Our happy home – is out there somewhere!

I came home Monday to yet ANOTHER notice on the entrance to our condo that the AC would be turned off for a day or more and the hot water would be turned off all day on Friday (starting at 8 rather than 9 this time) for work on the pipes. I’d been having a bad day already – well, sort of. I mean, nothing really happened. And maybe that was the bad part. I’d spent another relatively boring day at my job and was beginning to realize how mired down I’d become in the day to day without seeing much light at the end of the tunnel. I’ll soon be moving to part time (to have more time with the baby – yeah!) and my job will become even more clerical / less of a career. It was one of those days that will stymie the optimist in anyone and make you wonder about your career choice. So when I came home to find yet more work on the building making me feel like I’m in an overpriced tenement, I was really feeling like I was going to lose it – I mean what am I working so hard for? I can barely provide for my child! I forgot to mention I found ants in the kitchen the other day – so now we’ve got bugs, no AC in June and no hot water! Maybe this should all be upper case – BUGS, NO AC IN JUNE AND NO HOT WATER! Upper case because that’s really how rational I was feeling about the whole thing.

It doesn’t help that the real estate market has turned markedly down since I bought the place (yes, you all live on this planet too and know this), so we’ll get a lot less out than we put in (despite home improvements – some of which while I was 9 months pregnant no less!)). So, of course, I was feeling a bit trapped. Can we afford to move? What’s the market like? The last time I looked, it was still painful to buy (apparently only our place lost value. Oh, and yours. I know yours did too.). So I wallowed in my self pity for an evening, blamed karma and mused – was I possibly Hitler in a past life that I have inherited so much bad karma? (My husband was none too pleased with such musings as I have, OF COURSE, taking one thing and made it into everything. Somehow the notice about AC and water means that we’ll never be able to afford a house and therefore never have more children, but we couldn’t afford them anyway as our daughter is going to have to go to community college as it is – unless she continues on her current growth path and gets a volleyball scholarship!)

So yesterday I decided to check the listings and… I feel like I should have a drum roll here… It looks like the rest of the market may have fallen as far as we have! We may just be able to afford something! And, more than that, it’s conceivably possible that we’ll be able to get a little cash when we sell our place. Not a lot. Not as much as we’ve put in. But some! Enough to bolster our current meager savings into an actual down payment! We may not have to live in squalor (the squalor of a perfectly nice and reasonably sized two bedroom condo – although I swear we’ve had shady neighbors in the past!) and may actually make it out alive!

No, I don’t exaggerate. But now that you mention it, I wonder if there’s any chance I’m starting to get my period back despite breastfeeding… Or maybe you get the monthly hormonal swings even without the bleeding – if it’s possible, I think I might be the one to do it!