On stalking, or networking.

Well, we did it. We bought a house. Just when all of my friends and family had taken to tuning me out for complaining, justonemoretime, about the insane housing market here in Indy, we stumbled upon one.

Stumbled probably isn't the right term. Stalked my way into one is probably more in line.
You all shouldn't have expected anything less than that from me though, let's be real.

Oh, and I should also mention the term "house" is being thrown around haphazardly here, as the lovely plot we promised a chunk of change for was actually minimally resembling a home when we agreed to it.

Exhibit A:

In complete truthfulness, those photos were actually a week after the papers were signed. There was even less progress, and even more mess when we fell in love with her.

Let me hit the rewind button first...
To that fateful date night in late February where the topic got brought up, and the 'why the hell not' got thrown around....
That first condo that had 4 offers the day after we went and saw it...
That house well fell in love with in early March, that was sold the night before we submitted our offer....
That next house we fell in love with in late March that was a slap in the face (as explained here)...
Those 482 other houses we saw....
The condo we fell in love with that had 8 offers the first day...
That time I wanted to say forget it, and live in my house in the suburbs for forever because I was over the whole rat race and couldn't help but assume OBVIOUSLY we weren't meant to live downtown for a reason.

Then I woke up, left my pity party, and did what any other girl would do. Started tracking down the builders who were flipping houses in the areas we liked.

And once I found one with a history of houses we both loved, I may have employed Facebook Messenger to do a little woo'ing and sniffing around to see what their upcoming projects were.

The houses they were doing were massive, and we weren't planning on producing enough offspring to fill 4 bedrooms anytime soon, so I waited, and touched base, and waited, and probably touched base a few too many times.

Then one fateful Tuesday morning, as Memorial Day weekend was crawling towards us, I heard that delightful ping on my Facebook (because who doesn't keep all social media avenues open whilst working... I thought that was the whole point of 2 monitors to begin with?)

An update on their two gargantuan houses... and then... scrolling... scrolling... what is this? A new project they were about to begin... in the same neighborhood as the first house we loved... 3 bedrooms... 2.5 bathrooms... the hearts in my eyes mimicked that overused iPhone emoji like never before.

Maybe I was jumping the gun a bit, but when you house-hunt in this market, any glimmer of hope gets you giddy.

Less than a week later, we had walked through the house twice, had a million conversations with the builder, had some life chats over Moscow Mules, and signed the papers making the house ours.

Contingent, of course, on the fact that it... well, gets finished. And finished well.

Tate thinks there are still too many things that could go wrong, and worries about it on the regular.
Me on the other hand, I pop by the job site every few days, chat it up with the latino workers, take a million photos of the "process" and email incessantly with the builder about what they're up to each day.

Regardless of my right-brained'ness and Tater's left-brained'ness... I think it's safe to say we're both elated to see our fixer-upper!

On lemon pound cakes. Or house-hunting. Or being bitter.

Imagine walking into Starbucks, FINALLY, after you have been fighting a day-long sweet tooth, stood patiently in line, walked up to the counter only to be told that the person in front of you bought the last Iced Lemon Pound Cake they had.

Yes, I am equating this house-hunting process to Starbucks pastries. And no, I see no issues with that.

Then imagine you tuck in your pouty lip, and go find another Starbucks, and you see that lucious, zesty Iced Lemon Pound Cake just flirting with you from the case. She's a beaut. And you order it, and your giddy and your mouth is watering, and the barista tells you that she's going to cost you roughly 4x what she's worth. And you try to reassure them that all other Starbuck's only sell them for a fraction of the cost, but the barista isn't budging.

And you untuck your pouty lip, and hand the most perfect little pound cake back, and walk out the door.

And every other Starbucks sucks. And every other pound cake has sucked since then. And you are about to become paleo just so you can't even EAT a pound cake even if you found one.

I'm not bitter or anything. I'm totally cool with house-hunting. I don't take it personally, or get upset, or fall in love with any of the houses. Me? No. Nooo.

We're back to square one. For the third time. Blah blah blah, don't try feeding me the 'we'll stumble upon the most perfect one when we least expect it' line, my level of patience is on par with that of a toddler.


Also, I've really been craving a lemon pound cake.