Deep Breaths

Our best friends are buying a house. They were just like us - a family stuck in a townhouse that was underwater. They bought in 2005, and truthfully, a lot of the reason I rushed to buy was because they had. I was envious of their townhouse, particularly because from 2005-2006 we lived in a terrible apartment with horrible neighbors, and we wanted O-U-T. We saw our friends enjoying their brand new townhouse, picking out paint colors, buying new furniture, and we wanted that too. So as soon as we could, we went and bought a place. And in hindsight, maybe we didn't think hard enough about that decision.

Now they are no longer underwater, and so are putting their townhome on the market and just had an offer accepted on a big, single family home. I'm totally thrilled for them - I know they really want this and have worked really hard to get here. Of course, I'm envious again too. They're getting to do something that I desperately want.

This time, though, I need to keep my head about me. We need to buy when the time is right for us. And right now, it's not. But in a year, it will be.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I really want, and the truth is, I do really want a house. While the condo has been great for us before we had children, and when our children were small, we need a little bit more room to stretch our legs now. We had a fantastic party for my birthday last weekend, and all my friends gathered at our house for pizza and beer. One thing that was tricky was that the kids wanted to play outside, so we ended up with a couple of parents outside in the front of the condo building watching the kids play, while everyone else was upstairs hanging out. It was fine, but I kept thinking of how much easier it would be if we could just open up the door and be in the back yard. Shlepping up and down the stairs to go hang out outside is getting kind of old.

I am learning that it's OK to want a house but still be content in the condo. These two things are not mutually exclusive. And I can still want a house while working toward a more simplified, minimalist lifestyle. I've been so drawn lately to the minimalist movement because it aligns so well with the life we're leading in the condo, and I've consequently started second-guessing whether moving next year makes sense for us. But I think it does. We'll still be able to have a simplified lifestyle, even if we do move into a larger, single family home. Simplicity is more about living intentionally, not buying things just to keep up with others, not working around the clock just so you can buy more things, etc. If we keep our values at the forefront when it comes time to shop for a house and buy something modest that will fit our needs, at a price that fits our budget, I think we will still be living simply. In fact, I hope it will be a way for us live even more simply - by being able to garden, by giving us more space that we will be more inclined to stay home instead of going out, etc.

I struggle a lot with the green-eyed monster, I know. But it's unproductive, and I know this too. I am countering my envious feelings by reminding myself of all I have to be grateful for in my own life, with sincere feelings of happiness for my friends, and by using it as motivation to work all that much harder toward my own goal.

But, it's hard. Deep breaths.

Goal Update - 10%

We're now 12% of the way toward our goal. We can now fill in another area on our floor plan goal tracker. I decided to "buy" the office today because my poor husband needs an office that is inside the house.

I don't think I've mentioned that M set up an office in our condo's storage room, located around the corner from our unit. It is a windowless little room, but it's actually been a decent way for him to get a private office space. And he can close it off and not think about work when he's not working, so it has some advantages. However, sometimes, when he's working late, I go to bed and forget he will need to get back into the house, and lock him out. Like I did last weekend. I found him dozing in his office chair at 3 am. Poor guy.

Friday Randoms

Hello there! I have not written much lately because life has been so busy. In fact, I ended up letting the kids stay home from school and daycare yesterday because they just seemed so out of sorts and tired. We're doing too much, and so I am doing what I can to scale back, although part of it is just powering through this very busy season. Still, I'm learning to recognize where me and the kids need downtime. We need days where we don't leave the house, where we stay in our jammies, watch movies, make spaceships out of cardboard boxes, and go to bed early.

I signed up for The Bloom over at Slow Your Home, mostly because I was so rejuvenated by the Cozy Minimalism course from the Nester, and I wanted to continue to make positive progress in our home. Cozy Minimalism was focused more on decorating, whereas so far, The Bloom's mini courses are more about decluttering and simplifying, but I've so far really enjoyed both.

The other night I decluttered the medicine cabinet and our kitchen utensil drawer. I also organized the kid's stuffed animals (I wish we could declutter those, but S is very opposed to donating any. I need to work on him).

