Ten days ago the escrow on our new home closed. Well, it’s not new, per say… but to us it seems so. We’ve spent a frantic yet satisfying week moving in and organizing everything to optimum efficiency, and we hope it stays that way. My husband is in the construction industry and saw the housing downturn coming quite a ways back; he said the way houses were being over-inflated there was no way it could last. So, we put our home-buying plans on hold and rented for seven years… waiting for the market to come back down to a reasonable range.

Many of our relatives said we were insane to rent that long. “A house is an asset!” said they. “You’re just pouring your money down the drain!” It did seem they were right for awhile, especially when many of our cousins bought homes. The half-plex we rented looked awfully small with its pocket-handkerchief-sized garden and corner location. However, it was all worth the wait. The house we bought, just four years ago, sold for $200,000 more than we paid for it… so perhaps we were not so ‘crazy’ after all. Our new mortgage payment is now $150 less per month than we were paying for rent, and the garden… it’s simply enormous. The children are free to run and play without my having to worry about their safety.

As I walk around the home putting things away, the very air seems surreal. Keeping busy seems to help bring closer reality, combining bliss with blisters. Just completed is the pleasantly arduous task of planting the vegetable garden: Brandywine tomatoes, snow peas, basil, onions, garlic, loose-leaf lettuces, spinach, radishes, carrots, cantaloupes and butternut squash. Once matured, they should help out on the grocery bill for our family of six. The only downside to our haven seems to be the increased amount of cleaning time required, seriously cutting into writing time (indeed I have been falling into bed exhausted, able to merely scribble a few lines on a notepad by my bed) but this somehow does not dampen the overall bonhomie.

The culmination of all the work (unpacking, digging, planting, sweeping, painting, vacuuming, organizing, pruning and family meetings) seems to be a very thorough confirmation of Longfellow’s assertion from auld times past:

“All things come round to him who will but wait.”

May your waiting be invariably worth the blisters and blessed with fruit.

MG