Our House

So now we pause to let Cathy have her "I told you so" moment.

Astonishingly, one year has passed since we moved into our house. For the 10 or so still regular readers of the blog left, you may recall I was not exactly a big fan of the idea of buying a house, this house in particular. I had any number of reasons and, even in retrospect, they were not irrational ones. My concerns, in no particular order, were that I wasn't in love with the house because it didn't have the kind of indefinable "character" I was hoping for, that I wasn't sure we had the money for it, that I was unemployed and it seemed like an insane risk to take while that state of affairs was going on and that we didn't have enough furniture and feared living in a half empty house for months.

Cathy managed to refute those arguments with: You give the house the character you want, we clearly had enough money saved up to make a 20% down payment, I would get a job soon enough, and given out mild packrat ways, we'll fill the house up soon enough.

And she was right on all counts. Granted, I still think it was a huge risk. I had irons in the fire on the job front, but it still months for the right iron to heat up. There was more than a little bit of stress in our lives those first few months. I'm not a big fan of stress and while it's easy to look back now and chuckle at it, I think we would both agree it wasn't the happiest time in our marriage.

However, I guess a little stress (all right, spiking to medium-high stress from time to time) can work out. I'm very happy in our house. After years of apartment living, and hearing that our old apartment building has gone down hill in the last year (noisy dogs, insane tenants, cigarette smoke drifting through the building), I'm doubly glad. Yes, the house still gives me fits and starts. The washing machine breaking was an unwelcome surprise, but I suspect that's just the first of many to come with home ownership.

But we've made the house our own. A spare bedroom has become the library/den that I've always wanted. We have our pictures hanging on the walls. We can look out the window and across the bay. We can drive the dog batshit crazy and let him bark and play without worrying about the neighbours. We have space and can buy things we like if we want without ever having to worry about where on earth we're going to put it.

It's our home; we're happy in it. And in a mere 21 years it will be all ours.

Oh Christ....

Last Five
1. Shatter - Liz Phair
2. Goin' out west (Live) - Tom Waits*
3. Ion Square - Bloc Party
4. Change is good - Pathological Liars
5. Brackett, WI - Bon Iver