Christmas in August

We have finally moved in to our new house on base here in Hawaii, and by "we" I mean Gunnar and me, because Jordan is currently gone for training in Japan. Yesterday was the long-awaited day where I finally picked up our keys, unlocked the door, and stepped foot in to our first "permanent" home in 3.5 years. The best part is that it will be officially ours for the next 3-4 years (yay for painting walls, hanging pictures and not having to patch, clean and paint in 6 months time). And oh what a joyous moment that was! I have been counting down the days since we first got "the call" for our house on base, and have been so anxious for this moment to finally arrive. 

We were originally feeling so happy and grateful for our month-to-month, furnished Ohana apartment, where we have been living for the last 3 months, if you remember from the previous post, "Our New Reality" found here: http://www.meg-lifeofamarinewife.blogspot.com/2014/06/our-new-reality.html?m=1; however we underestimated what the lack of a/c would be like. Our ohana apartment quickly became known as "hell" because of the unbearable heat and humidity we endured constantly. We only had windows on one side of the apartment, which just happened to be the opposite side from which the wind blew so we were unable to capture any sort of cross ventilation breeze. The windows did nothing but magnify the beating sun in the afternoon, creating a hot box of misery! Furthermore, despite the 5 ceiling fans in this tiny apartment, we were still unable to cool down, as they served no purpose except to circulate the hot air already in the apartment. Sleeping was beyond miserable as the bedroom was located on the side of the apartment without the windows, and in Hawaii the temperature hardly, if at all, drops with the setting sun and impending darkness. We eventually succumbed to sleeping on the sectional every night, so we could at least be by the open windows. And yes, our backs have hated us for the last 3 months! Gunnar was beyond restless during our time there, as he would be up at all hours of the night moving from spot to spot trying unsuccessfully time and time again to find a cool spot to lay down. During the day he was the opposite, completely lethargic from the heat and also a possible lack of sleep from his never-ending, forever-unsuccessful quest the night before and proceeded to sleep for the majority of the day. We tried to invest in a portable a/c unit; however, after only one month our landlord informed us his electric bill went up $250. Although I still find that completely impossible to believe as we only ran it a few hours a day before we went to bed at night. Additionally, even when we had a 2,000 sq ft home in Florida, with central a/c running 24/7 and a pool, the most our electric bill ever was was $160. Our small little portable unit, with less voltage than the convection oven in our apartment, run a few hours a day, in our 600 sq ft apartment was $250?!?!? Oh ya, did I mention the house has solar panels?!?!?!? A few weeks later our power kept going out intermittently; come to find out a circuit had melted in their fuse box, so fingers crossed they reimburse us for that crazy electric bill they charged us for previously!

Anyway, POINT BEING, we have become increasingly anxious and excited for this day to finally arrive. Each day of the week leading up to the move-in date I had a to-do list I made for myself, which included cleaning and packing tasks so once the day finally arrived, I would be able to say sayonara to our living hell as soon as possible and hello to heaven on earth! I mean if this view isn't heaven on earth, I don't know what is: 

View from the top of our street

You would not believe the amount of junk you can accumulate in only a few months time. Luckily, because of all my prep work and consolidated packing, I was able to transport all of our stuff to our new home in only two trips. When I left bright and early on the first trip yesterday morning (keys were available to be picked up at 7:30am, so you better believe I was there right at 7:30am lol), it started down pouring as soon as I got in the car to start driving over. I wondered to myself whether this was a bad sign or omen? This was supposed to be the best day ever and it was torrentially raining! However, I then realized that the rain had held off just long enough until I was finished loading the car. Wow, was I grateful for that. My attitude quickly shifted to the opposite end of the pendulum: this was an AMAZING sign and omen! As I began to drive down the hill from our apartment towards our new house for the very first time, I was greeted by a giant, full rainbow. I mean, come on, how cool is that?

And that's only the first load! Good thing our new car has a back-up camera, because I had no visibility whatsoever!

As I continued to drive and got closer and closer to base, the rain began to stop. By the time I made it to our new neighborhood, it was blue skies and crashing waves as far as the eye could see!

This was my view backing in to my driveway for the first time. You can see the whitecaps of the waves breaking at one of the two beaches we have access to (within walking distance) on base!

