Time for 7 Stories, Day 2!
Wasn’t Meg fabulous yesterday?
Well, I’ve got another amazing lady for you today, and her name is Kristen. She blogs over at A Kapple a Day, and I just adore this girl.
Today she has a wonderful story for us, and it even has a little lesson at the end.
Enjoy!
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Hey there Story of my Life readers! I'm feeling quite honored to be here guest posting for Miss Jenni while she is gallivanting all over South America. Story of my Life was one of the first blogs I discovered, and I've had a serious girl crush on Jenni ever since. I don't know about you, but I already can't wait to hear about her trip and see all the pretty photos. I'm only slightly jealous :)
Something for you to think about today: Good things come to those who wait.
I'm going to take you back a few years, to April 2008. My now husband had just been accepted into an internal medicine residency that would be moving him from Pennsylvania to the lovely state of Rhode Island, where he was born and raised. He was happy, to say the least. He had spent four long years of medical school away from his family and was ready to be back. At this point, he and I had been together for three years and engagement talks were on the horizon. The fact that I would be re-locating to Rhode Island with him was pretty much a given.
It was in April 2008 that we decided to begin our house hunting adventure. We figured we would be in Rhode Island for at least three years, if not longer, so why not put down some roots? Everyone told us it was the "perfect time to buy." So we searched. And searched.
Some problems we came across? What we thought we could afford, and what we could actually afford were two very different visions. And what we thought houses were worth, compared to the actual price tags could not have been much further off. I literally became immersed in the whole process, scheduling trips up to Rhode Island solely for house showings. Looking back now, it was crazy.
But you know what? As we looked at different styles of homes in different neighborhoods throughout the state, we narrowed down a list of wishes, pretty fast. There were some houses that we would pull up in front of and immediately know we didn't even want to go in. One house that we actually really liked? Was 700 square feet and the asking price was at the top of our range. Looking back now I can't imagine being crammed into that tiny little space! We probably put in about 15 offers, all of which were promptly rejected.
So we decided to wait.
We got engaged, moved to Rhode Island, and rented...all the while keeping an eye on the housing market. We attended an open house from time to time and never let our sights completely out of the hunt.
As wedding planning took the front reigns, and the economy started to crumble a bit, it was humorous to see how many people came back to our original offers and wanted to negotiate, months later. By that point, we were already looking ahead. I had blocked the rejections out of my mind and was no longer interested in those houses.
Fast forward to September 2010. We were newly wedded, I started my little blog, and we started seriously house hunting again. Everyone told us now was the "prefect time to buy." Well, we had heard that song before and were not getting our hopes up. This time around, however, we were armed with that list of wishes, and had narrowed down our search to a few choice neighborhoods in this little state.
All the waiting paid off.
In December, we looked at what was probably our 100th house, over the course of two and a half years and it was love at first sight.
We bought our first house, and you know what? The list of wishes was pretty much all checked off. I feel blessed and have to pinch myself daily that it's really ours. We are having a blast making it our home, good things come to those who wait.
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THANK YOU KRISTEN!
Now check out A Kapple a Day, peeps!
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