On the subject of home buying

Hey, I bet I am the ONLY person to decide to make the New Year's Resolution to write more. It was a genius idea, really. Everyone else is out there volunteering, spending less money and forgoing carbs while I'm here pounding away at the keyboard on my own. Pshaw. In reality, I bet Blogspot is as overloaded this month as the eliptical machines at the gyms that offer those January introductory rates. Everyone is starting their new, awesome blog this week. I guess my goal is to be just a tiny bit more awesome than some.

So here we are - let's get right into it.

Today, since the email machines are down at work, I've been going back and forth between looking at spreadsheets with numbers that make my eyes tired, deciding what to eat for lunch and talking to people on the phone about hardwoord floor refinishing. You see, I'm in the middle of buying a house. And selling a house. This chapter of life falls somewhere on the "EXTREMELY COMPLICATED LIFE SITUATIONS" scale between planning the exit strategy in Afghanistan and making the perfect play list for running that 5k you don't feel like doing. Ok, it's probably a little closer to the play list on the continuum. But seriously.....seeeeriously. This is hard, Guys.

I generally like making decisions. Ice cream flavors? Sure. Vacation destinations? Absolutely. Christmas portraits of my child? No problem. (Those Target portrait Studios people who try to sell you every product known to man with your kid's face on it, don't know what hit them when I sit down at that little kiosk.) Which wine to pair with the chicken - I'm your girl. It's not that I know any more about any of those things than anyone else. In fact, my husband almost always hates the ice cream flavor I buy.

But, it's just that my personality type is one that feels better once the decision has been made. The limbo of pros and cons and hemming and hawing just isn't for me. Most decisions do not have a major impact on my life, so I just forge ahead and pick one. But the decisions I am making now do seem to carry with them a lot of weight. This house or that one. This mortgage or the other one. This preschool or that. Sanding or sandless floor refinishing. Ok, maybe that last one isn't THAT major. But lumped in with all of this other stuff...it all feels so...final. Like we're really locking it in, here. It's not like the Bachelor where you pretend to have every intention of marrying someone, get your reality show participation stipend or whatever and then go back to Missouri and marry the girlfriend you didn't tell anyone about. It's not like bangs that you can just pin back and wait until something cool happens to them as they grow. We're totally reorienting our lives here.

It helps to know that other people, like LOTS of other people, have done this before. I'm big on "if THAT person can do it...SURELY we can figure this out." Right? The truth is...I have no idea what I'm doing. But I am, fortunately, surrounded by people who 1. do and 2. love me and have my best interests in mind. My genius husband. My helpful parents. My engineer uncle. The one thing I've learned is this: when you're in uncharted waters, call someone with a bigger boat. Oh, and it helps if you're nice to those people BEFORE you need them.