Empty House Blues

Sometimes the adventures we most need to embrace are those annoying adventures foisted upon us. The transportation and housing offices at our new duty stations seem to have a knack for this.

Sometimes this adventure is a hotel room with a large dog pacing the floor and little ones jumping on the beds. You tire of playing every travel game you have ever learned. You allow more screen time than you have ever allowed your children in all their days.

Sometimes this adventure looks like an empty house with other people’s inflatable mattresses and foldable camping chairs. Your whole family camps in the living room. Eventually you tire of paper plates and plasticware while looking at your empty kitchen.

Neither experience is fun. One might say that if you are in the empty house, at least you know the house exists!

We have experienced the “empty house blues” on more than one occasion. Two of our situations looked quite different from one another because we had toddlers during our very first PCS and teens for the most recent move.

A Challenging First Adventure

The empty house is a challenging adventure. You don’t feel at home. You probably don’t know many people in the area, if anyone. The most difficult thing to do is explain to your little children that they must be patient while you await your earthly belongings. It is hard to be content as you stare at bare walls and sit on the floor.

When Tim finished basic training and Officer Candidate School, we moved to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (FLW). Most of our items were coming from a storage unit in Virginia.  But we had all of the boys’ belongings, our clothes, and the computer coming from my parents’ house, where the boys and I had been living. We decided to do a partial DITY so that everything in storage, to include our bed and a piano, would be moved via transportation. We would pack a U-Haul with all of our items at my parents’ house.

I don’t believe in luck or coincidence, so I’m chalking this novice’s decision to relocate in this manner to God’s intervention. Growing up military I do not remember my parents ever doing a partial DITY, so this was a totally new thing.

We got to FLW and signed for our house. (Spoiler alert: The house was so old that housing razed it to the ground after we moved out… after we paid for it to be professionally cleaned. But I digress…)

We didn’t want to pay too much for the U-Haul, so we quickly unloaded it. Tim returned the trailer to the rental dealer. We were able to put the boys in their crib and bed that night. Now the waiting began.

We waited.

And we waited.

Nothing.

While we waited, I unpacked my toddlers’ bedroom. They had toys and books and clothes. We didn’t have any other furniture or small kitchen appliances, but they had a place to play and toys to keep them occupied. That was such a God-send.

Then we bought a microwave. That meant a big box! The boys were entertained for several days with just a box! It was a spaceship and a car. It was a place to look at books and a place to sit in the empty family room to watch the birds outside the big picture window.

I eventually visited the MWR Lending Closet. I was now able to make dinner and have a card table and chairs. We made a few friends on our street who also lent us some items so I could make brownies.

We waited almost a month before Tim finally got someone on the phone from the transportation office in Georgia to say he was missing some paperwork for the PCS. Four weeks of waiting and no one had bothered to respond to emails or phone calls. Tim immediately processed the paperwork. We had our belongings in two weeks.

By this point, Tim and I were irritated and exhausted. We were sleeping on the ground for too long. However, our sleep deprivation was not because of discontented toddlers. The discontent was our own.

Empty House Lessons

We learned a few lessons during this time of awaiting our stuff with toddlers.

1)     Have their items at the ready – as much as you can. The partial DITY was such a blessing. I may have been irritated, but they were happy with their toys. Include the stroller!

2)     Allow for the big empty space to be their play space for a while. Let them enjoy the echo of their voices.

3)     Get them on a schedule.  Then keep your schedule and get out and explore the neighborhood. Go for daily walks and start meeting people in the area. Visit the library and hit story time.  (You packed the stroller, right?!)

4)     Don’t make a big deal of not having “our stuff.” I believe that “where your treasure is, there your heart is also” (Luke 12:34). If we show our children that not having our “stuff” is not a big deal then we leave space for them to learn what to prioritize in their hearts.

5)     Be ready for when you do get your things! One item we brought while waiting was a child safety gate. We put it up at their bedroom door. While they gleefully played in their room, I was able to unpack boxes in the hallway and bathroom.

Teen Challenge 

So, how is it different with teens?  They get to help!!!   I mean, they do hard things!

We recently bought a house. It was beautiful, but not everything was our style. The kitchen had competing patterns with two different kinds of tile and a granite counter top paired with dark cabinets. There was white carpet in the boys’ bathroom (yikes!). And the master bathroom was what I would call “90’s chic”, complete with half wall between the vanity and the toilet.

Since our HHGs wouldn’t arrive for a few weeks, we decided to “camp” in the one room with carpet that we would not touch with paintbrush or drill. We planned to paint all the bedrooms and renovate both the kitchen and bathrooms to various degrees.

Initially we thought we might be able to do it all in 10 days. That was definitely an optimistic estimate. However, God knew better and postponed our HHG shipment by six more days. Nearly three weeks camping out in our new home was not my plan, but it was time well spent!

Since we already knew we would be camping in the living room we just practiced expectation management: always expect to wait longer.  That advice never fails during a PCS!

Tim packed DIY crates with tools that he anticipated he would most need for the house updates. We looked a bit like the Clampetts from Beverly Hillbillies, but that was better than buying all new tools. He anticipated needing to buy a miter saw for cutting flooring, but it was cheaper than getting a contractor for those projects.

We prioritized our projects. We painted bedrooms and the kitchen while the boys took turns helping with bathroom projects. We divided and conquered each project. I took charge of the kitchen. Each boy took charge of their own room and Tim was in charge of the bathrooms.

We made copious visits to Home Depot and Menards. We drank a lot of cheap coffee from the corner gas station. We tried using a paint sprayer and quickly learned that it is not really the best way to paint a room, but it may well be the messiest.

We learned a lot about home improvement and what we are capable of doing well!  I didn’t know my boys could retile a shower or that they knew how to do it well enough that they could teach me how to do it too. We were put to the test when Tim had to check in to post and go to work.

One of the best things that came from the boys helping in all of these projects was their preparedness to help me once Tim left for his nine-month rotation. There have been several instances I have needed a handyman.  My boys have both been handy during this separation from our resident engineer and handyman:

They changed lightbulbs in the chandelier.

They puttied cracks in the wood in our entryway.

They touched up paint in the kitchen before our first houseguests arrived.

They changed outlet covers.

They tightened lose screws on the banister and doorknobs.

They even thought to check the basement for flooding after a gully-washer this spring.

Once our HHGs arrived we’ve slowed down on the projects. I didn’t get my bedroom painted until after the furniture was in the room. The master bathroom wasn’t finished until after Tim started back to work. However, most of the projects were completed.  We had minimal items to shuffle around in order to make the space livable while completing the projects.

Empty House Lessons, Pt. 2

I have heard it said that there are not many differences between teens and toddlers. (Threen – ager anyone?) However, as parents we know different ages need to be engaged differently. While tempting, it isn’t a great idea to just plug into an electrical device for long stretches of time. We need to be creative and find fun and memorable ways to engage our kiddos no matter the age:

1)  Allow them space in their new home.

2)  Help them explore their new neighborhood.

3)  Learn together.

4)  Get them to do hard things.