May 2007 Archives

Scott and I are in the process of becoming homeowners this summer. Yeah, I know, we were surprised, too.

We took an Informal Class through UT at the beginning of April, just after Scott got a job offer (but before he started) because we wanted to know what we needed to do to get ourselves in shape to buy a house. The plan was to get some financial advice, then save up some money in the coming year to buy a house next summer.

We had an offer accepted on a cool little house within about a month of the class.

Which is to say, this is all moving rather fast. Two months ago, we were still waiting for the arrival of Scott's green card, and now we're learning more than we ever really cared to know about homeowners insurance.

Neither of us has become independently wealthy in the last few months, so we had to be a little creative in our house search. Sadly, we couldn't afford anything in central Austin, so the place we chose is up near Parmer and MoPac, in the vicinity of Fry's. There are pros and cons to this, of course.

Pros:

• We didn't have to sell all four of our kidneys to afford the closing costs.


• Our house is within walking distance to Fry's.


• Our house is marginally larger than a closet.


• We have a back yard! With a fenced in vegetable garden!

Cons:

• We won't live in Central Austin anymore.


• We won't be walking distance to Central Market.


• We're both farther from work, and we want to maintain our one-green-car lifestyle. Buses don't go to the part of town Scott works in, so I get to ride the bus every day. (Related pro: there's a bus stop across the street from my house.)


• Traffic. Ugh.

I'm still excited enough about the prospect of having a place of our own (with, for instance, a working dishwasher) that I'm not stressing out yet about the longer bus rides to work. And have I mentioned the vegetable garden?

This year, I planted a few tomato plants at my mom's house in her garden, because I didn't have a great place to put them at our duplex. I keep teasing my mom that she needs to go out with an umbrella any time there's a chance of hail, to protect the tomatoes. (Have I mentioned that my mom doesn't even like tomatoes?) So next year, I'll be able to go out with my own umbrella.

The house is even nicer than the garden. It's got pergo floors and pretty painted walls and cathedral ceilings. It has a baby crib, too. People keep teasing me about the crib, but it's not ours, I swear.

Once our offer was accepted, I started getting the urge to drive by the new place and start digging beds in their front yard. Scott didn't think the current owners would appreciate that much, so I've managed to refrain. So far. He keeps teasing me that I'm always about two steps ahead on the planning process. So far, I've kept myself awake at night trying to figure out to my satisfaction where we can put the litter box, where we can build a compost bin, whether we'll have enough room to plant the various kinds of plants I wish to plant, and where all our artwork will go.

It's great, really. I'm loving it.