One step closer to owning the house with the dirt piles in the yard

We're one step closer to moving into the First Home. After work tonight, we did the walk-through with our realtor.

Did I tell you our yard is torn up due to some water line problem? Did I tell you how happy I am that the water line problem happened before we moved in? And did I further tell you that there are piles of dirt sitting in my yard? Well, their yard, until tomorrow, if all goes well. After noon tomorrow, it should be my yard, my piles of dirt.

I went through, mentally picking out colors of paint (thanks to a few people we work with, the Been Theres, Dave's backed off a bit from the "I WANT TO PICK COLORS! ART CLASS ROCKS" stance. Hence, the yellow's going to be gone, replaced with less permanent in-your-face happiness. I'm sure it'll be something we both like. I'm not talking pink here, guys. But, again, I refuse to stand for chipperness at 7 a.m. I refuse).

I thought about nail holes, shampooing carpet, intensive cleaning (it's not that dirty, though, thank God. They took good care of the house), and where our stuff is going to go. I thought about how we'll be putting our belongings just where we like them ... And then getting new stuff in 30 days (30.125 days) and getting to pass the old belongings to my college-bound brother, thus rearranging everything again.

And, like a sick, sick person, I thought about where the Christmas trees would go. All six of them. Because if not for the wedding, the puppy and Dave, what else do I have to live for? Christmas, my friends.

I thought about parties we could have (not keg parties; I mean like "hey, let's watch scary movies and eat cheese and drink wine" parties), the sitting out on the deck, the bug zapper I registered for (AWESOME), the changing the landscaping next summer, the photos on the wall, the decorations sitting out. The clothes hanging in the big closets. The furniture we have to get ...

Then I thought about our lender, and how I wanted to scream at him. And then the stress came back again. I just have a feeling something else is going to go wrong before I can hang the photo of Mr. Big and I; before I get the chance to paint my yellow bathroom a calming shade of "It's OK, 7 a.m. won't last forever" green.

All of this is making me extremely empathetic to the moving humankind.

From now on, every time I hear that someone is moving, or thinking about moving, or packing or closing on a house or signing anything or getting on or off the phone with their lender, I will hug them. Stranger or not. No matter how many times you hear people say "It's a big headache" when talking about buying a house, you tend to think "Well, I'm sure it's a lot of paperwork, but it can't be that bad."

Yes it can. They do not mean "It's a hassle." They mean "Well, I suppose if you were to push me over the bridge or force me to talk to my lender one more time on the phone, I'd pick the lender. But, wait -- How high of a bridge are we talking?"

(Photo: A real statue thing in Ohio that I took a photo of from the car on I-75. It's how we will feel tomorrow if there really isn't another problem and we get the keys; it's kind of like "AOOOHHHHHHHH!!!," that glorious angelic sound. And light beams will shoot from our fingertips.)