Home

There is this house we came across, and it's just so us. And I could imagine our girls safely running around in the back yard, watching them while I am cooking dinner from the kitchen. We made an offer, and we waited for the verdict from the sellers after assessing an offer from another potential buyer, and the sellers are completely unrealistic, so the other potential buyers walked. I guess that's what happens when you overprice your property in a market akin to a SLUG. But the status now is that we are waiting to see if they accept our second counteroffer, and then we begin the mad dash to get our place ready for a market we can probably not sell in. Because our purchase will have a sales contingency. I am not optimistic about our ability to sell our condo, but I hope our loving restoration and building updates will make an impression on someone, and we can beat the odds.

But here's the thing. I had this big plan to live here for 10 years and pay this condo off, at which time we would buy something in Florida and have our summer and school year residences. All of this sounds nice over a glass of wine, but really thinking about yanking Gillian out of Chicago at the tender age of 13 sounds miserable (because I totally remember 13 years old, and wouldn't wish it on anyone, much less someone starting over someplace). And then we were discussing the idea of maybe having more children. Yes, I went there. More. Children. It is quite possible that I am completely mad. Aside from this three-year-old-hell, I love being a mama, and one day I want to have another child. But that aside, Sean and I looked at eachother and had an epiphany that we don't want to live in Florida except to be near his parents...and truthfully, there is more to consider than that. We love this city. We love the intelligence of public transportation. I love my job. We love Anna for our children. We love being 1 block from Lake Michigan and parks. Sean has more work prospects here. We have a church community we love and it has an affiliated school that is perfect for our kids (and not too expensive as far as parochial schoools go). So, the scale tipped back toward Chicago.

So, there's the house, and our plans to grow our family a little more, and a condo that is so expensive. Did I mention that? We spend $1020 a month on stuff that is NOT a mortgage for the priviledge of living here. If I added that to our mortgage, we could totally afford a HOUSE in this city. But honestly, I have been all Zen and rational about this (maybe for the first time in my life about something like this), and it wouldn't take much talk myself out of the house. It is a bit scary to have the financial burden 100% on you (unlike our condo, where it falls on 26 units). It is not EXACTLY done the way I would want (for example we tore out half-assed pergo floors and paint-caked trim in our condo five years ago, and yet the house has all of that in various places); BLUE kitchen countertops; unfortunate upstairs porch enclosure with unfortunate tearing out of original italianate under-roof mounts...Sean would have to insulate the garage for a shop (which would take some time)... But. Most importantly, we love the community around us. Our neighbors are more like family, and I love feeling like we live on Sesame Street on a lazy Summer evening, when everyone is out on their porches or in the garden hanging out. Darla and Kate are like Gillian's aunties (away from aunties), and she truly loves them bunches. In fact, Darla and Gillian have a date this weekend. So, there's all that. Oh, and our AWESOME new porches. So, we are oddly ambivalent about the whole thing. That all said, the house is about a 10 minute walk from where we live now, so there's no reason to get dramatic (we can see everyone as often as we do now, but just won't be able to holler off the porch at them), but it is amazing to see everyone out and about everywhere you go in the neighborhood. I don't think you get that as much in neighborhoods with single family homes.

So, light a candle that this all works out, but we are so totally ok if it doesn't. If it is God/The Universe's will, our place will sell in a reasonable time frame for a reasonable amount of money. And we will have our forever-house that has enough space for our growing family. And is close enough to The Neighbors We Love to make it OK.