The Perfect House

Now that the dog thing has been settled, I am on the brink of my next obsession - a house. Fortunately, this is not something I can act on quickly. Given that we have no savings to speak of, owe a ton-and-a-half in school debt, and had to borrow money just to pay Kenny for our Subaru repairs - we are not exactly the ideal potential buyers.

When I was a teenager, I had made a list of all the qualities I wanted in a future husband. Funny, Smart. Polite to my parents. Likes children. Perfect teeth. And so on. Alex is both everything and nothing I had dreamed of. Case in point: at one stage I decided that my future-baby-daddy needed to "love Christ more than me." Needless to say, that has long since been a priority of mine.

So I'd like to approach this house thing a lot like I approached men at the tender age of 16 - optimistic, overzealous ... totally naive.

As of July 26, 2011, these are the qualities I am looking for in a house:

- Location, location, location. I want to be able to walk and/or bike to a grocery store, library, bank, park, school, and public transit

- Tree-lined sidewalks

- Front and back/side porches

- A mother-in-law unit, or the capability to build one with a garage or in a finished basement

- Enough room to accommodate two children, an office/hobby area for me, and a garage/"man cave" for Alex

- A yard, so that when the house is too small, the kids have to go outside to play

- Gas appliances

- A fireplace

- Big, open windows

- South facing windows; lots of natural sunlight

- An open kitchen design

- No stairs up to the house entrance