600 lbs of Your Life: TDY EN ROUTE

600 Pounds: A TDY EN ROUTE JOURNEY

Assignment night, as we all know, is full of emotions… Excitement, fear, anxiety, longing, hoping, anxiety, pride, anxiety… Did I mention anxiety?? This is the night that you and your Darling Husband will find out what’s next. And then it happens! The slide comes up on the screen with a goofy picture of your Husband that you never would’ve let him put up in public of him and then, in the blink of an eye, it’s there; a map of the USA with a little star somewhere on it. Another flood of emotion is welling up. Disappointment? Satisfaction? Confusion? You look at him and try to decipher if that was a true ‘fist-pump’ or if that was the mandatory kind…

This was a different scenario than the one we experienced. After training with the Navy for the Phase III or ‘Advanced’, as the Navy Aviators call it, we and the other Air Force Pilots from the class convened in a classroom at the ‘Wing’. At 1300 sharp all of us (‘us’ being the wives and their Pilot hubbies and the single Pilots) were sitting and waiting for one of the SSGTs to come and explain the order of operation to us. We waited anxiously for the Aviator’s name to be called. As soon as it was, we hopped out of our seats and were escorted to the desk of the Wing Commander. We sat down and stared at our options, C-130 H to Yokota Air Base, Japan. There it was, loud and clear! T-30 seconds and the decision was made.

This brings me to the next phase of this exciting time. Waiting. Then after you wait a while, you can expect to wait a little bit longer. Then, finally, DH gets a call from the squadron. There is a ton of paper work to sort through. There is one more stop before we can truly be on our way to Japan. This is going to be a TDY or Temporary DutY. The best part about this TDY is that it’s a TDY EN ROUTE, meaning the Aviator doesn’t have to report back to Texas and wait some more when he finishes training at the C-130 school in Arkansas. That also means that 1.) The government will move our household goods; furniture, décor, any personal property, etc to Japan for us while DH is going through the TDY and 2.) You’re allowed 600 lbs of ‘household goods’ to go with you to the TDY station. Sounds great right? It is pretty great! Then it starts to sink in… Have you ever weighed everything that you’d ever need to survive comfortably for 8 months without having to buy new things? Oh and did I mention that to get all of these 600 lbs to Japan they’ll need to fit into a 4’x4’x4’ crate? Don’t worry ladies, the 600 lbs does NOT include clothing and other ‘accompanied’ baggage. ☺

We can fast forward now to Arkansas. We are here and moved in to our rental home. It’s pretty curious for landlords to ask when the moving truck is coming. Smile and let them know you aren’t expecting a moving truck. The Aviator and I then hopped over to the local Aaron’s Furniture Rental and began picking out an assortment of furniture pieces to help make this house more of a home. This is where you can really have fun! Pick pieces that you might not normally buy and decorate you home with! It’s SO temporary! You can get zebra print if you’d like! But only if you’d really like… ☺ Anyhow, we get our furniture after a week of sleeping on an air mattress. You’re going to need to get over any germ phobias because chances are, unless you want to be sleeping on an airbed for 8 months, you are inevitably going to need to rent a mattress and bed frame for you and DH to sleep comfortably. Our first experience with this was just a couple of weeks ago. We rented a ‘lightly used queen mattress set’. Truth be told, looking at the thing, there wasn’t a blemish on it but once we assembled our bed; sheets, mattress cover, pillows, comforter, we could smell something we couldn’t see. It was very clear that the previous users were ‘in-bed smokers’. Oh let me tell you! It was horrible! I was so afraid that we’d never get that smell out of our pillows and thank the Lord for washing machines and dryers… We called the furniture place and they gladly exchanged it for us with a guarantee that the next one didn’t stink. Typically, these furniture rental places look at customers as a great big monthly payment and they’ll do just about anything to get things in to a certain budget you might require and if that means marking down a brand new sofa and love seat set then so be it! ☺