I also got a carpet cleaning machine for my birthday and it is the best present ever! I used it last night and it's fantastic. The carpet looks like it was professionally cleaned. One thing that really stresses me out about our home is our wall-to-wall carpeting. I wish we had hardwood floors, but we live on the second floor, and while I don't think it's prohibited, it wouldn't be the best choice for a family with two rambunctious boys. Having a machine to keep them looking fresher is really going to be a game-changer for me when it comes to my happiness at home, I think.

We're still plugging away at the house savings, while still enjoying things in the condo. S's friend birthday party was an amazing amount of fun, and we even took the kids outside and had part of the party in the condo's side yard. It was lovely. And today I was telling some people about an event at the nature center across the street, and they said, "wow, that sounds like you live in a really cool place." And yeah, I kind of do!

What Do I Really Want?

I think I should probably make the goal of this year-long project to blog as often as humanly possible instead of every day. Because I completely forgot to blog yesterday! And with a very busy weekend ahead (S's birthday and Mother's Day), I probably will not blog again until Monday.

In any event, I've been listening to Brooke McAlary's Slow Your Home podcast lately, and it really has me stewing on several things. Basically, I think I really need to evaluate what it is I really want. So much of my desire for a house comes from feelings of inadequacy for living in a condo. If I am honest with myself, I  want to keep up with the Joneses. I tell myself that that's not true... that I don't want a huge house, just a house. And that I want a house for a multitude of reasons, not just because everyone else has one. But when it comes down to it, I often find myself thinking, "Once I have a house, then I will be happy." When really, true happiness comes from within.

It's not that I plan to abandon my goal of buying a house next year. However, I do plan to spend a little more time exploring what I really hope to achieve, and make sure that I'm doing this for the right reasons, and not just to please or keep with others. I really want to work on my inner happiness and find contentment right where I am. I think that's an important part of the process toward moving on. If I can't find happiness here, then there's a good chance that the house really won't make me happy.

Dreaming

I know that at the end of this year of saving up to buy a single family house, I’m not going to be buying a “dream home.” That phrase conjures images of huge, palatial mansions with soaring ceilings, beautiful windows, high-end finishes, a chef’s kitchen, and a lush, landscaped yard. Because we’ve been “stuck” in the condo for as long we have, my dream is pretty practical. I just want a backyard and a door that opens into my own space instead of a shared hallway. I’m not shooting for the stars here, hah!

On the other hand, one thing I’ve learned from the condo is that investing in real estate is never a sure thing. Therefore, I plan to be WAY pickier than I was the first time. I want to find something that we’d be comfortable living in for the rest of our lives, if necessary.

So, what are we looking for in a house, besides the obvious “it being a house” qualities? Here are a few of the things on my wish list.

• Lots of natural light. The condo is north facing and all the windows are on one side of the house. I want a cross breeze and some southern exposure.
• A fireplace. The condo has one and we love it, and it would be hard to get through a cold Minnesota winter without that cozy feeling you get from having a fire in the fireplace.
• A nice-sized backyard. It doesn’t have to be huge, but I want enough space for the kids to play, for us to grill, and to have a fire pit. I’d love for it to be fenced (although M does not care about this).
• At least three bedrooms. I’m sure some day the kids would like their own rooms. And it would probably be good to have space for an office as well.
• A basement. We go back and forth on this one, because basements kind of seem like a pain. On the other hand, our dream as 20-something newlyweds was to someday have a Pac-Man machine in our basement. And with two boys, having a basement seems like it will be key to keeping them and their friends happy when they become teens.
• A comfortable layout, maybe a ranch? We kind of dig living all on one level in the condo. It’s been a pretty awesome setup for having little kids. It’s meant a lot less baby proofing (we’ve never owned a baby gate!) and the kids are always in earshot. And since we really do want to find something that we could live in forever, ranch houses are nice because of the lack of stairs. I would like something with a little more breathing room and airiness than the condo, though, and sometimes ranches can be a little narrow.
• A big kitchen. The condo’s kitchen is awesome. I would hate to end up with something smaller, so I will definitely try to find a kitchen of comparable size.
• Close to where we live now. We really adore our neighborhood, and it would be great if we could find a single family home near where we’re at now. My son’s elementary school is fantastic, and so is the nature center. Even if we can’t find something on the same block we currently live, we will definitely be looking in the same town and at the very least, the same school district.
• A little space. We have a lot of amazing neighbors. But we are looking forward to a little more privacy someday. In particular, we would really like to not have to hear people cough or smell cigarette smoke when our windows are open.
• Absolutely no HOA. God. Our Home Owners Association isn’t even that bad, but I still cannot wait to not have to deal with annual association meetings and all the crabbiness that comes with them. I would never, ever buy a house with an HOA again.
• Hardwood floors. I am very sick of dealing with little kids and wall-to-wall carpet.
• A 2-car garage. It’s not even that we need the space of a 2-car garage, necessarily, it’s just that parking in a 1-car garage with kids is useless.
• A crab apple tree and a window seat. These are just two little dreams. I love flowering trees in the spring (I miss cherry blossoms from Northern California. They just smell like spring to me), and all my life I have wanted a window seat. My dream home might not come with these two things, but I hope to someday plant a little flowering tree that I can view from a cushy window seat. Ahh.
• Not very big. While big, brand new homes with two-story entries can be beautiful, they just aren’t for me. I really would like something small and manageable, maybe around 1500 square feet. Our 1200 condo just feels a bit too small for our family, but the thought of doubling our space just seems like too much for us. We like to keep things simple and strive for a somewhat minimalist lifestyle. We’re nowhere near as minimalist as some, but I’d say we have less stuff than the average American. 

