I love to tease myself!

Oh thank goodness Blogger is back to normal. I've had quite a time sitting on my hands, waiting to blog this last week while the author tools were down!

So this last week, Sarah and I have gone back to our naughty ways. No, not like that... we've gotten back into the habit of looking at houses again. Let me explain why this is a bad thing.

About four years ago, I finally decided to do something about moving out of this house and into one that I would enjoy, in the country. Of course, this has been something I've wanted to do for much longer than that, but after a bad divorce seven years ago, and some devastated credit, I knew it would be a long time before I could attain my dreams. But four years ago I put my foot down and started the process of rebuilding my credit.

Fast forward to last year, and the process was avalanching forward nicely. I was completely rebuilding this old house, getting it ready to sell, and we were jumping the gun a bit by looking for a country house my fiancee and I would like to one day call our own.

This can be a good thing, as it inspired me to rebuild my current home, but seeing those potential new houses killed me. I would literally find the "perfect" house every few months, only to see them sold away every time.

At the end of last summer, we finally had our house looking like a million bucks (although, not listing it for that) and we put it up on the market. Completely renovated kitchen, new appliances, new flooring, refinished wood floors, new roof, all new windows and doors -- it was a busy summer.

But the house sat with no buyers for six months. Just about every person who came by to look at it said they didn't like the neighborhood. We figured someone might overlook the two condemned properties and the other two on the block with "for sale" signs, but they didn't. We don't mind it so much, because the neighborhood is nice and quiet, but I can see how it'd be a bit of a deterrent for potential buyers.

So when our six-month realty contract was up, we decided not to renew, and instead started looking into renting the house out. I'd considered being a landlord before, but figured we'd try to sell first. This is where we stand now. We had planned to start looking at houses again at the end of June, after our wedding and honeymoon, but now something else has come along to postpone the process a bit.

During last month's tornadoes, a giant oak tree in our backyard fell and completely crushed our neighbor's house. Luckily, the house was vacant (one of the condemned ones), so no one was hurt. Unluckily, the house is city property, so I need to wait for them to clean up their side before I can begin cutting up the trunk in my yard.

Anyone who's ever dealt with any city government can imagine that this won't be a quick process. I've called a few times, and each time they say they don't have any idea when they'll be able to start cutting the tree up and cleaning up the house next door. I'm guessing close to a year, but there's no way I'm staying in this house another year.

So, our moving plans have been put on hold once again. I'm usually a pretty patient person, and I believe that God has a plan for everything that happens, but this is just taking too long. I've been know to have impatient streaks, and this is one of them.

Like last week, when we were looking at houses again. There's one in particular that was for sale last year, and it needed a LOT of work. But it was bank-owned, so the price went down every two months, until it was at a ridiculously low price just 2 weeks ago. I mean, it was so cheap we could have almost paid for half of it with our savings. We were excited about the possibilities, trying to work out buying it now, fixing it up while we wait for the tree damage to be cleaned up, and willing to take out chances if it took another year, just because the mortgage would be so insanely low.

Heck, I was even planning out what I would do with the yard, where I would build the goat house, chicken coop, etc. Big mistake.

I know, I know... my parents DID warn me about getting my hopes up, but I couldn't help it. So as you can probably guess, the house just sold last week. After probably nine months on the market. But like I said, I understand that it's just God's will, and whatever house we're meant to have, we'll have. Eventually.

But in the meantime, I'm going to continue to be a glutton for punishment with these online house and farm listings.