Ever since the decision was made to separate from the Army at the end of his contract, I have stressed, over thought EVERYTHING and barely slept because I am googling all possible scenarios for our situation(s). So I am posting a bliggity blog about all the things stressing me out in the hopes that someone will come to my house and slap me upside the head and say "calm down woman!" But maybe just a cyber slap in the head. OR if someone wants to tell me "I would be freaking the eff out right now if I was you" this is acceptable too and I can at least show my husband and be like "see, other people agree with my psychosis, that makes it ok!"
Anyways. Stressor #1-this house. Nothing wrong with it-yea, it's old, has it's quirks. But I fell in love with those quirks and with the changes we have made to this house, I really really love it. If I could pick this house up and take it with me to Oregon, I totally would. Unfortunately it is a historic house so the option to move it is not there. Plus I imagine moving 1600 sq ft of house 3000+ miles is... More money than it would be worth.
So why leave it at all? You ask. Good question. My answer is this: family. Home. This is not, nor will it ever be, my home because home is where the heart is and my heart never really left Oregon. Georgia is not a terrible place-I know I may have made it seem this way but honestly aside from the death heat in the summers and the lack of Jack in the Box and Dutch Bros Coffee, it's not a bad place. But my family is not here. If there was a military base in Oregon that we could be stationed at, we might consider staying in because most of our strain that we feel being military is that there is no support here family-wise. A lot of people are able to find family within the military but I have not been able to do this, and it's not the same as having your blood sisters that you grew up with living in the same town. Sorry to my Army friends, you are awesome and I love all of you. But you aren't my big sister. I am tired of spending the holidays away from family. And to get out of the Army only to stay 3000 miles away from them would be a waste. Might as well stay in-which is not really something my husband seems to keen on at this point.
Basically, without the Army telling us to live in Georgia, we have zero ties to this place (aside from the house) so our only option is to go home one way or another.
Way one to go home: sell this place we just bought a year ago. I don't expect a profit, and will be shocked if we break even with the sale of the house to be brutally honest with myself. I love my house but I know it's not worth any more than we are paying for it. Because we have only been here a year, using a realtor would mean that we would have to come up with some cash to be able to sell it since they get a percentage in commissions, or up the price to compensate so we break even and pay the realtor. But as I stated before, the house is worth what we are paying (in my oh so expert opinion on houses) and I would feel bad having someone else overpay for this house, even if it would be to my benefit.
Option two to go home: FSBO. Sell it ourselves. Save the realtor fees. But take on all of the stuff a realtor is paid to do-that 4-7% they make is for a reason! With two kids (if this happens after march), a husband deploying soon (possibly) and several pets. I seriously don't know that I even consider this as a real option but in my incessant 2 AM googling, it came up as an option that sounds like maybe a supplement to option three. Who knows.
Option three: Become mysterious landlords that live 3000 miles away and have a management company handle everything for us. Probably going to go with this, as much as I hate the idea of someone living in "my house"-and I know, I know. I need to separate myself from this house and just view it as it is-a piece of property. But dammit I love this house! But there are weird legal things that we would have to do, paying taxes up front, our homeowners would go up because we wouldn't reside in the house, legal insurancey thingys. Lots of stuff. And if it doesn't rent out for any period of time-we take that hit and have to pay for that month? Eesh. Scary. Not quite as scary as the idea of some weirdo living in my beautiful house ruining the original wood floors. They probably won't put pads on the bottom of the furniture or use the right kind of cleaner. My eye is twitching.
There are pros and cons to all of these of course. Unfortunately in all of the scenarios, cons seem to outweigh the pros and none of them sound good enough to me. But this could be my over-stressing, hormonal, worried and pregnant self just being a negative nancy. Which is not like me. I normally am overly optimistic about everything-to a fault almost. It's all just so unknown. "What if it doesn't sell?" "What if we can't find a renter?" I am needing to remind myself to let it go, what will be will be, it's in God's hands and he will never steer us wrong but I do.not.like.not.knowing.
AND THEN. There is the whole "moving back to Oregon" fiasco. We have five pets. Excuse us for being animal lovers. Most places accept zero pets. Some accept 1 pet-under 20 lbs. By my math, we have about 100 lbs of animals. So we could just rent out like 5 places with 20 lb weight limits and it would all even out right? No. Thats not how that works, silly head.
So it takes us back to really the only option for pet lovers: buy a house. No one can tell you what to do with your own house (with the exception of historic houses in our area where they have some really weird rules about things we can do to the house) And if this house sells-this would be an option maybe. But lets say we buy a house out there after this one sells, move in, can't find jobs. Yea. These things are all rolling around in my head. Constantly. Now, we could buy my moms old house-it's $23,000 and is a manufactured home in a nice "park"-near my big sister, my grandparents and in the town we both grew up in. Ideal. Minus their weight limit for pets allowed-under 20 lbs. We could cut Laydie in half and she would still be over their limit. And getting rid of her is not an option. We have had her longer than we have had our son and call me a sap but after all the money we have spent on this dog, she is staying with us gosh darnit. We spent too much time bringing her back to health to just hand her off to anyone else. They don't deserve a dog this awesome.
Maybe a family member we see often could take her, we could buy my mom's (super cheap) house and live decently on what we should be able to save between now and then-and if we got jobs, then we could hold onto that savings for renovations (we love renovations)
I know that thinking about it all now and panicking is doing no one any good but it's in my nature unfortunately and this is a big change with a lot of "what ifs" and "oh no". Worst case scenario: we can't sell or rent this house, are stuck in Georgia trying to find jobs in the 'brokest city in the US'-according to some report in a magazine or something. Eventually lose this house in foreclosure and are stuck, homeless, in the brokest city in the US. Granted, 98% of this probably won't happen. But it could. So could a zombie apocalypse. 2012 is real y'all. The Mayans couldn't possibly have just... stopped making that calendar at that point in time. It's clearly a sign. The end is coming. So then none of this random rambling matters. It's all a moot point since we all die in 2012 anyways.
I think I need a drink. Come on March. Get here so I can... continue to not drink since I will be breastfeeding a baby. Sigh. There is no hope for me. If you read all this, I am truly sorry and you probably need a drink yourself after a walk inside my mind. I have Inception style thought processes. Thoughts within thoughts. Problems within problems. Scenarios within scenarios. Is that really what Inception was about? I don't even remember. I saw it. Still don't know. This is where I request more thoughts, prayers and naked tree dances please. Take a shot (or 10) for me.
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