Whirlwind

If I had written this a couple of days ago, that title probably would have been "Hyperventilating" because while I like to pretend that I am good with change, the fact is that I always need some time to adjust, even when the change is positive.

For the last year and a half, we've been debating whether or not to buy a single family house. Prices were down, bringing houses we never could have afforded before into our range. We initially hoped to move closer in, but while prices have dropped in Montgomery County, they haven't gone quite low enough. Besides, we've come to like Frederick County.

We didn't have all that many requirements. The house had to be bigger than our townhouse. It had to have a nice kitchen, and we really wanted a finished basement. We looked at to-be-built homes and existing homes, scouted neighborhoods, and changed our minds about what we wanted fifteen different times.

We even went so far as to put down an offer on a house back in February. It had sat for seven months, and then half an hour after we submitted our offer, they got another one, all cash, for $25,000 more than our bid. In this market! We had a second choice house in mind, but when we went back to give it another look, a pipe had burst and flooded two floors. So that was out. For a long time we were focused on Urbana, which is a little closer to work, and a very nice neighborhood - great library, good grocery store, and I have a friend who lives there - but the right house never seemed to come up for sale. After the layoffs in March, we took a break from looking because I just didn't feel confident about spending any money at all. Thankfully, the stock market, while not completely recovered (and seriously, don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise) has improved to the point where I no longer fear a third round of layoffs. Recently we started poking around looking at listings on the Internet again, just to see what was out there.

And then we saw it. The house that we looked at and said "well, we've got to go see that one." I called the realtor last Sunday, we saw the house on Tuesday, loved it, put an offer in a day later, and it was accepted this weekend. I still can't believe it. This place is perfect for us. It is a custom-built house on a couple of acres, but only a couple of miles from where we live now. Custom-built sounds fancy, but in this case think less Fake French Provincial and more Old Fashioned Farmhouse. It has all the neat quirks and nice touches like hardwood floors, built in benches and a porch that a historic home might have, but without the hassles that come with the plumbing and wiring of a house built in 1880. It is nestled in some trees and tucked back from the road, beautifully decorated and landscaped. And apparently it is going to be ours.