Obsession.

We’re officially in our “two week wait” our first cycle trying again. As anyone who has TTC’d will tell you, these two weeks can feel like an eternity. While I know it’s too early to be feeling any symptoms, I also know it’s only a matter of days before the “mind fetus” starts messing with me. What’s a mind fetus? It’s all the crazy symptoms you swear you are having (nausea, food aversions/cravings, sore boobs, etc.), whether you are actually pregnant or not. The mind is a powerful thing. And it likes to eff with you whenever it gets a chance.

So, what’s the best way to try and avoid becoming obsessed over every symptom I may or may not be having these next two weeks? Find a new obsession, of course! And what’s my latest obsession? Oh, just a new house.

Whaa..?!

Now, anyone who knows all the work we’ve been doing on our current house right now is probably thinking I’ve lost my damn mind. In fact, as we “speak,” our entire upstairs is a construction site, our roof is partially opened up, we have giant holes in our kitchen ceiling with pipes poking through, and we have shower doors in our dining room. Yep, we’re in the middle of the bathroom addition that we’ve talking about forever now. We finally took the plunge. So far we’ve gotten the demolition, framing and plumbing done. We’re hoping to get the electrical done this weekend, drywall the next, an then we can start doing finish work like tiling and painting. With any luck we’ll be done by early March.

But back to the new house… For a couple years now, I’ve had Redfin sending me listings of homes in the area we want to eventually move to. You know, just to keep an eye on the market. Not surprisingly, most of the stuff in our price range is just not quite right, and most of the stuff we love is out of our price range.

But then, a few days ago, a house popped onto the market as a short sale that is right in our price range and pretty much perfect. I remember seeing this house for sale by traditional means several months ago for WAY out of our price range. So, despite the fact that we’re up to our necks in home renovations on our current house, we’re actually entertaining the idea of making a move. Short sales take a long time to close, so we’ve got some time to wrap up our remodel and get our house ready to either sell or rent out. While we’re definitely dumping a lot of money into this bathroom remodel, we’re undoubtedly adding more value than we’re putting in, especially since we’re saving a lot of money by doing most of it ourselves. But even if we couldn’t sell this house for a profit in this market, to be honest, we’d be willing to price our current house on the low end for a quick sale, if it meant being able to get into this new house. Or, we might explore the possibility of renting out our house for a few years until the market improves, and then unloading it.

So here’s the new house. Isn’t it pretty? And look at that yard! The dogs will love it. I typically do not go for newer homes. I think they always look too cookie-cutter, and much prefer older homes with lots of character. D, on the other hand, prefers new homes. I think this just may be the perfect compromise, because it’s only six years old, but still has lots of character. Just look at that balcony, the shutters, the wood detailing and the stone entryway! There aren’t any photos available of the inside since it’s a short sale, but I distinctly remember seeing interior photos when it was traditionally listed before, and the inside is just as lovely. Hardwoods, French doors, undermount sink… it even has a dumbwaiter from the garage to the butler’s pantry for groceries! How cool is that? Plus, it’s huge. It’s twice the size of our current home, which means we have room to grow our family.

Did I mention I’m obsessed? Yeah, I’ve pretty much stalked this house from every public resource available (exhibit A: I snagged the bird’s eye photo above from Bing), including looking up public records and past sale history. D and I also drove by it last weekend. I even went as far as to look up school district information, and found out the elementary school our kids would attend is just around the corner. Walking distance! It makes me tear up to envision holding our little one’s hand and walking him/her to kindergarten. The high school is highly rated as well, and is part of the 4A KingCo athletic league, which means there would be lots of sports activities for our kids to get involved in when they’re older. Wow. I am really getting ahead of myself! But it’s really just about perfect. We’d never have any reason to move unless we decide to downsize some day after the kids are grown. Whoops, sorry. Getting ahead of myself again!

So the plan is to go see it this weekend. Since it’s a short sale, the real estate agent warned us it could be neglected or even abused, from a distressed owner. D and I are okay with some cosmetic issues since we’re used to doing home improvements and it might turn away competitive buyers who are looking for something more “easy.” After this weekend, if it’s everything we hope it is, we’ll sit down and crunch some numbers and see if there’s a way to make this happen.

So, while this whole two-week wait business isn’t totally off my mind, this house obsession is definitely overshadowing it for the time being. I really, really hope we can get this house, but even if we can’t, at least it was a nice distraction.