by admin -

Ransacked…

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

I was happier than I had been in a long time while in Florida. My family didn’t have a lot of money either, but money doesn’t matter as much if you aren’t alone. 🙂

One day my entire family (parents, brother, sister and baby girl) headed about an hour away for my dad’s work party. We were going to be late for the party and my mom was not happy. We rushed out the door and didn’t bother picking up our “getting ready to leave” mess.

We spent the day swimming, eating, and riding SeaDoos on the river. It was awesome.

We didn’t arrive home until almost midnight and when we pulled into the driveway we noticed the front door was partially open.

We debated about what we should do, but finally we agreed that we needed to call the police. Within a few minutes the police arrived and entered my parent’s house. They were in the house for what seemed like an eternity.

They finally came out and told us there was no one inside, but that they believed the house had been broken into. They also said something about it being ransacked, but I kind of forgot that part because I was beginning to remember how we left it early that morning.

I’m sure my mother was mortified as we walked though the house. Clothes were everywhere, drawers were opened, the contents of my purse were dumped out on the coffee table and strewn all over the floor.

The problem… we made the mess. We were in such a hurry to leave we were the ones dumping things out, looking for sunglasses and car keys, changing outfits and not picking anything up.

Everyone thought it was funny…. everyone except mom.

Someone had broken into the house, but they never made it past the foyer. My parent’s little 20 pound blind and crippled dog scared off the intruders before they had a chance to find our treasures strewn all over the house.

I made a mental note to never again be so disorganized that my house looked like it had been ransacked while I was away.

A few days before I was scheduled to return to Virginia, Sailor called.

He had good news. We had been offered a house on base! My prayers had been answered. We would be able to live in the small base community. There was a playground and best of all… lots of families with kids! I could not wait to get back and start packing!

A few hours later Sailor called back. Given the type of things that happened to us in the past I figured we lost the house.

There was more good news. Sailor had been accepted into a commissioning program! He would spend the next three years going to college to become a nurse. We would have to pay for school, but the Navy would pay his salary.

I was stunned. Since the day we got married we had been focused on Sailor getting a commission. In fact in the week between Sailor asking me to marry him and us actually getting married, talks of him rejoining the Navy and getting a commission were frequent.

I mistakenly believed that a commission was the only way to solve our financial problems.

Nonetheless Sailor had been selected for this program and we needed to make a decision.

Do we give up the house on base, the job Sailor loved, and the beautiful mountains of West Virginia for a college degree, promotion, and pay raise?


by admin -

Take Me Home… Country Road

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

In April of 1995 Sailor left Panama and moved to West Virginia. I knew nothing about West Virginia other than it was country… and I wasn’t.

I wanted to give our marriage one last try (I hate failing) so I agreed to move to WV with Sailor.

Once Sailor got to West Virginia he learned that there was no base housing available on the little military base. Not only was there no base housing there were no rentals available within an hour’s drive. The closest town was Harrisonburg, VA, an hour away and over a large and looming mountain.

Sailor had no choice but to find an apartment for our family in Harrisonburg, VA. I was actually quite relieved to NOT live in West Virginia. After Sailor found a two bedroom apartment and my college semester ended my dad loaded up a moving van and drove me and baby girl to the mountains of Virginia.

I remember being in awe of Virginia’s beautiful mountains and cooler weather. We left Florida wearing t-shirts and shorts and I actually had to hunt around in my suitcase for a sweater once we arrived at our new house.

When we pulled up in the moving van a bunny was nibbling on a plant in the front yard, this place was like nothing I’d ever seen. We had views of the sun setting over the mountains in our front yard and I could hear cows mooing in the distance.

I was excited about our fresh start.

My dad stayed for a few days and helped baby proof our apartment and then headed south again.

It was just us. Sailor, baby girl, and myself… could we make this work? Sailor claimed to be a changed man, but I hadn’t actually spent any time with him to know if this was true.

Shortly after settling in we quickly realized Sailor’s paycheck wasn’t going to cover our expenses and debt. Apparently while we were living apart Sailor managed to rack up quite a debt on his Star card. We were already living at the bare minimum with only one car, no cable, and no extras. We were broke and I didn’t know how we were going to make it work.

