Finding a Home

We thought this would be the easy part - finding a rental that we could call home. We're really not picky people and I can pretty much take any ol' place and make it seem like home. This assignment proved to be harder than either of us imagined. Every time we've been down here visiting before, we'd literally see hundreds of "for rent" signs as we went about our business in town. What we weren't counting on was the 7th Special Ops Forces moving so many troops to Eglin Air Force Base and Duke Field at the same time we were going to be looking in earnest.

Do any of you remember back in the 80's when there was such a run on cabbage patch dolls? How so many of us parents pulled out every trick up our sleeve to try and score one of those? What started out as a mission to get a certain brown haired-blue eyed beauty, soon became a hunt to find a doll that looked like anybody as long as it had the cabbage patch logo - the OFFICIAL logo - no trying to pull the wool over any 6 year old eyes. That is pretty much how this hunt has become. We find listing, we call, we make appt. to go see it, we see it, we find out someone has beat us to the punch... ugh. So we tossed the listings aside (after at least doing a drive-by at every single one) and just started combing the streets to find signs. We found oodles and oodles for sale and sometimes we got out to stretch our legs and peek in windows to keep the blood circulating and ourselves from strangling each other - think back to the tense times of cabbage patch missions. Then we were also in competition with said military people. Talk about not fighting fairly. How can we stand a chance looking to rent someplace against a man in full fatigues, with dust from the mideast still on his brow and 4 kids in tow? Sigh...

But today it seems we may have gotten a chance. We passed an older home just off the highway that the kids live off of. We actually saw the sign when we came into town and I made a mental note of it in my mind, where the winds of life quickly blew it away. Yesterday we were on our way for an appt. to see a much older home - complete with paneling and "fresh" old people's smell preserved through the ages, when my daughter-in-law saw a house on SR 85. She told us about it as I was trying to brush the creeps off my arms looking at the old one we had the appt. for and waiting for Lurch from the Addams family to appear at any time. On the way back to Kim's house, Oliver and I decided to stop and check it out. It's an older farmhouse on the highway and only 3 miles from the kids. It definitely needs some TLC but no major overhauls of anything. Some cleaning fluids, elbow grease and a little bit of time and it can easily be restored to quite a little place. It's not very big, about 1250 sq ft. (as best as we can tell) but it has a hominess about it that the newer homes just don't have. It was love at first sight for me - um, not quite so quickly for Oliver. I think he had a newer place in mind, kinda like the one we're having to give up in TN. I admit that the house needs a little sprucing up but I can see the dollhouse that it was meant to be and am excited about bringing it back to that very thing.

We went back this morning and got to look at the inside legally (yesterday the door just happened to be unlocked and Oliver just happened to go inside - and we looked). I showed him how I could make the furniture placement work, etc. Also explained all the pros that I see in it - 3 miles from Eli, able to hold yard sales off the main highway with plenty of space for parking, a gorgeous yard to putter in, a storage building, a perfect place for the blue blob, plenty of room for Charlie, Eli and grandpa to play baseball out back, two porches - one on the front for our rockers and one on the side for our patio set, an old oak tree stump that has been converted into the "perfect" fire pit, a circular sand driveway around a tree at the back of the house, a 2 car carport (which can double for additional dining space outside if the weather is iffy), the laundry room is accessible from the outside which will keep the heat from what it generates out of the main house, quirky old kitchen and bathrooms - with the master having a step down shower. There's even a door in the master bedroom heading out into the backyard right where we'd put the blue blob, which means no traipsing through the house with wet bathing suits. The rooms are not gigantic but they are nice sizes, especially for an older home.

And then.... one of my favorite parts - there is a giant Magnolia Tree in the front yard. One of my dreams since I was a very little girl was to have a magnolia tree in my front yard. When I saw it, I literally had tears well up in my eyes. (read my note from a couple of times ago on Magnolias). It just seemed like confirmation. We met with the older lady that owns the property because her hubby wasn't feeling well today and we hit it off splendidly. I did tell her that I loved the house but that in all fairness, I had to keep my end and look at the one Oliver picked out that we can't see until Monday. After more driving around today, etc., I think Oliver has come around. So tomorrow we fill out the paperwork and try to negotiate the rent down a bit since there is so much TLC work that needs to be done to it - hoping to get a break.

And in the meantime, we'll both be daydreaming about the dream house we "found" Thursday that we absolutely both fell in love with. We were just tired of driving around looking in windows so we decided to stop and look at a model home and get some of the a/c in our lungs. Turns out the model was closed and we had to peek in windows anyway. Just as we were about to leave, Oliver tried one of the back, outside doors to the bedroom and it was open. He walked right in... I hesitated and wondered what the headline would read after we were arrested for breaking and entering. After a few seconds of that, my curiousity got the best of me and I, too, went exploring through the house - the very beautiful, elegant house that we both fell completely in love with - layout, workmanship, colors, etc. It is GORGEOUS. Oh if only it was another day and another time in our lives... sigh. In our travels the last couple of days looking, we were amazed at the amount of doors left unlocked. We even found one brand new model today that had the key in the door. Very weird, but also very good in our case. Four realtors, FOUR, we left messages for to try to get them to show us some stuff and none of them could be bothered. Ugh. Very frustrating. It didn't really stop us - although there were some houses we'd have liked to see the inside of but then again, there were some that smelled so bad on the outside from stench generated inside that it was probably a pretty good thing.

I'm really, reallly hoping we get approved for the old house. There is just something about it that oozes "home" to me. Oh the walls may not line up perfectly and the tiles in the bathrooms may need a good scrubbing and the kitchen could have about a 100 sq feet added to it, but life is all about compromise and I didn't see one part about this house that I didn't feel that not only would the compromise be beneficial but that it would be well worth it.

So that's where we stand. Exhausted from hunting house to house in the excessive heat and learning neighborhood after neighborhood. We truly learned a LOT about Crestview in this small time frame. Oh and the funny thing is that the house we like has a Laurel Hill mailing address... A whole 'nother town... If we get this house, I will truly feel like I've come full circle. We'll be leaving the brand new house that we've been stewards of for the past almost 3 years and moving into a house that was built circa the same time the house I grew up in was (only with the blue tile in the bathroom instead of the gray that my dad picked out in the house he built - which I hated.)

Now if Publisher's Clearing House were to show up with a sizeable check, we're no fools - we'd be getting the new model home that we both went gaga over but since we don't anticipate that happening anytime real soon, we're pinning our hopes on this little 3 br, 2 ba ranch with a 2 car carport and a lot that will be fun to play, plant, putter and just generally enjoy being in. If it comes through, the offers still stand for visitors to be welcome... if you're looking for the Ritz Carlton - I can hook you up with those accomodations, but if you're looking for a kick back, stick your feet up on the furniture, relax and have good eats type of atmosphere before heading down to the beach, then we have just the ticket for you. Hope to see you soon. ((hugs)) We'll leave a light on for ya! And thanks for the prayers that got us here and the ones that are going to make sure we have the right place and the ones wishing us the perfect transition down. May God bless y'all and we look foward to sharing our nice, big, beautiful, white sand beaches with you soon.