Grownuphood

I made up that word.

There is a difference between being an adult and being a grown-up. (And by the way, I just put the word grownup in dictionary.com to see if it is one word or has a hyphen and the dictionary people said that either one is acceptable.) You are technically an adult when you turn 18. Although, you don't have any leverage with your parents if you are still a senior in high school when you turn 18 and say something like, "I'll do whatever I want! I'm 18 now and that means I'm an adult!" However, I don't ever remember saying that. I'm sure my dad will clear things up if I did.

But I have felt rather adult-ish since I graduated high school. I think that going to and graduating from college is a very adult thing to do. Getting married seemed like something an adult would do. Living on my own (duh, and with Justin) seemed like an adult thing to do. But have I felt all that grown-up? Meh. Not all of the time.

Until this past week. Last Tuesday, Justin and I put on our big-kid-pants, grabbed our one-way tickets to Grownuphood and have not looked back. We are currently involved in a very grown-up process: buying a house.

Now I hope my closest friends and family members aren't reading this and feel very betrayed for me not sharing the news. But it has all happened so fast that sometimes I really have to concentrate to believe that it's really happening. We went to meet with a mortgage guy (for lack of his real, official title) last Tuesday to see if we would even be able to get a loan and for how much. After signing our names four bajillion times, we found out we did qualify and mortgage guy gave us the name of a real estate agent that he really trusts. Justin and the real estate agent were best friends by the time we left the bank after he called her and the whirlwind began.

The real estate agent said that if we got the ball rolling and were in contract to buy a house by the end of April that we would still qualify for the $8000 tax credit. (Thanks, Obama.) While $8000 sounded very appealing (sometimes, somedays, $8 sounds rather appealing) we didn't want to rush into anything unless we really loved a house and everything seemed to be falling into place.

So said real estate agent found us some houses in our area to look at. There weren't many since we really wanted to stay in McCordsville, and well, it's not that big. But I love, love, love this location. It's very close to school for me, a close drive to my sister's, my friend Ashley's, Target, the Hamilton Town Center, and other important places where we like to go. By Friday of last week I was off to look at four houses with Jess since Justin had to work.

The first two were not good. Not good at all. The first one's master bedroom was about the size of our closet and the carpet was stained beyond repair. The second one smelled like my Aunt Hazel's house used to...moth balls...times ten. Plus the layout didn't wow me. The third one had pretty much the same layout as the second one but these people had not only painted their walls bright yellow, black, and red, but had also painted all of the trim in almost every room and they had some lovely indoor/outdoor carpet going on throughout the whole place that would have to be replaced because I like a little plushness underneath my Flinstone feet when I walk around the house.

So on to house #4. I was discouraged. I hadn't fallen in love with any of the houses so far and I didn't think I would love the fourth one based on the pictures I'd seen. I figured we would be in the apartment forever, just throwing rent money down the drain.

But, by some miracle, house #4 was a million times better in person than it was in pictures. I immediately stepped into it and knew that Justin would love it, and I loved it too. The layout is awesome, it is in great condition, and it kind of just screamed at me that this was definitely the house that we are supposed to live in.

I gushed about the house to Justin and he was able to see it on Saturday. He liked it as well. It was harder for him to love it as much as me since he didn't have anything to compare it to (we couldn't get into the other houses that day) but I told him to trust me. And he did.

So while we were still riding the incredibly fast house-hunting roller coaster, my dad and Lea came to look at the house on Monday afternoon and liked it as well. And yesterday, our train officially arrived in Grownuphood and we made an offer on the house. Holy adult decision!

Now, don't worry. We didn't settle on this house just because we wanted the $8000 tax credit. I really do love this house and think it will be a great starter home for us. We heard back from the seller today and while he didn't accept our first offer (we knew he wouldn't), he did counter offer and we will be responding to that tomorrow. If your fingers weren't already crossed for us, do that now.

The whole process has been very overwhelming and very confusing. Me? Know something about buying a house? That's funny! But my dad has been very helpful, the real estate agent has been very helpful, and Justin has really self-educated himself with this whole process via Google, so he has been very helpful as well.

We are excited about this new chapter in our lives. I will be sad to leave our apartment. I tend to get attached to material objects/structures/houses. Let's face it, I surprise myself sometimes that I don't take off to Muncie and throw myself on the front yard of my parents' old house and cry my eyes out because we don't own that house anymore. But we need more space and need to start putting our money into something other than rent. Besides, if we have to live underneath the McStompers for much longer, we will both go crazy.

Wish us luck!