In the ultimate triumph of hope over experience, we are looking to buy another house.
Not just any house, but THE house - the one with the yard for the grandkids that are no more than abstract concepts at the moment. The one with the big, bright window for the desk where I'll write that book.
When I met Charlie, he owned his home for more than 20 years. It was a nice little place, but not quite ready for the addition of a wife, another daughter and a really bad puppy. Construction began on our dream home several months before we got married.
It had "happily ever after" in every oversized room. We picked everything from the brick color to the switchplates. You could put bedroom furniture in the pantry and master closet.
Everything about it was exactly what we wanted... except for the fact it was still in Houston when Charlie was offered a great job in Georgia.
We rented it to another family for two years, long enough to complete his employment contract and bring the girl's home to graduate from high school.
We had no idea I'd find an amazing job on a Georgia island - or that the girls would beg to stay in school there.
So we sold the Houston house.
The St. Simons rental house was a good temporary measure, but we wanted a home. So in 2000 -- four years and four houses since we met -- the Griggs found Tara-on-the-Marsh. So southern, so elegant... and so at the top of the local real estate cycle.
Thus by the time the girls were well into college and island job prospects evaporated for Charlie... we had inadvertantly descended into the lowest ring of housing hell.
The decision to move to Buffalo was clear. I found a job immediately. Charlie would follow as soon as the house was sold. It had already been on the market for almost a year, we discounted the price deeply, it couldn't be that much longer...
It was another year. A brutal, miserable, we're-never-going-to-buy-another-house-again year.
And here we are, twin Goldilocks experimenting through Buffalo city housing stock. The downtown loft - great space, no neighborhood, didn't work for dog.
The year two Elmwood Village Victorian rental feels so comfortable. If not for the street parking and creeeping realization that we want our own home again, it's so close to right.
So, here we go again.
Of course, the first house we were shown was perfect. We know this to be true by majority acclaim. Four contracts, including ours, came in the first weekend it was on the market. We made a second offer well above the asking price, but others came above us.
So weekends find us trudging through open houses mentally transposing our life into their space -- sometimes trying to force the fit in favor of stained glass windows and spindled staircases.
We've set a deadline for ourselves to find the right place or re-up the lease. Part of me wants to put off yet another move, but the urge to have our own space is huge.
We've done more than our share for Realtors, title attorneys, lenders and landlords over the last 11 years, it's time to settle.
Just like it was in Houston.
Just like it was in Georgia.
But this time we mean it.
At least I hope so.

Copyright 2007 Judi Griggs