Apple Trees

I am at a crossroad in life. I'm basically ready to write a PhD thesis and we're buying a house. I have been getting ready to write my  thesis since forever ago but I still have so many unfinished tasks that I want to complete before do that. But I'm kind of tired about making promises to myself about when I finish my thesis so I won't do that here either. I'm still getting ready to write. 2 month ago I was ready to write, except for a couple of time-consuming presentations and some lab work. 1 month ago I was ready to write, except for a poster presentation and an upcoming conference and reading journals about that topic. 3 days ago I got back from the conference and I was ready to write, except for some bureaucracy  and some overdue plant work in the lab. Yesterday and today I was ready to write, except for some urgent plant work in the lab... Tomorrow I'm genotyping some plants and doing some ROS measurements so perhaps the day after that I can .... Oh Then I also have to analyze the data from those ROS measurements. Perhaps after that.

We started looking for an apartment almost a year ago. I wasn’t happy about the children growing up in an apartment and our rent seemed big enough that we could live in a small house or a part of a house for similar monthly costs. Of course I was wrong. Houses in our price range needed a lot of renovation. Alternative was to buy an apartment, reduce costs and save up for a house. Unfortunately the apartments in our price range and the ones worth their price were a lot less nice than the rental that we live in. Also, all the apartments had really small kitchens and very little storage space. Moving in any of them would only make us miserable.

Several months passed. We occasionally looked at the real estate notices but shook our head. I was very deliberately holding myself back. I dreamed of having a garden where to plant apple trees and strawberries but I knew there was no chance of having that in the near decade so I just sighed and thought of the benefits of living in an apartment. "At least we don't have to bother with renovations. And we live so close to everything." But even more I thought that Erkki would not value any of the benefits that a house has to offer and he'll mostly feel like he has too many obligations at home. Then he'll be stressed, I'll feel guilty for ever proposing it and I'll be stressed, then also the kids will be stressed. We'll hate our life and it just wouldn't be worth it. We would all be miserable! I'd really rather live in an apartment than see the family be destroyed for a few apple trees. But the thought of raising the kids in an apartment also made me sad. And I really-really-really wanted to plant some herbs and black currants. Sigh.

I was still holding myself back when Erkki sent a link to an apartment. 112 000 for a 4-room apartment in a rather new building. We went to see it thinking we're ready to just buy it but it didn't give the right feeling so we kept on looking. Then another apartment. Then another partial house. It was a small and old partial house but I was pushing for buying it because it had a tiny garden plot. Erkki felt it was too small so we kept looking. So much for having an affordable garden. Then there was a small and quite new house very close to the city - but when we had a builder see it, he told us that the quality is horrible! But at least we were suddenly looking at houses! Yay! Houses with real gardens with real grass and real trees. Then more expensive houses, because we didn't like the quality of the cheaper ones. Then we tried increasing the price limit even more but still nothing great. After many disappointments we gave up.

A couple of weeks later Erkki sent a really unusual link. A big house several km from town, with fire heating and over 2 hectares of garden, including a natural grassland and a tiny lake. WHAT?! He would propose that we move out of town and he'd even be okay with fire heating?! Uhm. "Erkki, I like it but how come you like it?!" Apparently he was as excited about it as I was. Wow! I thought we should buy it before he changes his mind. It was quite expensive (over our initial price limit) but it was also awesome! Again we were ready to buy it but then a builder told us that the building quality is horrible! Oh no, another one bites to dust. I would not want to buy a bad house no matter how nice the garden is.

Long story finally gets somewhere... Several km further there was another house on the market. Living area was smaller (because the second floor is unfinished) and much less expensive, but with a garden area of almost 2 hectares. When the builder saw the house, he was almost speechless. "They don't build them like that anymore". Yet the house is also very modern because the main area was finished only 6 years ago and designed for a small family with children. The garden is full of apple trees, over 200 (!!!) pear trees, strawberries, a glass house and even a swing and a sandbox for the kids. It's a 20-30 minute drive (depends on traffic) to town center which seems to scare me more than Erkki. It also has central heating and smaller upkeep costs than our apartment. We saw the house a couple of weeks ago and are planning to sign the purchase contract within a few days. We might start moving in a couple of weeks if all goes well. Ironically the house costs 110 000 € which is basically the same price as the 4-room apartment that we almost bought.

So we're buying a house. I will have a garden and we'll live in the middle of a crop field next to a forest. Are we crazy or what. I'm equal parts OH NO, ARE WE REALLY READY FOR THIS?! and YAY! GARDEN! YAY! FOREST! CAN WE START MOVING RIGHT NOW?

Also, I haven't forgotten about my post doc plans. But until I go there, the kids can have as much fun running on grass as they want. And I still have to write that damn PhD thesis as well!