Texas Summer

The road to hell is paved with good intentions...right?!?!


Well I said I was going to get better at this and I will be damned if it hasn't been 4 months since the last one.


Well here is the short version....maybe:


2 months flew by as I knew they would and before we knew it, Lily graduated from preschool, we said goodbye, packed the house, moved to Texas and then the hubby's deployment was delayed which we found out a few days before he was to take leave.

For once, can't things just fall into place!! No, no then that wouldn't be the Navy way!


Anyways, so here we are in Texas while the hubby finds a place to stay until further notice. We have been here officially for about 6 weeks slowly making this house our own. Since the people who owned it before hand took zippo care of her, we have already dropped some money in repairs including plumbing, air conditioning, and insulation. Not to include all the little things that added up such as broken bathroom knobs, leaking bathroom sinks, broken fixtures, broke ceiling fans, and nasty disgusting carpet in the bathroom.

Oh thank you so much for the pipe that leaked in our ceiling. Now the plumber tells us that our pipes are galvanized and rated a 5 which means our plumbing will fail sooner rather than later. Maybe I should switch my coffee to alcohol in the morning.

Oh look what they left us when they changed out the ceiling pipe. They left the damn thing up there instead of bring it down so the residue water leaked here. My hubby had to get in the attic and saw the thing into removable pieces...idiots!

Here is what I have to walk on the bathroom till further notice. Somebody had a bright idea to put carpet in the bathroom! Oh yeah that must have been an alcohol induced night of idea making which in honesty was completely wasteful. So we removed the carpet, but we want to demo the bathroom so no need to put down new floors until the toilet is moved and the vanity is torn down. Can we take trailer park for $100 Alex?

All in all, I love this house. The neighborhood is wonderful and I am finally back in Texas, but the list of house repairs just gets longer and longer everyday and its overwhelming. The next time the hubby gets to come home, we need to put soffit vents so the attic can circulate area more efficiently. Yard work is difficult to do since the Texas summer has set in, but you can usually get somethings done before dark.

And I miss my best friend. We have been separated before due to trainings, school, and deployment, but when he is only 7 hours down the road, to me that is worse. He is right there, but not close enough. He got a tentative retirement date for April of next year, which by my calculation is over 270 days until his retirement. Yeah momma needs a drink! I know I am not the first wife to do this and sure not the last. Also I have the advantage of having him home holidays and most important events while deployments carry limited talk and email time. Now that the decision has been made, I am looking forward to being a normal family whatever that may be.

Now back to the drawing board!

Don't get too comfortable

After all the chaos and excitement of the signing papers and getting house keys, we had to return back to Gulfport to finish out the year and handle business. Many tears were shed including ones from me about leaving, but we agreed it was best for our red head to graduate from her school and to finish her baton classes. We have about 2 months before the move!!!


Our little girl gets to spend today with her daddy while I work which is good for both of them as he prepares to leave again. Even though this trip is shorter than most, its still time apart. No time away from the family is easy, but I have to admit when she was a toddler and had no idea of separation, it was much easier. The last few times of saying good bye had been heart wrenching to watch. She kicks, cries, screams, and almost has panic attacks. Each time it takes me 20 minutes to get her to come back down. At this age, she knows he is leaving and doesn't want him to go like any child, but our daddys girl takes it really rough. The first few nights will be filled with night terrors and coming to bed with mommy to help with the loneliness while she kicks the crap out of me. Note to self, bring more pillows to bed.

I have switched over to mom mode. My lists of things to do has grown substantially, but this is how I pass the time. With a kiddo, a puppy, and a cat, I don't have time to lay in bed and eat oreos while binge watching romantic movies, those days have come and gone. Ok maybe after the kid goes to sleep I catch up on some Golden Girls while eating some Blue Bell Ice Cream, but who can blame me right?? But now its time to go to my dresser draw, find my big girl panties and strap those bitches on. After all, this is not my first rodeo.


With the impeding separation chaos to handle, I still have a lot to do to get us ready for our move and that list is 2 pages long. Birth certificates, tax documents, vaccines, medical records, and the list goes on and on. If I sit and think about it too long, I get a headache. My list taking is how I handle the chaos. If I can get one thing scratched off my list everyday then I feel accomplished. I have a tendency to put too much pressure on my self to be super mom, super wife, and super employee. Can we say burnt out? I would have a list of 20 things and be stressed out cause I couldn't get them all done. Balance has been the word of the day for me for awhile now. I have trouble finding that balance or at least some semblance of one. Forget yesterday and don't think about tomorrow because today is a good day for a good day. (Yes I watch Fixer Upper too, I mean who doesn't)

Keys and the work begins

WE DID IT!!! WE GOT THE KEYS!!!

