House hunting.

Today we went to eight open houses. We took the kids along and one of us would play outside in the backyard while the other adult went and toured the house. Edda is not a fan of househunting – I thought we’d be lucky to go through 3 houses.

I think a lot of people get very dreamy when they think of a house. How they are going to decorate it, how they are going to garden, all the great BBQs they are going to have. I mainly think about how much lawn work we are going to have to do and how expensive it’s all going to be. I really don’t like being beholden to a big mortgage payment, I like not being absolutely dependent on a job. I like having some money saved up and expenses low, but it’s not really going to happen with a house purchase. So when I’m at open houses, I usually feel a little queasy.

Anyways, what interests me most about a house isn’t the house itself, it’s the neighborhood and the people that live on the street. Are they going to be my friends? Will Vince be able to go to walk their houses and play? Will someone watch over Edda in a pinch if I have to go to the gynecologist (it’s really hard to watch her when you are trapped in the stirrups, I’ve tried it before.) Will I find a mom who will get up early with me to go running with Ruby? Or will it be a terrible thing where people complain that you left your garbage can out 12 hours too long or there is a big squabble about who pays for the snow plowing in the shared driveway? It’s all a mystery and hard to find out.

In order to fortify ourselves – we had McDonald’s for lunch. I’d forgotten about the indoor playgrounds, they didn’t have them in Singapore.

Also, this morning, we saw some locks on the Eric Canal. Kids and dog were afraid to cross the lock gates, so they were carried and escorted one by one.