One decision closer

As it often happens, the fall does bring the nice cool weather. And it looks like our chase for the perfect weather of 75F has taken a break. It seems to be perfect enough right here, right now. Few days of occasional slow drizzles and cooler night temperatures, and suddenly this seems to be my Texas in all the possible positive ways. This has brought us to reconsider selling the house, and maybe just rent it out. There are so many pros and cons, it is difficult to make the right decision.

The pros on keeping the house:

• There is always a place to fall back into after we are done with RV dwelling, or if something would happen and we will be forced to get back to "normal life".
• Real estate is always an investment, the house will still be there, and maybe we could sell it later on if we need to, or if we find another place we would like to call home.
• The house is really a unique, we still could be able to make it into our dream home with few changes.
• Lees family lives here, and we would love to be close to them.
• This is a great place to live, very desirable area, and this kind of lots are too difficult to find in neighborhoods like this (the lot is huuuuge).
• We love the house!
• The house could be generating some income for us. Paying the mortgage and leave a bit over for fixes that might be needed, and maybe even leave some money to drive a few more miles on our trip.

The cons on keeping the house:

• It is older house and needs constant maintaining. We either need to pour money into it now, or risk the fixes without our supervision. (costs more, and once you aren't supervising the work, anything is possible)
• Some major repairs are in our future if we keep it.
• The Texas heat is really brutal and can cause some serious damage to our house, especially if it is leased out to someone who doesn't care about it as much as we do.
• We wouldn't have as much money to start with if we didn't sell the house.
• Being absent for years while the house is rented out can destroy the landscaping and pretty much anything else too.
• The fixes on the rental are quite difficult to do on the budget while travelling. 
• The repairs can be costly, especially on the major things like AC units.

The critters won't give a rats patootie where we live,
 and who lives in our house as long as they have a pile
 of blankets to burrow into

It is so easy to make a decision just considering what is happening around us at the decision making time, but the truth is that there are other times too, and things change throughout the year. The problems seem to arise mostly during the summer time when the heat is extreme, but once the weather cools down a bit, it can be pretty dang awesome place to live. But maybe there is a place where we could be happy around the year. For some reason I keep looking towards the East coast thinking that is where our questions get answered. But then on the other hand, I keep wanting to head to the West... makes sense, right?

For now, I think we have made the decision. This post has been a draft for weeks now, and I finally found it more fitting to our situation now, since after listening to our friends who also happen to be experts in real estate or rental properties, we have decided to go forward with the intention of keeping the house and leasing it out instead. I feel happy, since I can still have my dream of fixing it into a perfect place. And if the road is going to claim us, then be it, the option to sell it later on is not going to disappear anywhere.

                               

                              

Another Week Goes By

There will be lots of things that are going to be very different, or things that we had to give up totally in order to transfer our lives to living in an RV. Today while I was sitting on the court yard with my husbands cousin, who came to harvest some of my basil, I noticed that there aren't going to be visiting friends and family members anymore. I am sure we will make lots of new friends, but the ones we have are all dear to us, and nothing can of course replace the family.

Morning sun on the courtyard

One thing to be missed for sure is going to be the pool, that will be totally gone from our lives. We had done lots of changes to our pool, including changing it from regular pool to saltwater, and adding a heater to it, so we can extend the season a bit, or continue it through the winter if we wanted to. Not having one seems like a loss, and for some reason I keep thinking that the next house we will own one day will not be as outdoorsy as ours. The Pessimist in me is proud from planting foolish thoughts into my head.

Lee grilling by the pool

Another thing that we will be missing is our courtyard. It is not anything special, just a closed in yard in the middle of the house, but it is nice place to sit down and relax, eat dinner and drink a beer or glass of wine. We live close to a busy street, but in our courtyard you can't hear it almost at all. It is somewhat safe from the hottest sun, and also from strong winds. It also is a place where the greyhounds love to race around the table, the outside turf is a great grip for their feet, since their speed can be very high while they run and turn around the table. We have a had few people just stare at them without blinking an eye, just not believing what they are seeing, the sight is funny when they tear around the courtyard. They also like to go there in the mornings to sun bathe. The courtyard is also perfect place to host parties. We have hosted plenty of crawfish boils and pool parties. We usually haul our kegerator and margarita machine there (two more things to be missed there), and entertain lots of people. And I bet even neighbors agree that it is nice that our courtyard is kinda closed area, the sound doesn't really travel out of there either. Fun memories there. We had big plans for this area, but only few of those got put in action. I am still feeling a bit sad that I will never see the house the way I imagined it to be.

Piece of courtyard

I will also miss being able to just let the dogs run out free, since we have all fenced in yard, well, we actually have two fenced in yards, we live on the cul de sac, and on the other side of the house is a huge area, that was supposed to become the place for dogs to run free, and for me to have a herb and vegetable garden, that never happened, we just got it fenced in totally (which was lots of fence). The plan was to make it into bigger entertainment area, adding gazebos or decks and trellises with some water features to keep the street noise less noticeable. And of course that garden with few fruit trees.

One of our crawfish boils on our bigger yard

And that brings me to another thing I will miss, which is herbs. I always have a bunch of herbs growing and most of the time the Texas summer is too hot, so the potted ones dry too much. I will miss my opportunity to use the oregano, cilantro and thyme before it is too late, but my basil has taken over pretty much the whole pool area. And I love the scent of it when you walk by, yum. It is so nice to go out to harvest the basil and make your own pesto, and I make pretty good one too, no, not really that proud of it, oh heck, yeah, I think I am. It kicks some serious butt! Maybe I will make some tomorrow and let my secrets out.

The end of the diving board is our cats Zubovs favorite hang out spot

Most of the things that I seem to have the attachment to are outside. And I think that is also why this all feels so silly, and at the same time exciting, cause I can have the biggest back yards once we start travelling, on the beach, or on the mountain, where ever we choose it to be. The dogs will be visiting lots of dog parks and will have to learn to walk on the leash several times a day. I have already downloaded an app onto my phone that will tell where the closest dog parks and vet clinics are, and other dog related things, like places to buy their food or get them groomed. Pretty handy if you ask me. 

Lots of fun memories at our house