Walking Through the End Result.

I am on week three of being sick. I had a chest cold followed by a lung infection. Now, I’m rocking an awesome head cold that comes with all the lovely mucus and coughing. Mr. Husband has been a constant nursemaid. He got the chest cold last week. Good man. He did not complain but continued to monitor and nurse his wife. Best man ever. He takes good care of me. We took a photo of ourselves while home from work sick this week. We are constantly in pajamas. Thera-Flu is our best friend. Nyquil is also in the race. We take care of each other between the coughing and sneezing. Marriage is the perk that makes us wipe each others’ noses.

We had to move our walk-through, the thing the builders call “orientation,” to Friday last week from Wednesday since we were close to death on Wednesday—we had to reschedule for health's sake. Conveniently, it seems the builder was not done with all the pretty changes we'd already pointed out needed to be made. Surely all will be in proper order on Friday. Don't call me Shirley. Go figure, we show up on Friday, the picture of somewhat health, and find that the stairs are not yet done. The big stickler. My stairs. We upgraded from the standard carpeted stairs to wooden stairs. This particular upgrade cost more than adding the reading nook with double doors to the living room. Seriously. That’s expensive. In this instance, those stairs had better sparkle. My mother-in-law, who, like my mother, is in the habit of killing me, imagines we’re going to die on these wooden stairs. Of course. If you have wooden stairs, this equals certain painful death on those stairs. Does Mr. Husband have some odd inclination of pushing women down stairs that I do not know about? Does Mrs. Mother-in-Law know this? Am I in danger? Seems so, but I still want those damn stairs to sparkle as my head crunches against them during my death fall. I’ll have that last brief moment of bliss as I think, “my stairs are beautiful.” Death will be sublime with my knowledge that my stairs sparkled so. Go ahead, push me.

All else is super awesome. We are overwhelmed with how beautiful the wood floors look and are impressed with how the wall colors no longer look like a complete circus. We will live with this and laugh like hyenas to annoy the neighbors. The holy column turns out to have been the best move ever—we have flow. We have openness. We have a world that can live and love in this space. We have built the home of our dreams for our first home. We are crazy and we are happy with the outcome. There is so much we will do in this house. We will have babies and continue to work on our careers. We will laugh (much) and love (always). We have space. Finally. Love in it, we will. My Mr. Husband has made all of this possible. I am forever grateful. We work together and make so much happen—this is the only way I ever want to be. With him, for us, together we build.

We are pleased with so many different decisions we made. We believe that our cats, the ones who rule us always, will also be pleased. Neither cat is familiar with stairs. Perhaps they will die young deaths on the stairs, or they will learn to whip up the stairs in great activity and chasing motifs. We cannot wait for Oliver and Nita to become familiar with the house. It will take them days; we realize this. But they will learn to love the faucets, the tile, the wooden stairs, and the long hallway. They will learn to live in this house and find great comfort in the many windows that look out on prey. Most of what we do is for them. Our fuzzy offspring.

And Mr. Husband and Mrs. Wife will learn how to make a family of humans in this house (we will turn away from our current family mode that includes felines for offspring). We will change our lives. When I wake in the mornings, and I think of this great big thing that Mr. Husband and I have set our lives upon, I have to remember, “this is an investment.” This is what it is. We will grow and learn and, hopefully, create something of a nest egg from this major life decision. Now, if only we can get rid of the snot and the coughing. We will, then, fully enjoy this great big change.