Love bites.

I recently got half-eaten alive the other night by a surly spider. I woke up with one shoulder much larger and redder than the other which left me horrified and forced to wear nothing but sleeved shirts. Sleeved shirts during the summer in this neck of the woods is like wearing a bikini in Alaska during the winter. It sucks. And so I learned (once again) that living in the country requires you to buddy up with the skin-so-soft bug lotion. The bugs are literally everywhere! It's like nature is constantly in my face!

Yuck.

And then I was bitten by another bug the other day. The real estate bug. The inherent need to buy a house type of bug. I hadn't planned to revisit this idea again so soon, but I just couldn't help myself. I started looking again when I accidentally saw a decent sized house for sale for under $100,000. That's right. Multiple rooms. With a yard. In town. UNDER $100,000!

My city days were sweet. We're talking rent control sweet. The amount I paid each month for rent was unbelievable. Coveted. The apartment wasn't anything over-the-top special, but it was in the heart of the city, had running water, was in a safe neighborhood, and had the most easy-going landlord a girl could ask for. And in the seven years I lived there the rent went up a whole twenty five dollars. It was the very definition of an urban legend.

I can't say that I had plans to actually buy a house the first time around. I was thinking about it. And at one point I took those thoughts seriously. For almost a full 24 hours. But I never envisioned myself owning a house alone. I'm that girl. I've always had the same few thoughts circling my brain since I was five years old. I will get married, move into that house (you know, that house we just so happen to magically own when we say some vows?) and then we'll have kids. It's perfect, really. Although, I have yet to meet anyone that has actually played this exact scenario out. It's usually messier than this. More complicated. And so now I've resigned to the fact that life will probably never go as I planned. In fact, it may be the one thing I can consistently count on!

And I'm OK with this. In fact, I'm more than OK with this. I'm really looking forward to buying a house. To becoming a home owner. A home owner who could possibly end up paying less than six digits for prime real estate.

It's practically an urban legend.