Monday, November 9, 2009

Imaginary House Hunting


Please tell me I'm not the only one imaginary house hunting right now! We have more than outgrown our house. Yes, we've got enough rooms for us and the bug currently, but we have zero storage and our stuff is starting to need a house of its own. We don't have a basement, and between all of the baby stuff we're no longer using and and entire classroom's worth of teaching stuff (materials, books, crates, supplies, rugs, shelves), our garage looks like it's thrown up a dump truck! Bug and I have to squeeze our way through mountains upon mountains of STUFF just to get her in the car. One time, I even knocked over a gas can that was against the wall of the garage far from where I was because Bug's carseat knocked into something, which tipped over something else...and so on until a gas can fell over and leaked all over the floor. What makes it worse is that I didn't even realize it until I came home from our errands and the stench (even though I'm typically one of those weirdos who love weird smells like gas...creepy, I know) was overwhelming. We were high off gas fumes for days, even after clean up.

Aside from our hideous mess of a garage, all of our closets are overflowing with CRAP too. It doesn't help that I'm a HUGE slight pack rat and don't want to get rid of my textbooks and binders from my graduate (and some undergraduate) courses...plus, my husband's stuff. We're a mess and are in need of more space  plus someone to throw away our stuff in the middle of the night so we don't put up a fight.  There is no way we can be in this house when we have another baby. We just don't have the room.

The problem is, you can't sell a house that looks like a tornado whipped by and threw all of the neighborhood's junk strategically in your garage and closets. "Hey, come buy this house...plenty of room for all of your needs. Great storage. Perfect for your family!! Make this mess your home!" For whatever reason, that argument doesn't seem to work.

So we've found ourselves looking for imaginary homes. Why are they imaginary?? Well, we have a house that's about as far away from selling/renting condition as possible (ok, this might be a slight exaggeration since I'm Queen of that. My mom totally has it worse, right ma? We just need to de-clutter). We haven't even considered putting it up for sale right now. Oh, and did I mention we don't have money to front two mortgages??? SO why are we torturing ourselves by looking at the imaginary houses in glass boxes?? I don't know, but darnit...there's so many good deals on houses right now. So do we take less for our house to get a house for less than it's worth? Do we do all the work to get our house on the market only to be lucky to break even? We're in a slight predicament, and don't know what would be the wisest decision...so we've got a lot of research and educating to do. But you know me...I'm a totally nerd, so I eat this stuff up! My husband thinks I should've been in business instead of teaching. But hey...we teachers are smart! :-)

Until then, I am living in my imaginary world where we move into a house complete with areas for storage, rooms for our family (and future family members), and even room for our extended family to visit us.  Darling Dearest is also on this fantasy ride with me...so who will snap me out of it?? What makes it worse is that my college friend, N (I'll have to think of a cute nickname that fits her later. Hmmm...another project!), has embarked on this imaginary house journey with us....and we're imaginary neighbors in this beautiful, older neighborhood with majestic trees and big yards (real place, but "imaginary" for us in that neither of us have houses on the market). Oh, and did I mention the imaginary house she found on realtor.com has a pool and is beautiful??? Unfortunately, she's staked her claim into this house, so Dean and I can't pursue it on our imaginary househunting journey. Hmmm, maybe we could have an imaginary bidding war against our college friends!

N asked me what I wanted for my b-day coming up on Friday and Darling Dearest told me to tell her that she didn't need to get me anything since she already found a house with a pool for a sickeningly cheap price for us (I mean...the kind of house that you'd totally deal with a sink hole just to have --or at least, I would..hehe). To which she replied, "and coincidentally there will be a fire set to that house immediately after you move in." YEP...full on fighting words in our imaginary war over imaginary houses. Are you getting sick of me saying IMAGINARY yet?? I'm sure sick of writing it. :-) 

What makes things worse is that realtor.com is not super up-to-date with their properties and several of the ones I loved (You know, the kind that make you pee your pants a little bit in the excitement of just thinking about them??) already were under contract. Crazy things start happening in my head at that point. I think....hmm, maybe we could put a hit on the buyers or develop some sort ridiculous scandel so the contract would fall through and we'd come trotting in on our white horse (yep, myself, Darling Dearest, Bug, and the two pups on a white horse...awesome mental picture, huh?) to save the day and sweep up the damsel in distress (in this case...our coveted imaginary house). But, instead of resorting to plan A (crazy plan detailed above), I glumly agree to plan B (moping at the loss of our imaginary home that we can't buy anyway).

