Life cycles

 I think for Lent I should have given up Zillow. 

We have decided .... nothing. I spend a lot of time scrolling through Zillow and Google Earth. 

Both houses mentioned in the past post haven't sold, and I still haven't been able to commit to them or any other. I'm starting to drive my husband bonkers. The bigger, more expensive house is probably off the list. My husband has shifted his preference to a different neighborhood, and that one needs more work than is in our budget. The Tudor is still on the market. It didn't sell right away as we thought it might. My husband really wanted to make an offer, but I was hesitant, even though I can see us living there.  It's the kind of house that suits our eclectic style. It has a wonderful 3 season porch where we'd likely spend most of our time. But the back yard is tiny - and dominated by a large evergreen - maybe a hemlock? It shades the back corner and probably makes the soil acidic. Additionally, we'd have to add a second full bath, probably in the basement, and reconfigure the dining room into an office/guest bed and the family room into the dining room.  And I can't decide if our living room furniture fits Tudor aesthetic. So get new, you say! But still I feel like this house is priced a little high for this neighborhood.

In the meantime, a couple other options in that same neighborhood have come on the market. Both need substantial work. One really isn't an option - too much work for too much money. The other one is now my husband's favorite. It has a bigger yard and is located just slightly further into the neighborhood away from the busy street you turn off of to enter the community.  

But this one also would be a total redo. Even more substantial than the first one, and this one is even smaller, although it has an attached garage that my husband has an idea to turn into a family room. I have a hard time envisioning the completed house. I can see how the tiny kitchen and dining room could be combined, and the back porch rehabbed, but I have a hard time imagining how to make the teeny bathrooms bigger and how to make the dark front entry brighter. In addition, at one time a row of ten evergreens were planted along the back fence. These are now towering skinny, scraggly trees that look like a hazard in a big storm. They should probably be replaced. The juniper bushes in the front are tree-sized and need to be removed.  If the garage is turned into a family room, a new garage would have to be built.  It's a huge project, almost like building from scratch, and I don't know if I'm up for that. I can't even pick a dress for my son's wedding; how could I make the decisions for a total house remodel? Considering how crazy the markets are right now, building materials may be unobtainable any way.

So should we go back to the original house we were attracted to? Maybe it is sitting there waiting for us. My initial hesitation about its small yard and small kitchen could be overcome because it is the best option for now. Or maybe we need to let go of the dream to live in a more urban area in an older home and just get the big house in the suburbs, like what we have now.  Fortunately, we have a back-up plan: my husband has found a place to rent for 6 months to a year.  

But enough about the house. I haven't written enough about the fact that we are grandparents! This is by far the highlight of the year.  Our little granddaughter is a smiley, round doll baby. She is so easy and good! Our son and daughter-in-law just took her on a long trek to see her great-grandparents, and apparently, she was a perfect traveler. She slept long stretches and smiled and cooed for her great-grandparents, who needed some sunshiney baby time because my father-in-law had just had surgery for a cancer and had some complications. We are praying for him to have a full recovery, although it sounds like he may need a second surgery to make sure they got everything. 

Meanwhile school has been going great, which makes it harder to tell everyone that I'm leaving soon. But after Easter the message will go out. In the meantime, I am trying to enjoy these moments, even as I obsess about houses and have a constantly growing bulletin of to-dos cycling in my brain.  After all these moves, I know we'll continue to find community and purpose wherever we land, but it's never easy to say goodbye.  Even if we were staying, things change. Other people come and go - here we have seen some startling, saddening changes among our friend group lately in between death and divorce.  

And so we start again.

Our Google Earth journey of addresses, estimated. Need more Pacific NW.