Hope Springs Eternal

I think I'll go look at a couple of houses this weekend.

Now scrape yourselves off the floor. I saw a repo that's three blocks away, 1950 square feet, built in 1925. It's listed for $41,000. I should be able to pick it up for significantly less than that to get it off the bank's books, and my mortgage payment would be less than what I'm paying for my storage unit.

I have no idea what it's like inside, so I may be dreaming the impossible, but we'll see. I qualify for a VA mortgage, thanks to John—that means I could buy a house with zero down payment.

There's also another house three blocks away, a few steps away from the park where the babes like to play. I am absolutely enchanted with the looks of this house. Again, I have no idea what it's like inside. It is a little more expensive than the first, and a few years older.

I'm very happy living with Tyler and Jaci. But really. Jaci deserves to live without her mother-in-law underfoot. And these babes deserve to have only two adults telling them what to do and correcting them. (I try. I really try to keep my mouth shut. but sometimes it pops open and corrections jump out! Motherhood is a hard mantle to bear.)

I've been seven months without the ability to just sink into my favorite easy chair and escape into a book for an hour. Seven months without the spring-loaded embroidery foot for my Bernina sewing machine. Seven months without all my shoes. If I'm only three blocks away, I can still run over whenever they need me; come on Saturday mornings to take care of the laundry; drop in after work for dinner and to do the dishes. And a $200 mortgage payment isn't going to deter my ability to help them financially.

I worry frequently about the deterioration of my belongings in the storage unit. I have some beautiful and valuable antiques and artwork that are in supposedly climate controlled surroundings. But I've seen how the humidity is not controlled and the boxes are collapsing. The sooner I can get my possessions out of that unit, the sooner I can stop worrying about it.

If this scheme doesn't work out this weekend, it's okay. But if it does, I think it's a win-win all around.

Is there some significant factor I'm being blind to?