Sunday, May 2, 2010

The house. (Or the post also known as "Oh God. I'm a country girl.")

clouds

So this is how my life works now - I log on to the computer at night with the intention of writing out the post that's been living inside my head for a week but think, "Ah, but I should see if so-and-so is on Facebook, or if whats-his-face wrote something funny in response to that hilarious comment I wrote on his picture and 57 games of Bejeweled Freakin' Blitz later my eyes are crossed and I'm angry that I don't yet know whatever stupid secret there must be to making it to the top of the dumb-ass leader board.

But not tonight! Oh no...

Tonight I keep going on these update posts and tell you about my house.

I never did a recap about the new house. Well, I did write one (really funny) post about moving. If you read the post about my brother falling off the roof of our old house and loved it? Well, he was back to "help" us move. If you haven't read either of these, go read them - it'll make up for all the un-posting I've been doing lately.

Anyway...where was I? Oh yeah. The house.

Do you have a house in your mind that is, like, the most PERFECT house in the whole wide world...for you, anyway? Well, we did. For nearly ten years, we lived in a too-small house in a Milwaukee suburb where the houses were so close together that in some neighborhoods you could stand between two, stretch out your arms and touch both. Yards were postage-stamp sized, closets were miniature and multiple electrical outlets in the same room were unheard of. But with Hubster going to school, and knowing that the job he'd get after graduation was most likely was going to require a move, there was no way we were going to jump the gun. So we made the most of what we had.

When it finally was "go time" we were ecstatic. Our house sold in record time - OK, I'm totally making that up, but an accepted offer in eleven days? Unheard of. Especially in this economy. I'll save you the details, you can read them here and here. Oh, and here.

But the house itself I never really talked about.

Several years ago, when our first baby was really tiny, Jay and I sat down and wrote on a post-it note all of the things we would have in our dream house if we ever had the chance to own it. That post-it hung on our refrigerator until the stickiness wore away and it had to be held up with a magnet. Many times it fell and lodged itself between the fridge and the counter, but every time I fished it out and hung it back up.

And now we live in a house that is darn near exactly what we wrote on that sticky note many years ago.

It took a really long time, and a lot of hard work, and I'd be kidding myself if I didn't add a heck of a lot of tears, but its ours. And we almost missed it.

We looked at so many houses in so few days that it was next to impossible to keep track of which ones we truly liked and which we thought were just "meh". Sometimes we'd do an online search and find one we just knew we'd love only to have the realtor tell us that we'd already seen it. [D'OH.] Other times, like with this house, we just never get around to seeing it, and who knows why it wasn't one of the first we toured.

We saw this house at the very end of our whirlwind tour, and I remember adding it to the list of the "final four" we went to see a second time simply because we were hoping to see something we missed the first time.

Not long after we walked into the house for that second tour, I remember whispering to Jay, "Um, why exactly did we not think this was the most perfect house on the face of the planet?" His response: "I dunno."

Its a split or bi-level with four bedrooms. Three upstairs and one down, with three bathrooms, a three-and-a-half car attached garage, an office and a family room that includes a gas fireplace and wet bar. Oh, and main floor laundry. And a large, completely fenced-in backyard. Do you hear angels singing? I did. Still do. Wait - that could be our Lab.

The catch? Well, we moved to the area where Hubster works and his job is quite a bit further from the city. His daily commute to work is now roughly ten minutes. Mine, to downtown? Forty-five. On a good day.

But we always wanted to raise our boys where there was room to run around. Room to get dirty and into "boy things" and a little further from some of the issues of a bigger city. And let's face it - this house would have been way out of our price range nearer to the city. And taxes? Oh lawdie the taxes would have killed us.

So gone are the days where the grocery store was a mere seven blocks from our house. But now we have wide open fields and beautiful wooded areas. Gone are the days when we used to get woken up at 5:45 a.m. when the neighbors sat on their back steps and talked loudly while sharing a cigarette. We have neighbors now that are at a more comfortable distance. This is Kettle Moraine country, and its beautiful.

road 
...and rural enough that Mommy can pause in the middle of some God-forsaken road, roll her window down in the rain and take a picture of what *might* be someone's driveway and the only person around to see it is the three-year-old in the backseat looking at her like she's crazy.

By the way...the image in my header was taken from our living room windows and is very typical of the sunsets we see almost daily!

8 comments:

Ms. Walker said...

It sounds beautiful...when are we having our sleepover, scrapbooking, and wine drinking night?

WeaselMomma said...

Congrats. I hope you have many happy years there.

Melisa Wells said...

Gorgeous!!

Unknown said...

My sister-in-law lives in Peewaukee - it's amazing, to me, how close you can get to Milwuakee and still be rural. And yes, Wisconsin does have some nice scenery. All them milk-fed women and stuff. ahem.

Anonymous said...

Nothing at all like rural life for the peace and quiet!

Burgh Baby said...

Yay! I'm so glad you found a place that was just right for y'all.

We have the same sort of view all around us. The funny thing is that THAT happens to be what keeps the house we're in now from being perfect. We soooo miss being close to the grocery store. And the gas station. And civilization.

Tara R. said...

Congrats on the new digs! The photos are wonderful and looks like a wonderful place to live and let your boys grown up.

If I Could Escape . . . said...

It sounds just beautiful! Congratulations.