When you choose to take a journey, you might as well go all the way. As that fortune in my cookie weeks ago advised: Life is a daring adventure: or it is nothing.

When we reflect on the past six weeks, we laugh hysterically. We made the offer on Long Stack April 1st and it was accepted; final details for settlement were firmed up six weeks later – Friday the 13th. We went through settlement easily and learned factoids about our new home that I am so glad to know.

This adventure requires patience, persistence  and perspective. The three Ps will guide me as we inevitably go through ups and downs in the coming months. Keeping our eye on the prize is another key: we have a vision for this home and know it will become what we hoped and dreamed about when we first saw the listing on Trulia February 2016.

During settlement, Doug asked the trustee for the seller (the seller’s daughter) about how much the electric bill ran – since the house is right now – all electric. Doug and I almost fell off our chairs when  she said about $500 a month; and maybe $150 when no one was at the house. Yikes! Today, Doug called the Electric Company located down our mountain and within about five minutes received a .pdf of electricity charges dating to 1996. the largest bill was about $800 which accounted for apparently months and months of usage. Most months were either $0 or very affordable. Whew.

We are awaiting handyman Rick now. We went to breakfast at our favorite spot, Katie’s Kitchen this morning. Owner Patricia Lord gave me excellent advice; “Meet him before you need him.” Her brother is a contractor and all-around handy guy. Patricia says if you get to know this person, you’ll trust him to have a key to your place and check on things or fix things – especially when you are not around. She said you do not want to have to call someone in the middle of the night who you have no relationship with up here.

So handyman Rick who came highly recommended by our agent is going to give us good estimates on a batch of work we need to have done fairly soon. We also hope to get his recommendations on other items including replacing the sliding glass doors from the living room and master bedroom.

It sure would be great to have a bucket of funds to tackle renovations sooner rather than later – but I go back to those three Ps: patience, persistence, perspective. We’ll need expert advice on all major renovations which involve a little redesign here and there – especially in the kitchen.

For now, we are cleaning everything – top to bottom and will live in this house for days at a time over the next year to figure out what are wants, needs and must-haves are. We’ll reach out to contractors we find or who are recommended and we’ll start planning to renovate the home of our dreams.