The Backstory

In 1994 I purchased my condominium. It was my first real estate, and it was pretty easy to take care of. New construction, new appliances, and anything from the drywall out was the responsibility of the association, not me. Anything that went wrong was someone else's responsibility. All I had to do was decorate. I painted, installed a new dining room light and added a dimmer switch (with some help). It was easy.

Sure, there were some issues: Like the day I realized that the carpet on the deck had become a very healthy hydroponic garden for cottonwood seeds. It was beautiful, if that's what you're going for, but I didn't really want 8 gagillion cottonwood trees growing on my deck. Lesson learned? Oh yeah. You've got to stay on top of things, even in the crappy weather, even in a condo. But I also realized that I wanted more. I wanted a yard, I wanted more garden than a few petunias and pansies, more than one tomato plant in a pot. I wanted to not share walls with other people, and to get that, I was willing to gain the additional responsibilities that come with owning a house.

In 2003 I bought my house. Built in 1957, owned by one family for that entire time; small, but well built, large yard, nice neighbors, quiet street. I knew it was mine when I walked in. It felt right, and I still feel 'home' every time I come home. But a 50 year old house is not really the same as a brand new condo. More chores, more things going wrong, no one to deal with those issues except me and very generous family and friends. My family and friends have saved me more than once with technical advice, strong backs, and lots of moral support.

We're a close family, talking often. We show our love not so much in the I love yous but in the lending and ear, what can I do help? have you remembered to do this or that? how's the car running? type of ways. And this past fall we suffered a great loss when my father passed away. He was our guru on many things, including being our go-to guy on all the house stuff. That's not the key to him, or to how much he'll be missed, but it is the key to this blog. Probably I should have named the blog "Dad."

In his absence, I went searching for some sort of check-list of what I needed to do before winter hit. Yes, I've lived here for 6 years, and sure, I remember some stuff, and sure, I could have been keeping track of what I'd done in the past, but I didn't. What I found when I went searching was not what I needed. I needed something more personal, something that included the mistakes and recoveries. Something that let me know that the mistakes are part of the plan, part of how we learn, part of what makes us strong.

So I decided to start this blog. Not alone, mind you. My dear friend (we'll call her Bumblebee for now, since I don't know if she really wants to reveal herself) will be co-writing. She's recently divorced, and suddenly a 'single gal' with a much bigger (as in times 2), much older (as in times 2) house. We are geographically separated, and have significantly different weather related issues. I think we'll have fun with the sameness of the chores, even though the timing and degree will be different.

We're not all about home maintenance, and we're definitely not all about getting it right the first time. Next fall Bumblebee will have a great winter-preparedness story for us, but I bet she won't have a repeat on that subject. Besides our work and our pets and our families and friends, we love the bargain, and the reclamation of the found treasure. We'll have stories about that too. Maybe we can, collectively, create the checklists, head off some disasters, mitigate others. Share with us your stories and together we can... keep our houses from falling down?

We're not writers by trade. So, to our writer friends, please be gentle. We'll have typos, and you'll cringe over sentence structure. We'll do our best, but our best won't be perfect!