![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On Dithering
Feb. 10th, 2007 11:45 amAs many of you know, after 2+ years of being in a long-distance relationship with Jim, I moved to Peterborough a few months back so that we could live in the same city. He has three kids, while I have none, so I was the more mobile of the pair.
Not surprisingly, Jim owns a house. It’s cute, but small—it’s really a two-bedroom house that he strong-armed into being a three-bedroom house by making the main-floor den his bedroom. It accommodates his bed and a dresser, but not much else. Other than the bathroom, it’s the smallest room in the house, so there’s no way of squishing me and my stuff in there.
As for me, I’m living in an apartment at the moment—my thought was that I’d get to know the city a little bit and decide if I wanted to cohabitate with Jim and kidlets before buying something myself. We’ve looked at a wide variety of houses—wee houses that’d be just for me and much larger ones that would accommodate three children, one relatively normal adult, and one, well, slightly less normal one.
I’m 43. I’ve lived alone for most of my adult life. I haven’t lived with children since I was one myself. I didn’t have to take the Meyers-Briggs test to know that I score very highly as “introvert.” If Jim and decide to live together, I need what my equally introverted sister describes as a “cave”—that is, a place that I can go and sit quietly on my own when I need to recover from the unaccustomed company. This could be my own place or just my own room within a larger house.
So, the options here are three: (1) Buy my own little house (a/k/a “cave”) and visit often. (2) Renovate Jim’s house so that it has more than one bathroom and a master bedroom that is bigger than a shoebox. (3) Buy a bigger house that will fit all of us.
All three options have their advantages and drawbacks, of course, and I seem to be caught in an endless cycle of dithering and changing my mind. And so, a poll (but one without ticky boxes, because the options have too many characters for LJ):
Kristina should:
(A) Buy her own house. You can decorate it however you like, and you won’t have to pick up after Jim (a/k/a “entropy with feet”) or his kids. When you get tired of going home to an empty place night after night after night after night, you can fill it with cats and become known as that eccentric old lady of uncertain sanity at the end of the street who frightens small children.
(B) Put an addition on Jim’s house. This is probably the least expensive of the three options, but also entails the most work and probably the most stress. Have you ever heard of a major renovation that was finished on time and on budget? And the mess—you’ll be finding drywall dust in your underwear for *years*. But don’t worry—you can split the proceedings of the increased value of the house when you sell it during the resulting divorce.
(C) Pool resources with Jim and buy a bigger house. There are some lovely big old houses in Peterborough that would go great with your antiques and that would provide you with a “cave.” They tend to be pricey, mind you. But, hey, soul-crushingly large mortgages are fun! And eating is overrated anyway.
::collapses in a heap of indecision::
Not surprisingly, Jim owns a house. It’s cute, but small—it’s really a two-bedroom house that he strong-armed into being a three-bedroom house by making the main-floor den his bedroom. It accommodates his bed and a dresser, but not much else. Other than the bathroom, it’s the smallest room in the house, so there’s no way of squishing me and my stuff in there.
As for me, I’m living in an apartment at the moment—my thought was that I’d get to know the city a little bit and decide if I wanted to cohabitate with Jim and kidlets before buying something myself. We’ve looked at a wide variety of houses—wee houses that’d be just for me and much larger ones that would accommodate three children, one relatively normal adult, and one, well, slightly less normal one.
I’m 43. I’ve lived alone for most of my adult life. I haven’t lived with children since I was one myself. I didn’t have to take the Meyers-Briggs test to know that I score very highly as “introvert.” If Jim and decide to live together, I need what my equally introverted sister describes as a “cave”—that is, a place that I can go and sit quietly on my own when I need to recover from the unaccustomed company. This could be my own place or just my own room within a larger house.
So, the options here are three: (1) Buy my own little house (a/k/a “cave”) and visit often. (2) Renovate Jim’s house so that it has more than one bathroom and a master bedroom that is bigger than a shoebox. (3) Buy a bigger house that will fit all of us.
All three options have their advantages and drawbacks, of course, and I seem to be caught in an endless cycle of dithering and changing my mind. And so, a poll (but one without ticky boxes, because the options have too many characters for LJ):
Kristina should:
(A) Buy her own house. You can decorate it however you like, and you won’t have to pick up after Jim (a/k/a “entropy with feet”) or his kids. When you get tired of going home to an empty place night after night after night after night, you can fill it with cats and become known as that eccentric old lady of uncertain sanity at the end of the street who frightens small children.
(B) Put an addition on Jim’s house. This is probably the least expensive of the three options, but also entails the most work and probably the most stress. Have you ever heard of a major renovation that was finished on time and on budget? And the mess—you’ll be finding drywall dust in your underwear for *years*. But don’t worry—you can split the proceedings of the increased value of the house when you sell it during the resulting divorce.
(C) Pool resources with Jim and buy a bigger house. There are some lovely big old houses in Peterborough that would go great with your antiques and that would provide you with a “cave.” They tend to be pricey, mind you. But, hey, soul-crushingly large mortgages are fun! And eating is overrated anyway.
::collapses in a heap of indecision::