Home Is Where You Make It

So, now that I'm done rambling on about my boring life, we're going to move onto bigger and better things. Today's topic: Making a military house a home. Doesn't sound fun, but we're going to make it fun! Here goes!

When we first got to Japan, the first thing we needed to do was obviously find a place to live. Before our appointment to look at houses with a housing office agent, I had been observing the different neighborhoods and houses all around base. The houses on Kadena, well all Okinawa bases really, were different. Since Okinawa is such a small island prone to typhoons, the houses had to be sturdy. And by golly, that's exactly what they were! They were big concrete blocks with a bathroom and kitchen carved in the middle. Well, not exactly, but they were concrete and super sturdy. We lived through countless typhoons in our little on base apartment and never felt a thing. The worse thing that a typhoon ever did to us or our house was over flow our toilet with sewage. Okay, Kayla. Get your ADD under control and get back on track! Any who, the houses that we had saw in passing seemed relatively nice, the newer ones did anyway. A lot of the houses/duplexs/apartments were in the process of being renovated from the time we got there until the day we left. When we drove up to the first option that was offered to us, I looked at Justin and said "Is this a joke?". It looked like the ghetto of Kadena. For real. We went in and I was blown away, and not in a good way. It was old and not up to date and just not what I expected. But before I could turn it down, we had to look at our next/last option. Yeah, we only got to options. The second apartment was right down the road from the "ghetto" and was a wee bit nicer. We went inside and I was far more impressed than I was with the first one. I decided in my mind that this one was better than the crap we'd seen before and that this was going to be our first home together. But what sold me on the place was the view. The apartment was on a hill and you could see the entire flight line AND the beach from our front and back yard. I was sold. Justin liked the first crap hole but I told him there was no way that I was going to live in a place that I considered the "bad part of town" (It really wasn't that bad. It was just that damn jet lag and PMS again). That day, we signed on the dotted line and it was a done deal. We had our first house together. And the best part...it was free! No rent. No utilities. Notta. Sweet.

Military housing isn't always bad. I've been to bases where the housing is unbelievably nice, and others where you'd be better off living in a box...or off base, of course. We had the option of living off base but at the time, I was afraid to go off base by myself, let alone live off base. (I was extremely close minded in the beginning).

For all you new military wives, what I will refer to you as newbies to make it easier, just keep a few things in mind when choosing a house. And bare in mind that I'm only talking about on base housing at the moment because we have never lived off base.
Numero Uno: Things aren't always going to meet your expectations. Take my story as a perfect example. Just keep an open mind about it and think about what potential it may have.
Numero Duo: Whatever place you choose will be completely empty. No furniture. No essentials. Nothing but appliances and bare, base colored walls. It's up to you to furnish your new place and to provide the essentials that you will need. I'll get into that more when we talk about PCSing. Coming soon...
Numero three: No matter what your new place looks like, old or new, crappy or happy, you can always make it your own. Spruce it up with some paint and decorations. Plant some flowers in the yard. Throw a colorful rug on the bare floors. Just do whatever you have to do to make it homey to you.

And last but not least, remember the name of this post because it is 100,000% true. Home is where you make it. Contrary to popular belief, home isn't where you're family is or where you're from. Nope. You're a military wife now and home is where the military sends you and most importantly, home is where your husband is.

They may sound simple and obvious, but it is the best advice I can give to turning a house into a home. Check out the pictures of our house in Oki and see what I mean about turning it into your own. The top picture is our "quad-plex". Ours was the one on the bottom. 5454B Gabreski St. The second picture is the view from of the base and flight line from our back yard. You can't really see the beach in this picture but it was there! The rest are pictures of our living room. We made it ours with a few little things and a lot of love! I tried to find pictures of the way it was before we decorated so I could try to do a before and after thing, but I have no clue where those pictures are at the moment. Maybe I'll find them one day! And when I do, I'll show you! Have a good day, y'all!