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Come this July, we will have lived in this home for thirteen years. The longest I’ve ever lived in one home.  I love our home. There’s the one drawer by the fridge that always squeaks when you close it too hard, the stain on the carpet where I dropped the bleach bottle lid.  (Yep, the spot is now white and very visible.) There is the green sponge painted dinosaur behind our son’s bedroom door that we didn’t paint over when we upgraded his room theme to basketball.  There’s the one rail that is glued together because our son fell down the stairs and snapped it into two as well as snapped his collarbone doing so.   There’s our youngest son’s name hand-painted above his door that he won’t let us paint over, and a customized basketball free-thrown line and key painted on the basement floor.  The list goes on and on. 

But the time has come that we feel the need to move to a new house.  By doing so we hope to be closer to the boys’ schools and friends, have a little bit more space to spread out and perhaps have a flat driveway. (Our realtor told us it would be one of the reasons we’d want to sell this house one day. “Not a great driveway for children to play on.”  He knows his stuff!) 

We’ve embarked upon this quest several times in the last two years, with no success, but am hoping the third time’s the charm.  Looking for a new house can become obsessive very quickly.  Of course, the internet doesn’t help.  We don’t even have to brave the elements outside, but can walk from home to home in the comfort and warmth of our bed.  The only problem with this we’ve found is that home sellers don’t photograph what they don’t want you to see, like a 10-foot section of fence missing in the backyard or the water-stained ceiling in the kitchen.  They’re very clever as am I. (You won’t find a picture of the south side of our basement on-line. No siree.  Nor will you find a picture of our hallway with the bleach stain posted on-line.)  I could spend all day browsing the pictures and finding them on a map and have come close a few times to doing just that.

We’re truly hoping that we’ll be able to find a home that will fill our “needs” and perhaps a few of our “wants” as well. I know our new house is out there and have probably driven right by it on my way to the library or to the grocery store.    So if you’re listening new house, please wait for us.  Just sit tight and keep quiet until we get to you and find a new family that will appreciate the green dinosaur, the basketball court in the basement and the fact that a family actually lived in this home and created some of its imperfections.