house, appliances, paint...

We bought a new house! You can see a picture of the outside here, on my husband's fantastic photography blog.

I'm excited about it--we've never owned a house before. We feel like "real" adults now. We bought it with my mom, so that makes it possible (hopefully) to afford a 4-5 bedroom (depending on what you count as a bedroom), 3 bath house. It was bank-owned because someone bought it to flip it before the market went kaput (hey, I knew how to spell that without the spell-checker because I took German last year--at least that class comes in handy for something! And perhaps I shouldn't write blog posts after midnight since I add in all these asides...). Anyway, so it needs a little work (especially outside) to get it going and it was sans appliances except a dishwasher.

In other ways, honestly, I'm struggling with being a homeowner. Is it OK for my spirit (or anyone's) to be tied down to a mortgage? Is it OK for me to have "ownership" of a piece of land, and to put a lot of money (= time) into this building that is just for us and our friends? Or is this just us buying into American culture and the way that we're told is the only way to live? Is it possible to live faithfully--really--and be way in debt?

I know all the arguments to the contrary--we have to live SOMEwhere, and we might as well have something to show for it rather than throwing away rent money...having our own place means we can be hospitable and open our home to others in ways we couldn't/wouldn't otherwise...we're being relatively unusual by intentionally buying a house with someone else so we share space and costs...etc.

But I still wonder.

We bought three appliances tonight. (Well, last night.)

Alisa, I'm working on a post just for you, one of the one's I've promised and not come through with yet. Just have to get the quote out of the book one of these days. But the post is over 1/2 done! It will come soon-ish.