As we unpacked the boxes that filled our car for the drive up from Texas to Central Arkansas, we realized how huge our new kitchen was compared to the one in base housing in the previous two homes we’ve lived in. This brings me to the most important part of this story. What do you bring with you? How do you keep it under 600 lbs? Let me start first by saying that you need to think about where you spend the most time in your home. For me, it’s in the kitchen. I love cooking. I love trying new recipes but I love even more that my DH loves to eat! ☺ We realized also very quickly, that we had not packed cutting boards, enough bowls, baking wear, Tupperware, a toaster. It’s really not that big of a deal but we’ve already bought some more cutting boards and we’ve also just gone ahead and picked up $15 toaster! We should have taken much more time to pack our kitchen than we did.

So here is a little list for you to keep handy.

1. Kitchen
A. Pots & Pans
a. Omelet pan
b. Frying pan
c. Sauce pans of small, medium and large size
d. Stock pot
e. Griddle
B. Baking
a. 1 cookie sheet
b. 1 muffin tin
c. Anything else you think you might use while you’re TDY. Think about holidays you will be there for.
C. Dinnerware
a. Casual dining set. Not your fine China. If it’s going to risk getting ruined let someone else ruin it and pay for it… Not you. ☺
b. Casual flatware- Saran wrapping these items is a quick and easy way to pack them even in their holder.
c. Random glasses. Everybody has them. Not the set you registered for but the ones you’ve been saying are going to be given away. You can still do that but after you use them for 8 more months.
d. Placemats & cloth napkins – if you have them.
D. Appliances
a. Toaster
b. Microwave- just in case you’ll need one. You may even be lucky enough to not have to but if you’re going over seas you can’t pack it and send it to Japan. We’ll end up leaving ours here in Arkansas.
c. Coffee Maker
d. Hand-mixer- much smaller and easier to fit in to a car than my great big Kitchen-Aid mixer.
e. Any other small appliances you don’t think you can do without
E. Food Items
a. Dry goods- Pack well! I used Ziploc bags to store all of my flour, sugar, wheat, etc.
b. Spices- Same thing as the dry stuff. Ziploc bags just in case one cracks open in the box you won’t have to have your entire vehicle smelling like Tarragon.
c. Refrigerated items- we didn’t bring these with us. We did as others have done to us and gave them away or tossed them. If you have the forethought and a cooler available, I’d say save yourself a hundred bucks are bring your refrigerated things with you.
d. Anything else you think you’ll need.
2. Bedroom
A. Sheet sets
B. Towels- two sets only plus the shaggy towels for the dogs
C. Pillows.
Side Note: Space-Saver-Bags are the best! You vacuum all of the air out and you can fill the X-Large bag with a comforter, a few sheet sets and 4 pillows! This way you can have more room in your car for other things! ☺
3. Office
A. Computers and appropriate wiring
B. Printer-we are planning on ditching out current printer before we leave for Japan with intentions of purchasing one that can read our mind in Japan… ☺
C. Back-Up Hard-drive
D. Modem-Router
4. Hobbies
A. Sewing Machine
B. Any of your crafting things- I seriously considered packing my sewing machine away for 8 months. I don’t know what got in to me but I have used that thing more in the last 5 months than I have in the 2 years I’ve had it! I can’t live without it!! ☺
5. Misc.
A. Your current shower curtain and rings, just in case.
B. Dog beds
C. Books-great for weight and easy to ditch to make room for more important things to go in the ‘crate’.
D. A few photographs that you would love to look at everyday
6. Important Documents
A. Get an accordion file that has at least 12 slots in it.
B. Using masking tape, easy to remove, label each section;
Vet Documents
Car information
Orders
TMO papers
Medical
Wills/Last testaments
Passports
Bank information
All of this stuff will serve you very well to have around. We keep this file close to us at all times and everything is very carefully labeled and organized in case of an emergency.

Of course there is only so much I can suggest as far the 600 lbs goes. Just don’t wait until the last minute to get organized… ☺
Start now by making a list and seriously considering what needs to come with you and what you can live without for several months. It will pay off in the long run!

Good luck and Happy TDYing!