Home Sweet Home

Where do I even start. Like for almost everyone else in the world, this past month and a half has been, to put it lightly, challenging. On Thursday, March 12, my employer made the difficult to decision to go fully remote and transition to online learning. That evening, driving home from work (which was my last time in the office), while pulling into my garage, I got too close to the side of the garage door and scraped the front driver-side of my car. If you know me at all, you know I am pretty particular and especially careful when driving my car. Of course, this was an accident, but it just felt like the beginning of a whirlwind of events.

Throughout the whirlwind of events (thanks COVID-19), my husband and I had already began the process of buying a house. We met with a realtor for the first time on Thursday, February 20, and signed paperwork for our new home on Wednesday, March 25. During a crazy time, in a crazy world, we definitely did a crazy thing. What is also crazy to think about, is just February of this year, things were "normal", or at least they seemed to be. On February 29th, I even ran a 15k in Uptown Charlotte with THOUSANDS of people surrounding me! That same weekend is when Trent and I found our current home. We had done online research for weeks and drove around looking at neighborhoods and open houses the last two weekends of February. It was Sunday, March 1 that we fell in love with a home in the little town of Davidson.

For those who know the area, Davidson is quite a desirable little town. It has nice neighborhoods, walking trails, known to be a safe community, a cute downtown area with shops and restaurants, and of course the college. If you ask anyone who either lives in Davidson, or went to the college, you will hear nothing but positive remarks. These people truly love their community. Our search originally began in the Huntersville and Cornelius areas, but as house hunting goes, you find certain things you like or dislike about certain areas and homes, and ultimately after sitting down and talking about what we wanted the most out of a community and a home, Davidson was the answer. After working for Davidson College for three and a half years, you could say I just couldn't get away.

For our first home buying experience, things went fairly smooth, but not so smooth at the same time. The Sunday night we decided on our perfect home, we contacted our realtor to put in an offer. We found out there were multiple other offers, and would receive an answer one way or another that Monday. Monday afternoon, we received a call from our realtor that..... we got the house! This was exciting news, but also a lot to process. The sellers had already moved out of the home, so they were looking to close quickly. The inspection of the home was more intimidating than we had expected. At the time, the inspector sounded like he was reading from a scroll, but ultimately there was nothing major we could not work through with the sellers. Anyone who has been through the home buying process knows there are many hurdles before the closing date. We jumped through a couple typical hoops, but in the middle of March, we were hit with the unknowns of COVID-19. Will we keep our jobs? Will this impact the price of our home? Will this impact the closing date? Will we be able to leave our home to move? Will the banks be open to transfer funds? Of course we know the answers to these questions now, but at the time we truly had no idea.

With the unknowns still in question, we had a feeling that we needed to move forward with THIS home. We could have walked away with too many unanswered questions, but something told us, everything was going to work out. On March 25, the home was officially ours, and on March 28, with the help of my dad, we were fully moved in. One way to really enjoy your new home, is to to buy one during a global pandemic. I continue to work remotely from home with no end in sight of when we might be back in the office. I appreciate the luxury of being in a new home and the opportunity to work from home. However, I think a much needed vacation is in sight once we get through this. I am sure most people are thinking the same. For now, I think I will just find comfort in home, sweet, home.