Moving - Part 2

One of my favorite things in life is travel.  I love exploring new places, to find myself a little nervous being somewhere completely foreign, to have my camera out as I capture the new sights around me.

Somehow I've never fully realized that despite this love of exploration, I'm really a huge homebody. And I'm strongly affected by where I live.  The past few years have been rough, but somehow it seems as though it's been even harder because my house isn't what I really want.  It's not awful - it's small and cramped, a little dark, and did I mention cramped? But I have nice neighbors (even though my nanny is better friends with them and has more in common with them than I do, they all love Finn and are always very friendly to me) and Finn definitely feels like this is home, even if I don't.

And that not feeling at home in my own home is part of what has made these past few years even harder than they should be. It's definitely been a drain on me emotionally, not ever feeling truly comfortable where I'm living, and it's been a surprise to me to realize how much it bothers me.  I was first resigned to the idea of living here with two kids, until I realized that there just isn't room.  And then I was resigned to the thought of hunting for another rental and making another move to a temporary home that just wasn't home.  I owe too much on my condo to buy a new home, and couldn't fathom a way to buy a new home until it sold.

Then I had the amazing luck of getting a lot more extra income than usual thanks to a lot of unexpected speaking engagements.  Then one of my coworkers told me about a loan program at a local bank for doctors. Both of these things suddenly made what seemed to be impossible actually possible.  I could buy a house after all.

I knew where I wanted to move - an area about 40 minutes from where I am now (but still just 30 minutes or so from work) with lower taxes, better schools and much lower home prices than where I am now (it's in a neighboring state, which explains how all this is possible).  I started to look at homes and couldn't find anything that matched what I was looking for, nothing in my price range anyway.  Until I expanded my search radius by just a mile, and found a new home community that was just starting to sell homes.  I went to their grand opening weekend, and found the exact floor plan I was looking for at a price that was actually less than my budget, so I could afford a few nice upgrades.  When does something like this ever happen?  It's certainly not the sort of thing that usually happens to me!  So I've been hesitant to post about it here, for fear that something would fall through.

It didn't go smoothly at first.  After signing the contract it took weeks and weeks to get everything finalized so they could start building.  And I started to worry that maybe it really was too good to be true.  But finally everything was finalized and they were able to start building.

New home site - a week after signing the contract

Now here it is, the middle of November, and I had my pre-drywall walk through this week.  My house has a foundation, walls, a roof, electrical wiring, plumbing and as of the past few days, insulation.  Drywall is next week, and they're projecting a closing date by the end of the year.

Same location - this past weekend

It's going to be stressful, as I'll likely move in a month before Chimi is born, and so will still have unpacked boxes galore and won't feel truly settled.  But I'll be able to have a big boy room for Finn, and a true nursery for Chimi, as well as a comfortable guest bedroom for my amazing friends who will be coming to help out.  And it just makes me happy deep in my soul to imagine bringing Chimi home to a place I truly feel is home, rather than to this house that I'm in now.

This would not have been possible if I'd chosen a more expensive home to rent, or if I hadn't lucked out with more talks than usual, or hadn't had a partner at work who was also looking to buy a home and had the time to do research into loans.  I'm feeling pretty damn lucky right now.  It's a nice way to feel - I hope it continues!