The ship is sailing

"It's not far to never never land,
No reason to pretend,
And if the wind is right you can find the joy
Of innocence again.
The canvas can do miracles,
Just you wait and see."

-- Sailing, Christopher Cross



I woke up this morning, and my first thought was, "You are buying a house today."

And I am. See the details here.







I never saw myself in a ranch, but it seemed to be all that I was getting hits on in my price range. On Friday, Joanne took me around to see a bunch of houses I had picked out, and I have to say, I liked each and every one. Which is why I'm thankful my dad went along for the ride. Two of them, he pointed out, were literally falling off the hillside they had been planted on.

Never would have seen that coming. Until I woke up in the ravine.

The one I picked out to plop my money down onto is a little removed from my comfort zone, geographically. But the upsides are so many: a dead-end street, a big chunk of property, newly remodeled, and its functionality is perfect for me, with young kids and a couple of dogs.

Aimee asked, "So, the house spoke to you?" It's more like a marching band went parading over my giddy self!

So, today is the fourth most important day of my life. The other important days: Zoe's birth, Jacob's birth, and the day they hand me the keys to this sucker.



Joe and I exchanged a few pointed emails last week. It was quite eye-opening, some of what he said. It started out with "I love you... I don't want you to leave..." and launched into a laundry list of complaints about me, mostly how I complain so much and don't appreciate all he has given me (ha!!!), and ended with this little gem:

"If this is how act when you're on your best behavior -- you've said this place could never be home and you don't feel comfortable here -- how will it be when you have equity in a home and add two large dogs to the picture? I don't want to be marginalized in a home that chaotic and dirty."

Well then........

The insight I gleaned from that email snippet alone:

1. Joe thinks I'm a child.
2. He expects me to feel like his home is my home, despite the fact that he constantly refers to it as HIS home and has asked me to leave it multiple times. Not to mention, everything dear to me is packed up in boxes in my brother's basement, and has been for more than a year, because there is not a single scrap of living space here onto which I could unload it.
3. He expects me to be comfortable in an environment where my kids are crammed into one bedroom and have no yard, where my dogs aren't with me and I have forced the responsibility of caring for them onto others for more than a year.
4. He doesn't like dogs.
5. He assumes my dogs and children will run wild in another house and that I will allow us all to live in filth.
6. He has no intention of being pried from his beloved townhome.
7. He's an old fucking pussy coward.

So, instead of sharing as they happened all these things in his email, which included complaints about my expectations of him regarding my daughter and accusations that I bully him (YES, BULLY HIM), he saved it all up for an email he delivered just days before I planned to lawyer up.

Yep, got me a lawyer. And while I am the kind of person who absolutely HATES taking advantage of anyone, after Joe's email, I didn't feel too bad about it. I felt even better when the lawyer ran the numbers by me.

Now when Joe barks at my daughter or hoards my son, I don't feel so intimidated by him. I just tell myself, "In a couple of months, I'll be in my own house, doing my own thing, with my kids out of this mess. And your ass will be paying me upward of a thousand bucks a month."

Guess he'll have to break his Lenox habit. Poor old man.