…and so it begins!

Today is our 6th day in Hawaii.  WOW that kind of blows me away.  I’d be lying  if I said these first few days have been a vacation, but they haven’t.  The biggest reason I can figure is when you go on vacation you know that after some pre-determined amount of time, you will be going home. When on vacation you spend all that money you’ve been saving for months on end, on meals and trinkets, post cards and tee-shirts.  Day trips to the beach, and tropical gardens and helicopter rides over the volcano are the highlights and almost every minute is planned to take advantage of a well deserved vacation.  Or in other words, relaxing is the priority.

I fully expected to feel like I was on vacation, at least for a little while. The first place we stayed was magical and beautiful, really the sort of place I’d love to own.  ….but I don’t, yet!

Hawaiian Oasis sunset

The difference is, we are not on vacation.  We are in transition, and no matter where that is…it isn’t an awesome experience.  Don’t get me wrong, we are enjoying our time.  But instead of going to the beaches or on some high end $ tour, we head off to Costco to check out prices on appliances or Home Depot to see what sort of building materials they have.  In fact because we are traveling with a cat, it hasn’t been that easy to get a place to stay.  We actually landed in a place we stayed at in 2010, and the owner remembered us and is kind enough to allow said cat.  This too is short term and we’ve a call into an agency for a long term rental, as we want to rent before we decide to purchase a place.  We want to make sure that we are in the right location for us.

Yesterday was a large disappointment.  We went to the Post Office to rent a box….but we don’t have a street address so we couldn’t get one. If we had an address why would we need a PO box? Is there a difference between naive and just not knowing.  I guess it’s a Homeland security thing to keep terrorists from having PO boxes….oh well more non nonsensical government hoops to perform.

Then there was one of the houses for sale that was on our radar that we decided to drive by.  Oh my!  What is stated on the real estate listing as an “architect designed home, with a little wood damage that needs a handyman’s touch” should be translated as “Termite infested shit hole, complete tear down necessary”.  We trespassed went through the hole in the fence and walked around to the back of the house where there were no walls and the inside was totally exposed to the elements.   I could see the rotting wood under the bathtub….from 10 feet away…outside.  Did I mention there was an in ground pool?  It still held water….. shitty brown, yucky bug infested water.  It too needed ‘a little’ work.  I was afraid to actually walk on the steps for fear of falling through.  We looked at each other, wiped the tears from our disappointed eyes, got in the car and left.  I have to tell you….we’re not afraid to tackle projects, but looking at this mess, we wouldn’t even know where to begin, short of tearing or burning it down. We were stunned that a real estate agent would so understate this property.

It’s now the 10th of March and we still haven’t found any long term housing.  We met with a rental agency and she guided us to three separate properties.  I have to say, she was at least honest.  The first house was a really nice home, basically brand new, but the down side on this one was the neighbors with the pit bulls and no useable outside area.  Really?  The whole reason we moved to Hawaii was to have outside access.  Secondly on this house, we would never be able to park in the garage, our rental car bottomed out as I was backing out.  I thought I’d ruptured the oil pan….but it was OK. One of the other houses bordered a VERY VERY busy road and these neighbors had at least 3 dogs running around, in our prospective yard.  And lastly, there was  the run down house that wasn’t appealing at all.

We’ve contacted several places via Craigslist, but we are very obviously on Island time now….only one response and that was to say they had rented it out already.  Therefore the search continues.  We were trying to avoid having to store our container full of items and it gets here next week.  But as Mitch is prone to say, ‘we’ll fly it and watch’.

All in all, we still wake up to beautiful sunrises, we sit outside and watch the stars and I’ve been given a fresh flower almost daily.  It is another day in paradise, as I reminded myself this morning and for the first time ever, I’m not being sarcastic.