Pretending to be adults

We are buying a House. This is how it happened.

Tuesday: The House came on the market.

Wednesday: I went to another (foreclosed, forlorn) house with a contractor and our realtor to see what kind of money we'd have to sink into the house if we bought it. After that review, the realtor and I went over and met Cook to see The House. That night, we asked the realtor to put together a report.*

Thursday: The realtor sent us a report on the The House, recommending an offer amount, and we scheduled a meeting with her at the house the next day to walk through The House and put together an offer.

Friday: When we arrived at The House, the realtor told us that another offer had just been submitted. We walked through it briefly (and ascertained that the basement was dry, in the middle of a week of heavy rains) and sat down to write an offer. I spent the rest of the day scrambling to get officially pre-approved, and the realtor called us that evening to let us know that the offer had been accepted. Cook and I felt sort of like we did when we found out I was pregnant (both times) - happy and terrified and pretty much oh-shit-what-have-we-done!?

Weekend: Cook and I both feel like we should be acting more like adults, like we're responsible enough to own The House, and we approached this in different ways, appropriate to our personalities. I took ten minutes to sew new buttons on a pyjama shirt, a task I've been meaning to do for a year and a half or so, and Cook took several hours and cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom. We took turns researching the various things we'd like to do once we live in The House. Cook wants to disconnect the downspouts and to break up the driveway, tear down the shed and use the space for gardening, so he looked up code requirements. I want a dishwasher, so I looked up dishwashers. We did paperwork and tinkered with a money spreadsheet, and realized that we really won't have money left over to do any of the things we want to do, at least for some time.** We put down our earnest money.

Next Week: I don't know. There'll be some inspections, and more expenses, and more paperwork and stuff. Holy shit, we're buying a house!

* Throughout the house-hunting process, people keep saying "Oh, you'll know it's the house for you when you see it!" which I think is kind of bullshit. It's certainly not true for us. We can't afford "the house for us." But we have a list of what we want in a house, and this house meets all the required items and lots of the bonus criteria. So... we're buying it!

**We can, however, afford to install a retractable clothesline, something Cook has wanted for his whole adult life. Our dreams are coming true!