Sailor found a job at the grocery store down the road and so began our new routine.

He would wake up and leave the house before I was awake and head to work. He would arrive home around 5:45pm, eat a quick dinner and head to the grocery store to work the evening shift in the produce department.

He was tired all the time and I was lonely. I can’t quite remember why he got the second job instead of me… but that’s just how it happened.

I wanted friends, every day I walked our neighborhood pushing the stroller hoping to meet someone. I got smiles and waves… but no friends. Apparently most of the people in our neighborhood were either college students or retirees and none of them pushed a stroller up and down the street every day of the week.

I spent my days walking the neighborhood, entertaining baby girl, killing flies, watching Barney every day at 3pm, waiting for the rabbit to appear, rearranging furniture, clipping coupons, and learning how to sew and cook. Unfortunately cleaning the house was not on my list.

Even with Sailor’s extra job we were barely getting by. Things were so bad that on the way down the mountain he would often shut off the car and coast, to save on gas.

Sailor felt like we needed more help so he decided that we should apply for WIC. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want any help, I wanted to do it all myself. Finally after much persuading I agreed, but only for a few months, until we paid off the debts. Then we would remove ourselves from the program.

While working nights in the produce department one of Sailor’s jobs was to throw away the expired produce. Things were marked for the garbage and it was Sailor’s job to take them out to the dumpster every evening at the end of his shift.

Many times these vegetables were still edible, but because they were expired they had to be thrown out. Sailor would stack the expired produce in boxes outside the dumpster. Instead of throwing them away he would bring them home.

I felt like my life was crumbling… we were receiving free milk and more cheese than anyone could possibly eat through WIC, we were eating food destined for the dumpster, I had no car, no job, no friends, and things with Sailor weren’t getting much better.

The day before Thanksgiving I received a call from my husband’s work. There had been an accident on the mountain. Sailor hit a patch of black ice and wrecked our car, our only car!

At least I had one thing to be thankful for that Thanksgiving. Sailor walked away from the accident without even a scratch. We made pizza for Thanksgiving and received a basket of free food from the Navy base.

I hated being poor.

After Thanksgiving we found out that because we drove a certain type of car repairs and parts would take five weeks! We would be without a car for Christmas! We wouldn’t even be able to get lights for our Christmas tree.

My husband had a friend who graciously offered to take him to work every day. He walked to his second job at the grocery store. The same friend also took us Christmas shopping and did what he could to help us.

Christmas was sparse but it was happy. We spent it with Sailor’s sister and then my family came to visit. I stopped feeling sorry for myself because I was so excited to have people in our little apartment.

Christmas ended and I was prepared for a winter funk when I awoke one morning to a surprise. Snow! And not just any snow, a blizzard. As Sailor and I excitedly shoveled our sidewalk, as only dummies from Florida would do in a blizzard, the snow was pouring down. It took us about three hours to realize that shoveling snow during a blizzard was pointless.

Once it stopped snowing we were left with almost six feet of snow. Our car was buried and our street was not plowed so we were stuck, just the three of us.

We wanted baby girl to experience snow so we wrapped her tennis shoes in Ziploc bags and put on four pairs of pants. We couldn’t afford snow pants or boots so we made do. She wasn’t thrilled with the snow, but I wouldn’t have been either if my feet were wrapped in plastic bags.

After our street was plowed and life got back to normal I resumed my daily walks. I was determined to meet someone! One day I came home from our walk and realized that baby girl had snot frozen to her face! What kind of mother was I?

I gave up on walking until the spring.

Good things happened that year.

I learned to cook. No more hot dogs and fettucini alfredo! We had moved up to sausage (purchased with a double coupon) and yellow rice, quiche (free with all our WIC food), and cream based stews.

I found the green cabinet.

Sailor was certified as an EMT.

Sailor received his AA degree from a community college.

I learned how to make the perfect pie crust.

We had an ice storm and Sailor and I slid down our steep driveway on raincoats.

I threw my first Cinco de’ Mayo party.

Sailor was promoted, got a raise, and was able to quit the grocery store job.

