Ladies and gents…we bought a house today.

The story goes like this…

One morning, frustrated by the stagnant real estate market and the dwindling pool of homes from which to choose—each one containing one fatal flaw that would make it ridiculous to buy—I did a search for something…anything new. I found the listing, on a total fluke, after it’d been on the market for approximately four hours. And this one…this one looked promising. I saw the listing, sent it to Jonny and our agent, and by that afternoon we were in to see it.

I drove up and was in love. We walked in and within minutes looked at each other and mouthed “ooooh myyyy gooood.” Jonny pulled me aside at one point and was like, “this is our house!!” He then told me to play it cool. Which was hard. How do you play it cool when you’re already planning where your furniture will go?

Needless to say, after a fairly quick negotiation, we got it. The owner, who was there when we saw it, told her agent that we were just the family she wanted to sell her home to. Say it with me now…aaaaaaaaaawwwwwww.

Georgia, meanwhile, was truly the happiest in that house of any that we saw (and we saw a LOT of houses). Seriously. There were a bunch of houses she cried incessantly in. A bunch where she was just kind of whatever. This house, she was smiling and laughing. No joke. We all knew. It was our home.

So I’m all excited and overwhelmed planning everything. I’m currently trying to choose paint colors. I know I should do all neutrals, but I would like some color. But I’m gunshy—we all know what happened the last time I went with color. I hated it and repainted within a year. I don’t want the same thing to happen here. So here I’ve been, at the computer, looking through design websites. Jonny sleuthily took a picture of me doing so:

Biting my lip. Searching hardcore. Yup, that’s me. (man that’s a high bun!)

So now, the interesting thing is, all this time I’ve been afraid of the suburbs. I didn’t want to be too “suburban”. I wanted some element of city. OR I wanted to be in the all-out country. I’ve always said that. I’d pack up and move to some small town somewhere and be happy. Well, instead of doing that, we chose a suburb that has about 5000 people, is super woodsy and country like, and has an elementary school that’s still called a “primary” school with 15 or so kids to a class. So now I gotta live like I said I was gonna live. Quiet, small town life. Granted, this small town is surrounded by the bustling cities of the north shore of Chicago and feeds into one of the biggest high schools in the country, so I can get some bustle if I need it. Best of both worlds, perhaps? We’ll see.

Anyway…we’re tremendously excited and are moving two weeks from today. The day after my birthday. Happy birthday to me!

Our house is a very very very fine house.

A very fine house indeed.