it feels like the first time

Spring! Every. Single. Year. I proclaim it to be wonderful. It's like my memory lapses and I feel like I have never seen green budding on the trees, have never smiled at the hint of honeysuckle in the air, have never opened my windows, have never seen the sun. And yet it's what I think about when I look outside, am outside. I can't believe that I get to witness this beauty, that green can feel like life. And I don't even love Spring. I like it, but Fall and Winter have my heart. Spring is a mistress, my flirtatious interlude to the horridness of Summer. If Winter has my heart, Summer has my...

I've been so enthralled with Spring that I haven't yet cracked the air conditioning this season. In fact, I don't plan to until mid May. The weatherman says that cool will hang on in the evenings until at least the 10th, so with small fan whirring and windows open- let the savings begin.

But it isn't the first time that the miser in me has taken over the thermostat in my house. This Winter I might have turned on the heat 3 times. Might have. I have some things going for me in this instance. I live in the middle of my building- in the middle from top to bottom, left to right. I like to imagine that this helps the insulation factor. Also I like cold. I like candles. So, I mixed the two and often settled in with soup and tea to ride out the perpetual draft coming from the windows, and they're replacement too. The guise was the money issue. I could survive with socks and another shirt, but my bank account could not survive the blow of heat in Winter, one thing had to give so I chose the heat. I got flack for this, even started a family fight. Visitors complained, but I had forewarned them to deal and so I felt not guilty. I soldiered on, sometimes with a knitted hat on my head.

My motivation? A house. I want to commit. I'm ready for the plunge, the long ride into night, the settling of old wood, the settling of my soul. Plus I'd really like to be able to paint the walls.

If my desire to nest wasn't strong enough when I was 18 then I don't know what it's doing now. Everyone (with the exception of 2 people) has told me that buying a house is difficult and that you should search and search and search, but something tells me that my gut is my Google and I trust what it gives me in the number one position. I start hardcore looking this month. I plan to put a bid on a house in June. I hope to move in in August.

I'm poor now with no heat or air conditioning so that I can afford to buy a house. When I actually own one, what will be my excuse then?