We paid off the last of our debt (except the car).

We got internet.

Unfortunately I was consumed with all the bad things that were happening. We were still fighting, we had problems with our landlord, our storage area flooded, we still didn’t have many friends, Sailor was still tired and I was still lonely.

In May we celebrated our third anniversary and our first anniversary together. The same friend who took Sailor to work every day offered to babysit so we could go out on a date for our anniversary. Even though this guy had never held a baby or changed a diaper in his life we jumped at the chance for our first date night in several months.

Later that month Sailor drove baby girl and I to Dulles to catch a flight to Florida. After a year of living in Virginia I was going back home to see my sister graduate from high school. I was excited to have a break from my life.

Little did I know it would be nine years until I saw Harrisonburg, Virginia again.

by admin -

Our Story: Photos

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated Our Story, I know this because I get at least one reader email a day asking me to update. 🙂

I’m hoping these photos will help ease the pain between updates. They aren’t the best quality because the photos are almost 20 years old, and I had to take pictures instead of scanning, because I’m not quite sure how to use our new scanner yet.

I present to you long-haired hippy, circa 1992. (This picture was taken about 6 months before I met him)

The two of us at our wedding reception (3 weeks after we got married).

One of our many moves the summer we got married.

If you are new to the site you might want to read Our Story and find out how I became, The Happy Housewife. The story isn’t finished yet, but I’m working on it.

by admin -

Our Story ~ Broke in More Ways than One

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.

by admin -

Our Story or HIStory

Happy has asked me to write about this part of our story. I’ll try to do my best to explain what happened when she asked me for a divorce and the aftermath of that phone call. If you are new to my site you might want to read the previous chapters in Our Story before reading on.

Happy let me know that we’d been living separate lives, more than the miles required. I hadn’t been writing her and although I was able to call pretty regularly we rarely discussed anything important. She lived her life in Florida with our daughter and I lived mine in Panama with work and whatever diversion I could muster. We had no basis to remain married and Happy made it clear that she wanted out.

I didn’t know then why I fought the divorce but there was no way I was going to let this marriage end. I  didn’t know Happy or my daughter but I was determined to give the marriage my all and fight for it until I knew I’d spent everything I had to save it. Looking back, it seems so illogical and without any hope. (Aside – Writing this part of our story is even now convicting me that my passion and dedication has waned over the years. What I felt then was extreme sadness and loss but that motivated me to action. I need to regain some of that drive and serve my wife and family with the same zeal I had when I thought all could be lost)

I got leave from my command and flew home the next day. I don’t remember the ride home with Happy but I’m sure it was either frosty or hot but surely not cordial. We continued to fight for the next several days about whether we would divorce, how we would go forward and whether there was a future at all for us.

Happy told you I was an atheist. After the constant fighting and occasional cursing session from me, Happy’s parents suggested we meet with a Christian counselor. I was at my wit’s end and agreed to give it a try. The concepts he suggested to me seemed a little odd but I accepted the books he gave me and read them. Two of the books I remember are: Larry Crabb’s Inside Out and Gary Smalley’s If Only He Knew: What No Woman Can Resist.

Both books had a profound effect on me. Smalley’s book outlines how a Christian is to live for his wife. He covered servant leadership and referred me to scripture to support his claims. I recall reading Ephesians and  thinking how backwards the ideas seemed to me. I threw up my hands and decided to try some of the ideas out in our marriage – I mean nothing else seemed to be working.

Later I read Crabb’s book and leaned about the need for internal change rather than external coverings over the same  selfish heart. I knew I couldn’t be selfless on my own power so I realized I needed something, someone, greater than me to lead me to serve my nascent family. I discovered that I wasn’t the end all be all of an evolutionary process but a child of God who hadn’t been serving Him and couldn’t serve my wife and daughter without Him. I’d been nearly broken by my failed marriage but He gave me the lifeline I needed to be redeemed from within and then he showed me what I needed to to do to redeem my marriage. I became a Christian because those ideas that seemed so foreign to me worked. I tried to serve my wife in the ways the Bible teaches and began to see a change in my heart and hers. It was counter-intuitive, I worked to deny my selfish desires and to serve her and my daughter as much as I could. Something strange began to happen in me. The more I served them, the more I wanted to serve and the happier I became. I felt the flickerings of true love start in me. I have to be honest, I wanted to love Happy and be loved by her but until I met Jesus I didn’t know how. Don’t get me wrong, God showers His blessings on believers and non-believers as He sees fit. I’m not saying that non-Christians can’t love, I’m just saying that its a lot easier to love when you’ve met the source of all love.

