Let This Not Be a Curve Ball

In just over one hour, I will be going to another house inspection. I have everyone I know crossing their fingers for us. We really really want to own this house - these houses, rather, since it's two separate houses on one property. They're built against each other, but are entirely separate.

When we first started looking that would have been ideal. Their space, my space, very very separate space. To start, we really wanted a side-by-side duplex. Both sides with access to the backyard, lots of space inside, maybe my side would be divided into apartments and we could rent one out. But the only SxS's that came up were fucking dodgy and even more fucking expensive.

So almost everything we looked at was up-down, and we didn't think that was ideal. Little Dog really doesn't like stairs, and in almost all of the up-downs we looked at, the Ess's would have been in the upper unit(s). Not perfect. There was also the fact that in most of the units, the main floor unit (mine) was gorgeous and well kept and the upper unit was, well, generally not. Not perfect, but it's what was out there.

And then the more I envisioned how those spaces would work, saw us all living in the same house, the more I really wanted that. The more it came to seem like family all under one roof.

Because that is what this is about for me. Building family.

Mostly. Of course, finances play into it. I can't afford a home in Centretown by myself, and I won't leave my neighbourhood - my community - for the sake of owning. I love my current apartment, and I don't think that paying someone rent is throwing money down the toilet any more than I think buying food is throwing money down the toilet.

Especially when I do the math and realize how much money I will be giving the bank over the next 21.1 years.

Especially when buying food is literally throwing money down the toilet.

Buying a house is one of the most stressful things you can do. It completely disrupts your life in a way that moving apartments and looking for a job (the former top two activities on the list of things that stress me out) don't. Part of it is situational, I'm sure, with one of us here and two of us in Halifax. Shelley has thanked me a number of times for taking this on, and I brush it off. Not because it hasn't been stressful and disruptive, because it has, but because it's been equally stressful and disruptive for them. Just differently.

But we're in it, and we're dealing each in our own way,* and it looks like the deciding is almost done. The agreements have been signed, the financing has been firmed, and if it doesn't fail on inspection, and please please please let this be an easy pitch, we will be waiving our conditions in the near future.

And, one roof or two, starting to build a life together.

*For example, Steve's facebook status often seems to be "Steve is stressed and going out to hit people with sticks." In martial arts class.