Are we ready to buy a house and settle down?

Since we are in a more stationary and family-centered part of the year, it's time to ask ourselves questions like, "Are we ready to buy a house and settle down?" It's been over six years since we sold the house that we designed and then had built to our specifications. After putting so much planning and love into that house, we were often asked how we could possibly leave it. People ask us all the time if we miss it. You'll have to read to the end of the blog to get the answer. 

We find that we don't take as many pictures or have as much to blog about when we're spending time with family. It's not that our families aren't photogenic, we just think that our daily lives visiting relatives aren't quite as news-worthy for a travel blog. One of our main stops during this time of the year is near Beaver, Oklahoma. This is where both of us were born and raised, and both our mothers still live just 15 miles apart. At 90 and 92, both of our mothers are still living at home, driving their cars, and taking care of all their daily chores. But they seem to enjoy a little company when a couple of wanderers take a break from their travels. They also really enjoy Mark's handyman skills.

At Mark's mother's house we spent a couple days installing a new floor in her utility room. That was a great improvement for her house.

At Denisa's mother's house we spent a couple days doing yard work. Mark trimmed the dead wood out of a 100-year-old lilac bush that had been planted by her grandmother. We think it will be much prettier when it blooms next spring. We also chopped through dead ivy, cut down overgrown plants, and removed an old tree stump. We pulled so many weeds that Denisa wore her fingerprints right off. She can no longer unlock her phone with her thumb print! We hauled off two pickup loads of brush, and changed her front porch view from this . . .

to this:

As a child, Denisa helped her Dad build this waterfall using rocks found on the farm. It has been overgrown with dead ivy vines for many years. No one can remember the last time we actually saw those rocks. Denisa's Mother is already enjoying her new view when she sits on her porch!

Mark also was there when Denisa's Mother had problems with her septic system. This project turned out to be more than he could fix on his own, but he took over finding the company that could. Then he was there to oversee the work when the sixty-year-old leach field lines from her septic tank had to be replaced. 

It was nice to spend time with our Mothers and complete some projects that they needed help with. But it's also an interesting reminder for us of the "joys" of home ownership. In the last six years since we sold our house, we haven't had any plumbing problems or needed to replace any floor coverings. Someone else is mowing our grass and we've enjoyed some of the most beautiful flowers of our lives without having to pull weeds. It looks like we're still not interested in settling down and buying a sticks-and-bricks house!