Self-Torture

This summer was really awesome! You might say, "Wow, what did you do???" The answer is really uninspiring because I really didn't do anything special. We went to San Diego once and not for very long. I gained and lost the same 5 pounds over and over again. I discovered Aqua Zumba at my gym! (It's amazing!) I went swimming with my friend to help her gain peace of mind every other day, which resulted in me getting a sweet tan. But mostly, I cooked and cleaned while Brian went to school and work. Basically I got the feeling of being a stay-at-home wife (on a tight budget).

Here's that bad part... While I'm excited to go back to work and get the cash flow rolling again, I really enjoyed getting a glimpse into the near-distance (nice oxymoron) future. It's made me long for things that may be ours in the future, but really aren't a possibility right now. Like a newer used car and a house! KSL has been feeding my longings by allowing me to view such possibilities. I tell myself that it's merely educating myself about what common prices are and what you can get for your money.  But the truth is, I'm just torturing myself.

Brian and I have meager savings, mostly supplemented by a small inheritance I received from my grandparents shortly after I got married. And we have no major debt from school thanks to many factors. I'd like to think it's our own ingenuity, but reality is, we got A LOT of help. Here's the short list of people and things that made it possible for us not to be staggering in debt: my mother who paid my undergrad tuition, Brian's parents helping him with his school for a few years, help from family + scholarships for my grad school, pel-grants and my income to pay for Brian's later school.

Brian is starting his last semester on Monday. Non-student life is tantalizingly close and a (very) short time as DINKs (Double Income No Kids, a term my sister recently informed me about) would put us in a great position to be able to finance these dreams. At first I really believed my self-delusion and rationalizations that looking at houses just feeds into my desire to see how people decorate their house. It's the real reason I watch House Hunters. (Thanks mom for breeding this desire in me with your interior decorating tendencies and all those times you took me to look at model homes for fun.)  But the illusion was shattered when I saw: The Perfect House! (At least for one scenario of how our future plays out.)

Brian and I have had random conversations about what we would like in a future house. These usually coincide with me having just watched House Hunters or Income Property. (They decorate so well on that show!) Anyway, this house I saw was reasonably priced, met most of the requirements we'd want and looked to be pretty well maintained and easy to maintain. It had enough cute mixed with modern mixed with comfort to make me drool.

I wanted to buy it and I can't. Sad, sad Julia. It's just self-torture. Sigh!

Because the link will die in the future when the house is sold, I will post the picture of one of my most desired features in a future home: A large pantry.

Also, secretly I posted the link hoping one of my friends might buy the house, so it can still be part of my future. It looks like a great house!