As I walked the house for the first time I began to freak out about doing this move on my own! Yes, we have movers that will unload the truck for us, but the majority of our furniture is incredibly heavy ( when we were first married and buying our furniture, Jordan would test the weight of an item before giving his stamp of approval; he wanted to make sure an item was heavy enough to make it's money back when we would do DIY military moves, where the military reimburses you by weight). Anyway, I was stressing over having a game plan before the movers came, because once our heavy furniture is put down in place, that is where it is going to be staying! Even once "muscles" comes home from Japan, we have no chance of moving items. Certain pieces, like our dining room table take 3-4 grown men to carry! After sending videos to my mom and bouncing ideas off of her, as well as dragging my blow up mattress through every room of the house to judge size and space planning, I now feel comfortable with my game plan. Although I did drag my girlfriend Ashley over today to run it by her as well. I also wanted a second opinion on what felt right as far as placement of utensils, dishes, glasses etc in the kitchen cabinets and drawers. I know, I'm crazy right? There is so much self-inflicted pressure to have everything perfect since we will be here for so long (that's relative of course haha). I literally nearly had a panic attack when I discovered our kitchen had two pantries. I mean, what's a girl to put where?!?!? So yes, I'm (somewhat) exaggerating... But not totally. I love that I have given so many others my (confident and self-assured) advice on their own homes, space planning recommendations, as well as complete installations from start-to-finish, top-to-bottom, but when it comes to my own space, I'm a complete insecure, anxiety-ridden mess over it!

Before pics of our kitchen and living room

Last night, I slept in our new house for the first time. Just an air mattress and my pup. Despite his initial anxiety (the poor guy always gets so nervous when we move every time) of trying to jump back in the car every time I went out to unload a suitcase, Gunns has finally warmed up to the place. He is back to his happy, energetic and cuddly self. I think he even caught a little chill from the a/c as I caught him snoozing outside, sunning himself earlier today. We both also got our first good night's sleep in over 3 months (even on slowly-deflating air mattress-I think I drug it and crammed it through too many doorways and hallways during my deranged space planning frenzy). 

Sneaking back in the car every time I went out to unload

Someone thought the 76 degree a/c setting was too chilly. I found him napping out in the hot sun!

No longer restless at night trying to find a place to get cool, I finally have my little snuggle-bug back. And yes, those are Jordan's twin size, "born to dream," princess sheets from the boat. They have come in handy! 

Anyway, the movers arrive tomorrow (Wednesday) morning, bright and early, and Jordan arrives back on Friday. So I have two days to get this house unpacked and live-in ready! I'm nervous to do this first unpack/move-in completely on my own, but also feeling completely excited and empowered to be a self-sufficient/holding-down-the-fort woman for my husband while he is gone! I'm sure it will be the first of many moments doing this kind of stuff on my own (although when it comes to any of our 6 moves thus far, the majority of the packing/unpacking and cleaning is done primarily by myself anyway since Jordan is usually so busy with work up until the minute we leave and/or the minute after we arrive at our new duty station).  I am ready to tackle this move head-on and actually more excited than ever about the idea if moving and unpacking (our 3 months in "hell" was an attitude adjuster, perspective-giving, gratitude-inducing experience that gave us a renewed appreciation for this moving process and all the little things one takes for granted in a full house). So, I've got blueberry muffins, bananas, orange juice, Gatorade and water to greet the moving crew with and a giant sugar-free red bull for myself! Let's do this thing!!!!!!! 

I'm going to hit the sack now on my "born to dream" princess sheets, and dream happy thoughts of all the exciting goodies I get to open tomorrow morning, box after box of our household goods! Is it Christmas morning yet?!?!?

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

The Call

It's 4:45am as I'm writing this right now, and I have been up for two hours. When I was in 7th grade I got a Matchbox 20 CD for my birthday, and even today I still love the songs from that album whenever I hear them on the radio. I'm not 100% sure who got me that CD back then, but I'm assuming it must have been my cousin Nikki, who at 18, would have been a totally cool teenager to me. I think she may have given me a Ben Harper CD and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band too. She still sounds pretty cool, am I right?! I can definitely thank her for helping out her awkwardly shy little cousin with some great music education! Okay, so I'm already off track, but it's 4:45 am, forgive me! Point being, I currently have the lyrics, "It's 3 am, I must be lonely" running through my head. Except I'm not lonely, just a little crazy. Crazy with excitement! 

