I married my high school sweetheart when I was 19. He had joined the Air Force and we got married on his leave after Basic Training. Our honeymoon was driving across country in a Uhaul truck (we have yet to have a real honeymoon). His first assignment was Holloman AFB, New Mexico. Boy, was that a culture shock! Driving down Route 54 we passed the sign that said "Welcome to Alamogordo" we both looked at each other and said "Is this really it?" I thought as long as there is a mall I'll be all set. We drove a little farther and there was the mall on the right, Kmart on one end and JcPenney on the other. Later on we found out the mall's nickname was the "Hall" if you stood at Kmart you could look straight down and see JcPenney, the mall was probably only 200 yards long, I guess I should have been more specific about my mall requirements. New Mexico did grow on us and we ended up loving it there.
So, we moved into our first apartment. I loved the location, beautiful views of the mountains, after all the street was named Scenic Dr. There was a big cactus beside the driveway, you had to be careful walking beside the car or it would remind you it was still there. The kitchen and bathroom both had the same cheap dark cabinets and bright orange countertops. I didn't care though I was so excited to finally have my own place. We brought the bedroom set I used in my parents house and bought a futon from Walmart for our living room couch. It was ugly but it was home, our first home.
After 9/11 with the added security measures to get on base it made the lines long, you had to leave quite a bit earlier to get to work on time so we decided to move into base housing. Had we known they had air conditioning we probably would have moved sooner. I loved that house it was the first house I had ever lived in with 2 bathrooms. It had grass in the backyard for our dog. It was 2 stories, which is unusual for the area and it was newly built. It didn't have carpet, every room had linoleum tile like schools. We did upgrade to a leather sofa set. I hated it, It was the one time my husband got what he wanted, as far as home furnishing go, and 3 years later I got the sofa set I wanted. It was comfy and oversized and all the pieces filled our big living room nicely. When we moved into our current house I realized when buying a sofa you should consider the fact that you may live in other houses (I'll explain more a little farther down). We did lose our cat there though. I opened the door to take the trash out and the cat ran right out. By the time I slipped my shoes on I couldn't find him anywhere. We drove around the neighborhood and put up a lost cat poster at the BX but no luck. A year later my hubby went next door to play poker and saw that our cat had been living next door the whole time. At that point he had been living next door longer than with us so we let him stay, he did come by and visit every once after that.
In 2005 hubby decided to leave the Air Force to pursue another career field (that still hasn't gone as planned) I started looking online at houses as soon as we made the decision and was all excited that I could finally paint walls and decorate the way I wanted. Little did I know it would take 1 1/2 years before we would find good enough jobs to make my dream a reality. We moved in with my parents while we were job and house hunting. We started trying to get pregnant a year before hubby left the Air Force and wanted a baby so badly that I didn't want to give up completely so we just stopped actively trying but just let nature take it's course. Well what do you know, I got pregnant that next month. I never thought we'd be bringing our baby home to my parent's house but we did, everything was taking a lot longer than I had wanted. We realized with the housing prices so high and only one income (we decided that I should be a SAHM) we would need to buy a two family home. My Brother-In-Law (hubby's identical twin) was renting at the time and wanted to buy also so we decided to buy a duplex together. This is it. The outside is ugly but I have big plans for that (plans that are bigger than my wallet).
We finally closed on the house a week before Christmas. We were going to rent a moving truck that next weekend so I thought I had plenty of time to start ripping down the wallpaper and painting before we moved everything in...Wrong! I really don't know what I was thinking. I got the living room, dining room and kitchen started before we moved in but nothing finished. We rented the moving truck 2 days before Christmas and filled the house with boxes. Remember that big oversized couch I mentioned? Well it spent a little time on the porch. It was too oversized to fit through the doorway. A couple weeks later hubby and his dad took out the living room window and shoved the couch through. Hubby says when we sell this house the couch goes with it! Two years later there are a couple unpacked boxes in the basement and I'm still working on the inside.
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