I've been thinking about this blog a lot lately. I've been thinking about how I never write in it. I originally decided that I'd just write about plant stuff here. But I really like to write about what I'm thinking about. I'm a fan of stream of consciousness. I do like thinking about plants, so just writing about plants here seemed like a decent goal. But I've put plants on the back burner lately. I now have a job, so I don't have tons of extra time for plants. (This isn't really a huge deal.) The big thing is that my plants are all struggling to make it because of bug problems. I'll admit that I haven't been so good about physically removing bugs from the plants. The plants are inside, so the bugs that find there way to them don't have too many predators around. Also, I can't just spray whatever I want on the plants. So my plants are doing poorly, and it saps my motivation because i just wish I had someplace outside that was mine to plant them. That's why I stopped writing. It's not that I haven't had anything on my mind. I would like to use this space for general thoughts.
Lately I've been putting a lot of time into searching for housing. I really want a house. I want space to put plants in the ground. I like the idea of having a pet chicken and goat in a fenced backyard. Maybe a basement with exercise equipment and a beer brewing setup. We've been saving and can make a decent down payment. Searching for houses leads to some interesting thoughts. Sometimes I find myself seeing what the best is that I can just afford. We can afford a certain amount, but it would be difficult. With the massive number of foreclosures we're seeing, going for the most you can barely afford seems way too risky. But it's nice to see what you could possibly get. On the other hand, I found myself looking at the cheapest I thought I could stand. This was somewhat limited by the fact that I wanted a half decent backyard. But still, you can find some pretty cheap houses out there. To imagine saving really hard and completely owning a home after, say, two years sounds really fucking awesome. Additionally, I like the idea of upgrading my own home (not just fixing existing problems, but using my ideas to add creative and awesome features). I read about this guy who built secret passages into his house. He even sealed off a room and made it only accessible through a secret passage. It's your own space! You can do whatever you want, even crazy things like that. I just think that's awesome. Now is a great time to buy. The only problem is, where do I buy? I was looking around in our area when it hit me. How do I know which city to pick? I know there's usually a money/niceness correlation, and that living in the city is more costly than in the country. But that's not really what I meant. Am I looking in the right overall area? Am I even looking in the right state? Hell, we're young and not tied down - am I even looking in the right country? I think I'm going to back off for now. We haven't seen the bottom of the housing market yet. I don't have enough saved up to survive a layoff. And I don't know where I want to be for the next 5+ years.
If I did, I'd be writing about plants because my plants would be doing well because they would be planted outside in the lawn of the house I bought. See how it all connects? :)
It's really just a giant stalemate, and it gets worse. The largest factor determining where we end of living just may be what type of work is available in the area. Currently I am on a very unsteady career path; I just don't know what I want to do. Should I work in this type of job, or that? Should I go back to school? I just don't know. You generally want to live somewhere convenient to your work. I feel like I need that goal settled and worked out before I can determine where I might want to live.
Perhaps this is a nice start back to writing. Welcome to my thoughts.
