House Hunting Season

Fifth time's the charm?

Maybe Millennials are less likely to buy houses because the act of purchasing living space is such a chore. From the outside, it’s lovely. They even make television shows out of it. But as I am not a full-time twine artist married to a part-time cat stylist, our budget it somewhat lower than HGTV’s featured couples, and, wouldn’t you know it, they’re fresh out of 5,000 square foot flats in East Nashville.

We finally found one, signed on the dotted line last week and parted with thousands of hard-earned dollars as an earnest promise to forfeit our salaries to a bank. If — prayers please — it all goes well, we’ll move in in sometime in June, the chickens will move in sometime in August, and the neighbors will begin complaining about us sometime around Thanksgiving.

Trying to foist half a million dollars on a willing seller hasn’t been easy. Over the course of three months, we’ve seen and loved four houses, none of which were even remotely acceptable living spaces for young professionals with children, but we tried to live there anyway.

The first one, on three acres, looked fine, but gave off a sort of Amityville Horror vibe, but the package deal included fresh updates, a functional fruit cellar, a tumbledown outdoor living space that might have been used for murders, but could now be a greenhouse — as the realtors say, it just takes imagination!

The second one was better, but in a far off land of only off-brand grocery stores. Third one backed to a cemetery (quiet neighbors!) but shoved everyone into 700 square feet of bedroom space. Fortunately, there was a 900 square foot office on the property for anyone who needed to escape, and a pool and playset for the kids, which is why one toddler peed on the lawn to mark his territory.

Weirdly, the lawn-peeing wasn’t considered legally binding and sellers — some nerve — took another bid.

The fourth one was the real heartbreaker — and neck- and back-breaker, when you consider that it hadn’t been updated since the mid-1970s, and the owners had an eclectic taste in interior paint, like they tried to create a jewel-toned cave for themselves on a cul-de-sac. It did have a well-marked first floor restroom for the aforementioned toddlers; they passed on the opportunity to claim the lawn as their own, and the owners passed on our way-over-price bid to accept a cash offer from a developer who will ruin the neighborhood but will save the next owners from avocado-green kitchen cabinets.

Fifth time the charm? Hopefully. There was some crime scene tape on the house next door, but the chances are that’s a joke (we pulled the police reports just in case), and whoever put the cabinets up in the kitchen might have gotten inspiration from an episode of Fixer Upper they watched on an ayahuasca binge, but its nothing we can’t fix. Or ignore on a higher dose of anxiety medication.

Now that the small problem of finding shelter is solved, the bigger problem of moving everyone into it commences. Is it barely a mile? Yes. Will at least one toddler be overcome by the emotional toll of seeing toys he doesn’t play with packed into a box we’ll probably never open? Absolutely. Will the adults of the house be tempted to toss everything into a pile in the middle of the street and set it on fire instead of packing it up and carting it off.

Guaranteed.

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Ma! Where’s the meatloaf?

I never made it to the thrift store to film content this week which is (1) why this remains free, despite a pledge to make you pay for my wisdom, and (2) why you’re getting a recipe for the World’s Best Meatloaf, which is made World’s Best by bacon.

1 1/2 pounds of ground beef

1 lb ground pork (check Aldi)

2 tbsp milk

1/2 cup bread crumbs (you can make your own, I generally use Progresso’s plain option)

1/4 cup onion, chopped

1 lg. clove garlic, chopped

1/2 cup parsley, coarsley chopped

1 tbsp salt

1/2 tsp pepper

Bacon, you decide how much

Preheat the oven to 375. Mix everything but the bacon until its well combined and then shape it into a loaf. At this point, you can either drop your loaf into a loaf pan coated with olive oil spray or your favorite de-sticking option, and then place several strips of bacon on top OR you can be fancy and make a sort of lattice-work bacon blanket and wrap the full loaf. Your choice. Both work, the blanket looks cooler — and who doesn’t want their own bacon blanket?

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Drop the heat to 325 and bake for another 30 minutes. Enjoy once while hot and again cold, the next day, on a sandwich, with mayonnaise.