Dec 16: (Sorry in advance for any typos and grammatical/spelling errors or parts that sound jumbled – I wrote this quickly and have limited access to the Internet – Hope to blog again soon though because I have more to share since I wrote this!)
Dec 15: I’m writing this post on my first night in our new home in Tennessee (it’s getting published tomorrow – today when you’re reading this – because we don’t have a connection to the Internet yet). I’m all cozy on an air mattress in what will be our master bedroom with my puppy sleeping beside me. But before I get into everything, I want to start at the beginning.
This past Sunday, our dog and I headed from our home in Alabama to Ft. Campbell, KY so that I could be at the final walk through of our house at 9am on Monday. Unfortunately, my trip coincided with the major snowstorm that hit much of the country. Thankfully, I drove for 5 hours making great time while taking my time before I hit any bad weather. As I entered Tennessee, I also entered the snowstorm. The usual 7 hr drive (including stops) turned to almost 9 hrs. The weather was terrible, the roads were even worse. I lost track of all the cars I drove by in ditches and all the accidents I saw. As my journey neared its destination, the interstate seemed to turn to a block of ice, and I, and what seemed like rush hour traffic surrounding me, slowed to a 10mph crawl. While I felt like I was holding back a heart attack during my entire drive and drove with every muscle in my body tense, I was perfectly content to drive 10 mph. Slowly but surely and safely I reached my destination, our friend’s house where I’ve stayed the past few days.
Monday morning my friend, who became my stand in husband for me at times, accompanied me to our new house for the final walk through. Everything went fairly well. Our long list of items to be fixed and finished was about 80-90% complete, which was good, but still not good enough for me to be feeling completely excited yet since that meant that there were of course items that still needed to be taken care of before our scheduled closing on Wednesday. The builders ensured me that the items remaining would be taken care of that day and that I needn’t worry.
The rest of Monday and Tuesday was spent waiting, sometimes impatiently, for closing on Wednesday to roll around. Thankfully Opie and I had friends to keep us company and hang out with so we managed to keep ourselves somewhat busy.
Finally Wednesday (today as I’m writing this) rolled around. We had one more walk through at 1pm today to see that the remaining items were indeed finished and much to my relief, the house was finally ready for us take ownership of! Immediately following, I made my way over to our closing at 2pm.
If you haven’t been following, I’ve been doing this all on my own this week. So with my power of attorney, I got the privilege of signing both of our names to what seemed like well over 100 forms. The whole process was pretty simple. Thankfully, I’ve seen most of the forms and figures beforehand and went in knowledgeable about what I was doing and what to expect, otherwise, I don’t think I would have had a clue what the guy was having me sign and do.
After I signed the last document and copies were being made, the builders handed over what seemed like 20 different keys and our garage door openers to me – that was the first moment since we started this process of buying a home that I finally felt a little flutter in my heart and felt excited.
All the hurdles and obstacles and what seemed like millions of things to do were finally over. Everything was done. The house was perfect. It was ready. It’s ours!
This evening Tennessee and Kentucky were supposed to get a possible ice storm so immediately after leaving closing, I found my way to the electric and water companies to have the house’s utilities transferred to our names. Then I made a quick stop at Walmart on the way back to our new house to pick up a few things I needed to get me through the night. Finally, I made my way to our new home with my keys in hand, packed car, and puppy in the front seat.
I can’t tell you how good it felt to open that garage door, unlock our door, and walk into our home that we own!
Before unpacking the car with everything I needed for the next two weeks of temporarily living here on and off, I walked Opie to the door and gave him a little pep talk about how this is going to be his new home, and then I let him loose in the house. He sprinted and bounded every which way, in and out of rooms, as happy as can be. He even ran into every room and hopped his front paws up onto every window ledge to look at all his views. And of course, eventually he got to check out his two decks and his backyard. He truly seemed super excited for his new house – well minus the time he slipped and got stuck in the deck stairs and yelped bloody murder (don’t worry, I saved him and he’s okay).
But I have to say, as truly excited as I am to be in our new house and to be a first time home owner… it’s just not the same without my husband here. It’s been quite lonely and somewhat scary doing all this on my own this week. I really wish my husband could have been here so that we could have walked into our new home together, spent the first night in our new home together, and so on…
As strange as this may sound, even though I’m finally in our new home, I feel a little homesick. As I’ve thought about my homesick feelings this week, I think military life is officially settling in on me… because what home am I sick for? The one in Alabama where we’ve been renting and have lived for a year and half and have been ready to move from? What about our homes back in Illinois? What home am I sick for? What home is mine? And really, I’m not homesick for any of my homes. I’m homesick for my husband. He’s where my home is. We make each other’s home, and without him, things just aren’t the same. Thankfully, he’ll be driving up from Alabama and should be here to join me in our new home by Saturday morning… so I just need to survive a few more days on my own. And even though I have Opie, it’s still pretty lonely without my husband.
And I’m not going to lie…being in this new, unfamiliar, empty house, in a new town, a new state, at night, with curtain-less windows everywhere…I’m a little scared to be on my own. And as odd or as pathetic as it may be, not having an Internet connection and no television makes me feel even more isolated and alone. Even though our house is in a neighborhood, it feels like I may as well be in the middle of nowhere… which makes it a little bit scarier. But at least I have my phone, my laptop, and DVDs to give me that sense of technological connection to something.
Overall, this week with traveling, buying a house, temporarily moving, etc. has been at times boring, stressful, busy, overwhelming, and I've felt a whirlwind of emotions.
I am thankful to God for our new beautiful home that we'll be able to spend the next few years of our lives in. It's perfect and I love it. I just can't wait to official move in now!
But no matter what physical dwelling I come to call my home in the coming years as the military moves around and around, my real home will always be where my heart is - and that's with Christ and with my husband.
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Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Ephesians 3:17
One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple. Psalm 27:4
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