How much you wanna risk?
I’m not looking for somebody
With some superhuman gifts
Some superhero
Some fairy tale bliss
Just something I can turn to
Somebody I can miss

As the sun sticks with us longer and the heat makes us think of long summer days in the hammock, stirring only for another Otter Pop, the pace of life has picked up from it’s winter stillness.

To view our lives from outside is to form a charmed impression. New job, happy marriage, healthy child, miles on the trails, game nights with friends and delicious creations from the BBQ have formed our spring.

On Monday what I was prepping to write up was my weekend trail ride with my two best friends, who came down from Washington to my neck of the woods. We went slowly down the road and into the private forest lands where I’m lucky to do my training, with the dogs trailing along, alternately loving the sun and wilting a bit from the heat. The dogs found every mud puddle, stream, culvert, and stinky bog while we all worked the horses, who were for the most part happy and well behaved. It was a blast and a small dream realized to play tour guide with Ray at his best, light reins the whole way & my stirrups finally well adjusted.

Instead what this week has become is a whirlwind as one of those actual ‘opportunities of a lifetime’ dropped into our laps. But first, a story!

When my new husband was just a wee lad, about Kade’s current age, his parents lived with him and his older sisters not far from where we live now. He was attending the same school Kade does now, when his parents were able to purchase a house and move to the north side of town. Tom and his sisters switched schools and his parents have lived in the same house ever since. He grew up on a quiet street, riding his bike to Maple Street park a few blocks away in a town as close as Oregon comes to wherever that kid Beaver was raised.

Our little family has lived in Canby for a few years now, and it’s where I want Kade to grow up too. Part of it’s the town itself, just the right size; it’s location and schools are pretty damn good; but more, I don’t want him subjected to all the moves and changing schools that I was. I’ve lost count of the schools I got to be the new kid in, across four states, the worst being middle school (of course). Kade’s the kind of kid who still remembers his best friend Max from preschool; this is not the kid I want to tear away from his friends to move school districts or towns if I can avoid it.

On Monday, we started the process of what will hopefully be the last move until Kade’s grown & gone. The couple across the street from Tom’s parents are moving and looking to sell quickly, and through that occasionally tangled web of family and business connections small town life is rife with, we’re buying it from them. If the capricious gods of luck hang with us, we’ll move in towards July and Kade will switch schools, following in his step dad’s footsteps.

Buying a house is one of those processes such as getting married or childbirth, where everyone’s horror stories and well meaning or not quite stories come out of the woodwork. Stress levels rocket, relationships are tested and despair threatens at different points. At this point I’ve already gone through the two biggest changes in life I can, what’s one more biggest change in life to handle? Tom’s stress levels are critical, being as I don’t qualify to be on the loan, so really, Tom’s buying a house and I’m along for the ride.

Which is to say, we’re buying a house and I’ve only cried once this week, after we’d talked to the homeowner and shook hands on our intent to purchase. The idea of my son being raised where my husband grew up, of being settled, removes a huge source of stress from my life, of worrying about our landlord’s whims or no being able to change our house to suit our lives.

We just need our luck to hold out and people to keep being nice to us until, say, August at the latest to ensure we can handle this process with grace, or at least avoiding any washed out roads. Once we’re settled into our house, hell even once we can say our house, I can take a deep breath and enjoy the freakin’ hot tub on the back porch!

Still going to be my second favorite view though!