somehow I need to get a POA. UGH, can life get any more stressful?!? <<
Hopefully, things will slow down a bit after we move and get settled in a bit so I can take some pictures and upload them on here. I am really slacking that department and I give my deepest apologies!

My link didn't work...

Well, for some reason it is not working. So you may have to do it via copy and paste

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ftblissfamilyhousing.com%2Fcommunityfiles%2F23%2Fpdf%2Fmainpost_3br_grp39.pdf&h=9bdb0

Sorry about that, my computer has had a couple of seizures this morning :)

Post Housing!

On Monday Wayne called the housing office, trying to find out what was going on with our position on the waiting list. A couple of my FB friends had been offered houses the week before and this made me a little angry because our number only moved 2 spaces. Well, my persistence and constant complaining to my husband finally paid off! Wayne called the office Monday morning and they offered us 2 houses! They weren't the new ones we were hoping for, but it's still post housing!

We rushed right out to look at them both on his lunch break. The first one we looked at was empty and right down the street from the PX, great location but heavily traveled road. We went to look at the 2ND one, which was just down the street. It's within walking distance to the PX, the Commissary, Burger King, the Tank Museum...A LOT! Not to mention, there is a HUGE park literally right across the street! So we decided to take this one!

People are still living there, so we couldn't actually go in and look but I found this This is what I am pretty sure the inside looks like. This is the layout of the "A" side, we will be the "B" side. The 2 end bedrooms will share a wall between the 2 sides. The lot on the side of our house is empty, there is a big tree in the backyard, storage space, carport and again the huge Kelly Park right across the street! Oh, and the road isn't near as traveled as the other one...PERFECT! It is such a relief to be able to move on post before Wayne goes to NCT training in California for a month!

We had to take Taylor to the ER last night because she decided she would try her hand at cutting her thumb off. The nurse called me and said she might need a few stitches. Wayne came home early and off we went. We were there about 3 hours only for the Dr to say she didn't need any stitches, that a Band-Aid would be fine...really?! Oh well, better safe than sorry! I have never had any experience with stitches, so I wasn't sure, but give me a broken arm and I know what to do!

I hope to have some pics of our new house soon. They have to clear post housing on March 21 and we get our keys on March 30! That means no more ghetto apt! I am so dang excited!!!!

I just went to preview this post and my link isn't showing up...hmmm We'll see if it shows up when I hit "publish"

Welcome to Hell Paso...

I was wondering when we would get our "welcome to El Paso", well we got it last week! The big winter storm of of 2011 hit on Wednesday. Temperatures dropped to 0, with wind chills on the negative side. At my house, on the Northeast side, we got about an inch of snow. With that inch of snow, the WHOLE city shut down, Fort Bliss shut down, schools shut down and even businesses shut down.

With these temperatures came trouble for our electric company and our water company. People lost electricity and our electric company, I guess, could not handle the demand for power. This caused them to do "rolling black outs" throughout the city for about 3-4 days. We had no notice of these rolling black outs, so when they happened we were literally in the dark, with no heat and not knowing when it would turn back on. Some would happen in the morning, some in the afternoon and some at night, it really varied so we had no idea when they would happen. Luckily for us they only lasted about an hour, but I heard many others say theirs lasted longer.

Our water company started having trouble because of the cold temperatures (pipes freezing and busting). Then came the issues with the electric company doing these black outs. The water co. needs electricity to pump water into the reservoirs, so no electricity = no water pumping. That made the reservoirs dangerously low. The entire city was put on mandatory water restrictions. These restrictions didn't really bother us much because we didn't have running water at our apartment complex due to a pipe busting in our laundry building. It took about 2 days for them to get this fixed for us (and still remains a problem around the city). During the time we had no water we had to get it from water distribution sites, Fort Bliss really took care of us. All stores and gas stations basically sold out of bottled water. We even had to walk down the street to use the restroom at the gas station.

Taylor actually got to go back to school yesterday (she had been out since last Wednesday). I heard on the news there was more than $500,000 worth of damage done to the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD). EPISD also wants students to bring bottled water to drink.

Yesterday was the first time I could do some laundry in 10 days. That was magnificent, almost magical even! Silas and I got to our laundry room at 9am (we were the first ones there) and by the time we were done, there were people waiting to use the washing machines.

