Howdy, Y'all! Long Time, No See!

Posted on 19-Sep-2006 at 22:06

Well, as much as some of you may have suspected it, I have not actually fallen off the face of the earth just yet.  (Or felleded off, as my Little would say. heh heh)

Nope, actually I've been trying to sort, donate, pack and move just about everything in the house to a new home.  Less than two weeks ago the Man found out that we'd been assigned housing...and the real fun began.  I had been sorting things out here and there, in fits and spurts, but I am loathe to move anything that I will end up donating or trashing anyway -- so it all had to be done right away.  One donation run and several extra Hefty sacks out for the trash pick-up days, and things were ready to roll.  We were accepting this house without seeing the inside, which made for some excitement, but also plenty of stress.  Would there be enough room?  Would there be anything icky, like a former resident's leftover secondhand smoke or pet odor?  Would there be horrid cabinets or totally ugly flooring?

Well, we got our keys Friday and everything's jussssst fine.  No odors (thank you, Lord!), tons of storage (so much that I almost don't know what to do with it all -- I feel like I could rent out two of the storage areas as rooms!), and while the kitchen cabinetry is definitely not new or happening, it's totally livable and I'm adjusting to it. 

I have to admit, I was pretty freaked out at first by having a galley kitchen.  Then we got here and found out that there's not a laundry room -- the washer and dryer hookups are in the kitchen.  OH MY WORD was my first thought.  I bit my lip though and I think I hid my shock somewhat well.  Maybe not super well, because the Man made a comment that he should have realized they'd be there as every base house he's been in has had them there.  I must've had that "deer in the headlights" look.  But you know what?  Once I got used to it, I actually was sold on the idea.  After all, there's a big wide counterspace right next to where they go that can be used for folding.  And there's plenty of cabinets up above that will more than hold my laundry supplies.  In fact, I went through and unpacked the entire kitchen yesterday and got it all set up.  Since the linen closet outside the upstairs bathroom is HUGE, I will only need one shelf for my laundry supplies.  (Probably a half a shelf, frankly, but we'll see.)  So the rest of the cabinets now hold my fine china and stemware, supplies like paper napkins, paper plates, and plastic cups and utensils, and all the Man's lunchware, including several Thermoses [or would that be Thermosi?  *chuckle*] and the like.) 

I have a garbage disposal, which I haven't had in many, many years; my fridge and stove are on one wall along with gobs of cabinets and drawers, so I got all of the food preparation appliances (microwave, CrockPot, toaster) on one nice long section along with all of the food and I saved a spot for the pots 'n pans.  Wowsers.  What was originally me making a happy face turned into an extreme satisfaction and an idea for creating the Pantry of Eden in the humongo-gigantor-sized storage area right out the kitchen door, in the entryway.  The thing is supposed to be a coat closet, but I'm telling ya, I could fit a pony in there.  Hmmm. 

No, seriously though, it's stimulated quite the thinking process for me, and I can't wait til the Man gets home from some training.  He's always looking for a project, and first on the list is building me a gazillion shelves in there, strong enough to hold canned goods, bottled water, and so on.  Bet you can't guess where our grab 'n go bags will be, can ya?  :-P

Speaking of grab 'n go bags and other such emergency prep materials: I realized last night that I never posted the second and third installments in my three-part series on those matters!  I'll be doing that post haste.  As in right after I hit save on this post.  I'm even going to fiddle with the posting times so that you can just keep scrolling down and read it all in proper order.  Isn't that just ever so helpful of me?  hahaha

Let me know what you think of 'em!  And you can expect at least one future article about creating your pantry/safe room as well.  Once I'm done creating mine, of course!