White Glove Inspection

I love love love all the blog name ideas.

The winner, and the new blog name, will be revealed from the beach (later this week) Sorry for the delay, but it is going to be a tough decicion.

It's not too late to enter!!!

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We spent last week with our moving buddies (they just loved our food storage, huge old piano, and Nathan's 600+ pound lathe*) then we spent the weekend cleaning our military house to prepare for the white glove inspection. Our past two military houses have been condemned as we were leaving (coincidence?) so this is the first time we had to clean more than the kitchen appliances. It was hard work, and my dry hands are proof that we did not hire a cleaning lady.

But I have some new favorite cleaning tools: SOS pads are brilliant. They shine up a stove like no other. When I used an SOS pad to shine up my toaster, Sydney thought I had bought a new one. Magic Erasers are also divine. A while ago Nathan soaked some wood in our bathtub (to bend the wood for one project or another.) The wood left a ring around the tub that scrubbing bubbles and comet could not touch. But magic eraser cleaned it right up like, well, magic! The magic eraser cleaned finger prints off white-fake-wood-cupboards, and scuffs off of walls. I'm buying stock in that company.

This morning the inspector arrived. I had imagined a Marine in dress uniform complete with white gloves, but it was actually an older non-military woman in birkenstocks. She checked the refridgerator, pulled out kitchen drawers (and made me wipe off a few crumbs that we missed) checked the shower stalls for water spots, and the garage floor for grease. And we passed! Yippee!

Now Nathan can check out and we can get out of here.

Here is the plan for our fam. Today we are mooching off of friends - using one friend's computer (thanks Janene,) sleeping at another house (thank you Terry and Sarah,) and I'm sure the kids will be all over the place to play later today. Tomorrow at 6am our airplane will depart Rapid City "International" Airport headed for our little island home in the Pacific. Wish us luck!


* Nathan's Lathe (a big woodworking machine that can turn baseball bats or bowls or baby rattles) proved to be too big of a job for our moving man, so they called in a tow truck to take the lathe to their warehouse. I was imagining the kid of tow truck with the straps, and Nathan's lathe strapped in and rattling down the street on its two back wheels! But they sent a big tow truck with a flat bed that tilts down and can hold an entire car on the flat part. They rolled the lathe onto the truck and strapped it on with big chains. I wish I could post a picture (Nathan made me take a few) of just how silly it looked riding down the road. He was so proud.