My parents came to visit us this week. Normally, I would be thrilled to have them, and I was...but we'd only been in our house for about six weeks. We'd had our household goods for about four weeks. I felt just barely settled in by the time they arrived.
On one hand, their coming gave me a pretty firm deadline to have things done around here. I'm not saying that it would have taken forever otherwise, but I may still have been dilly-dallying around trying to decide exactly what to do with things. With their impending arrival, I just made decisions and went with them. While there may still be a little shuffling around, overall I'm pleased with how our stuff is arranged.
Also, having them here forced me to look outside the base to see about some fun things to do with them. I know they mainly came to see the grandkids, but they also wanted to experience Sicily! We spent several days traveling to nearby towns and soaking up the culture. I'm not sure I would have felt ready to do all of that by ourselves if they hadn't come this week.
On the other hand, despite some research, I felt pretty unprepared. I still felt a little unsettled in our house, and I don't know that the sightseeing choices we made were the best they could have been. We had a great time, but spent quite a bit of time "exploring" places we hadn't necessarily intended to see (read: making a lot of U-turns)!!
How long does it take for you to feel ready for company after you PCS? Do you like knowing that a visit is pending; does it push you to get stuff done, or does it just stress you out?
