Tag: our story

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

Sailor came home with sad news, there were no houses available, or least no houses available to us. I decided I needed to start looking for a rental off base.

The dead mouse in the laundry, along with a family of mice living under our oven, and rats running around our backyard was enough for me to spend money we didn’t have to find a better place.

Sailor went to the housing office (again) to get a list of off-base rentals and came home home empty-handed. We didn’t need an off-base rental because they had offered us a house on base!

It was a four bedroom three and a half bath house right across the street from Admiral’s row. We had a playground right behind our house and a sidewalk for the kids to ride their bikes!

Not only would we be moving into a beautiful house on base, the Navy was paying for our move! We would be moving for free!

I couldn’t believe it.

And I didn’t! I was sure the housing office would realize they had made a mistake and take the house away from us. I wouldn’t let myself get excited about moving until we were actually living and sleeping in our new house.

The only problem with the move was that Sailor had a two week course in Texas and then we had a family vacation to Florida immediately following his course. We had about a week to prepare for the move. The movers would be arriving at our house the day after we returned from Florida.

Sailor left for his course and I was able to walk through our new house. It was better than I had expected. There were hardwood floors throughout the house, a large oven, and the washer and dryer were inside! It even had a one car garage (we’d never had a garage). We were beyond blessed!

I spent the time Sailor was in Texas cleaning out the mouse house and preparing for our vacation to Florida. It was a challenging task trying to homeschool, manage a baby and prepare for a move, but I realize now it was just a warm-up in my career as a Navy spouse.

Sailor returned from training and we made the twelve hour drive to Florida. It was our first time back in Florida since we had moved and it was great to see our family again.

On the day we were supposed to drive home I woke up with a scratchy throat. By the time we were out of Florida it was painful to swallow.

I kept drinking water, thinking somehow that would help, but all it did was slow us down getting home. We were stopping every hour so I could use the bathroom because I was drinking so much water.

Sometime after midnight, and on the home stretch of our drive I had to go to the bathroom again. By this time I had chills and a fever and all I could think about was getting home and curling up in bed!

Sailor kept looking for  a place to stop, but we were in rural Virginia and nothing was open. In desperation we finally pulled over and I walked into the woods to go. It was horrible!

Sailor knew I was pretty sick if I was willing to go to the bathroom in the woods so he hurried home and I crawled into bed and didn’t get up for three days.

The movers arrived and I remember laying in bed while they packed up our bedroom. I was so embarrassed to be sick in bed as strangers packed up my house but I had no choice!

Finally on the third day Sailor told me I had to go to the doctor. They didn’t have any appointments so I went to the ER.

The doctor took one look at my throat and then proceded to call the rest of the staff in to “check it out.”  I’ve decided that it is never fun to be the patient that all the doctor’s want to see because your case is either so bad or so strange they all want to have a look!

The determined I had a very bad case of strep throat and a few other things. They didn’t think I could swallow a pill so they asked me to gargle some syrup like substance to numb my throat. I managed to gargle for approximately three seconds before I promptly threw up the syrup and the remainder of my stomach contents all over the floor.

They finally gave me a shot of antibiotics and I went home and went back to bed for two more days.

When I was finally feeling better our old house was empty and our new house was full. Because I was in bed during all the packing, and the moving company wasn’t the best at labeling the boxes, it was almost a week before I found the contents of my kitchen!

Even though it took me over a month to find all our stuff, I loved our new house. We had friendly neighbors and even a teenage girl who babysat right next door! The kids made friends with all the other kids in the neighborhood and I began daily walks through the housing area.

It was a beautiful spring and I was determined to enjoy every single minute we lived in our big house on base.

(Our Story will be taking a break over Christmas. Look for the next installment will be January 8, 2012)

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

Unlike many families who have researched homeschooling for years before they actually started on the journey, I had researched homeschooling for about two weeks.

My friend who earlier in the year had come over to talk to Amy about homeschooling, lent us her first grade Bob Jones curriculum so I only needed to purchase a few workbooks to get started.

Homeschooling our six year-old was a breeze. She loved to do her schoolwork and we were always finished with school before noon. I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to be finished by noon, but even when I gave her extra assignments she flew through the work.

The biggest challenge to homeschooling was getting my four year-old back in forth to preschool every morning. It was only a block from our house, but once I didn’t have to get dressed (and bundle the baby up) to take our six year-old to school it was much harder to get our four year-old to school.

We managed and I thought it was good for our son to spend some time away from me twice a week. His sickly early years had made him extremely clingy and unwilling to go with anyone else other than me (and sometimes Sailor). He cried every single time I dropped him off at preschool.

I talked to his teacher numerous times about it and she said he was a “sad child” in class but otherwise on target for his age. I wondered how I was going to homeschool this child who didn’t seem to care one bit about holding a pencil, cutting paper, coloring, or looking at books.