Sorry I had to scream that out loud first. Last weekend was crazy with our daughters baton contest, which she brought home 2 trophies and a blue ribbon, and getting ready to head to sign our house papers.

We left Monday and almost didn't make it through to Texas. The Sabine River was at flood stage. It was so sad to see the destruction as we drove down the road. Cars, houses, and the Texas State line rest stop...all under water. Shortly after we crossed, they closed the west bound lane of I10.

We are very lucky to have friends to put us up for the week. With it being Spring Break over here, hotels were way to high to spend the money. Tuesday was a surreal day. I was so nervous, excited, and unsure of the future. Our daughter did so well as we signed papers and waited for funding. While waiting my realtor and our title agent told me now I should become a realtor. I was shocked at the thought! I did find myself daydreaming about it, but I am not sure how I would be successful since I new to the area. You never know though, its about the time for me to start thinking about my forever career. We drove over to the new house and showed our little girl her forever home. She ran through the house and backyard amazed at what we had found. To see her so free was such a heart warming experience.

 

 

 

We have spent the good part of the week repainting the bedrooms, picking out fixtures, and carpet. Our daughter was involved in picking out the color for her room and carpet. When it gets too boring we take her to the park across the street. We have to return back to Gulfport shortly as its time for the hubby to return to the Navy duties, but we will be back shortly to do more work and get this house ready for us to move into the first of June.

Time Flies

I swear every year that I can going to keep up with a personal blog and then life happens and yeah I forget, but with the change in the winds of life recently I figured it might be a good idea to get my thoughts out instead of having them swirl around like a tilt a whirl.


I will start with a little back story. Our precious daughter will be starting Kindergarten soon. As a parent, her education to me is one of the most important things I worry about. She has always excelled beyond my imagination. This is why since we moved down to Gulfport, we have paid for private Montessori preschool for her. I have never once felt bad for working hard to pay for it. While not everybody can do this, I consider myself blessed that I have been able to. There have been many sleepless nights lying in bed worrying about what to do for the fall as from my personal opinion, the public school system down here is inadequate and antiquated. Her daddy and I decided private school would have to continue for her but with a larger price tag and with him retiring next year, wondering where she would be when we return home. There were way too many concerns with transferring from one state to another education wise.


Anybody who knows me, knows Texas is the final destination. We threw around the idea that it maybe we should buy a house and enroll our little girl in school in Texas before his official retirement. While I wasn't thrilled Geobaching as we avoided this forever, our only daughter was worth the sacrifice. Now while we knew that Texas would be home, the city was a heated discussion for us. We needed a place that provides good education, places for employment for the hubby, and not the middle of a major metropolis. Returning to my hometown was dismissed, Corpus Christi where the hubby and I met is too far away from everybody, and anywhere near a military installation was a no go for the hubby. While a lot of military personal retire near one, he decided he is done with that chapter and doesn't want to see it everyday. I honestly didn't care either way, I just want him happy.


So over the Christmas holidays, our little girl came down with hand, foot, and mouth. That virus is the worse thing for a child to go through and I truly would not wish that on my worst enemy. As I was couch bound with my little girl trying to comfort her, the hubby showed me a picture of a house for sale around the Montgomery area. We had discussed that putting lily in school around there might be the best and we are lucky enough to have friends in the school district who highly recommend it for excelled kiddos.


My random request for information on homes in Montgomery Texas from a realtor on Zillow ended up turning in two weekends of house hunting followed by finding our forever home. The VA loan process is stressful, tedious, and long, but its doable and worth it (again my opinion). We are currently about to close on the house next Tuesday which seems so surreal to me that this part of our lives is about to end. When I married the hubby almost 12 years ago, retirement seemed like a distant dream. In 12 years, I got my bachelors degree, moved to three different cities, lived in six different houses, got a job, and had a baby. The thought of being a normal family doesn't seem real to me. All I know are PCSing, orders, deployments, good byes, long hours, living away from our families, ship schedules, 3:00am phone calls from overseas, and many sleepless nights wondering how the hell I would get through another day. How we will as a family handle the transition? That question will be addressed in my blogs over the course of the next few years. While he is still a year and half away from the big day, there is so much that happens in the months before and after.


This blog is for my sanity and for others who like me with ride these crazy waves. Hopefully this will help me as well as others since time truly does fly.