5 posts tagged “home sweet home”
I miss kittens. That's what this one's really all about.
I think all I've ever really wanted out of life is to raise a family. That starts with me and Patrick, but it's not quite the same without little baby feet and little baby faces to look after.
Paralysis by analysis. There are so many decisions, so many styles, so many fabrics and colors. I have been so worried I'd go in the wrong direction that I haven't gone in any direction.
We're lucky to have nice furniture and good art. But I'm eager to hunker down and just decide, already, what kind of home we want to live in. I know I want it to have all-natural materials (wood grains, glass, metal). And natural colors or nice, but I want bold colors on walls (maybe not all of them, but enough of them to say "We are vibrant people, and that's how we want to live).
Beyond that, there's everything else to figure out. I'll try to think of it as a fun project; not so much something I could totally screw up.
I've been ready to buy since I was 21, and I started looking at homes in Roanoke just after I graduated college. At that time the cost of what I wanted deterred me (I could have afforded to buy, just not live where I wanted to).
Since then, there hasn't really been a good reason for me (us) to not buy. It just hasn't happened.
So now we have a plan to get our downpayment ready. Our countdown has begun.
Even before we visited in March (2008), Patrick and I knew this is where we wanted to go. The trip was for fun, and to make sure we were right, but I knew we were right. Everything we'd heard about the town spoke to us -- the focus on local business; the love of coffee, beer and bicycles; the environmental consciousness; the good food.
And now that we've gotten back to Knoxville, it's hard for us to go a week without hearing Portland mentioned in some really great context (did you know that an Oregon congressman in Washington has, for the past 15 years, ridden his bike to work every day?).
The cost of living is higher, and it is slightly grayer. Everything has a flip side. But we haven't heard one thing to change our minds. Not even the fact that it is all the way across the country, and I know I will dearly miss my family on the East Coast.
