What goes around comes around...

Or so it's seems...

Mr. Pretties and I looked at an old farmhouse last spring (scare alert: a year ago to the EXACT date) and had a month long debate about it (No joke - a MONTH. LONG. DEBATE.  I wouldn't suggest it personally) because it was at a time when Mr. Pretties didn't need to be close to work anymore and my job was fairly disposable at the time.  We also needed more bedrooms.  Come to think of it, we still need more bedrooms...  Oh, and it was 120 years old.  And a farm.  Those should have really been the only two factors going on.  Seriously, based on that alone I think we would have made the right choice.  Instead, since I was in near-end pregnancy nothing-doing phase and couldn't grasp a two hour away moving situation we decided to move exactly 11 houses away from our current one, to a house with twice as many bedrooms and a full attic.  It's old.  It has charm.  The basement floods.  The dirt in the yard is equal parts non-fertile soil and what I'm fairly sure is imitation soil.  While I can't say that I don't like the house, I do, it's had a hard life and no one loved it. I take a fair amount of pity on it and help it esthetically where ever I can.  But last week just did me in. An unsuspecting mouse found it's way into our new mattress.  And died.  I believe this crossed about 200 lines for me.  Let me just say, I don't have a problem with mice in general.  I will wrestle the cat for one if it's caught and put it back outside (where it promptly comes back inside no doubt). I even think on a cute scale they score about an 8.  However, when I go out of my way to be respectful of them and the mouse community does something like shacks up in MY bed and then DIES?!  Oh no.  We're through there buck-o.  So these small things are what I use as moving ammo/moving motivation.  I also hate the neighbourhood - but that could just be me... 

Okay so where were we here?  Oh right.  The House.  With a capital H.  For 'Hell yeah!' because it's awesome. And, because, house starts with an H....  moving right along here... so I was doing my nightly house search online (I do this EVERY night.  I figure anything good will pop up and be gone right away so I stay on it) and I was reading an ad about an old Heritage Home in Olde Rural London and thought 'Hmm... that sounds about right...' and went to view the pictures.  They all looked so nice, very 1880's typical, but something about them seemed familiar.  Until I got to the picture of the outside of the house (who posts the outside house picture last anyway?) and nearly fell out of my chair.  While screaming 'My House!!! My House is Back!!!! Mr. Pretties did you hear me??? My House is BAAACCCKKKKK!!!' in my outside voice.  I love this house. I. Love. This. House.  I Love. This House.  It doesn't matter how you say it!

(it's had work done - it no long looks so scary and abandoned) 
It's like my kindred spirit, but instead of my skin and bones it has brick and mortar. Which I'm cool with.  It's in the country.  It's surrounded by corn (which I have a small anxiety inducing concern about with the Littles - however I think electric fencing will solve it) It has an old barn.  It has an old chicken coop.  It has old farm fencing.  It has an already tilled vegetable garden that probably has REAL soil in it.  Did I mention it's old?  And charming?  And has TWO staircases?! You know, for those times when you wake up and are all  'Hmm... which stairs should I take today?  Newspaper or kitchen first?'  Or for when the kids are burning off energy, they could run down one set and back up the other and do like hamster wheel exercises.  Please note I sad said 'could' not 'can' because if that actually happened they'd be outside in the pasture faster than they could even say hamster. It has mainfloor laundry.  Even the kitchen is nice and I find that most old houses have crappy renovated-in-the-70s kitchens.  This has a renovated in the 70s kitchen, but they used classic wood for the cupboards, painted the rest white, kept the hardwood throughout the entire house, and put in new counter tops. That makes it entirely acceptable.  Did I mention the main staircase is curved? 

(I love that they labelled the picture, just incase there was any confusion about exactly this picture was about...)

And it has a veranda.  It might also have Coyotes.  Two words for that though. Electric.  Fence.  Amen.  Wait, that was three.  Oh well...  But there's this stickler of a dilemma.  I work here.  Two hours away from there.  I cannot drive to work everyday.  I would have to quit my job on the whim that I would find one just like it in London.  Which may not be so...  But part of me doesn't care....  We have to decide soon though.  Unfortunately it's the same realtor we dealt with last year and he already thinks/knows that we're mental and is learly that we're wanting back in LoL  I don't blame him.  I'll bring him a box of chocolates.  Or 100.  Before I quit my job ;)  Did I mention the school bus stop is at the bottom of our driveway? Or that I ordered chicks last week? Or that I'm afraid of squirrels?  Uh... never mind the last bit. No one needs to know about that. 

So hopefully we wont have another month long 'discussion' about this house.  Mr. Pretties is actually a lot more open to the option this year than he was last.  Something about me telling him 1,000 times that we should have moved since, and that he's agreed every time.  I think he's seen the light.  Or got tired of hearing about it.  And chickens.  And pink Wellies.  Or maybe he's tired of hauling all four pretties everyday to school twice ;)  A bus stop at the end of the driveway does sound pretty sweet... unless you take my neurosis into account, and then it's just one more thing to worry about, you know, because bus accidents are so much more common than car accidents...