We're Homeowners!

Well...we did it!  Hubby Blue and I officially became homeowners yesterday. :)

Even though it felt a little surreal after the closing was over and we were standing in our new house together, this has also been a long time coming.  More than three years ago, before we were even married, I had really, really wanted to buy a house.  I thought that's just what you were supposed to do. But our lives were in such a state of flux that it really wasn't the wisest idea at the time.  So we waited.  And rented.  And rented again.  And rented for a third year.  It was really hard watching all my friends buy houses just before they'd get married, knowing that financially we could be buying a house too, but we just weren't settled enough in careers and whatnot.  It was also just frustrating knowing that we had to move all the time.  Having to update our address over and over.  Never feeling like you could get really comfortable somewhere because it wasn't going to be forever.

But now...it is!  Or at least, it could be.  We could live in this house forever if we had to or wanted to, which is a pretty nice feeling.  And it's also a good feeling knowing that buying this house was a goal we worked towards together and accomplished together.  We've built this life together.  I like that.

So shall I tell you about the house???

Where to begin...?  Well, if you can picture the filthiest, dirtiest house you've ever seen, and then picture what would be worse...you might be able to get an idea of what we bought!  Yay!  Haha.  But seriously, it is filthy (I'll tell you what we were thinking in a second).  The scary part is, the first time we looked at it, Hubby Blue said he's actually seen worse when he's been on calls.  I just can't imagine anyone living that way.  Yuck.  Anyway, it's your typical two-story house, living room, dining room, kitchen, family room, laundry, two-car garage, three bedrooms upstairs, a first floor bathroom and two upstairs, and this great big beautiful loft that overlooks the family room.  We could actually turn that into a fourth bedroom someday, but I think we're going to leave it as it is right now.  But let's get back to the filth and disrepair, shall we?  There are several holes in the drywall in places...sometimes it looks just like someone kicked a hole in the wall.  The railings on the stairs are caked in black grime.  The kitchen cabinets and the stair risers look like someone took a water gun full of chocolate syrup and just went to town.  I'm pretty sure there is macaroni and cheese still left on the kitchen ceiling.  Half the kitchen floor has been ripped up.  One of the drawer fronts on the kitchen cabinets is missing.  There is creepy stuff written all over the walls of one of the bedrooms - when the termite inspector walked through the house he advised us to "get some clergy up in here" and promptly got himself outside!  We're missing window screens.  The basement is partially finished, but you wouldn't want to leave it the way it is anyway.  There are three rooms walled off that all lead into each other one after the next, and they look like the walls in A Beautiful Mind.  LOTS of weird writing there.  Ironically, the laundry room is probably the cleanest room in the house - probably because they never used it?

So, if you can picture this filthy, dirty house, hopefully you're assuming we got an amazing deal on it, because we did!  It was obviously a foreclosure, and we paid waaaaaaaaay under what the rest of the neighborhood is going for.  But, we chose to do it this way instead of buying something that was already livable because we wanted to be able to comfortably afford it (and be able to sell it if we had to) AND make things just the way we wanted them.  We're both willing to put our blood, sweat and tears into it (I'm hoping there will be more tears than blood...), and Hubby Blue and both our dads are pretty handy.  Plus I figure I'm pretty smart too.  I bet I can google how to fix drywall holes, right? :)  One of the sweetest parts was when Hubby Blue told me he never thought we'd be able to live in this town "because cops just can't afford to live there."  Stick with me, honey, I'll find us a bargain we can't pass up. :)

We have a lot of work ahead of us, but we're both excited.  For now.  Check back with me in a few weeks.  Ha.  Just kidding - sort of!  The plan for this weekend is to rip everything out - carpet, the rest of the kitchen floor, old doors, trim, kitchen cabinets, maybe some of that creepy drywall in the basement...we'll see what we have time for and how much we can fit in the dumpster I ordered!  I know I'll be grateful for all that overtime Hubby Blue has been working when he's able to take a couple Saturdays off here and there.  So thank you for your kind messages on my last blog post!  I'll check back in in a couple of days, and maybe even have a picture or two.  Wish us luck!

Some BIG News!

