Life's adventures and pleasures

Posted Thursday, June 11, 2009, at 9:30 PM

My fiancé and I just bought a house. We have been spending the last week and a half painting and moving all on top of planning for our wedding in two and a half weeks.

The whole process of buying a home was very stressful for us. We dealt with a seller who wanted to sell and an agent who wanted more money (not our agent). On top of that we dealt with a mortgage lender who was very unaccommodating, whose office was in Branson, and would not answer her phone when we called.

I fully expected the original closing date to change because that seems like common practice now-a-days; however I was not expecting the closing to get moved from May 15 to May 20, then May 22, the May 27, then May 29, then finally June 1.

Thankfully, we had a landlord who understood our situation because our contract was up on June 1.

Long story short, we finally got the house and it feels great. We have painted the master bedroom, master bathroom, and the additional bathroom. We will paint the other two bedrooms later, after the wedding.

I have always gotten a certain amount of joy out of working in the yard -- not the garden, the yard. I love mowing the grass, weed-eating, and making sure my sidewalks are clean and edged (and the curb too, everyone always forgets about the curb). It was this child-like enjoyment from lawn care that put a smile on my face when I went to go mow my very own lawn with my very own lawnmower (with a horrible sunburn from Good Ol' Days).

It make me proud to know that my fiancé and I have something that we can finally call ours. In fact, we were so excited about our house that we hosted a cook-out for our families before we were fully unpacked.

As stressful as our situation was with the process of buying a house, on top of our wedding drawing closer and closer. I wouldn't change it ... I wouldn't do it again either. The process has helped me learn more about myself and our relationship and how we manage a crisis together. I am confident that we have a strong foundation on which to tackle any crisis, however big or small, that comes our way.