House Changes--Part 2

My husband and I are in the process of house hunting.

The Beginning

Getting the floors redone in the present house

Yesterday, I said that Ward and I are pretty good about making long term plans. Well, sort of. We are good at making them, but I am anxious about implementing them if they involve any big changes. It's the the known vs. the unknown thing. So if I can deal with what I am doing today, I'm afraid to venture into the unknown. What if it's worse? What if it doesn't work out? What if something happens that we didn't anticipate? Some people are invigorated by change and actually need it. That's not me. Predictability is the name of the game as far as I'm concerned.

So when the discussions about moving started a few years ago, I was hesitant. (Ward may have another word for it.) But I agreed in theory, so I cooperated.  We talked about what we wanted in a house. We pointed out the look of houses we liked as we drove by. So while I was nervous, it was so far so good in our action plan.

Then we started to put a timeline to the whole thing and the anxiety level shot up. Tied to the house change timeline was retirement for Ward (another story about whether the stress of the job is worth the money). We wanted to do this while there was a decent salary coming in. We called in a real estate agent to tell us what we should do to the house to get it ready to sell in a couple of years. That would give us plenty of time to work on what we needed. We carefully noted his suggestions and then set about getting caught up in everyday life and ignored the list.

As Ward was recovering from surgery, his suggestions that we call the agent back and start looking at houses became more frequent. I said not yet. I wasn't ready. He said there's not a commitment, let's just see what's out there. I said we haven't done anything on the list he gave us. We're not ready. He said, it's okay. I said we will waste the agent's time.  He said let's just look. And finally, I agreed because I knew I was balking for no good reason except I was anxious. And just three days later we were sitting around the dining room table looking at listings .

Stay tuned...