For hours.... Possibly even days I have been scouring over various rental websites... My sweet husband has dealt with me (put up with/ignored) for over a year now complaining (nagging/throwing a fit/refusing to clean up after anyone but baby and I for days) about our small house. 1,000 sq ft. 2bdr, 2bath. Of course it took me having another kiddo and becoming a stay-at-home mom to truly SEE and FEEL how small it is...
I bought the home for my oldest and I three years ago. It was PERFECT for just he and I. A year later, my now husband, then BF, moved in with all his "stuff". Forcing me to reevaluate the furniture layout/sell off furniture/almost reconsider our entire relationship just to have MY home back!!! But through many glasses of wine and deep breaths I managed to adjust to having him and his "stuff" in and throughout the house... Marriage a few months later and a year after him moving in... Baby joined us... A two bedroom with a school age child and a baby... Unable to move for another year (unless orders came) because I had taken advantage of the first time home buyers tax credit, 3 years in residence or pay $8k back to the IRS... We've stayed. With baby 2ft away from us every night for the past 13 months...
Now he has been PCA'd to Lejeune. 50 miles/hour away. But with this comes work ups for a lengthy deployment later this year.
My dilemma is this:
Moving:
1. Move to a much more roomy home in a wonderful community, with a great school, easy access to so much more than is around Cherry Point.
2. Be closer so we can actually spend time together as family and not have him put in 100+ miles a day or stay overnight during late nights/early mornings.
3. Take a big cut on our after bills paid money that goes toward paying off the mortgage and truck faster/savings.
4. Still able to pay everything off within the 5yr plan I have set up.
5. Not actually knowing anyone out there. (Support system/friends we've known for years are here).
6. Baby will have his OWN room and not sleeping within 2ft of us!
7. Sucking it up a pushing forward with the moving process/getting the house ready/finding a renter.
8. Not delaying the inevitable and having to try and find a place that will accept our German Shepherd during a "non-prime" PCS season next year.
9. Longer summer for the man-child which will give us more time to do more and possibly go out to Cali to see family and friends.
OR
Staying Put:
1. Stay here in our bursting from the seams home and finish the work that I've wanted done to it for awhile now.
2. Not being able to see my husband and spend time together as a family daily, mostly on weekends if a training permits.
3. Being close to friends that have become family over the years.
4. Continue to bitch and complain about the lack of room.
5. Ability to pay off everything within 2-2.5yrs.
6. Not having to suck it up and deal with the moving process/getting the house ready to be rented/finding a renter just yet.
Yes, I wrote out a much longer, more in depth Pro's and Con's list to us moving or staying. Ran numbers for current pay, deployment pay and when he gets back for all of our bills renting or staying and the possibility of us not finding a renter. Financially we're good all around, but I always factor in the what if's and Murphy's Law... My husband calls me a negative Nancy when I do this, but his ass will be half a world away when Murphy likes to pay his "Husband's Deployed Time to Reek Havoc" visits that I am left to handle.
He's dead set on the house we looked at this weekend. I love it as well too, buuuut then I find myself going through the list of what needs to be done and all I want to do is curl up in a corner with a bottle of wine and a book and pretend that list doesn't exist.
What to do, what to do???
