As the prospect of having an actual house dances before my eyes like a piece of New York cheesecake smothered in caramel and chocolate, I can’t shake my pessimism. Mainly because we have to move from this temporary condo [the one we have been killing time in while we sold our house in Illinois and found a new house in Florida] to a new, temporary apartment [in North Carolina while we find the house we were supposed to be living in by now if we had stayed in Florida] under even more sparse conditions. Hubby, who has already relocated, is sleeping on a blow up mattress and believes it perfectly logical that we leave our remaining possessions in a POD and live out of suitcases until we find a home. He has set a three month deadline. I wasn’t aware that I recently testified at a mafia hearing, so why are we living like we are in witness protection? I have lived under worse circumstances (LA Woman), but not with two toddlers, one of which makes comments like, “when will we get a real house?” 

This “fake house” as she refers to it deserves the title. My mom used to say her idea of roughing it was staying at the Holiday Inn. My hubby should be very thankful that I take after my father. Fake house has one room and a closet of a kitchen on one level with two bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs. Try potty training a stick legged, 30lb two year old who has to climb the stairs with every urge. And so do I. As a result our living room now has a potty seat in it. It also has a bike hanging from a floor to ceiling bike rack because we have no garage. There were two bikes on that rack, but hubby took one, hoping to ride it more in North Carolina than he did here. (good luck with that 20 degree difference) The remaining bike sits on the highest perch which is better because the jagged chain thingy of the lower bike constantly scraped my daughters’ heads when they played in their “play corner” below. The “play corner” means a three basket cart that is jammed packed with everything from Donatello the Ninja Turtle to a rubber snake. All of its contents decorate the floor at some point each day and all of its contents are threaten to be thrown away each night to inspire cleaning up when the Barney song doesn’t work.   

In another corner is a card table from Target and four chairs that serves as our kitchen table, craft table, my office for Sahmmy.com, and a laundry room or utility room as I see it referred to on my wish houses. It is also our receiving area for guests. When MIL and PIL come to visit, the only place for all of us to sit is around the card table or on our tiny cheap, “I bought something I can dump when we leave”, brown, micro fiber couch. Below the table/office/utility room is my printer and Thesaurus. Two feet behind the table is a closet with our washer and dryer which emits that wonderful sour Florida water smell all through the house with each wash and dry. The dryer used to take six cycles to dry our clothes because the channels to the outside have more turns than a soap opera. Hubby detached the hose from the wall so now when we dry it only takes one cycle, but our house feels like a steam bath.   

Did I mention there is one closet on the main floor? A two foot by two foot closet, perfect if the condo’s inhabitant is a member of the Lollypop Guild. But it doesn’t matter because I never could get to the closet with our Trek bike carrier standing in front of it for the past eleven months. The brand new bike carrier we swore we would use every weekend, until hubby had to work 6 days a week, and the bike trailer I sold last weekend for 200 bones on Craigslist.  

But don’t feel bad for me; I do have some things, like nutmeg. I am so glad that although hubby thought we should leave all my baking tools and many other personal items at MIL’s house (retrieved once we found our Florida home) he had the good sense of mind to pack nutmeg. Now in my closet of a kitchen for Thanksgiving, I can make….I can make…what the Hell do you make with nutmeg?