The Rhubarb Rube back to being a nomad

Last week in this column, I chirped about how happy my family and I were in our new house. It was only a couple of hours after I wrote said column that I got a call from my wife telling me that we had to flee the comforts of the house as there was a snafu with the closing.

It seems that we moved into the home sooner than the homeowner would have liked and miscommunications between the relators and the gentleman selling the home left the whole deal up in the air.

Things went from happy and comfortable to irritated and prickly in an instance. The company that we are supposed to be buying the home from apologized a dozen times and asked us if they could put us up in a hotel for a few days until the situation was taken care of and we were cleared to move back into our home.

So, in the middle of unpacking and getting acclimated, we were uprooted and displaced, back to living out of suitcases and cardboard boxes.

The fam and I, to say the least, were upset. We went from being at a point where we were finally finding our groove in our new community to the point where we were once again the Nomadic Hebert Tribe.

We were told that, hopefully, the situation would be taken care of by Wednesday, two days after getting the boot. Wednesday turned into Thursday, Thursday into Friday etc., etc., until, as of this morning -- Sunday -- we are supposed to be able to move back into “our” house by Monday afternoon.

It is a scary thing to not know where you will rest your head at night. I have never been homeless, nor I am technically homeless now, but it is starting to feel like it.

Anyway, I’ll stop the “poor us” diatribe right now.

The best part -- and possibly only good part -- of this entire fiasco is that I got to spend so much time with my wife and daughter this week. Now, if we had been in our house this week, we would have still spent time together, but I doubt it would have been this much time and in this tight of a space. We have eaten all our meals together for the last week and we have talked more than the three of us had since we moved here.

Running this newspaper has been extremely time consuming and I haven’t been able to spend as much time with my girls as I would like. This past week has forced me to take some time away from work that I otherwise wouldn’t have. It has been a pleasure.

Spending so much time with my family during this somewhat uncomfortable situation has been a good reminder that the most important thing in my life is my family. I hadn’t forgotten that fact, but it has been reinforced. Being forced from our home has shown me that we could live anywhere and be happy, as long as we have each other.

Hopefully we are back in our house by the time you are reading this, but if not, oh well. I’ve got my family and that is all the matters.

Thanks for reading and Aloha.

(Late note: We did indeed get into our home, after the entire deal was taken off the table all parties were able to reach a compromise and we are no longer nomadic. Thanks to everyone involved for helping us put down roots in Phillips County. We are happy to be here.)