Tag: Home Ownership

  • Another Monday, Dog Grooming Edition

    Yet another Monday, and I am looking at a blank computer screen. At least I was until I just forced myself to start typing something. Because this isn’t writing, it’s typing.

    What I am really doing at this hour is waiting for the dog groomer to call so I can go get our dog. (I have mentioned before that I am not a huge fan of the word “grooming” when it comes to dog hair maintenance, but I may need to just accept that this is the term that everyone has decided to use.) They said the dog would be ready, at most, in three hours, and now that we are at the three-and-a-half-hour mark, I have started to wonder at what state is the progress in? No matter what, I will call them at the four-hour mark, as I have to pick up a kid from school, and I have some other things that I need to accomplish today as well.

    As such, I am here on the couch in a holding pattern on this rather nice day. No rain for this Monday, as compared to the last few. No, this is an actual Spring day, windows open due to the sixty degrees outside. It is the type of weather that makes me optimistic, and forgiving.

    And I think about the things that are coming for me. That taxes are due tomorrow, and we need to pay down some more of our debt. There is a college fund that should receive some additional dollars, and most importantly, I try to stay positive about owning a home one day. A home out of the City, in the country, but not too far away so I can live a lifestyle that is aggressively just beyond the touch of my fingertips.

    Then my wife texts me to say that she hasn’t heard from the groomers, and that I need to call and go get the dog.

    Such is this Monday.

  • A Place Upstate

    I have been distracted this morning. I did get my errands and chores done, but when it came time to do this, write a blog, I let myself get sucked down the old rabbit hole of looking at houses for sale. Not that we are in a position to go buy a home, but hopefully in the next two years, it might become a possibility.

    You never can tell. We, as a small family, are right on that cusp of entering the world of home ownership. I do feel bad for anyone under the age of thirty because unless you are earning a huge salary, which most people don’t, then you will never live in a house that you own. We still can, but just barely. It is my job to get the family finances in order, so when the opportunity arises, we can jump on it.

    Anyway, all of this came about today because it’s already 75 degrees in the City, and should make it up to 80 today. The windows are open in the apartment with a nice cross breeze blowing in. The wife is working away in the office. Music is playing, and the kid is in her room enjoying not doing a damn thing on her Spring Break. With all of this going on around me, I had the thought that, “Wouldn’t it be great to do this in a house, surrounded by trees, upstate?”

    “Yes,” I said, “It would be great.”

    “Then go look for a home.”

    “Yeah, that would be fun, but we aren’t in…”

    “I SAID LOOK FOR A HOME!!!”

    And off to Zillow I went. Besides, who needs self-discipline?

    For an hour I looked at places that are all about two hours away from the City. I enjoyed the daydream. A place for books, and reading. A fireplace to use in the winter, and a back yard for the kid to play in. All the wonders, relaxation, and serenity, cleanly away from the City. A home that gives me a chance to wake up with the sounds of birds chirping and the wind blowing through the trees.

    This “window shopping” took up most of my writing time, but I don’t feel bad about it. Perhaps I have lost the desire to have a goal. Like a goal that isn’t just for me, but something that I can provide for my family. Ambition bounces around in my brain like a dirty word that I cannot muster out loud; but a goal? Perhaps I should say out loud that I want my family to move into a house in two years? Maybe I have forgotten what it is to strive on the high wire where one can fall to failure? Maybe.