My second biggest challenge homeschooling was the cold. That year natural gases prices increased drastically. Our old and drafty house would not stay warm. The first month it was cold we kept the heat at 60 degrees and our gas bill alone was over $300 for a month. We couldn’t afford to pay any more for gas.

Sailor would come home from work with stories of co-workers who had $900 gas bills and were in danger of their heat being turned off by the gas company.

I didn’t know how we were going to survive the winter with out going deeper into debt.

We tried using the fireplace, but it was broken and there was no way for the smoke to escape via the chimney. The first time we had a fire the entire house filled with smoke and we ended up having to open every window and door in the house to air it out. This made our house even colder and explained all the black soot on the windows I cleaned off when we first moved in.

After a few weeks of wearing heavy coats, hats and scarves in our living room to stay warm we decided to buy two electric space heaters. We put one in the kids’ room and one in our bedroom. I let happy baby sleep with me since I was worried he would get too cold in the nursery.

When we woke up in the morning we would take the heaters downstairs and use them in the dining room (school room) and living room. While our electric bills went up, it kept our gas bill under $300.

One cold afternoon I headed down to the basement to start some laundry.

Ever since the flood I hated doing laundry ( I mean I never really liked it before, but…). When we lived in Panama our washer and dryer were outside under our stilt house and in Florida our washer and dryer were in an un-airconditioned space that you had to go out of the house and then into a little room to use. In this house the washer and dryer were in the stinky, wet basement. I remember joking with Sailor that I would know I had “arrived” when my washer and dryer were actually IN the house.

Our washer and dry sat on cinder blocks to keep them from rusting during the flooding. That day I noticed a little gray sock peaking out from under the washer. Since missing socks is one of my pet peeves I grabbed the gray sock to throw it in the laundry.

As soon as I touched the sock I realized it wasn’t a sock at all. It was as shriveled up, flattened dead mouse!

I screamed and ran upstairs. I announced to anyone that could hear me that I would not be doing laundry again until we moved out of this house!

Our lease was due to renew in a month but we really couldn’t afford to move. I didn’t want to stay one extra day in the mouse house, but moving seemed impossible.

Then one day Amy stopped by. While her house wasn’t full of mice, it did have its share of old house issues. She told me they had been offered a house on base. I was devastated! Living next to Amy made our mouse house tolerable. If she moved on base I would be all alone.

I was also surprised she was offered a house on base. Base housing was only for 0-5 and above and her husband was an 0-4. I asked her why they were offered a house and she explained that they couldn’t fill the housing with the higher ranking officers so they were offering it to the lower ranks.

I had an idea. What if we could get a house on base? If we were offered a house on base the Navy would pay to move us (since there was no housing available when we relocated to Norfolk) and utilities would be included so we could stop freezing!

I shared my plan with Sailor and while he thought it was a long shot he agreed to go to the housing office and find out what the real story was.

Meanwhile I spent the afternoon driving down the streets of housing and was surprised to see several houses with junior officers living in them. (They posted the name and rank above the garage)

Sailor came home from the housing office with bad news. Because he was so junior they wouldn’t let us have a house, even though there were several available. I was so upset. I really believed that God was giving us a way out of the mouse house so I couldn’t understand why this wasn’t going to work!

A few days later I was taking our son to preschool and I ran into another Navy wife that lived in our neighborhood. She told me they were offered a house on base. Her husband was only one rank above mine so I knew the housing office hadn’t been honest with Sailor.

I raced home and woke Sailor up (from his 3rd shift) and told him he had to go back to the housing office get the truth. I knew my friend from preschool wasn’t going to accept the house, so couldn’t we just have it?

My husband headed back to the housing office to see if there was any chance we could move on base.

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

When I look back on my life as a mom there is one person who probably influenced me more than anyone else. Her name is Amy. Shortly after we moved into the Mouse House, Amy and her family moved into the house behind us.

She had four kids, which was a lot in my opinion! Happy Baby was a newborn when I met her and to see someone who was able to get four kids dressed and out the door in the morning gave me hope that I could manage my three.

Our kids played together over the summer and when school began in the fall we started our morning routine of walking to school together. All our kids, strollers, backpacks, toys, snacks, and whatever else our little kids would bring along.

I remember one fall morning her toddler had a cold. He sneezed and had a big booger coming out of his nose. Amy took her hand and wiped the booger off his face, then bent down and cleaned her hand off in the wet grass.

I was shocked! I asked her why she didn’t just use his jacket to wipe his face. She replied that if she used his jacket she would have to wash it when she got home and it was a lot easier to wash her hand than a jacket.

I was sold.

Amy made pizza crust from scratch, decorated her house in Playmobil, and even let her kids cut up Christmas cards and photos they received for crafts. She kept spare clothes for each of her kids in the car in case they stopped at the beach while running errands.

She let her kids get dirty, make mistakes, and solve problems. She was a very involved mom, but never overbearing or controlling.

Amy was the mom I wanted to be.