Yesterday we finally got the call. You know... THE CALL! After 4 months of living like vagabonds out of suitcases between a hotel and a temporary vacation rental, we were finally offered a house on base!!!!! Hallelujah and praise The Lord! I could not be more thankful. I literally dissolved in to a stream of inaudible tears when Jordan called to tell me the good news. I was hit with the most giant tsunami wave of relief!

I have been a roller coaster of emotions and anxiety these last few weeks for a few reasons:

1. Our storage of our household goods (HHG) was set to expire on the 19th of this month and therefore was going to be transitioned to a commercial storage facility at an exorbitant rate. Although surprisingly, the cost itself wasn't my biggest worry; once your HHG is moved to commercial storage the military movers are no longer liable for any damages incurred to your property. Based on previous moving experiences, horror stories we have heard from others, and the fact that after transit on a boat and 4 months in storage our stuff could very well be mold-infested, I was freaking out! I could not even imagine how devastating it could be, both financially and emotionally. Add to the fact that despite faxing, calling, emailing and attempting to go in person, our travel management office representative continued to ignore the appropriate submitted documents for our requested extension.  To say I was frustrated and stressed out is an understatement.

2. As per our original verbal discussion with the landlord, our month-to-month lease was set to expire on September 15th. However, a week ago she informed me that the property was in fact rented starting the beginning of September, and our last day here would therefore be the 31st of August! Unfortunately, there were no specified dates in our lease to reference back to, just the month-to-month terms. I just lost two whole weeks of time I thought we had! Again, frustration, ugh!

3. As of last Friday, we were still number 42 on the almighty wait list. However, we were assured that we would probably get an offer within the next month, as many of the people on the list ahead of us were in year long leases and that they would not be able to break those to accept the offer. Good news, but it didn't necessarily help with situation 1 and 2 above!

4. Jordan leaves soon for Japan for two weeks!!!! Now I'm not playing the incapable, immature woman card, woe is me, but when dealing with the military (storage extensions, moving on base, etc.) there are certain aspects and offices that only the service member has access to, or at least easier or preferred access to! Even a Power of Attorney has proved helpless in all my attempts dealing with the travel management office and our storage extension. Perhaps, and most likely, this is due to understaffing and not blatant snubbing; however, a service member in uniform entering any establishment on base always gets front of the line privledges. And as they should! However, when you are up against the clock, with your storage expiring and the domino effect of complications that is therefore about to ensue, it can be extremely frustrating. And even then, despite Jordan's actual physical presence here now, the guys don't exactly have free time during business hours to deal with hours of paperwork and ping-ponging amongst the maze of different departments that each one inevitably sends you to! Ugh! I'm annoyed now just thinking about it again!

Thankfully, Jordan finally found time in his hectic schedule to visit the travel management office to confront the storage extension issue. Being able to easily get right in and speak with someone directly, unlike my experience of course, they sent him over to the base housing office to get a letter with our projected offer and move in date (although this was never mentioned previously as required documentation before, UGH). So off ping-ponging he went to the next office! Upon arriving at base housing and informing them of our storage situation and lease deadline, the office assured us we were projected to have an offer by the end of the week and a move in of beginning of September. This was news enough to bring on the flood of tears! And wouldn't you know it but it was only a few hours later we were offered a house with an Aug 18th (!!!!) availability date for move in! Thank God! 

And I mean thank God in all faithfulness and sincerity and not just as a mindless, over-used phrase. Despite a week or more of tossing and turning with stress and worry, Sunday night I found myself surprisingly and overwhelmingly at a state of peace. For the first time in over a week I was overcome with an indescribe calmness before I went to bed and actually slept well! (Sleep, it's one of those things you take for granted until it inexplicably evades you!) I attribute this calm to a few things that coincided with one another earlier that day:

1. A reminder of one of my favorite bible verses, " Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done" Philipeans 4:6. 

2.  This bombardment of FB posts from people/sites that I follow: 

See FB isn't ALL bad! This last one really hit me. If God loves us so much he sent Jesus to die for us, don't you think he loves us enough to help us with everything else? Suddenly I felt like it was okay to pray about our situation, something normally I would have considered too selfish or petty. The next day our prayers were literally answered. Not only that, but we were also so blessed to be offered a house on what is considered the best street on the base, with the majority of the houses having a view of at least one of the two beaches on base. So amazing and so unbelievably grateful! 

