Our House

This is our house.

Not so bad. Looks cute. Cozy. Good size.

It’s all of those things. So what’s the problem? It’s located in one of the worse neighborhoods in town.

See that top window on the left? That’s my prayer/sitting room. Outside my window I look at a HUGE pine tree with a shape of cross at the tip top. However, on a nice Spring day I get an eyeful of drug deals going down. Late at night I watch and listen to gang fights. And there’s usually not a day that goes by when I don’t see a cop car driving reeeal slow down our street. Easter Sunday I spent most of the day calling the cops on the drug dealers across the street. It’s hard to catch them in the act, you know.

See that other window on the top left on the side of the house. Well, that window offers a gorgeous view of a tree-lined street. On a good day looking out that window, I could convince myself that I live in Paradise. On a bad day, however, I get to see two fire trucks and an ambulance pull up to the house on the corner when the guy who lives there overdoses at least twice a month.
  
This wasn’t our choice home. THIS, on the other hand, would be our choice home.

We didn’t have many options as most people do when choosing a home. When we got pregnant, living in Chicago, Jared was injured on the job and his injury pay was a quarter of the income we were living on.

The house we live in now was “given” to us by my mother. She knew we could no longer afford $1200 a month for rent in the city, and offered for us to take over her mortgage payments so she could buy a new house for herself. Technically, the house isn’t ours until it’s paid off or she passes away.

On beautiful summer days I resist taking Tavin outside to play because the neighborhood kids—we’re talking 5 and 6 year olds—are usually swearing at each other and fist fighting, or vandalizing people’s property. This isn’t the most ideal place to raise a family.

But if we had this dream home, we’d live right across the street from the lake and just a couple of blocks from one of my most favorite places in town: Southport Beach. (As you can see, this would be our view of Lake Michigan from our bedroom, with an upper and lower wrap around patio. Quite a different view from what we look at now!)

If I had my choice—which I don’t at the present time—I’d buy that dream house. Especially now when streamline rates are low. This is the time to buy! This is a prime time to buy a house of your dreams, because house prices are at an all time low. I know if our current financial situation were different, and our annual income was a bit more stable (Jared works a seasonal job on the boats), that we’d be all OVER the idea of getting out of this neighborhood and into a new home.

Someday we’ll get there. Someday we’ll own a house like this. Someday we’ll live in a safe neighborhood for Tavin, where instead of our walls being shaken by ghetto cars blaring thumping bass gangster rap, we’ll listen to waves crashing against the shore on a warm summer morning.