For the last, gosh, two or more years, we’ve been looking for a new house.  How on earth can it take so long?  Well, we are somewhat unique in the world of home buyers, although we aren’t that unique within our circle of friends, but we do have some desires in a home that others may not care about.

Of course, the challenges I’m speaking of extend to more than just the purchase of a new home, but we can chat about that later.

The state of affairs is that we’re now in a small home – one bathroom, kind of small – with 7 people and a mastiff.  As loving as all these folks are to each other all the time (note sarcasm) we don’t have enough space for everyone to live comfortably.  There are other reasons to find another house, but that’s one of my primary reasons.

In preparation for putting ours on the market we filled up a large Pod with “stuff” and sent it on its way.  Even though we missed a few things, it is SO MUCH NICER to live in a house that’s more empty than not.  When we move, I’m going to have to get a dumpster to put all that stuff in.  It’ll be wild figuring out what to keep and what to do away with.  Like going down memory lane, a bit, too.  “Hey, remember that chair?  I LOVED that chair!” or even, “Ugh, what were we THINKING when we got that?”

So, we’ll move soon.  We love our house and our neighborhood.  I hope we love our new house and neighborhood.  It’s in a totally different town, 20 minutes away.  Even though we hope we’ll continue our associations with Lexington, I do, unfortunately, see us drifting away.  It will just become “too much” to go that far away for every little thing.  I’m going to do my best, but if you know me and you are in Lexington, don’t forget us because we won’t forget you!

My hope is that the new house will become a home sooner rather than later.  I’m going to put every effort into making it a “jewel of Winchester”, so to speak.  I’d love to come back and the only way I’m going to get a return on this investment is to put more into it.  Something that’ll make it ours and something that’ll make it unique to the town.  We’ll have enough land to landscape for real.

Yes, please:

How in the world long will it take us to get to something like that?  Not sure, but it’ll have more color since Ashley likes flowers.  Don’t we all?

Not quite as woodsy, either.

I’m building the list of todos already, though.  Trim, asphalt driveway, dirt away from the foundation, downspouts, riding mower, jack and jill bathroom remodel, fireplace checkup, water heater consolidation.  The list could go on and on.  We’ve done a lot to the current home and it smarts a bit to have to do it all over again, but I do like that stuff… just have to be sure we have time to tackle it all!

At the end of the day, we gain a bathroom, and a lot of square footage.  A garage and land, as well.  4 laps around the circle to make a mile, so I only have to consistently do 24 laps to be ready for the next Tough Mudder :).

And there it is, it all comes back to Tough Mudder.  Which – by the way – is nowhere near as tough as the very first one I did in whenever it was… 2012, I believe.  They’d cart people off with gashes and broken bones every couple of miles on that trail.  I only wish it was like that now.  That’s another story, though.