One day Amy asked if I knew anything about homeschooling. I told her I knew a few people at church who homeschooled but I really didn’t know much about it. She said her son was struggling in school and she wondered if homeschooling might be a better option for him that year.

I told her I could invite my friend over for lunch and she could talk to her about homeschooling. The day my friend showed up I decided to stay at Amy’s house and listen to her “homeschool speech.”

I had no interest in homeschooling, but I didn’t want to leave my  friend alone at Amy’s in case she felt awkward. Our ten kids played while my friend gave Amy all sorts of details about homeschooling.

It was interesting but definitely not something I would ever consider. I liked our little neighborhood school and our daughter had just been accepted into the gifted program. We were excited about her opportunities (as much as you can be for a first grader).

My homeschool friend left and Amy and I discussed the pros and cons about homeschooling. Amy had such an opened mind about it, she wasn’t sure if she was going to homeschool her son but I knew that whatever she chose to do it wouldn’t be without a lot of thought, prayer, and research.

Over the next few months during our school walks we talked off and on about homeschooling. Her son was adjusting well to the new school but my daughter was bored. The gifted program wasn’t really designed for first graders at her school so she spent her gifted time reading to other kids.

Sailor and I didn’t mind her doing all the extra reading, but we thought a first grader reading to another first grader every single day and calling it “gifted class” was a stretch.

That Christmas we excitedly went to the school Christmas performance. I was a bit surprised when the children sangs songs about Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Las Posadas, and Santa. Where was the Jesus song?

I came home and told Sailor I was upset that they kids were taught songs about several holidays, but not a song about the Christian holiday. He agreed. I didn’t expect the school to only sing Jesus songs or even make the kids sing a song, but to leave it out when they sang about other December holidays bothered me.

It bothered me all winter break. We looked into Christian schools but they were too expensive, we even went to a homeschool bookstore but I got overwhelmed and walked out empty handed.

In the back of my mind I knew public school was no longer my first choice, but I felt like I didn’t have any other options.

Two days before school resumed we dis-enrolled our daughter from school and filed homeschool paperwork with the state of Virginia. I had no homeschool experience, curriculum, or even a vague idea of what I was doing.

I just knew it was the right choice for our family.

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

I saw the blood in the diaper and having already been through this experience with my older son I knew it was not normal.

I panicked, ran back to my hospital bed, grabbed the phone and called one of my friends who was a nurse. When she answered I told her that something was very wrong and that happy baby’s diaper was full of blood.

She told me to hang up the phone immediately and call the nurse on duty. She couldn’t help me from her living room.

I pushed the nurse’s button and waited forever (at least it seemed like forever) for the nurse to come to the room. When she finally arrived she had my discharge paperwork in hand and told me I could go home as soon as someone came to pick up me.

I told her I was not going anywhere until I knew what was wrong with happy baby. She peaked into his diaper and told me that was normal. I told her it was not normal and I wasn’t going anywhere.

She was obviously very frustrated that I was refusing to sign my discharge paperwork. Finally she told me she would call the intern to come and talk to me. I told her that I would not talk to any intern or resident and that I wasn’t leaving until I saw the staff doctor.

She was getting very irritated with me, but I stood my ground. It was all I could do to not burst into tears. I was exhausted, afraid, and very mad.

Finally the intern showed up. I politely told her that I did not want to talk to her, I wanted to talk to the staff doctor. She tried to explain what happened to happy baby, I told her that I wasn’t going to listen to her and that a staff doctor better get in my room or else.

Now, I’m not really sure what the or else meant, but when you have just had a baby, shared a toilet with another lady who just had a baby, and haven’t slept for three days “or else” means something.

Finally the staff doctor showed up. He explained to me that when they started the circumcision they noticed a possible malformation and the only way to fix the malformation was to use part of the skin normally removed in a circumcision.

They had to stop the procedure in the middle in order to save the skin for a possible future operation because the malformation could not be confirmed until our son was older.

Basically our son had half a circumcision and that was the reason for the increased bleeding.

I was aghast. I could not believe the hospital was planning on discharging me and happy baby without even telling me what had happened. When I shared my concern with the doctor he told me there was a note on my paperwork to NOT discharge me until he had come to explain the situation.

The ward was filling up and the nurse was in a hurry to put a new patient in my room so she ignored the instructions and had planned to send me home without any knowledge of the partial procedure.

I was livid. In fact I was so angry that I do not even remember what I said or did after that moment until Sailor arrived at the hospital.

Sailor arrived and I made a mental note to never have a baby in a military hospital again. This was our first military hospital birth and it was going to be my last!

Earlier that morning I called Sailor and asked for some clothes to wear home from the hospital. I requested my sweat pants and also asked if he would buy me some underwear suitable for wearing after you’ve had a baby.

In his hurry to get to the hospital he grabbed a skirt by mistake and bought the biggest, ugliest pair of granny panties you could imagine at Target on the way. I hesitated even putting them on because they went up to my neck (I’m only sort of kidding) but since I didn’t have any other options I wore my skirt and granny panties home from the hospital.

