Well I am finally home from deployment!!!!! After being home for almost 2 months now I finally feel like I have everything back in place. The first two weeks home are a blur. We had to quarantine in our homes for 14 days before we were allowed to return to work and normal lives. Well the new normal that Covid has created. Stepping back into an empty house after being gone for half a year is overwhelming but dealing with what’s been left behind by what I’ll refer to as a subpar renter is (insert mind blowing emoji). After the grueling deployment we had all just been through and realizing that nothing was expected of me for two weeks my body shut down. Jet lag is a real bitch, but it was so much more than that, straight exhaustion set it. All the plans I had for those two weeks of home projects, cleaning, laundry, all went out the window. After sleeping at the oddest times and basically being a zombie for way too long I finally pulled myself off the couch and got my ass into gear!
I got the house all decorated for Christmas and set out to put my house back in order. I have so many projects I want done to the house, so after setting my priority list I started knocking them out! But while putting my life back together every time I turned around, I kept finding shit left behind that caused me to state out loud no less than 1,000 times, “What the fuck was happening here while I was gone?”
My number one upgrade was my back patio. The slab that the builders decided was sufficient enough for two folding chairs to fit on was the first thing that had to change for me. I love sitting out of the back porch and having people over and this 7×10 slab of nothing wasn’t going to suffice. Now I have a 28×11 slab that I can’t wait to cover and have cook outs this summer and has made such a difference! But while out in the back yard moving things around before a patio could be laid first I had to dig beer cans out of the ground that seemed to have been planted there for what I can only assume would be a tree of beer that was sadly never going to grow.
Next was the kitchen. The sink that came with the house was so shallow I could barely fit my wine glass in there to wash. Now clearly, I hired someone to pour the patio because I don’t have time for that or enough beer in the world, if only that beer tree had grown, to entice any of the guys from work to lay concrete in their off time. Kitchen sink though… surely, I can figure that one out. As luck would have it my mom and stepdad came to visit over New Year’s. My parents came to help with home projects on their vacation, right? It is amazing the difference a new sink and cabinet handles will make for the kitchen or any space. Which immediately had me planning the changes I want to make to my bathroom, but that project is going to be for another day. Of course, I have big plans for all the rooms in my home that my E-5 paycheck gets a good chuckle at. Now I have been home for a month by the time my parents came to visit and again at this point I am still finding things around the house my neck has a kink from constantly shaking my head. While changing out the sink I went to get a bowl for any water that might drip. While pulling down some bowl I notice that one of my mixing bowls has grass and dirt in it. Again, I can’t stress this enough “What the fuck was happening here while I was gone?” In what world is there any reason for grass and dirt to be in a medium sized mixing bowl…. But more, why was it put back like this? I can’t hang my tv in the bedroom onto the wall mount because for some reason, the only thing missing this the actual piece that allows the tv to be mounted. In my cute Rae Dunn container that says syrup on it so that I know it is to be used for syrup was full of Coors light bottle caps. When I tell you that there are just too many WTF finds to list them all you’ll just have to take my word. I feel like the moral to this story is no roommates…girl live alone and let your house just be alone while you’re gone!
If you’re on my Instagram, then you’ve seen photos of some of the home upgrades that I have been doing and I will slowly be knocking out a few more soon. But two big upgrades to my life that will be happening in two weeks; my new puppy gets to come home, and I ordered a Peloton bike since I can’t go to a gym again thanks to Covid. Basically, my dog and I are going to be living the good life and I’m going to be fit as shit.
Meander With Mal 