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Notes from a Nester: One Step Closer to a New Nest
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a blogumn by Debra Barlow

Photo Credit: Stefano A.
So far, summer 2009 has been a positive one in our household. The baby chick continues to grow and appears to be healthy. I’m plagued by growing pains as my belly continues to expand, but moms keep telling me it’s all worth it once she’s born. I just hope she’s better behaved once she’s in the world, because right now she doesn’t do a thing I tell her.
We are also one step closer to a new nest to put our little bundle of joy in. It’s an incredibly stressful process. I was always focused on the sheer amount of money that had to change hands, but that’s only a small part of the stress that comes with purchasing a home. At a certain point, you just accept the expense and are grateful for the tax breaks that you might receive because of it. But the investigation period has been more stressful than I could have imagined. No doubt made more so by the crazy pregnancy hormones coursing through my body. The anxiety of something catastrophic being wrong, so much so that we’d lose the house altogether was distracting and almost completely overwhelming. Luckily, things all turned out to be okay.
The entire experience, though, reminded me of dating. More specifically, it reminded me of introducing a new boyfriend to particularly judgmental friends. Here you are with someone (the house) that you have a huge crush on and you’re imagining all the things you’ll do together – the meals you’ll cook, the backyard parties, the evenings curled up by the fire and then the friends (inspectors) come in and start to point out all the flaws you either didn’t see or didn’t want to know about.
It starts small — his mismatched socks, the hole in the underarm of his shirt. You assure them that, if you’d together a little longer, this type of thing would never happen. Easy fix. Then things start to deteriorate as they list, in detail, every little thing that could possibly be wrong with this guy you thought was a dreamboat just a few hours beforehand. You become defensive, willing to battle the experts to point out his good qualities, to overlook the blemishes and holes. Ultimately, at the end of the evening, you’re left a big, weeping mess trying to sort the good you saw from the bad you now know exists.
A few days and another good date later, you’re reminded what it was you liked about the house, er, guy to begin with. You just accept the negatives and go back to planning dates and picking out paint colors.
That’s where I am now – picking out paint colors and doorknobs and furniture to add to the wish list and waiting with baited breath for the process to be over and for the nest to be mine, all mine.