It was time to start our life as a family of five.

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

It was hard to believe that the house was actually worse in the daylight than in the dark. The light revealed how dirty the house really was. I quickly got to work cleaning every square inch of that place before we moved in.

I remember cleaning the windows and going through two rolls of paper towels. Each window was covered with a layer of black dirt (which we later found out was soot). We cleaned the appliances several times over and I even ventured into the basement to sweep it out.

Thankfully I didn’t see any mice in my cleaning. Maybe it was just crazy coincidence that we saw a mouse the day we looked at the house?

The moving truck came, delivered our stuff, and we quickly got to work setting up our new home in Virginia. I think I had the whole house unpacked in less than a week. I wanted to be settled before the baby arrived.

In Florida, Sailor was told by the military not to take his nursing exam in Florida since he would be working in Virginia. This was a mistake (or maybe not). There was a problem getting the paperwork together for him to take the exam in Virginia and since he wasn’t licensed he couldn’t officially work as a nurse at the hospital. He was given a day job until the paperwork mess was sorted out.

The paperwork mess lasted almost six months. While all our nursing friends worked rotating shifts Sailor worked from 7-4 and had most weekends off. It was nice.

A few weeks after we moved in I went into the basement and it was filled with about two feet of water. Sailor tried to figure out the source of the water. The kids splashed and played in our basement swimming pool. I was worried that our washer and dryer would be ruined and called the landlord.

Our landlord sent over a repairman who couldn’t figure out the source of the leak but managed to get the water out of the basement. While cleaning up the mess we found a large piece of plywood under the stairs. Scrawled on the plywood were the words… “the basement floods….”

Of course that would have been nice to know before we put all our extra boxes in the basement, but fortunately only a things were ruined. We bought cinderblocks to put the washer and dryer on in case of future flooding and put anything worth saving on makeshift shelving.

The basement flooded several more times until a plumber finally figured out that tree roots had grown into the underground pipes in the yard. Our basement had been backing up with sewage!

I hated that basement and hated that I had to go down there almost every day to do the laundry.

Spring arrived in Virginia and the kids were enjoying the nice back yard. We met our “back yard neighbors” and we even built steps so they could climb the fence.

One night in the back yard Sailor saw a rat running across the power line. A few weeks later there was a dead rat under our car in the driveway. I still hadn’t seen any in the house but was starting to get worried.

At seven months pregnant I strained my back moving furniture. It was so bad I wasn’t able to walk our daughter to school. I went to the doctor and he gave me muscle relaxers but I refused to take them. It was getting so bad that I was unable to do basic chores around the house.

The doctor kept telling me that I needed to rest for a few days in order to get better. I told him that mom’s don’t have time to rest. He told me if I didn’t he would admit me to the hospital for some forced rest. It got so bad that my daughter came home from school with a picture she had drawn. It was me moving the coffee table and she was standing in the background crying, she had a bubble over her head that said, “No mommy, no!”

I decided I would take the muscle relaxers and rest for a few days. My back finally started to feel better.

One evening the kids woke up in the middle of the night screaming. Even though they had their own rooms they always slept in the same room. They loved being together! We ran in the room and they both told us they saw a mouse run across the room and under the bed.

They knew about the rats in the yard, so we wondered if it was just their imagination. They were sure it wasn’t. Sailor searched the room for a mouse but couldn’t find anything. They wouldn’t go back to sleep so we all ended up sleeping together.

I started to worry about our new baby, I didn’t want mice crawling all over them as he or she slept in the crib. I had never seen a live mouse in the house (except for the day we signed the lease) but I was starting to believe they were everywhere.

May arrived and the temperature started to rise in Virginia. We turned on our odd wall a/c unit and it made some horrible sounds and then died. We called our landlord and he said he didn’t think it could be fixed.

Now, everyone knows you don’t tell a woman who is nine months pregnant that the a/c cannot be fixed. They will hurt you. I didn’t even last 24 hours, I told Sailor he needed to go straight to Home Depot and buy a window unit for our bedroom. We could all sleep in there until the landlord did something about the air.

Since the unit was so old it couldn’t be fixed so the landlord decided to put window units in a few of the rooms. It wasn’t ideal, but at least I wasn’t a big, hot, sweaty mess.

Memorial Day weekend Sailor’s family came to visit. We had a great time and on Memorial Day Sailor had to work. I woke up feeling a little funny and since last time I felt funny I had a baby a few hours later so I decided to head to the hospital.

Sailor was already there working and my doctor was on call. He decided I was in early labor so I was admitted. We were going to have a Memorial Day baby.

We still didn’t have a name picked out so we joked with the doctor and nurses about baby names, played cards, and hung out with our friends (all who worked at the hospital). It was weird knowing most of the doctor’s and nurses, but it was also kind of nice.

