Worry

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As a young person I was unconsciously self-conscious, in denial that I cared about what people thought of my stuff and me. I worried so much about my hair. It was either utterly gorgeous or horribly frizzy and I was obsessed with which it was going to be on any given day. I feared that my cooking, although I knew it was good, wasn’t quite brilliant enough. I worried about my beautiful area rugs being perfectly straight without any rug pad showing.

Over the years, I’ve worried about hot water heaters, air conditioners, automatic awnings, stoves that stopped working, stains on carpets, Pebble Tec spontaneously falling off the walls of a pool, those damn pool vacs that go around the pool supposedly cleaning it that break constantly, mold in showers, strange noises in the house, etc. And then next thing I know, I don’t even own that house anymore. Don’t get me wrong, I fix stuff in my houses but it’s so weird to sit here and think of all the stuff I worried so bad about for weeks on end about a house I owned 5 houses ago!

My sibling, Orlando has on the signature of email this quote:

”Could things get any worse? Why yes, little one, be patient”. – Morrissey

Well, some things have gotten worse. I guess maybe it comes with time and stuff you have to deal with as you age like surgeries and illnesses. In general we are hanging in there but the stuff I worry about now is in a very different category than anything I mentioned above. In fact, I blow off the stuff above, it’s relatively meaningless. (And, in Dallas, it’s so humid so much of the time that if our hair is curly, it’s frizzy as hell and if it’s straight, it’s flat, so we use hairpieces! Big business here! Ha!)

I just found out today that my Jenn-Air range cannot be repaired because it’s 12 years old and they don’t make the parts anymore. And, there are two of them side by side that must match or it would look ridiculous in a house like mine. They are very expensive. My attitude is “Bummer, but it’s not cancer.”

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Obscene Sizes!

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We bought our house in Texas in one weekend when real estate inventory was limited. Steve’s promotion had been finalized and he was already commuting from Scottsdale to Dallas and our house in Scottsdale was in escrow so we needed to buy a house and buy it fast. I know what you are thinking, you should have rented first until you knew what was what! Yeah, but there were size-able financial motivations that made buying the smart thing to do.

Two weeks before I flew to Dallas to house hunt with Steve and our realtor, she sent me everything that was available in the area that would make sense for us. Over email, I immediately nixed anything over 5000 sq. ft. I mean, c’mon, it’s just two people and two golden retrievers! People aren’t joking when they say everything in Texas is huge. Everything is. Especially houses. So once I nixed, our fifteen choices fell to about five, maybe six. The house we chose is a 4800 sq. ft. house with 4 bedrooms, a huge media room, an office and 6 bathrooms. Six bathrooms?? It just doesn’t make sense. I do not GET Dallas.

Even in a city you know well there will always be unknowns when you buy a house. You have no way of knowing how noisy the neighbors are or if you will hear sirens at night. You will not know if there is a dog nearby who howls and barks at various times during the week. If you are looking at houses on weekends you have no way of knowing how much traffic is on your street or nearby streets and whether you will hear it on weekdays.

I think of the people who bought my gorgeous Scottsdale house right on the edge of the desert who would have no idea of the tremendous problem with bees gathering water from the pool when it’s hot to cool down their hives. (And, it’s hot A LOT in Scottsdale!) You cannot find a hive to destroy when there are 10 acres of desert in your backyard and you cannot go into your pool when there are swarms of African bees there. We said “yes” about “critters” in the seller’s disclosure but it didn’t ask for specifics.

Now, when you don’t know a city at all, especially when you are in a rush to buy, there are things you simply don’t even think of. It never occurred to me when we were looking at this house that my only access to my garage was a gross, sloppy alley. (See one of my first ever posts “These Darn Alleys”) We bought a new build and many new builds have front access to the garages but our lot wasn’t big enough for the builder to do that and I didn’t even notice.

We also had no idea that we would be living in a constant construction zone since older houses sell, builders snap them up, demolish them and build new. (We live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in Dallas…constant construction is just what it is to live here and everyone except me is used to it and lives peacefully with it!!)  We didn’t know Dallas is gloomy a lot and we chose a house, which is NOT the lightest, brightest house. I wake up every morning and turn on every, single light in the house, which annoyed my friend Richard to no end when he was here. He kept turning them off and I kept turning them back on. I told him it was cheaper than therapy.

Finally, how could we have known about an utterly obnoxious and decrepit 45-year old ice cream truck that roams the neighborhood playing eerie, distorted melodies every afternoon and gives me the total creeps.

Anyway, we got a smokin’ hot deal on this house probably because it is not light and bright and the market was slow when we bought. We’ve put it up for sale and we’ll make money on it.  Today, we made an offer on a house way farther North that backs to a golf course and has amazing, peaceful views. I am so excited!!