Should the gods above elect not to jinx me after officially putting this sentence in black ink, by the end of the month the roommate and I will be living in an honest-to-goodness house rather than an apartment. We will be home owners.

Without going into all of the gory details – I’ll save those for a later Comment – you residents of the Garden Village will have new neighbors as a sale is pending on a three bedroom home on a quiet residential street.

We will have our own driveway!

Our own yard!

Our own mortgage payment!

Gulp.

Um, yay?!

Papers have been signed, details have been ironed out, and a closing date has been selected. All we need now is a John Hancock on a contract and keys and then, honey, I’m home!

While I’m excited, and scared, and overwhelmed, I can’t, as is true to my nature, be too excited until we’re actually there, at the house, getting our hands dirty with paint and the little fixer-upper jobs that need to be done.

Right now it doesn’t seem completely real.

It feels more like that moment right before sleep is over, when you know you are about to wake up but nothing is really tangible, reality hasn’t solidified and you can’t reach out and touch it just yet, as the dream hasn’t fully passed.

Am I dreaming? I don’t think so, because my shins are black and blue from walking into one too many boxes in my current living quarters.

Last time, oh faithful Dispatch readers, that you and I touched upon my living situation I told you that the roommate and I were moving out of our apartment in Wyoming.

And, well, as luck would have it, we did move out, just not in time to move directly into our newly purchased home.

For reasons of which were out of our control and that I don’t necessarily want to rehash, we had to find a temporary apartment to move into while everything was being settled with the bank, realtors, and current owners of the house.

So, the roomy and I are currently settled, so to speak, at a half way point.

We are living in a new apartment and out of boxes as we are both too lazy to pack and unpack, only to have to repack and unpack yet again before we finally land at our point of destination – the house.

Confused yet? Join the club.

This past month has been nothing if not a waste of time and money and horribly jarring. I don’t know where anything is! Trying to make a meal while most of your kitchen supplies are in boxes is like participating in a cruel, never-ending Easter egg hunt.

Finding a purse rather than a ladle is not helpful when attempting to stir dinner.

And for the love of all that is holy! If I thought that my OCD was bad due to stray hairs on hardwood floors and a misplaced shirt here and there, I knew NOTHING until I had to play a game of leap frog over packing boxes every time I wanted to get from point A to point B in the apartment.

PLEASE! PLEASE! Make the clutter GO AWAY!

Let’s not even get me started on the location of our new apartment.

Granted, we are no longer living right on Wyoming Avenue – thank goodness because, I swear, I was going to have an aneurysm if I had to endure one more motorcycle revving its engine outside of my front window while waiting for the traffic light to turn green – but the proximity of the trees, woods, and dreaded pollen is going to be the death of me.

As soon as I get out of my car I’m sneezing like a lunatic, dodging bird droppings, and fearing for my life from what some may call a “garden snake.” More like ANACONDA.

Just another week or two.

That’s my mantra.

Just another week or two and all of this will be a minor blip on the radar of my life.

In the meantime, in order to keep some form of sanity, the roommate and I have been looking at paint samples to see what sorts of colors we would like to brighten our home with as white walls are not an option.

I want to walk in the door and feel warm and at ease rather than like I’m walking through a stark museum.

Seriously though, who came up with all the different shades of green?

Can we cut the options down by half maybe? It seems a bit excessive.

I’ve also been browsing at new furniture for certain rooms, accent pieces, new bedding, etc. For this part of the house, I’m excited.

Paying a mortgage and taxes, not so much, but buying a pretty new cabinet to store DVDs, now we’re talking!

Decorating sounds like way more fun than mowing the newly acquired lawn.

I know, I know, those things could and should wait. We’re going to need to concentrate on other, more important things with the house first.

But a girl can dream, right?

In the meantime, I have no choice but to keep my eyes wide open, no dreaming allowed, as safety is currently a concern.

I have to leap on over to the kitchen and hunt me up some cookies to ease up these sale pending jitters.

About the Author

Haley Taffera covers for the Times Leader. Reach her at or .

Archives

Barnes & Noble

Saying goodbye to Pittston

Expensive Eighteen

Pretty, witty, and gay

Second period

Like second skin

About me

On moving

Sale pending

By land or by sea for me