Home is where you make it

I have been a proud homeowner for the last two months. I never dreamed that I would be in this situation being that I was born and raised in California where house prices are astronomical, and working in a career that typically does not pay well. I grew up in San Francisco living in apartments or “flats” as they were called there. After that I had many places that I called “home”. As a wildlife biologist, I did a lot of traveling over the years, working on projects that lasted anywhere from 3 to 6 months. While I always had a permanent residence, I also had many “home away from home” experiences. I sometimes had nothing more than a tent to call home. Other jobs had me living in apartments in a city, houses in the forest, and one even had me living in a literal shack! I have not only lived in unusual buildings, but unusual places. I spent a total of 9 months living on an island, and another 2 living in the Arctic Circle on a compound with a bunch of oil drillers. Between projects I would return to my permanent residence which was close-packed apartments, which we usually managed. Not only was my ceiling someones floor, and the walls on either side of me shared….but these people could come to my door at anytime…day or night…to complain or request a repair. We never had much privacy, and could never be left alone. We finally moved to a real house after 16 years of apartment living. It was a great place in the middle of the Angeles National Forest complete with mountain stream outside our door. We loved it, but it was an expensive rental and not our own. Finally after dreaming about owning a home for many years, house prices dropped dramatically and on a whim, I went to a first homebuyers workshop. I figured MAYBE we could buy a house in a year or two. From the time I took the class, to the time I was living in my new home was ONLY 3 months later. The whole process was fast and easy. We had many friends who were having a terrible time trying to buy a place, but everything sort of fell perfectly into place for us. We feel so blessed to finally have a place to call our own, even at this late stage in our lives.