During this winter storm, my poor husband was in the field enduring these cold temps. He said all the boys were just plain miserable, heaters not working, water buffalo's were freezing, running out of fuel and no way to get more, no hot meals, etc. He got to come home Friday and left to go back to the field yesterday. It is not going to be near as cold this time for them, but it will get a little *cool*.

I must say that was one heck of a welcome and I don't care to ever get another one like that again!
I "borrowed" these pics from a friend who had posted them on her facebook page. They are taken right in front of our apartment, if you look close you can see the van in both of them. The snow flakes were the biggest I've ever seen in my life!

I'm In Heaven....

Those of you that really know me, know that I am all about food. Yes, I am the official food nerd! I love finding new recipes, learning about new food, using my family as my guinea pigs, uh I mean fixing new dishes for my family, I even read cookbooks, <-- see I told you, NERD! I even love a good "food" picture, food stylists have a dream job!

Ok, with that said, I have found the ultimate food blog!

www.thepioneerwoman.com/cooking

I am not sure if anyone has heard of her before, The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond. She posts step-by-step photos of all the cowboy-friendly dishes she's taught herself to cook through the years, and I LOVE it! I am not sure that everything I have seen on her blog is necessarily "cowboy friendly", as I cannot see my Grandfather eating some of it (he was the only "real" cowboy I knew). But nonetheless, I get excited every time I read it! :)



See, food can be very pretty and I would eat both of those!

We have made it to Texas! We are all settled in and unpacked, well all the stuff that didn't go to storage. We decided to only unpack the "necessities" as we will be moving on post as soon as our number is called. It sure is different living here than it was in Missouri. Gone are the days of cold and chilly temps and hello to warm and windy days! Yesterday, the temp outside was 74 (almost a record for El Paso). We were in shorts and T-shirts while everyone back home was gearing up for another visit from mother nature, who decided to dump quite a bit of snow outside (our deepest condolences)! This is our view leaving our apartment complex. This is a view from on post somewhere. Fort Bliss is so big and spread out, I don't know my way around yet. These are the "new construction" on-post housing. I am hoping we will move into these--they are much nicer than the older ones! Of course I had to throw this one in!

There are beautiful sunsets and sunrises everyday, and it is hardly ever cloudy or overcast. Our bodies still are having a hard time adjusting to the time change, we are still operating on MO time. Hopefully we will get used to it soon, it is really bothersome. We are definitely the minority here. I would say it goes #1 Mexican/Hispanic, #2 black, #3 white, #4 Asian.

I guess we live on the NE side of ELP and to go shopping we have to travel to the west side. To get to the west side, we have to drive through the mountains. Let me tell you it is a gorgeous drive! Coming home from our trip to the west side Wayne decided to take a different way. We had to make a u-turn because had he gone any farther we would have been in Mexico (Mexico is black-listed for all military)! It sure is crazy how on one side of the road is the USA and the other is Mexico! You can definitely tell which side is which also...crazy!

Taylor is having a hard time adjusting to living in ELP. I really hope things get easier for her given time. Her school, Andress HS, is so much bigger than any she has ever attended. Her chemistry class even had a drug search yesterday (scared the living daylights out of her)!

Wayne went to the field yesterday and will be back sometime today. I thought it would be nice to make some comfort food for dinner tonight. So this morning I got out the good old crock pot and started some beef stew. It is weird to think we are going to eat this tonight when the temp for today is going to be in the lower 60's. Like I said, it is going to take some getting used to!

I snapped a couple of pictures of Silas and I, but for some reason I look like I am 1/2 dead in them...probably because it was passed my bedtime! I also took a little video of him "tooting his horns" with my camera, but I cannot figure out how to upload them on here.

Wayne's leave didn't get approved, so he won't be coming back here to help with the move. That puts us in another pickle. I still think 16 hours of driving is too much for a 16 year old to handle...but we'll see what happens...

I hope everyone had a fun and safe evening last night! Silas and I did. It is always nice to stay up late, watch movies and snack all night! Silas made me get a carrot cake yesterday because "you can't have a party without cake" he told me, well we managed to have a party but did not eat any cake. Hmmm, chalk another one up for mom and the ever famous "I told you so", because I told him we didn't need it. Oh well, I am sure we will eat some today.