I should start this post by first explaining that I am NOT, under any circumstances whatsoever, a country girl.  No sir!  I am definitely a city girl, and the last three years of country living have been more than enough for me.  When Hubby Blue and I got married, we moved into this little rental house in this country town no one had ever heard of...because it was semi-halfway between Hubby Blue's university and my new job.  (I applied for and accepted said job because it was within a 90-mile radius of Hubby Blue's school, and I was pretty desperate for a job.  That's another story for another day.)

Anyway, moving out to the country was a novelty for a while, and I felt like I could legitimately appreciate country music, pancake breakfasts and steak fry dinners, and tractor pulls.  After awhile, though, I realized it took at least 30 minutes to get ANYWHERE.  Grocery shopping was at least a half-day event.  Want to go out for dinner or grab a drink?  You can go to the town bar...or the town bar.  Want to go to church on Sunday?  I hope you're either Methodist or Lutheran.  Need to talk to the police because people are driving through your front yard every other Friday?  Better wait until 9:00...the police are only on duty at night.  It got old...and fast.  But we stuck it out two years, and finally Hubby Blue graduated and got his police job, so we moved 30 minutes closer to my job, into a fairly sizable town, thinking we were moving to the promised land!

Long story short...this is not the promised land.  It's still pretty "country," and we're actually farther from most of our friends and my side of the family.  Hubby Blue is farther from work, and we live in a tinier house than when we first got married, so most of the time it feels like our stuff is caving in on us!  And, oh, did I mention the snakes?  We live two blocks from a river, so people acted like I was the crazy one for being, um, SHOCKED when I found a dead snake in our house.

So, I was driving home from work today on the same old country roads as usual* when a little (I assume it was little) rock hit my windshield with a SMACK.  It startled me, for sure, but it didn't appear to have done any damage, so I continued on my merry way.  I went to the gym directly from work, took a class, and came out an hour later TO A HUGE CRACK IN MY WINDSHIELD.  "Huge" might be an exaggeration, but it's definitely about as long as my hand.  Talk about something I DON'T need right now.  The aggravating part about this is that the saaaaame exact thing happened to Hubby Blue's windshield last summer.  He was picking up our moving truck (so we could move from the country to the pseudo-country...meaning "bigger town but still surrounded by lots and lots of country") when something came flying at his windshield and shattered it.  UGH.  Does this happen in the country all the time?  BECAUSE I'M SICK OF IT!

Soooooooo...here comes the big news............

WE'RE MOVING!!!

This has been the hardest thing to not blog about, but I didn't want to say anything until it was more of a sure thing.  It's something Hubby Blue and I have been talking about for months because of how hard his schedule is, how far we live from his department, how we have so few friends here, how we spend so much on gas, how we are really not digging the small-town lifestyle anymore, and how I haven't been super happy in my job for a while now.  It also was not in our plan to be buying a house at this point, but after a lotttttttt of thought and talking and praying, we decided to take the plunge.  We've been renters for almost three years now, and we're both eager to put down some roots.  I know it's risky to buy a house before Hubby Blue's probation is over, but it's also risky to buy a house before you're a tenured teacher, and I know people who do that all the time.  Whether you're a teacher or a banker or a businessperson or a lawyer...I guess it's always a risk, but I hope this one pays off.  So, come this summer, we'll be moving to a town that is about 15 minutes from Hubby Blue's department.  And there are plenty of stores and restaurants and interstates nearby.  It's still a teensy bit country (because Hubby Blue is definitely NOT a city person) but hopefully it will feel like a much better fit than where we are now.

Anyway, we are closing next week - yikes!!!  It's been one of the most stressful processes we've gone through, and I'll blog more about it in time.  And I'll blog more about the house itself because there is lots to tell about that too!  But for now, I'm just hoping we can make it through two more months with our windshields intact. :)



*I guess technically it's not a country road.  It's a state highway, but any two-lane highway is a country road in my book.  Country livin' was fun for a while, but this city girl misses her interstates something fierce.

