5 posts tagged “house”
What question do you hate being asked?
It's really a set of two questions that go together: "How long are you going to be here, and where are you going next?"
The answer to each is a great big "I don't know!" While we might have our guesses and probablies and maybes, the all-consuming Needs of the Navy are no constant thing to be depended upon and planned around far in advance. I am slowly--and not always gracefully--getting used to dealing with the big ("Where will we be living after this assignment?") and little ("Will we find out about tomorrow's schedule at five o'clock tonight, or will it be delayed?") uncertainties, but I know it can seem bizarre and unstable to some of my civilian friends and family.
For instance, we just bought our first house. We did so not knowing whether M will be stationed in the area for four years, as will be the case if he gets assigned to an East Coast squadron for his first sea tour, or if we'll be sent to California or Japan after just a year here. Here's the kicker: we will not find out whether we're staying or going until just before we would have to leave--we'll have a few weeks' notice if we're lucky. Thus, while we are hoping to stay put, we still have to plan as if we will be packing up and moving out next summer.
A dear friend of mine from high school was understandably boggled as to why we would choose to buy a place when we have maybe a fifty-fifty shot of living there longer than a year. Why not just rent, sign the year lease, and wait and see about buying once we knew where we'd be for the next three years? There are a lot of reasons we wanted to buy instead of continuing to rent, many of those likely familiar anyone looking to become a homeowner, but even discounting those, our timing made sense to us. Waiting to buy would certainly eliminate one worry, but it would also guarantee that we'd have to move in a year even if we stayed on this coast. I'd rather take the chance that we might be able to avoid a move for four whole years. The mere possibility that we could have that kind of geographical stability after moving three times in our first year and a half of marriage is extremely appealing.
Also, we have always planned to use our house as a rental property when the Navy inevitably sends us to another duty station. If we waited until we had a guaranteed stable location for multiple years, we'd be locking ourselves out of homeownership for the next twenty years. Even if we have to move earlier than we'd prefer, it doesn't upset our plans, it only moves up the timetable a bit. Sure, there are complications that wouldn't exist if we had more control over where we lived and for how long, but I'm stoked about how we're handling them. We're thrilled to be living in a home that belongs to us; it feels great to know we have that degree of control as well as the additional responsibilities. All we have to do while we spend this year enjoying our awesome house is do some research and make sure we're as prepared to look for tenants in one year as we would be in four.
Getting back to the QotD, while I may get tired of hearing questions about where we're going and how long we're going to be there, it's only because I wish I could give my family and friends a more satisfying answer. It must be frustrating to hear me say, "I don't know, and I don't know when I will know, either," like a broken record. I'm not actually offended by the questions, because believe me, I have the same ones for the Navy!
The Navy ain't talking, though, so I guess we'll all wait and see together. Semper Gumby, right?
We are homeowners! This home that we own is filled with boxes in various states of unpackitude and I may or may not go crazy--in a very happy way--before we get everything situated. We won't have reliable Internet access until next week sometime, but I just wanted to tell y'all that we're alive and still largely in possession of our mental faculties after two months of not having a permanent address.
How many houses have you lived in? How is where you live now different from where you grew up?
If we're not counting college residence halls, the number currently stands at four. I'm about to make it five when M and I move into our very first real, owned-by-us house towards the end of this month. Closing is in about two and a half weeks, and we have the movers scheduled to deliver all our household goods, which have been in storage since we fled Texas at the end of April, the next day. This is by far the most attenuated move we've yet experienced, and we are very much looking forward to having a place to call our own again--and this time, it really will be our own!
We'll be living in a different part of the same state in which M and I were raised, so it's a lot closer than Texas was in both feel and distance to where I grew up. The flora and fauna feel right, and the neighborhoods had an instantly familiar vibe. I'm really looking forward to getting established in our new place, and I do hope that the Navy sees fit to keep us on the East Coast for M's first sea tour. If not, we could find ourselves headed to California or Japan after this first year. We'd deal, but it would be positively blissful if we could take a break from PCSing until this decade is out.
On a side note, I'm itching to whip up some change-of-address cards, but I'm superstitious enough to hold off until after closing when all the paperwork is signed and the keys are in my hand. Of course, then I'll be too busy getting the house put into some semblance of livable order to do it, but that's neither here nor there.
Are you planning on doing any spring cleaning this year? If so, please share a cleaning tip you swear by.
Cleaning up is for sissies, so we're just going to move. I mean, we've lived here for almost three months, and that is just way too long to be rooted to one spot. Finally having the area figured out and the house semi-organized is such a drag.
If you are especially perceptive, you may have sensed the barest tinge of sarcasm above. As much of a PITA as a PCS move is, though, we are looking forward to heading back East sometime in the next month or so. Could be as soon as a few weeks, but the Navy will take its sweet time in telling us, as ever. I just got back home from a lovely and productive trip out to where we'll be stationed to start getting the lay of the land and do some house-hunting. I couldn't have done it without my mom, who offered her experience and input throughout what is, to me, the highly mysterious process of looking at houses and neighborhoods. She also served as moral support when we thought we were going to die of the real estate agent's terrifying driving practices. Oh, and she was witness to the car that pulled up next to us with a dead deer head, antlers and all, in the passenger seat. Redneck Godfather for the win.
Anyway, I'm back home now, with all my luggage. That wasn't a sure thing right at first, since my suitcase was apparently put on a different flight than the one I was on. M and I stuck (grumpily) around the the airport until the flight with my suitcase arrived, but that was way better than filing a claim and hoping it would get delivered as promised. If I'd known we'd end up waiting around for the later flight anyway, I would have just taken that one to begin with and not run myself ragged trying to make the tighter connection in Houston. IAH may be the most obnoxious airport I've ever had the displeasure to try to navigate. Oh well.
What are 5 things you'd like to accomplish in the next 5 years?
- Travel to Israel. Actually, I'd prefer this one to be within the next three years so I can go on Taglit-birthright israel.
- Buy a house. I hope it's feasible to do this within five years, but the timing will depend largely on the Navy--where we're stationed and for how long.
- Become a rock climber. During my last semester at college, I went a few times with friends to a rock climbing gym and fell in love with it. One friend described it as "solving a puzzle with your body," and I must admit to enjoying the intellectual aspect--thinking about which hold to go for next--as much as the feeling of accomplishment when I would get to the top. While it's a little harder now that I'm out of school and no longer have a ready-made group with whom to climb, I would very much like to learn more and make this "my" sport.
- Work through a curriculum on MIT OpenCourseWare. I refuse to quit learning just because I'm no longer paying an institution of higher learning a great deal of money for the privilege of doing so.
- Get married! Okay, that's a gimme--the wedding's in December of this year. ;-)
