We are in the last stages of this particular life adventure. One year ago I came down to Texas towing a loaded trailer, and spent the weekend at a gathering of friends before turning around and heading back to Ohio. Two days later, the whole family was in Texas to unload the big truck with all our household goods, and the adventure had begun in earnest.
We'd rent for a year, we said. Feel out the lay of the land, decide if Texas was our home, and then commit to putting down roots, if it was. We knew before the year was up that Texas was the place for us. Friends, family, and for me at least, it finally felt like the West I'd grown up in, between Oregon and Alaska. There was just one thing missing. A home.
When the First Reader finally arrived in Texas to stay, eight months after I had come down, it was apparent very quickly that city life was not for him. I'd been going on, head down, focused on work and paying the bills, but when I had the ability to relax and start getting my head up to look around, I could see that I needed to get us out into a small town. Huddled in an apartment in the midst of the city was no way to live.
And that's when things started falling into place... It looked at first like things were falling apart. No sooner had we formulated a plan, and started house hunting, than the job situation became tenuous. Then we took a leap of faith, kept searching, and the job sorted itself out. We found a house, and the seller started to play games with our offer, so we withdrew the offer (I am still having schadenfreude that this other house is still on the market, and has had it's price dropped by 12,000, far lower than our offer). We started looking again. In a hot market, we knew we would have to put in an offer on a house we probably hadn't even set foot in, but we had a secret weapon. Our friend Jonna, of Tatters and Ravelings, was willing to walk a house for us.
About a month ago, she looked at two houses with our realtor, Lee of Hirschi Realtors, and the second one we both knew was the right house for my family.
Tomorrow? We close on that house, and begin the slow process of making needed renovations to update and brighten it, before we moving everything in. We have the apartment lease into June, having taken a 14 month lease, and that enables me to not work from home in a construction zone, and pack at my leisure. Tomorrow, though, we have a home.
It's been quite the adventure. From driving three thousand miles in a matter of a few days, to the two-hour trip tomorrow with Little Man, cat, dog, and sundries. The Little Man plans to stay up there with the company of the pets, and begin the reno on his own. It's a good step towards independence, and he will learn a lot, I am sure. Time to put down roots, in the North Texas clay, and with a pecan tree in the back yard.
Almost there!