When you're amidst the house-buying process, there's things that you overlook. When we got this house, we considered its location to be a decent plot of land with adequate space. In northern NJ, "adequate space" is the norm. If you have more than adequate space, your income is probably very impressive.
We moved in during the summer. As the summer months passed, we jubilated at how "cool" the house would be, even on the hottest summer days. We'd still have to put on the air conditioning, but it just seemed like the house stayed cool pretty well.
Fast forward to winter. I live in a vampire house. Shards of sunlight never really creep into the house. There's not one particular room that is very bright during the daytime. When the snow on other houses' roofs had melted, our roof snow piles were persisting. Needless to say, the "coolness" of summer that we enjoyed has persisted into the winter months in our home.
Filling the oil tank is crazy-expensive, so we keep the temperature down in the house. I don't recall what 60 degrees feels like. John makes jokes about us living on the ice plant of Hath, a Star Wars reference. I drink copious amounts of tea to trick my body into feeling like the house is warmer than it is. We wear tons of layers of clothing and snuggle tightly in bed.
Owning a house is totally not what I thought it would be. And I guess the realtors revel in people like John and me. If everyone had an immediate sense of "reality in a home," no houses would ever sell.
With the recent talk of crazy oil and gas prices, government's desire to gradually get rid of unions, and so on... I just feel like the American dream is a sham.
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