Happy Birthday, House!

Dog Walker's Awesome Halloween Display

We moved into our current home on July 28, 1994. The Dog Walker was 9 months old. We had zero landscaping and for the first few days no air conditioning. It was 90 degrees in the house when one of our new neighbors came down and showed us how to tap directly into the system until the city got around to turning on all of the power.

I would definitely do a few things differently if I were to build another house. I would beef up the outside circuits so the Dog Walker can plug in as many lights as he wants to for the holidays. I would have a MUCH bigger driveway! All these drivers want their own vehicles, can you believe that? I would build a second garage to house the bikes and skateboards and Power Wheels and sports equipment...

I also have these high ceilings in the entryway. They are a full two stories high, beautiful, but ridiculous. In our city they have this silly rule about having a smoke detector in the highest spot of the room. You know what that means.

Yesterday it started chirping because it wants a new battery. It is driving my crazy!! Usually we have paid Gamer some obscene hazard pay to climb on the ladder and replace the battery. But he is working two jobs now and I haven't seen him around for a while. I'm about ready to get out the BB gun and see if I can put that smoke detector out of its misery...

And I'll tell you something else that's stupid about having high ceilings. We have this beautiful chandelier up there and it is absolutely impossible to get the ladder high enough to change the light bulbs. After 19 years we finally lost our last dim bulb just a few months ago.

Owning a house is an awesome but daunting task. There is always something breaking down or in need of repair. I can't tell you how many times we have replaced the front door handle. Thank goodness those things have lifetime warranties!

Dumb things happen, like the chain in the toilet breaks. I've had that happen to two different toilets in the past 6 months. Pipes break, doorknobs fall off, smoke detectors need new batteries...stuff happens. But I couldn't even imagine going back to an apartment. (It would have to be a pretty big apartment with all these kids!)

I'm so grateful to be living the American Dream. Happy Birthday, House!