Denial and Progress

The Mack family is moving.  Not far, just down the street about 15 miles or so.  A little closer to Memphis, and a little closer to civilization.  We are having a house built for us, and it should be finished sometime in May.  I've been in deep denial.

I don't really want to move.  The kids don't want to move either.  Well, Jack is OK with it, because it gets him a little closer to his friends and that means more potential to have play dates with them.  

There are several reasons I don't want to move, but the first reason is because I love the home that we have.  Yes, it's old, yes it requires a considerable amount of maintenance, yes it is too small for our family.  But it is our home, and I am emotionally attached to it.  When we bought this home, it was our "last home" until we were old enough to by a giant RV and live in that while touring the country.  It is the home I brought two babies home from the hospital to.  It is the home that Shandi has spent the longest time in because we moved around so much.  

If you are one of those people that gets uneasy when the folks around you start talking about money and finances, then go ahead and close out this post and move on.  I am NOT afraid to discuss money.  Most military people are not, because we all already know how much money everybody makes.  We have no secrets, there is no salary bartering, there are no closet money discussions.   That makes us lax about discussing finances.  If so and so has a huge house, two cars and a boat, we know he's extended to the max.  We also know that the guy driving in a beater car and living in an old ranch style house has a fat savings account.  And we don't care.  I was also a financial counselor in the Navy for ten years, so I talked about money all the time and helped a whole bunch of folks dig themselves out of debt.  I understand that things are different in the "civilian community" and you people get all creeped out talking about money.  So if you move along in a cold sweat, I totally understand.   OK, moving on.

The second reason I don't want to move is because I am OCD about money, but to a fault.  My first husband was a financial train wreck.   After our divorce, he left me with thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of debt.  It took me (only me, he didn't help with any of it) YEARS to dig myself out of that hole and restore my good credit.  It was a nightmare.  And because y'all know I don't do anything halfway, I got pretty psychotic about money after that.  I took a great financial class in the military and that's when I became a Navy Command Financial Specialist.  But like I said, I don't think my obsession with our finances is necessarily always a good thing.  And when The Coach first said "We need to think about moving, we have outgrown this house", I scoffed at him and told him "NO.  WE ARE NOT MOVING.  FORGET ABOUT IT".  The thought of a bigger mortgage payment made me ill.  Not that we couldn't afford it, because we can.  Don't read into this that we aren't financially able to buy another house.  That's not it at all.  I would just prefer to keep my money in mattresses and buried in the backyard like all the other crazies.  Kidding.  Sort of.  

The third reason is because I desperately wanted Joe to be a school teacher.  He originally tried to find a teaching job here after he retired and he couldn't find one.  I wanted to be able to spend our summers on the road, camping.  Once he realized he couldn't find a teaching job is when he decided to make the jump on this new house, because his current job pays more to be quite frank.  AND, in a very bittersweet turn of events, he has been offered a job teaching in the Shelby County School system starting in the fall.  Can we make it work?  Sure.  It will be tight until the old house sells, but we can do it.  I would really like to have our summers together with the boys to take great adventures, but I also understand his desire to make more money.  He was also recently (today) offered and has accepted a pretty big promotion with the company he is currently working for and is scheduled to start his new position in Memphis next week.  Moving will put him much closer to his new office.  He hasn't taken teaching off the table, and now he has a really big decision to make about his future.   I will support him with whatever he decides to do.  I honestly just want him to be happy.  

He let the new house thing lie for a few more months, and as the baby grew, our lack of space was evident. We have all three boys sharing a room, and while it's a good size room there is only one tiny closet the size of a coat closet.  As a result, the boys clothes are always on the floor, stacked in a pile somewhere, or squished into a corner.  Shandi is back home with us, and the bathroom they share is small.  I won't let the boys shower or bathe in that bathroom because the floors are wood and the tub is the original claw foot and it makes a mess.  So essentially, we share a bathroom with the boys.  They are messy.  They invade our space.  

The Coach brought it up again, and I once again very quickly put my foot straight down.  "NO".  

