patience

We've been in our home for a little over two years now.  I started getting the itch again.  The thing is I haven't lived  anywhere longer than two years since I left for college.  Between dorms and apartments life was broken up in 1 year here, a two year lease here, always moving on.  Now we are in our own home and logic tells me that I should be content to stay put for a while...   but the itch is there anyway.  I saw a house the other week that was on a really unique private lot.  It needed lots of work.  I even went so far as to look at it with a realtor and discovered it needed waaaaay more work than we were capable of so I let it go.  But the seed was planted...

I'm not a terribly patient person.  I'm more of an instant gratification gal.  If I want something (within reason and budget, we are not talking ponies and sports cars) I generally find a way to make it or buy it or fudge something enough so it does the trick for a while.

Houses need patience.  Unless you are one of the rare few with a tremendous budget and the ability to buy or build just the house you want it takes time.  You either settle for something as we did and work to transform it as best you can or you save and save and save for as long as you can stand it so you can get what you want, or at least close.

A house I day dream of looks like this

Source: bhg.com via Emily on Pinterest

or this

Source: bhg.com via Jill on Pinterest

but our home looks like this

Don't mind the hose running across the front walk.  I'm trying to keep the lawn green in this ungodly heat.

I'd like a back yard that looks more like this

Source: theattiasgroup.com via The Attias Group on Pinterest

We have a cute little yard but large and private it is not.  Not that I'm really unhappy with our little home.  In fact when I look at that picture I think our home looks rather sweet.  We've done a fair amount of sprucing and gardening to get it that way.  It has been good to us but the plan is for it to be a starter home so our time here will be limited.  It wasn't intended to be limited to 2 years of course... If the location were a bit better we'd probably stay and work to transform it into the cape cod style home I'd love.  We will have to move on though and I don't know when that will be.  I'm sort of half heartedly looking around now with the knowledge that what we'd like doesn't exist in our budget.  Even something that we could transform into what we'd like isn't really in our budget, at least not on a good lot, or in a better school district.

I have to be patient because as my Mom reminded me yesterday something will happen.  It always does.  This house was there for us and really was the perfect answer at the time.  Something else will happen, when and what and how we don't know.  Such is life I guess.   

My good friend and I often talk about how our husbands get irritated when we talk about our "next houses".  Why can't you just be happy now, they ask?  It is our nature and maybe most women's nature to keep thinking ahead.  What will be the next step?  Where will we be?  It isn't good to do too much of that, I know. 

Our best bet is probably to stay put for a while longer.  Keep saving and thinking and the next step will come.  I just have to remember to be patient and to look around and enjoy the now.  Enjoy the work we've done and just live for a while rather than rushing on.

Patience, patience....