new......house?!??!?

Here's the deal, Ben's starting to throw this information out more and more willy nilly, so I feel free to post this, too. It's kind of like waiting until the 10 week mark when preggers (surely I'm not the only one who waited until this point?). I'm kinda afraid, so to speak, that if I dare to give voice to this, then it won't happen. But each week brings us closer to being official house hunters! Yay! Finally!!

So many things are contingent on this whole shooting match to commence.
*We must sell this house.
*We must decide where we want to live.
*We must find a house with x, y, and z factors.
*I must figure out what my future employment horizon will look like. And that's all I'm saying about that. :-)

Okay, in actuality, this is all dependent on my job. Which is contingent on me finishing my degree. Which will give me options (oh please, oh please, oh please).

There isn't a day that goes by when I'm driving around town when I'm not checking out houses that I see that are for sale, neighborhoods that might have the amenities we're looking for, or places where we could build.

I have my favorite real estate agent websites. We have the real estate guide bookmarked with property circled. We dropped the little one off for a play date with grandparents tonight so that we could drive around for a bit unmolested. We were even dashing through snow banks trying to get the curbside information!

We have a lists! Must-have features, and must-not-have features. DIY projects around the house to make it look beautiful. Places we will live and places that we refuse to even consider. We even have an official binder started.

Given the rush job we did finding this house, which, thankfully, has been great for what we've needed, I'm determined that we're going to perform a more thorough search this time. It's going to be our raising-kid(s)-for-yearsssss house, not the we'll-stay-in-this-until-we-have-one-kid-or-three-years-whichever-comes-first house. (Yep, it's been 4 1/2 years.)

Let it be known...I've never wanted to raise a child while living in Kokomo. Nope. Guess I'm being strongly reminded that my perfect plan is not necessarily the perfect plan for me.

We have changes coming, and while we're both dreading going through the hassle of selling and buying, we're also really excited!! This should be the last move that we make until, what, retirement when we move to Carmel? (You think I'm joking...) Remember that last post about gardening? That's never going to happen this summer because in our ideal situation, we'll be moving!!!