If You're Thinking of Buying a House....

Usually when I’m listing excuses at the beginning of the year as to why I have not been writing as diligently as I should, it’s usually holiday and occasion related. Boy, do I miss those minor reasons.

Last year, my husband and I decided to buy a house. We now often wonder why. We liked our apartment. Management was excellent. Whenever something needed to be fixed, they handled it right away.

Moving was stressful, but we have more room than before. And having a home meant I could get a big dog. We could do stuff in the yard. Plant flowers, grill, etc. (None of that happened by the way.)

We had our first leak during the summer. It was easily fixed in a day. The second one happened the week of Thanksgiving. It required the plumber to tear up part of the flooring and drill beneath the concrete slab. The next leak came on Christmas eve. This ruined the flooring in all the rooms downstairs with the exception of one. The next leak was New Year’s Day. It was repaired in one day. That repair lasted for five days before bursting again. During a blizzard. Our heating system uses water to heat the home. So, we had no heat. Again, I remind you that this was during a blizzard. At this point, my husband, quite understandably, had had enough and decided we should replace all the pipes in the house. Due to the weather, lots of other people were dealing with pipe issues as well and it took a while for a plumber to be available. We ended up staying in a hotel for two weeks. We had the board the puppy at a vet. The cat spent a couple of days at the vet as well before we learned that the hotel allowed pets to stay for free. We couldn’t bring them both as the cat can’t stand the puppy. Also, the puppy tends to be destructive and she exceeded the weight limits of the hotel. (She is a Newfie, after all. At her last vet visit, she was 90 pounds.)

Repairs are going slowly, but the home is livable. We’re just getting back into our normal routines. I’m writing, but I am often disrupted with repairmen tramping through the house. I am rather disappointed to not have anything finished at this point in the year. I might be later than I’d like to be getting anything into publication, but I still have hope. I hope everyone had a much better holiday than I did.