Blog stalking-inspired soul searching

Here is where some of my thoughts (Becky again) have been lately:

-Should we buy a house? I am torn in a thousand directions on this. We wanted to have more money saved before we bought, for one. We planned to wait another year, for two. Rates are ridiculously low (and I currently work for a mortgage company), there is an excellent tax credit, and many cheap houses to be had. Plus, Obama says go for it. (That's a joke. Kinda. He really says go for it but I'm really not listening.) We are completely priced out of the area we are in. This is a bummer and leads to more decisions. We love the area because it has everything so close, and it's so so close to I10, and Patrick's commute when he is downtown is pretty easy. But we absolutely can not afford the houses in the area. So where to buy? Further in is (in most places) more expensive and further from church. Further out starts to really stretch it for a commute. We could buy a house further out for so so so cheap and that is so tempting! But does that make sense for us? And do market conditions mean this is the right time to buy FOR US? I don't know! (Side note: We don't plan to buy right now. Hopefully closer to the end of the year, it depends on what we can do with our current lease.)

-Friendships. This is presenting a very new situation for me. The majority of my friends in all areas of my life are having babies. Patrick and I are totally not there right now, and we are on the same page with that. But come July to December-ish, a lot of our friendships will change a lot. I am THRILLED about this! I love babies, I'm just not craving one of my own right now. I love babies I can give back! I'm really excited to see all these new babies and who they will be and how cute they will be and be a part of their lives. But it definitely means a change for us, and a large change in our current small group. So those are changes coming up that we don't really know what they will look like. Exciting but so new and different. (Another side note: I am feeling very lucky that I get to see other people experience the whole pregnancy/birth/baby/toddler/etc. stages before me so I can get a better idea of what that's like before I am ready to go there.) On the other hand, I have three beautiful bridesmaids without babies on the way who are in Houston and rarely seen, and that makes me a slacker of a friend. I need to get on that.

-What are my long-term plans as far as work? I hesitate to even write this because I really don't know who all reads this and I don't want to give off the impression that I am going to up and quit. But in the long run, what do I want to do as far as working full-time? I'm torn on this too. "Taking care" of my family, present and future, seems like it could mean a lot of different things. On the one hand, I'd love to be home more to not just want to crash at the end of the day, to make dinner, to get errands run. On the other hand if/when I do stop working or work less, it means definite sacrifices. The vacation fund will be quite a bit smaller I am sure, for one. And I currently am a chronic counter downer to vacation. And I feel like I would think I had to have everything perfectly taken care of to feel like I was holding up my end of the deal. Which I know myself well, and I know that I would fail at keeping everything together all the time. Probably within about a day. Maybe less.

Anyway, I think that's about enough life issues for one night! Feel free to voice an opinion or empathize or object.

Tomorrow is FRIDAY! HOORAY for the weekends! (In case you haven't previously noticed, I am also a counter downer to the weekends. So Thursday nights are quite the milestone.)