House Woes

I am a little overwhelmed by life these days. This week in particular has been a busy one, so it's been difficult to find time to blog. I have these ideas, and think I need to blog about this or that, and then I just don't have the opportunity to actually sit and write. Last night, I was working (at home, thankfully) until 10:30 p.m., and that was after having to get up early yesterday to be at an off-site meeting right at 8:00 a.m.

I'm trying to remember that everything in my life is a blessing--my "problems" are so minor compared to those of others. And I sure am thankful to have our little Nora to come home to at the end of the day. She has learned to blow REAL raspberries now (with tongue between the lips, spit, and everything) and debuted that new talent last night. Michael and I were in hysterics. She did it over and over and over again--she knew she was amusing us. What a gift she is.

We are still house hunting, and it is slowly and surely killing me. I swear.

Last week, we had an appointment to see a house, only to discover upon arrival that it was located right next to the freaking Clampetts. I'm pretty sure there was a car parked on the neighbor's lawn, but I can't clearly remember because I've tried to block it out. They had old tires and trash piled up against their house. It looked like a junkyard. That's the last time we'll make an appointment without doing a drive-by first. We were really familiar with the neighborhood, so I thought we didn't have to bother, but that's a lesson learned.

It didn't much matter anyway, because upon walking into the house, we discovered that it was disgusting. Old, dirty, and just gross. The owners are renting the place out, and God bless the people who agreed to move into that place, because it is seriously a shithole placed in the middle of an otherwise nice neighborhood. Everything was done completely half-ass. The bottom line was that this place needed way more updating than the house is worth. The neighbors were just the nail in the coffin of that place. I wish the realtor luck in selling it, because whoa.

Yesterday, we drove by three houses and eliminated them all right away. Two of them were situated in a hilly neighborhood that turned out to be a MOUNTAIN. I cannot imagine trying to drive up or down that street in the wintertime, and forget about family walks or bike rides. We'd surely lose Nora as she went flying down the hill on her tricycle one day. Nuh-uh. The other was a large house with "some updates needed," as the description said. Well, upon arrival, we could see right off the bat that it needed new windows and a roof. And, judging by the photos in the listing, it needs work inside, too. There is just not enough money in the world, my friends.

We are beginning to question our initial approach. We've been determined to stay in our current town, but after four months and little luck, we have started to widen our boundaries. We've actually found a house that we really love (from the outside and the pictures, anyway), but it's in a neighboring county with a bad rap. I think most of that rap is due to snobby city folk being judgey about the "country" folk, but I think there is likely some validity to it, too. Nora would be in a school district that isn't as good as the one we're in now, though our realtor (who also happens to be a teacher) has assured us that it's not as bad as we think. To be fair, Michael and I went to two of the best public schools in the county, and we'd say about 50% of our graduating classes did some serious drug experimentation, so it's not like those schools are perfect, either. [I realize this makes it sound like all of the area schools are terrible. Not the case at all--I'm just saying that high school is high school, and if your kid is going to be a druggy idiot, he's likely to be a druggy idiot anywhere. A kid could just as easily fall in with the wrong crowd at the BEST school than a school that's not quite the best, know what I mean?] The commute to work would rise from 5 minutes to 15 minutes. We're totally spoiled right now, so 15 minutes seems like a long ride, but we know that it's not really, and we're trying to remind ourselves of that fact.

We've considered looking into building, but we'd have to compromise on the area in which we'd like to live. Plus, my argument is that if we're going to go through the process and take the time to build, I'd want it to be our dream house--which I'm pretty convinced we could not afford at this time. Add to that the fact that most developments going up in our price range have lots the size of a shoebox, and I'm thinking that's not the right direction for us right now.

Today, we received a glimmer of hope on one front, at least: We got a call for an appointment on our current place. It's the first time the phone has rung in six weeks (I think? maybe more), so we're excited about that. I just hope that this is a serious buyer, and not the "We're just starting our search" type people. MAKE US AN OFFER, PLEASE.

Of course, should we get an offer and accept it, that puts the pressure on us for our own house hunt, because HELLO WE HAVE NO PLACE TO MOVE TO. But something's gotta give here; something has to happen first. We'd rather be in a position where we have sold our place and don't yet have another than have a place we want to buy and not be able to sell our place.

And so the saga continues...