MattOnFire

Okay. It’s over. Wifey and I are officially homeowners. It feels kinda good with the escrow and the insurance and the fixing the tile and the energy efficient appliances. I think I’m gonna get a pair of white Reeboks and some dad jeans soon. Time to make a kid or two. I’ll need help with the lawn. I also should get a wheelbarrow. Homeowners have those, right?

We’ll probably move in next weekend, weather permitting. We already had to postpone the big move due to SNOMG2 and SNOMG3. Valentines weekend looks like a good one, for now – unless Baby Jesus wants to punish us with another 8-12 inches of panic powder. For now, I’m carting over boxes in my little Saturn Ion. So far, I’ve taken roughly 38 trips, leaving our rental house empty of small useful items like the pizza-cutter, DVD remote and the wife’s Lady Bic. But the coffee table  and my collection of Oktoberfest beer steins are still here. And Wifey won’t let me unhook the surround sound until after next week’s LOST.

So this coming week will consist of packing my little car with candles and cookbooks and DVDs and high school yearbooks and transporting them to the new house, peppered with sporadic trips to Home Depot or Lowes for light bulbs or paint or electrical doo-dads or wheelbarrows. On Saturday, we move the big stuff no matter what – rain, snow, sleet or plague of locusts.

So we’ve been house hunting for the better part of a month now, and it’s starting to get frustrating. We found a great home in the exact location that we wanted, but at the tip-tip-top of our price range. We put in an offer for considerably less (really, we put in the offer at what the house should actually be worth, according to comparable homes in the area and all that real-estate jargon) and the sellers counter-offered with a price higher than their original asking price. WHAT? We went back and forth with negotiations for a week before we finally decided to back away and let this house go.

Now we’ve re-focused our search to include areas that are a bit farther from the city, where we can get more house for our money. Bang for our buck. Garage. Square footage. Fenced in yard. Easy access to pizza and Mexican restaurants. Living next door to people with “Palin 2012″ bumper stickers. Yikes.

Many of the houses we’ve seen in our price range are in our price range for a reason. They need a substantial amount of updating or have a little bit of damage. We’re fine with performing some updates, but renovations and foundation repair are definitely not in our budget. And I certainly am not the most handy of men. I’m a writer who sometimes crafts articles about kitchen renovations and vinyl siding, but put a hammer in my hand and I’ll use it to tenderize a steak.

In all, I think we’ve seen at least 30 houses. Maybe more. The good part about seeing so many is that you can eliminate most of them right off the bat, usually as soon as you walk in – or before you walk in. Steep driveway? Forget it. I’m outta here. Cemetery in the backyard? Keep driving. The noxious blast of cat pee ammonia hits you when you open the front door? Close that door and run away.

The bad thing about seeing so many houses, though, is that the decent ones all start to look the same. It’s hard to think back and remember which house had what deck or did the living room have crown moulding or what type of countertops were installed with hardwood floors or was that laminate and I think the bathroom had new fixtures and there was a really big closet and why doesn’t this kitchen have a range hood and did you see the backyard? It was pretty nice. I think. I can’t remember.

I’m confident we’ll find our new palace soon and will be able to take advantage of the recently-extended $8,000 tax credit. However, I’m afraid we’re comparing every home we see to the one that we really liked and put the offer on. Are we being too picky? Our agent says no – we’re being smart. I don’t want to buy a house just for the sake of buying one, but I am very aware that there are a lot of crappers in our low price range. So, it’s not a matter of SETTLING for a house, it’s more of a matter of getting the most for our money, and there’s a good chance that our money can only afford a house that needs some degree of work.

I’ve been reading fellow Richmonders YoungHouseLove. I’m watching way too much HGTV (have you seen Holmes on Homes? That show is pretty frackin’ cool. He’s one crafty Canadian). And I’m working extra hard, almost doubling the amount of freelance writing I do in order to earn the extra scratch we’ll need for homestuffs.

We’re going out again today to look at more houses. There are a couple homes on our short list that I really like, but Wifey has to like them, too. It’s tough to find one that we both equally love. One that we’re going into today is one that I’ve already seen on my own. I think the Wife is really going to like it. But it’s priced at the absolute top of our range, which makes both of us nervous. Stupid money.

“So, Matt, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m a writer.”

“A writer, eh? That’s… cool. Like books and stuff?”

“No. Blogs, mostly. Wokin’ on a book, though. When I have time.”

