For nearly a year we’ve been trying to sell our Oregon house. After discovering that renters are typically flaky and that being a landlord and living 789 miles away doesn’t work too well we put our house on the market. We were hopeful that we’d make a good profit on it since it’s a beautiful house with a wonderful layout and only minutes from a college, coffee shops, freeway, bus line, and grocery stores. We didn’t count on a bad economy and flooded housing market though. So for the last several months we’ve hoped and prayed for an interested buyer but saw no signs of it going anywhere for a while. 
Then this week we got an offer! It was ridiculously low but it was an offer none-the-less and gave us some hope. Last night, after negoations with my husband,our wonderful Realtor , and the prospective buyer, an agreement was reached and it looks like we’ve sold our house!
The whole process of renting and then selling our home launched me onto an unexpected emotional roller coaster. I’m thrilled that we may have sold this house, after all, that’s what I’ve been hoping for for the last year right?  But deep inside I feel a sadness too… 
This house was our first house. I remember being terrified at the thought of spending so much money for something.We were so young, were we really allowed to make such a big decision on our own?  But then once the house was ours I felt so grown up and loved that we owned something. For the first several months our favorite store was Home Depot. We’d walk the isles and dream of all the things we could do with our house. I poured myself into painting and decorating, Kris designed and built (along with his dad) a study, we planted flowers, fruit bushes and a tiny garden in our tiny backyard. We made our house our home. I remember many times telling Kris as we’d walk in the door how I loved the way our house smelled. I couldn’t describe the smell, it just smelled like peace and comfort and goodness. It smelled like home. 
It was in that house that we first experienced living in community, first with another couple, then with my brother, and finally with our current housemate. It was in that house that our first baby and our roommate’s first baby slobbered and drooled on the carpets and filled the halls with laughter. It was in that house that my youngest sister spent a summer with me, helping me paint, fighting with me, and making me love her the more I grew to know her. That house was the host for so many wonderful parties, meetings, and memories with friends and loved ones. 
When we first tried renting I struggled with the thought of others living in our home. Would they love it like we had? Would they care for it and clean it the same way we had? Would they keep the flowerbeds that, I’d spent some many delightful hours in, tended and neat? When our renters requested permission to paint I was hurt and found myself in tears. They didn’t like the colors we’d chosen and somehow that communicated to me they didn’t like our precious home.  
Now as possession passes from us to another couple I wonder the same things. Will they love this house and make it into their own home like we did? Years from now when I drive by and point out to my daughter the first house she lived it will it look run down and worn out or loved? To some this is silly and nonsensical, after all, it is just a house. But to me it was so much more than that and it will always be.  I guess I’m just sentimental that way.

Jennika’s vocabulary has been taking off the last couple week and Kris and I are often surprised by what she can say. She mostly repeats what she hears us saying. Today I was cleaning out the car and dropped something. I said oh shoot, and my little constant companion promptly echoed me. It made me laugh but also made me realize she’s listening all the time. 

Her current best words are: eat, down, cheese, no, Halle (a friend of hers), Mama, and bath. 

She’s also started making animal sounds and can imitate a bird way better than Kris or I.