house hunt Archives - It's my life...

Embarrassed

I live in an amazing area. It’s gorgeous here. Gorgeous as in sometimes I want to stop on the side of the road just so I can gawk at the scenery. The weather is amazing — never too hot or too cold. There are no bugs. (No, really, no bugs.) And even better, the people here are awesome.

This place, that I never expected to live in, is amazing in every way possible… except one.

The housing prices here are astounding. And not in a good way.

This past month, as we’ve visited countless homes in the hopes of moving to a town that would allow us to reduce the amount of time we spend commuting and that would bring us closer to our community, C has lamented the unfairness of the high price of homes.

“But we need homes. Why can’t they all cost the same?”

So, after patting ourselves on the back for raising a bleeding heart liberal like her parents, we’ve explained to her again and again that sure, there are affordable homes, but if you want to live somewhere as special as we do, you have to be willing to pay the price.

This week we found the house of our dreams and one dizzying few days later, we’re finding ourselves the new owners of this house.

And I am SO excited.

Seriously, it’ll be like living in one of those spots I want to pull over and gawk at.

I keep wanting to pinch myself about what just happened.

And yet, I can’t seem to allow myself to scream it on the rooftops.

Fact is, I think I’m embarrassed about what we’re paying for this house.

For this area? It’s a deal. Ok, fine, at least it’s quite reasonable. And a great investment. And we can afford it. Which is astounding in and of itself.

But I have friends whose husbands have lost jobs this year. I have friends facing foreclosure. I have friends who live pay check to pay check. Sharing the listing with them to show off our new gem feels so… unfeeling.

Tonight as I was driving I thought back to the year we’ve just lived through. Everyone has their own burdens. Ours are health related, not financial (knock wood). As much as C wishes it were possible, we can’t all live in the same homes, in the same towns. We’ve chosen this place because of family and roots. It is our home. I can’t keep being embarrassed about the choice we’ve made in living here.

I’m excited about this new chapter in our lives. Yes, it will mean some sacrifices. Yes, it might be a little insane when you think about the actual numbers involved in the game. But when I wake up in the morning and I drink my tea in front of a view that makes my soul whole, I’ll know there was a reason we found this place just when we needed it.

I’m making peace with my embarrassment. I’m embracing our choice.

A final stab at organized living

standard jessica December 14, 2009 3 responses

When we moved into this house almost 7 years ago it was just M and me. Well, M, me, and the cat. The place was so big that we didn’t have enough furniture to fill all the rooms. Our dining room remained empty for years.

Then we had a first kid. And she came with all the usual stuff kids come with – swing, bassinet, bouncy seats, high chairs, toys, toys, and more toys. All of a sudden we started filling the space. Only M and I aren’t the most organized at the best of times, and, well, as any new parent knows, that first year of parenthood is many things, but it’s not the best or times, nor the most organized of times.

So stuff got piled in corners, shoved in tight spaces, and lined up against the walls.

Then we had another child and the chaos grew even more out of control. We got more furniture, more baby stuff, more books, more toys. The barely controlled mess grew out of control.

In the past couple of months we’ve made a conscious effort to organize the house. We’ve bought a storage system for the toys, we’ve culled clutter here and there. And today I finally did something I should have done years ago: I cleaned my things off the shelves in the girls’ room so they would have more room for their stuff.

I packed up books and memorabilia from my pre-baby life and I replaced them with stuffed animals, Little People planes, Weeble Wobble houses, and a million other little toys. When I tucked them in tonight I looked around and for once their room really looked like a kid’s room, not a pastel painted room where kids had been placed while we waited to figure out where to put them for real.

And the motivation for all this cleaning?

Today we visited our second open house. We’re quickly getting on board for a possible move and we badly need to get organized in case we find the perfect house and need to start packing.

As ironic as it may be that we’ll finally get the house organized just in time to have to pack it up and leave, I’m hopeful that it’ll also give me a better idea of how to start off better organized no matter what new home we end up in.

A girl can dream, right?