Domesticity

I recently learned how to use Hubby Blue's our sewing machine!  I've mentioned before that I never learned how to sew, even though my mom is like, the best sew-er (I first wrote that without the hyphen...and no, my mom is not a sewer, ha) ever.  I took an online class a few weeks ago and learned a lot, but what really got me going was the apron kit I picked up at Walmart!  It sat in a box for months, and finally, I just decided to figure it out!  I didn't really figure it out by myself...Hubby Blue tried to teach me and got really frustrated...so I asked my mom.  Anyway, I've gotten a lot better since then, and I can't wait until the day we live in a town with an actual fabric store so I can try sewing projects more often!

In the meantime...Hubby Blue...wait for it...asked me to...fix his police pants!!!

WHAT?!?!

He had two pairs with rips in them, and he said he didn't mind taking them in somewhere to get them fixed but that he knew that would cost more money, so did I want to try fixing them?  I wanted to say, Hubby Blue, you just need to stop chasing bad guys and then your pants won't rip...but let's be honest.  That'll never happen.

So, I put off trying to fix these pants my entire spring break, and finally, today, I decided to give it a try.    I think they turned out pretty well, actually, but the best part was Hubby Blue's reaction:

"Hey!  You can't even see where they were ripped!  Thanks!  I really liked this pair!"

Yeah, you can just call me a domestic QUEEN these days. :)

Face to Face

Argh, I hate when technology doesn't do what you think it did!  I thought this posted a couple days ago, but obviously it didn't!  Enjoy!
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Ahhh...March 17th and I've only posted once this month!  Sorry about that!  Hubby Blue's schedule puts him home around 11:00 every night, which is nice because in theory, it's early enough that I can usually stay awake long enough to say hello to him before going to bed, but in reality, the combination of staying up that late and waking up at least once every night because he's either gotten into or out of bed...has me exhausted.  At least, I think that's why I'm so tired.  It sure would be a relief anyway!  I went to the doctor and she said it could be anemia...or diabetes...or my thyroid...or a PARASITE.  Good grief.  I may need to get out of teaching.

Anyways, this topic has been on my heart a lot lately because it's come to the surface so often lately.  In the last month or so, I feel like my husband's career has put us face-to-face with all the worst of society, and it's got me down. I remember hearing about this at the police family seminar we went to when Hubby Blue was in the academy and how he was going to get so cynical and untrusting of everyone and everything and how I'd still feel like the world was safe and good and I was supposed to be the link to the 97% of society that is good and normal since he'd be dealing with mostly the bad 3%. At first, I could really see this happening.  My hubby DID become very untrusting of strangers and I WAS trying to be the one to help him relax a little.  Hubby Blue has always been skeptical of people, but I still had a hard time understanding the change in him.

Now, though, he tells me about what he deals with on an almost daily basis, and I start to hate the world.  I get so fed up and disgusted with the society we live in.  I want to know how people can possibly do the awful things they do to other people.  I want to cry for every victim and slap every abuser.  I question how we'll ever send our kids to school or let them drive a car or go away to college. I'm sure most parents deal with these anxieties, but I just have a feeling it will be worse for us.

What makes it worse for me is that I work in a high-poverty school where my students' families have frequent interactions with the police, likely for a lot of the awful things my husband describes when he comes home after work.  That's not even all of it though: plenty of other kids come from homes where the police aren't being called on a daily basis, but they're living in filthy conditions, without clean clothes or food to eat or beds to sleep in.  My heart breaks for these kids...the ones I know and love and also the ones I don't know.

What I'm trying to say is this: my job and my husband's job have put us so close to some of the lowest, saddest, most terrible aspects of life, and it's draining me.  It's sucking the happy out of me.  It's changing me, and not in a good way.  I notice that I am angrier these days.  I feel hopeless.  I know this is what my husband is called to do, but how do I manage it?

Overheard in my police wife life

This afternoon, my Hubby Blue called me just as my work day was ending.

"Hello?"
"Hi, wifey.  Two things.  First, do you mind if I hold over until 2:00?"
(This would be 2:00 AM...and yes, I do kind of mind because I like when you come home at 11:00 but I know it's important to you to take lots of overtime shifts so it's fine!)
"And the other thing, I had another shooting today.  I shot a raccoon.  It was acting really weird, just sitting in the middle of the road, not moving, and there was liquid coming from it's mouth."
"Aw, poor thing."
"Yeah, I used my rifle."
"Why did you use the rifle?"
"Because I didn't want to get close to it!  I don't want to catch rabies!  And then I had to take it in to get tested."
"You touched it?!?"
"Well, I had gloves on."