Our healthy and happy baby boy was born that evening, just in time for our doctor to make his Memorial Day party. I felt great until I was taken to the post partum floor.

Apparently the people who redesigned the hospital thought it would be a good idea to have people share rooms (and bathrooms) after they have a baby. (These people had obviously never had a baby) So there I was with our baby, and on the other side of the curtain was another lady and her baby. I didn’t sleep a single second that night. If my baby wasn’t crying her baby was. It was horrible. .

When Sailor came to visit the next day I cried and told him he had to get me out of the hospital. I couldn’t stand to be there one more second. Unfortunately our baby needed to circumcised and that wasn’t going to happen until the next day.

Fortunately my roommate was discharged that afternoon and I think Sailor pulled a few strings so I didn’t end up with another roommate that night.

The next day I couldn’t wait to get home see my other kids. They took happy baby off to be circumcised and I started packing up my stuff. They brought him back all bundled up and sound asleep. I waited for my discharge paperwork and Sailor to come take us home.

The paperwork took longer than expected and I ended up waiting for over two hours. Finally happy baby woke up and I went to change his diaper. I unwrapped him from the blanket and saw blood running down his legs.

I took off his diaper and it was filled with blood.

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.

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

My father was on his way to the ER with Sailor. Apparently all the laughing and a reaction to the tape used on the incision had caused “stuff” to start seeping out from the bandages.

Since I’m not one to back down from a threat, I made my father take Sailor to the ER while I tended to our daughter and tried to get some sleep.

Sailor was fixed up at the ER and sent home. He spent the next month recuperating from his surgery.

The surgery put Sailor in a strange situation. All his nursing school classmates graduated that May, but because he had to withdraw from the spring semester he didn’t have enough clinical hours to graduate and was missing a few credit hours. The problem was the classes he needed were only available in the Spring and the Navy wasn’t going to pay for Sailor to spend another year in school.

We spent several weeks in limbo trying to work something out where Sailor could still graduate with his nursing degree in a time frame that was acceptable to the Navy. This was extremely stressful because we were now strapped with three years of student loans and looking at the possibility that Sailor might have to return to his old job in the Navy without a degree.

Finally, the University came up with a special program that would allow Sailor to finish his degree in November. It was something that hadn’t been done before but everyone wanted him to graduate rather than drop out.

He began independent study work and also picked up a part time job as a tech in the burn unit at the local hospital. Not only would it give him medical experience it was extra money every month to pay the bills.

While it was great experience working at the burn unit, every day at the hospital made Sailor more and more certain he did not want to be a nurse. He felt like the entire thing was a huge mistake and he wanted to give it all up and go back to his old job.

We spent hours talking and arguing about his situation. While it was a possibility to quit and go back to his old job it would most likely end his career in the Navy and then he’d be without a degree or a job. I told him once he graduated it would get better. Being a nursing student was not the same as being a nurse and I was sure he would find a place in nursing he would enjoy.

We were excited to find out a few months after Sailor’s surgery that we were expecting another baby. Since we had such a terrible time with baby boy Sailor was pretty much convinced he didn’t want any more children. I really wanted three and it took over a year to convince Sailor that not all babies were as sick as our little boy.

A few days after we told everyone we were expecting we lost the baby.

I couldn’t help but think it was because we bombed the house for bugs a few days earlier. I’ll never know for sure, but we’ve never bombed our house for bugs since.

Our cute little house on the tree lined street was wonderful, except it was always crawling with bugs.

First there were the carpenter ants.

During a bad storm a tree fell on our roof. The roof was repaired but not before the wood got wet and made a great home for the carpenter ants. We started seeing them here and there and told our landlord. He said he would send someone out to take care of it.

They didn’t come soon enough. One evening we were eating dinner with friends, spaghetti with clam sauce (I’ll never forget), and a carpenter ant dropped on the table. We all dismissed it as a random bug and then another fell, and then another. They started falling out of the light in our ceiling like raindrops.

We all started screaming and I was frantically trying to protect the clam sauce our friends had prepared. By the time they stopped falling there were several hundred ants on our table and dining area. We did what any other poor college students who had splurged on an expensive meal would do. We spread a sheet down on the living room floor and ate our dinner there.

We also had bees. The giant oak tree in the front yard had a massive nest and on certain days it was like a game to get into the house without letting a bee in with you. Once evening Sailor had gone to get a sub for me. He walked into the house and headed towards the kitchen to get a plate for the sub. After a few seconds I heard a scream and then a crash. I ran into the kitchen to find Sailor standing with his shirt off and my sub all over the floor.

Apparently a bee had flown up Sailor’s shirt and stung him. He threw the sub in the air while frantically trying to get his shirt off. I could not believe he had dropped my sub because of a bee sting! I mean don’t get between me and my Subway! He went back to Subway and explained what happend. They felt so bad for him they gave him a replacement sub for free!

