- Large enough to have "me time" even when there are 4 people in the home. Space is necessary.
- open floor plan for kitchen, dining and family room. For those times where we will crave each other's company and not have to be in the same room. And so we can host things there.
- enough rooms to hold: us, our 2 kids (that's all we're working on for now), a guest room or quarters, a home theater, kid's game room (so they only have to clean it once a month or so), office/library, laundry room, amber's crazy idea room, Craig's gamer heaven, etc. I love the luxury of those.
- enough land to have a yard for our kids, horses (including but not limited to housing other's horses, training, trail rides, etc), have a barn where it can be rented out for weddings and events, maybe a bed and breakfast, a vineyard... to name a few things.
- a studio for my photoshoots and editing.
- a pool and pool house (pool included of course).
- and maybe even another small house or two (cute cottage) so when family comes to visit they can stay for longer without us bugging each other. Or maybe even for housing newlyweds.. Or house our ranch manager who will help hire and train horses. Yes, I've thought a lot about this.
All this time I've been watching the market for homes and land around Folsom, CA since Craig got on permanently; figuring we have a great place for Craig to work for a long while, lots of other groups he could work in down here... It's certainly cheap enough to build a house and for me not to have to work when we have kids (or at least a 9-5 sort of job).
Last night, Craig dropped a too logical request and desire to move to Hillsboro. It's only 3 hours away from family, there's another group like his there, it's just as big as Folsom (if not bigger) so the opportunity will be as great... And I can't fight against his reasoning. Stupid logic. I love California. The weather's great 10 out of 12 months of the year, there's sun!!!!, we finally have friends to hang out with, it's far enough away from family we can enjoy the visits...
But when we have kids, it'd be less of a burden for family to deal with to see their grand kids/niece-nephew/cousin and see them grow, instead of getting pictures and a yearly visit. At least, the close family.
And wouldn't you believe, I started my quest on trying to find something that will work for us for a while in Oregon. Unfortunately, since Hillsboro is right next to Portland, all the rich Portland people live in Hillsboro, making the price of property and homes skyrocket. For example:
California land (all or mostly usable): $29,000 to $500,000
California homes (on land of course 3+acres): $117,000 to $1.5 million.
Oregon land (all or mostly usable 3+ acres): $200,000 to $2 million
Oregon homes (on land 3+ acres): $500,000 to $15 million (no friggen joke)
Geez friggen Louise. Our tentative plan is to wait until Craig gets his first promotion, maybe even a year after then to go over to the Hillsboro office. Once he gets past that first promotion (they have a 2 year block on it at Intel.. for the first one only) I know he'll do great enough to climb from there. He's as determined as I am... just, his direction is better for us in the long run though. ANYWAY, we're undecided (depending on how long it takes us to save up) we may move in to a starter home on 15,000sqft lot or higher (boo) and if need be, fix it, save in the meantime. or we could (if we have enough saved) build/buy the house we'll be in for at least 25 years right off. It all depends. And once we move, I'll have to quit my job unless they let me work from home in Oregon (doubtful). I'll need to apply for a photography business license there too. either find a new job or join stupid get together groups to spread my business and make friends...
I really don't like tentative plans. It makes me frazzled. I like knowing the action we're taking. There's too many things to worry about with tentative plans. To many paths to go down or too many complications that could get in the way and change it. All I know now is that moving to Hillsboro is a 95% probability and since it's friggen expensive, we can't buy the luxuries we have been. No more gadgets, no more clothes, no more excess food, no more going out to dinner, no more going out to movies, no more buying "frivolous" items. My favorite kind. I'll have to start making things more often... which will take more time (not food, but gifts and things we need, I already do that for food).
Tough cookie.
