It’s hard not to hate being a home owner sometimes. It’s a constant struggle to keep sun and rain and bugs from turning a beloved home into a rotting pile of sticks. Homes want to decay. They do. And it’s only with a lot of money and weekend toil that they remain standing.

Right outside my office window, a small backhoe is rearranging dirt in my backyard. and three guys are putting the caps on a retaining wall. It was a costly, but necessary procedure. Gotta keep the water away. The water is slipping through the old tiles on the roof, too. On bad days, it sneaks into the closet in Ian’s room. I have a small stack of roof estimates on the corner of my desk.

Money on the house means no money for fun vacations. Instead of drinking a beer in a London pub or exploring the mountains in the Pacific Northwest or drinking girlie drinks on a Caribbean resort, we’ll have a wall. A fucking wall. I want a girlie drink!! UGHHHHH!!!

Is home owning a dumb idea?

I was playing with the rent v. buy calculator at the New York Times. If we could find a three bedroom home or apartment for $2,244, it would be better to rent. Yeah, that’s not happening in this area. So, I suppose our money is being spent wisely. But it sucks.