Either I’m horribly unorganized or good under pressure. I prefer to believe the latter but that’s probably just self-delusion on my part.
We’re PCSing overseas this summer. We’re shipping our vehicle on Monday. So what did I spend the last week doing? Well… It turned out the car needed paint repair due to large (quarter-size or bigger) areas of paint chipping off the back of the car.
My husband usually drives this car so I didn’t realize there was a problem until last weekend and apparently he never noticed (um, HOW is that possible?!). So, while he was out of town, I took the car for estimates, called the insurance company and took it in for the repair work.
Then, I discovered that our other vehicle needed an oil change ASAP or sooner before we drove both vehicles to the port to ship the first one. When I mentioned this, my husband informed me his car also needs an oil change. Oh, and did I mention that my mother is here for a last minute visit, since she’s not sure when she’ll see our kids again?
I’ll be gone most of next week and then we’ll have more guests next weekend. Why does everyone seem to wait until right before a move to come for visits? Oh, and then our first shipment (unaccompanied baggage) goes.
As a result of all this, I had my first PCS nightmare of the season the other night: I dreamed that I was called away during that pack-out and when I returned the moving company had already finished and left.
It was then I realized that because I hadn’t provided my husband with a detailed list of what needed to be in that shipment many things didn’t make it into the shipment!
Clearly, between over-scheduling myself, being unorganized and just plain waiting until the last minute, I’ve made this PCS even more stressful than it had to be. Heh. And I’m supposed to be a veteran at this stuff. After all, this will be our tenth move, eighth PCS and second overseas PCS in 13 years.
Learn from my mistakes, plan ahead and avoid these last-minute PCS jitters.
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