The roaches were the worst. You have’t experienced roaches until you live in Florida. For some reason they liked our fireplace, and a few times a year they would launch an attack. Once the fearless exterminator was at our house when an ash covered roach dashed out from our fireplace. He smashed it with his bare hands. I was grossed out and impressed all at the same time.

We loved our little house but sure was buggy!

We kept busy that summer throwing birthday parties for our kids and getting them ready for the school year. Our little girl would be starting kindergarten, I couldn’t believe it! She was always a social and outgoing girl so we knew she was just going to love her class.

The first day of school we dropped her off in a room full of kids we didn’t know. It didn’t feel quite right, but I didn’t think there were any other options. Christian school was too expensive and the only homeschoolers I knew were weird.

Just as we started our school year routine we found out we were expecting again. We were excited but didn’t want to tell anyone because of what happened before. We decided we would wait until I was farther along before we spilled the beans.

Sailor finished his classes in November and was commissioned. We had a big ceremony and his parents threw a large party afterwards. It kind of felt like the wedding we never had. Except Sailor was the center of attention, not me. 🙂

The movers came to pack up our house three days before Christmas that year. I couldn’t believe we would be leaving our little house on the tree lined street. For some reason I thought we would always live there, we had put down roots and it was hard to think about leaving our friends and family.

We wouldn’t be leaving quite yet though, Sailor was going to school in Rhode Island for six weeks and I would stay with my parents while he was gone. Moving back in with my parents felt strange, but I didn’t want to stay by myself for six weeks so it worked.

Sailor and I talked frequently while he was in training, mostly we talked about how cold Rhode Island was in January. It was so cold the door handles of his little red Volkswagon snapped off when his roommate tried to get into the car. I couldn’t imagine such cold weather, but I didn’t have to. In early February I took a trip up to Rhode Island to see Sailor. When I wasn’t freezing to death it was fun.

While the kids were in school I spent my time researching our next duty station, Portsmouth, Virginia. We were only given three choices and Portsmouth seemed the most affordable out of the three.

My number one priority was finding a house near a good school. Before my kids were school-aged I didn’t realize that your entire life revolved around school districts. I grew frustrated as I started to realize that all the houses in the good school districts were out of our price range.

The plan was for Sailor to finish school in Rhode Island and then go to Virginia to find us a place to live. The day he graduated he called to let me know he was on the road. I told him to call me when he arrived in Virginia. He was getting a late start, the weather was bad, and his car was old, plus Sailor had a horrible sense of direction. I was worried he might not make it to Virginia until the middle of the night.

I heard from Sailor several hours later. I was worried because he should have been very close to Portsmouth but he told me he was at a gas station in a city nowhere near his route. We only talked for a few minutes and he said he had to get back on the road. I was sure Sailor was totally lost.

I went to bed very worried.

I woke up the next morning with no word from Sailor. I was sure he would be calling any minute. But he never called. It had been almost sixteen hours since he left Rhode Island and it was only a ten hour drive to Virginia. I told myself that he probably checked into the hotel late into the evening and was still asleep.

The day went on and still no word from Sailor. I was growing more and more concerned. I called the people we knew in Virginia to see if they had heard from him and they hadn’t.

It had been almost twenty-four hours since he left Rhode Island and except for our brief phone call, no one had seen or heard from Sailor. Where was he?

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

I panicked when I walked into the house. I couldn’t tell who was hurt. I checked our toddler first and once I realized he was okay I tried to figure out what was wrong with Sailor.

He kept mumbling something and finally I realized he wanted me to check his blood pressure. I did and thought I made a mistake. It was 220/115. I took it again and it was the same. Sailor said he thought he was having a stroke. First a heart attack now a stroke… I couldn’t believe this was happening.

My mom arrived and I rushed Sailor to the ER. They took us right back (note: crazy high blood pressure will also get you right in to the ER) and Sailor was freaking out. He was sure he was dying. His cries of pain were so loud that the nurse asked him to hold it down because there were children around.

They admitted him to the hospital for tests and once again could not find anything wrong with him.

After he was discharged I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone with the kids. There was something wrong with him, but no one could figure out what it was.

A few weeks later his doctor at the VA Hospital tested him for a rare tumor. The test came back positive.

We were unsure what this diagnosis would mean for our family. What we knew was that Sailor had a rare tumor and that most people die from the tumor before it is found. We were fortunate.

They did an ultrasound to pinpoint the exact location of the tumor. During the ultrasound the tech asked Sailor if he had ever had cancer. He said no, he then asked if he had any previous abdominal surgeries, once again no.

Unbeknownst to Sailor he only had one kidney!

Thankfully this would have no effect on the tumor, but it was definitely unexpected.

The only cure was to remove the tumor, but the surgery was extremely risky. One mistake in the operating room could kill Sailor.

The VA Hospital wouldn’t handle such a complex case and he was assigned a surgeon at the Naval Hospital in Jacksonville. He was given medicine to reduce his blood pressure for the surgery. A spike in blood pressure during the surgery could result in a stroke or even death. To complicate things the tumor needed to be separated from his body completely before they could touch the tumor – if not he could die.

