Settling In

How I planned to spend my Saturday:

• Oiling the patio table and moving it to the basement;
• Raking and mowing the lawn;
• Cleaning the outside toys and moving them to the basement;
• Picking the last of the vegetables and cleaning the vestiges of our summer garden.

I'm sure we could have added much more to that list, given the right day.  But we were not given the right day.  We were given this day, our last day of October:

So, Dave took the minivan and helped a friend move.  The rest of us stayed home, and got stuff done for a while.  As soon as they could see snow on the ground, which did take quite a while, both Lilly and Sophia insisted that they go out to play in it.  Just as they pulled on their boots, their neighbor friend knocked on the door asking them to play in the snow.  When I looked out the window, a small crew of children was playing in the front yard.

I love snow.

And I love this neighborhood.

The landlord may be crap, and the house may be imperfect, but the neighborhood makes the whole thing worthwhile.  We live in a great school district - a neighborhood where people buy for the zip code and for the schools.  Plenty of people buy one of the 1950s era houses and tear them down, building much bigger and much more expensive homes on these already pricey lots.  But our block has escaped that.  A few homeowners have added on to their houses, and a few homeowners seem happy with things the way they area.  And I think the reason I like this neighborhood so much is that I like that kind of people - the folks who live close to the city, choose the good schools, but live happily in just enough space.  The small house folks, where the television is relegated to the basement, the bikes are better protected than the car, and the kids play outside because its just too crowded in the house.

We like it so much that we wanted to stay here.  Not stay here stay here, like some of you people may think when I say "stay here."  Not, like, live here for the next 5 years or anything.  Goodness no.  But we decided it would be perfect to buy a house here.  To buy this house, should the landlord want to sell.  Even better - to buy the next door neighbor's house.  They do want to sell, and their house is nearly identical to ours.  Plus, they have this great climbing tree in the front yard.

The more we thought about it, the more we wanted to do it.  That way, every time we come back to DC, we'll come back to the same house, the same neighbors, and the same schools.  That much more stability for our kids, and a source of rental income while we're out of the country.

We tried every which way to make it work, but we simply can not afford to buy in this neighborhood.  These houses are crazy expensive - even the small ones!  And although it would be comforting to buy a house right now, it is also freeing to decide not to.  We looked at our goals, and we only plan to spend about 3 of the next 16 years living inside the United States.  That's pretty exciting.  We looked at our finances, and we'd rather invest in college, retirement, and a few rooms to spend our summers in the Midwest.

Its crummy not to buy a house.  It would be lovely to invest in this neighborhood.  But its nice to make a decision, to have some long-term goals, and not to have to worry about replacing furnaces or gutters anytime soon.  And by soon I mean within the next 20 years.