Upheavals, Large and Small

No, nothing serious. I promise. Well, unless you count planning to buy a house in the middle of a recession, that is.

Right now, as the title of this blog suggests, we are a family of three. We fold neatly into small spaces with nary a whimper...but right now, that family of three is crammed into a too-small apartment where my husband is also trying to run a business. So needless to say, we don't have room for anything. The wee one still doesn't have her own room, and while I don't think she's noticed, we need to get into a house before she hits high school. :-P And long before we have baby #2, obviously. :)

And, to add another monkey wrench into things, we presently live in one of the most expensive cities in California. (And if any of you are thinking, "Well, you could always move to someplace cheaper," I say, "Nice try, but fie on you." If you think I'm giving up a job I love with great health insurance in this economy, you're insane. :-P)

Until recently, DH and I were priced far out of the market, far enough that we watched people all around us buy houses we knew they couldn't afford, and wondered how they'd make the payments, because we knew we sure as hell couldn't.

So here we are, planning to buy a house. We actually started the process last fall---I went to the first-time homebuyer class required for our down payment assistance program, and we got pre-approved (or is it pre-qualified? Whichever one it is that really means something.) We looked at houses for weekends on end....

...and then we got scared. Really scared. Most of the homes were bank owned, and they needed a ton of work, or were in a sketchy area, or were too small for the larger family we hope to be one day. And bottom-lining it, mostly we were just scared of finding out that work needed to be done now on a house, work we couldn't afford to pay for. No landlord to call on when your sewer pipe busts, after all.

So we've waited these past few months, and we're slowly getting back into it. It's no less scary than it was last fall, but I think we have a much better idea of what we're looking for and what we won't settle for. Here's hoping we can find something :)