I share a classroom with another teacher, and as soon as I hung up, I had this awkward feeling that it's not exactly normal to use the phrase "Why did you use the rifle?" in a conversation.  In what relationship is that acceptable?!?  So I quickly explained to her that my husband shot a RACCOON and not, say, a person or something.  She laughed and said she understood, but STILL.

Sidebar: I only questioned my hubby's use of the rifle because the last time he shot something (a deer), he used his handgun.  Now, if there's one way I think I have surprised my husband in our almost 3 years of marriage and almost 7 years of being together, it's my vastly improved knowledge and comfort about firearms.  Is it weird that I know which firearm is the most normal one to be used in this type of situation?  I think yes.  The other night, Hubby Blue worked an overnight shift, and as he was leaving, when I asked him where "MY gun" was and why MY gun wasn't out of the safe and then had to take out, load, and holster MY gun by myself, I think his heart swelled with pride a little bit.  I used to think it was weird that my husband slept with a gun next to him...and now I do it myself.  Also...weird?  I think 95% of the population would say yes, but since when was being married to a cop ever normal?!?

Anyway, Hubby Blue said he was a little outside of town when he shot this raccoon, but in my mind, I picture him (expert marksman that he is) in the middle of a neighborhood, laying on the ground, setting up his scope and taking out this unsuspecting raccoon with one good, clean shot straight to its head.  It's not pretty or happy or warm and fuzzy, but think of all the lives he saved: dogs, cats, children, the elderly...my husband, the hero!

Dear God, who have I become?!?

Teacher Police Wife

This year for Christmas, Hubby Blue got me a necklace that says, "Police Wife."  It has a little blue stone with it and another charm with his badge number on it.  I wear it almost every day with another necklace he got for me before we were even engaged, but usually it's tucked into my shirt or underneath a scarf (I live in scarves all winter...if it was acceptable, I'd wear a hat and gloves too).  Apparently, though, a student in my school, a 5th-grade girl, saw it the other day.  Today she said to me, just out of the blue while we were standing in the hall, "Yesterday I saw your necklace said 'Police Wife.'  Is your husband a police officer?"

"Yep," I replied.

She and the girl next to her looked at each other with huge eyes and pretty much shrieked.  "Ooooh!!!  Dang, that must be scary!!!" they both yelled.

How do I respond to that?  Six years of teaching has given me a little bit of practice at maintaining my composure in a lot of different scenarios, but inside I was really caught off guard.  All I could say was, "Not, it's really not," but then I had to stop myself.  The school I teach in is 80% low-income.  More often than not, my students' parents are the kind of people my Hubby Blue is out arresting as I type this.  My students don't see police officers as the good, strong, safe, self-sacrificing, respectable people I do.  To my students, the police are the people who take mommy and daddy away, put them in jail, ransack their homes looking for drugs, take away their driver's licenses, and on and on and on.  I can't pull out the books about police officers and how "good" they are because it totally contradicts what they know and believe.  I can't open my mouth and get too passionate (they're only kids, after all) and say too much when my kids start getting agitated and go off on tangents about how bad the police are.  I know they are just kids but it is so sad to hear their viewpoints and realize their beliefs are so rooted in where they come from that nothing I say will change their minds.  And that I really don't have time to change their minds.  I've got objectives to meet and standards to teach!

Anyway, I just found that little exchange interesting.  I'm curious to know how any other kid would react to the information that Mrs. Blue is married to a police officer...but I've been in smalltown America so long I can't even begin to guess.

Friday Night Excitement

"Hey, wifey, how's your night going?"

"I'm writing messages with magnetic letters on our refrigerator.  How do you think my night is going?"

I can handle most nights of the week when my Hubby Blue is working, but Friday nights are the worst.  It's the end of the work week for me, I'm excited to be off for two days, I just want to relax with my hubby...and I come home to an empty house.  So, it's not that I had nothing better to do, but I spent this Friday night a little different than usual.

I might need more hobbies.