Crazy?

I signed up for NaBloPoMo, to see if I can get my blog groove back by writing every day.

Maybe this will inspire me to finish writing our birth story. Maybe I won’t have time to finish it if I am busy trying to get a post out every day.

Of course, we’re planning a trip to visit grandparents in November, oh, and trying to buy a house, which could complicate things, or perhaps just provide material for posts.

Random Bullets of Real Estate

• I have never lived in a house owned by anyone in my family.
• I never felt like I needed to own a place to feel grown up. And my rent has always been so much lower than a mortgage payment that I’m not even sure the tax benefits would have meant much.
• My father bought his first house when he was a couple of years older than I am now. His advice was not to wait so long.
• When I got pregnant, I decided it was time to move to a place with no stairs. My husband falls down the stairs occasionally, and it didn’t seem good to add a baby to the mix.
• I was too tired while pregnant to get going on house hunting, even though I told myself it would be a lot harder after Zebediah was born.
• I don’t think I could have handled four hours of property-viewing in one afternoon while pregnant. Zebediah didn’t mind. Any opportunity to get out of the car every few minutes is fine with him. He didn’t reach his limit until we left the last house.
• Eleven properties was too much for one day to my mind. Is that a normal amount of viewing?
• Any thoughts of relaxing the criteria of “absolutely no stairs or steps in the house” were nixed when my husband tripped over the step from a sunken living room in one of the properties.
• We will also tear out any carpet to replace it with hard flooring, as it is better for people with TFD. I would have thought carpet was better, to cushion the falls, but I learned in the support group that it is easier to trip on carpet.
• In the course of googling to find out what various local homeowners’ associations are up to, I have run across references to city codes as well. It appears that many home owners in my current neighborhood are violating city codes, regarding the number and types of vehicles allowed.
• There’s no HOA for this neighborhood, which would be nice, but I eliminated most of the area due to lead paranoia (pre-1978 houses).
• I am bemused by some of the HOA sites and the way they cite home values as the motivation behind so many rules. The obsession with maintaining and  raising home prices seems a bit unseemly. Also, I can’t help but notice that some of the most desirable neighborhoods, older and closer to downtown, are the most expensive, despite the absence of HOA rules. It all starts to seem a bit nouveaux riche.
• My brother said he was glad his second house was in an HOA neighborhood, because their previous neighbors let things go.
• I suspect we might fit in better with people who don’t mow their lawns as often as they should. Perhaps pride of ownership will change me.
• We want to be able to afford the mortgage on half our income (I’ve read The Two-Income Trap, and I am also extremely risk-averse, financially), but on the other hand, I’d prefer a 15-year mortgage (I do not want to be making payments when I’m 70).
• Our city did not have a big real estate bubble, and has so far escaped the crash. Prices are still rising, and there seems to be a lot less staging of the homes than what I’ve read about on some people’s blogs. The mortgage crisis may be catching up to our market though, so it is quite possible we are buying at the top of the price curve, yet before interest rates go back down.
• We have been moving slowly: I checked our credit reports last December and January, got a referral from a colleague to her real estate agent in March, got a pre-approval a couple of weeks ago, called the agent last week.
• Now I want to be moved by the end of the year. My husband says it’s not likely. Since he has lived in houses owned by his parents, he has more experience with delays than I do.

Just Like the Cool Kids

Hey! I have the same soap as Dooce.

And I met my spouse at 35 and married at 37, just like Johnny. (Well, I met him sometime before that, got to know him and started dating when I was 35.)

Lost and Found

Items found in the couch when we took it down to the street for bulky trash week:

one burp cloth

one pair of scissors

one 2″x2″ gauze pad (unused, in it’s package)

one return envelope from charity

one dish towel

I found the burp cloth when I  checked under the cushions before we moved the sofa. The scissors fell out when the sofa got turned over a couple of times on our way down the alley/driveway. I found the rest when I did a more thorough search at the curb (alerted by the scissors to the need to check the crevices).

Just Read Ask Moxie

Every time Zebediah’s sleep gets worse, I look at Moxie’s sleep regression posts and find out he is just about on schedule. Last Sunday, after I nursed him to sleep at 7:15 and nursed again at 8:00 and 11:15, it occurred to me that if he’d been born on his due date he would have been exactly 4 months old.

Today’s post (or rather, the comments) is therefore just up my alley.

I think he is sleeping longer at night the past few days, but I’ve been falling asleep while nursing him and can’t quite remember when we nursed by the time morning comes.

On the bright side, we have achieved, at least for now, napping without being held, so life is good.