The blood pressure medicine had some serious side effects and Sailor had to withdraw from nursing school. He was unable to drive and even walking became difficult.

He had to take the medicine for four weeks before they could operate. During that time Sailor grew very depressed, he thought was going to die during the surgery. The night before the surgery we drove up to Jacksonville and stopped for dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Sailor said he wanted Mexican food for his “last meal.”

That evening Sailor ate like I had never seen him eat before. He was so stuffed that he couldn’t even get out of the booth. I anxiously sat in the booth waiting for Sailor to digest his last meal, I’m sure all my fidgeting finally convinced him he could make it to the car. We left and I dropped him off at the hospital and checked into a hotel to spend the night.

The next morning I hurried with Sailor’s parents to the hospital to see him before the surgery. We walked into the hospital room to find a half-dead looking Sailor lying in the bed.

We rushed over to him, thinking they had already given him a sedative before the surgery.

We were wrong.

Apparently the night before Sailor had been given two bottles of the stuff that cleans you out prior to surgery drink. The drink combined with enough Mexican food to feed a Mariachi band meant Sailor had spent the entire night in the bathroom. It got so bad that he finally just slept on the toilet.

He wasn’t drugged, he was exhausted.

I figured I would be sad before saying goodbye to him, but the thought of him sitting on the toilet all night with his IV pole made me giggle so I left feeling more happy than worried.

I don’t remember how long the surgery lasted but I do remember receiving occasional updates from the nurse. Things were going well but they ended up having to do a more invasive procedure than they initially expected. Instead of a few small incisions Sailor would have a fifteen inch incision across his stomach and recovery would be long and painful.

Finally the surgery was over and they allowed me into the recovery room to see him. He didn’t look good, but he was alive. I said a few things and then had to leave and wait for him to be transferred to the ICU.

When we were finally allowed to see Sailor in the ICU I was shocked. He was hooked up to so many tubes and wires you could hardly tell it was him. He wasn’t in a regular bed, he was in a chair that inflated and deflated with his movement.

Sailor hated the chair. Every chance he could he would try to move his body away from the chair, but it would inflate and press against him. He was frustrated and in pain.

It was hard to see Sailor in the ICU but it was better than the alternative.

After a few days Sailor was moved out of the ICU and into a regular room. Sailor was anxious to get home because the hospital was two hours away and visits were difficult. Finally after ten days he was released.

Our daughter ended up needing surgery on the same day Sailor was released from the hospital so his parents brought him home since I was at a different hospital. After I brought our daughter home I set up two hospital stations in the living room. Our daughter got the love seat and Sailor got the couch.

That evening my parents came over to visit. Sailor laid on one couch and we sat around talking. My father, who had major surgery a few years earlier, started cracking hospital jokes.

They were funny, really funny. I was glad to be laughing after so many months of stress. Sailor was laughing too… but he didn’t want to laugh. He asked my dad to stop the jokes, but my dad couldn’t, he was on a roll.

I finally told my dad that if he didn’t stop telling jokes he would be the one taking Sailor to the ER when he busted a stitch, or two.

My parents went home.

An hour later my father was on his way to the ER with Sailor.

If you haven’t followed Our Story, you might want to start at the beginning.

We had our boy and our girl, life was good. Everyone was thrilled with the ultrasound mistake, except we didn’t have a boy name. We spent the first night in the hospital looking through the hospital’s copy of 10,000 Baby Names for the perfect name for our baby.

I was excited to have a boy, but I was also confused. Several times during my pregnancy I had very vivid dreams about our family. It was always Sailor, myself and three little girls. I was sure God was showing me a glimpse into our future since so often I had no hope of a future with Sailor. I was confused as to how these very real dreams could be totally wrong!

I was thrilled with our little boy though and we soon agreed on a name and brought him home from the hospital.

All was well in the world until our sweet little boy was about three weeks old.

I do not remember much about the next four months. Our little boy was very, very sick. We were at the doctor’s office every few days. He would regularly stop breathing in our arms and he would choke and projectile vomit during almost every feeding. He didn’t smile, roll over, gain weight, or even make eye contact.

We were desperate. Our little girl had never been sick or even cried. She only went to the doctor for well check-ups. Our little boy had his own wing at the pediatrician’s office.

Not only did he suffer from chronic ear infections starting a two months old, thrush, failure to thrive and several other odd medical problems he had colic. He cried every night from 5 pm until 2 am. Not just cried but screamed, screamed until he threw up, choked, or stopped breathing.

No one would babysit him because they were afraid he would choke or stop breathing while we weren’t home, so there was never a break. Sailor didn’t handle the crying very well so I grew resentful that I was stuck with this sick, screaming baby, 24/7.

Finally when he was about four months old the colic stopped. The thrush went away and a few of the other issues were remedied as well. He was still very delayed, but at least he wasn’t turning blue and screaming all day.

