A short list of my personal observations regarding our home acquisition and home ownership (in the whole 9 days we've lived here):
1. During our time living in rental units, I lived in a relatively constant state of fear that something expensive was going to be ruined and we'd end up having to pay for it. As a prime example, less than 2 weeks before moving out of our apartment, Toby decided to become a carpet muncher (no, not this kind of carpet muncher), when he decided to chew the carpet right down to the underpad in a small area of our bedroom. Upon looking up the breakdown of general repairs as supplied to us by our property management company, we were potentially looking at $1400 to replace the carpet in that one room. That's more than we paid for the dog and all of his associated vet bills. Something about this did not seem right. But now it's a whole new ball game. Now I live in a constant state of fear that something expensive is going to break and we're going to end up having to pay for it, which when you think about it seems like it's the same ball game, but I guess we're just in a different field now. I feel as if any potential problem we have is magnified a hundred (thousand) times knowing that we are the only ones responsible for handling whatever situations may arise. I do believe our neighbourhood's property values may reflect this point over time.
2. Buying things is fun! And addictive! Also? It's incredibly hard finding that special balance between "I don't want to be broke", and "I want to replace everything we own! Would it be too obvious if the moving truck with all of our insured belongings accidentally ended up in the river?". This is increasingly more difficult when you realize that you're still using the same furniture you moved out with 4 years ago, or the $15 end-table that is a byproduct of Swedish child-labour.
3. I'm a little disappointed that our house isn't haunted. I think I've watched too many episodes of Ghost Whisperer and had convinced myself that moving into this house would be like some magical gateway into the world of communicating with ghosts. (Although I continue to consider the fact that maybe they're just shy...)
4. I'm worried that we're going to establish a reputation for ourselves in our new neighbourhood as the "naked ones". The original intent with this phrasing was because all of our windows are naked (finding acceptable window treatments is hard, y'all!), but the more I think about this, the more I realize that people are quite probably actually seeing us naked since the only room in the house without a window is the bathroom. I'm increasingly suspicious of the neighbours peeping-tom habits since several people walked past our house this evening while I was sitting in the car out front - they made direct eye contact with me but did not return my polite smile...instead, I caught them rubber-necking to look into our house as they walked along. If they're trying to get a good glance in now, they won't for long....
Moving is incredibly fattening. First, there's the fact that you're trying to "eat down" the reserves of food you have in your fridge, freezer and pantry so that it's less for you to move come the big day. Of course the closer you get to moving day, the fewer options you have, and the chances increase dramatically that you'll opt for pizza, or something with equal artery-clogging powers. Then comes moving day where you reward the help of your movers with yet more pizza for lunch! And beer! Lots and lots of beer! Then come dinner time you're tired of pizza, so you decide to get chinese food instead, only this time you're not hungry again an hour later because the yeast from all the beer you've been drinking makes you feel like this. Since you have no eggs, no bread, no anything really your husband suggests McDonald's for breakfast the next morning. A couple days later, you realize that one of your movers missed out on the reward of pizza and beer because she had to leave for a family function, so you decide you'll make her a cake. Only instead of making her a cake using all of the batter, you decide to play "some for you, some for me", and end up making one small cake for her and a dozen cupcakes which are promptly devoured by you and your husband. Of course you're out running errands and shopping all the time (see observation # above), and by the time you get home it's too late to actually cook anything, so you end up picking food up on the way home. It's a vicious cycle that ultimately leads to this:
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| Also? I apparently had no arms when we were living in the apartment. |
So anyways - moving = you get fatter. So much fatter that in the once-a-month-get-together where you meet up with a few friends and discuss a book you all read for about 15 minutes but then continue to yak about all things not-book-related, one of your friends decides to suggest you all read a book about overcoming compulsive eating. Number of girls in this small little group? Five. Number of girls with a BMI greater than 18%? One. Hmm. Come to think of it...this book was recommended before the move. Awesome.
Truth be told, we may be a few pounds heavier in the new house, but we'll take those added pounds over the potentially fatal injuries that could have been incurred had we stayed in our Toronto neighbourhood. I think this one is an easy call.
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