Home is where you hang your hat if you have one
Back in high school, I was never seen without a baseball cap. A cap is helpful in many ways. If your hair isn't very manageable, you can just cover it up and not worry about it. Or you if you wake up late and don't have time to take a shower and you have to rush out of the house, throw on your cap and you're good to go.
After Lesley and I set the wedding date for September 8th, we began to discuss where we would live. We had a few different options. Renting a place was one of them, but I've never liked the idea of renting. Not that there's anything wrong with that if it's what you choose to do, but I can't see the logic in paying someone just a little less or even more than what a house payment would cost and not owning anything. I know people who have rented for over 10 years and don't really have anything to show for it. I ruled out renting.
My mother offered to let us move in with her until we'd saved more money. This would also give us more time to figure out just what our plans should be, but what newlyweds want to have their parents a couple of rooms away? Lesley ruled out this plan.
A sad option concerned my grandfather. He's turning 80 this year. His health is starting to go down. He has trouble getting around these days and needs my mother's help with just about everything. His memory is very limited as well. My mother was considering putting him in a nursing home and wanted Lesley and me to live in his house. This seemed like a plausible idea, but I really didn't want to consider this as an option. I would rather he not be put in a nursing home. Currently, he is still at home and doing well. The entire family ruled out this plan, which is perfectly fine with me.
Another option was to find a house to buy. I am very picky when it comes to expensive purchases. A house would definitely fall into this category. This was Lesley's favorite of all our options. I've got a really great job and had been able to save enough for a down payment on decent home, but it took me a while to build that little nest egg and I was going to have to find the perfect house to make me let go of it. We looked in real estate books, open houses in the newspaper, for sale by owners, had a realtor looking for us, etc. My whole family got in on it. My sister would call me early every Sunday morning and tell me what open houses I needed to look at. She showed me a picture of this one house. I'd already seen it in our paper and ruled it out, but she insisted that we shouldn't rule out anything interesting without going through it. So we went and really liked the layout of the house. It was nicely decorated, so we wouldn't have to make very many changes, great neighborhood, not far for Lesley to drive to work. It was pretty damn close to perfect to me. Lesley thought the bedrooms were too small and she really wasn't interested in the house. My family loved it. There were some strange coincidences with the house. The owners had a truck almost identical to my grandfather's. The kitchen cabinet knobs were identical to my mother's. They had a picture frame identical to one that I have, which has Lesley's and my picture in it. My mother told us that this was our house, because there were too many signs. Well we looked at several houses after that one, but we always compared them to it. We went back to it, Lesley liked it more, looked at others, went back to it, Lesley liked it more, looked at others, went back to it, Lesley liked it more. I kept taking her back telling her ideas of how we could set it up and she finally decided that this was our house.
Negotiations on the house went back and forth several times, but we finally agreed on a deal and bought it. So now we own a house. I never would have guessed that I'd own a home before I was 30, but I do it's a really strange thing to know you own a house. I've only ever lived in 3 homes in my life and now I live in the forth. Before buying this house, I lived in the last one for nearly 16 years. I moved into the new house and it was almost like staying in a motel. It was really nice, but it was not home yet. Lesley comes from a strict family and decided not to move in until after the wedding. I had never lived alone before either and I hoped that I would become comfortable and feel at home.
I was ready to try anything to make this place home and as the old saying goes 'Home is where you hang your hat'. I thought about that and decided I'd hang a cap up somewhere, but I stopped wearing them years ago and didn't have any left. For years I wore one every day and when the time comes that I really need one, I don't have it. Oh well, I'd hang it if I had it.
(On a side note, Happy belated to me.)
After Lesley and I set the wedding date for September 8th, we began to discuss where we would live. We had a few different options. Renting a place was one of them, but I've never liked the idea of renting. Not that there's anything wrong with that if it's what you choose to do, but I can't see the logic in paying someone just a little less or even more than what a house payment would cost and not owning anything. I know people who have rented for over 10 years and don't really have anything to show for it. I ruled out renting.
My mother offered to let us move in with her until we'd saved more money. This would also give us more time to figure out just what our plans should be, but what newlyweds want to have their parents a couple of rooms away? Lesley ruled out this plan.
A sad option concerned my grandfather. He's turning 80 this year. His health is starting to go down. He has trouble getting around these days and needs my mother's help with just about everything. His memory is very limited as well. My mother was considering putting him in a nursing home and wanted Lesley and me to live in his house. This seemed like a plausible idea, but I really didn't want to consider this as an option. I would rather he not be put in a nursing home. Currently, he is still at home and doing well. The entire family ruled out this plan, which is perfectly fine with me.
Another option was to find a house to buy. I am very picky when it comes to expensive purchases. A house would definitely fall into this category. This was Lesley's favorite of all our options. I've got a really great job and had been able to save enough for a down payment on decent home, but it took me a while to build that little nest egg and I was going to have to find the perfect house to make me let go of it. We looked in real estate books, open houses in the newspaper, for sale by owners, had a realtor looking for us, etc. My whole family got in on it. My sister would call me early every Sunday morning and tell me what open houses I needed to look at. She showed me a picture of this one house. I'd already seen it in our paper and ruled it out, but she insisted that we shouldn't rule out anything interesting without going through it. So we went and really liked the layout of the house. It was nicely decorated, so we wouldn't have to make very many changes, great neighborhood, not far for Lesley to drive to work. It was pretty damn close to perfect to me. Lesley thought the bedrooms were too small and she really wasn't interested in the house. My family loved it. There were some strange coincidences with the house. The owners had a truck almost identical to my grandfather's. The kitchen cabinet knobs were identical to my mother's. They had a picture frame identical to one that I have, which has Lesley's and my picture in it. My mother told us that this was our house, because there were too many signs. Well we looked at several houses after that one, but we always compared them to it. We went back to it, Lesley liked it more, looked at others, went back to it, Lesley liked it more, looked at others, went back to it, Lesley liked it more. I kept taking her back telling her ideas of how we could set it up and she finally decided that this was our house.
Negotiations on the house went back and forth several times, but we finally agreed on a deal and bought it. So now we own a house. I never would have guessed that I'd own a home before I was 30, but I do it's a really strange thing to know you own a house. I've only ever lived in 3 homes in my life and now I live in the forth. Before buying this house, I lived in the last one for nearly 16 years. I moved into the new house and it was almost like staying in a motel. It was really nice, but it was not home yet. Lesley comes from a strict family and decided not to move in until after the wedding. I had never lived alone before either and I hoped that I would become comfortable and feel at home.
I was ready to try anything to make this place home and as the old saying goes 'Home is where you hang your hat'. I thought about that and decided I'd hang a cap up somewhere, but I stopped wearing them years ago and didn't have any left. For years I wore one every day and when the time comes that I really need one, I don't have it. Oh well, I'd hang it if I had it.
(On a side note, Happy belated to me.)