I bought a house.

Holy hell.

The process started back in April. I met with a realtor, built my search parameters (north side of Holland, 2 or 3 bedrooms, attached garage, and full basement) and then promptly sat on my hands for a few months while I piled some more cash away and got ready to pounce.

By late May, I had a shortlist of four houses I wanted to check out. Most of them were somewhat unremarkable. One was a deceptively small house with high ceilings on a tiny lot (strike one) with no place for my grill (strike two), in the middle of nowhere, and was part of a homeowner’s association (strike three). Another place was on the north side of town, for a decent bargain, but beyond the slightly odd feeling that went with knowing the current owner, it would have needed a lot of work: new carpet, bathroom redo, tree removal and trimming, etc.

About a week later, while I was still trying to decide if this place on the north side was an opportunity or a money pit, I decided to look at another round of houses to see if something else jumped out at me. I was pleasantly surprised.

I found a house listed at the upper end of my price range, far closer to the lake than I had figured was possible, and although it was a ranch house (not my favorite floor plan) it was sitting on almost a half acre of land and it was a 15 minute walk from State Park (we’ll set aside for the moment the part where it’s been more than 10 years since I’ve seen the beach at State Park). I was told my by agent that there were 9 other viewings on this house (which was on the market for all of a day at that point) between when it went on the market and the end of the day on Friday, which left me with about 45 minutes to look at a house and decide whether I wanted to put an offer in on it.

From this point forward, I was thinking quite a bit about this particular strip from XKCD:

That was basically the theme for the next six weeks. There was paperwork. There was more paperwork. There was more than a moderate amount of tension and anxiety as I approached my expected closing date with neither an approved mortgage application nor the attendant paperwork.

But now she’s mine.