Finding your style in Military housing!

I can’t speak for other branches of the military but I know in the Army you either get the eggshell color or white walls. So OK you have just moved into a new house to you on your military installation.! CONGRATS! Ok ~ so maybe not, maybe you are tired of living in the same 4 white walls you have seen before, at previous post, especially before the privatization took over, it was all the same color “off white” or egg cream color. “They must have had a sale on that paint or something.” It has been the same color paint, and same color carpet at each base we have been stationed at for the last 10 years, I am sure they are going to run out soon 🙂

Well you all know that the military has just about given up all housing control to private civilians who run things. On some of the bases they are making new houses and up dating all the codes etc. So great you are starting out with a wonderful canvas. Use candles, flowers, bowls of fruit, buy nice cushions, use all of the decor highlighting that you can, it doesn’t need to be expensive – expensive only gets broken in the moves! Buy nice but cheap, stuff that you like now, but probably won’t in a couple of years – it doesn’t matter – you’ll be moving then anyway! You can buy cheap frames. You can always paint or decorate them to your theme of the house. Change pictures with the seasons. 

Think of it as an opportunity to change your decorating style every couple of years, try new things out, eventually you will find your own unique style and when you do then at least you won’t always be wondering if you prefer some other style, but have purchased lots of expensive items which you now can’t afford to change

Now you know you can paint your house, you just have to prime it back to a white before you move out! That’s so simple to do! Ok through my series of blogs you will see different decoration styles that we are going through. Maybe you just might like something and decorate your house

Renter’s Insurance while living on Post

So let me give you a story when we lived in KS of why I decided to get renter’s insurance.

So we lived in Burnside Heights in Fort Riley. The apartments were 8 in a building, 4 upstairs 4 downstairs. They were all connected to each other. Thankfully it wasn’t my house that caught fire, or my apartment building, but it was a friend of a friend. She left her stove unattended, she lived upstairs. Her kitchen caught fire, burned through to the first floor and just did a lot of damage and structural damage. It damaged the entire half of the building, with the water from the fire trucks and smoke.

So I was like ehh no big deal, well no it was a HUGE deal. The military found her negligent and put her out of her house. Since it was her fault she had to pay the damages which was like 100,000 or so worth of damages. I made sure to add for structural damage too.

Since she didn’t have renter’s insurance she lost everything. It was a huge mess, I felt so bad for her and her child. So that’s when I decided to get renter’s insurance, and it doesn’t cost much, but at least I know I have my insurance so if something happens we can get it recovered.

Just for your information, Picerne has renters insurance on all their homes now and it has increased to $20,000.

Deployment and Communication between a Sea of Oceans…

You know communication with your spouse is very important, especially in the beginning. I remember that I would always have to just talk to my husband, hear his voice or smell his smell. Over the course of 10 years, I love him so much, it took me a while to get comfortable. The first few years of our marriage, I felt like we were just dating, we were young and just silly, the second few years were our trials and tribulations stages my husband has been dealing with PTSD on his own, and that has been stressful. However we are dealing with it, and Communication is so key in everything you do in a relationship. When you talk to someone every day you run out of things to say and then you start taking things for granted.

So as I sit here thinking back to my first deployment with my husband it was 2001, and cell phones were around but they cost so much with plans, and texting that we could only afford one, and after he deployed I didn’t keep it. SO he left only for like 8 months to Kosovo. Well it wasn’t so bad (as I sit here now) but during that time I was just sick with grief, as to why he wasn’t calling me much. He was stationed at Fort Stewart GA and we had a house on base, but I left and moved home to NC. I wanted to finish my Bachelor’s degree and it was so much easier for my mom to watch the baby when I was at school. Well my hubby could get on the computer more than he could call home, or rather wanted too. He said the lines were too long. So I went and got a job at a Home Medical Store to keep my time busy. I remember he called me twice while he was deployed to Kosovo.

The second deployment he was gone to Iraq, and let me tell you what we didn’t have any verbal communication until August 2003 he left in March 2003. He would write me letters but they would come maybe every 3 weeks, so I would read and re-read them to just understand what he was going though, and maybe he would tell me something I didn’t know. When he did call me it was mainly for 5 minutes, because they had to share the phone. The one time he did call me he had to hang up there was firefight that broke out and he had to engage. He wasn’t able to call much or get on the computer, he was doing missions like every three days.

The third deployment back to Iraq was better, he left in Jan 2005, and came home on R&R in May. He got a laptop and we were able to yahoo IM back and forth, he didn’t write me as many letters as he did in the first Iraq deployment. He did call more because he got free calling cards from the USO and other Veterans Organizations.

The fourth deployment was totally electronic no letters, postcards or cards sent home at all! I didn’t like using skype or instant messenger, it is really easy misunderstand the context and meaning of some phrases. It was easier to use video chat, you can read facial expressions and body language. I think this was the worst deployment of all especially for communications. He did call home once or twice a month but the lines were a lot longer and there was no privacy.

I know each deployment I would find something to occupy my time, the first two deployments it was just my daughter and I. The third deployment I was putting my oldest into ballet and pre-school, and I had a newborn to deal with, so I wasn’t as lonely. The 4th deployment, I had a two toddlers and a 7 year old, so I was not lonely at all, and I always kept myself busy with doing stuff like volunteering, school work, or doing stuff with the kids, at night I was to tired to be sad. My advice to you is to just find something you like or want to do, keep yourself busy. I think the less time we spent together it made us grow fonder of each other.