Kansas

I moved. Everything came together the way it should, and we're settling into our new home nicely. We did a door to door move; we hired a Penske truck, spent two days loading it up, outprocessed housing in Illinois then hopped in and drove to Kansas.

There have been a couple of flies in the ointment, however. The house we're renting was occupied by the home owners until September. We are the first tenants; renting is a new experience for them and it showed. Within the first 24 hours we had to have a plumber out because the bathtub leaked, one toilet wouldn't flush and the other shower didn't get hot water; a HVAC guy because there was a heat pump thermostat on the wall when we don't have a heat pump and it caused the A/C unit to run constantly, and a refrigeration man because the fridge wasn't getting cold. The house was also dirty, so dirty that I felt I had to clean the shower before I could use it. The oven was the filthiest I have ever seen, and I had to replace the drip pans underneath the electric burners of the stove because the old ones were so dirty and rusty. I was more than a little disappointed that I had just got done cleaning one house to inspection standards and here I was, less than 12 hours later, cleaning another home.

The second, and more significant problem happened the week after we moved in. It started with a dimming of the sight in my right eye. Colors were muted and things just looked fuzzy. I waited a couple of days to see if it would go away, and when it didn't (and in fact got worse) I went to see my doctor. An hour later I was in an opthamologists chair, being diagnosed with central retinal vein occlusion. I won't regain any of the sight I've lost and there's a 50% chance I'll go blind in the affected eye. It's put my plans to go back to work on the back burner and I'm still trying to get used to not being able to see properly.

The boys are settling in nicely, and Hubs has started work. We're having one of the single soldiers he works with over for Thanksgiving dinner - he'll be the first guest in our new home.

I have to say that I like Kansas thus far. The town is small, but it has everything we need and the people are some of the friendliest I've ever met. The neighborhood we live in is wonderful; I can drive down the street without worrrying about unattended toddlers running out in front of me and when we go to bed at night we're not disturbed by other people's music pounding until 4am.

That alone made the move worthwhile!