What Ana Does

 I don't mean to whine.  We really feel lucky we have friends who have a vacation home, weren't planning to use it, and would give us the keys. So we could leave Illinois and be closer to where we want to live; with the ability to look at homes on weekends, etc. It's a very comfortable house and we're very comfortable in it.  But here's the thing about me: I'm a nester and a planner.  That's how I'm built, and no matter how comfortable I am here, I can't really do either. And that's what's making me restless and this transition time painful. I love DIY and home decorating. Duh. This blog is basically cataloging my home improvement projects and decorating ideas. My Pinterest feed is mostly home decorating posts. And my Instagram feed is a lot of home renovators working on basements, closets and a really cool kitchen project. It stinks watching these projects when I can't imagine them working my space. Because ... I don't have a space! ...

In the last month we packed up all our possessions and sent them into storage for who-knows-how long. Sold our home of nine years. Packed up the cars with two kids, two dogs, two boxes of houseplants and a trailer full of gym equipment and pantry perishables and drove across several states to temporary home -- the lake house of good friends who didn't have plans to use it until July. And here we are.  To say we're all having some big feelings about this transition is an understatement. Though, we're all feeling pretty optimistic about opening the next chapter of our lives. WHEN is the big question.  The main challenge is this real estate market. The inventory is super-low. I've read news headlines saying it's a 40% its usual rate. It's a seller's market and they're basically asking for anything and everything. We, as buyers, get what we get. It's terrible.  It's good to be closer to Bucks county (2-hour drive) and able to attend showings in perso...