Let me be clear, I’m not perfect and I’m not even close to be best husband and father in the world. I get angry and say stupid things all the time. I fall back into selfishness and don’t do near enough for my wife and kids. What Happy saw in me was and is not from me. It is only God’s work in me that she saw then and that I need to let shine forth for now and forever.

Thanks for letting me share a part of my side of our story.

Writer’s note: This is the story of how I became The Happy Housewife. I am writing as I have time and try to publish a new chapter every few weeks. This page will be updated when I write the next chapter. If you don’t want to miss the next installment you can subscribe to my blog.

by admin -

Our Story ~ This was all a HUGE Mistake

Note: From now on dh will be referred to as Sailor. If you are new to my site you might want to read the previous chapters in Our Story before reading on.

After our three weeks together Sailor left for Panama. For several weeks we called and wrote letters talking mainly about our newborn daughter. She was an absolutely delightful baby which was good since I had no idea what I was doing. When she was seven weeks old I went back to school full time and she spent three days a week at the babysitter’s house. During evening classes she hung out with my family and never lacked for attention.

As time went on Sailor and I drifted slowly apart. His letters came less and less often until they stopped coming all together. I busied myself with school and friends and adjusted to life as a single mom. I still wrote regularly with baby updates and mailed videos of her swinging in her swing or sitting in her chair, but only because I felt obligated.

Finally Thanksgiving weekend I decided it was time to have a talk with Sailor. I called him and told him I wanted a divorce. We were two different people, with two different lives, and we had nothing in common. Wasn’t it better just to call it all a big mistake and move on? Sailor didn’t see it that way at all. Even though he had stopped writing he still had a daughter whom he cared very much about, he wasn’t about to lose her…

He told me there was no way we were getting a divorce and if I proceeded he would fight me for custody of our daughter. This upset me terribly because she didn’t even know him, he had only seen her for 3 weeks of her life. How dare he try to take away MY daughter. To make matters worse he informed me that he was purchasing a plane ticket and would be arriving the next day so we could work things out.

In my opinion, there was nothing to work out. This had all been one big mistake, it was better to move on with our lives than to continue. Nevertheless he arrived the next day with plans to stay for a month.

Much to my surprise my parents were completely behind Sailor, they did not think we should get a divorce and were determined to help us work it out. They even scheduled several sessions with a counselor they knew from church. This caused me to grow even angrier as I now felt the entire world was against me. I really believed it would be better for my daughter and I to start over, it could not be good for a child to grow up with two parents who didn’t even like each other.

At our first counseling session I steeled myself in the chair with arms crossed determined not to show one ounce of emotion. I answered the questions with one word and listened as Sailor claimed to want to work things out. I thought to myself that he was only doing this to get back at me for wanting to take his daughter, he says one thing to the counselor and then does something else when we are together. With each counseling session my bitterness grew and grew.

Finally at one of our last sessions (before Sailor was to return to Panama) the counselor gave sailor a stack of books to read. He told Sailor that he must read them in order for our marriage to work. I remember thinking that no book in the world was going to make our marriage work, but at least I didn’t have to read anything. School was starting in a few days and I would have plenty of homework to keep my busy. The counselor also told Sailor he would need to write me a letter once a week once he was back in Panama. Sailor assured him that he would, while I knew there was no way he would keep his promise.

Finally Sailor returned to Panama and I was free once again. I knew it was only a matter of time before he went back to his old ways, once he didn’t have my parents and the counselor checking up on him. At the end of the first week I was surprised when I found a letter from Sailor in the mailbox. I was even more surprised when I opened it and found out that he had been reading some of the books the counselor had given him.

