Two and a half years ago Jacob and I began building our very first home. We selected a plot, chose a floor plan, coordinated tile with cabinetry, and signed a forest’s-worth of trees in paperwork. On December 3, 2009 we officially became home owners. And it was AWESOME. Avery was eight months old so I had been a stay-at-home mom for a little while and we’d been living solely on Jacob’s income. I had already cashed out my 401k which I had been accruing in the five years that I worked for my previous employer. We also received the $8,000 new homeowner’s housing tax credit from the federal government. Basically, they paid US to buy a house! How brilliant is that!? It was really what motivated us to buy a home at that time, too. The thought of home ownership with a cash bonus? GIMMMMMMMME!!!!!!!! We wanted to build our first home which cost more than finding a pre-existing home in an older neighborhood. Since new construction within a more established town is non-existent we drove out into the boondocks of DFW to find some land to call our own. Granted, our ‘land’ is about 1/10 of an acre but dammit, it’s ours! It took about twelve weeks for our house to go from a vacant patch of dirt and weeds to a fully-insulated, freshly sodded, bricked house. We knew that  financially  it was going to be tough, but this was our dream. Owning a home is what we all want, right? Our apartment was okay, but fuck that! We need a yard! I want to paint all the walls! I want to own my domicile! I am above living in an apartment!

At least, that’s what I thought. At the time I thought that raising a child in an apartment wasn’t ‘fair’ to the kid. Children need homes. As if my child gives a shit whether we’re paying rent or a mortgage. “Mommy, I want to play outside but not just anywhere, I want to run around in a small, fenced-in area attached to our home. Nowhere else will do.” Avery was crawling like a champ around our two-bedroom, two-bath, 900 square-foot apartment and she was happy.

If we had stayed in the apartment I would have been able to remain at home with Avery instead of having to eventually get a full-time job. Don’t get me wrong, my job is great – I love that I’m finally getting paid to write and I like my team – but nothing replaces that time with my daughter. Not only would we have more financial wiggle-room but we’d be living in a bigger city with access to everything. It takes us way too long to get to what I call ‘civilization.’ Our closest grocery store is seven looooooong minutes away and I have to take a FARM TO MARKET ROAD to get there. Not cool. There is open land to our east and to our south. And our west. Basically, we live in the sticks. Our subdivision looks like suburbia was drop-shipped right into the middle of fucking nowhere. My commute to work is over an hour each way and Jacob’s is almost an hour and a half in the evening (he goes to work at noon and comes back home during rush hour to complete his shift which ends at 11:30pm). We live about ten minutes from a major highway and for me that is just too far. I grew up in a house that was within five minutes of three major highways. Even the house Jacob grew up in was a short distance from the interstate and he still lived in the country.

All of my bitching is pointless at this point but what I really want is to get back to what’s important. Owning a home is great, sure, but I feel like we got swept in building our own home that we ended up forgetting about things like proximity to family, good schools, CIVILIAZTION. The school district that we reside in is mediocre and we can’t afford private school or Montessori.

We cannot sell our home until we have been living here for three years per the contract we signed when we got the tax credit. We will hit the three-year mark this December but there is no way we can sell our house in this economy. There are so many houses for sale in our subdivision so the market is full of homes just like ours. We went with a pricier builder so our three bedroom house is more expensive than some comparable homes in our neighborhood. The value on our house has supposedly dropped, too. Basically, we are fucked if we want to sell our house. The other option is to rent it out but I really really really don’t want to do that.

As long as both of us are working we can afford to stay in the house but once I finally get pregnant and have the second baby I’ll be quitting my job. We barely survived in the house with one income and there is no way we can go through it again. It caused both of us, especially Jacob, a lot of anxiety.

I know that our dream was to own a home but not at the risk of having panic attacks over money. Since I’m not pregnant yet we have time to save our money and pay off other debts in order to lighten the burden once we go down to just Jacob’s income. Still, I feel like I am ready to move on. Literally. I don’t want to buy another home in a better school district. I want to rent and as long as we can live comfortably I don’t even care if we go back to living in an apartment. A family of four can live in a two bedroom apartment, right?

I was inspired by Jenny’s New Year’s post about how she makes a yearly to-do list instead of a list of resolutions. A to-do list is a list of shit you’re going to have to get done because it’s necessary. Resolutions are dreams, maybe even long-shots; they are things you’d like to see happen but have no plan to make them happen.

GUESS WHAT! This is a to-do list. Let’s get down to business, shall we?

1. Purge our crap. If we don’t use it regularly or enjoy its beauty, it’s gone. Our house is filling up with crap and it’s filling up fast. Here is what I’ll be doing: Cleaning out closets, cabinets, the garage, my wardrobe, basically any place where junk seems to collect itself. Or rather, where I seem to be hiding it for when guests come over (Jacob’s home office is now a 10×10 ft closet. Sorry, babe). I will be making a checklist of the areas that need my attention and a timetable in which to accomplish the tasks.

2. Eat more clean foods. This might be hard to put into measurable terms but so far, I have cleaned out our refrigerator and pantry. I got rid of all of our processed foods last week except for the candy we received at Christmas–this was a mistake since I have been eating the damn candy. I should have thrown it away or given it to someone who doesn’t live in my house. Lesson learned. As long as I stock my fridge with healthful, whole foods then that’s exactly what we’ll have to eat. You can’t eat crap if you don’t buy crap, right? I made a menu plan and shopped for the next week so we are ready to roll. We are going to attempt to eat less gluten, dairy, and sugar. I’m hoping to get my family back to being vegan but I’m not going to push it.

3. Complete Couch to 5k again and run a 5k in March or April. And Ease into 10k once I finish the 5k program. I used to run and I really enjoyed it. That’s a lie–I didn’t like running but I loved how I felt afterward. The C25k program takes nine weeks so I will be completed by February 28 unless I don’t know how to do math. The 10k program is also nine weeks so whatever nine weeks is starting March 1st, that’s when I’ll be done with it. I know that it might be a challenge to find time but I can load the kids up in the stroller or take them to our subdivision’s gym–there is a kid’s area with a window so you can watch them while you work out.

4. Spend more quality time with Avery. I had planned on creating this preschool curriculum for her but then I bailed on it because I don’t have time for that shit. I am going to buy a preschool workbook and Peanut and I are going to spend one hour per day working out of the book. The one she used at her daycare had activities in it and coloring and fun stuff in addition to tracing, matching, etc. My kiddo is pretty smart and I’m not trying to push her too hard but I want to make sure she’s ready for kindergarten. We cannot afford to send her to preschool and the state of Texas doesn’t have free preschool unless the child meets a developmental or income requirement. I’m glad that the program is there for those who need it but I wish Avery could attend preschool too. She loves learning and socializing with other kids; I knew that once I started staying home with her I’d be removing her from something she enjoys. I feel bad about it but we can’t afford it. She goes to a babysitter every now and again but it isn’t the same. As I write this I’m having a bit of reverse mom guilt but whatever. She loves spending time with me at home and I don’t need to feel bad about that.