Fionalocks and the Three (Four, Five) Houses

The bad: Sunday house hunting was a TOTAL bust. In order of viewing:

• The Waconia house was meh, okay...originally built in 1900 and, while it was in good condition considering its age, the layout was weird and I couldn't really mentally arrange our stuff in it to my satisfaction. More importantly, though - Waconia is really. far. away. from civilization.  Like, even farther than we live now. We drove from the house to Ridgedale (where Levi's job is) and OMG. Longest drive ever. I don't think I could handle doing it once a month, much less everyday. And Levi really dislikes driving, anyway. It was also the most expensive, with the highest potential utilities. Bottom of the list.

• The Shakopee apartment. On the plus side, the area seemed nice - lots of conveniences, lots of stuff to do (Valley Fair season pass, anyone?), reasonable commutes for both of us. The people we passed in the hall were very friendly and, y'know, not creepy, so that was nice. Unfortunately, it was TINY.  I mean, I realize people raise families in apartments that size everyday, but going from a HOUSE to a space half that size (or less?) is a real shock.  Levi and I both agreed we'd go insane within weeks.  Also, what is with bedrooms these days?  9x9 is not a bedroom, it's barely a closet.  

•  The Lauderdale house. I was calling this the "east Minneapolis" house but technically I guess it's west St. Paul. We had a little over two hours to kill between Shakopee and this one, so we decided to just do a drive by and see what the neighborhood was like n stuff.  We discovered that the house was only  a couple miles away from the duplex Levi shared with some other guys for a while in college, AND that it was less than a mile from one of the greatest nerd stores in the area. Score! The house itself looked like it might have some potential..unfortunately again, the inside was a DUMP and the landlord clearly the Original Slumlord.  Shudder.  What I really wanted was to buy it for like $5, completely gut it and help it live up to its potential.  :( 

The good: After a LONG and stressful day of house hunting, I was pretty much certain we were screwed.  So...remember how I said I kind of pulled the $1000/month number out of my butt? Well, last night I sat down with my handy-dandy notebook (name that kid's show) and re-analyzed our expenses. I'll spare you the TMI details of our monthly expenditures, but the bottom line is that we should be able to easily swing a payment closer to $1200/month. YAY!  This is a much more workable number for where we ACTUALLY want to live.  So, back to the online drawing board this week, which is a drag, but at least it's a much more flexible board.