Want

Our new neighbors are moving in today.   They’ve pretty much gutted the house and started over with what was there.  New everything.   We met them on Saturday and seem very nice and are excited to start their time together in their new house.  It makes me remember us moving into this house almost 13 years ago.  They're anxious to start fresh in a new place and have room to spread out, just like we were.   I hope they’ll be very happy in their new home and hope to get to know them better, but at the same time, it brings out a bit of anxiousness in myself though.   I WANT to be them!  I WANT to start fresh in a new house and paint the walls and have space to spread out and have the boys be able to play outside with their friends.  (Our neighborhood now, is nil of afternoon basketball and soccer in the street.)  I keep telling myself we have to be patient, but that is not a strength of mine.  It’s actually number one on my weakness list if you want to know the truth.  I’m trying to remain hopeful and know that it takes time, but there are days, like today, that I WANT.  We don’t need a new house.  We get along very well with what we have and where we are, but I still WANT to be out of this house and in another one.   I think it would be easier to be patient if we hadn’t found anything we WANT to buy, but we have found one, so that adds a layer of patience I really don’t have.   Everything has to fall in place one step at a time.  You can’t just say you WANT to eat cake for dessert and voila, there’s cake for dessert.   You have to mix it, pour it, bake it and wait.  If you just put the ingredients into a bowl without mixing, you’d end up with a disaster, so I’m trying to practice patience and follow the steps and not try to get ahead of ourselves in WANTING something that is several steps away.  I know that if it’s meant to be, then it will happen in its own time, but I’m a member of the NOW NOW Society and WANT it now.   So today I will ask for patience in waiting for our path to unfold in front of us and to be hopeful that our WANT is the WANT we’re supposed to have.  

Home

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.