I'm not sure if you know this or not, but Devin and I are professional renters with commitment issues, and THIS is why it took us 4 1/2 years to pick a city to live in and a house to purchase. We have rented the works: apartment with a nice, calming view of the parking garage with elephant neighbors upstairs, townhomes with flooded sidewalks and kitchens that give you chlaus and make you want to jab your eye out with a rusty spoon, apartments with office staff who lose your mail once a week...all of it...we have done it all and thus we just couldn't let go of the renter's life...but also the fact that every house we tried to buy was bought out from under us. But, God and his timing and his sarcasm and his perfect plan all in full swing, we found our home in Austin.
And we die.
WE DIE.
So instead of learning from our last move mistake (read: we bought an eight week old puppy the day we moved in. intelligent.), we decided it would be a smart move to leave the contractors at our house while we went to Houston to party with my family. Let me be clear. I will always choose a Backstreet Boys concert over anything. But, the cost of spending Labor Day in the Woodhood was that we returned to a home that was not. even. close. to ready for move in. And we were moving the next day.
What I have Learned in 5 days of home ownership #1: Assuming Truly Does Make an Ass Out of You and Me or Maybe They Are Time Optimists Like Me
Knowing what I know now, I probably would not recommend leaving 3 contractors in your house assuming they will get all of the work done and it will be perfect and ready for you and you will pin pictures of your bathroom and people will repin with admiration/praise/copycat syndrome. This is not reality. We had a firm message from the manager that "it would be tight, but they will finish Monday night" and we were staring at a bathroom floor with tile missing, no grout laid in yet, toilets in the bathtub. And did I mention move-in day was Tuesday?
What I have Learned in 5 days of home ownership #2: Moving Makes You Fat or Curing Moving Obesity One Uhaul Load at a Time
Our strategy for moving food/freezer stuff was to cook and eat pretty much all of it leading up to the move. For the 2 weeks leading up to it, we really only bought things at the grocery store that we knew we would use up so that we didn't have to do 56 trips with a cooler. However, if you teach your body to love clean eating (kudos Pump And Shred) and then proceed to trick it into thinking salads from 4 different restaurants is the same thing + counting moving a zillion boxes as your workout + stress, you will not be happy with the fact that your face looks like you're thirteen and you are wondering where you can pick up a quick moo-moo on your way home. Next time, we will prepare meals we can pop in the microwave AND we will bring a meal to all of our friends who are moving. No one should have to go through this. Moving obesity is a problem.
What I have Learned in 5 days of home ownership #3: Some People Have Their Act Together or That Timeframe Was For Real
I was feeling pretty discouraged around the contractors spending an extra 3 days in the house and had pretty much given up on humanity. This potentially stems from my work environment where it is a BIG deal if you do not do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it OR COMMUNICATE OTHERWISE. Tile done by Tuesday. It's Wednesday. I can't live like this. So, imagine my surprise when t-w-o deliveries were made to my home on. time.
Thank you, AT&T U-verse for coming within your time-frame and Macy's
for calling me 30 minutes before you delivered our new guest bed (and understanding that I was waiting in line at Torchy's and would be there ASAP). You have restored my faith in mankind.
What I have Learned in 5 days of home ownership #4: Creative Kitchen Storage or Hoarders Tend to be in Denial About How Much Stuff They Have
We cook 90% of our meals. I bake. A lot. So, we have a lot of kitchen stuff- get. off. my. back. What I've learned here is that I am in NEED of a beautiful, 6-7ft long sideboard/console/not china cabinet to store a lot of my kitchenware. I have a great wall for it. Help me find it. Requirements: not mass-produced-everyone-has-it furniture (see
here), must have character!
What I have Learned in 5 days of home ownership #5: Despite What Theologians Say, God is Sarcastic or Could Devin Be the Modern Day Prophet?
On the day we got the keys to our new house, we were roaming the backyard when our neighbors next door said hello through the fence. No, I mean literally we could just talk through it because it's THIRTY YEARS OLD and also see-through. Not sure if you've ever met my dog, but she has a bit of energy and we were trying to gauge whether she would be able to push the fence over if she put her weight on it. Yes. The answer was yes. So we asked the neighbor if he would like to split the cost of the fence with us and, to our surprise, he said no as he and his family would be putting their house on the market in the next few days. As we walked away, Devin muttered, "We need a big storm to come blow that fence over". And I rolled my eyes because he obviously had not heard that Austin is the new El Paso. We don't get rain. Like, none. So the odds of having a "big storm" were about as good as me making the SWAT team. On Wednesday night (read: first night in our new house), a huge storm blew through, cut off our power, and knocked our fence over.
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And now, I am signing up for SWAT team tryouts.
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