So here it is, our future "permanent" home for the next 3-4 years! I'm SO ready to be settled in one spot for longer than 6 months and to put down roots...quite literally, because those shrubs in the front will need to go!

Our house is actually right next door to my friend Brittney's, who I have previously mentioned a few times. We first met in Virginia and reunited here in Hawaii. Unfortunately, her and her husband moved at the end of June to their next duty stations. Although our times only overlapped for a short period of time and we didn't end up being neighbors afterall, we were thankful for our time together and for them showing us the ropes (and a couple of great hikes) here in Hawaii!

The best part... This is the view from our driveway!

And of course the reason I have been up since 2:30 am...I have been pinteresting ideas for decoration inspiration for our new home! Paint, curtains, the works! I could care less about patching holes or repainting later on! Finally, we have longer than 6 months to nest!!!!!!!! This little bird is beyond happy!

The Boys are Back in Town!

So while you may have gathered from my last post that Jordan has been busy with work and I have been spending a lot of time with girlfriends, what you may not have known is that for the last 3 weeks Jordan's squadron has been gone for training. Half of the squadron was out on the USS Peleliu, and the other half were on the Big Island. This was part of the Rimpac exercises mentioned previously. And while the separation during training is nothing new, I found myself out of shape, so to say.

The longest amount of time we have spent apart has been 6 weeks during Jordan's two summer Officer Candidate School sessions. And although I only spoke with him via phone maybe 3 times over those 6 weeks, we were able to write old school, pen and paper letters back and forth. I also was still living at home and had the comfort of family, friends and work to distract and comfort me. When we lived in VA, our first move across the country from family and friends, Jordan was often gone for one week out of every month, the longest being 10 days, but the weeks went fast with the joined commiseration and company of the other spouses also going through the same thing.

This time felt different than the many previous experiences in the past, especially since the support systems I have depended on and found comfort in during the past, family and a large community of spouses, were not here. Furthermore, Jordan and I were to be basically unable to communicate this entire time, with the exception of a random text message which may be able to be exchanged when the ship just happened to be close to land. Gosh, I don't know how people get through deployments! Even the mere thought of it is overwhelming! 

The day of, Jordan leaves. I'm not ready. The previous weekend leading up to his absence I tried to live in the moment and not allow the impending events interfere with our present happiness. However, every once in awhile, the gravity of the next few weeks would hit me when my mind was blank, and in flowed the very thoughts I was hoping to keep at bay. Each time, I was hit with an instant wave of anxiety.  Well at least what I identify as anxiety. For me it's a sort of a giant air bubble, in between your throat and chest, combined with a slight naseaus feeling. I exercised my mental strength to consciously push it aside in order to prevent that dread from ruining our present, last moments together.

The morning of, I still didn't allow myself to think about what exactly Jordan was leaving for that day for, and we acted like it was any other morning. I made him coffee and kissed him goodbye, although I did also slip a few notes in his seabag as well. I went to spin class that morning as usual and planned on continuing on with my day with a car service appointment, a trip to our po box in the next town over, and later that afternoon, a beach trip with friends. However, because the unofficial Marine Corps motto is "hurry up and wait," our goodbye wouldn't be that easy and clean cut.

Jordan first texted me that he had forgotten his iPod, and with nothing to do on boat, I offered to bring it to him. Jordan was also told that he needed to bring cash for purchases on the boat, and since he was too busy with meetings for his legal ground job to be able to drive to an ATM himself before the bus for the boat left, I made it to base with a surprise lunch and the items he needed, and was so thankful I got to see him just one more time before the next 504 hours apart. However, it wasn't until I was halfway to our PO Box in the nearby town of Kaneohe that I realized we forgot to exchange the cash he needed. Without it, he wouldn't be able to pay for meals and therefore eat on board the ship. And we all know how Jordan eats... without a generous and continuous supply of food, it would be almost certain death! I returned in a rush at the designated spot we had agreed upon. Despite my promptness, I waited. And waited. And waited. I saw buses come and go. Come and go. I began to wonder and worry whether or not I had missed Jordan's bus to the boat after all. However, Jordan's legal meetings had extended so long, that despite my efforts to hurry back with the needed cash, he still missed even the very last bus. Since he missed the last bus, he was on his own to drive to Pearl Harbor by 6pm, where the USS Peleliu was docked. With time now comfortably in our favor, we decided to once again be thankful to be delaying the impending time apart. 

