Communication And House Hunting

When Jessie and Mr. Moon were on their adventure, she gave him a little come-to-Jesus talk about how he and I need to communicate our wants and needs better, especially when it comes to finding a house on the water that would make us both happy. We needed to define our terms better. Be less vague. Be able to agree on parameters. 

Jessie has always been the one to tell you the damn truth. She's been like this since she was tiny. "Do you like this dress, honey?" 
"Not really, Mommy." 
This is how she earned the title "Mean Aunt Jessie." Well, that and the fact that she's so sweet that it's funny to call her that. 

And when we were having lunch the other day, she gave me the same little talk. Same advice.

And she isn't wrong. 

So today Mr. Moon and I did some internet waterfront house searching. We started out with houses on lakes and went on to bays and then rivers. We found two on the Ochlockonee River in Sopchoppy, Florida that looked rather charming. Mr. Moon called about one and got some details and the guy said that no one was there and the house was unlocked so go ahead and see it on our own, if we wanted. 

We wanted! 

So we got in the car and drove down that way, had lunch at a barbecue joint, and found the house. 
We both wanted to love this house. Really and truly. It was right on the water and the pictures showed a nice dock and the house looked as if it had some charm to it. There were actually two houses. One on the river and one behind it that is sort of a guest house or a rental house. 
The Ochlockonee is a beautiful river and the property is very close to a state park and the house was in the woods and well... it sounded so promising, right? 

Pretty back yard leading down to the dock on the river. A boat lift. American flag. Etc. 

Lovely screened in porch to sit on and view the river and birds and wildlife and sunsets. 

And so forth.

And when we pulled up, I was still high-hoping it. First thing I saw was an old chicken coop. 

Yes! I thought. This is my house!
There were all sorts of plants that I love like lilies and ginger lilies and clumping bamboo and scuppernong grapes, sweet as candy. 

Everything but the back lawn was pretty overgrown but all in all, it looked like real old Florida to me and we could have done something with that yard. There was even a place for a garden. 

There was a magnolia tree right beside the house where you walked down to the river and the river was so pretty. 

Cypress trees, a sycamore tree. Sweet. 

And then we went inside. 

Ooh boy. 

The kitchen, which looked okay in pictures

was a tear-out in my opinion. The stove was (gasp) one of those burnerless deals. Flat top? Whatever. No thank you. The cabinets were originals, I'm thinking, from 1976 and were made from pressboard. 
Just not very pleasing. 

And the bedrooms- my lord. The windows were few and tiny and the rooms were dark and every where we looked there were funky things going on that were going to need a lot of work. To say the least. Mr. Moon, who knows these things, detected termites. There were floors and windows that needed replacing, every wall needed repainting. There was plenty of storage area- I'll say that for it. But...no. 
In a way, it was the opposite of that house we looked at on Highway 98 which I am just now realizing was actually quite a bargain and we should have bought it but it too needed things like a new roof and a new AC system. And yes, it was absolutely over-cluttered and overfilled with objects d' art and also lots of other stuff but at least most of those things were of good quality and I have to say- good taste. 

Light fixture in this house we looked at today.

I am not sure what it was made of but Mr. Moon did hit his head on it. 

We didn't even bother to look at the guest house. There's an older lady living in it and we didn't want to bother her. As I said to Glen, there's nothing about that place that can undo what's in this one. 

So that was that and we were disappointed, for sure, but the thing is, we did some exploring together, we talked rationally and reasonably, we agreed on what to go look at, and we did and we had fun. 

I read out loud to him there and back. We never did finish "Crazy in Alabama" on our trip to North Carolina. And we enjoyed that. Me the reading, him the listening. We laughed and I woman-splained what mansplaining is. He had honestly never heard of mansplaining and he admitted that he is guilty of it at times but he's always been aware that it's not a cool thing to do. 

So all-in-all, it was far from a wasted day. 

And I did find a house on St. George Island that we could consider. It's right across the street from the beach with beach access, was built in 1956, and, well, it does appear to have running water! I showed it to my husband who laughed. 
"It's the Starfish!" he said. The Starfish was the cement block apartment that we rented on St. George years ago that I talked about recently. And honestly- it does resemble it. Probably built around the same time. Back when people were not afraid of building on the sand out of concrete. Or cement. Whatever. When screened in porches were just a frou-frou fancy thing that rich people had. 
I wouldn't mind owning it though. And that's the truth. 

Glen was not convinced. 

Sigh. 

We're having fun.

Love...Ms. Moon