This is the story of how I became The Happy Housewife. If you are new to my site, I would suggest starting at the beginning.
After Sailor’s transformation, our relationship changed for the better. He starting writing letters and showed an interest in our daughter. It was because of these changes that I was willing to move to Middle of Nowhere, West Virginia for his next tour of duty.
So my father and I packed up all my possessions in a moving van and headed north to start my new life with Sailor and our almost one year old daughter. Unfortunately, there was no housing available on base so we had to live about an hour away in absolutely beautiful Virginia. We had barely crossed the border into Virginia when I realized I was in love with the lush green pastures and majestic mountains (remember I’m a Florida girl). Even better was the cool May air and no humidity! I was in love.
We pulled up to our small two bedroom quad and saw a brown bunny hopping across the yard. I couldn’t believe how beautiful our neighborhood was, and was left breathless as I watched the sun descend over the mountains from our front yard. This was heaven on earth!
My dad helped us move in, stayed a few days, and then headed back to Florida, leaving Sailor, Big Mac (our daughter) and me to figure out how to make this family thing work. It was hard. It didn’t take too long until I realized why I left Panama. We simply had nothing in common. We fought about everything. Sailor worked long hours which was probably a benefit as that left less time for fighting!
We could only afford one vehicle, which Sailor drove back and forth to work each day, leaving me car-less, friendless, and feeling helpless. I took Big Mac on walks during the day to get out of the house and waited anxiously for Sailor to come home so we could go somewhere, anywhere, just to get out. This worked until winter arrived one day and when I returned from our walk I realized her boogers had frozen to her face. We stopped walking. Sailor on the other hand would come home from work exhausted after his commute over the mountain, and just wanted to veg at home. More conflict.
After a few months I realized that we were poor. We didn’t have any money. Sailor had racked up some debt in Panama, and we were still paying off his pre-marriage debt. There just wasn’t enough paycheck to stretch from month to month. I was determined not to go any further into debt, so Sailor got a part time job at the local grocery store. He began to work three or four nights a week so we could pay down our debt and start saving money. Sailor also wanted to go back to college and finish his degree, and there was no way we could afford for him to get out of the Navy and go back to school until our finances changed.
I would balance our checkbook at the end of each month and was excited when we had anything more than a few cents. God always provided exactly what we needed each month, almost to the penny. We couldn’t afford snow boots for Big Mac so we wrapped her tennis shoes in Ziploc bags when it snowed so she could play outside. We couldn’t afford a sled so Sailor pulled her around the yard on a piece of cardboard. Sailor also began dumpster diving for outdated food so we could eat. We were broke, but we survived.
Just when things started to look up and I began to think we could stop eating our produce from the dumpster, Sailor hit a patch of ice on the mountain and crashed our only car into the guard rail. We didn’t have rental insurance so we were left without a vehicle for 5 weeks. Sailor got rides to work and one friend was nice enough to take me to the mall a few times even though we didn’t have any money to spend. We got our car back Christmas Eve, probably one of the best presents ever!
I also found out that I was pregnant again. We had talked about a sibling for Big Mac, but were surprised at how quickly our discussion turned into a reality. This was hard for me, because in the back of my mind I felt like I could make it on my own with Big Mac if I had to, but two kids changed everything. I no longer had a safety net, this baby meant my marriage to Sailor was forever. And when things were rough, that was a hard pill to swallow.
January came and so did a blizzard. Like two Floridians we began shoveling snow almost immediately. I remember laughing and joking as we shoveled our sidewalk in the snowy downpour. I am sure our neighbors were laughing twice as hard at the two idiots who thought shoveling snow the first hour of a 36 hour snowstorm was a good way to expend some energy. I was quite surprised when a few hours later our walk was again covered in snow. We shoveled. A few hours later I realized that shoveling snow at the beginning of a storm is kind of a waste of energy. But Sailor and I had fun laughing at ourselves and our Florida ways. And laughter was good, because it didn’t happen very often.
Two days and six feet of snow later I looked out our front window and thought our car had been stolen. I then realized that a white car in a snow drift tends to disappear. I also found out that snow is only fun until you can’t feel your fingers or toes anymore, then it is not fun. I also realized that winter lasts forever and a two bedroom apartment becomes very small when you never leave it.
Time continued to pass and Sailor and I tried to make it work. We went to church occasionally, and made a few friends. Things were tough, I was pregnant, tired, and bored. I tried to pass the time by teaching myself how to cook. Because we were on WIC, most of my dishes consisted of milk, eggs, and cheese. Sailor gained 10 pounds. I tried to make crafts, they were never very pretty, but Sailor acted like he thought they were nice. I taught myself how to sew, sort of… I planned to go back to college and finish my degree. I wanted to live again.
Sailor and I learned how to coexist. I wasn’t miserable anymore, but I was far from Happy.
This post is linking to Your Life, Your Blog.
