Decisions, Decisions

For years, my overhead bin at work sported a magnet with the phrase "Leap and the net will appear." (It was supposedly a Zen saying, but I was doubtful.) After we decided to leap, er, move to Belgium, I gave the magnet to the Head Librarian, who was contemplating a little leaping herself.

We now find ourselves trying to decide whether to leap back into home ownership, which seemed desirable in our 20s and 30s, but is less so now. We hadn't planned to even consider that decision until spring, when our lease is up and Jim will have been at his new job a bit longer. However, we're facing the prospect of living for many weeks (6? 8? more?) in a Marriott Suites sort of lodging while a major portion of our rental home's interior is gutted to repair the damage from the roof fiasco. Although the property management company has hinted that it would release us from our lease, I haven't found another decent rental house, particularly one that will accept dogs, even a dog who is literally on her last legs. I haven't even been able to find much in the way of homes for sale at this time of year.

Jim feels that we should explore the option of making an offer on this house prior to the start of the remediation work. His thought is that, since the house is going to be torn up anyhow, why not have some other work done on it, work that we had discussed back in the days when the roof didn't leak and we thought we might want to own the house? New windows, for example. A remodelled kitchen. New floors in the bathrooms. After the never-ending fallout from the roof disaster, though, I am leery.

But . . . I like the neighbors, the neighborhood, and the proximity to the mountains and to downtown Denver. I like many things about the house itself--the cozy family room, the view out back to the woods, the fact that the interior, with its many windows, is très lumineux, as the rental listings in Brussels used to boast. (Of course it is much easier to be très lumineux in a part of the world with over 300 days of sunshine.)

Maybe I need that magnet back, or at least the ignorant optimism I briefly had that nets do appear to catch those who have abandoned all that was once certain in life.