Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Growness

Well on February 11th, my wife and I started another chapter in our lives. We signed papers and closed on our first house.


Ok, so off the top let me just say that embarking on the road to purchase a house is by far one of the most arguous tasks that any couple can go through. There are aspects of the actual house shopping that in and of themselves can tear a couple apart.


For a small example, my wife and I have very different tastes when it comes to anything that she actually cares about. So really this makes choosing certain things a much larger process than one would imagine. Now keep in mind in the end we both want the samething (the house to look nice and be to our liking) sometimes we just have differing ideas of how that's going to happen. I'm ok with that, and I think most everyone who's ever been married and bought a house has been through it as well.


The little things about picking a house become huge when you heap on the enormity of "forever" now this is not a house that we're planning to spend the rest of our lives in, but damn if the idea of forever doesn't weigh quite heavily on you. Now throw in someone else's ideas of what they would like to do with the house and now you're looking at trying to find a middle ground about something that is the largest investment that most any of us will make.


The process is crazy long, we saw so many houses. Each one, you go through you think to yourself "could I live here". You go through your commute to work, and you think where would i shop, where is the nearest carry-out (Ok maybe that's just me) but you get my point. You picture your life as you know it going forward from this place.


You're now planning your life around this place and it's not yours yet. It's a cruel thing to do to yourself, but it's totally natural and i think everyone does it once they see a property that they like.


Now in our particular situation we chose a house, had an offer accepted (but not signed) then had the offer accepted and signed to someone else. At the time we were heartbroken and angry. Little did we know that it happened for a reason and that reason was to get us a better house, for less money.


It's amazing how things work out. We saw some beaters, some places with roaches on the ceilings, walls, floors, everywhere you looked, mold in ever crevice of the house, and floor plans to make your head spin.


We had one guy allow us to walk through his house, while he was cooking a meal for his family, then tell us that the house is off the market.

We went through all of that to find the gem.

The gem that we weren't even looking for. We were across the street lookin at another house and as we're walking out, a guy from across the streets comes over and tells us he's putting his house on the market too, and we should look at it. We're game so we do. It was the by far the best house that we looked at. It was everything we both wanted, and everything that we needed. The right size, the right location, and the right price.

It was an amazing process that I'm glad that my wife and I went through together. We now have a place that we're going to start planning for the future in.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Psst come here for a second

I just wanted to let you know that I don't drink nearly as much Maker's as i used to, or nearly as much as people tend to think I drink.

Just a PSA for ya'll.

Carry on my good grinders.