As the weeks went on more and more letters arrived in the mailbox. Sailor was eagerly reading every book the counselor had given him. I was hesitant to believe he could change. During this time Sailor received new orders. He We would be moving to a small town in West Virginia.

Was I ready to move away from the safety and security of my family? What about my degree, I only needed 30 more credits to graduate. Would I be moving back in with an angry man or had he really changed? And what about our little girl? Was I ready to be a full time mom without the help of baby sitters, grandparents, and an aunt and uncle?

What change had occurred in Sailor, that made me think I should give this marriage another try?

Writer’s note: This is the story of how I became The Happy Housewife. I am writing as I have time and try to publish a new chapter every few weeks. This page will be updated when I write the next chapter. If you don’t want to miss the next installment you can subscribe to my blog.

by admin -

And Baby Makes Three

This is Our Story, or the story of how I met my husband, got married a few weeks later, and eventually became The Happy Housewife. This story has a beginning, but no end… yet. I publish a chapter every few weeks, so if you don’t want to miss an installment subscribe to my blog.

As I sat on the airplane a feeling of relief swept over me. There was no sadness, not even regret, just relief to finally be free of my problems (or so I thought). My relief was short lived as shortly after everyone boarded the plane I heard my name being called over the intercom system. It was at this point in my life that I realized why innocent people run from the police. I knew I had done nothing wrong, but I didn’t want to come to the front of the plane. What could possibly be the problem? I was not going to get off that airplane, I was leaving and no one was going to stop me.

After about 30 seconds of contemplating not identifying myself, I realized I did not want to spend the night in jail in a foreign country (not sure why I thought I would end up in jail) and I made my way to the front of the plane. Once I reached the front they told me there was a problem and that I need to go to security. I could not believe this was happening. I was led off the plane and through the airport where eventually I ended up in a room with several security people and all my luggage. My luggage was not the nice black stuff with wheels and zippers either. It was old with clasps that made a clicking sound when they were shut, except the clasps didn’t work so well so we had duct taped my luggage together so it didn’t fall apart.

The duct tape had been cut off and my luggage was open and they were going through all my stuff. I felt like this was all a very, very bad dream, but it wasn’t, it was real and happening to me. Then a female security guard patted me up and down as I watched in horror as they tore apart my luggage. Finally after several minutes they decided I was not a threat I was told I could reboard the plane. My luggage however was in total disarray and I began to accept the fact that my stuff might not make it to Miami.

I arrived in Florida and quickly settled back into my old life, well except for the fact that I was married and pregnant. I spent my days hanging out at my parent’s house (I had no car) and my nights watching basketball on television with my dad and a few friends. Dh and I spoke occasionally on the phone, but I did write him a letter almost every day (remember life before email). I am not sure what those letters said, I think I just felt it was my duty to write them. The more time that passed the more we grew apart.

As time came for the baby to be born we made arrangements for dh to fly to the states. I decided it would be better for him to arrive after my due date just in case the baby decided to come late. Thank goodness I did that because my due date, June 20th, came and went. By June 21st I was miserable. By June 25th, I decided that I wasn’t ever going to have the baby. By July 1st I was desperate. I arrived at my appointment with plans to beg and plead for an induction. It was July in Florida and I was miserable!

Fortunately my doctor decided to check me to see if I was ready to be induced. I was 5cm so he sent me to the hospital to have the baby. When I arrived at the hospital there were no available beds and since I wasn’t in labor they wouldn’t admit me. The nurses encouraged me to go for a walk to help move things along and I would be admitted. I walked for 15 hours! From 9 am to midnight my mom and I walked the mall, the hospital, the parking lot and every place else we could think of. Every few hours we would return to the floor where they would send me away because I wasn’t in “active labor.”  Finally at midnight after walking the entire day plus not eating my mom put her foot down. She told the nurses they either needed to admit me or send me home, but those were the only two options.

They admitted me.

By that time I was completely exhausted, my feet ached, and were covered in blisters from walking all day. They decided to break my water and surprise, surprise we had a baby 45 minutes later.

Our little girl was born 14 months after we got married. We were officially a family.

