Sorry that I’ve been a bit absent but I’ve been off in a corner biting my tongue. I have been all-consumed with house happenings pretty much 24 hours a day for the past three weeks, and I didn’t trust myself to not talk about it since it has been ALL that has been on my mind. But I think it is safe to say we are indeed buying our house! Yes, it is true.

So here’s the backstory for those of you who maybe haven’t been on this long four-year journey with us. (Family and friends you can skip all of this, if ya want.) When we first moved back to California, 5 years ago it was at the height of the crazy real estate boom. We decided to rent until we could figure out what area to live in, where the good schools were, etc. – and we found a place to rent that we looooved! And then, the dog moved in. And we had to move out.

It was about that time that I met Ann, our real estate agent, and she started a hunt for a house for us. We saw so many houses but just couldn’t justify all that money for hardly nothing of a house. And then Ann suggested that maybe we would like to rent a house? She had friends moving out of a great house in a great neighborhood with…great schools. Perfect.

So we moved in, four years ago this week. I remember when we pulled up to look at the house, I told Ann that I wasn’t really fond of Spanish style homes. And then I walked into our house and said, “Huh. Well, I guess I do like Spanish style houses.” And we’ve been loving on our house ever since. We repeatedly told the property manager that when the landlord wanted to sell…we wanted to buy.  But the landlord’s plan was to move back here after he retired, so staying here was always kind of an elusive dream for us.

And then, very unexpectedly, our landlord passed away and we have kind of been in a bit of limbo for a few months. Meanwhile our amazing Ann has been tirelessly helping us for the past FOUR YEARS, and a few weeks ago she calls me and says that the trust is putting our house on the market.

After the shock wore off, and J. brought me down from the edge of hysteria, reality set in and we set to work determining if this house was truly in our cards or not. Ann let me drag her to every house for sale in our neighborhood so we could be certain that ours really was the “one.” And I did honestly go into each of the other homes with an open mind, but I knew in my heart, I know in my heart, that our house is the home for us. After all, this is really the only home that Em and Ad remember. And we have built an amazing network, community and circle of friends. We have put down roots, and for the first time in our almost 18 years together, I really feel like J. and I are finally somewhere we can stay and both be happy forever.

And now we have the added bonus of having a great house (the inspector said that it has very good bones that will be around for 300+ years) that now we can really pour our time and energy into. Oh, and it is going to need a whole bunch of both of these, let me tell you.

So we are not completely official yet, but we are in escrow and all is looking very good. Hopefully we will close in a few weeks, and you better believe we will have a little celebrating to do here at Chaos.

It is a pretty good excuse for being so very absent her on the old blog, don’t you think? Forgive me?