At every point in this process, I was sure something would fail, and the whole thing would fall apart. It took us so long to find a house that we both wanted, let alone one that we both loved enough to want to live in for twenty years or more. I was convinced, no, I was certain that such a house didn’t exist.

If the universe did break, and such a house did exist, there was no way in hell that it would be in our price range.

It took us months, but we found a house. Neither of us was turned off by it. Neither of us was “meh” about it. We both wanted it. Sure, it didn’t have the bigger kitchen that Nikki wanted, and it didn’t have the garage that I wanted, but what it had made up for that. More than. The price was even doable, though it wouldn’t be the improvement over renting that we had been hoping for. So, we got pre-approved, contacted our landlord about getting out of the lease early, and… we stopped. Our landlord considered “out early” as three months, not eight. We hadn’t communicated how quickly we might want to move, so we put ourselves on pause.

And then the price dropped. We were sure it would get snatched up.

And then the price dropped again. We were biting our nails and pulling our hair out and gnashing our teeth. There was no way someone wouldn’t buy it out from under us. It’s only a mild exaggeration to say that we were wailing and rending our clothes in preemptive despair.  MILD.

And then the price dropped. AGAIN. We couldn’t wait any longer, and so we toured it again. Dad (Remember him? The superhero?) came out too, so he could point out things that we might miss through rose-colored classes. We found some stuff, he found some stuff, and we sent a list of all the stuff off to the owner, in hopes that he’d fix the stuff before we moved in. We got an affirmative response, and were off to the races.

• Pre-approved again.
• Came to an agreement with the landlord about getting out of the lease.
• Offered, counter-offered, and jumped up and down when it was accepted. Pending inspection, of course.
• Had inspection, pest inspection, radon inspection, FHA appraisal (inspection), and inspection inspection.
• Sent another list of stuff to the seller, got another affirmative response, more jumping up and down.
• Jumped through approximately twelve and a half billion hoops constructed from mortgage paperwork and then set on fire. (Way better than my first mortgage, which was FAR too easy for me to get.)
• Signed on the house.
• Moved in.

We got it. The universe is well and truly broken, because I am once again a homeowner. The yard is a kid’s paradise, there are enough rooms so that everyone has their own, and there’s an office (read: writing room) for me and Nikki to share.

There’s still some minor things we need to fix (who puts a railing into plaster without anchors?), but they’re minor.  The Bancroft house has been turned over to
the landlord. We really, actually did it.

What really gets me is that while Hunter will remember the house on Bancroft, the younger ones will only ever remember this house as home. I’m gonna do my best to make it a good one.