Dh arrived in the states when she was three days old and for three weeks we “played house.” I think the constant, feeding, pooping, and crying (me not the baby :), distracted us from the myriad of problems I had left down in Panama. For three weeks things seemed alright. Perhaps I had made a mistake in leaving, maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought. We were two adults, surely we could work out of differences.

Now that there was another person involved, things suddenly became a lot more complicated.

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by admin -

The Key

This is Our Story, or my journey to become The Happy Housewife. I write a new chapter every few weeks, to catch up start at the beginning.

A few years earlier in my life I decided rather foolishly to move out. On the way out the door I attempted to remove the house key from my key ring and return it to my father. He handed it back to me and told me no matter what, I could always come home.

So, I was pregnant, unhappy, and scared. For those of you who have lived on small military bases you are probably familiar with a little thing called gossip. This base excelled at gossip and it wasn’t long after I found out I was pregnant that everyone I met told me a horror story about some lady who just had a baby. It went a little something like this;

Person I hardly knew: Hi UnHappy Housewife, I heard you were pregnant.

Me: Um, yes.

Person I hardly knew: Did you hear about Phil’s wife?

Me: Um, no…

Person I hardly knew: Well she was pregnant too, the doctors let her go four weeks overdue, then when she finally went into labor she got stuck in traffic on the two hour drive to the hospital. When she got to the hospital they told her there was no one there to give her an epidural. She was in labor for 56 hours at the hospital and finally had a c-section, the baby weighed 12 pounds.

After hearing story after story I became petrified to have a baby. Between pregnancy fears and fighting with dh, I was overtaken with depression. I would spend hours on the computer (this was before internet) playing solitaire. When dh would return from work the fighting would begin and only end when he left for his next shift. I felt trapped. I had no friends, my family was an ocean away, I had no where to turn.

Because of the stress, I was losing weight, my doctor didn’t seem concerned. He told me it was normal to lose weight at the beginning of a pregnancy.

I remember sitting in the corner calling my parents, crying hysterically. I begged for them to rescue me. I was miserable, they doctor’s didn’t care about me or the baby, and my marriage to dh was a huge mistake. I wanted to go home. But my parents would remind me I was already home. I had made choices and now I needed to live with them. While I sobbed on the phone, they would calmly remind me that I needed to work things out.

Finally in the heat of an argument with dh I locked myself in the spare room and dialed my parents’ number. I was so hysterical my dad couldn’t understand a word I was saying. I was begging and pleading to move back. My dad started to explain to me why I needed to stay. In my complete hysteria I started screaming over and over, “The key! The key! You told me I could always come home! I still have the key!”

I am sure my parents agonized over their decision. I know they were worried about me and the baby, but they also believed that marriage was a commitment for life. They didn’t want me to run away from my problems, but they didn’t want my situation to get any worse. Finally after much debate and with the agreement of dh we decided it would be best for me to return to the states to have the baby.

108 days after I arrived I boarded a plane to Miami. I was going home, with no intention of ever returning.

Writer’s note: This is the story of how I became The Happy Housewife. I am writing as I have time and try to publish a new chapter every few weeks. If you don’t want to miss the next installment you can subscribe to my blog.

by admin -

My First Attempt as The Happy Housewife

Do not read this until you have read the entire story.

Needless to say I did not arrive in Panama with the best attitude. It was not what I expected and I did not handle the disappointment very well. I soon found out that there were no jobs available and that the college was over 2 hours away on the other side of the country. (Remember the days before online classes?) I set out on my first attempt as The Happy Housewife.

The problem was, I didn’t know how to be a housewife. When I first arrived in Panama, our house was furnished with loaner furniture from the Army. Those of you who have lived with loaner furniture know what I am talking about. Our bed consisted of a mattress on the floor, 2 flat sheets and one pillow each. We had a couch, a table, and a few dishes. I tried to make do with the situation knowing our furniture would arrive soon, but it was very lonely all day in a nearly empty house while dh worked crazy shift hours.