[crickets]

“Right on. You’re a blogger,” [snicker] “How’s that working out for ya?”

“Okay, I guess. I also write articles and stuff. Press releases, that sort of thing. What do you do?”

“I’m in the production and allocation field of promotional construction and I build technology with my bare hands and I yell at people and I go to work in the morning and come home at night like a normal person and work hard and wear steel-toed boots and am drastically underpaid and under appreciated but earn a semi-decent living and usually have to wear a tie unless it’s Casual Friday and brown nose the bosses and sometimes my wife packs me a lunch with double turkey meat and a little note that says she loves me and to pick up some milk on my way home and I have my own parking space that I have to pay $40 a month to keep even though the parking deck is owned by the company I work for and sometimes I get to take home pads of paper and once I stole some printer ink and in the winter time everyone wears a black coat because black coats look the best in a corporate environment and I almost got laid off last year because, you know, the damn economy, and I make sure the whole operation is running smoothly and I help to ensure quality control and oversee the direction of valuable workforce allocation memos and provide comprehensive analysis to the regional vice president of marketing and task-force management while providing top-notch customer service and maintain synergy with the departmental liaisons so I can provide my family with a roof over their heads and food on the table and maybe a Merry Christmas.”

[crickets]

“I work in my skivvies and drink hot cocoa all day long. I haven’t shaved in a week.”

“DUDE! I SOO WISH I COULD DO THAT! YOU’RE MY HERO!”

And that, dear readers, is why I am becoming more confident when people ask me what I do for a living. Because everyone wishes they could work sans-pants. Truth.

I’m spending the week in Western New York. Just me. No wife. No dog. No cat. Just me. At my parents’ house.

The reason for the trip is my buddy’s wedding. We already had the bachelor party on Saturday, which consisted of a bunch of men standing around a bonfire drinking beer and complaining about work. Then we merged our get together with the bachelorette party and all hell broke loose. Because you know how guys like to show off in front of girls – especially when there’s a-a-a-a-a-alcohol involved. Do know the most effective way to get a country lady’s attention? Recklessly ride a lawnmower around the yard while wearing a motorcycle helmet, which – in turn – becomes being chased by the lawnmower driven by someone else, until you throw up. Again. No strippers (what!?), but still one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a good long while. I swear – it’s way more redneck in Upstate NY than it is in Virginia.

I hate going out of town without the wife. Yeah, I miss her and all that nonsense, but the real pain in the ass is when she calls me to say there is a problem with our computer. I certainly can’t fix it from here. And I don’t trust my basic troubleshooting knowledge enough to give her instructions over the phone. Long story short – I think the hard drive in our 2 year old iMac is failing (already?!?!). I will cut a bitch if I lose all my work. And my music. And my pictures of cute little animals with funny misspelled phrases. And all my Yo Dawg memes.

I gave her the only instructions I felt confident enough to say: Shut it down and don’t touch it – don’t look at it – don’t even think about it – until I come home. Because that’s how we fix problems in my house.

Wifey: [Calling from the other room] Matt! There’s something wrong with the _____.
Me: [Relaxing my fat ass on the couch] Just press the _______ and make sure the ______ is _______. It should work fine.
Wifey: [2 minutes later] Can you come here, God Dammit! It’s broke!
Me: [Mumbling and grumbling incoherently as I pause How It's Made, get off the couch and stomp into whatever room she's in, press a button and stomp back to the couch and unpause my show].
Wifey: You’re so smart! Thanks, honey!

I’m trying to get some writing done while I’m at the ‘rents house, but it sort of feels like I’m doing homework. And Lord knows I didn’t do too much of that while I was in school. I watched a lot of Jerry Springer and ate deli meats. It just feels natural to do that now. Maybe I should hit up a coffee shop, but I forgot the laptop – which is a good thing because The Wife has to use it to make worksheets and pictures of letters or something that get Cheerios pasted onto it.

I may go down to the lake and walk around for a little while. I love the fall and it is in full swing here in the Buffalo region. Multicolored leaves changing and falling. Smells like rotten apples and burning cowpoop. Maybe I’ll put on my Class of ’96 letterman jacket, hang out in the school parking lot talkin’ ’bout how I used to be ‘king of this bitch’ and offer to buy beer & smokes for the high schoolers. They’ll think I’m still cool, right?

It’s good to be back home. Wish The Wife was with me. Gotta go. Springer is about to give his final thought and there’s a piece of salami calling my name.