I've often walked around slightly butt hurt about everyone around me doing so well with their life. I think the big part of my life being butt hurt was when I was living out of my car for a bit. Using the gas station bathrooms to clean up or sneaking into my parents house to sleep. (Not sure they even know about that. Maybe they do - either way, it was years ago!)

Many of the thoughts that crossed my mind was "How on earth can a single person just out of high school afford to even get an apartment?!!?!?! - Who the heck makes enough money to pay 1st and last months rent & Security deposit? How am I ever going to afford that? 

With my several years of trying to keep up on bills and rent, car payment etc I did a number on my credit trying to live alone. I didn't have the best paying job and I would get dejected quite a bit. Things looked up a bit when Don moved in.  I had another person helping with bills. 

I remember applying for a pre-approval letter when Don was on a work trip to Columbia. There was an add that popped up and I said "what the hell!" So I applied. 

All I have to say is "those poor lenders" that had to put up with me. Im certain I called them every other day "You are sure I've been approved?!?!?" followed by "I'm not going to find a house and then y'all end up turning around and saying 'too bad so sad'??". 

I couldn't believe I got approved. I told Don and then proceeded to go house hunting with my mom while he was out of the country.  We looked at some interesting places. 



The Pink and Blue House - Everything in this place was painted pink or baby blue. The entire 1st floor was pink. and the 2nd floor Blue. The whole place was set up strangely but it was an interesting walk through for sure!.





The Creepy Basement/Garage place. I don't remember a ton about this house, but I do remember this! Open the garage door to a dirt floor and these steps going down into a very short basement.  We looked at the house, but I was very much not interested. I've seen too many horror movies and this garage/basement fit too closely too them.  (We've already come to the conclusion that my imagination runs wild. There's no logic about it. I recognize this.  Just accept it with me, okay? )



Basement Bar  - Okay, so this one isnt really odd, but I did like the basement bar for nostalgia reasons. It reminded me of my Grandpa's basement (Which is now my uncles basement) and holidays and drinking (well the adults drinking - I was just a kid). I could remember the smell of the house and all the noise. Playing Cards (poker). It was fun! Why is it we need to grow up? I missing having 0 responsibilities!





The Runner up! - During our hunt I found 2 houses I was quite fond of. This one and then the one we bought.  with out him. This one had things I liked on the outside of the house. The layout of the house just wasn't ideal. Very sectioned off. But overall a great place. I had to wait until Don got back - but at least it was only a day or two. 



The Winner! This is the place we landed on. Sadly - when we put our offer in, it already had an accepted offer. I'm not sure why kind of hoping, praying, sacrifices, blood oaths or anything else we ended up doing, but the offer fell through and we swept in as quickly as possible!  In June of 2011 - this place became our new home.  In 2015 we sold it and moved from Wisconsin - to Arizona.