On Not Buying a House

As the title implies, we didn't buy the house.  This is not easy to say and even more difficult to accept on an emotional level.  You see, I kind of fell in love with the little house--or at least with what I thought we could make of it--and the future we could have inhabiting it.  When we were going into the process, however, Jack and I had a sort of unspoken agreement.  It had to hinge on the budget, a delicate balance of numbers Jack is very good at... and I... not so much.  So when we had estimate after estimate inching our budget way over what we felt comfortable spending, we had to make a really difficult decision.  Rather, Jack had to say there wasn't a decision and I had to come to terms with that.  He was right, of course.  The numbers were way over both our budget and the resale value.  It would have been grueling work besides.  Not only restoring windows (which I was not-so-secretly looking forward to), but digging out a crawlspace and removing the aforementioned carpet-patterned vinyl.  A lot of it would have been soul-sucking drudgery.  While the results might have made me happy, they weren't worth losing money (on top of hours of drudgery) for.  The term "emotional rollercoaster" has never been more real to me.  If I had written this post at any point in the past week, it would have been at some extreme high or low or on the stomach-churning in between.  So I've waited until things with were on an even keel and our offer on the little house was really past-tense to write this.  Strangely enough, we seem to be renewing our search with extra vigor and open eyes.  We have truly learned so much and we wish the little house (that isn't, and will never be, ours) all the best.