It’s interesting–there are many things on my list from the condo that I’d like to find again in a house. And there are several things that I’ve learned don’t quite work for me and I want to try something different. It makes me think that once we find the house that’s perfect for us, we’ll look back on our time in the condo as an important part of our journey.

Visual Goal Tracker

Someone once suggested to me (OK, it was my therapist) that I should find a way to visually track my goal of saving for a down payment on a house. She thought maybe a cute way to motivate us to keep going would be to figure out how much we wanted to save, and then tie that amount to a drawing of a floor plan of a house. Then we could get excited when we saved enough money for a bathroom, for example. I loved this idea, but I took it way too seriously by 1) trying to find and draw by hand the floor plan to an actual realistic house we might buy, and then 2) trying to do the math by square footage rather than just room by room. I gave up in frustration and forgot about the idea.

But since keeping this daily blog, I realized it might be fun to resurrect this idea, so I can keep track of my goal. I’ve been updating you with percentages, and we are 8.6% of the way there currently. I found an image of a floor plan, and there are 20 different spaces in this fictional house. Thus, each space will represent being 5% of the way toward our down payment. So look, we’ve saved for our porch!

I thought I’d “buy” that first since we’ve never had a porch. I think I will leave the yard for last, though, because it’s my biggest reason for wanting a single family home in the first place, and maybe that will be extra motivating.

Hosting in a Small Space

I wrote this post in 2011 about hosting in a small space, and while much of it is still true, as our family has grown, it's getting harder and harder to still make our condo work for family gatherings. Last night we had our son's family birthday party (the friend birthday party is this weekend). We cleaned the house, made dessert, prepped everything for the enchiladas, and about an hour before the party was about to start we brought out the old dining room table. When we turned the formal dining room into a playroom, we stored our larger dining room table under our bed with the legs off. For parties, we bring it out and set it up in the playroom, although we haven't done so in a really long time. Yesterday we dragged it out, set it up, and realized there was no way we were going to get 12 people around that table. So we brought the kitchen table out to the dining room as well, and ate at one huge long table. It worked out fine, but anytime anyone needed to get through to get seconds or use the restroom, people had to scoot in or get up. And then having those huge tables set up meant that we had to cram into the small living room for S to open presents.

Everything was fine, and our family seemed like they had a great time. S was so happy, opening his presents and blowing out the candles (with help from his little brother, of course). I absolutely would rather cram everyone into our tiny house than not host a party, for sure. Even when it's tight and cramped, it's usually cozy and homey at the same time. And there's something about looking back on old photos of our sons' parties and seeing how our spaces have evolved. If this really is our last year in the condo, then that might very well be S's last birthday party in the condo, which makes me feel a little nostalgic and sad. And at the same time, though, I recognize that these kids of mine only grow bigger and taller with each passing year. Our extended family has grown since we bought the condo, too, through marriages, and I'm sure someday my boys will have some cousins as well. So while we can always find a way to make it work and host parties in a small space, I do look forward to someday having more space to host our family and friends.

We'll see how birthday party part 2 works out this weekend! There are going to be an awful lot of kindergartners coming over!