After being confined to the house for almost five months, except for doctor’s visits, I decided to enroll in college to finish my last year of school. Sailor and I arranged our schedules so that we didn’t need a babysitter except for a few hours one day a week when our classes overlapped.

This new life worked. We didn’t spend much time time together so it was easier to get along. We made friends and reconnected with a few old friends.

About a year after our little boy was born our friends were babysitting while Sailor was at school and I was gone. Sailor got home before me and called to tell me to come home right away. Something was wrong.

I arrived home to find Sailor holding our son (wearing nothing but a diaper) in front of a portable fan. He didn’t look quite right. Sailor told me he had taken his temperature and it was 107.6. I told Sailor our thermometer must be wrong, but he did seem very, very sick.

He gave him a dose of motrin while I waited on hold for Tricare to give us permission to take him to the ER. (We had taken him to the ER previously without approval and ended up with huge co-pays that we couldn’t afford to pay) We finally got approval for an ER 20 minutes away instead of the one that was 3 minutes away. We put him in his car seat and raced across town to the ER.

I honestly didn’t think he would make it to the ER. During our ride his eyes fluttered and rolled back and he was unresponsive.

When we got to the ER his temperature was 106. I don’t really remember what happened that night in the ER, except that I went out of the room because I couldn’t stand to watch them start an IV on him and learned that Princess Diana had been in a car accident and died.

After several hours and numerous tests the ER doctors and nurses had no real answer for our son’s high fever. They told us they didn’t know if he had any brain damage from the fever and that we probably wouldn’t know for several years. We took our little boy home and watched over him for several days, worried the mysterious fever would return.

It never did and life continued. I graduated from college and settled into my role as a mom and wife. I learned to cook and clean (sort of) and was busy with my two kids. I got a job at our church with the children’s ministry and once again Sailor and I settled into our routine of being gone when the other was home. It worked.

One of our favorite family activities was going to garage sales on Saturday mornings. We would load the kids up in the car and drive around town with a newspaper and a map looking for great deals. During that time I learned about a little website called eBay. I couldn’t believe people were selling junk online and people were buying. I spent my free time researching how eBay worked and quickly realized that selling items I purchase at garage sales on eBay was an easy way to earn money.

My first sale, a pair of ceramic siamese cat salt and pepper shakers. I paid $0.05 for them at a yard sale and sold them for over $50 on eBay. I was hooked.

I quit my job at the church and devoted most of my free time to eBay. It was nice earn extra money, especially with all the co-pays we had for our children with chronic ear infections, asthma, and other illnesses.

My working from home was not the best thing for our marriage. With Sailor going to school full-time he had a lot of free time at home. It was hard to figure out how to get along like normal people. We had many fights that lasted for days. We ended up in counseling, again.

One day in December we got into an exceptionally bad argument. Sailor’s anger seemed worse than usual and he was so spun up during the argument I was concerned he might do something stupid.  Then all of a sudden he collapsed to the floor. I was secretly happy that his yelling made him pass out, but scared at the same time. I yelled at him to get up and he said he would…. in a minute. But he couldn’t get up. He told me he was “taking a break” from arguing. I told him that no one takes a break from arguing and lays flat on the floor.

He finally got up and the argument was forgotten. I told him something must be wrong with him because no one yells loud enough to fall down. He said he would see a doctor soon.

A few nights later we were at a Christmas concert at church. In the middle of the concert Sailor leaned over to me and whispered:

Sailor: After the concert is over I need you to take me to the ER.

Me: What????

Sailor: I think I’m having a heart attack.

Me: What????

Sailor: A heart attack.

Me: If you are having a heart attack we need to go right now!

Sailor: I don’t want to make a scene.

Me: It will be a bigger scene when the paramedics drag your dead body out of this auditorium.

Sailor: Fine, but we’re going to miss the finale and you love the finale.

Me: We are going now!

I then leaned over to my dad and said, “After the concert pick up the kids and meet us at the ER, Sailor is having a heart attack.”

By the time we had walked out of the building half my family was following us. I told them not to worry and we’d see them soon.

We headed to the ER and were admitted immediately, apparently “chest pain” is the keyword for getting to the front of the line at the ER.

They admitted him for a few days and ran every test possible. He was totally fine. They couldn’t explain the chest pain or the earlier collapse but suggested it might be stress.

After Sailor was discharged I was afraid to leave him with the kids. His behavior was erratic and I wasn’t sure if he could handle a two and four year-old alone.

One day, against my better judgment he convinced me to go Christmas shopping while he watched the kids. I had been gone about 45 minutes when I received a phone call to come home immediately. Apparently Sailor had been talking to my aunt on the phone and all of a sudden the phone went dead. No one could reach my house. My mom was headed over there to see what was wrong but I needed to come home too.

I rushed home and opened my front door to find Sailor lying face down on the ground and my two year-old screaming next to him.