Moving to Virginia

This the story of how I became “The Happy Housewife.” You might want to start at the beginning.

I was really starting to get worried. It wasn’t like Sailor to not call even if things weren’t good. To help pass the time I took the kids outside and started swinging on my parent’s porch swing. We hadn’t been swinging very long when I heard a familiar sound. It was the sound of our old Volkswagon’s brakes squeaking.

I smiled, but then I realized that our Volkswagon was somewhere in Virginia! I guess someone else had squeaky brakes too. The next thing I knew there was Sailor in his white uniform with a bouquet of flowers walking up my parent’s driveway. He had missed us so much he drove straight from Rhode Island to Florida to see us!

I couldn’t believe my eyes and neither could the kids. We all ran and hugged Sailor. I was still a tiny bit mad at him for making me think he was dead or stranded in a snow bank, but mostly I was glad to see him.

Sailor decided that it would be better if we all went to Virginia together. He had vacation time available so we would enjoy one last week in Florida then caravan up to Virginia together.

During the week in Florida I realized I had made a bit of a packing error. Instead of not packing the kids’ winter clothes, I packed them all in our shipment. Our kids had a few pairs of pants, no coats, and we would be moving to Virginia in February.

I didn’t think this would be a problem until I headed to the stores to buy them coats. What I forgot was that in February all the stores are gearing up for Spring Break and the winter clothes selection was severely limited. I finally found a few winter things that could hold us over until we found a house in Virginia.

We arrived in Virginia and checked in to the Navy Lodge. We had ten days of “free” lodging, so that meant we had exactly ten days to find a place to live. We were also in a hurry because we had pulled our daughter out of school and we couldn’t enroll her in a new school until we knew where we would be living.

Sailor also had to check-in to the hospital and start working. I spent my days at the Housing Office getting lists of rentals and driving around town checking out different neighborhoods.

We looked at house after house and just couldn’t seem to find the right house for us. They were either too far away, too small, the school district wasn’t very good, or the neighborhood seemed sketchy. The pressure was on to find a house because we were running out of time.

We fell in love with an area that had great schools and seemed very Navy friendly. Unfortunately the houses were way out of our budget. I kept hoping we could find a “fixer upper” that would be priced a little lower. On the seventh or eighth day I found a house for rent in that neighborhood. We called and made an appointment to look at it.

Since Sailor was working most of our appointments were in the afternoon or early evening. We arrived at this house around sunset.

The first problem with this house was that it was on a busy street, a six lane road that seemed to be buzzing with traffic. We did notice that the house had a nice big backyard so we rationalized that as long as the kids played in the back yard they would be safe.

The second problem with the house was that it didn’t have a garage, carport, or shed. Not that a garage is a necessity, but we wondered where we would put any extra boxes, bikes, toys, and Christmas decorations.

The landlord met us at the house and we headed inside. Problem number three, the house didn’t any electricity. It was wired for electricity, but because there was no one living in the house it wasn’t turned on. We were now inside a fairly dark house so it was hard to see what everything looked like.

I could tell the carpet in the house was older because it was kind of “crunchy.” The kitchen was big, but the appliances were older and dirty. It didn’t seem like anything a good scrubbing couldn’t fix. The linoleum in the kitchen was cracked in several places and very dirty, but I rationalized that  dirty floor would probably have to be cleaned less often.

There was a small half-bath under the stairs. It was one of those bathrooms that was so small that you could sit on the toilet and wash your hands at the same time. In fact you couldn’t really even stand up all the way in the bathroom if you were over six feet tall.

On the way upstairs I noticed a big box on the wall in the stairwell. I asked what it was and the landlord said it was the air conditioning. I had never seen six foot air conditioner unit mounted to a wall, but I figured it probably was similar to a window unit. He said it worked and since it was forty degrees in the unheated house I had to believe him.

Upstairs there were two huge bedrooms and two small bedrooms. The walls were dingy but the landlord said we could paint them. (Selling point number one)

There was one bathroom upstairs. The tub was cracked and peeling but it at least there was a tub to wash the kids.

I asked where the laundry room was and the landlord told us it was in the basement. The fact that the house had a basement solved our storage problems so the house was starting to seem like a possibility.

It was too dark to actually look at the basement so we headed back to the living room to discuss the rent and move in options.

Although the house was definitely a wreck, we were running out of time to find a place and I hoped my dad would be able to come up and help us improve the place a little. As we were talking in the living room a mouse ran across the carpet.

Now, let me interrupt this story to say that if you are ever considering renting a house and a mouse runs across the floor while you are looking at it, DO NOT RENT THE HOUSE.

In my heart I didn’t think we should rent the house, but it felt like our only option so we signed the lease. We could move in the next day.

The next morning I picked up the keys and headed over to see what our new house looked like in the sunshine.