Why am I so emotionally involved with some of these houses?? I mean, how can I have enough love in my heart to share between Darling Dearest, Bug, my pups, my new boyfriend (DELL), and now my new rotating crushes---imaginary houses?!? At least with the others, I know they're always there for me....but as with all crushes, they'll soon break your heart!! And so far, they've done it 3 times (Truth: Yes, we've even driven around to look at these imaginary houses and 3 of them are out of commission due to silly little detours like UNDER CONTRACT signs..boo!). How much more rejection can a girl take?? Why am I putting myself in this misery of this fantasy to begin with?? Maybe it's DELL's fault for seducing me into the world of realtor.com! Well, boo on DELL then too. Maybe he isn't always there for me like I said before.

Please tell me some of you have made the same stupid decision as I have. Why must we want what we can't have?? Oh, I will be accepting donations. You can write your checks to the "Helping First Time Mommy Turn an Imaginary Home into a Real Home" fund. OR, you can buy my house...complete with overflowing junk!! Either way, it's a steal! Any takers???

11 comments:

Dina said...

Hi!

Thanks for checking out my blog. (Nutritious Feast)

I hear you about having no storage. Our house has no basement and very shallow closets. We need another house for my husband's things. lol

Hope you have a great day! :)

Dina

Aim said...

I think we all look at imaginary houses. You've got a great bloggy style! Saw your comment on my blog and came right over to follow you!

Aspen Real Life said...

If you find something that you really love than everything will fall into place for you.

You may end up not buying that house but your house will sell and you'll find something even better suited for you and your growing family.

When we had trouble selling our house my friend told me it was because I wasn't thinking about who would be the perfect family to move into it. She said dream it up, live it, believe it and soon you will be manifesting it to happen, and I did and she was right.

Thanks for visiting me at http://isdisnormal.com!!

Lisa@Pickles and Cheese said...

Storage is always an issue and we have no basement here either. I am always picking up real estate booklets...it's a sickness with no known cure! Hey I am having a Giveaway for CSNbaby.com. Not many people have entered and I think it is because a lot of my readers have children who are grown. Anyway, I wanted to let you know that your odds of winning are really good right now since so few of my readers are entering! Stop by if you get a minute. Good luck!

Joey said...

I've been real house hunting since April. It is a nightmare. I long for the days when it was imaginary. We've been had three (soon to be four) "great deals" fall through. UGH!

N said...

ahahahahaha!

Liz McMunn said...

I love imaginary houses. We actually met with a realtor over the summer, too, & toured a bunch of them. It was beautiful -- except for the part that we weren't actually in any kind of position to buy anything :)

I like your blog!

MommyB said...

Too crazy funny, and I hear you, once the new little one comes all visitors can park their tooshies in the loft, complete with hard couch and two leather reclining chairs, sounds cooshie huh?!?

PS I like the smell of gasoline too

Felicia said...

Mr E and I imaginary house hunted for two years. So I know exactly what you are talking about. And we still imaginary house hunt/move to LR,Ar or D,TX with close friends of ours who are considering moving to either place. We imagine the great living across from each other scenes...almost like Desperate Housewives without all the scandal.

Opus #6 said...

I agree. It is no fun being cramped in a house. Good luck with getting that squared away soon.

lovemylevi said...

We have tons of storage space, bedrooms, closets, under beds, hallways, living room LOL you name it, theres something stored there! Following from MBC, hope to see you at www.luvsjurn3.blogspot.com soon!