For the first time in years, I am not delinquent on blogposts. Not because I’ve suddenly become very on top of my stuff, but because this year our travel has been significantly reduced! We had no major trips since TJLH was born in mid-May (we were supposed to go to Greece at the end of August, but had some medical issues come up that prevented me from flying). We’ve done plenty of weekends away in the Catskills and Boston, and I flew to Seattle with 8-week-old baby for my BFF’s wedding by myself – but we haven’t had a major trip this entire year! So it has not felt like I’ve had anything to add to this page in months.

But, at its heart, this is not supposed to be just a travel blog, but a way for me to take stock of what’s happening in our lives and the ways we afford to adventure every day.

I think the main upheaval this year was not the arrival of baby #2, but the fact that we bought our very first house this year. We bought our “starter home” in the midst of rising interest rates, and basically sight unseen since there was very little housing stock within our price range + size requirements in a few towns in Westchester. We had spent some time last year exploring towns in Westchester where we might want to settle, which had a good mix of great schools but also some (socioeconomic/other) diversity, and were lucky enough that a house in Pelham came onto the market. We snatched it right up and closed on the house early this year, and spent the next few months furnishing it and undergoing a small renovation to make it functional. Because we chose to live in a New York City suburb, the houses are both very old (but very charming!) and highly taxed, and it’s felt like we’ve been bleeding money for simple homeowner things all this year. Things that added up included:

• Undergoing a renovation to take out a few walls on our first floor and build a small powder room (essential for potty training!)
• Landscaping! Taking out the overgrown bushes in our front yard, cleaning up ivy that had been creeping onto our garage, and maintaining our (tiny) yawn and backyard. Ugh.
• Replacement of water heater
• Replacement/refinishing our deck that broke through
• Fixing our kitchen plumbing
• a ~$2,500 tax bill each month on top of our mortgage 🙂 Yay!
• Furnishings and decor for a bigger space (Christmas and Halloween decor add up! Although this was our first year so just had high start-up costs).

Before and during the “little reno” – which I wanted done before I gave birth so I rushed the contractors

And it’s felt like we’ve only done the things that have made the house functional – not things that we do need to do soon-ish, but that are not essential for everyday living like:

• Update the floors
• Repaint the inside of the house
• Probably repaint the outside of the house
• Replace all the 100 year old windows
• Insulate the attic
• Refinish the rest of the basement / add shower to basement

As much of a wallet-drain and brain-drain maintaining a house is, we have been so pleased by the community we’ve built and by the location of our town/house. We have been in the house less than a year, and I feel like we’ve already built a great community of friends who are our (mostly my, but M is getting there) real friends. We hosted an open backyard party for Halloween and also a cute little Christmas party for my moms group recently, and always are hosting out-of-town or city friends, so it has felt like a lot of love and chaos has filled our home! We’ve loved walking to our local playground, tiny downtown, and local farmer’s market, and waving to a bunch of people who we’ve met on the way in the warmer months. We love being able to take the train 30 minutes straight into Grand Central, driving 20 minutes to Queens for some good food, driving 35 minutes to the Upper West Side to see at a show at Lincoln Center, going an hour north and hitting some great hikes in the Hudson Valley and Catskills, and driving 15 minutes for some local beaches. And we love our neighbors, who we see every day because our houses are so close together and I’m allergic to window blinds 🙂 For how expensive, old, and small (comparatively, but not for New York standards) our house is, it does feel like we are able to access anything and it’s is the best of both worlds.

I do think we’ll eventually move out of this house since I would like slightly more space for entertaining and a few more rooms would be great to accommodate a proper guest room (it feels like we have overnight visitors every weekend), two WFH adults, and more kids (! because we’re insane and like chaos!). This truly was supposed to be our starter home – even though it would be amazing for our lifestyle if we just stayed in the same little house we bought with only 4.5 years of savings between us (I calculated that, out of the ~20 years of combined post-undergrad of work experience we both should’ve had up to this point, 15.5 of those years were spent in grad school and not making any money. Wild.) Our friends love the community and location so much that many people simply renovate their homes to meet their needs (plus, lower tax burden than moving to a bigger house), but I’m not sure that’s in the cards for us. Will re-evaluate after we’re done having kids, because we truly want to spend our money exploring all the things the area (and the world) has to offer rather than spending time in our house/backyard all day (we are pretty much never home unless we’re entertaining, and I don’t think we ever will be the type to want to be).

Either way, we have already made some cozy memories in our first house together – which is an adventure in and of itself (albeit not affordable anymore…). And I’m pretty happy we traveled so much in the previous years together where I truly don’t feel like we’re missing out on anything.

Happy holidays – and here’s to another year in our cozy house! (but still some more travel next year, pls!)