I tried ironing his uniforms while he was at work, except I didn’t know how to iron. During one attempt I actually broke the VCR (a loaner) while trying to iron. How can you break a VCR while ironing, I am not sure, but somehow I flipped the iron off the ironing board and it soared through the air landing on the cord to the VCR, burning through the cord as well as pulling the VCR off the television onto the floor. The young broke newlyweds now had to buy someone a new VCR.

I tried cooking, but I didn’t know how to make anything. Our dinners consisted of fettucini alfredo, hot dogs, and frozen pizza. All other meals were cereal. I was too afraid to go to the grocery store by myself (plus I didn’t have a car) so our trips would involve dh and I walking cluelessly through the aisles, with our ration cards (remember those) and always ending up with the exactly same things in our cart. Hot dogs, noodles, Parmesan cheese, and 17 boxes of Lucky Charms. During Thanksgiving I tried to make food for the sailors and soldiers, but ended up spray painting the walls with potatoes and eating raw turkey for dinner. I was such a bad cook I didn’t realize our oven was broken for over 2 months!

When we found out of furniture had arrived I was so excited. I could finally decorate, rearrange and start playing house. Except (and I am not exaggerating) every piece of furniture we owned had been damaged by the movers. It was terrible. I was in tears as box after box was unloaded and I was pulling out our dented, scratched, and broken possessions. The legs had been broken off our chairs, huge rips covered the back of our couch, and our dining room table had warped so badly you almost couldn’t set anything on top of it without it sliding off.

I tried to bury my frustration on our now house full of broken stuff by painting. I had this brilliant idea to paint our entire downstairs bubble gum pink. I knew that regular painting wouldn’t look right so I decided to sponge paint. After about 3 and a half walls I decided the sponge painting was just too hard so I gave up. The rest of our time there was spent in a house with partially painted pink walls. Dh said he felt like he was living inside a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

As for dh and I, and I am sure this will shock you, we couldn’t spend five minutes together without arguing. I found out quickly that marrying someone you don’t know at all, may not be such a good idea. He worked all the time and I was bored, scared, alone, and resentful of the situation. When he would come home from work I would be dying for someone to talk to and he would be dying to go to sleep. Since he works rotating shifts much of his sleep time was during the day while I was awake. I would usually let him sleep for two or three hours and then wake him up because I was so bored. Needless to say he wasn’t very happy with this habit of mine.

After a few weeks I found out there was a library on base so dh took me and I checked out every book I could. I have always been an avid reader and I was actually excited to have something to do with my time. The only problem was that I started to read Tom Clancy novels. They always seemed to be set in a third world jungle somewhere and I couldn’t help but relate these to my life. I would read all night and then lay in bed petrified that undercover agents or bad guys would come crashing through my door to kidnap me. I stopped sleeping.

One night as I lay in bed alone (dh was at work) I was trying not to think of everything bad that could happen to me. Just as I had calmed myself down I heard the doorknob turn on the front door. I completely panicked. I knew I was going to be kidnapped or killed. I tried to think of a plan, but I couldn’t even move. I laid there paralyzed in fear as I heard men’s voices in my downstairs. Then I heard footsteps coming up the stairs towards my room. I braced myself for what would happen to me… the door swung open, and standing there was dh, covered from head to toe in mud, uniform ripped, and looking quite upset. Not nearly as upset as I was since I thought he was there to kill me.

Turns out our car had broken down on the road to his work. This road was notoriously dangerous and dh was not too happy that he was stuck. He decided the best course of action would be to run the rest of the way to work and hope that someone passed him and offered help. Not only was the road dangerous it was in the middle of the jungle so there were all sorts of animals hiding in the dark as well. During his run for help dh fell into a huge pothole and ruined his uniform, became bathed in mud and bloodied his knees. Finally he was picked up by another sailor who drove him back home to get a clean uniform and return to work.

Except there were no clean uniforms. Remember my outside washer and dryer, I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t going to use them. Laundry at our house would pile up until dh ran out of clothes and decided to wash something. So dh and his friend had to wait while he did a load of laundry in order to have a clean uniform to wear to work for the rest of the night. Dh was not happy, and I was not happy that he had scared me to death and ruined a nice uniform.

