something new

Sometimes it's an expatblog. Sometimes it's a momblog. Sometimes it's a dealing with ADD-blog, studentblog, geekblog (yes, I still dream in code: PHP, lately. Help!). Sometimes it's a sportsblog, knitblog or memeblog. Occasionally, much more rarely than I would like, it's a bookblog, or a musicblog, or a travelblog. Wow, I do a lot of stuff. Anyway, uh, it looks like I'll be adding a new element soonish, and hoo boy is this going to turn my hair gray, as nothing else has managed to do yet: I think... deep breath... I think we're going to buy a house.

WHOA nelly, now hold on a minute. That there's grown-up talk. I know, I know, it's almost too much to contemplate. But we have a buyer for Mom's house, and they're impatient to close, and our wonderful new conservative government feels that what they really need to do is raise the sales tax by 3% so if we buy a house next year it will cost us about $12,000 more than if we sign this year - money that won't go to the seller (I'd be okay with that) but to a government whose priorities I do not share. They won't use it to feed the hungry or provide medical care for the poor or jobs for the unemployed, so I don't want to give it to them. Neener.

So "we might should think about buying a house once DrBob's career settles down a bit and we know where we're going to be, say in the next five years," has morphed into "we need to buy a house by Thanksgiving or so." Ack. And there are so many decisions involved. Where do we ultimately want to end up? (In the city.) What's best for the kids? (Not a city.) Old house (charming, expensive to heat, needs a lot of maintenance) or new house (boring, expensive to buy but efficient thereafter, surrounded by smug petty-bourgeoisie neighbors)? How much noise can we cope with? How far out in the boonies could we stand to live? How much space do we really need? How much housework and gardening do we have time to do?

We pondered moving to the in-laws' hometown for about fifteen minutes, but ack. Ignatz is on the verge of teenagerhood, and DrBob reports, from bitter experience, that said town is not a good place to be a teenager. Perhaps it has changed in 25 years, I say naively? Look at it, he says. Even now there is not a single coffee-shop. Downtown consists of a hardware store and a gas station. Oh, I say. Good point.

Munich. Expensive. We could probably afford a shoebox in a crappy school district, and there's the vicious circle thing I talked about before. Without the Oompas (in-laws) nearby, I could only work part-time, because I'd have to put more time into childcare. But we can only afford to live in Munich if I work full-time, which I can only do if we live closer to the Oompas.

Right, but it turns out there are lots of shades between The City and The Sticks. OurTown has a train station, swimming pool, and excellent schools. Therefore everyone wants to live here and it's kind of expensive. Here's something local in our price range.

A bit farther out, say Velden, and Ignatz would bus to our school anyway, and we could afford this:


Can I get a wow?

So expect a lot of dithering in the next few months. I'll understand if you check in less often. We're going out right now to look at two possibilities. Just from the outside. We didn't tell them we were coming.

Song du jour of the day: Talking Heads. This Must Be the Place. I'm just an animal, looking for a home...