Home Sweet Home

The title has two meanings. We are living with my parents at my "home" for the time being so that we can save some money for a down-payment on a house. This is going to take us several months even without having to pay rent. This, as I've mentioned is much harder on DH than it has been for me. Let alone any personality differences between in-laws, he has to make the commute down to his work via public transportation which takes up about 3.5 hours of his day. He leaves at 7:00 am, and gets home at 6:30 pm. That's a long day for both of us.

And of course, the second meaning is wishful. I'd sure like a home to call our own! We drove all over with the boys in the backseat yesterday afternoon looking at houses. We didn't go into any of them, we just drove around and looked at a few of the properties our real estate agent e-mailed me. The result is that I'm sure I don't want to live in ________, as beautiful as it is, and that I'm sure we can't live on land any less than .25 acres. ________ is simply going to be too far a drive from my parent's, a trip I'm sure to be making frequently. And I MUST have a yard! This is a similar criterion, but not quite the same as, my children MUST have a yard. We looked at a developed community in ________ about ten years old. The homes were in our range, and good sq. ft. and they all backed up to this beautiful common park area with a play ground, picnic area etc. Really very nice. Unfortunately, the individual lots were itsy bitsy. As I looked at them, my heart just sank. I hadn't realized how much I had looked forward to a garden and having my own space to landscape.

My grandma lives in _____, which is north of DH's work. I think we're going to set our sights up there. This would be about 20 miles closer to my parents than __________. I think more than anything I'm discouraged by the sheer weight of looking. I came home yesterday after an entire afternoon of looking feeling tired and grumpy. I just need a good pep talk. DH is not so good with those. (sigh)