We decided to go to the housing office on base to check on our place on the almighty wait list. We are now number 47, as compared to where we started at 73. After discovering our new number, we attempted to visualize our intentions into existence by driving through neighborhoods on base, picking out our future house. There was no better way to spend our last moments together than living life with my best friend and excitedly looking forward to our future together. We said goodbye AGAIN, and at this point I was ready for this drawn out, prolonged goodbye/torture process to be over.

View from the neighborhoods on base: good things come to those that wait, right?

And while 21 days seemed overwhelming, and yes pathetically-so for those who have gone through deployments, my strength came from taping into old coping methods; the most helpful of which was: turning lemons into lemonade. I have been focusing on the lemonade, which in this case would be: less laundry, a cleaner house, less cooking, a cheaper grocery bill, and less dishes (especially since we do not currently have a dishwasher).

    

While I did miss Jordan while he was gone, I was also greatly grateful for the time spent with the other wives also in this situation. Living on this small island, our friends become our family, as we have no one else here to lean on. My good friend Ashley (from Corpus) and I met a few other wonderful women during this time. We spent time at the beautiful beaches, the farmers markets, and drinking an occasional glass of wine at happy hour at Whole Foods (so classy)!

L to R: Me, Katie and Ashely, at Whole Foods

L to R: Julie, Katie, Brandi, Ashley, and Me getting dinner at Pinky's Pupu Bar. Pupu means appetizer!

Katie and I, celebrating a new friend's birthday! Thankful for military wives, who always become fast friends!

As I mentioned, Jordan had limited service out on the boat. However, I did get a few text messages. One of which informed me that they ran out of sheets on ship, so he had to find cheap, twin size sheets at the closest store within walking distance to the boat... We are still waiting to hear whether he gets a call-sign from these: Princess? Cinderella? Cinderelly?

Side note: those pictures I posted last week of the ships off the coast were of Jordan's ship!!! He would give me the heads up, and I would head to the beach with Gunnar and we would stand on the shore and wave, him also simultaneously  standing on the boat's deck and waving. And although we couldn't see eachother, it was such a comfort to be able to have this experience.

Gunnar waiting at the beach to see the USS Peleliu and Jordan in the distance. 

USS Peleliu in the distance from Kailua Beach 

After two weeks the boat was docking on the Big Island, meeting up with the other half of the squadron, and Jordan finally had service. We scheduled a FaceTime (iPhone version of Skype) date for that Saturday at 9am. I was so excited but also so nervous. I felt as if I was getting ready for a blind date. 

In order to keep the authenticity in documenting this moment, I have an honest, but embarrassing, confession to make: I overslept. However, in that moment, I thought to myself, at least it's only a FaceTime date, it's not like I HAVE to squeeze in a shower, he isn't  going to smell me afterall! All that matters is that I look pretty!!!!!! So I hurriedly dressed, did a quick clean (solely in the background that was to be in our FaceTime video date) and waited for his any-second call. I waited. And waited. And waited. Perhaps "hurry up and wait" should be the official motto of the Marine Corps. Jordan would text me intermittently that he had gotten tied up with work and it would only be another half an hour. So I trustfully and unsuspectingly continued to wait, and wait and wait....

Knock, knock, knock...

This guy (with a mustache!) just happened to show up in my doorstep! I have always said that despite his thoughtful attempts, Jordan has never been able to pull off a surprise on me. Never. Well he 100% got me on this one. I reacted with a mixture of shock and emotions, and despite instinctively wanting to slam the door shut on this creepy guy with a mustache, I eventually dissolved in to a mess of tears. 

In the end, I only had to endure 2/3 weeks of the Rimpac training session. However, Jordan has a lot of other upcoming training obligations that are going to take him away again very soon, so I was so thankful to have this extra, unexpected time together.

The rest of the squadron would return a week later, all of them also sporting mustaches, or molestaches as we like to call them because the guys all look like creepy child molesters. Jordan kept his mustache while back at home in unity with his fellow Scarface Squardon co-workers still gone, and they all reunited in one last 'stache supper, as we have come to call it! 

Ashley and I made a mustache centerpiece and mustaches for all the ladies attending the dinner.

Marcus, Jordan's friend since corpus, and Jordan, sporting the molestaches. 

Ladies and our 'staches!

Creepy? I think so!

The Last 'Stache Supper!