Unhappiness was a theme over the next few months. I found out that dh and I were complete opposites and not the kind that attract. We fought and bickered over everything from housework to food to music. It was a strange feeling because I was truly growing to dislike dh with all my heart and yet I would wait anxiously for him to return home from work so I could have someone to talk to. Even fighting was better than silence and our fights were anything but silent. I soon found out that dh had a temper like none I had ever seen and I was not one to back down from a fight and certainly not lose one. I remember screaming matches so terrible that dh would actually lose his voice. I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry for hours.

I tried to plot my escape but I didn’t know what to do. No one back in the states seemed to understand how bad it was and I didn’t have any place to go. No friends, no family, I was truly alone. The stress was more than I could take, and one day while taking a shower I started to feel faint and almost passed out. Dh took me the doctor and I that is when we learned I was pregnant….

Yes folks, another cliff hanger. I will try to have another installment next week. Until then, I have compiled all the installments and created a separate page for them. So if you would like to read Our Story in its entirety (or at least what I have written so far)  you can click on Our Story at the top of my header.

by admin -

Panama

Start at the beginning, Part One.

It took about ten seconds once the plane landed in Panama for me to realize I wanted to take the next plane back to the States. No one spoke English, or at least they pretended not to, and the airport was not very passenger friendly. I wandered around helpless until I saw a long line of people and decided to join them, in hopes that it would lead me out of the terminal. After what seemed like hours, but was probably only 30 minutes, I was through the line and on my way out of the airport. Dh and a friend (the one who was driving us to our house) were waiting for me near the exit.

As soon as I stepped outside I was met with the most intense humidity I had ever felt in my life. Everyone was covered with a sheen of sweat and soon I was too. I got in the car which of course had no air conditioning and prepared for the 2.5 hour drive to the other side of the country. As we drove through Panama City, I talked nonstop about how much I already didn’t like it and made sure to point out every flaw and problem. Then we entered the “country.” My constant complaining was silenced by the extreme poverty that surrounded me. We passed neighborhoods in which every house was made from cardboard boxes. Garbage piled ten feet high lined the streets and the medians. Dogs ran wild and children did too.

My shock turned to terror as we then began passing checkpoints with Panamanian armed guards, and it became obvious there was a good way and a bad way to make it through the roadblocks. The good way involved pretending to speak no Spanish (even though dh is fluent) and the exchange of some money. The bad way… well I did not want to find out.

At some point we reached the Panama Canal. I thought this would be the highlight of the drive until I realized that if you arrived at the canal at the wrong time you could sit in your car for up to two hours while ships passed through the locks. I probably don’t have to tell you that we arrived at the wrong time. By the time we started moving again I was a complete sweaty, scared mess that wanted to close my eyes, tap my heels together 3 times and end up back in Kansas.

Finally we reached the base, I was relieved since now I would be living under the protection of the US Army, but of course I was wrong again. The base was guarded by the Panamanians and was open to everyone. As we entered the gate the driver started telling me stories about all the recent break-ins that had occurred on the base. I decided right then I was never leaving the house without dh. My only hope was that we didn’t own anything worth stealing anyway.

As we drove through the windy roads of the base I started noticing how beautiful and green everything looked. I guess 100% humidity is great for the environment. The flowers were the brightest colors, the trees a deep green, it started to resemble paradise and I forgot for a moment that I was melting in the back seat.  Then out of nowhere I was jolted out of my fleeting fantasy. Large cinder block buildings appeared around the corner. They were old, but more importantly bullet holes marred every building. Apparently this base was occupied by the Panamanians when we invaded a few years earlier. The ransacked barracks still stood vacant along the road. I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to those who had lived in those barracks, did they live, did they die, did they leave behind a family?

Finally we pulled up to the house. It was a yellowish color stilt house with a tile roof. I remembered thinking it was pretty, sort of… then I noticed that under the house there was a carport that also housed the washer and dryer. As I walked by I remember thinking that since I had already decided I would never leave the house alone, dh better get use to doing the laundry. The washer and dryer were covered with a film of dead bugs and other items I didn’t want to touch. I hurried up the flight of stairs ready to see my new home and lock myself inside it for the next two years.

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