As I stood in front of my new home I thought, What! You own a home, shut the front door! A home, where you collect things that you
love, things authentic to you, as you let your home become your story! There is something permanent, and very
profound in being a home owner. "I wonder if it will
be—can be—any more beautiful than this,” I thought, as I gazed upon my new home
with enraptured eyes. Saying to myself, “Self,
this must be the loveliest spot in the world, and it’s all mine!”
Ahhh… Home, sweet home……now we get to actually enter and
explore our new home, empty ,so we can imagine where we will put “our” things. We couldn’t believe how fast things moved once we put in our
bid. The escrow closed in two
weeks, and we were the proud homeowners of our “Forever Home,” as BFF hubby and I called it. We are
never, ever moving again!!!
BFF hubby and I were excited as we drove to our new home. With our keys we would now open the magical
front door, entering the first chapter of our new life…..but wait, what’s that
you say?? What do you mean the key won’t
open the lock? Let me try it, as you
must be doing it wrong! “Stay calm,” I
said, “we’ll simply call the realtor.”
We called her and advised her she must have given us the wrong keys, as
the front door won’t open. She
apologized profusely, saying, “I’ll be right there. “
While we were waiting for the realtor my mind started to wander, and I began hearing all these stories fluttering around in my head, the awful things people had told me they discovered about their new homes! I always take pride in keeping an open mind, but the trouble with an open mind is people insist on trying to put things in it. <Grin>.
“OK, self,” I said,
“hang in there.” Less than 20 minutes
pass, yahoo, the realtor arrives. Say what? Her keys don’t work either! Its OK, yeah right, let the stress level
begin! So Sandy the realtor’s keys
didn’t work either, but “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m calling the previous
owner.” Oh, this is so not good…. breathe, just
breathe, I told myself.
The previous owner provided us with the password to the
garage door. Phew, just a little set
back not to worry, at this point I am staying optimistic. But here is where my mind really was and what
my definition of an optimist was as I contemplated what lay behind the door; so
I’m falling off the top of the empire state building (are you with me so far),
and after fifty floors I say, “So far so good!”
We enter the home through the garage door, what is that smell? I know that nothing is more memorable than a smell; one scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet can conjure up a childhood memory of a summer beside a lake, ocean or mountains. But this smell, argh not so much! It smelt like a funeral parlor, a myriad of different floral scents. What is that smell???
Upon further investigation of our home we began to find numerous Air Wick
scented oil containers.
She had them in all the cupboards, shelves, closets and some had the
liquid spilling out of the bottle into the cabinets. After we had gathered all of them, this woman
had no less than 38 scented oil containers scattered throughout the house. That
was not all, ugh, upon inspection of the bathrooms, someone had turned off the
water to the toilet, oh yes, it gets worse, they had gone number two in it and
left it, what a pleasant house warming gift!
But ever optimistic we continued the exploration of our new
home to see what else we might uncover, as a nagging thought crept into my
mind, OMG, where did my beautiful home go?
I remember the house we bought was
beautifully decorated, and everything looked perfect! Focus on that I said, remember it appealed to
you because of the area, size of the house. But my pessimist side quickly engaged as it
was evident we had been looking at it with rose covered glasses. It looks like our glasses were pretty dirty,
or perhaps it was the wine we had at lunch. <Grin> BFF Hubby said, “focus
on the bones of the house, the rest is cosmetic. “
No matter how hard I tried all I could see were the flaws in the house, which
equaled dollar signs, as the carpets were horrible, every wall was painted
another color, and what the heck, were those really mirrored wardrobe closets,
how had I missed that? I had a tough
talk with myself, stop being negative and expecting excellence. So I chose to ignore the pessimist in my head
and listen to the optimist, telling myself nothing is perfect, everything has
flaws, you just have to look past those flaws and see the opportunity to make
this house the way you want it. You will
note it has now become a house again. <Grin>.
Stay with me as we continue the exploration of the house and begin the journey of home renovations, etc……I thank you again for taking this retirement journey with me, or "my longest coffee break." I'm just sayin’
