Yow, Why Didn't I Blog About Buying a House!?

I just looked over the blog, and realized that I blogged about many of my two-hour hikes, but barely mentioned buying a house. Wild.

Well, it was totally crazy, anyway. We started looking in January, triggering months and months of obsessive reading of housing blogs and constant searching on-line. My family moved something like eight times while I was growing up, plus my mom always very interested in real estate, so I was all too familiar with the process of finding a house. And, (thanks, mom!), all too obsessive. :-)

After a couple of months of searching in the incredibly white-bread community where we were renting (and where we could only afford bland 50's-era boxes south of the tracks), I managed to convince M. that it'd be cooler to try to find a house in the historic district in the considerably-more-diverse (and crime-ridden) town to the south.

We managed to find a cool old place, built in 1922, that was in reasonable shape. Like many California homes of that era, it is built out of redwood. Yeesh, yeah, the whole thing, trim, studs, rafters, garage, the whole bit. It's kinda crazy.

I had some serious doubts about buying, given what appeared to be an over-heated and over-priced market, but my mom the finance professor and M. convinced me to take the plunge in mid-June. We'll see how it works out, post-mortgage crisis and post-Fed-dumping-of-money.

So far, I have to admit, it's been great to have the space, but a total PITA to keep up with the gardening and all of the rest.