"Home is any four walls that enclose the right person."
(Helen Rowland)
A. The laundry list.
When Jordan and I first moved in together in 2007, we found this little one bedroom apartment in Mission Bay, San Diego. It was super cute with a white open-beamed ceiling in the living room, which, as it turns out, was a wonderful home for the (literally) thousands of termites that fluttered down from above me while I lay snoozing on our futon one afternoon. One.
Place number two was an awesome condo which we rented out of The Metrome in downtown San Diego. It was really close to Petco Park, so close, in fact, that you could hear the crowd before you saw the hit on TV. Of course, in all reality, we couldn't afford cable so really you could just hear the crowd faster than our browser would update online. We were engaged and later married while we lived in that apartment so I always remember it as being my favorite of "our places". Two.
When we relocated to San Jose we lived in an Avalon community prone to mold, crabby employees, and, the ultimate move-considering tipping point: high rent. There was this great little pizza place across the street we used to eat at on Fridays after work, Rosie's. We'd share an ahi-tuna salad and each order a slice of pizza. I can't believe how much money we had then -- eating out every week! Aaahh, life before babies. Three.
Now we're up to 2009 and rent was dropping rapidly in the short six months we'd lived in San Jose so we moved again to a little Victorian house near the Shark Tank. We shared the house with another couple who we're pretty sure were up to some scandalous shenanigans. The night we first saw them washing their car at two o'clock in the morning convinced us, but really the wooden stakes they hid in the basement were weird, too. What's up with that? After Jordan nearly set a fire with the floor heater while babysitting our niece... did I say nearly? After Jordan did set the place on fire, we moved to The Woods. Four.
We lived in The Woods the longest, for sure. It was an apartment community the size of a small town - with several pools, gyms, and playgrounds. I loved The Woods because our darling Neila was born there. I can still remember walking with Jordan through the community at 7 in the morning, stopping every eight to ten minutes for contractions, meditating on the cherry blossom trees that would bloom again the next year on her first birthday. Five.
Moving to Seattle (where cherry blossom trees definitely don't bloom in February) was our introduction to a two-bedroom apartment! The first month we still slept downstairs all together in Neila's room, nervous that she would be sleeping by herself for the first time. Turns out we had one pretty independent daughter on our hands because the first night we let her sleep alone, she slept in two hours later than normal! It was nice to be able to roll over in the middle of the night and not have to do it at the pace of a cautious, sleep-deprived snail. Six.
And now here we are, just five years later, in "our place" number seven: a cute little one-bedroom with ten walls, two windows, and a dining room table (no chairs, though; a story for another time). We're sleeping in the living room on a murphy bed (my design, thankyouverymuch), eating out once a month ("Remember when we were super rich and we ate at the pizza place every Friday?!" I always say), and
B. The laundry lady.
What shopping experience of a single-income family of three would be complete if not for a fun budget (and by "fun" I mean totally ridiculous you're-never-ever-going-to-find-a-house-for-that-much; so says our real estate agent). I'm a firm believer in just letting things work out (they always do), so I gave our real estate agent some advice that I tell my students all the time "Shut the f_ up and just do your f_'n work!"; well, that's the way it sounds in my head anyway. The way it sounds to everyone else is "Just do your best, I know you can do it" or even sometimes "I wouldn't ask you to do it if I didn't think you could". Both much nicer versions of the same thing, I think.
In reality, Jordan's on this one. He's making appointments and scoping out listings. At this point in our journey, MLS translates to Mental Life Suck, but I bet Jordan actually knows what it really means... Yay, for super-amazing-awesome husbands! I'm not sure how I would defeat the best-worst (I'll add scariest) shopping trip of my life without him!
