Lesson One: Pretty Letters

To be honest, this isn't my first lesson in army wifeyness nor army brat mommyness (nope, not a word and frankly not all military children are brats just some). This is merely the first lesson I have written down. Well at least typed.

Label your damn boxes.

You'll move enough to have packing down to an art form. You'll know how to seal and cushion in your sleep. Chances are you even have the odd fantasy about a year without tape, cardboard boxes, and unloading. You might even relish in the notion of moving, find it exciting and adventurous. Whatever your take on the military moving your life around in boxes packed by men who are only kind when bribed with food and soda and even then probably make off with some of your silverware and definitely pack at least two garbage cans full of trash for you - this lesson is for you. Even for those non-military, heed the morals of this story.

Label those freaking boxes like an OCD neat freak.

Big letters, clear printing, detailed contents.

"Kitchen Crap" may have worked in college but it won't cut it after three moves where you have to unpack all 30 plus boxes just to find the damn pasta drainer. Sure, Wal-Mart was down the road and would have been faster but after learning how to pinch every penny from DFAS the thought of buying another strainer for three measely dollars pisses the heck out of you. In fact, I'm a little heated thinking about having to buy another strainer. Hell no! I won't go! Say no to Wally-world!

Back to the lesson.

Big, clear letters. This usually means do NOT let your children, spouse included write on the box. And no, little green packers stickers and their illegible chicken scratch on a triplicate form do NOT count. Think kindergarten and some eager-eyed apple-cheeked teacher patting you on the head for the perfectly formed "a" and "A."

Write or note or label what is in the boxes like your life depended on it - because it does. Your life will be in boxes usually once a year and damned if you don't unpack them all for not knowing where shit is. Somehow you've learned to live without the extra PT vest or the slotted spoon that made chili dishing easy, but there has to be a line. The madness has to end somewhere. And I vote on the labels.

I am proud to say I took a big sharpie, the stinky forbidden-from-high-schoolers kind and wrote in big letters "KITCHEN" before taking a smaller sharpie and noting "knives, butcher block, cutting boards, and strainer" in prettily formed letters.

One box done, thirty four more to go.

But hey, sanity has a price and at least I'll be able to eat me some yummy tortelinni on my first night in a new place.