OK, listen up.  You can't have a marriage that way.  As much as I'd like to think I am charge of everything, and usually I am, you have to listen to what your spouse is telling you.  I did not listen, and would not even entertain the thought.  And the man that rarely puts his foot down on anything called my bluff and did just that.  He put his foot down.  And he bought a house.  Well, he bought a lot and a future house that hadn't been built yet.  Boy was I upset.  I was upset for months.  I'm still upset, but I've come to terms with it.  Up until a few weeks ago I hadn't told more than maybe two people because I was just sort of hoping it would "go away".  But, houses don't go away.  And the further along the construction goes, the more it's sinking in that we are actually moving.  

The house is beautiful.  It's 3,400 square feet, and that's 1,400 more than we have now.  The boys bedroom (they are still sharing at their request) is huge and has a really big walk-in closet with plenty of room for their clothes.  They also have a separate playroom, which is great.  The bathroom upstairs is plenty big for them, and they obviously will be out of our bathroom now.  Shandi has her own room still, and we have a guest room downstairs for guests.  I will still have a dedicated craft space right off the kitchen, and our bedroom is in the furthest spot away from the boys so we will have plenty of privacy.  I have a laundry room (I don't have one of those now), and we will have a three car garage.  We will be installing a storm shelter before spring, and maybe a pool next year (I'm on the fence about the safety of that).  There is room to park our camper so we won't have to store it anymore.  It's really a beautiful home, and the floor plan is perfect.  It's in a nice quiet neighborhood in a quiet little city.

That brings up the future of our current home.  I honestly want to just keep it.   I can't bear to sell it.  However,  being the money nazi that I am, I know that while possible, that's not smart.  I wouldn't want to rent it, just keep it for sentimental reasons.  That makes no sense, I know.  So it's got to be sold.  We are waiting to put it on the market until after we move into the new house so we can do a little more work on it that we really can't do with all of us crammed inside.

And that brings up the progress part of this post.  I've made considerable progress dealing with my issues, and considerable progress has been made on our home.  

The lot was graded.

The slab was poured.

The house was framed.  This is the back of the house.

The framed house in our new neighborhood.

The roof went on. 

The bricks went up. 

And this is where we are today.  Waiting for the stone to be installed on the spots that have no brick.

The inside is moving along quickly.  The plumbing, electrical, and drywall are finished.  I meet with the trim guy today to go over the layouts for the custom closets.

This is the entrance from the kitchen and hearth room that leads to the stairs and the guest room and guest  bath.

This will eventually be the kitchen.   

This is the hearth room, right off the kitchen.  There is another window of the same size to the left of the fireplace.  The space to the left of the fireplace will have my craft furniture.  The space to the right will be a breakfast area, and we will put a few comfy chairs in front of the fireplace and TV.  I have a feeling we will be spending a considerable amount of time in this space.  

This is the living room, with another fireplace.  

I think my favorite room of the house is the boys bedroom.  It's nice and big, and the closet is also big.  That little nook right there will look sort of like a mudroom.  The entrance to the closet is also tucked in there on the right side of the nook, you just can't see it.  We will have shelving and hooks and a bench right outside the closet.   There is also enough room to have three twin beds rather than the triple bunks we have now.  The boys don't like sleeping in bunk beds "on top of each other" because Justice reads to them every night.  Jack can't see the pictures from his bed, so he climbs in bed with Justice.  That really means that Justice and Jack sleep together every night.  Three twin beds will make them very happy.

Yay!  I think I've done very well here today.  I've put the house out there, and admitted my full blown craziness about money.  There are worse things to be crazy about though, so I'm not overly apologetic about it.  The opposite could be much worse. 

But I am going to enjoy this process from here on out.  I haven't been too involved nor too excited up until this point.  But now that it's truly sunk in to my brain that this house is happening, I am going to try and enjoy the last part of the building process.  I am starting to think about new furniture, and how nice it will be to be a little closer to "civilization".   And closer to Dairy Queen.  

Because at the end of the day, being five minutes away from a Dairy Queen is all sorts of awesome.