The House

My house. Is a very, very, very fine house.

Not my dream home or anything. But it's a fine, serviceable house.

The problem with my house is that it was built in 1974 and was apparently poorly maintained.

Which made my first husband fall in love with it. He likes a project and this house SCREAMED that. It actually screamed many other things to me but to him it screamed "I AM A PROJECT. FIX ME!"

So he bought it. Without me there. Because he could see the charm in it. He could look around and envision the wood paneling gone, the ugly bathroom redone and the kitchen painted and shined.

When he gets made at me I generally assume it's because 1 of 2 things. He is bitter about the house or his girlfriend is giving him shit about his ex-wife.

You see, I got negotiated for the house in the divorce. When my mother passed away I used the life insurance to pay down the house and when we got divorced that was the most heated debate we got into. Honestly, the way Colorado law is written it could have gone either way for me. They could have deemed the house community property since I while I paid it down with my mother's money it was in our names OR they could have said my money was used to pay it down and he was entitled to nothing. Neither one of us wanted to pay a lawyer to figure it out. So we negotiated. He pays less in child support than Colorado law would normally require, I asked for no spousal support, and I gave up an entitlement I might have to his military pension, should be choose to retire from the military.

I did the numbers for him since he couldn't and showed him what a deal he was getting by me giving up the pension in exchange for the deprecated house. He agreed. But I think he's still really bitter about it. Not about the money but about the house itself. It was his project. He had plans. Ideas. He had spent hours fantasizing about what he wanted to do to it.

So I kept the house. And the lower mortgage payment. It was the only way I could keep my kids in their home. I don't make much and could not have managed even a 2 bedroom apartment on my salary alone so I really needed to keep the house. Even though I'm not a project girl. I look at the walls and just see...walls. I don't see paint colors or texture or tile flooring. I don't see anything really. Except occasionally I see beige because that's a good neutral for when I'm ready to sell that house.

This week the house finally expressed it's displeasure at my lack of love.

Last week I had an adjuster out to look at my roof. Turns out my entire roof needs to be replaced. House and my gazebo. We had a pretty fierce hail storm this summer and my apparently old roof is giving it up.

Yesterday the weather officially turned to fall. Overnight. We had some snow (that didn't stick) and lots of rain. The weather outside never got above 50 degrees F. And our heater wouldn't work. When I got home it was 66 degrees in the house which I realize doesn't sound awful but it's chilly to us. Especially when you have a husband with the flu and a child with pneumonia.

I spent more time than I should have trying to find someone to come look at our furnace last night and by the third call I lucked out. We had a very nice man come look at our furnace at about 7:30pm last night and it turns out my nearly new but cheap furnace had a board short out. But he couldn't get one for us last night. So we had to sleep with lots of blankets and in sweaters last night.

This morning the house was 63 degrees. It felt colder. I sure hope that new board comes in soon. Like before I get home soon.

I know I should love my house more but it's hard when you're teenager is sleeping under 5 blankets and your fluish husband's fever isn't even keeping him warm.....