Valpond Cottage

The ivy is greening up and it really feels like home again! I'm finally finishing unpacking all those odds and ends boxes that never have an exact place in a new house--all the stuff you bought for this specific spot in an old apartment or house that now seem aimless in a new place. Finding places for them or ditching them.

Rearranging things for the warmer months (maybe the couch doesn't need to be so close to the fireplace anymore!) and finally finally finally committing and putting up art on the walls. I've been so indecisive about hanging anything, not wanting to make any unnecessary holes in the walls, and waiting to get a bunch of things framed, but the time has come. 

It seems like every few weeks something happens to make me seriously curse the previous owners. They were obviously scumbags. I love my house, but everything wrong with it is their fault.

On the positive side, my push reel mower came. I'd hoped to use it today, but it needs to be assembled, and it's only 36 degrees right now, plus I have the flu. 

I worry about what this means for the real thaw in the spring.

I put down my rug in the living room, I've made bread, I've enjoyed fires in the fireplace and filling my freezer with stuff from Costco. 

The pets are at home here, and my stuff is here (though not all of it! I'm ashamed to say I still have quite a lot of things at my parents' house), and I do feel at home. A few times over the last week, my parents have invited me to stay over night at their house, in my old room, because of bad weather or the late hour after celebrating Christmas Eve and Christmas, but I just wanted to get home to my mammals and my own bed.

But the living room is quite Christmasy, and I've been able to have fires in the fireplace, which makes the place quite cozy. It has been a week without incident at the home, meaning that I haven't had any repairs or problems--knock on wood!

I'm developing a system, a routine. And best of all, the semester is over, so I have five weeks of blessed free time. I'm really looking forward to nesting. My writing studio is still empty bookshelves, piles of boxes, my desk tucked away in the window nook.

Something goes wrong. Work must be done. Money must be spent. I hesitantly breathe a small sigh of relief. And then! Something goes wrong again. People return to fix or redo what they should have done right the first time. Things are gross and irreparably dirty, and I curse the name of the previous owners and the home inspector for the misrepresentation of this property.

Yet I am tied to this house for at least the next fifteen years. (I mean, I could move, but where would I go and what would be the point?)

And oftentimes I love it. The modest Christmas tree in the living room window. The garlanded mantel. A piece of something that is mine alone. The joy of my cats running around after six months confined to one room at my parents' house.

Recent expenses include: 

paying an electrician to install an outlet behind the stove, because the cord wouldn't quite reach the closest outlet without dangerously stretching (I'm assuming the previous owners used an extension cord)

paying Roto Rooter to get the roots out of my main sewer line after the toilet and drain both backed up into the basement

buying a new garage door operator since my old one turned out to be insufficient

buying a chimney cap and having someone clean the fireplace & chimney out & buying the necessary accoutrements for a working fireplace (screen, tools, wood)

Every day is a new headache, it seems. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I had more money, but my budget is pushed to its limit right now.

Thanks to the good habits I developed with YNAB (You Need a Budget), I have a six month buffer for my basic monthly bills (mortgage, utilities), and that's really something. I'm very lucky (I've done that since I knew my income would decrease in the spring), but so many house expenses make this difficult.

Mostly I find myself livid at the previous homeowners who, it seems, swindled me. I get that everyone wants to sell their house, but it feels like I was lied to, and I'm seriously questioning the ethics of my home inspector, who, it feels, misrepresented the condition of the house. 

I still haven't met my neighbors, and that's really my own fault, but it doesn't appear to be an overly-friendly neighborhood. Also no one turns their porch light/outside light on at night, and there are no Christmas lights on anyone's house (so far). But it's a quiet neighborhood, and that's most important.