Dresses
Pants (because I'm so short)
cars (because decision making sucks)
Houses (ditto for on cars...but like for five hundred other reasons too).
It had been almost 17 years since I had bee in Arizona last. The last time I came to Arizona, was with a whole mess of college students and we descended upon Phoenix for the Circle K convention of 1995. What I mostly remember about getting off the plane was how red everything looked and the fact that I was surrounded by alot of mountains and desert.
So here we are, years later, and me, the husband, and our youngest flew into Tucson International Airport late one evening to complete a house shopping blitz. It was too dark to see anything when we came in, but the next day, I trying to see that old familiar picture, but I couldn't see it. Kevin said that it was the desert and he said there wasn't any green, but from what I could tell, there was more green than I was led to believe. As we drove out to breakfast, Kevin felt my vibe as I looked out.
"Yeah, I guess it's greener out here than I led you to believe."
There were mesquite trees, palo verde trees, bushes of all sorts that added some green to the scenery. The monsoon season also helped green things up and we arrived in the thick of it.
The mountains were another thing of beauty to look at. They were so much closer than the Shenandoahs by us. What even still strikes me now is how I can see almost every cut and groove in the mountains. It's sometimes quite distracting to drive when something so beautiful is right next to you. But I'm getting used to it. And at the time, while I was in awe, I was so nervous.
I'm really moving here??
We had arrived. The next morning, we tried out a local restaurant called the Good Egg (quite good...if I must say so myself). Then we met our Realtor, Sue. She had a stack of thirteen houses for us to go visit that day. They were in various areas of Tucson.
I didn't realize it then, but she was trying to gauge just what we were looking for. She had a vague idea from emails we sent her. I made it clear I wanted the following:
At least four bedrooms, ideally five (must have guest room)
Need a main level bathroom (we have disabled family members, they must be able to access a bathroom)
Guest bedroom on main level (for two level houses)
Good school district
Those were the basics. So here we were, armed with sheets on houses of all ages and styles. We spent the ENTIRE day...9:30-4:30 viewing almost every house. We skipped two because they were similar to two that didn't work for us. After the one full day of searching, we were pretty frustrated. Every sheet had at least one comment listed:
Too old
Not enough rooms
Rooms too small
Not in a neighborhood
Too many things to fix
Oh...hell...no...
Kevin and I were not even sure we would find a house in this trip. While the prices were in our range, we just weren't seeing "the one". There were two that were on our list. One was a 1950's totally remodeled house that had five bedrooms. I was excited because everything was one level, so it would work for disabled visiting family. The downside was the house was old and the neighborhood was 'eh...meh...meh...'. Another house had only four bedrooms. And while I was 'ok' with the boys sharing, I could tell they would outgrow the room in their teens and quite possibly end up killing each other.
We went to bed that night worried. Mostly because we found out school in the one district we were looking to move to was starting in one week. That meant 1) we would no matter what be missing school because of when we planned on getting there and 2) we could be in temporary housing a while if we didn't find a house.
So we went to bed...hoping that our Realtor could come up with something...
What she did was work some really good magic...
