I have MUCH to talk about!

I've been gone a long time, I know, I'm sorry.  But I promise, I'm going to be around for awhile from now on. Here's a tl;dr rundown of what I've been up to:

June - July: my husband and I were house hunting.  We looked at...I don't know, maybe about 15 houses in all.  We put offers in on 3 total.

The first, well it was a major fixer-upper.  It was a ranch-style house that clearly hadn't been updated since the 70's.  But it had a nice, spacious, fenced-in backyard and was right on a quiet cul-de-sac in a great neighborhood.  We offered at asking price, but the lady just didn't seem to be ready to let go of it...it was her mother's house, who had just passed on.  

The second house was also nice, although it was pretty small.  We loved that it had a fireplace in the livingroom and a finished basement.  The downside was that it had endured a little bit of flood damage with the Great Rhode Island Floods of '10, but honestly we were sick of looking and said the house was good enough for us.  Our offer was outbid by somebody else.

We were ready to give up hope.  We were really crunched for time, and wanted to have a house before my husband left (explanation below).  But we pushed on and decided to go for one more round of walk-throughs.  The moment I walked into the house, I fell in love with it.  It smelled new, with fresh paint and new wood flooring...but the house is over a hundred years old.  It's got beautiful original woodwork throughout.  It's pretty big, at almost 2000 sq ft.   After our first tour around, we came back into the mudroom and I told my husband "you do whatever you can to get me this house.  I HAVE to have this house!"

It had only been on the market for 4 days, and we were offering less than the asking price, so it would take a miracle to get it.  I prayed and prayed all day.  I felt nauseous I was so nervous.  The sellers accepted our offer that night.

So, my dream house also became our first house.  No starter home necessary.  Unfortunately, closing took a bit longer than expected so I moved in by myself...since my husband had gone by then.  We were living in hotels for 3 weeks, as our lease was up at the townhome we were renting.  It seems like that might be a luxurious way to live...but with three kids and a cat in one room with two beds, it wasn't.  I finally signed the paperwork and got my keys on September 16th.  I spent the first few nights on an AeroBed set up in the dining room.

September 5th - My husband got shipped off to Afghanistan.  You see, when he first got out of the military almost two years ago, he was briefly unemployed before getting hired by the police department.  During that time, he had joined the Air Force Reserves for the extra $400 a month, he was told he could get out before his contract was up.  Well, recruiters lie.  Big surprise.  So long story short, about 12 people in his unit became active and now he's over there until the spring of '11.


That's him on the far left.   It was really hard at first.  The kids cried every day.  I cried every day.  We worried about him.  I still cry sometimes.  Sometimes, it still feels like more than I can bear.  But I find it a blessing that I had this new house to buy things for, the holidays, and the kids to shop for...I signed the kids up for an asinine amount of activities to keep us all busy (scouts, sports, etc), and I've been going to the gym regularly to keep my spirits up.  I live 10 minutes away from my mother-in-law, so she watches the kids a few times a week so I can run errands and just have some time to myself.  Which really helps.  I can't wait for him to come home.

 This was taken the day he left at a USO family send-off

I'm glad to be back to my blog.  I always found blogging therapeutic.  I think I'll stick around.